Li Bai’s photo on screen.

But, it is almost unknown to all that Li Bai had his untold comrade in arms fighting shoulder by shoulder with him during that time. And this was Tu Zuochao, a radio expert, his code name Carpenter.

TV newswoman Zhang Yi interviewing with Shenghua Tu (son of Tu Zuochao):

The hero of the movie The Eternal Wave was actually Li Bai. Correct?

Shenghua Tu: correct.

Zhang Yi: But the relationship between Li Bai and Tu Zuochao was special. It was both between the comrades in arms and between the apprentice and the master. How he had met Li Bai?

Shenghua Tu： On January 3, 1931, the Central Red Army in Jiangxi (Province) had established its Radio Team. On about January 28, 1931, General Commander Zhu De (a schoolmate of Tu Zuochao at Moscow Orient Communist Labor University from late 1925 to 1926) and Political Commissar Mao Zedong decided to seize the time to train our own radio men. As a result, the first radio training class began. He (Tu Zuochao) took part in the later part of teaching for the first training class. He (Tu Zuochao) completely took part in the teaching for the second training class. Among the trainings in the second training class, there was Li Bai from Liuyang (about 30 miles from Tu Zuochao’s hometown Changsha), Hunan Province. During that time, Tu Zuochao lectured on radio engineering while Li Bai was mainly leaning the radio operation. But there was no absolute difference between the radio operation and radio engineering. The radio operator must command some radio engineering knowledge. Otherwise, how can you operate your radio transceiver skillfully? They began their acquaintance during that time. That was the first contact between Tu Zuochao and Li Bai.

Their second contact was about in the autumn of 1937. The CCP Central had sent Li Bai from Yan’an to Shanghai. He was ordered to work as a radio operator at one of the few CCP secret radios. It was under this circumstance that Tu Zuochao met Li Bai.