Cannons are known as the "God of War". For more than 100 years after entering the era of hot weapons, artillery was the protagonist on the battlefield. Whoever has the most cannons and the fiercest firepower has a greater chance of winning the war.
Since the days of the Red Army, our army has been facing a shortage of guns and ammunition, and there are almost no heavy weapons, let alone cannons, which are a sharp weapon to defeat the enemy. However, in the later stages of the Liberation War, when the Northeast Field Army launched the Liaoshen Campaign, it was able to put nearly 1,000 cannons into a single battle, and the number of cannons and the fierceness of the firepower had surpassed that of the Nationalist army.
So, how did the Thousand Cannons of the Northeast Field Army come about? This is related to the artillery commander Zhu Rui.
Zhu Rui, a native of Suqian County, Jiangsu Province, was born in 1905 and graduated from Guangdong University, and later studied at Sun Yat-sen University and Krasin Artillery School in Moscow. The Klasin Artillery School in Moscow, a famous military school with a long history, was known as the cradle of artillery officer training in the Tsarist era, and many artillery officers in the Soviet Red Army came from here.
In July 1929, Juri completed his studies at the Crassin Artillery School with a first place in both the graduation examination and live-fire shooting. The school planned to arrange for Zhu Rui to enter the Soviet Army University for further study, but Zhu Rui returned to his heart like an arrow, and wanted to return to China to participate in the revolution and embarked on a journey back to China.
However, at that time, the Red Army, as well as the later Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, were extremely short of artillery, far from being able to become a branch of the army, and Zhu Rui, who was deeply educated in "artillery doctrine," had no place to play, exercised in many posts, and always had nothing to do with "artillery."
On March 15, 1945, the first artillery professional school of the People's Army, the Yan'an Artillery School, was officially opened in Nanniwan. Zhu Rui voluntarily applied to become an artillery instructor. At that time, Zhu Rui was a candidate for deputy chief of general staff of the Central Military Commission, so how could he be arranged to be an artillery instructor? Thus, in August 1945, Zhu Rui was appointed as the principal of the Yan'an Artillery School. The chairman took a picture with him and encouraged: "The Soviet Union has an artillery marshal, so you should be our Chinese artillery marshal." ”
In September of that year, the first batch of students of Yan'an Artillery School graduated, and the graduation certificate had the signatures of Zhu Rui and others.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, our army and the Nationalist army engaged in fierce battles in the northeast region. At Zhu Rui's suggestion, the Yan'an Artillery School moved to the northeast to speed up the artillery construction in the northeast region and was renamed the Northeast Military Region Artillery School.
At that time, because the artillery left behind by the Japanese army after the surrender was almost all transported by the Soviet army, the artillery school of the Northeast Military Region was empty-handed, and only dozens of dilapidated small-caliber Japanese artillery were given by the Soviet army. When Zhu Rui saw this situation, he immediately issued an order to the artillery school of the Northeast Military Region: "Disperse cadres, collect weapons, develop troops, and establish household chores." "In layman's terms, it is to let everyone go to various places to pick up the cannons left by the Japanese army."
Zhu Rui is the vice president of Northeast Military and Political University and the president of Northeast Artillery School, and his daily work is very heavy. But he still came to the front line himself and participated in the work of collecting cannons. Once, the local people reported that when the Japanese retreated, they had pushed several cannons and many shells into Jingpo Lake. When Zhu Rui heard about it, he rushed to Jingpo Lake with the warriors. It was a harsh winter season, and Jingpo Lake was covered with ice more than 1 meter thick. Zhu Rui led the soldiers to break the ice with pickaxes and fished out the 3 field guns that the Japanese army had sunk in Jingpo Lake. Zhu Rui, who had always been steady, was very happy and said to the soldiers: "Obedient, this time we are rich!" ”
Through the joint efforts of all the teachers and students of the Artillery School of the Northeast Military Region, by May 1946, a total of more than 700 artillery pieces, more than 500,000 shells, 12 tanks, 23 cars, as well as a large number of spare parts and various equipment were collected. On this basis, the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army (the predecessor of the Northeast Field Army) formed 10 artillery regiments and 6 artillery regiments, as well as independent artillery battalions, for a total of about 80 artillery companies.
In July and October 1946, the headquarters of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army successively issued the "Order No. 1 of the Cannon Character" and the "Order No. 2 of the Cannon Character", and established the artillery unit, with Zhu Rui as the commander of the artillery. Since then, the northeast region has had a unified artillery leading organ and command organ. Zhu Rui thus became the first artillery commander of our army.
Under Zhu Rui's unified command, the artillery units developed and grew rapidly; after undergoing the tempering of the "three lower Jiangnan and four bao Linjiang" and other wars, the artillery units became more and more mature, firing artillery quickly and accurately, becoming "good helpers" for infantry units and "good magic weapons" for our army to defeat the enemy and win victories.
In August 1948, the Northeast Field Army established an artillery column, and Zhu Rui served as the commander of the artillery column. At this time, the Northeast Field Army had a total of 143 heavy mountain artillery companies, 12 infantry artillery companies, 7 combat defense artillery companies, 43 mixed artillery companies, and 70 mortar companies, with 572 mountain artillery, field artillery, and heavy artillery, 863 infantry artillery, mortars, and anti-aircraft guns, and 3083 small artillery grenadiers, for a total of 4518 cannons.
Unfortunately, after the Liaoshen Campaign began, Zhu Rui was unfortunately hit by thunder in the battle to capture Yixian County, and he died heroically at the age of 43. In order to commemorate Zhu Rui, on October 18, 1948, the Artillery School of the Northeast Military Region was changed to the Zhu Rui Artillery School.