In 1955, the Great Conferment of the People's Liberation Army was a major event in the history of New China, which was even more a sign of the regularization of our army, and in this award, more than 600,000 cadres of the Plaksar Army obtained the rank of officer or above.
When it comes to the Ten Marshals and the Ten Great Generals, everyone here is familiar with it, in fact, in that era, the number of people who could obtain such ranks was not limited to these twenty people, but because of the number of titles, many founding fathers with this qualification did not participate in the awarding of titles.
For example, Comrade Deng Xiaoping was eligible to be awarded the title of marshal, but he proceeded from the reality of the army and did not participate in the awarding of titles, followed by comrades such as Li Xiannian and Yang Shangkun, who all had the seniority of major generals, but in order to respond to the call of the central authorities to leave the army not to award titles, they did not participate in the awarding of titles.
These people we are talking about above can be regarded as some "uncrowned generals"; they are all veteran comrades who have joined the revolution in our army since the initial stage and who have made great contributions to New China; although they have not been able to participate in the awarding of titles, their historical merits are remembered by our descendants.
However, one of the characters I want to tell you about today is a special case, why do you say so? The biggest reason for this is this person's contribution and seniority, compared with the above revolutionary predecessors, not to mention more, he is the famous General Chen Guang.
But what is well known is that General Chen Guang died before he was awarded the title, which made many people curious about him? If he had joined the rank in 1955, what rank would he have received?
Speaking of which, some friends who are familiar with the history of the Fourth Field Army may think that Chen Guang may have been awarded the title of general, and the reason for this statement is because Chen Guang served as deputy chief of staff of the Fourth Field Army during the Liberation War, and General Liu Yalou, chief of staff of the Fourth Field Army, was only a general.
In fact, there is a certain truth in such a statement, but if we look at the criteria for awarding titles in 1955, we can only say that it is one-sided, because that title was awarded, focusing on the three elements of "moral integrity and talent", so this statement is not very convincing, and General Chen Guang served as the acting commander of the 115th Division before this, leaving aside this point, he was a brigade commander in the early days of the War of Resistance.
Therefore, from these angles, General Chen Guang's words are at least the standard of a general, and of course there has been no public discussion on this issue, but we can get a glimpse of one or two from the details of history, which is the evaluation of General Chen Guang in the book "Biography of a General of the People's Liberation Army" compiled by the General Political Department under the auspices of the General Political Department and approved by the Central Military Commission, which made a powerful response to this question.
In compiling this book, the central authorities also spent a lot of effort, and more than a thousand experts in party history and military history participated in it in all departments of the whole army; in addition, the generals of our army who can be selected for this book need to be examined and approved by the Central Literature Research Office and the Academy of Military Sciences, and reported to the central authorities for approval.
From here, we can also see that the authority of the "Biography of a General of the People's Liberation Army" is beyond doubt, and the person who was specifically responsible for writing the deeds of General Chen Guang was Comrade Huang Yao, who was then the deputy editor-in-chief of the "Biography of Figures in the History of the Communist Party of China," and he was also the deputy head of the biography group of the "Biography of Luo Ronghuan" compiled by the Central Military Commission.
According to Comrade Huang Yao's recollection, the reason why he wrote about General Chen Guang was because he himself was in charge of the biography of Marshal Luo Ronghuan, and Marshal Luo Ronghuan and Chen Guang had worked together for many years, so while studying Marshal Luo Ronghuan, he also knew the deeds of General Chen Guang.
In addition, Comrade Huang Yao also recalled that General Chen Guang was not familiar with him for some historical reasons, and for this reason he interviewed many veteran revolutionary predecessors of our army, such as General Xiao Ke, Lieutenant General Su Jing, and others, all of whom were former subordinates of General Chen Guang.
It is worth saying that when Huang Yao preached that he wrote About General Chen Guang, he also specifically mentioned one thing, that is, because Chen Guang did not participate in the awarding of titles, he was not sure how to write General Chen Guang, but later the General Political Department made a request, which was to write according to the specifications of the general.
Obviously, from this small historical detail, we can see that Chen Guang, who was not awarded a title in 1955, was included in the "Biography of the General of the People's Liberation Army" according to the specifications of a major general, which is even more important after many years, the organization's affirmation of General Chen Guang.
In fact, in the author's opinion, being able to treat General Chen Guang with the specifications of a major general is very much in line with the historical situation of our army, in short, Chen Guang has two major contributions to our army, and it is these two major contributions that have laid the foundation for General Chen Guang's special position in our army.
First of all, the first point is Chen Guang's contribution during the agrarian revolutionary war, as early as the period of the Great Revolution, he was a member of the peasant association, and after Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution, Chen Guang spontaneously formed the Peasant Red Guards, and launched a peasant rebellion to go up Jinggang Mountain.
After going to Jinggangshan, Chen Guang fought bravely and was wounded many times, and during the Red Fourth Army, Chen Guang also had a life-saving grace for Lin Biao, that is, in February 1930, Lin Biao was commanding troops to carry out anti-encirclement and suppression operations, but an enemy army suddenly came out and surrounded Lin Biao's command post.
At this time, Lin Biao was facing a very critical situation, and for a while he was overwhelmed, and at this moment, Chen Guang, who was then the deputy commander of the first detachment, saw this scene and led his troops to launch an offensive against the enemy army several times that of himself.
In this way, Chen Guang led his troops to repulse the enemy, so that Lin Biao escaped from danger, and with the continuous expansion of the Red Army's power, Chen Guang successively served as the commander of the International Division of the Young Communist Party, as well as the commander of the Red Second Division, especially in the position of commander of the Red Second Division.
For example, during the Long March, under the command of Chen Guang, the Red Second Division, which was the vanguard of the Road, served as a surprise vanguard all the way from the time the Red Army crossed the Du River, and in this process, every time the Red Army faced a desperate situation, It was Chen Guang who personally fought on the front line.
It was also the excellent performance in the Long March that after Chen Guang came to northern Shaanxi, he also succeeded Lin Biao, who had been transferred to the Red Army University as president, for a period of time, and became the acting commander of the Red First Army.
What we have said above can be regarded as Chen Guang's contribution during the agrarian revolutionary war, followed by his other contribution, that is, the contribution during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and the author believes that Chen Guang's contribution to the War of Resistance Against Japan is divided into two aspects.
The first aspect is that he led the troops to fight against the Japanese army, which can be called the side of the famous anti-Japanese general, because Lin Biao was wounded in the early stage of the War of Resistance, so most of the personnel and horses of the 115th Division were actually equivalent to Chen Guang's command during the eight-year Anti-Japanese War.
In this process, in fact, many people do not know one thing, this is the Eighth Route Army in Shandong, which has been called "Chen Luo" by the outside world, which refers to the troops led by Chen Guang and Luo Ronghuan.
Under the direct command of Chen Guang, the 115th Division fought against the Japanese army many times and won huge victories, and even allowed the Japanese army to compile a pamphlet entitled "Chen Guangbu's Operational Research" for internal circulation, but these measures of the Japanese army did not restrict our Shandong Eighth Route Army.
The main reason for this is that the commander Chen Guang himself is a general with more than ten years of guerrilla experience, and he has grown up from the peasants, so he not only has a certain tactical quality, but also can get along with the peasants.
Therefore, the Japanese army's repeated encirclement and suppression of the Shandong anti-Japanese base area has not achieved any substantial results, and perhaps there will be time for the Japanese army to occupy a certain base area, but the Eighth Route Army, under the command of Chen Guang, will launch a counter-sweeping campaign, and the victories in the famous battles of Jiazishan and Tancheng in the Shandong base area were produced in this context.
The above is Chen Guang's contribution to the Japanese war during the War of Resistance Against Japan; in addition, Chen Guang has not forgotten the party's policies and principles, that is, to develop the troops and do a good job in mass work.
When the 115th Division first arrived in Shandong, there were only a few thousand men and horses, and it was a difficult problem to gain a foothold, but under the management of Chen Guang and Luo Ronghuan, two famous generals, by the end of the Anti-Japanese War, our army had 100,000 armed forces here.
These 100,000 armed forces played a very huge role in the future during the Liberation War, one of them stayed in Shandong, the other entered the northeast, and this part of the northeast entered the east, which was the predecessor of the Northeast Field Army, the Northeast Democratic United Army.
As for what kind of role the Northeast Field Army played in the Liberation War, the author needless to say, I believe that everyone is familiar with it, but in the final analysis, if it were not for the 115th Division in Shandong during the War of Resistance Against Japan, such a good form would not have appeared in the future.
Therefore, Chen Guang's contribution to the work of developing the troops during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was also enormous, and there is no doubt that General Chen Guang's performance in the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was very eye-catching, and this was even more rare among the senior generals of our army at that time.
However, compared with the period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the War of Resistance Against Japan, Chen Guang during the War of Liberation was much dimmer, but this could not hide his brilliance, just as the so-called no one was perfect, just as Comrade Nie Rongzhen said when he evaluated Chen Guang in his later years: Comrade Chen Guang had some problems in the past, but he had military achievements, and he was injured many times, especially in the long march, and his performance was outstanding. ”
Marshal Nie Rongzhen's words can be regarded as the most objective evaluation of Chen Guang, and it is precisely based on the attitude of the founding fathers of the older generation who have made clear their merits and faults, and when they included him in the "Biography of the Generals of the People's Liberation Army", they finally let General Chen Guang show him in front of the world in accordance with the specifications of the general.