Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Director of the Political Department Deng Zihui (21)

In the spring of 1968, Deng Zihui, Chen Lan and their families were at their home on Wanshou Road in Beijing.

Eleven

On the twelfth day of the first month of 1915, 19-year-old Deng Zihui and several young friends went to watch the annual "You Tianzi" grand event. In the crowd, Deng Zihui saw a young girl who was dignified and plump, and fell in love at first sight, determined to marry her. This girl, cao quandi, was born in 1899 to a small merchant family in Nanyang Village, Huangfangshe, Longyan, and her mother gave birth to 5 daughters, she is the third oldest. Their father earned a living in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, and their five sisters followed their mother to the family farm work at home. After seeing Cao Quandi on the cemetery, Deng Zihui returned home and expressed his wish to his parents. The parents entrusted someone to go to the Cao family to talk about the media, and Cao's mother heard that the Deng family was poor and refused several times. However, the Cao family was finally touched by the sincerity of the Deng family, and heard that the future son-in-law had a good character and was a child with a career, and finally agreed to this family affair. In the fall of 1916, the 20-year-old Deng Zihui graduated from Longyan High School, and the 17-year-old Cao Quandi married Deng Zihui that year.

In 1928, after the Houtian Rebellion in Longyan, Western Fujian, Cao Quandi took his child around to avoid the enemy, and later hid in the home of the fourth aunt of Longyan Huangkeng to give birth. However, in the old days, the feudal countryside was not allowed to marry a woman to give birth in a relative's house, and as a result, Cao Quandi gave birth to a daughter Deng Xiaomei (Fang Mei) in the toilet of the fourth aunt's house. A month later, during the Dragon Boat Festival, Cao Quandi, along with her mother, son, and daughter who had just given birth, was arrested and taken to the Kuomintang Zhang Zhen Division and forced to hand over Deng Zihui. Two months later, the enemy could not ask anything, and Cao Quandi was released on bail. In the winter of 1932, Cao Quandi, who worked in the Red Army clothing factory, gave birth to his third child under the Shanghang tea tree. One night, when sudden gunfire broke out, the enemy attacked the garment factory, and Cao Quandi violently picked up his newborn son, picked up his daughter, pulled up his sleeping eldest son and ran. Two months later, the youngest son died of lung disease. Later, in order not to add trouble to the organization and for the safety of their mother and son, Deng Zihui suggested that a divorce document be written. Cao Quandi had to agree to make sacrifices for the sake of the revolution.

Deng Zihui's second wife, Huang Xiuxiang, born in 1910, is a native of Liukeng Village, Dongxiao Township, Longyan County, and is close to Deng Zihui's family. In 1928, Deng Zihui led a peasant uprising in his hometown, and the eighteen-year-old Huang Xiuxiang actively participated in women's activities and soon joined the revolution. In 1932, he went to Ruijin and worked as an accountant in the Ministry of Finance. Deng Zihui and she fell in love in Ruijin and came together. In October 1934, during the Long March of the Red Army, Huang Xiuxiang painfully handed over his son (Deng Susheng), who was only three days old, to Fan Lechun (Mrs. Lin Boqu), the head of the Red Army's family bureau. Coincidentally, Fan Lechun and Lin Boqu also had a baby boy who had only been born for half a month, and after Fan Lechun wrapped up the two baby boys, they were given to their cousin who made a living in Huichang, Gannan Province, to raise. After the child entrusted, Huang Xiuxiang broke through in the direction of Huichang, and after Deng Zihui hurriedly bid farewell to Huang Xiuxiang, he turned to the direction of Changting to break through. During the siege of Huichang, Huang Xiuxiang was unfortunately broken in the leg. The comrades-in-arms found a basket to put her inside, carried her to continue the charge, the comrade carrying the basket was shot and fell in a pool of blood, Huang Xiuxiang became a prisoner of war of the Kuomintang army, was carried to the city and killed. At the time of her sacrifice, Huang Xiuxiang was 24 years old.

In April 1936, under the care of Zhang Dingcheng, Deng Zihui and Chen Lan were united in the guerrilla zone. Chen Lan was born in 1913, a fellow countryman with Deng Zihui, and was sent away shortly after birth, and her father felt that she was very pitiful and asked her to go home. Due to the hardships of life, at the age of 6, she was forced to be sent to a stonemason's family as a child bridesmason, but fortunately her husband Xie Zhengjin was generous, kind, and took good care of her. In 1929, after the Fourth Army of Zhu Maohong entered western Fujian, Chen Lan and her husband both threw themselves into the revolution. Xie Zhengjin is the chief of the "white-skinned red heart" and secretly serves as an underground traffic officer of the CCP. In 1934, as soon as the Red Army left due to the betrayal of traitors, Xie Zhengjin was killed by the enemy. Chen Lan inherited her husband's legacy and became a female traffic officer. In the summer of 1935, at the age of 22, she joined the guerrilla group led by Deng Zihui under the introduction of her uncle Chen Xinmei, who was a guerrilla fighter. She was familiar with the local situation, shrewd and brave, collected grain, collected intelligence, and did an excellent job, which attracted the attention of Deng Zihui, and the two spent 36 years together from the realization that they knew and loved each other, sharing weal and woe, soaking each other, and never abandoning each other.

Deng Zihui, who had always been concerned about Cao Quandi and his children, took her to Deng Yisheng, the eldest son of Xiangtan in Hunan Province, after liberation, and placed his daughter Deng Fangmei in Xiangtan. In 1954, Cao Quandi unfortunately suffered from uterine cancer, and under the care of Deng Zihui, he sent her to Wuhan for treatment, and soon transferred to Peking Union Medical College Hospital for treatment, deng Zihui and his wife Chen Lan personally went to the railway station to meet her. At the end of this year, this ordinary woman who supported Deng Zihui and the revolution in western Fujian during the arduous war years, and raised a pair of children for Deng with hard work, left the world with a smile and died at the age of 55.

Chen Lan is a generous and benevolent wife and mother, before the "Cultural Revolution", Deng Zihui's family has always been a big family, Chen Lan is very concerned about each child, Cao Quandi's son Deng Yisheng's family (wife and two sons), and Huang Xiuxiang's son Deng Susheng has been living with Chen Lansheng's 6 children. On October 11, 2005, Chen Lan died in Beijing.