In 1981, in order to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, a military parade ceremony of unprecedented scale was held within the Nanjing Military Region, and before the parade began, Nie Fengzhi, then commander of the Nanjing Military Region, took the initiative to invite the old chief Xu Shiyou to attend the ceremony, but Xu Shiyou directly refused.
What's going on? Why did Xu Shiyou refuse Nie Fengzhi's kindness? He had been the commander of the Nanjing Military Region for 18 years, so why did he not want to participate in the military parade ceremony of the Nanjing Military Region?
During the Period of the Red Fourth Front, Xu Shiyou and Nie Fengzhi had fought together in a regiment, but it was not a direct superior-subordinate relationship, they knew each other but were not familiar with each other, and later after the three main forces of the Red Army met in Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ning, Xu Shiyou went to Yan'an with Nie Fengzhi to study, but there were not many opportunities to understand deeply.
Until the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in 1940, Nie Fengzhi and a brigade of cadres of the Anti-Japanese War crossed the Yellow River in the east to the Jiaodong area of Shandong to establish the Kangda Branch School, and it was here that Xu Shiyou and Nie Fengzhi formed a deep revolutionary friendship.
Xu Shiyou was the most powerful general in our army, who was deeply respected and trusted by Chairman Mao, and had a fiery temper and was irritable, but Nie Fengzhi was not afraid of Xu Shiyou's majesty at all, and not only dared to joke with him, but also dared to give advice, and even slapped the table to quarrel with Xu Shiyou.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1945, Chairman Mao and the heads of the headquarters organs of the Central Military Commission jointly formulated the strategic principle of "developing to the north and defending to the south, and together with the Nationalist army seized the time to occupy the northeast, so they urgently dispatched a large number of elite forces from the major base areas and liberated areas throughout the country to go to the northeast to create base areas.
Xu Shiyou also received an order, according to the regulations, he must hand over all the Fifth and Sixth Divisions under the Jiaodong Military Region to the organization, but Xu Shiyou did not want Nie Fengzhi, commander of the Sixth Division, to go north, so he unilaterally sent a telegram to the headquarters of the Central Military Commission in the name of the Jiaodong Military Region, claiming that Nie Fengzhi had suddenly suffered from serious tuberculosis and was now in a critical period of treatment, and that he needed to recuperate, and that the disease was very contagious, and that he hoped that the head of the Central Military Commission would choose someone else to go to the northeast.
In this way, Xu Shiyou forcibly left Nie Fengzhi in Shandong with a trick to conceal the sky and cross the sea, and later after the Fifth Division of the Jiaodong Military Region went to the northeast, Xu Shiyou used the remaining 13th Regiment of the Jiaodong Military Region to rebuild the Fifth Division, with Nie Fengzhi as the commander of the Fifth Division. ”
Although Xu Shiyou disobeyed the orders of his superiors and let Nie Fengzhi pretend to be ill and stayed, he also left a general for the Jiaodong Theater.
In 1946, the 12th Division of the Nationalist Army attacked the Lingshan position in Jimo, and although a battalion responsible for defensive tasks fought bloodily, it was eventually forced to withdraw due to heavy losses due to outnumbered people.
Xu Shiyou was furious when he learned of the situation, and immediately called the Fifth Division, asking Nie Fengzhi to lead his troops to take back the position, but at this time Nie Fengzhi had just finished appendicitis surgery and could not get out of bed, Xu Shiyou heard this, and actually directly ordered the doctor to use a bandage to tie him up first, and then go back to rest after the battle, and as a result, Nie Fengzhi was really carried to the front line by the guards on a stretcher.
Nie Fengzhi commanded the Fifth Division to retake the Lingshan position in less than 6 hours, not only completely annihilating an elite regiment of the enemy army, but also capturing the enemy regimental commander Liu Antai, and capturing more than 4,000 pieces of various military weapons and equipment, including rocket artillery, 60 mortars, 82 guns, and automatic rifles.
After the war, Xu Shiyou was overjoyed and ordered Nie Fengzhi to go back and continue to rest. Who knew that Nie Fengzhi directly picked up his clothes and revealed the scalpel edge: "I have already scarred, what hospital do I still live in?" ”
Later, the Jiaodong Military Region was reorganized into the Ninth Column of Huaye, with Xu Shiyou as the commander of the column and Nie Fengzhi as deputy commander and chief of staff.
After the liberation of Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, in 1948, and Xu Shiyou was promoted to commander of the Shandong Field Corps, Nie Fengzhi took over the post of commander of Xu Shiyou's Ninth Column.
In 1955, at the first meritorious service award ceremony of the whole army, Xu Shiyou Jigong was awarded the title of founding general, and Nie Fengzhi was awarded the rank of founding lieutenant general.
After the founding of New China, every time Nie Fengzhi talked about the old chief Xu Shiyou, he often hung up on the "righteousness of the jianghu", so in a sense, Xu Shiyou was indeed very partial to Nie Fengzhi.
In 1967, Xu Shiyou was forced to leave the Nanjing Military Region and stayed at the garrison of the 27th Army in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, for a period of time, and before preparing to go to Dabie Mountain, he met with two deputy commanders of the Nanjing Military Region, namely Lieutenant General Nie Fengzhi and Lieutenant General Tao Yong.
Xu Shiyou personally fried a few dishes, took out a few bottles of good wine, and said to the two love generals: "I can't stay in Wuxi, and I can't go back to Nanjing, now I want to go to Dabie Mountain, I hope you will also go with me." ”
But in that special environment, Nie Fengzhi and Tao Yong did not want to bother the old chief too much, so they politely declined Xu Shiyou's kindness, but they did not expect that after the banquet dispersed, Nie Fengzhi suddenly had no news.
After Xu Shiyou learned of the situation, he immediately sent someone to invite Nie Fengzhi's family to Dabie Mountain, and arranged for Nie Fengzhi's daughter Nie Meimei to become a soldier in Dabie Mountain.
In 1973, Xu Shiyou wrote three letters to his superiors lian to justify Nie Fengzhi's name, and under Xu Shiyou's personal guarantee, Nie Fengzhi quickly restored his reputation and returned to work.
But after Xu Shiyou saw him, like the big brother of an ordinary person, he got into an awkward fight with his brother, turning over the old account and reprimanding: "When you were asked to stay, you had to leave, you had to be a hero." ”
Unexpectedly, Nie Fengzhi directly retorted: "When Chairman Mao sent a special plane to pick you up in Beijing, why didn't he take us with him?" ”
Xu Shiyou hurriedly defended: "I couldn't go to Nanjing at that time. ”
After listening to it, Nie Fengzhi smiled and said, "Heroes can't go to Nanjing, so what's the use of us going to Nanjing?" ”
In 1977, Nie Fengzhi was transferred to the Nanjing Military Region as a commander and took over Xu Shiyou's class.
In 1982, Xu Shiyou, then a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Military Commission, formally retired to the second line and served as deputy director of the State Advisory Committee, but after careful consideration, Xu Shiyou decided to ask the state for leave and not to take up his post in Beijing, and put forward two requirements in the leave report: First, he did not adapt to beijing's dry climate and wanted to live in Nanjing; second, he could also dispatch military personnel from Nanjing at any time to help him write his memoirs.
After receiving the report, the head of the Beijing headquarters quickly agreed to Xu Shiyou's application, considering that Xu Shiyou was indeed old and for the sake of his health.
There are also two reasons why Xu Shiyou chose the Nanjing Military Region instead of the Guangzhou Military Region: First, Xu Shiyou was a commander of the Nanjing Military Region for 18 years and was familiar with the grass and trees here; second, Nie Fengzhi, an old subordinate he once had the closest relationship with, is now serving as a commander in the Nanjing Military Region.
After Xu Shiyou returned to Nanjing, he re-lived at No. 8 Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum on the outskirts of Nanjing, and in order to support and help Xu Shiyou write his memoirs, Nie Fengzhi personally ordered that the party, government, and military cadres of the military region and the officers, soldiers, and soldiers cooperate unconditionally.
Because many people in the military region were Xu Shiyou's former subordinates, they provided great help for Xu Shiyou's work of writing memoirs. In particular, Comrade Zhao Jun, an adviser to the Military Region, personally led people to the Dabie Mountains for on-the-spot investigation, collected the historical materials of the prefectures and cities along the way, and moved them all to the Nanjing Military Region.
The two memoirs written by Xu Shiyou himself in the Nanjing Military Region were finally handed over to Nie Fengzhi to personally review and finalize the draft; at that time, he read the two books written by Xu Shiyou word by word, read them very carefully and carefully, recalled the past, and was greatly shaken in his heart, and finally did not want to change a single word in the whole article, and directly signed and approved it, and Nie Fengzhi's deep feelings for Xu Shiyou are self-evident.
According to the records of relevant historical materials, after Nie Fengzhi was busy with the military affairs of the military region, he would carry two bottles of wine and melons, fruits and vegetables to visit Xu Shiyou every three or five minutes, and later even formed a habit, whether it was going out for a meeting or going to the countryside to conduct research, before leaving, he always had to report to Xu Shiyou's home, and when he returned, he got off the train or got off the plane, and he also went straight to Xu Shiyou's home to first ensure the safety of the old chief.
On July 31, 1981, in order to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army and implement Deng Gong's instructions on organizing troops to conduct military parade training, Nie Fengzhi organized a grand military parade of the Nanjing Military Region, which was also the largest military parade held by the Nanjing Military Region.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, the state held a grand military parade every year to show the people of the whole country the style of the Chinese army.
In the 1970s, due to the sudden changes in the external international environment, it was all the more necessary to show the achievements made by the people's army in the field of military defense after the founding of New China through military parades, so this military parade ceremony of the Nanjing Military Region was even more unusual as usual.
Just before the military parade of the Nanjing Military Region was held, Nie Fengzhi suddenly found Xu Shiyou and took the initiative to invite him to attend the ceremony together, but xu Shiyou did not want to directly refuse.
Because in Xu Shiyou's view, such a large-scale military parade generally only needs to have a commander-in-chief, and this commander-in-chief is Nie Fengzhi, commander of the Nanjing Military Region, and now Xu Shiyou is already in a semi-retired retirement state, theoretically speaking, it is no longer suitable to continue to attend such a public occasion, if he goes, with his prestige in the military for many years, he will also make a fuss.
Nie Fengzhi had such a heart, he could think of the old chief, Xu Shiyou was already very happy, so he couldn't attend the military parade, so Xu Shiyou waved his hand one after another after listening: "No, I can't go, I can't steal your limelight." ”
However, Nie Fengzhi was full of sincerity, and did not hesitate to take care of Maolu, and finally said that Xu Shiyou was invited to participate in the military parade together.
On the day of the military parade, Nie Fengzhi, as commander of the Nanjing Military Region, also highlighted the arrival of Xu Shiyou in his speech, and the officers and men below immediately burst into warm applause after hearing this good news.
After the parade began, Nie Fengzhi invited Xu Shiyou to ride with him in a chariot to inspect the troops; this time, the Nanjing Military Region's paraded units included 16 division-level units of political work organs, the navy, the air force, various branches of the armed forces, and army schools, forming 54 phalanxes, and a total of more than 900 officers and men participated in the parade, and all of them were distributed with new equipment for sea, land, and air.
Although Xu Shiyou was an old man, but looking at the salute of the paraded soldiers brushing at them, Xu Shiyou could not help but blush his eyes, stretched out his right hand and gave the most solemn military salute, the sonorous and powerful slogan instantly resounded throughout the street, and the Bayi Film Studio also recorded this beautiful moment with the camera.