After Xu Shiyou became seriously ill, why didn't he go to Beijing for better treatment? The mystery is in a letter to my son
He carried a pair of bracelets and seven eggs given by his mother into Shaolin to learn martial arts, shouldered earthen cannons to participate in the jute uprising, wielded a sword to kill the enemy at the head of Wanyuan City, cut vegetables and cut melons, crossed the meadow three times during the Long March, "escaped from death" in Yan'an City, killed the enemy on the shore of the Bohai Sea, liberated the battlefield and fought in East China, entered the Korean War to fight in the Tang Dynasty, and the next company was a soldier who crawled and fought, and once again showed his mighty style in the counterattack war against Vietnamese self-defense.
He was General Xu Shiyou.
Xu Shiyou was a general who grew up in a monastic family, with a fierce temperament, a heroic heart, and loyalty and courage.
The evaluation of the Party Central Committee was: "In the nearly 60 years of his military career, Xu Shiyou has made outstanding achievements in battle and died a hundred deaths, and is an outstanding commander of our army who has grown from a soldier to a general. He has made major contributions to the party's cause and construction and made great contributions. ”
The common people, on the other hand, had the people's appraisals, as evidenced by slipping around, saying: "He is not afraid of anything, he is afraid of the chairman and the old lady; he loves nothing, he loves pheasants and Maotai; he does not want anything, he wants a gun in his hand; he does not want anything, he wants to die and bury the coffin." ”
It is said that Xu Shiyou attached great importance to the coffin, and when he surrounded and annihilated Chiang Kai-shek's ace 74th Division in Menglianggu, he gave the order to die: "Your division commander should be the regiment commander, the regiment commander should be the battalion commander, and the battalion commander should be the company commander, taking the lead in rushing, sacrificing a large coffin for one person!" ”
In his mind, the martyr who sacrificed can sleep in the coffin is the greatest reward.
In his later years, Xu Shiyou lived with his family in a Western-style building called "General Building", and he has a lot of affection for this Western-style building built for Sun Ke in the 1930s.
Although there is no air conditioning facility, the top floor platform is used to store water to cool down in the summer, but the building is sturdy and spacious, and there is a storage basement where he can store the fruits and vegetables he harvests every year. After being transferred out of Nanjing to Guangzhou that year, he did not let Ding Sheng, who had been transferred to him, hand over to the guest house so that he could return to live here in the future. Later, he was transferred out of Guangzhou to serve in the central government, but he returned to Nanjing and lived in this small building. Until he was critically ill, he refused to leave a single step.
In 1985, when General Xu Shiyou was diagnosed with liver cancer, many of his comrades advised him to go to Beijing for better treatment, but the general stubbornly refused, perhaps the mystery was already in his letter to his son six years earlier.
In 1979, during the command of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, he wrote to his son Xu Guang, saying: "Mail 50 yuan in cash, this 50 yuan is for me to prepare for the aftermath, use this money to buy me a coffin, I will not be cremated after I die, I will be buried in my hometown, buried next to my parents, live loyal to the country, and honor my parents when I die." ”
The general was a filial son, his father died early, and his mother pulled him up alone, but since he joined the revolution in 1926, he only returned home for a reunion dinner in 1931, and did not return home once in decades of conquest.
He often said that he was faithful to the living and filial piety when he died. He therefore resolutely refused to sign the Proposal for cremation and was granted. It is said that he chose the site of the tomb 30 meters in front of his parents' grave, saying that he could "warm his mother's feet" here. After a hundred years, the general finally got his wish and buried next to his old mother. Humanity "since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety are complete", but Xu Shiyou has done it in a special way.