I have a colleague whose father, Lao Sun, is a RETIRED VETERAN OF THE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY.
Retired cadre, but also a veteran, A few colleagues and I were very curious, and when we saw Lao Sun, we would pestered him and asked him to tell the story of the PLA's war.
However, Lao Sun always hid it, did not want to say anything more, asked urgently, the veteran threw out a sentence: "I am a liberation fighter, there are some things I don't know!" After saying that, I don't want to take care of people anymore.
"Liberation fighters"?
Everyone knows that there is a "People's Liberation Army", so what is the "liberation fighter"?
Later, Lao Sun's son, Xiao Sun, told us that his father turned out to be an ordinary soldier in the Kuomintang army.
When the People's Liberation Army crossed the Yangtze River, Lao Sun was shot in the stomach and fell unconscious. By the time he woke up, he was already lying in the People's Liberation Army Temporary Hospital.
When he was discharged from the hospital after recovering from his injuries, a PLA cadre came to the hospital, and he asked Lao Sun: "Would you like to join the PLA?" ”
Lao Sun thought that when a soldier ate food, it would be the same everywhere, so Lao Sun changed into the coarse cloth uniform of the People's Liberation Army and became a soldier of the People's Liberation Army.
After being incorporated into the company, Lao Sun learned that there were many "captive soldiers" like him in the company, and that the squad in which Lao Sun was in, except for the squad leader who was a PLA fighter who was an out-and-out guerrilla, the rest of them were captured Kuomintang soldiers, and everyone was a voluntary member of the PLA.
However, in order to differentiate and avoid discrimination, they all have a special title - "Liberation Fighter".
Like Lao Sun, in the course of the Chinese revolution, kuomintang officers and soldiers have constantly abandoned the dark and joined the revolutionary contingent led by the CCP.
In the Nanchang Uprising, the Kuomintang troops participating in the uprising included the 24th and 10th Divisions of the 11th Army of the Second Front Of the National Revolutionary Army, all of the 20th Army, and the 73rd and 75th Regiments of the 25th Division of the 4th Army.
There was also a section of the Officer Education Corps of the 3rd Army of the Fifth Front Of the Kuomintang with Zhu De as its leader, and a section of the Security Corps of the Nanchang City Public Security Bureau.
In the autumn harvest uprising, among the rebel troops was Lu Deming's Guard Regiment of the General Headquarters of the Second Front of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army.
In the Pingjiang Uprising, three units of the Independent Fifth Division of the Kuomintang Army participated in the uprising: the First Regiment headed by Peng Dehuai, the Third Battalion of the Third Regiment led by Huang Gongluo, and the cadets of the Independent Fifth Division led by He Guozhong.
In the Ningdu Uprising, Dong Zhentang, Ji Zhen and other Kuomintang generals held up the banner of uprising, bringing to the Red Army one army, two divisions, six brigades, and eleven whole regiments, with a total of more than 17,000 people and more than 20,000 weapons.
During the Liberation War, the actions of the Kuomintang army to surrender and revolt became more and more frequent, showing a situation of climax and wave after wave.
The first climax came at the beginning of the Liberation War, when the number of Defections of the Kuomintang army was small, but the political influence was great.
At this time, there was a huge disparity in strength between the Kuomintang and the Communists, and the Kuomintang did not achieve the campaign goal of "suppressing the communist army in Guannei in three months", but successive "national army" troops revolted and surrendered.
First, Gao Shuxun led the newly organized Eighth Army to revolt in Handan, Hebei, followed by Hao Pengju's Sixth Route Advance Army in Taierzhuang, Shandong, and four months later, Pan Shuoduan led a part of the nationalist 184th Division to revolt in Haicheng, Liaoning.
During this period, an ordinary soldier named Wang Keqin became a hero respected by everyone.
A native of Fuyang County, Anhui Province, Wang Keqin was liberated in the Battle of Handan in October 1945 and subsequently joined the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
From the beginning of the Liberation War to before his sacrifice, in just one year, Wang Keqin killed and wounded 232 enemy people, captured 14 enemy people, captured 8 rifles, made meritorious contributions 9 times, and was rated as "first-class hero who killed the enemy" and "model communist party member".
After becoming a squad leader, Wang Keqin was good at doing in-depth and meticulous ideological work, and in the case of great changes in the composition of the troops, in order to improve combat effectiveness, Wang Keqin created the "three major mutual assistance activities" method of leading troops.
Facts have proved that the "three major mutual assistance activities" played a remarkable role in actual combat, and the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army generally launched the "Wang Keqin Campaign" with this as the main content, and quickly popularized it throughout the army.
In the Battle of Dingtao, the battle hero Wang Keqin was unfortunately and honorably killed.
When the news of Wang Keqin's heroic sacrifice reached the headquarters of the field army, Commander Liu Bocheng said excitedly: "Chiang Kai-shek cannot exchange a brigade for me Wang Keqin!" ”
The second climax came during the Kuomintang-Communist strategic decisive battle (September 1948 to January 1949).
During this period, a large number of Kuomintang generals held uprisings, which effectively advanced the course of the war.
Among them, Wu Huawen led the reorganized 84th Division to revolt in Jinan, Zeng Zesheng led the Kuomintang 60th Army to revolt in Changchun, and Fu Zuoyi led 200,000 defenders in Beiping to accept peaceful reorganization.
The third climax came after a million males crossed the river.
During this period, the Kuomintang army revolted and surrendered to more than one million people, which can be described as "storm surge"!
For example, Cheng Qian and Chen Mingren announced an uprising, taking away the Kuomintang Hunan Sui Bureau Headquarters, the First Corps Headquarters, and 3 armies totaling 70,000 people.
Then, apart from the former Kuomintang troops who formed and reorganized the uprising and surrendered, how did the PLA deal with the Kuomintang officers and men captured on the battlefield?
Take the Battle of Huaihai as an example.
In the Huaihai battlefield, the Kuomintang invested 800,000 troops, but at the end of the campaign, as many as 320,000 people became prisoners of the People's Liberation Army.
The PLA carried out effective disposal according to the type of identity of the prisoners, rather than "one size fits all".
The first type, the ordinary soldiers of the Kuomintang army.
Among the 320,000 Kuomintang prisoners, the number of ordinary soldiers exceeded 300,000, which was the largest proportion and largest number of prisoners.
In the operation of encircling and annihilating the Huang Wei Corps and encircling Du Yuming's clique, the PLA did not have time to restore its combat effectiveness according to conventional methods, and could only adopt the strategy of "making up for the prisoners and fighting with the prisoners" as they please.
At that time, the Kuomintang troops fighting against the People's Liberation Army often wondered: Why did the People's Liberation Army fight more and more?
The answer is already clear:
In the past, it was "no food, no clothing, there is the enemy sent forward, there is no gun, no cannon, the enemy makes us."
Nowadays, the Kuomintang army is even more "generous" - even people carry guns together!
The reason why we dare to "make up for prisoners and fight with them" is because our army has explored a series of preferential policies for prisoners.
For ordinary Kuomintang soldiers, those who are willing to join the People's Liberation Army are treated equally, otherwise, they can go home after receiving the travel fee.
At first, the captives felt incredible, they couldn't believe it, but later, they found out that this was true, the PLA did not force, did not threaten, really, it was as simple as that!
During the Battle of Huaihai, this process was greatly simplified, and many Kuomintang prisoners were captured in the morning, educated at noon, and became a member of the People's Liberation Army in the afternoon and participated in the battle.
The PLA has indeed done the same in promoting and using these "liberation fighters," and some of the "liberation fighters" who were still serving in Huang Baitao's corps a month ago had already become platoon commanders and even commanders when they surrounded and annihilated Du Yuming's clique.
Many of these "liberation fighters" took part in the battle of "fighting across the Yangtze River and liberating all of China." After the founding of New China, some of the "liberation fighters" joined the Ninth Corps of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army and made new contributions in the Korean battlefield.
The second type is the grass-roots officers of the Kuomintang army.
There were rumors in the Kuomintang army that the Platon did give preferential treatment to ordinary Kuomintang soldiers, but the PLA would be very harsh on Kuomintang officers and would even "shoot and kill."
In fact, this was a rumor spread by the Kuomintang army in order to stabilize the officers, and the captured Kuomintang officers not only survived, but most of them also received travel expenses, took the road strips, and were safely released and returned home.
Of course, screening and intensive learning are necessary.
With the help of the road, the captured officers could safely pass through all the CHECKPOINTs of the People's Liberation Army and return to the Kuomintang area.
There were also middle- and lower-ranking Kuomintang officers who were deceived by Kuomintang propaganda and were skeptical of the PLA's captive policy.
After the Battle of Chen Guanzhuang, two PLA soldiers captured 2,000 Kuomintang soldiers, and one lieutenant changed into a soldier's uniform and fled in the chaos.
However, he did not run far before he was captured again by the People's Liberation Army.
On the way to escort, he escaped again, was caught again, tossed back and forth twelve times, and on several occasions nearly died on the road.
When he returned to the camp set up by the Nationalist army after great hardship, he found that the officers who had been captured with him had all returned safely and unharmed with the road.
Many of the freed Kuomintang prisoners were no longer willing to fight for the Kuomintang and quietly returned to their hometowns, and only a few returned to the Kuomintang army.
However, before long, many of them became prisoners of the People's Liberation Army, and only a few of them were lucky enough to go to the island of Taiwan.
The third type, senior Kuomintang officers.
Throughout the Huaihai Campaign, 124 senior officers above major general were captured, including "big figures" such as Du Yuming and Huang Wei who were on the list of "war criminals."
They were terrified of the PLA, and before the troops were about to collapse, most of them changed into soldiers' costumes and forged identities in the hope of escaping the PLA's scrutiny.
For example, when Huang Wei was captured, he claimed to be Captain Sishu Fang Zhengxin;
When Du Yuming was captured, he claimed to be Gao Wenming, the chief of the quartermaster general.
However, these high-ranking Kuomintang officials can easily show their feet in some details, so they basically cannot succeed.
The PLA's handling of these senior Kuomintang officers is different, because they have followed Chiang Kai-shek for many years, and many of them are still Chiang Kai-shek's confidants, and it is difficult to expect them to change their positions in a short period of time.
Therefore, the People's Liberation Army could not release them immediately, but it would not immediately decide whether they lived or died, so they were first concentrated and imprisoned.
Later, some of them were sent to the "Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center" in Beijing for study and reform, and from 1959 onwards, they were successively pardoned and released from prison by the people's government.
Speaking of this, there is another question that needs to be explained: Before Lao Sun joined the People's Liberation Army, he was just an ordinary Kuomintang soldier, so how could he enjoy the treatment of retirement?
Lao Sun said happily: "I joined the People's Liberation Army before October 1, 1949, and the policy stipulates that anyone who participated in the revolution before the founding of the People's Republic of China can enjoy the treatment of retirement, so I am even if I leave." ”
When veterans enjoy their old age in peace, they do not forget to express gratitude to the party and the country, and there are a few words that veterans often hang on their lips:
"The Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army are really good to us people."
"Those who win the hearts and minds of the people win the world, and if the KmT loses, it loses in the 'hearts and minds of the people', and I can live such a good life now, which shows that my choice was right at that time!"