Text/Kingdom Building
She was the oldest student in the history of the Kuomintang Whampoa Military Academy, and was 39 years old when she was admitted to the 16th Whampoa Military Academy. However, what is even more incredible is that she was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy with her own son, and both were cadets of the 16th class of the Whampoa Military Academy. After graduation, she and her son both participated in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, one promoted to major and then returned home, the other became a lieutenant colonel and then participated in the civil war, and then accompanied General Fu Zuoyi in the Beiping Uprising. The legendary mother and son are Ms. Zhou Yongnan, a native of Qidong, Hunan, and her son Huang Tian.
Ms. Zhou Yongnan was born in 1900 in Qidong, Hunan. Her father, an enlightened squire, sent Chow Wing Nam to a private school and later attended high school.
In 1919, Zhou Yongnan married the Hunan scholar Huang Yanqing and gave birth to a son, Huang Tian, the following year.
In 1921, Zhou Yongnan's husband, Huang Yanqing, died of illness. Chow Wing Nam took her son to work as a primary school teacher to support the family.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, Zhou Yongnan wrote to his son Huang Tian, who was studying at a senior high school, asking him to give up college and devote himself to the army to kill the enemy and serve the country.
In 1938, Chow Wing Nam took his son, who had just graduated from high school, to apply for the Whampoa Military Academy. In order to motivate her young son, Zhou Yongnan insisted on applying for the Whampoa Military Academy despite the fact that he was 39 years old or his daughter's body. The admissions teacher refused Zhou Yongnan's application in accordance with the regulations of the military school. Zhou Yongnan was not dead-hearted and looked for a military school leadership theory. The military academy leader saw that Zhou Yongnan had a firm sense of consciousness, cultural knowledge and physical fitness were not bad, and he was allowed to register for the exam by exception. After the examination, Zhou Yongnan and his son Huang Tian were both admitted and entered the 16th phase of the Whampoa Military Academy. Zhou Yongnan was assigned to the 16th Girls' Corps, and was trained in Yandu, Jiangxi, to learn battlefield rescue. During his studies, Chow Wing Nam also won the Split Thorn Championship three times. Huang Tian was assigned to the Infantry Section of the 16th Phase II Corps, and was trained in Tongliang, Sichuan.
In January 1940, Zhou Yongnan and his son Huang Tian graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy with excellent results at the same time. At the graduation ceremony, the school commended Zhou Yongnan: "Mother and son joined the military classmates, went to the country together, a role model, and a special award." Some newspapers also reported in detail the stories of Zhou Yongnan and Huang Tian's mother and son serving the country from the military under the title of "Orphans and Widows, Serving the Country from the Army.".
After Zhou Yongnan joined the army, he was assigned to the 53rd Army (LaoDizi of the Northeast Army, commander Zhou Fucheng) as a lieutenant officer in the Political Department. The 53rd Army was stationed in Hunan at the time, and participated in the 1st and 2nd Battles of Changsha and the Battle of Changde. Zhou Yongnan did not want to stay in the rear office, and took the initiative to ask him to go to the front line to kill the enemy, and the rear military department, according to Zhou Yongnan's suggestion, reorganized the female dependents of the army into a company directly under the military department, with Zhou Yongnan as the captain of the company. During the Battle of Changde, Zhou Yongnan led a company of female soldiers to participate in the rescue of wounded soldiers, and at the height of the battle, the female company fought fiercely with the Japanese army like ordinary soldiers. Zhou Yongnan killed 5 Japanese soldiers and became the heroine of the 53rd Army. Later, he was transferred to the major director of the press room of the 129 soldier station hospital.
After Japan's unconditional surrender in 1945, Zhou Yongnan applied to retire from the army and returned to his hometown to continue his education work, teaching at The Baidi Central Primary School.
During the Liberation War, Zhou Yongnan opposed the civil war and wrote to his son, who was a regimental commander in the Kuomintang army, many times, asking him to lay down his arms and join the revolution.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhou Yongnan continued to work at the Baidi City Center Primary School until his death due to illness in 1966, at the age of 67.
After graduating from the 16th term of Huangpu, Zhou Yongnan's son Huang Tian was assigned to the Sixth Theater as a second lieutenant platoon leader. Huang Tian fought bravely and had a hard life, and he was one of the few Huangpu officers among his classmates who participated in many major battles and survived. By 1945, when Japan announced its unconditional surrender, it had been promoted to major battalion commander.
Unlike his mother, Zhou Yongnan, Huang Tian was heavily poisoned by the reactionary ideas of the Kuomintang because he stayed in the army longer. Actively participating in the Kuomintang-Communist civil war, he caused a lot of losses to the People's Liberation Army, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel regiment commander for his merits. Zhou Yongnan was heartbroken to learn that his son was fighting the People's Liberation Army in the North China Battlefield, and wrote to Huang Tian several times to ask him to leave his post and return home, but Huang Tian was indifferent to this.
In 1947, Zhou Yongnan rushed to Guangshui, Hubei Province, with his daughter-in-law and grandson, cried and complained, asked his son to go home, and cried to the commander of the army about his painful experience of keeping the festival and caring for orphans. The commander of the unit had no choice but to order Huang Tian to send his mother to Hankou. After arriving in Hankou, Zhou Yongnan once again forced his son to return home, but Huang Tian still returned to the army. It was not until January 1949, when Huang Tian and his troops revolted in Peiping and joined the People's Liberation Army, that a smile began to appear on Zhou Yongnan's face.
After 1949, Huang Tian left the army and transferred to the Qiyang County Water Conservancy Bureau (1952), where he remained until his death in the 1990s.