During the 14-year period of Japanese aggression, the Chinese nation emerged with many anti-Japanese heroes, but what people did not expect was that there was an anti-Japanese general who was martyred, but his wife and children were not taken care of, and they even had to go to the streets to beg for a living.
This tragic anti-Japanese hero is Zheng Tingzhen, he has no fame, but his patriotism does not lose to anyone, Zheng Tingzhen is a native of Tuocheng County, Shangqiu, Henan, who has been practicing medicine for generations, but when his father's generation came, his family fell in the middle, and there was no overnight food in his family after he was born.
Zheng Tingzhen did not have any major achievements until the age of 34, but in this year his fate changed, in 1917, Feng Yuxiang's 16th Brigade went to Shangqiu, Henan to recruit troops, and the 34-year-old Zheng Tingzhen immediately decided to sign up for the army, although he was a little older.
At the beginning of the army, Zheng Tingzhen trained military skills assiduously, and in battle he dared to fight, and was gradually promoted to battalion commander and regiment commander, and in 1928, he became the brigade commander of the 13th Brigade.
In 1930, the Outbreak of the Central Plains War, after the defeat of Feng Yuxiang, Zheng Tingzhen and his troops were reorganized into the Kuomintang Independent 5th Brigade, Chiang Kai-shek took Zheng Tingzhen as a gunner and sent him to fight the Red Army, Zheng Tingzhen was already tired of Chinese fighting Chinese, so he formed a tacit understanding with the Red Army and did not shoot each other.
In July 1937, the Japanese Kou launched a full-scale invasion of China, the Chinese nation reached the most dangerous time, Zheng Tingzhen personally went to Nanjing to request that he hoped to go to the front line to resist Japan, after obtaining consent, his independent 5th Brigade was assigned to the command of the 9th Army, and the commander of the 9th Army was Hao Mengling, a famous anti-Japanese general.
When the troops passed through Ningling County, Henan, he deliberately took a detour to return home to visit his mother, and it was often said that since ancient times, he was loyal and filial to the dilemma, he knelt on the ground to kowtow to his mother, and when he left, he said: "If you don't defeat the Japanese Kou, you won't go home." ”
At that time, the most fierce war situation in Shanxi, in October 1937, Yanmen Pass was lost, Xinkou became the last barrier of Taiyuan City, once the loss of taiyuan was not guaranteed, and then Shanxi was not protected, Zheng Tingzhen was sent to Xinkou to garrison, in the forefront of the confrontation against the Japanese army.
The Japanese army's weapons were superior, the aircraft artillery took turns to attack, using artillery to cover the Japanese army soon rushed to the position, as soon as the artillery stopped, Zheng Tingzhen commanded the fighters to carry out hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese army and retake the position, so repeated many times, the Japanese army has always been difficult to completely occupy Zheng Tingzhen's position.
At the 204 heights of Nanhuaihua, the two sides formed a tug-of-war, in one night, the position changed hands as many as 13 times, each time to retake the position had to pay the price of flesh and blood, the most tragic time, a regiment only had more than a hundred people left, the battle into a state of stalemate, until the 16th.
Zheng Tingzhen concentrated the remaining forces and recaptured the 6 hills occupied by the Japanese army, the soldiers were already exhausted, in order to boost morale, Zheng Tingzhen personally went to the front line to command, unfortunately, when inspecting the battle situation outside the trenches, he was concentrated by the Japanese stray bullets, and died of his wounds at the age of 54.
Also killed in this battle was Hao Mengling, commander of the 9th Army, who was posthumously awarded the rank of lieutenant general after his death, but his wife and children did not receive enough care, his wife once took several children along the streets to beg for a living, and even a daughter starved to death, and now Zheng Tingzhen's descendants have become ordinary workers.