Among the generals of the Nationalist army who rebelled and surrendered during the Liberation War, not all of them suddenly woke up and took the initiative to abandon the dark and turn to the light, and there was a former Chiang Kai-shek army big man who had a very high status in the central army, and when he surrendered, he was not willing, but was half pulled out of the command headquarters by his soldiers, after all, if he insisted on resisting, his officers and men would not have a way to live.
This person was Zheng Dongguo, the former deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast Suppression Army. In the Liaoshen Campaign in 48, Zheng Dongguo, who was defending Changchun, was forced to surrender, so after that he did not have any kind words, responded with indifference to the enthusiasm of our personnel, and did not agree to serve in the new government. When Zheng Dongguo surrendered, he put forward three demands: First, he could not see and broadcast the matter of his surrender, only when he had died in battle; second, he would not participate in the public banquet activities organized by our army; third, he would not take up a government post and would become a commoner in the future.
Zheng Dongguo's statement must have made our side a little chilled. Originally, I wanted to use Zheng Dongguo, and the reason is self-evident: Although Zheng Dongguo fought a civil war under the orders of Jiang Dongguo, he was once a famous general with extremely high merits in the War of Resistance, who was honest and patriotic in essence, who had meritorious service to the country and the ability to work, and who finally surrendered to him; in addition, with Zheng Dongguo's former position in the camp of the nationalist army, it is conducive to national reunification to let him hold an important post in the new government. However, since Zheng Dongguo couldn't figure it out for a while, we didn't force it.
In the first two years after Zheng Dongguo surrendered, he really lived the life of a commoner, and because of his high cultural attainment and preference for study and research, Zheng Dongguo always wanted to find the cause of the defeat of the Kuomintang army from our military and theoretical works, so he read a large number of communist books, including some articles by the chairman. During this period, his thinking underwent some changes, and he believed that our side had indeed done a good job in improving people's livelihood and winning the hearts and minds of the people, and it was sincere and not comparable to the Kuomintang. For the new society and the people's army, Zheng Dongguo basically did not have the initial resistance and exclusion, and began to work in the Ministry of Water Resources in 1952.
What really prompted Zheng Dongguo to undergo a qualitative change was a later meeting with the chairman. One day in 1954, Zheng Dongguo was invited to Zhongnanhai and met with the chairman and the prime minister. The first time Zheng Dongguo saw the chairman, he seemed more restrained, after all, he had previously been the commander of the New 1st Army and the commander of the First Corps, and he had fought fiercely with the People's Liberation Army on the battlefield when he led the troops. The chairman saw this and handed Zheng Dongguo a cigarette very casually, which surprised Zheng Dongguo and opened his heart to communicate with the chairman.
Zheng Dongguo asked the chairman: In recent years, I have read a lot of books by your party, including yours, why can you use your theoretical knowledge so well? The chairman replied with a smile: When I was a teenager, I also read a lot of Marxist-Leninist books, thinking that I had mastered a lot and could really devote myself to the revolution, but in fact, when I came into contact with the workers and peasants, I found that many times I could not convince others, and I was still far behind. Thinking about it, this is a question of ideological change, and it is necessary to learn from the workers and peasants in practice. If the thinking does not change, no theory will be used well.
Zheng Dongguo listened to the chairman's words and gladly said, "I am willing to serve the people!" Since then, Zheng Dongguo has successively served as a member of the National Defense Commission, a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and other positions, and has also become the vice president of the Huangpu Alumni Association, and has done a lot of important work for the united front and national construction. In fact, a famous general like Zheng Dongguo is difficult to force him to change. His own heartfelt recognition and desire to change himself, coupled with the influence of great men, contributed to the second half of the general's still successful life.
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