preface
In September 1955, China held a major award, and after the ten marshals of New China were awarded the titles, the State Council began to award the titles and medals to the first generals of our country. The two generals Yang Dezhi and Yang Yong were awarded the rank of general, and at this glorious moment, General Yang Dezhi remembered his former brother Li Xiang.
During the Long March of the Red Army, Li Xiang had been serving under Yang Dezhi, and when Yang Dezhi was the commander of the Red First Division, Li Xiang served as a battalion commander under him; Yang Dezhi was promoted to division commander, and Li Xiangsheng was promoted to regimental commander, still serving under him. In 1936, Li Xiang was again transferred to fight under Chen Geng, the commander of the 1st Division, and the political commissar of the 1st Division at that time was Yang Yong.
The two generals had not seen Li Xiang since 1939, and if he had been in the army, he had been awarded the rank of lieutenant general in 1955.
Admiral Yang Dezhi
After Li Xiang's disappearance, he was included in the list of fallen soldiers, but in 1961, he was "resurrected."
At that time, two generals, Yang Dezhi and Yang Yong, each received a letter from the Yongxing People's Commune in Hubei Province, and the person who wrote the letter claimed to be Li Xiang, and the sender was Hou Lixiang.
The two generals exchanged letters with them after reading the letters, but the following year, the man who called himself Li Xiang disappeared again, and the two generals were unable to search for the man's whereabouts because of a series of political campaigns.
Li Xiang's early life
Born in 1912 in Jiangling County, Hubei Province, Li Xiang read for several years in his early years, but when he was 12 years old, his parents died suddenly. With the legacy of his parents, he had no problem supporting himself. At the age of 15, Li Xiang, who had read for several years, was also an intellectual, so he ran to Jingzhou alone to seek a way out. However, at the age of 15, he was too thin to be hired.
One day, a big waist and rounded hanako stared at Li Xiang.
"What's your name?"
Hanako walked over to Li Xiang and asked with a smile.
Li Xiang replied without pulling a few words:
"Li Xiang, what about you?"
Because most of Li Xiang's villages are surnamed Hou, people call others by their first names.
Hanako replied:
"Li Xiang, good name. My name is LiangZi, so you can call me Brother Liang. ”
Ask hanako to see that Li Xiang is listlessly hungry, so she gives him some money to ask him to buy something to eat, and Li Xiang, who is full, has a little spirit. He looked around and saw that Hanako was still staring at him, and confused, he walked over to Hanako.
Hanako asked:
"Li Xiang, where are you going" "I don't know"
"Where does your home live?" "My family is waiting for the family, there is no one in the house"
Hanako asked Li Xiang:
"I'm going to Hankou to beg for food, are you going?"
Li Xiangxiang grabbed a life-saving straw and said:
"That's good"
As a result, Li Xiang, who was only 15 years old, embarked on the revolutionary road. On the way south to Hankou, Liang Ge and Li Xiang revealed their identities, he was not a hanako, his real identity was an underground communist, and the name Hanako was just to disguise himself. When he arrived in Hankou, Liang Ge introduced Li Xiang to a guest house opened by communists, after which Li Xiang entertained guests during the day and continued to study culture at night.
The following year, Li Xiang was arranged to Jiangxi to participate in the local revolutionary work. Before the Chinese New Year's Eve of that year, the Red Army in Jiangxi began to expand, and Li Xiang joined the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, becoming a soldier in the 14th Regiment of the 5th Division of the Third Red Army, and joining the Communist Party of China in March 1929. Because Brother Liang mistakenly took Hou Lixiang's name as Li Xiang, Li Xiang always used the name "Li Xiang" after joining the army.
One of the eighteen warriors who forcibly crossed the Dadu River
Li Xiang, who joined the Red Army, rushed to the front every time in battle, fought very bravely, and by the time of the Red Army's Long March, he had been promoted from a soldier to a battalion commander.
Before the start of the Long March of the Red Army, he was transferred to the first battalion of the first regiment of the first division of the Red Army, the main force of the Red Army.
Because Li Xiang had read books in his early years, had culture, and was deeply loved by the battalion commander, Yang Dezhi, the commander of the first battalion, later worshiped him.
As the battalion commander of the front-line troops, Li Xiang's task is very heavy, because it is easy for the enemy to find the target during the daytime reconnaissance, so every night he has to lead the soldiers to the front line to explore the way to avoid a frontal conflict between the large troops and the enemy. At that time, when the Red Army was resting, everyone could often see Li Xiang shuttling through the various units, conveying to them the situation ahead.
In the battle, Li Xiang also rushed to the front as always. During the Long March alone, Li Xiang was wounded five times, the most serious of which was directly pierced by a bullet in the neck; in addition, during the attack on Shaanxi, his right leg was also hit by a bullet. It was also after this injury that Li Xiang was promoted to the commander of the 13th Regiment of the Red 1st Army and belonged to the new division commander Chen Geng .
When Li Xiang was asked in his later years how he dared to rush to the front, he said:
"I saw my comrades-in-arms fall and die, many of them talked and laughed together the day before, and in the blink of an eye, people disappeared, and many people were still children at that time." But the war is still going on, sacrifice is inevitable, and as a soldier you are not on anyone. ”
Although li xiang's deeds of forcibly crossing the Dadu River as one of the eighteen warriors are not recorded in the historical records, his original regimental commander Yang Dezhi affirmed his participation in and command of this battle. The soldiers of the 1st Regiment and 1 Battalion fought in this battle, and there must have been a battalion commander who led the attack at that time, and Li Xiang was the battalion commander.
After Li Xiang's "resurrection" in his later years, when he had dinner with Yang Dezhi, he also quarreled over whether there were 17 warriors or 18 warriors across the Dadu River, and the angry Li Xiang slapped the table and scolded. Later, in the movie "Ten Thousand Waters and Thousand Mountains" based on the theme of the Red Army's Long March, the "Taishan Battalion Commander" who served as a "pioneer" and actively undertook difficult tasks was filmed based on "Li Xiang".
The trajectory of life has suddenly changed
In 1937, Li Xiang was transferred to the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University to study, where Li Xiang's cultural level was greatly improved. There was also an interesting incident in this, Li Xiang recalled in his later years:
"Once, when I was eating, I was holding a rice spoon and just wouldn't add food to Xu Shiyou, Xu Shiyou looked at me, grabbed the hat on my head and threw it on the ground, and I rushed to pick up the hat. At this time, Xu Shiyou took the opportunity to grab the rice spoon in my hand and added food to himself. When eating again, Xu Shiyou held the rice spoon again and did not ask me to eat, I grabbed his hat and threw it on the ground, but Xu Shiyou did not pick up his hat, but instead glared at me fiercely and gave the rice spoon to someone else. Others laughed when they saw Xu Shiyou's bald head and me standing in place with a bowl in his hand."
Xu Shiyou
After completing his studies at Kang Da, Li Xiang was transferred to the Central Guard Corps as deputy regimental commander. Later, because he was seriously injured and could no longer fight, the organization arranged him to the rear, the Wuhan Eighth Route Army Office. Subsequently, Ye Jianying, then the head of the office, assigned him to the underground organization in Hubei Province and served as the county party committee in his hometown.
Because he was an underground party at that time, the organization did not arrange any corresponding work for him in order to cover his identity.
As a result, on the way back home, his documents were lost, and at that time, his hometown was under the rule of ghosts, and he had to be more careful when he returned to his hometown, and he hid all his previous glorious experiences, and the documents such as the officer's card and the military card were put in a suitcase and hidden under the bed.
When he returned home, he went to a woman named Yang Xu'er as a wife, and then rented a tile house in his cousin's house to start his own life. Because the organization did not arrange corresponding to him, resulting in his lack of sources of income at that time, in order to support his family, he borrowed the ancestral hall of the Hou family to open a card shop, and soon people in the vicinity came to play cards here to pass the time.
At that time, some people thought that Li Xiang must have made a lot of money by going out and running for more than ten years, and these ill-intentioned people took advantage of Li Xiang's working hours to turn his home upside down, and the suitcase was also stolen. Li Xiang, who lost his suitcase, had no intention of doing business, directly closed the door of the card shop, and nestled at home for three days, he did not expect that the honor of ten years was suddenly "all gone".
Subsequently, under the arrangement of the organization, he continued to lurk in Jianli County under the pseudonym hou Wenbin as the director of the Kuomintang pseudo-joint guarantee.
In 1940, traitors appeared among the underground workers, the local underground organization was seriously damaged, and the Jiangling County Committee of the Communist Party of China ordered the personnel to hide, and Li Xiang lost contact with the organization this time. In 1942, the troops of Zhang Xiulong, the former deputy commander of the Wuhan Military Region, arrived in Qianjiang County, Hubei Province, and Li Xiang, who was eager for a comeback, immediately rushed over when he heard the news, indicating his identity and hoping to join him to continue the revolution.
But fate tricked people, at that time, there happened to be an enemy attack, which made Zhang Xiulong suspect that Li Xiang brought the enemy, and they quickly left here.
After the founding of New China, Li Xiang wanted to reveal his identity to the local organization, but due to the lack of documents, he could not explain his past.
Since then, Li Xiang has completely lost contact with the organization, and he has become discouraged, and he has begun to accept his fate and become a farmer from scratch at home.
Because of his psychological difficulties, he often picked the thorns of local cadres, plus he had lurked in the Kuomintang before, and his public identity was the director of the Kuomintang Joint Security. In 1957, he was turned into a counter-revolution by local cadres, restricting the freedom of life. Fortunately, in 1961, he saw in the newspaper that Yang Dezhi and Yang Yong had been awarded the medal, so he wrote a letter to the two generals and got a reply, but for some reason they lost contact.
In 1971, Li Xiang was sent for reform because of scolding cadres, at which time he saw Yang Dezhi's news in the newspaper, so he decided to go to Shashi, more than a hundred miles away, to find him. After a day and a night of hurrying, Li Xiang, who was close to the ancient rarity, finally met his old friend, and the two met and hugged each other tightly. Yang Dezhi promised Li Xiang to take off his "counter-revolutionary" hat and gave him 100 yuan and 20 catties of food stamps when they were separated.
In 1974, Yang Dezhi was transferred to the commander of the Wuhan Military Region.
Then Yang Dezhi found Li Xiang (Hou Lixiang) and said to the face of the county cadres:
"Comrade Hou Lixiang is my old comrade-in-arms, who has experienced the Long March, who has been the commander of the Red Army, and who once saved my life. He has also been injured many times, and I can testify to this! ”
After the leaders of the county listened, they hurriedly set up a special case team to collect information to prove Hou Lixiang's identity
Hou Lixiang finally restored his status as a Red Army and received the treatment of Red Army cadres.
At the same time, the organization solved his difficulties in life, and the local government and schools also came to ask him to make a report, and Hou Lixiang, who had not gone for half a lifetime, finally raised his eyebrows at this time.
It was only because he had been missing for many years that he had left the party and could no longer regain his membership as a party member.