True warriors are not only loved by their own officers and soldiers, but also respected by their opponents. Admiral Zhang Wannian is one of the outstanding representatives.
01, the commander of the US Army shouted that today finally caught you
In 1998, when Zhang Wannian visited the United States, during a visit to the US Army Base at Fort Benning, General Shally, then commander of the US Army, suddenly hugged Zhang Wannian and shouted: "Today I finally caught you."
Why is Shali so excited? Because they were also generals, they fought in the Vietnam War. In 1968, Zhang Wannian participated in the "War to Resist the United States" as an adviser to our army, and was then deputy director of the Operations Department of the Guangzhou Military Region.
At the time of the Battle of Creek Hill, the current General Shali was still a scout. One day, Zhang Wannian was inspecting the battlefield, and Shali was struggling to fight the Vietnamese army in the Route 9 area, a few kilometers away from Zhang Wannian.
The Vietnam War brought great pain to the US army, but our army suffered a crushing defeat for the invincible Vietnamese army in the 10-year self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, and Zhang Wannian, who was the commander of the 127th Division at the time, made the Vietnamese army play the slogan of "crush 127, capture Zhang Wannian alive". In the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, our army even defeated the "United Nations Army" headed by the US military.
Therefore, it is not so much that Shali hugged Zhang Wannian because he had fought in the Vietnamese battlefield, but also because our army won the respect of the US army by virtue of its victory on the battlefield, and General Zhang Wannian's battle achievements were enough to make General Shali proud to hold him.
Before parting, General Shally clasped Zhang Wannian's hand and said: "The Chinese Army is a great army, the US Army is also a great army, we have already fought once on the battlefield, I hope that the soldiers of our two countries will never meet each other on the battlefield."
Admiral Zhang Wannian has completely won the respect of the US military with his brilliant experience and personality charm.
02. The Tower Mountain Resistance Battle was a great achievement
In the 1927 "August 1st" Nanchang Uprising, on August 1 of the following year, Zhang Wannian was born in a poor peasant family in Huangxian County, Shandong Province. In August 1944, at the age of 16, he joined the Eighth Route Army and served as a soldier in the Jiaodong Military Region. The commander of the Jiaodong Military Region at that time was Xu Shiyou.
At that time, Xu Shiyou commanded thousands of troops and horses, and it was impossible to know a fledgling recruit. Thirty-five years later, Zhang Wannian was the commander of the 127th Division of the 43rd Army, and Xu Shiyou was the commander of the Guangzhou Military Region. In the counterattack against vietnamese self-defense, the 127th Division fought in the direction of Guangxi, Xu Shiyou was the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front, and Zhang Wannian's command ability left a deep impression on Xu Shiyou.
In February 1945, Zhang Wannian's first participation in the battle was to fight with the white blade of the Japanese army, and Ming's dangling bayonet made him understand: "When you are a soldier, don't be afraid of death, you must rush forward when fighting!" ”
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang reactionary clique headed by Chiang Kai-shek prepared to launch a civil war. Some troops of the Jiaodong Military Region were transferred to the northeast to establish a base area, and 17-year-old Zhang Wannian also crossed the Bohai Sea from Jiaodong with his troops and advanced into the northeast, becoming a commander and fighter in Siye.
In September 1948, at the age of 20, Zhang Wannian became the chief of the communications unit of the 36th Regiment of the 12th Division of the 4th Column of the Northeast Field Army. On October 10, 1948, he took part in the most tragic Battle of Tower Hill since his enlistment.
In the 6 days and 6 nights of fighting, Zhang Wannian led the communication soldiers to keep the telephone line open at all times, and wherever the telephone line was blown up, there were their figures. At the height of the battle, he braved the enemy's bullets and bullets to shuttle through the artillery fire.
During the connection of the telephone line for the 9th, the Nationalist army covered the positions of the 9th Company for half an hour, and 91 officers and men of the 9th Company were killed and wounded, which was the largest loss of the 36th Regiment in a single battle in the Battle of Tashan. Zhang Wannian was lucky to pass by the God of Death.
After the war, the Kuomintang army's plan to reinforce Jinzhou was completely bankrupt, and the 36th Regiment was awarded the "Baitaishan Hero Regiment". Zhang Wannian was a pioneer and a great meritorious soldier. His warrior Wang Zhenying created the miracle of "eight successions and eight breaks" in the battle, was awarded the special merit and the "Mao Zedong Medal", and became the first "signal soldier hero" in the history of our army.
After the end of the Liaoshen Campaign, Zhang Wannian took part in the Battle of Pingjin with his troops. In March 1949, zhang Wannian, who had been in the army for less than five years, came to the first highlight of his military career, and he was selected as a representative of the heroic model and was inspected by Chairman Mao and Commander-in-Chief Zhu at Xiyuan Airport in Beijing. This honor was an honor he will never forget.
03. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it began to show command ability and ability to lead troops
In November 1949, in the Battle of Shiwei in RongXian County, Guangxi, Zhang Wannian led more than 20 people and set a record of capturing 1,500 enemy security regiments.
In 1955, at the age of 27, Zhang Wannian was awarded the rank of lieutenant. The following year, he was promoted to deputy regimental commander and chief of staff of the 367th Regiment of the 123rd Division of the 41st Army.
In June 1956, Marshal Peng Dehuai, then Minister of National Defense, accompanied by Huang Kecheng, chief of the General Staff, and Chen Geng, deputy chief of the General Staff, went to eastern Guangdong to inspect the combat readiness of the troops.
Zhang Wannian was very clear about the topography of the eastern Guangdong region, how the combat troops were deployed and the battle plan, so he accompanied him on the inspection.
Mr. Peng has made outstanding achievements in battle, has rich experience in fighting wars, and always hits the nail on the head when asking Zhang Wannian questions, but he has his own views on the answers, and he is clearly organized. Even Mr. Peng, who rarely praised people, couldn't help but praise him: "You are like a living map." ”
General Chen Geng, who was also a veteran, was very optimistic about Zhang Wannian, and on the way he ridiculed him: "Your boy is not ambitious, and he wants to live for ten thousand years." ”
When Zhang Wannian was the commander of the regiment, he successively led the 367th Regiment to participate in the 41st Army, the Guangzhou Military Region, and the all-army competition, all of which achieved excellent results.
In addition, Zhang Wannian loves soldiers like a son, and has always led the soldiers with virtue and with affection. Every time he went to the company to check, he mingled with the soldiers, and the soldiers regarded him as their big brother. In 1993, Zhang Wannian, who was already the chief of the general staff, Deng Xiaoping commented that he was a real soldier.
In April 1968, Zhang Wannian, then deputy director of the Operations Department of the Guangzhou Military Region, suddenly disappeared for a year, and he was sent to Vietnam to study as an "adviser" to experience the most modern war in the world at that time.
After a year of study, he successively participated in the Battle of Khe Son and the Battle of Dong He, which not only allowed him to learn the advantages of the US military's combat, understand the reasons for the defeat of the US army in Vietnam, but also carefully studied the Vietnamese army's tactics of using mountain jungles and tropical rainforests to resist the US army, as well as field survival and logistical support methods. The U.S. army scout Shally, later the commander of the U.S. Army, was also involved in the war, and there was the scene at the beginning of the article.
Because Zhang Wannian spent a year in Vietnam, in 1979, the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam broke out, and the Vietnamese people knew that Zhang Wannian participated, and they immediately felt more fierce and less auspicious, because he knew too much about the Vietnamese army.
04, the Vietnamese shouted out the slogan "Crush 127, capture Zhang Wannian alive"
In December 1978, Zhang Wannian was studying at the Military Academy when he suddenly received a promotion order to appoint him as deputy commander of the 43rd Army, but also commander of the 127th Division. At this time, he had been the commander of the division for 10 years. Immediately afterward, Zhang Wannian received a notice to end his study ahead of schedule and quickly return to the 127th Division to make preparations for combat on the guangxi front.
Zhang Wannian has been in the battlefield for a long time, and he is happy to hear about the war, but most of the officers and men of the 127th Division grew up after the founding of the People's Republic of China. After returning to the division, Wang Fuhai, chief of staff of the division, asked Zhang Wannian that our troops had not fought a war for 20 years, and this time they had no bottom in mind.
However, this doubt was quickly dispelled. At the pre-war mobilization meeting, the entire 127th Division was jubilant and the morale of the army was greatly encouraged.
Although the 127th Division was stripped of a large number of backbones to supplement other participating units and 3,000 new recruits, Zhang Wannian relied on his own combat experience and Vietnamese learning experience to prepare the 127th Division to participate in the war in a short period of time.
From the 5th day of arriving at the border, he sent deputy division commander Ma You to lead the scouts of the whole division, crossed the border many times and stepped on points, and collected a large amount of first-hand enemy information.
The last live-fire exercise organized before the war was conducted on a rainy night, and Chu Chuanyu, commander of the 43rd Army, was very convinced after seeing it, and directly told the recruits of the 127th Division: "Deputy Commander Zhang has trained you to be like this, and it is really unreasonable that you can no longer fight!" ”
From the evening of February 16, 1979, the 127th Division marched from Aidian, 92 kilometers from YouyiGuan, into Vietnam in batches from the small road, and by March 11, the 127th Division had all withdrawn to China. In the 22-day battle, Zhang Wannian adopted the tactic of "killing chickens with ox knives" and concentrated superior forces in the Vietnamese military towns of Lang Son and Lu Binh to fight the annihilation war, winning four battles and killing 2125 captured Vietnamese troops.
After the invasion of Luping City, the streets were plastered with slogans that read, "Crush 127, Capture Zhang Wannian alive." Zhang Wannian laughed when he saw it, praising the accuracy of the Vietnamese intelligence work and knowing that he was commanding the troops.
On May 12, 1979, the People's Liberation Army Daily published an article entitled "Killing Chickens with a Cattle Knife -- Division Commander Zhang Wannian on the Issue of Concentrating Forces to Fight the War of Annihilation." Deng Xiaoping, then chief of the general staff, read it and greatly appreciated the tactics of concentrating on the use of troops and super-commonly used troops.
In November 1987, Zhang Wannian took over as commander of the Guangzhou Military Region. In 1992, Zhang Wannian was recommended by Deng Xiaoping as a member of the Central Military Commission and chief of the General Staff, and was promoted to the rank of general in June 1993.
At 17:00 on January 14, 2015, General Zhang Wannian died in Beijing at the age of 87 due to ineffective medical treatment.
In addition to the founding fathers, Zhang Wannian was the first general to be officially called a "military expert", and a generation of gods of war came to an end.