In September 1955, after the founding of New China, the Republic of China held a solemn ceremony to award medals to soldiers who braved the rain of bullets and bullets during the revolutionary war years, were born into death, fought bloodily, went forward and succeeded each other, and made outstanding meritorious achievements. More than a thousand shining generals during the Revolutionary War years left their names in the history of the Republican Army.
In addition to the awarding of military ranks this time, an important link is the awarding of medals, and 144 people have been awarded the three first-class medals with the highest honors at the same time: the Order of August 1st Class, the Order of Independence and Freedom of the First Class, and the Liberation Medal of the First Class, of which 10 were all awarded by the founding marshals and 10 generals, only 47 of the 57 generals, only 59 out of 177 lieutenant generals, and only 15 out of 1360 major generals were awarded.
The first-class August 1st Medal is awarded to cadres at and above the division level during the agrarian revolutionary war; the Order of Independence and Freedom of the First Class is awarded to cadres of brigade rank and equivalent to brigade level when the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army; and the Liberation Medal of the First Class is awarded to cadres at or above the military level and equivalent during the Liberation War. Today, I would like to introduce the legendary experience of He Qingji, a founding major general who won these three first-class medals at the same time.
He Qingji, born in 1909 in Yongxin, Jiangxi Province, to a poor peasant family, his parents sent him to private school for 3 years, laying a certain cultural foundation for him. In 1927, he joined the Communist Youth League and became a party member, the following year, his hometown came to the Red Army, the township set up a Soviet government, 18-year-old He Qingji served as the leader, at that time, the Red Army against the "encirclement and suppression" struggle suffered a lot of casualties, the expansion of red is one of the most important tasks of the local government, He Qingji responded to the local party organization "party members should take the lead in joining the army" call, organized mobilization to lead a group of young people to join the army, he also joined the Red Army in December 1932.
After joining the Red Army, he first served as a clerk for the division's ministry of health, and after half a year he was transferred to the company instructor, as a result, he took the 1 company into a model company of the whole regiment, during which he led a company to cover the retreat of the main force, He Qingji led a company to repulse the enemy's many attacks, seriously wounded, but still stubbornly struggled, after recovering from his wounds, he was promoted to the combat staff of the Fifty-first Regiment, and created the Xiang'echuanqian base area. Tempered in the fires of war, He Qingji made rapid progress and served as the commander of the first battalion of the Fifty-first Regiment.
In June 1935, the Red Second and Sixth Armies fought fiercely with the enemy's 41st Division at Zhongbao in western Hubei, but failed to capture the enemy position for two days. Wang Zhen, the political commissar of the Sixth Army, personally went to the position of the Fifty-first Regiment to direct the battle. He Qingji's first battalion was the main force and undertook the main offensive task, and he personally led a commando team composed of cadres at and above the platoon level to attack the enemy position and capture the enemy division commander Zhang Zhenhan alive. Wang Zhen praised him for "taking down whichever mountain he wants." After the war he was appointed chief of staff of the Fifty-first Regiment and a month later he was promoted to regimental commander.
At this time, the enemy's encirclement and suppression intensified, and He Qingji, as the commander of the regiment, led his regiment to participate in the battle of Chestnut Garden, which ambushed Chiang Kai-shek's ace force, the Eighty-fifth Division. The Fifty-first Regiment, without exception, played the role of "sharp knife" again. He Qingji led the regiment to brave the enemy's fire to flank the attack, seize the commanding heights of Nanshan, and attack the enemy at the bottom of the Lifutian Valley with the brother troops, fighting fiercely for half a day, annihilating more than 1,000 enemy troops, and killing the enemy division commander Xie Bin on the spot. The commander of the Sixth Red Army, Xiao Ke, praised him for "winning the banner and succeeding on horseback."
On the subsequent Long March, the He Qingji regiment has been undertaking urgent, difficult, dangerous tasks such as avant-garde, blockade, and cover. The Red Army entered Guizhou and was followed by the enemy's Sixteenth Division, and the Red Army decided to concentrate its main force on eliminating it in the movement, and He Qingji led the Fifty-first Regiment to break into the enemy's depth from the enemy's left flank and inflict heavy damage on the enemy's Sixteenth Division. In the fierce battle, several enemies touched He Qingji's command post and threw He Qingji, who was commanding the Fifty-first Regiment to seize the mountain, he turned over and knocked the enemy to the ground, commanded the guards to kill the enemy, continued to command the troops to take down the hill, and covered the safe transfer of large troops.
However, in the two stages when He Qingji was the commander of the regiment and the commander of the division, there were two things that made him very depressed, that is, the two political commissars who were with him successively became traitors, the previous time he led the fifty-first regiment to capture the county seat of Lixian County, Hunan, and le Shanglian, the political commissar of the regiment who was responsible for fundraising, escaped with a huge amount of money and guards. Another time was after the Long March through the meadows, the Seventeenth Division marched to the vicinity of the Tian (Shui) Lan (Zhou) Highway, was flanked by Hu Zongnan's troops, there were enemy planes on the top of the indiscriminate bombardment, the Hu army below the encirclement and interception, the seventeenth division political commissar Tang Xiangfeng feared the enemy like a rat, he was greedy for life and afraid of death, the revolutionary will was shaken, and he took a gun and led people to surrender to the Northeast Army He Zhu Guobu.
To this end, He Qingji found the leader of the legion, Wang Zhen, and complained: "How can it be that my political commissar escaped?" Wang Zhen said: "This is their personal problem, it has nothing to do with you; it is not that there is any problem with our political commissar team, am I not a political commissar?" The political commissar of this division was concurrently held by He Qingji himself. After the victorious division of the three main forces of the Red Army's Long March arrived in northern Shaanxi, the Red Army cooperated with Zhang Xueliang's Northeast Army, and the political commissar of this division, Tang Xiangfeng, was asked to return, and later, Tang Xiangfeng was put on trial.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, He Qingji served as the commander of the 719th Regiment of the 359th Brigade of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army and the chief of staff of the brigade. During the Liberation War, he served as deputy commander of the East Manchuria Military Region, brigade commander of the 23rd Brigade of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army, commander of the 28th Division of the 10th Column of the Northeast Field Army, and deputy commander and chief of staff of the Jiangxi Military Region. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as the commander of the Liaoning Provincial Military Region.
In 1955, he was awarded the rank of major general, and some comrades-in-arms gave him grievances, he opposed "encirclement and suppression", took the Long March, fought devils, attacked Changchun, fought against Montenegro, was born into death, heroic and good at war, was known for being able to fight hard and vicious battles, and was called by Wang Zhen as "which mountain you want to take down". Moreover, the commander of his division during the Red Army period, the brigade commander during the War of Resistance, and the commander of the military region in the War of Liberation must at least be awarded the title of lieutenant general. But He Qingji smiled slightly and said, thinking of those comrades who died on the battlefield, we are very lucky to be able to do this.