Chen Changjie, a native of Minhou, Fujian Province, was born in 1892 and was forced to drop out of school after only a few months of private school due to his family's poverty. His teacher Tian Chungan saw that he was talented and intelligent, and could not bear that he would drop out of school like this, so he waived his tuition, and later funded him to study in normal school, and also married his daughter to him, Chen Changjie was very grateful to Tian Chungan and called him his benefactor. Later, Chen Changjie abandoned Wen Congwu and was admitted to the Baoding Army Officer School, where he became acquainted with Fu Zuoyi, who was two terms higher than him, and became a close friend.
After graduating from the military academy, at the invitation of Fu Zuoyi, Chen Changjie came to Yan Xishan's troops to serve and accumulated military merits and was promoted to division commander. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Changjie led his troops to fight against the Japanese puppet army many times, and was promoted to commander-in-chief of the 6th Group Army because of his battle achievements. Later, Yan Xishan and Lao Jiang had a conflict over the central army's entry into Shanxi to resist Japan, so they ordered the collection of some of the weapons of the scattered troops of the 90th Army in Shanxi, which was opposed by Chen Changjie. Yan Xishan, believing that Chen Changjie had separated from germany with himself, dismissed him from his military post, and Chen Changjie, in a fit of rage, led a guard battalion to Suiyuan to defect to his friend Fu Zuoyi.
After the outbreak of the Liberation War, Chen Changjie served as the commander of the Eighth Supply District of the Joint Logistics Headquarters. Later, in order to firmly hold on to Tianjin, Fu Zuoyi remembered his good friend who could fight, so he applied to Old Jiang to transfer Chen Changjie to the commander of the Tianjin garrison. After Chen Changjie took office, he made a statement to Fu Zuoyi and said: "Please rest assured commander-in-chief that with me Chen Changjie present, Tianjin will be foolproof." ”。 Chen Changjie did not blindly brag when he said this, tianjin has a complex terrain, the city is cut into several areas by the river, and the surrounding is a coastal depression, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack.
After Chen Changjie took office, he recruited migrant workers to build more than a thousand reinforced concrete bunkers, in addition to pulling up several barbed wire fences and power grids, and laying a large number of mines. The fortifications were complete and there were 130,000 heavy troops in his hands, so Chen Changjie was very confident and believed that there was no problem in holding Tianjin. At the beginning of January 1949, our army launched the Tianjin Campaign, which took 10 days to clear the outlying strongholds and encircle Tianjin. In order to reduce the casualties of innocent people and protect the city's industrial and commercial buildings, our army has sent people three times to persuade Chen Changjie to lay down his weapons.
He said: "Weapons are the second life of a soldier, and laying down a weapon is the greatest shame of a soldier. The reason why Chen Changjie said this is mainly that he believes that Tianjin's city defense is strong, and he has heavy troops in his hands, and he has a certain degree of certainty in defending it. But he misjudged the situation, when our army's siege force was as high as 340,000 people, more than 500 artillery pieces, in addition to 30 tanks and 16 armored vehicles. With absolute superiority in troops and firepower, it took only 29 hours to capture Tianjin.
When our army poured into Chen Changjie's underground headquarters, he was forced to issue one last order: surrender. However, at this time surrender and surrender before the war are completely two concepts, and if the surrender before the war is considered an uprising or surrender, the surrender can only be handled as a combat prisoner now. Chen Changjie was the first to be pardoned after ten years of reform, working in the Shanghai CppcC, and died in 1968 at the age of 76.