As we all know, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a Northeast Anti-Japanese Coalition Army was active in the northeast, with a total of 11 armies and more than 30,000 people at its peak, which contained more than 700,000 Japanese troops in the northeast and made great contributions to the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
So, why is the Northeast Anti-Japanese Coalition Army called the "Coalition Army"?
Because these troops were not only the Chinese army led by the Communist Party, but also the armed forces of Koreans, mainly guerrillas organized by the Korean Communist Party (later changed to the Workers' Party).
After Japan invaded and occupied Korea, many Koreans who did not want to be slaves to the country fled Korea with their families and came to northeast China. These Koreans, young and old, all firmly advocated resisting Japan and hoping for the restoration of the motherland, so there were many Korean female fighters in the Anti-Japanese League later, and Lee Jae-deok was one of them.
Lee Jae-deok was born in 1917 in Jiecheon-gun, South Pyongan Province, North Korea, to parents who were anti-Logists, and when Lee Jae-deok was 3 years old, his parents fled to northeast China with Lee Jae-deok in order to avoid japanese capture.
A few years later, his father was arrested and killed by the Japanese Kou, and his mother supported the family alone, and also sent Li Zaide to the Songdong Model School, the founder of which was Cui Shiquan, the later commander of the 7th Army of the Northeast Anti-Japanese League.
In 1933, Lee Jae-deok's mother was arrested and killed due to betrayal by traitors, and Lee Jae-deok became an orphan.
Fortunately, Li Zaide joined the Young Pioneers when she was in school and became a small anti-Japanese fighter, without her parents, but she still had the "big family" of the Anti-Japanese League.
In the brutal battle, the young Lee Jae-deok was not afraid at all, she was more diligent than the others, and when others rested, she was still dragging her tired body around, looking for wild vegetables and dry firewood.
Unconsciously, Li Zaide has become a big girl, the Anti-Japanese League is a big family, young male and female fighters, will also form a revolutionary family under the arrangement of the organization, in July 1937, Li Zaide and some unmarried female fighters, and the unmarried male comrades who fought together held a collective wedding.
The wedding ceremony was simple, with Zhou Baozhong as the main marriage person, making a brief speech to encourage them to "resist Japan together and revolution to the end", and then it was over.
(Photo: Lee Jae-de and her husband Yu Baohe)
There was no new house, so everyone used the captured Japanese marching tent as a "marriage room"; if there was no gift, they picked wildflowers for decoration, and in that hard time, no one cried bitterly.
Lee Jae-deok's husband, Yu Bohe, an anti-league radio expert, had only one day of "honeymoon", and then the two separated and fought separately.
In the harsh environment, Li Zaide's first two children did not stay, one died within a few days of birth, and the other had to be sent to his hometown due to the urgent action of the troops, and later lost contact.
In 1939, due to the overly cruel situation of struggle, the Anti-Japanese League had to withdraw into the territory of the Soviet Union, accept the leadership of the Soviet Army, and organize it into the Independent 88th Brigade of the Red Banner Army in the Far East of the Soviet Union, which is the famous "International Brigade in the Far East".
During his time in the Soviet Union, Lee gave birth to another daughter, and at that time, another Korean female fighter gave birth to a baby boy, and this female fighter was weak and had no milk, so Lee Jae-deok resolutely breastfed the baby boy. Later, the baby boy became the second generation leader of the Republic of Korea.
Seeing this, do you think that Lee Jae-de has lived the life of a housewife? Of course not, Lee Jae-de is still a warrior, she also needs to undergo more heavy military training, including radio, shooting, fighting, skiing, parachuting and other special training, to become a full-fledged "special operations female soldier".
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Soviet Union and Japan were superficially "peaceful" for a long time, but the espionage war between the two sides was non-stop, and due to the Chinese of the Anti-Japanese Fighters and the identity of the Koreans, most of the spies sent by the Soviet Union were these Anti-League fighters.
Li Zaide received such a task, lurking to Puppet Manchuria, reconnoitring the Japanese military facilities, troop deployment and other intelligence, and then sneaking back to the secret camp and using the radio to send the information to the Soviet army.
In the northeast, winter is extremely cold, and in summer there is another terrible natural disaster - mosquito plague, mosquitoes are so many that they can almost suck the blood of cattle and horses dry!
What is even more difficult is that there are often grain shortages, Li Zaide had to collect wild vegetables, mushrooms, and even bark and wild grass to fill his hunger, and he did not eat a single grain of rice for more than 20 consecutive days, all by virtue of his loyalty to the revolution and hatred for the Japanese, Li Zaide persisted until the day of victory in the War of Resistance!
After the founding of New China, Li Zaide was assigned to Premier Zhou's side as a confidential secretary and once in charge of Premier Zhou's seal.
However, due to special historical reasons, Lee Jae-deok's identity is very delicate, although she and the people around her have long regarded her as a Chinese, but her nationality has not yet been determined, and finally under her repeated applications, after Xie Jueya's personal approval, Lee Jae-deok finally became an official Chinese.
Because of Lee's special status and experience, he was greatly respected in China, North Korea, and the Soviet Union, and he often accompanied delegations to North Korea and was warmly received by the Kim family.
In 2005, Russia held a grand commemoration of the Victory Day of the Great Patriotic War, and Li Zaide was invited to attend as a representative of China, and was cordially received by the President of Russia and awarded a commemorative medal.
On August 22, 2019, the elderly Li Zaide completed his glorious life at the age of 102, and the Governments of China, North Korea and Russia sent people to send wreaths to commemorate this extraordinary century old man.