As we all know, General Chi Haotian was once a small soldier in the 27th Army and was also a subordinate of General Xu Shiyou. At the end of the 1950s, when Xu Shiyou was serving as a commander in the Nanjing Military Region, someone wanted to transfer Chi Haotian out of the 27th Army, but Chi Haotian was reluctant to leave, and as a result, Xu Shiyou personally spoke, and no one was allowed to transfer Chi Haotian! It is said that Xu Shiyou helped Chi Haotian a lot at a critical moment, and also achieved the 27th Army to produce two generals.
By the beginning of 1985, Xu Shiyou had been demobilized and returned to the field for several years, which was considered to be a leisurely pension at home. Once, a certain unit wanted to hold a symposium in Qingdao, and Xu Shiyou felt that he should attend the meeting, so he decided to leave Nanjing for a long trip.
Why should he go, Qingdao is the old place where he fought, in addition, he also has a wish: when passing through Jinan, he will lay wreaths to the martyrs of the Nine Columns who died in the Battle of Jinan to express his nostalgia in his heart.
Chi Haotian was then the political commissar of the Jinan Military Region.
Before leaving, Xu Shiyou personally called Chi Haotian and said:
"I recently passed through Jinan and want to lay a wreath for the martyrs who liberated Jinan, especially the cemetery of the nine-column martyrs, please be prepared."
The Nine Columns mentioned by Xu Shiyou are the predecessors of the 27th Army.
After Chi Haotian received the call, he immediately sent someone to make arrangements, but unexpectedly the problem came, in the Jinan Hero Mountain Martyrs Cemetery, there were martyrs of all columns, but no martyrs of the Ninth Column were found.
As a result, Xu Shiyou took the train to Jinan and said: "Notify Xiao Late to report the situation on the car." ”
Chi Haotian rushed over, reported the above situation to Xu Shiyou, and then said: "Please ask the old commander to get out of the car and eat a light meal." ”
When Xu Shiyou heard that there was no tomb of the martyrs of the Nine Verticals, he lost his temper and said:
"Since the tomb of the martyr of the Ninth Column has not yet been found, I will not get off the bus in Jinan."
He paused for a moment and couldn't help but say again:
"Chairman Mao named me to fight Jinan, which was originally scheduled to be fought for several months, but as a result we fought in 8 days and 8 nights, and the victory was not easy to come by, this was bought with the blood of martyrs, and we must not forget them." They are our comrades-in-arms and heroes in the liberation of Jinan, and our good days today were bought with their lives. After the liberation of Jinan Jiuzhong sacrificed more than 1,000 people, how could it not find a cemetery? Where was it buried? You keep looking. Tell me when you find it, otherwise we will be sorry for the martyrs who sacrificed, and we will not be able to account for their loved ones. Don't we have a good tradition: we are not allowed to lose a wounded man and a martyr in battle? Therefore, the warrior bravely kills the enemy, knowing that if he is wounded, someone will save him, and someone will be killed. Therefore, they followed us in the southern conquest of the northern war, and followed the Communist Party to fight for the poor in the world. ”
Xu Shiyou lost his temper, Jinan did not get off the train, did not eat lunch that day, but asked Chi Haotian to lay a wreath on his behalf to the monument of the Jinan Hero Mountain Martyrs Cemetery
This order Chi Haotian panicked. Immediately after he returned, he called the political commissar of the 27th Army: "Find the cemetery of the martyrs of the Ninth Column as soon as possible and implement Commander Xu's instructions." ”
He asked the 27th Army to come to Jinan as soon as possible to find the Ninth Column Martyrs' Cemetery based on the information on the martyrs stored there. Subsequently, the 27th Army summoned three cadres of the organs to form a tomb search group and immediately rushed to Jinan to find the martyrs' cemetery.
After the tomb-hunting group arrived in Jinan, Chi Haotian personally came to the hotel to visit them and said: "The Jinan Military Region will certainly vigorously support the tomb-hunting work, and I have already reflected the situation to the Shandong Provincial CPC Committee." ”
The tomb hunting team is also very determined, and has expressed its stance on trying to find it, and will definitely implement the instructions of the old commander.
Subsequently, the tomb search team went to Shandong Province to check the data and learned that when the Ninth Column attacked Jinan, it was attacked from the east of the city, and the east of the outer city of Jinan belonged to Licheng County, so the martyrs of the Ninth Column were not buried in Hero Mountain in Jinan City, and it was very likely that they were buried in Licheng County, so they immediately rushed to the three cemeteries in the east of Jinan City for concentrated and scattered burial, and checked them one by one.
At the Licheng County Martyrs' Cemetery, the staff told them that there were more than 1,100 graves here, most of which were nine columns. When the cemetery was first built, there was no monument, only a wooden sign was inserted next to the grave. Later, the Ninth Column fought all the way south and left Jinan, for a long time, the wooden plaque was decayed, and it was impossible to distinguish the handwriting on the wooden plaque, and the names of the people and the cemetery were no longer matched, so they were buried as unknown martyrs.
The tomb search team also learned that there are more than 70 graves in the barren mountain more than 10 kilometers away from Suncun Town, of which there are 46 martyrs in the nine columns, but this cemetery has been unmanaged for a long time and is overgrown with wild grass. There are no monuments to these graves, but the local people erected a small stone stele at each grave, carving the names and titles of the martyrs, so that they can be preserved.
The tomb-hunting team immediately rushed over and took pictures of the stone tablets of the martyrs' cemetery one by one.
Coincidentally, martyrs were buried here in the three divisions under the Ninth Column and their direct subordinate units. However, when they went back to check, the names of the 46 martyrs were not on the registration form for the martyrs of the 27th Army. Later, they learned from the people that when Jinan was liberated, the Ninth Column Medical Team lived in Suncun Town, where all the seriously injured were treated, and many of the seriously injured died and were buried here. They are not registered, but are only counted as missing persons.
After the cemetery was found, the tomb search team consulted with the Jinan civil affairs department to move the graves of 46 martyrs to the Hero Mountain Martyrs Cemetery in Jinan City, but the Ministry of Civil Affairs has regulations that all burial graves are not allowed to be relocated, and special circumstances must be approved by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Chi Haotian said, "Then ask the Jinan Municipal Party Committee." ”
The Jinan Municipal PARTY Committee replied: The Ninth Column has made outstanding contributions to the liberation of Jinan, is the first heroic unit to invade the city of Jinan, and is the largest number of casualties among several columns, and the Jinan Hero Mountain Martyrs Cemetery does not have a famous and surnamed Nine Columns Martyrs' Mausoleum, these 46 people have special representative significance, special special handling, and agreed to move to the Hero Mountain Martyrs Cemetery. ”
At the time of the relocation of the grave, the 27th Army had already gone to the front line of Laoshan to fight. Chi Haotian also decided: The Jinan Military Region will assist in undertaking the martyrs' cemetery, and the style of the cemetery will be consistent with the Jinan Hero Mountain Martyrs' Mausoleum, and the bluestone will be used to build a monument in front of the tomb.
After the completion of the relocation work, the tomb search team further verified the situation of the martyrs of the Nine Columns and came up with a complete figure: 149 cadres and 1317 soldiers, a total of 1466 soldiers, and more than 10,000 people were injured - Xu Shiyou said that the number was correct.
Yang Xuelin, deputy commander of the 27th Army, said after listening to the report: "We have 1466 martyrs, and only 46 are buried in the cemetery. ”
The Jinan civil affairs department agreed.
Therefore, the tomb search team asked experts to design the martyrs' monument and decided to build it mainly by the Jinan civil affairs department, with a budget of 150,000 yuan, and the address was selected in the Liberation Pavilion. Chi Haotian personally contacted the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and agreed that the province and city would pay for the construction of the monument.
At this time, in October 1985, Xu Shiyou died in Nanjing. He didn't wait for the day when the monument was repaired.
However, someone said: "Commander Xu lost a temper, and The political commissar was busy for more than half a year and did a good thing for the martyrs." ”
In 1987, when the construction of the Martyrs' Monument began, Chi Haotian had been transferred to the Chief of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army. The construction of the monument has encountered some problems. The comrades of the 27th Army went to Beijing and found Chi Haotian, reflecting the difficulties in building the monument, chi Haotian consulted with the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, and soon after, the construction of the martyrs' monument was completed - it was changed to the monument to the martyrs (not only the martyrs of the nine columns) who died in the Battle of Jinan, and the martyrs of the nine columns were ranked first.
The two generals who came out of the 27th Army together did a meaningful thing for the 1466 martyrs.