In Chinese history, there have been many well-known female generals, such as women's good, Mulan, etc. In modern times, although there are not many female generals, there are also people who do not allow their eyebrows to be shaved, such as Li Zhen.
Among the more than 1,600 founding generals in New China, Li Zhen is the only female general, and those who can become the founding generals are by no means idle people, and it is even more precious to be a woman.
Pictured: General Li Zhen conferred the title
Li Zhen, born in 1908 in a poor peasant family in Liuyang County, Hunan Province, has 6 sisters, her father died early, due to the inability to support, she was sent to a family with an ancient surname as a child bride at the age of 6. Child bride-in-law, to put it bluntly, is a yahuan, indispensable to cold eyes and beaten, which also makes Li Zhen have a boyish personality from a young age, tough and resolute.
In 1926, Li Zhen ran away from her in-laws' house, joined the army the following year, and joined the Liudong guerrillas, thus beginning her glory years. She successively experienced the Autumn Harvest Uprising, the Anti-Encirclement and Suppression Operation, the Long March of the Red Army, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the War of Liberation, and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and grew from an ordinary female soldier to a deputy of the Grand Military Region.
Pictured: Li Zhen in her youth
Although there have been many achievements on the battlefield, the married life is more difficult. Li Zhen has experienced three marriages in succession, and has no queen in her life, but the "shabby" in her later years is even more impressive.
Li Zhen's first husband was named Gu Tianshun, and it was the son of the family she had been a child bridesmaid. Gu Tianshun is 4 years older than Li Zhen, this person is grumpy and irritable, and if he is slightly unhappy, he punches and kicks Li Zhen. Li Zhen finally couldn't stand it and chose to run away from home. Seeing Li Zhen join the army, the in-laws were afraid of causing trouble, so they divorced her, which was an unhappy marriage.
Pictured: Li Zhen is the third from the left
In the second marriage, although the husband was not as grumpy as Gu Tianshun, the two could not be consummated in the end. The second husband, Zhang Qilong, met, knew, fell in love with each other in the war, and came together. Not long after the marriage, Zhang Qilong was mistakenly regarded as an "AB group member", in order not to involve Li Zhen, Zhang Qilong had no choice but to divorce Li Zhen.
The third marriage is still relatively happy than the first two, and her husband is the famous founding general Gan Siqi. They were brokered by Marshal He Long, and after marriage, the couple embarked on the Long March.
Pictured: Li Zhen and General Gan Siqi
Li Zhen's three marriages also had no children, one child died in the womb that year, and another child with General Gan Siqi also died in the Long March, and there were no children after that.
However, although Li Zhen and General Gan Siqi did not have children of their own, they adopted more than 20 martyrs' orphans, regarded them as their own, took good care of them, and raised them as adults. Because of raising more than 20 children, various living expenses are very large, and General Li Zhen in his later years has a very hard life, and even some "shabby". But even so, as a general who came out of the suffering, Li Zhen still stuck to his nature.
Pictured: Portrait of Li Zhenrong, the first female general of New China
She lives in an old house on the outskirts of Beijing, with little decent furniture in the house, and even if she is in the deputy position of the Grand Military Region, it is no exaggeration to say that she is a disciple of the family. However, although the life was poor, General Li Zhen did not value it, and she often said: "Compared with those comrades who sacrificed, I am already very happy." ”
On March 11, 1990, General Li Zhen died in Beijing at the age of 82. When sorting out the relics of her room, one can't believe that this is the home of the founding general: an old rattan chair that has been used for more than a decade, a marching box that has not been replaced for 40 years, a single-door refrigerator with a "snowflake" brand that has been used for 14 years, and a small number of deposits, all of which were donated according to General Li Zhen's will.
Pictured: General Li Zhen in his later years
Worthy of the older generation of generals who came out of the war years, leading by example, people are impressed and saluted!