In August 1947, Liu Deng's army waved his troops at Dabie Mountain, when the soldiers of the 6th Column of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army were ordered to go to Dabie Mountain to support, passing through the Huang'an area, because the soldiers did not understand the local terrain, they got lost in the Huang'an area, at this time, a peasant appeared in front, and the PLA soldiers thought of letting the peasants act as guides and take them out.
This peasant was also very happy to see the SOLDIERs of the People's Liberation Army, greeted them warmly, pulled up the family's routine, and chatted happily. After a few hours, the farmers finally took the PLA fighters to a major road and pointed them out the direction to go next.
At this time, the peasant stopped and said to the SOLDIERs of the People's Liberation Army:
"The rest of the way is up to you, there is an elderly mother in the family who needs to be taken care of, and I have to go back."
After hearing the peasants' words, the PLA soldiers said with concern:
"Say hello to the eldest lady on my behalf."
After saying this, he asked the farmer's family with interest:
"Do we have any other siblings in our family?"
Figure | Platon soldier
At this time, the peasants showed great pride and smiled and said to the PLA soldiers:
"My brother has been in the army for 18 years, his name is Chen Xilian, and now he is also a soldier of the People's Liberation Army, and he has published his deeds in the newspaper before!"
Seeing that the peasants in front of him were so happy, the SOLDIER soldiers were also happy for him, laughing and saying:
"That's remarkable, he must be a very good warrior, by the way, what's his name?" Maybe I know. ”
The farmer replied:
"My brother's name is Chen Xilian, do you know him?"
As soon as these words were uttered, the PLA soldiers were stunned and particularly shocked, and the PLA soldier who took the lead said:
"Wouldn't your brother be the commander of the Third Column of the Field Army?"
The peasants did not understand what the PLA soldiers were talking about, and looked at the PLA soldiers with a puzzled face. At this time, the PLA soldiers asked some more about Chen Xilian's characteristics, and after a circle of inquiries, the PLA confirmed that the peasant in front of them was Chen Xilian's younger brother.
After learning the identity of the peasants, the PLA soldiers also told the peasants about Chen Xilian's presence in the army over the years, and said that Commander Chen Xilian missed his relatives at home and expressed the hope that their family could go and reunite with Commander Chen Xilian.
At this time, he saw the peasant looking at the PLA soldiers in a daze, he was shocked by what the PLA soldiers had just said, he did not expect that his brother had achieved such a high achievement now, and after a few seconds, the peasants finally came back to his senses, took the PLA soldiers to his home, and told the news to his old mother.
In this way, this family came with the SOLDIERs of the People's Liberation Army
Chen Xilian
On December 9, after a period of travel, he came to the vicinity of Chen Xilian's temporary command post, at this time, the sentries not far away also saw Chen Xilian's mother and others, but he did not know, so he stepped forward to inquire.
Figure | Chen Xilian
The sentry said:
"Which unit are you from?"
The leading PLA soldiers said:
"We are the 6th Column of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army, and we have been ordered to come to support."
"It turned out to be reinforcements, so I'll go and give a briefing."
The sentry smiled and said that just as the sentry was about to turn around and report, he saw an old lady in the line and asked curiously:
"Who is this?"
Seeing the sentry puzzled, the PLA soldier explained:
"This is the mother of Commander Chen Xilian, and the one next to him is the younger brother of Commander Chen Xilian."
The sentry looked at the old man in front of him, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt like their commander, Chen Xilian, so he let them in, and then quickly ran to Chen Xilian's side and told Chen Xilian the news.
At this time, Chen Xilian was deploying a combat strategy inside the command post, and when he saw the sentry rushing in, he was also very confused, so he asked:
"What happened?"
The sentry adjusted his rapid breathing for a moment, then said:
"Commander, there's good news that your mother is here."
At this time, Chen Xilian was very surprised and said loudly to the sentry:
"What do you say? My mother is coming? Where is she now? ”
The sentry was so excited to see the commander, and he was also pleased, and smiled and said:
"They're rushing this way, they should be coming soon."
After hearing the sentry's words, Chen Xilian hurriedly ran out.
Just when he just ran to the door, he saw his mother, only to see her mother holding a crutch in her hand, walking towards him step by step, seeing this scene, Chen Xilian's eyes instantly turned red, and he quickly ran to his mother's side and knelt down in front of his mother:
"Mother, it's been hard along the way."
Seeing her son kneeling beside her, her mother quickly lifted him up, patted him on the shoulder, and said:
"The mother is not tired, and seeing that you are safe and sound, the mother will be relieved."
This scene touched all the soldiers present, and they also remembered their mother, who did not know how she was doing.
"Mother of thousands of miles is worried."
Yes, every mother in this world is worried about her son, even if the distance is far, she will still rush to her son's side to see her son, which is the greatness of family affection.
In the evening, the mother and son talked a lot, and the mother was eager to know whether her son had a good life over the years, and at the same time talked to Chen Xilian about things when he was a child.
On January 4, 1915, Chen Xilian was born in a poor peasant family in Huang'an, Hubei Province, in order to live, Chen Xilian's father ran to build a house to make money, although life was hard, but the family was still very happy together, but just when Chen Xilian was three years old, the family encountered a change.
That year, Chen Xilian's father was accidentally injured when he was helping a family build a house, and he died not long after, leaving his mother and Chen Xilian several brothers and sisters to rely on each other. Because of the death of her father, the burden of the family fell on her mother alone, she had to go out to work during the day and take care of the young Chen Xilian at night, and her life was very hard.
After their father left, they were left with only two thatched houses and an acre of barren land, and Chen Xilian's mother relied on these things to pull Chen Xilian up.
Figure | Thatched house
When Chen Xilian reached the age when he should study, he also wanted to go to school happily like other children in the village, carrying a school bag, but the family was very poor, there was no money for him to study, and after a long time, Chen Xilian also broke off the idea of reading, and he began to help his mother work and reduce the burden on the family.
At that time, Chen Xilian herded cattle for the landlord's family, and every day he could be seen leading the cattle to the mountain, at first, Chen Xilian thought that he could make money in this way, but when it came time to pay the work, the landlord saw that their family was weak, so he relied on not giving, there was no way, Chen Xilian had to change his family to continue working.
However, the crows in the world were as black as black, and Chen Xilian had changed several times before and after, all of which were the same result, and such an experience made Chen Xilian particularly hate those landlords, but at present he was still young and had no ability to deal with them.
Figure | landowner
A few years later, the living conditions of Chen Xilian's family became worse and worse, and in desperation, Chen Xilian's mother had to take Chen Xilian to the street to beg for food, and once in the process of begging for food, Chen Xilian's mother and son met their distant relatives, who thought that the relative would help, but what they did not expect was that their mother was beaten by that relative.
What's going on?
It turned out that the distant relative disliked Chen Xilian's mother and son begging for food on the street, afraid of affecting their own reputation, so without saying a word, they beat Chen Xilian's mother, and at that time, Chen Xilian swore in his heart that he would definitely get ahead in the future and let his mother live a good life.
One day in 1929, the wave of revolution swept through Chen Xilian's hometown, and near his hometown, the rise of guerrillas propagating the revolution made Chen Xilian very yearning, and he felt that if he wanted to change his destiny, he had to join the revolution.
One day, he told his mother what he thought, but he did not expect that his mother would resolutely oppose it, because he was the pillar of this family, and his mother was afraid that he would have an accident, but after that, Chen Xilian's mother had to tie Chen Xilian with a rope every night when she slept, afraid that he would sneak out.
As the call for revolution grew louder, Chen Xilian finally secretly cut the rope in his hand one night in April 1929 and ran to join the guerrillas.
Figure | guerilla
Not long after joining the guerrillas, according to the instructions of his superiors, Chen Xilian's guerrilla group was officially incorporated into the Red Army; at that time, Chen Xilian was relatively young, and in the process of reorganization, he was not old enough, so he was refused to go back.
Later, with the help of the guerrillas, Chen Xilian remained in the Red Army, responsible for herding the soldiers' horses, and when Chen Xilian grew older, he became a real Red Army.
At that time, Chen Xilian had a nickname in the team, called "Small Steel Cannon", how did this nickname come from?
On March 9, 1931, shortly after Chen Xilian officially became the Red Army, he followed the team to participate in a small battle, and when attacking the town of Shuangqiao, he charged in front, like a fierce tiger descending the mountain, just at this time, the comrade carrying the flag was unfortunately hit by the enemy's shells and fell.
Therefore, Chen Xilian immediately ran to the comrade-in-arms, took the flag in his hand, and continued to charge at the enemy, and after this battle, the soldiers of our army captured the town of Shuangqiao and captured the enemy's commander alive
Yue Weijun
Since then, Chen Xilian has had the title of "small steel cannon".
In October 1933,
Chiang Kai-shek
appoint
Liu Xiang
For the sake of the commander-in-chief of the "suppression of bandits," a large number of troops were gathered to launch an attack on our army. At that time, the Red Army fighters quickly tightened their positions to resist the enemy's attack, at that time, Chen Xilian's unit was responsible for holding huofeng Mountain, and the enemy launched one fierce attack after another, but they were all blocked by our soldiers.
Figure | Chiang Kai-shek
When the enemy saw that the attack was fruitless, he retreated again, preparing to accumulate strength and launch a second attack; at this moment, the soldiers of our army rushed down, intending to catch the enemy by surprise, but the enemy was also on guard, and they arranged for some fighters to be painted with oil paint on their bodies, carrying large knives, and pretending to be demons and ghosts to confuse the soldiers of our army.
Suddenly, the soldiers of our army were also confused by this scene, and rushed back, while shouting in their mouths:
"Heaven sent down the Divine Soldier, the Divine Soldier is coming."
However, Chen Xilian did not believe this, he had already seen through the enemy's disguise, and said loudly to the soldiers:
"There are no demons at all, these are just the usual tricks of the enemy, and we cannot be fooled."
After saying this, he took up the weapon in his hand and rushed toward the enemy, only to hear a "hiss", and those divine soldiers who claimed to be invincible fell to the ground in response.
After this battle, the soldiers of our army captured a large number of weapons and equipment of the enemy, and Chen Xilian's reputation as a "small steel cannon" became more and more popular, spreading throughout the entire Red Army contingent.
In fact, Chen Xilian also made a lot of jokes in the ranks, remembering that at that time, the Red Army fighters laid down daxian County, where the Sichuan warlord Liu Cunhou was entrenched, in addition to capturing a large number of weapons and equipment, there were also a large number of daily necessities and gold and silver treasures, most of the Red Army at that time came from poor families, there were many things that they did not know, so they also made a lot of jokes.
Figure | Red army
One of the Red Army soldiers bound the captured wax paper and used it as a notebook, and we all know that the wax paper cannot be used to write, and it cannot be written, it is very slippery, but some Red Army soldiers do not know, no matter how he writes on the wax paper, he can never write, at this time he will complain:
"The paper made by the reactionaries is also contaminated with reaction, and it is impossible to write anything."
At that time, Chen Xilian had not seen the golden bricks, thinking that it was just ordinary bricks, so he took it to the foot of the bed, and later found it by other soldiers, who immediately reminded him:
"Why are you still hiding gold bricks?" Why don't you hand over such a valuable thing? ”
Chen Xilian was also surprised and said:
"I haven't seen a gold brick, and I thought it was just an ordinary copper block!"
Afterwards, Chen Xilian handed over this golden brick to the organization.
In October 1937, Chen Xilian led the 769th Regiment to Sulongkou on the south bank of the Tuotuo River, where Japanese planes could be seen flying overhead every day, sometimes two, sometimes four, arrogantly.
Figure | plane
At that time, Chen Xilian judged that there must be an enemy airfield nearby, otherwise it would be impossible for so many planes to fly every day, so Chen Xilian found the local villagers to inquire, and sure enough, there was a place called Yangmingbao nearby, where there was an enemy airfield.
After learning this news, Chen Xilian was extremely excited, and secretly made up his mind that he must blow up the Japanese airfield, and the next day, Chen Xilian got up early and led several soldiers to Yangmingbao for reconnaissance.
In fact, this number is already relatively large, if these aircraft are destroyed, it will undoubtedly weaken the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army, but how to do it, or to go back and make a good arrangement.
At that time, the Japanese army in Yangmingbao did not have a lot of troops, only about 200 people, but also neglected defense, they drove planes around during the day, and at night they all stopped at the airfield, so it was a very good choice to move at night.
After returning to the garrison, Chen Xilian immediately summoned cadres to a meeting to discuss the details of the operation, and finally, through everyone's discussion, it was decided that the three battalions would be responsible for the main attack, the first battalion would interfere with the enemy, and at the same time destroy the enemy's transportation to prevent the enemy from escaping, and some soldiers of the second battalion would be responsible for receiving them.
When the battle strategy was formulated, Chen Xilian also deliberately took the battalion commanders of the three battalions and some other cadres to Yangmingbao to conduct on-the-spot reconnaissance and obtain favorable information for the smooth progress of the battle.
On the night of October 19, the soldiers of our army began to move, and they took advantage of the night to come to the outside of Yangmingbao, the Japanese airfield was in front of them, and the soldiers were ambushed in the nearby grass, ready to attack.
At this time, under the order of Chen Xilian, the soldiers of the three battalions took the lead in attacking, and the fighters of the other two battalions also performed their duties. Dense bullets formed a net of fire and flew towards the enemy, and the enemy faced this sudden attack, and for a while he also confused his hands and feet and fled in a hurry.
At this time, the enemy in the cabin also sensed the movement outside, for this, in fact, Chen Xilian had been prepared, only to see him order the soldiers to throw grenades into the belly of the plane, "boom" a few times, the plane immediately ignited flames, and finally, the flames spread to the entire airport, all the planes were burned.
This night attack on Yangmingbao not only struck at the arrogance of the Japanese army, but also weakened their strength, and the prestige of the Eighth Route Army was greatly enhanced, and even Chiang Kai-shek had to commend the 769 regiment.
In 1947, Chen Xilian's mother came to his side, and the mother and son, who had not seen each other for 18 years, embraced each other at this moment, looking at their son's current achievements, the mother was very happy, and the son has always been the pride in his heart.
At the beginning of 1950, in view of the situation of our army, the Central Committee decided to establish a strong national defense force, so who should be at the helm of the artillery? After thinking about it,
Chairman Mao
say:
"I remember that in the Red Fourth Front, there was a nickname called Chen Xilian called 'Little Steel Cannon,' and he was definitely capable of this work."
Figure | Chairman Mao
In this way, in April 1950, Chen Xilian was appointed commander of artillery of the Central Military Commission, and at the beginning, Chen Xilian was particularly worried, he had never commanded a single army, afraid that he would be difficult to do this work, so he found his old chief Liu Bocheng.
Chen Xilian pair
Liu Bocheng
"The Central Committee appointed me as the commander-in-chief of artillery, but I have never had any experience in this area before, and I am afraid that it will be difficult to do this work."
After hearing Chen Xilian's concern, Liu Bocheng said comfortingly:
"You don't have to worry too much about this, no one is born with it, if we don't understand, we can learn, and the central authorities let you serve as the commander-in-chief of artillery, there must be his reason, you just have to do it seriously."
After this conversation, Chen Xilian was encouraged, he believed that he would be able to do a good job in this work, so he first found a large number of books, through books to learn a lot of theoretical knowledge, but also knew that if you want to form artillery, what is currently lacking?
After knowing this, Chen Xilian immediately began to organize the artillery, and at that time there were only three divisions of reserve artillery, which was completely insufficient.
Therefore, Chen Xilian asked the central authorities for instructions, and from the central and southern, southwestern, and northwestern military regions, 8 infantry divisions with good quality were mobilized and converted into artillery.
In the beginning, these infantry did not meet the artillery standards at all, and needed to quickly master the professional skills of artillery, so special training for assault was very necessary. After a period of special training, these infantry have fully mastered some of the techniques of artillery, and the work of forming artillery is also proceeding smoothly and orderly.
Figure | artillery
At the end of 1953, the reserve artillery of the whole army already had 23 divisions, 88 regiments and 22 independent battalions, and at that time there were many artillery institutions, artillery schools, etc., which solved a series of problems in artillery and sent a large number of artillery talents to our country.
In fact, when the artillery was just established in 1950, Chen Xilian ordered thousands of Soviet artillery and corresponding transport equipment and communication equipment. Among the thousands of artillery pieces were large-caliber long-range cannons with cannons and anti-aircraft guns designed to deal with enemies in the air.
At that time, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea had just begun, so all these artillery equipment were suitable for use on the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, while those old miscellaneous artillery pieces were repaired and improved, and after the improvement, the total number of artillery in our country doubled.
Thanks to the efforts of Chen Xilian and others, the weapons of Our artillery have been transitioned from the original miscellaneous type to the Soviet artillery, which has greatly enhanced its power, and it also has an artillery unit that can fight alone and cooperate.
In 1955, at the first ceremony of awarding titles in china, Chen Xilian was awarded the rank of general, when Chairman Mao shook Chen Xilian's hand and said:
"It is a great blessing for the Chinese artillery to have you, and I am very relieved that the artillery is in your hands."
Figure | The first conferment ceremony in our country
On June 10, 1999, General Chen Xilian died in Beijing.
Looking back at the life of General Chen Xilian, we can see that he is firm in his determination of the party and the country, persists in seeking truth from facts, and takes a clear-cut stand; he can achieve the achievements he has made today, completely relying on his own fighting time and again, and dedication again and again in exchange for such talents, which is the person that our country needs and the pride of all of us.