At 11:55 a.m. on August 8, 2000, Xu Shenji, a founding lieutenant general who had been deputy commander of the Air Force and deputy commander of the Beijing Military Region, died of illness in Beijing.
"No memorial service will be held, no farewell will be given, useful organs will be donated to those in need, the remains will be dedicated to medicine for dissection, and no ashes will be left after cremation."
Lieutenant General Xu Shenji
In the face of death, Xu Shenji was not only very calm, but also still thought of the people and thought of doing his utmost to the motherland.
In fact, this revolutionary style of facing life and death head-on and serving the public with one heart was cultivated in the rain of bullets and bullets one after another. General Xu's career spanned several decades, from the agrarian revolution to the Long March of the Red Army, from the front-line anti-Japanese war to the Liberation War, General Xu repeatedly dealt with the "god of death."
On one occasion, he was also "misrepresented" to be sacrificed, and when his mother learned of the "bad news", she was heartbroken, and for the next 17 years, the old mother would pay homage to the place where he fought every year to pay tribute to her mourning. However, what the mother did not expect was that after the liberation, the general "came back from the dead" to come to the door. What's going on here?
On January 31, 1910, in a small village called Xujiahe in Huang'an County, Hubei Province, a woman named Shi Shunxiang gave birth to a character named Xu Huakui, later Xu Shenji. Although the Xu family is a peasant family in the local area, it has several acres of farmland and is still living a relatively well-off life.
However, later, an incident broke the tranquility of the Xu family.
This incident is that his father Xu Jinlou was infected with the vice of gambling, as the saying goes, "ten gambles and nine losses", after sticking to the gambling game, his father Tian did not plant, he did nothing all day, and soon after the Xu family life fell into difficulties.
Later, xu Jinlou came into contact with revolutionary ideas and began to be active and enterprising, and also joined the local peasant association, was elected as a land committee member of the township peasant association, and actively assisted in carrying out revolutionary activities.
Under the influence of his father, Xu Shenji also signed up for the Red Army with several young people from the same village.
Don't look at Xu Shenji's young age, but when he started a battle, he was not ambiguous at all, and the momentum was like a small Tibetan mastiff, very brave and fierce, and was deeply appreciated by the superior leaders.
Seeing that he was a quick-witted man and a good seedling for fighting wars, his superiors promoted him to deputy regimental commander, and it had only been two years since he had joined the army.
In 1932, Lao Jiang mobilized heavy troops to launch an encirclement and suppression of the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region, and one of the places of engagement was in the area of Qiliping and Gufengling, which happened to be Xu Shenji's hometown.
Before the battle began, the regimental commander knew that the battle would be very fierce, so he said to Xu Shenji: "You can stop by and see your family." ”
Xu Shenji was very grateful after hearing this, because since he joined the army, he had not seen his family for a long time, and he did not know how his family was doing now. So he mounted his war horse and ran home.
However, when he returned home, he found that the home was deserted, and only his old mother Shi Shunxiang was alone. It turned out that his father had died of illness earlier, and his younger siblings had been killed in retaliation by the enemy.
The old mother, whose face was full of vicissitudes, turned from sadness to joy on her face when she saw her son return, and she quickly went to catch the chicken and wanted to make a good meal for her son.
Xu Shenji also wanted to have a reunion dinner with his mother, nag with his mother, and accompany his mother well, but the war was tight and the task was in his body, and he could only say: "Mother, I am going to leave, it is too late to kill the chicken." ”
The old mother took her son's hand and said very reluctantly: "I haven't returned for several years, how can I leave without eating a meal?"
After Xu Shenji listened, his heart was sour, thinking of the old mother's lonely and lonely, he felt very guilty, but the military order was like a mountain, and he could only tearfully: "Mother, I can't stay long, I'm going to go to the battlefield soon!"
Although the mother was very disappointed in her heart after hearing this, she said firmly: "You go, beat these white soldiers hard!" ”
After listening to his mother's instructions, Xu Shenji jumped on his war horse and chased after the troops. When he reached the troops, the battle had already begun.
The battle was extremely fierce, with both sides fighting for each other, blood and flesh flying on the positions, blood staining the battlefield red, and many soldiers sacrificed.
After the war, Shi Shunxiang prayed at home for his son's safety, but he received news of his son's "sacrifice". Hearing this news, the mother was devastated and cried into tears.
On the Qingming Festival the following year, Shi Shunxiang came to a vacant lot in the local Gufengling with paper money and cried bitterly: "Hua Kui (Xu Shenji's original name), Niang always thought that your life was great, she didn't expect you to die so tragically, even the corpse was not recovered, and niang's heart ached!" ”
In the future, every Qingming Festival, Shi Shunxiang would appear on time in the place where his son had fought and burn some paper money for his son, every year.
Although at this time, Shi Shunxiang can be said to have lost her family, but the township vigilante group did not let her go, but also wanted to arrest her. At this time, thanks to the villagers' rescue, she escaped the disaster.
Later, as she grew older, her legs and feet were no longer flexible, and even food and clothing became a problem, and she lived like a beggar. When the villagers saw that she was lonely, they often gave her some food, which can be said to be surviving after eating "a hundred meals".
We can imagine how difficult it is for an old man to live in the case of the death of his husband and the "sacrifice" of his son.
However, what Shi Shunxiang did not expect in his dreams was that his son did not die, but due to the complicated situation on the battlefield at that time and the lack of communication, this led to the news that his son was rumored to have been sacrificed.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, the Red Fourth Front, which arrived in northern Shaanxi after the Long March, was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army together with the main force of the Red Army, and Xu Shenji was incorporated into the 386th Brigade of the 129th Division.
Speaking of the 386 Brigade, everyone knows that it was the ace unit of the founding general Chen Geng, and in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the 386 Brigade, under the leadership of brigade commander Chen Geng, was haunted and struck the Japanese army on the ground with gritted teeth. At the beginning of the establishment of the 386th Brigade, there were two regiments, namely the 771st Regiment and the 772nd Regiment, and the first regimental commanders were Xu Shenji and Ye Chenghuan. At that time, the Wang Jinshan we know as well, the main prototype of Li Yunlong in the Liang Sword, was only the deputy commander of the 772nd Regiment.
So why was Xu Shenji, who had a high starting point in the War of Resistance Against Japan, not as famous as Wang Jinshan? Because in 1942, Xu Shenji was wounded in a battle, and the wounds were very serious, and he was forced to leave the front line to stay in the rear to recuperate, and although his wounds gradually healed, he did not return to the front line, but transferred to the anti-Japanese military and political university branch as the president.
After the outbreak of the Liberation War, Xu Shenji was once again given the opportunity to lead troops to fight and served as the commander of the Ji'nan Military Region, but due to the heavy workload and the root cause of the old injuries, he was once again admitted to the hospital.
These two injuries caused him to miss many opportunities to establish military achievements, and Wang Jinshan at the same time fought a lot of battles with Liu Deng, especially in the Liberation War, Wang Jinshan followed Liu Deng's army thousands of miles into the Dabie Mountains, all the way from the Central Plains to the southwest, and made great military achievements.
In 1949, when New China was founded, Xu Shenji, who had been away from home for 17 years, could no longer control his thoughts about his hometown and mother, and wrote a letter to send to his mother.
Soon after, the letter was sent across the sea of people to his hometown, and when the villager Xu Shulou took the letter and led a SOLDIER soldier of the People's Liberation Army to find Shi Shunxiang to explain the situation, Shi Shunxiang's mind was suddenly blinded, because she would never have imagined that her son, who had sacrificed 17 years, would actually come back from the dead, become a high official of the People's Liberation Army, and send someone to take her to Beijing.
At this time, Shi Shunxiang was like a dream, everything came too suddenly, and for a while he cried and laughed, with mixed feelings.
The next day, under the farewell of the villagers, Shi Shunxiang embarked on the road to Beijing by car, and along the way she said to herself: "I didn't expect Hua Kui's life to be so big, and people are still alive, which is really a great blessing for the Communist Party and the Red Army!" ”
After reuniting with his mother in Beijing, Xu Shenji's condition also improved day by day, and he began to return to the army, and in March 1955, he became the deputy commander of the Air Force, assisting Liu Yalou in the construction of the Air Force, and made outstanding contributions to the logistics cause of the Air Force.
During the turbulent period of ten years, he suffered grievances and unfair treatment, but he remained strong and unyielding, and later returned to serve as deputy commander of the Beijing Military Region.
Xu Shenji and Qin Jiwei
During this period, people in his hometown wrote a letter asking him to use his connections in Beijing to say hello to the relevant departments, open a "green light" to go through the back door, and build an agricultural machine and car for the villagers in his hometown, but Xu Shenji immediately replied and refused, and one of the inner passages read:
The old base areas have indeed made great sacrifices and contributions to the revolution, and as long as there is a way, I will certainly try to do it, but the Party Central Committee has repeatedly ordered that I am not allowed to go through the back door, and in addition, I have too few relations with the localities to really think of a way. ”
Xu Shenji calligraphy
For a deputy commander of a large military region like Xu Shenji, this request from his family could be done with just a hello, but he refused because his heart was filled with axiom. Here, let us pay tribute to the founding Lieutenant General Xu Lao!