Where there are good years, there is always someone to carry the weight for you. We can have the life we have now, which countless ancestors have bought with their blood and lives. The surviving ancestors have traces of war, either scars or shrapnel.
In mid-February 2010, a centenarian in Hefei, Anhui Province, died. After his children cremated his body, they took out a full 27 pieces of shrapnel from his ashes, some of which were even unrecognizable when they were connected to the bones. Who is the old man? What did you experience before you died?
In January 1909, Li Xianzhong was born in Dushan Town, Lu'an, Anhui Province. In 1927, at the age of eighteen, he joined the revolutionary work and began his military career. Li Xianzhong was brave and strategic, and soon promoted from an ordinary soldier to a squad leader, platoon leader, instructor and other positions. He successively participated in the agrarian revolutionary war and the first to fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" wars in the revolutionary base areas of Eyu and Anhui. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he participated in the famous "Hundred Regiments War" and "Battle of Guanjia Brain" as an instructor at the time. The plot of the battle between Li Yunlong and Yamazaki's brigade in the TV series "Bright Sword" is based on the "Battle of Guanjia'an". The independent regiment commanded by Li Yunlong was based on the second battalion of Li Xianzhong.
Every time there was a battle, Li Xianzhong rushed to the front, but on the battlefield, the guns did not have long eyes, and no one knew who the next shell was going to hit. In one of the wars, an enemy shell landed around him, and before he could dodge, he was seriously wounded. The comrades-in-arms immediately sent Li Xianzhong to the military hospital for treatment, and the doctor took out dozens of pieces of shrapnel from him, and his left eye was also seriously injured, and he had to be removed, so he barely saved his life. But at that time, supplies were scarce, medical conditions were limited, and some shrapnel was in a critical position, and the doctors did not dare to remove it, so they had to stay in his body until his death.
The wounds were not completely healed, and Li Xianzhong went to the battlefield again, fighting with his comrades to kill the enemy. During the Liberation War, he was appointed political commissar of the 11th Regiment of the 2nd Column of the Central Plains Field Army and deputy political commissar of the Supply Department of the Tongbai Military Region, and participated in the "Advancing into Dabie Mountain" and "The Battle of Huaihai". Whether it was during the War of Resistance Against Japan or the Civil War, he made a lot of contributions. After the founding of New China, Li Xianzhong served as deputy political commissar and political commissar of the Qinzhou Military Subdistrict of the Guangxi Military Region of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and was awarded the titles of "Model Cadre" and "Combat Hero". In 1955, he was awarded the Order of August 1, Second Class, the Order of Independence and Freedom, Second Class, and the Order of Liberation, Second Class.
In April 1963, Li Xianzhong voluntarily gave up the preferential treatment of the military region, left the position of political commissar of the military sub-district, and moved to the Anhui Military Region's cadre rest house. During this period, he refused all the treatment arranged by the organization to himself, saying that the country's conditions were not good now, and these things should be used where they were needed more, and that an old man himself could not use these things. The organization made it more convenient for the elderly to travel, and once wanted to give him a car, the elderly Li Xianzhong resolutely refused, saying that he was very satisfied with his current life, and he was much happier than those comrades who had sacrificed.
The elderly Li Xianzhong died of illness on February 16, 2010, at the age of 102. The 27 pieces of shrapnel removed from the ashes are a testimony to the great achievements of the old man's life, as well as to the disasters brought about by the war. The old man has retreated after achieving success, without desire or demand, which is worthy of our admiration and memory!