Speaking of Liang Xingchu, he has a well-known name "Commander of the Long Live Army", which was personally given by Marshal Peng Dehuai on the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Liang Xingchu was awarded the rank of lieutenant general for the first time in 1955, and when Chairman Mao shook hands with him, he smiled and said to him: "Long live the commander of the army, look up to him for a long time." ”
In September 1985, the 73-year-old Liang Xingchu had a small cold, which everyone thought was not a big problem, but to be on the safe side, his wife sent him to the hospital for treatment. However, in the early morning of October 5, the hospital informed Liang Xingchu's family that the general's rescue was ineffective and he had died. This is no less than a thunderbolt on a sunny day, Liang Xingchu's comrades-in-arms were shocked, suspected that the hospital had a heavy responsibility, and asked for an autopsy examination, but Liang Xingchu's wife expressed strong opposition. Liang Xingchu's death was full of doubts, from suffering from a cold to suddenly dying in just one month, what happened? And why did his wife obstruct the autopsy?
In 1912, Liang Xingchu was born in a poor peasant family in Luling, Jiangxi, and suffered a lot when he was a child, and the family could only provide him with three years of study. After dropping out of school, 12-year-old Liang Xingchu went to learn to play iron, five or six pounds of sledgehammer for a whole day, the already undernourished body is more lean. In 1930, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army came to Liang Xingchu's village to recruit soldiers, and the "blacksmith Liang Xingchu" became the Red Army soldier Liang Xingchu, and after he embarked on the revolutionary road, his comrades-in-arms would sometimes jokingly call him "iron striker". Later, in several battles, Liang Xingchu showed bravery and always rushed to the front, and his comrades-in-arms also admired him and called him "iron strike" instead. "Iron strike" has also become synonymous with Liang Xingchu's life.
During the Long March, after winning the Battle of Lazikou, the Red Army had not yet determined the direction of the next march. At that time, the Red Army did not have any advanced equipment in the war, and before each march, it was necessary to conduct sufficient reconnaissance and grasp the enemy's movements. Liang Xingchu, then the commander of the reconnaissance company of the First Red Army, received orders from the regimental headquarters to go to the enemy's positions to reconnoiter and collect grain. At first, Liang Xingchu did not attach particular importance to this task, thinking that it was an ordinary task, but then Chairman Mao alone instructed him to engage in some "spiritual food", that is, the Kuomintang's recent magazines and newspapers, and Liang Xingchu realized that this task was unusual.
At first, Liang Xingchu sent people to the local post office to look for this "spiritual food", but the local area was a small town, remote and closed, and there were only some yellowed newspapers in the post office that could not see the year. Liang Xingchu put on the uniform of a Kuomintang lieutenant colonel and led a battalion of 100-man squads to the town office, gathering together all the famous and surnamed officials in the town. Then, Liang Xingchu said to them: "I am the Communist Party, that is, what you often call 'communist bandits'. Amid the surprised expressions of the crowd, Liang Xingchu continued: "The Communist Party is definitely not what you imagined, please don't be afraid." Liang Xingchu expressed his desire to get some newspapers and was not interested in other gold and silver treasures.
It just so happened that an official who had just returned from Lanzhou brought back a copy of the Ta Kung Pao and Shanxi Daily, which had been published in the past month, and he thought that the newspaper was not an important thing, so he handed it over to Liang Xingchu.
In fact, the value of these newspapers is immeasurable, because there are several important news articles on them, and after Liang Xingchu handed them all over to Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao learned from them: There is a Red Army in northern Shaanxi! Liu Zhidan established a base area in northern Shaanxi and repelled the encirclement and suppression of the northwestern troops of the Kuomintang army. And Xu Haidong, who led the Red 25th Army, has also successfully completed the Long March and arrived in northern Shaanxi. Chairman Mao said excitedly: "Comrades, there is Liu Zhidan's Red Army in northern Shaanxi and a ready-made base area. Let's go to northern Shaanxi! ”
Then, after careful arrangements, Liang Xingchu's reconnaissance unit controlled the main lines of communication, the post office, and the enemy camp, captured a group of Kuomintang people without any gunfire, and ordered the local post office to produce a number of newspapers and send them out, telling them that there was a Red Army base area in northern Shaanxi, so that other Red Army leaders could understand the situation between the enemy and ourselves, make reasonable military arrangements, and finally successfully meet the division in northern Shaanxi. It can be said that the reconnaissance unit led by Liang Xingchu during the Long March made great achievements.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Liang Xingchu was assigned to the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army as a battalion commander, experienced a series of battles such as the PingxingGuan Victory, was commended by Chen Yi, and was later promoted to deputy commander of the 685 Regiment. During the Liberation War, Liang Xingchu served as the deputy commander of the Sixth Column of the Fourth Field Army. In 1948, Liang Xingchu led the 10th Column to organize defensive battles in Montenegro and Dahushan, when the two major Kuomintang armies marched east in an attempt to occupy Jinzhou, and Liang Xingchu's troops' stronghold was very important. Under the leadership of Liang Xingchu, the Tenth Column stubbornly used the terrain to avoid the attack of Kuomintang aircraft and tanks, and the soldiers vowed to defend to the death, holding the will to hold on even if there was only one person left in the end.
In this way, the Tenth Column resisted bravely for three consecutive days and three nights on a defensive position of 30 kilometers square, and did not retreat a single step. Later, the main support unit of our army arrived and, together with the Tenth Column, annihilated the Kuomintang Liao Yaoxiang troops. This defensive battle was the core of the entire campaign, and Liang Xingchu led the Tenth Column to make great achievements, effectively blocking the Kuomintang's plan to advance eastward, and creating good conditions for our army to concentrate its main forces, so that a general star in the history of the Chinese revolution was rising.
In October 1950, the Chinese government did a just act and sent volunteers into the Korean battlefield, and Liang Xingchu served as the commander of the 38th Army of the Volunteer Army, the predecessor of which was the unit from Peng Dehuai who launched the Pingjiang Uprising. Peng Dehuai's expedition to Korea was not kind to this 38th Army, and coupled with their past achievements, Peng Dehuai's expectations for the 38th Army were very high.
However, the 38th Army was at a disadvantage in Korea. In the first battle of Heecheon, the 38th Army heard from the soldiers of the friendly Korean People's Army that there was a black force approaching, and Liang Xingchu shook his fist and redeployed his troops, but not only did not wait for the American army, but also lost the pursuing Rok army's Eighth Division.
On November 13, 1950, the General Headquarters of the Volunteer Army held a meeting, and Mr. Peng shook hands with the commanders and commanders one by one, but when he came to Liang Xingchu, he just stared at him coldly. At the meeting, Peng Dehuai made a summary report on the first operation, pointed his anger at Liang Xingchu, and angrily rebuked: What is the main force of the 38th Army, whether it can fight or not, it will return to China! He also denounced Liang Xingchu as a "rat general." The more Mr. Peng said, the more angry he became, and he could not persuade him to move, and even said to Liang Xingchu: "I still have the qualifications to cut the horse, and if I fight indiscriminately, I will cancel your 38th Army's number." ”
In the 20 years that Liang Xingchu has been in the army, the number of gunshot wounds and knife wounds is uncountable, but he has never been so depressed, and when he returned to the army, he smoked a cigarette all night. What Liang Xingchu thought was: You can scold me and say that I can't do it, but I can't accept scolding my troops, and next time I will prove that my 38th Army is a real ace unit.
The opportunity to be humiliated soon came, and in late December 1950, the Volunteers launched a second major campaign. The mission assigned to the 38th Army by headquarters was to lure the enemy to the north and then penetrate them to the rear of the enemy, blocking their retreat route. Liang Xingchu, with the morale of the 38th Army, after seizing the "998 Heights", voluntarily gave up, discarded old weapons along the way, and gradually lured the US troops into the designated area. The 38th Army marched faster than the American car, and it was this that made the invincible American army suffer its worst nightmare after World War II.
Realizing that the blockaded US 1st, 2nd and 25th Divisions began to break through wildly, Us aircraft poured fire from the air to the ground to provide support, and could not shake the "Great Wall" built by the volunteer army with flesh and blood. At dawn, the volunteers finally stopped, and they saw a ruin, the corpses of American troops and military flags lying on the ground, densely packed, and countless cars, tanks, and cannons either turned into a pile of scrap iron or tumbled into ditches. The soldiers of the 38th Army were exhausted and fell asleep next to the corpse, and Liang Xingchu was also covered with dust. When the news of the victory reached the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, everyone was ecstatic, and Peng Dehuai wrote a praise for the 38th Army in the commendation order: "Long live the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, long live the Thirty-eighth Army!" This is the origin of the 38th Army's name as the "Long Live Army", and Liang Xingchu also had the title of Commander of the Long Live Army, which was famous all over the world.
The honor of the 38th Army was condensed by the blood of countless soldiers, and was the result of the will and determination of Commander Liang Xingchu. After the war, Liang Xingchu, who was holding the telegram from the headquarters, burst into tears, and when he was young, he had not yet joined the revolution, he had heard the slogan "Long live the Red Army", and now his thirty-eighth army also had the title of "Long Live the Army", which made him extremely moved.
After the end of the Korean War, Liang Xingchu was appointed commander of the Hainan Military Region by the central authorities, and after being awarded the rank of lieutenant general in 1955, he served as the deputy commander of the Guangzhou Military Region, making great contributions to the construction of the southern Xinjiang of the motherland.
In 1980, when the 68-year-old Liang Xingchu was transferred back to Beijing, Marshal Ye Jianying called him over for a conversation, expressing the hope that he could choose a military region between Shenyang or Jinan to continue to serve as a military adviser and bring new people. Liang Xingchu smiled and waved his hand, thinking that he was not suitable as a consultant, rejected Ye Jianying's suggestion, and said: "I have also reached the time of recuperation." After that, Liang Xingchu began to buy a new home in Beijing, planning to spend his old age here.
In 1985, Liang Xingchu, who was completely idle, often played chess and swung around with his old comrades-in-arms, and lived a very happy life, the only bad thing was that he fell ill after years of conquest, and from time to time he had to go to the hospital for examination. In September, when the weather in Beijing was still hot, Liang Xingchu suddenly fell ill with a cold, and his family did not think it was a big problem, but for the sake of safety, he was sent to the hospital for convalescence. Sure enough, Liang Xingchu's cold quickly healed, and he just stayed in the hospital to observe it more.
Fast forward to the National Day, it is the rest time of the holiday, and the doctors and nurses in the hospital have also begun to take turns. Among them, Liang Xingchu's attending doctor also took a leave of absence, and only a few doctors and nurses in the hospital stayed behind to take care of inpatients. At noon on October 4, Liang Xingchu's wife, Ren Guilan, also left the hospital after taking care of him and eating lunch. In the afternoon, Liang Xingchu, who stayed alone in the hospital, also received several comrades who came to visit him, and then lay on the bed and read the newspaper. But at this time Liang Xingchu suddenly felt severe pain in his chest, so he called the nurses, but the nurses were inexperienced, so they went to find the doctor who stayed in the hospital to see, Liang Xingchu's attending doctor was not there, and the doctors on duty did not know much about his situation, only took him to do some routine examinations, and did not find any problems, so they prescribed him painkillers. However, after Liang Xingchu took the medicine, not only did he show no signs of getting better, but his chest pain also intensified. In the early morning of the next day, Liang Xingchu died after the rescue was ineffective.
Just a few hours before Liang Xingchu's death, he was still chatting with his old comrades-in-arms, and his physical and mental state was normal, and there was nothing bad about it. But just a few hours later, the hospital announced that Liang Xingchu had died. The incident happened so suddenly, Liang Xingchu's comrades-in-arms were shocked by the news, they could not accept it at all, they suspected that it might be a medical accident, they believed that the doctor who carried out the rescue was not Liang Xingchu's attending doctor, he did not know Liang Xingchu's physical condition, did not choose a suitable way to practice medicine, led to his death. As a result, Liang Xingchu's comrades-in-arms expressed their request for the hospital to perform an autopsy and return the truth to everyone.
Liang Xingchu's wife Ren Guilan was even more sad, but she still resolutely refused to dissect Liang Xingchu, choking and saying: "The other person is already dead, destroy his body, what is the use of investigating the truth?" He has participated in countless wars in his life, his body is already full of holes, don't toss him anymore, just let him leave a complete body and go! ”
The comrades present listened to Ren Guilan's words and were all moved by it, shed tears of regret, and no longer insisted on investigating the truth.