The War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was a national war since the founding of New China; through this war, New China's defense against enemies outside the gates of the country and its prestige between the worlds and the world were brought forward to the world while dealing a heavy blow to US imperialism, and carrying forward the spirit of self-confidence and self-improvement of the Chinese people to the world.
In the midst of this arduous and extremely arduous war, countless sons and daughters of China have composed one heroic song after another with a heroic and fearless spirit, and among them there have been ninety-nine first-class meritorious heroes, all of whom are exemplary representatives of heroic volunteer soldiers.
Among the ninety-nine men was a soldier named Liu Zuokun, who was the only first-class meritorious man in Hubei Province. Although Liu Zuokun was only an ordinary peasant before setting foot in Korea, he also made impressive military achievements with a firm belief in victory and a heroic and fearless fighting spirit.
After the end of the war, Liu Zuokun returned to his hometown and participated in the local work under the arrangement of the organization. In the end, this heroic ancestor with a glorious history chose to return home to farm.
For more than forty years, he buried all his glory and pride in his heart, and lived most of his life by farming in his hometown. The old hero was reported again because of a recruitment effort.
Generous conscription for the sake of serving the country
Liu Zuokun was born in Shixi Village, Xianning, Hubei Province, from a poor peasant family. In his childhood, because his parents were unfortunately killed by the Japanese invaders, Liu Zuokun, who was only five years old, became a lonely child.
The loss of childhood made Liu Zuokun's fate even more turbulent, but fortunately, the villagers in the same village were very enthusiastic, and they gave Liu Zuokun's support for the growth of his childhood and pulled him into adulthood.
Liu Zuokun, who was born in poverty, has developed a good quality of hard-working since he was a child, willing to do any job, and his hands and feet are very clever. There was an old carpenter in the same village, people called him Liu Laohan, and the old man saw that Liu Zuokun was helpless, so he accepted him as an apprentice and taught him the skill of doing carpentry work. Liu Zuokun was diligent and very intelligent, and within a few years he became a well-known carpenter in the local area.
At the age of eighteen, master Liu Laohan single-handedly managed and helped him set up a family affair for a girl from the next village named Peng Aiyu. Finally having his own family, Liu Zuokun has worked harder and run his own life after that.
Soon after the marriage, Liu Zuokun ushered in his first son, and since then he has given birth to two sons in succession. The husband and wife work hard every day, raise three children, and although they live a poor life, they also enjoy a kind of ordinary happiness.
With the founding of New China, the state allocated land to the peasants, and the Liu family's life was more promising. But soon after that, the news of the outbreak of the Korean War came, when the whole country was mobilizing for this war, and a patriotic spirit of defending the country with the same enemy surged in the hearts of the Chinese people.
Hubei is thousands of miles away from the Korean Peninsula, although it is far from the battlefield, but Liu Zuokun still knows the truth of cold lips and teeth. And his happy life today is exactly what the founding of New China has, so the idea of going to the Korean battlefield to defend his family and defend the country has planted seeds in Liu Zuokun's heart. But Liu Zuokun looked back at his wife and children, and he was always a little relieved.
If you die in a war, if you sacrifice yourself in North Korea, how will you live the life of an orphan and a widowed mother? It was precisely because of the contradictions and entanglements in his heart that Liu Zuokun did not make up his mind at first to join the army and serve the country. Until 1952, Liu Zuokun, who had been fighting repeatedly for two years, finally made up his mind.
Later, Liu Zuokun persuaded his wife to embark on the Korean battlefield and became a soldier in the 122nd Squadron of the 305th Unit of the Chinese Volunteer Army. In the winter of 1952, his unit was ordered to depart from Anlu in Hubei Province, walk to Hankou, and then take a train to Dandong, the border of the motherland.
Before going to the battlefield, he wrote down his name, place of origin and mailing address on a white cloth strip, and then sewed this white cloth strip into a cotton coat, at this time he was ready to die for the country.
As a new recruit, Liu Zuokun has a very heroic performance on the battlefield, he has accompanied the troops, fought enemy fighters in caves, and also carried machine guns to participate in sniper warfare against the United Nations army. Brave the enemy's wild bombardment, break through the enemy's blockade line, and fight the enemy to the death in a difficult combat environment.
Bravely save fuel success ministers
After a series of arduous battles, in February 1953, Liu Zuokun's unit was assigned to a garrison in the rear. At first, the comrades in the unit all carried emotions, everyone thought that others were making meritorious contributions to killing the enemy on the front line, but they were doing these tasks that others could not see in the rear, and many people said some grumbling words.
But Liu Zuokun believes that as long as people work hard, they can do extraordinary results everywhere. At that time, the main job of the station was to manage and guard the warehouse and the military supplies of the railway station. In view of the chaotic management of warehouses and railway stations at that time, the disorganized material stacking and the outdated facilities, Liu Zuokun remembered his old business.
After completing his normal duty tasks every day, he relied on his own carpentry work, repairing doors and windows from time to time, cleaning the warehouse, and busy all day.
Because of his diligence and ability, his superior leaders constantly praised him. Under his leadership, the other soldiers of the station also took action, scrambling to do various sorting work at the station.
Once, Liu Zuokun saw a large number of waste materials piled up in the warehouse, and the storage of these materials was very messy, and he thought: This is all the blood and sweat of the people of the motherland, and it cannot be wasted like this. So he began to collect waste oil barrels, old wooden boxes, and broken mats day and night, and put them neatly in place. After a few months, he alone collected and sorted out the supplies, and loaded 6 train wagons.
Not only that, but when he was patrolling outside, he found some broken mats piled up in the ravine, and while sorting out these broken mats, he cleared out more than 500 pounds of well-preserved soybeans from below.
Another time, when he came back from inspecting supplies from the warehouse, he saw some old oil drums scattered in the ravine, and he thought: Even if it is an empty barrel, it is a useful thing. So he jumped into the river and fished out the oil drums one by one. Unexpectedly, more than twenty of these barrels of waste oil were filled with oil, including "Mabiru oil" and gasoline, which were quite valuable strategic materials in times of war.
The reason why Liu Zuokun was able to become a first-class meritorious person was also related to his work during the military station period. In the famous "Battle of Chosin Lake," the Americans lamented that if the Chinese army had half of the logistical support strength of the US army, the FIRST Marine Division of the Ace Army of the United States would not have been able to successfully break through. Because of this, the Americans have been focusing on weakening the volunteers' logistical supply capabilities in their combat operations against the Volunteers.
Relying on their powerful air force, the US military controlled air supremacy, and carried out long-term large-scale destruction of the volunteers' logistics transportation routes and supply stations, and Liu Zuokun's military station was naturally also a target for the Americans.
On the night of April 26, 1953, Liu Zuokun was on duty in a cave with a gun, when a freight train was parked at the military station, full of five wagons of aviation gasoline. This batch of aviation gasoline belongs to the Korean People's Army and is an extremely valuable strategic material.
But that night, the Americans sent two B-26 fighters to bomb the station. One of the bombs hit one of the five wagons, which immediately caused a huge explosion, and a large amount of fuel stored in the wagon also deflated, causing a skyrocketing fire.
The victorious US fighters were not ready to leave, but instead adjusted their posture and prepared to attack the other carriages again. Under such a critical situation, Liu Zuokun could not care less about the black smoke billowing inside the station, the fires everywhere in the sky, and the continuous bombardment and strafing of enemy planes, and an arrow rushed forward.
He first observed the situation of the carriage that was hit, and found that the carriage could not be rescued, but the other carriages had not yet been affected, and the top priority was to avoid the deflagration of the carriages that had already been deflected to ignite the gasoline of other carriages, and to rescue the gasoline of other carriages as much as possible under the attack of enemy aircraft.
Without much time to think about it, Liu Zuokun picked up a shovel and slammed the train door that had collapsed due to the explosion, and after some effort, he finally successfully opened the door, and then jumped on the train to grab the oil drum inside and rolled down one by one.
After rolling more than twenty barrels of gasoline off the train in a row, the enemy plane had swooped down, and the bullets crackled on the train's carriages, and sparks splashed in an instant. At the same time, because of the spread of the fire, the carriage was filled with billowing black smoke, accompanied by a hot heat.
Liu Zuokun was so smoked that his eyes were in tears, and his body was constantly bleeding out of large beads of sweat, he could only squint his eyes while using his hands to roll the oil barrels in the carriage out one by one.
At this time, a Soldier of the Korean People's Army also ran over, and he saw that Liu Zuokun was still rolling down the oil barrel on the car, so he rushed forward to help and pushed the oil barrel rolled down by Liu Zuokun to a safe place. In the process, Liu Zuokun's foot was hit by an oil drum, and after feeling a pain in his heart, blood continued to ooze from his cotton shoes. Liu Zuokun couldn't care less about this, endured severe pain, and still struggled to roll down one oil drum after another.
Soon after, more and more volunteers and KPA soldiers joined the ranks of rescuing oil barrels, and after more than two hours of rescue, a total of more than three hundred barrels of gasoline were rescued, and Liu Zuokun alone rescued eighty-five barrels.
By the time Liu Zuokun finally left the train, he was so exhausted that he couldn't even stand, and he fainted on the ground without taking a few steps, and his comrades-in-arms quickly sent him to the infirmary.
The next day, the Korean People's Research Bureau specially sent two officers to the field infirmary, and they expressed their condolences and thanks to Liu Zuokun in person. Soon, the volunteer army also sent people twice to understand his deeds, and vigorously reported that Liu Zuokun became a hero in the army.
At that time, the Americans sent planes to blow up the Yubu Reservoir, hoping to break the railway line. In order to build the army, the army urgently needs a large number of flat burdens. At this time, Liu Zuokun, who was born in carpentry, did not care that he was still injured, and also joined the ranks of making flat burdens. He put his injured leg on top of a low stool, stood on the ground with one foot and made a flat shoulder, and made 12 in one day, and this spirit of his once again infected people.
Later, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea ended with the victory of the Korean People's Army and the Chinese Volunteer Army, and the soldiers who fought in Korea for three years also embarked on their return journey back home. In 1954, at the request of the Fuel Bureau of the Korean People's Army, the Rear Service Department of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army gave Liu Zuokun a first-class merit.
After that, the Headquarters of the People's Volunteer Army and the Workers' Party of Korea jointly awarded him the honorary title of First Class Meritorious Service, and he became one of the ninety-nine first-class meritorious heroes of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea in the country, and he was the only one in his hometown of Hubei Province. The Supreme Council of State of North Korea later awarded him a Medal of Honor for Soldiers of the Second Class, again giving him the supreme honor.
On the day when the Two Sides held a celebration meeting at Pyongyang's Mao Zedong Square, Liu Zuokun also attended as a special representative. On the same day, because he was injured in the leg and had some difficulty in moving, his battalion commander specially arranged for him to ride his horse to the celebration meeting.
At the celebration meeting, Zhu De, Kim Il Sung, He Long, Yang Dezhi, Hong Xuezhi, and other leaders came to greet him one after another, and Kim Il Sung expressed high praise for his heroic deeds, and Hong Xuezhi also specifically mentioned in his speech that he carried injuries and made flat burdens, and warm applause broke out again from the audience.
However, recalling this experience in his later years, Liu Zuokun complained to everyone that the meal that day was not eaten well, which made everyone laugh. It turned out that he had eaten half of the feast that day, and he went with everyone to watch the Peking Opera condolence performances of Mei Lanfang and Cheng Yanqiu.
Liu Zuokun was also deeply impressed by the scene, because he was sitting in the first row with six other first-class heroes that day to watch the play with the leaders of the Chinese and Korean Dynasties.
In May 1956, liu Zuokun finally returned to his hometown in Hubei province after four years away from home. At this time, he wore a large red flower on his chest, which can be said to be a homecoming.
But after returning home, Liu Zuokun felt a burst of bitterness. It turned out that when Liu Zuokun left home, his wife was still pregnant, and he was originally with a mood of anticipation, ready to hug his fourth child.
But unexpectedly, his wife Peng Aiyu told Liu Zuokun that the child died of an illness eight months after birth. Hearing this news, Liu Zuokun immediately cried out, he felt that he owed too much to his family.
Relatives on the side also blamed him: "You, really desperate, put on a military uniform and left, you don't know how to write a letter, you can't read, you should also ask someone to write for you, inquire about the situation at home." The more relatives said that Liu Zuokun was uncomfortable, he hugged his wife in the crowd and cried.
At this time, Liu Zuokun, full of debt to the family, was particularly grateful to his wife for her contributions to the family in the past four years, and he secretly vowed to take good care of their mother and son.
As a hero, the local government naturally would not let Liu Zuokun go home and disappear, and they arranged for Liu Zuokun to go to Gaoqiao District as an armed minister. However, after all, the minister of armed forces is also a public office with a high position and has high cultural quality requirements for personnel, while Liu Zuokun cannot read a few characters, which makes him quite depressed.
Whenever there was a meeting in the unit, watching others talking, Liu Zuokun was basically silent, just a momentum, and the taste in his heart was really uncomfortable. After a long time, Liu Zuokun felt that such an important official position was still left to capable people to do, and the superior leaders finally decided to arrange for him to go to an agricultural tool factory in Gaoqiao District to do things.
Originally, Liu Zuokun was a farmer, and he would be a good carpenter, and working as an errand boy in a farm tool factory was suitable for him, so he was very satisfied with the job and made some achievements to help the local government develop several easy-to-use and affordable agricultural tools.
But the good times were not long, in the three-year natural disaster period, because the country's economic situation was tense, grain supply also had problems, fortunately, Liu Zuokun's agricultural tool factory still had some economic sidelines, the factory raised some pigs, the leaders a total, they killed two pigs, and gave the whole factory staff two pounds of pork to improve their lives.
Originally, this was a good thing, but Liu Zuokun accidentally found that a secretary in the factory had corrupt behavior, and he not only gave himself more pork, but also hid a pig's head. After Liu Zuokun found out, he immediately quarreled with this secretary.
After the quarrel, this anger did not subside, Liu Zuokun wanted to get more and more angry, simply resigned from public office, and went home to continue farming. Back in Stony Brook Village, the village arranged for Liu Zuokun to be the production captain, Liu Zuokun worked very hard, getting up for the first time every day, and then going door to door to call the members to work, and the last to go home at night.
Because of this incident, his wife also had a conflict with him, saying that he did not care about his family, but Liu Zuokun always said: "The collective is a big family, the country is a bigger family, and there is no small family where everyone comes from." Later, his wife didn't say much about him, and Liu Zuokun was happy to be his production captain every day.
However, not long after, because of the discordant relationship with a member of the team, the contradictions between the two accumulated deeper and deeper, and Liu Zuokun, the production captain, could not continue, so he simply resigned from the post of production captain and became a farmer again.
Liu Zuokun put away all the badges and badges related to his military experience, wrapped them in a piece of cloth and put them under the box, never showing them to others, and even his own family did not know much about these things.
In fact, since beating him home, because Liu Zuokun is very low-key, never bragging about his military achievements to others, the people in the village only know that he fought in Korea and is a veteran, as for him is not clear. One day, the Liu family was robbed and stole Liu Zuokun's medal, leaving behind a commemorative book and certificate, which made the old man heartbroken.
Although Liu Zuokun returned to the countryside, he was not forgotten organizationally, and Comrade Yang Dezhi, who was once the deputy commander of the Volunteer Army, when he was the commander of the Wuhan Military Region, he also specially sent people to his home to comfort this only first-class meritorious man in Hubei.
When talking about whether the old man has any needs, Liu Zuokun replied: "Although I am more than half a hundred years old, my body is still good and I can support myself." I don't have the culture, I'm up to the job, and I don't want to cause trouble for the organization. Please rest assured that I am living well, I will not lose the face of a soldier, and strive to take the lead in the village. The veteran's red enthusiasm also made the condolences very emotional at that time, and everyone respected his spirit.
A few years later, Yang Dezhi sent someone to visit him again, but Liu Zuokun was not at home, and the people who came could only leave some condolences and a letter of condolences and left. After Liu Zuokun returned home, he was also moved to tears when he saw the letter sent by the chief.
The old hero joined the army for Sun and finally appeared
After that, Liu Zuokun continued to work as a farmer in his hometown in Stony Brook and actively contributed to the collective. Riding on the tide of change of the times, his greatest wish is to cultivate several grandchildren into talents and continue to serve the country and the people.
In 1998, China suffered a huge flood, and Hubei was also deeply affected. After the floods, the PLA soldiers, as the people's children's soldiers, have always fought in the front line of flood resistance and disaster relief, and have made great efforts and sacrifices to save people's lives and property.
After hearing these deeds, Liu Zuokun, who was deeply touched, thought of his past in fighting against US imperialism with his comrades in arms on the Korean battlefield, and couldn't help but have the idea of letting his descendants continue to defend their families and defend the country.
To say that the idea of joining the army, Liu Zuokun's sons did not think about it, but they had a difficult life in their early years, and his three sons were all malnourished and their physical fitness was not good enough to pass the physical examination requirements for recruitment. At this time, Liu Zuokun remembered his eldest grandson Liu Jianguang, who was working in Shenzhen, and quickly asked his son to call his grandson and ask him to come back and enlist in the army.
When Liu Jianguang was young, he heard his grandfather talk about his experience in North Korea, but Liu Zuokun never told his children that he was a first-class hero. It was not until 1997, when he saw Liu Jianguang reading a book called "The Secret of The Inside Story of Chinese War History", that Liu Zuokun, who was touched by the scene, told his children in full about his experience in the army.
After listening to his grandfather's deeds, Liu Jianguang was deeply touched, proud of having a heroic grandfather, and at the same time looking forward to the possibility of joining the army and serving the country.
It wasn't until this time that Grandpa called himself home that Liu Jianguang was really ready to go to the barracks. Everything went smoothly in the recruitment work, Liu Jianguang fully met the recruitment standards, and Liu Zuokun was also very happy, waiting for the child to wear a big red flower to the military camp.
However, after waiting at home for a month, Liu Zuokun never waited to notify the phone number that the child had reported. Only after this inquiry did I know that the number of recruits in the town was limited, and although Liu Jianguang passed the physical examination, he failed to get the indicators.
At this moment, the old man could not sit still, he thought about it, and finally made up his mind to use his face as a "first-class hero" to send his children to join the army. Liu Zuokun took out the cloth bag that had been treasured for many years from under the box at home, carried it in his arms, and dragged Liu Jianguang to the District Civil Affairs Bureau.
As soon as he entered the door, the leader of the Civil Affairs Bureau saw such a limping old man and thought that the other party had come to ask for a pension.
Who knows that the old man said with a serious face: "Comrade, I came back from the Korean battlefield in August 1953, and now I am a person who is about to enter the ground, as a veteran, I want to send my eldest grandson Liu Jianguang as a soldier, inherit the ancestral inheritance, and contribute to the country, why don't you give a chance?" After saying that, the old man put the cloth bag he had brought on the desk of the leader of the Civil Affairs Bureau.
When the leader opened it, he saw that the certificate was written in Korean, and he couldn't understand it, but in another memorial book, there was a list of first-class meritorious heroes, and there was Liu Zuokun's name.
In addition, the commemorative album also has autographed inscriptions by Zhu De, Kim Il Sung, Peng Dehuai, Deng Hua and others. The leaders of the Civil Affairs Bureau did not dare to be sloppy, and quickly contacted the organization to report and verify, they found Tang Guangrong, liu Zuokun's introduction to the party, and finally confirmed Liu Zuokun's identity.
For a time, the news that there was a first-class meritorious man in Shixi Village caused a sensation at once, and the leaders of various departments rushed to visit the old man and sent condolence money to Liu Zuokun. In the following year, the district invited Liu Zuokun to participate in the military and civilian Spring Festival Gala, just like more than forty years ago, Liu Zuokun once again appeared in the people's vision wearing a large red flower on his chest, and everyone applauded him.
During the Spring Festival in 1999, the local deputy mayor of Xianning also came to the door to express condolences to the elderly, and sent 1,000 yuan, cotton clothes and quilts, rice flour oil and other daily necessities, indicating that the elderly have needs in life that can be put forward to the organization. In July, Liu Zuokun was invited to participate in the provincial literary and art evening party to celebrate the Founding Day of the Army, and in September he was invited to Beijing to attend the National Day ceremony.
On October 1 of that year, probably after the celebration meeting on May 5, 1954, Liu Zuokun's happiest day was that he was received by the state leaders in Tiananmen Square with other old heroes, and he felt a great honor.
After participating in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he brought back a "24K Gold Founding Ceremony Commemorative Collection", and Liu Zuokun once excitedly said to his family: "This is our heirloom, no amount of money can be sold, I want to pass it on to my children and grandchildren." ”
The significance of the Korean War to New China is of great significance, and without the victory in this war, we may not have the opportunity to carry out construction in a stable manner. In that war of great disparity in strength, we were able to win a victory because of the bloody battles of our brave and fearless volunteer soldiers.
Liu Zuokun, a veteran who has been generous and conscripted for the country, willing to be ordinary for the sake of justice, and hidden for justice for forty years, has truly achieved the sincerity of a pure son. If it weren't for the grandson's military service, the old man might not have mentioned his merits in this life, so he quietly left us. Their stories and their names deserve to be heard and remembered, because then we can see the way forward.