Just after the New Year of 1950, Geng Biao, deputy commander and chief of staff of the 19th Corps of the People's Liberation Army, received a central order to go to Beijing to do diplomatic work. Prior to this, Geng Biao's troops liberated Ningxia and had been fighting the enemy at the foot of the Great Wall. Originally, he also wanted to continue to do his best to liberate all of China, and later to defend the fruits of the people's victory. However, the central government's orders, Geng Biao can only obey.
Before going to Beijing, Geng Biao took a leave of absence with the corps and prepared to return to his hometown of Liling, Hunan Province, to have a look. Since leaving his hometown in Liling in 1930, Geng Biao has never returned. The young man who was 20 years old when he left home is now over forty years old. After years of running for the revolution, the founding of New China, the revolution succeeded, and homesickness also surged into my heart.
In modern China, after years of war and chaos, coupled with years of famine, the life of the ordinary people in Liling is not good. When his father was 8 years old, Geng Biao's grandfather ran away from home to make a living, and has not been heard from since. Geng Biao's father, Geng Chunan, also embarked on the path of his ancestors when he was 12 years old.
In a way, Geng Chunan's invasion of the rivers and lakes was a success, he was favored by a fallen prince by chance, and at the age of 15, he began to receive 9 years of training in the palace, including martial arts, equestrianism and platooning. The purpose of the prince's cultivation of him was to prepare to be sent to the palace, as his own person, which might come in handy in the future.
To this end,
Geng Chunan received the Guangxu Emperor's imperial weapon, which was a pair of tiger heads and double hooks.
However, Empress Dowager Cixi did not agree to accept foreign warriors entering the capital and ordered the dismissal of the relevant personnel. When Geng Chunan returned to his hometown with a tiger's head and double hook on his back, the people in the village all exclaimed: "Ho! What a double hook hero! ”
Unfortunately, the reputation of "double hook hero" could not fill his stomach, and he was unwilling to sell his martial arts and practice minions for the regiment in the fish and meat village. In order to make a living, Geng Chunan successively learned carpentry, bricklayer, blacksmith, and medicine. Such a talented person, in that era, could only maintain his own life, until the age of 40 to start a family. With the children born one by one, Geng Chunan's craftsmanship has been unable to support the family.
In Geng Biao's childhood memories, in addition to the beautiful landscapes and industrious villagers, his hometown is a tragic scene of natural disasters and military disasters, and hunger and death.
The strong men hid in hiding, the young women were taken captive, and the villagers were overwhelmed and fled. Geng Chu Nan relied on being a mason during the day and a carpenter at home at night, so Geng Biao studied private school for two years. When Geng Biao was 7 years old, that is, in 1916 (born in 1909), Geng Chunan also decided to take his family to Shuikou Mountain to escape.
People say that there is golden sand flowing in the river of Shuikou Mountain, silver blocks buried in the mountains of Shuikou Mountain, and even the stones of Shuikou Mountain can be exchanged for light. These beautiful legends made the young Geng Biao yearn for it.
Legend is legend after all, when Geng Biao followed his family to Shuikou Mountain, what he saw was a different scene. Everywhere in the mine you can see people rolling on the ground in pain, and their throats and eyes emit terrible cries. These are lead-poisoned miners, they are skinny, their hair is as long as a puff, their eyes are sunken, their skin is gray, they look like ghosts, and someone is constantly dying in convulsions... It's a purgatory on earth.
Geng Biao's two uncles had arrived at Shuikou Mountain earlier, and were already workers in the mine at this time. Next to the grass hut where the uncle's family lived, they extended it overnight and built a kitchen out of an old piece of discarded iron, where Geng Biao's family of five lived. The uncles pooled some money to give gifts to the foreman, and Geng Chu Nan was able to work in the mine.
The workers of Shuikou Mountain are oppressed,
One of Geng Biao's uncles was driven crazy
。 Under oppression and exploitation, the workers' movement in Shuikoushan surged up.
At the age of 13, Geng Biao worked as a child laborer in the mine.
On a field, there are thousands of child laborers, most of whom are malnourished, many of whom have rickets, and each one of them looks like a "big-headed doll". They were naked, sweating, and they were shouting "Wow! wow! The sound of force came and went, like the frogs in the rice fields called "grasshoppers." Therefore, these children are called "knocking sand hemp grasshoppers".
After the founding of the Communist Party, the workers' movement in Shuikoushan was organized.
Chairman Mao personally visited Shuikou Mountain
, ignited the flames of the Shuikoushan Workers' Movement. Jiang Xianyun, Zhang Qiong, Mao Zeqin and other Communists came to Shuikou Mountain one after another, and they set up workers' clubs and launched one struggle after another.
Another uncle of Geng Biao, Song Qiaosheng, became a worker leader, and child laborer Geng Biao also actively participated in it, standing guard, delivering letters, handing out leaflets... Until the age of 17, Geng Biao bravely completed a joint task, snatching 16 polished "old sleeve" rifles for the workers.
Since then, the Shuikoushan mine has lost one less child laborer and one more future general in the revolutionary armed lineup. Geng Biao left Shuikou Mountain and returned to his hometown of Liling to carry out the peasant movement and joined the Communist Youth League. During the peasant movement, Geng Biao joined the Red Guards with a dart, and during the "Ma-Ri Incident", he participated in the battle of "100,000 peasant troops attacking Changsha".
After the defeat of the Revolution, the enemy began a frenzied crackdown, with more than 30,000 people killed in Liling alone. Geng Biao followed the peasant army to resist again and again, failed again and again, and was forced to disperse and hide in the mountains. After the news of the Autumn Harvest Uprising came, Geng Biao and a few party cadres who had come out of the Shuikoushan workers' movement decided to go to Chairman Mao.
Just after arriving in Liuyang, they learned that Chairman Mao had gone up To Jinggangshan with the team of the Autumn Harvest Uprising, and Geng Biao had arranged with the local county party committee.
Became the leader of a guerrilla group. At this time, Geng Biao was only 18 years old
For the first time, he assumed the role of commanding troops in combat, and was also assigned his first gun.
Under the leadership of Geng Biao, the guerrilla group, which originally had only seven people and two guns, gradually developed into a team of more than thirty people and more than twenty guns. Their combat tasks also ranged from fighting local tycoons to cooperating with the Red Army. In September 1930, when Chairman Mao led the Red Army to withdraw from Changsha,
Geng Biao's guerrillas were allowed to join the Red Army
。
Passing through Liling on the way to catch up with the Red Army, Geng Biao took leave to go home to visit his parents.
What he saw was devastated after being burned and looted, his parents and siblings hiding in the mountains, and only a cousin of his age was sitting in the house.
Therefore, Geng Biao took this cousin with him and went to catch up with the Red Army. From then until 1950, Geng Biao never returned to his hometown.
After joining the Red Army, Geng Biao successively served as a staff officer, a teaching captain, a section chief, a regimental commander, and a division chief of staff, and after the Long March, he successively served as chief of staff of the Red Fourth Army, deputy brigade commander and chief of staff of the Fourth 385Th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, chief of staff of the Jin-Cha-Ji Field Army, and deputy commander and chief of staff of the 19th Corps.
Over the years, Geng Biao fought bravely and fiercely, and in the course of anti-encirclement and suppression, he went to the front line to command the battle, and a regimental commander who killed the red eyes slashed at him with a knife, and he easily flashed by relying on his family's martial arts. He was also wounded many times, and participated in the bloody battle of the Xiang River with a pendulum, and his knee was pierced by a bullet.
During the battle against the Northeast Army in northern Shaanxi, the neck was scratched by shrapnel, and the blood was moistened
He was still running around on horseback, and was angrily reprimanded by the military doctor for "not dying".
In addition to being brave and strategic on the battlefield, Geng Biao also showed the characteristics of being eager to learn and study in many fields. He used a few English words he learned with Mao Zeqin at Shuikou Mountain to prevent unknown soldiers from burning a batch of dollars; he once formed a professional bridge team according to a copy of "Engineering"; and when he was still in the Central Soviet District, he learned to drive by fiddling with a captured car.
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, Geng Biao was ordered to escort an American expedition to the front, and that was the first time he had dealt with foreigners. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek played the trick of "peace" and accepted the mediation of the Americans. Geng Biao joined the military investigation department in Beiping at that time, and exchanged words with his opponents at the negotiating table.
During the Liberation War, Geng Biao was in the famous "Yang Luo Geng Corps", that is, the corps where Yang Dezhi was the commander, Luo Ruiqing was the political commissar, and Geng Biao was the chief of staff. He participated with his troops in the liberation of Shijiazhuang, the Battle of Pingjin, and the liberation of Taiyuan, and then followed Peng Dehuai's First Field Army to the northwest. Until receiving the central government's order to return to Beijing.
To leave the troops that have been fighting for many years, Geng Biao's heart was a little unpleasant, and Yang Dezhi advised him: "Old Geng, you can still come to the corps as a mother's family in the future!" ”
When Geng Biao decided to return to Liling to see his hometown after liberation, Yang Dezhi's homesickness was also provoked.
Like Geng Biao,
Yang Dezhi is also a native of Liling, Hunan
。 So they decided to go together.
Accompanying Geng Biao and Yang Dezhi home was a general.
That is Tao Zhiyue, deputy commander of the Xinjiang Military Region, who is a native of Ningxiang, Hunan.
The three of them walked together as if they were a group of generals.
Yang Dezhi was two years younger than Geng Biao, but joined the revolution two years before Geng Biao. In 1928, when Yang Dezhi, a worker in the Anyuan Coal Mine, was only 17 years old, he joined the 7th Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army formed by the Shonan Uprising and went with the troops to Jinggangshan. During the Red Army period, he served as a military commander at all levels, from squad commander to division commander, and for a long time served as a column or corps commander in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation.
When he was awarded the rank in 1955, Yang Dezhi was awarded the rank of general.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Yang Dezhi led the Nineteenth Corps to participate in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In 1979, Yang Dezhi, then commander of the Kunming Military Region, commanded a self-defense counterattack on the Sino-Vietnamese border in Yunnan. By the 1980s, when Geng Biao was defense minister, Yang Dezhi was vice minister of national defense and chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, and the two became partners again.
Tao Zhiyue was formerly chairman of the Kuomintang Xinjiang Provincial Government and commander-in-chief of the Xinjiang Garrison. On September 25, 1949, 100,000 Kuomintang officers and men stationed in Xinjiang revolted, accepted the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and made major contributions to the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, the maintenance of the reunification of the motherland and the unity of the ethnic groups, and the establishment of new China.
After the uprising, Tao Zhiyue successively served as commander of the 22nd Corps of the People's Liberation Army, member of the Northwest Military and Political Committee, deputy commander of the Xinjiang Military Region, and commander of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.
When he was awarded the rank in 1955, Tao Zhiyue was also awarded the rank of general.
There were three people in the group, two of whom were future founding generals, and Geng Biao's qualifications were originally enough to award the rank of general, but because he was transferred from the army and did not participate in the awarding of titles, it can be said that he was an uncrowned general. The three of them walked to Hankou and met with Luo Ronghuan, Lin Biao, Tan Zheng and others who were stationed there. Yang Dezhi and Tao Zhiyue decided to stay in Hankou for a few more days, and Geng Biao parted ways with them and returned to Liling with his family.
Just arrived in Liling, Geng Biao met an acquaintance, that is, Chen Mingren, who was stationed there, who was also a well-known general.
Chen Mingren is also a native of Liling, Hunan, graduated from the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and was originally a lieutenant general of the Kuomintang. On August 4, 1949, he led the troops to revolt in Changsha, and later served as the commander of the 21st Corps, the chairman of the Provisional Government of Hunan Province, the deputy commander of the Hunan Provincial Military District, and the commander of the 55th Army.
When he was awarded the rank in 1955, Chen Mingren was awarded the rank of general. Chairman Mao attached great importance to Chen Mingren and once said to him: "I think Lin Biao is not as good as you in fighting." ”
Between Geng Biao and Chen Mingren, there was also a relationship. In 1946, when Geng Biao joined the military investigation department, he was sent to the northeast to mediate on the Siping front. At that time, Chen Mingren's Seventy-first Army happened to be the main force attacking Siping and was stationed at Tieling. When Geng Biao and his party passed through Tieling, they were detained by Chen Mingren.
During Geng Biao's house arrest, the People's Liberation Army and the Kuomintang army fought a hard but also beautiful defense battle in Siping, and took the initiative to withdraw from Siping after completing the task. The Kuomintang troops entered Siping as victors, and the mediation team was also allowed to "mediate" in Siping.
In Siping, Chen Mingren politely entertained Geng Biao, a fellow countryman, and at night, he dragged him to sleep on a bed on the pretext of chatting. That night, Geng Biao had a heated debate with Chen Mingren. Chen Mingren said that the KMT had a bright future, and in two years, it would be possible to eliminate the Communist Party in less than three years. Geng Biao promised that within three years, the Kuomintang would definitely fail. To this end, the two also made a bet.
When the two met again in Liling, Chen Mingren said as soon as he saw Geng Biao:
"Siping bet, you win, I lose."
Later, Chen Mingren once again hosted a welcome banquet for Geng Biao, at which he frankly told the story of the two people's bets at Siping and admitted that he had indeed lost. It can be seen that General Chen Mingren, who abandoned the dark and cast the light, is a heartfelt identification with the PLA.
On the way home to visit relatives, it is also a beautiful talk to have so many generals accompanying him. In the revolutionary years, a large number of enthusiastic Chinese people stood up and struggled for the establishment of a new China, and a number of general counties also emerged. In addition to Geng Biao, Yang Dezhi and Chen Mingren, there are also General Song Shilun and Lieutenant General Yan Fusheng in Liling, Hunan.
After Geng Biao returned to his hometown, he also made a special visit to the former former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Eighth Route Army, Zuo Quan, who was also a general who had walked out of Liling.
It was precisely because of the undaunted sacrifice and arduous struggle of these revolutionary predecessors that the prosperity and strength of New China were made available, and the People of China were able to live in the free and peaceful environment that they are now.