"The sun in the west is about to set, and the Weishan Lake is quiet..." A song "Play my beloved earth pipa" sang about the north and south of the great river, which showed the heroic killing of the enemy by the railway guerrillas to the fullest. And these well-known heroes are all derived from the Lunan Railway Brigade, Hong Zhenhai, Wang Zhisheng, Liu Jinshan, these are the real heroes, the captain Liu Hong, we know well, is the combination of the two captains Hong Zhenhai and Liu Jinshan, and Wang Qiang's prototype figure is Wang Zhisheng, one of the founders of the Railway Brigade.
However, today we are talking about another founder, Xu Guangtian, who was a legendary figure of the Shandong Military Region during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, whose heroic deeds were also widely circulated, and who was later awarded the Rank A Combat Hero.
In 1918, Xu Guangtian was born in Zaozhuang, Shandong, due to his poor family, he worked as a coolie in the coal kiln for several years in his early years, because he could not stand the bullying and oppression of the overseer and the coal kiln owner, he left the coal kiln and ran to the railway to become a car scrubper, Xu Guangtian was sweet and diligent, sometimes helped the train driver to repair the train or burn the boiler, and slowly learned to drive the train, and because of the reason for the car, he was also very familiar with various situations of the train, especially climbing up and down the train, such as walking on the ground.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zaozhuang was occupied by the Japanese army, the Japanese army took over the coal kiln and railway station, cut off Xu Guangtian's livelihood, in order to survive he got on the train to steal coal, in 1938 Hong Zhenhai and Wang Zhisheng were sent by the Sulu Anti-Japanese Volunteer Brigade to return to their hometown Zaozhuang to develop a secret intelligence station, Xu Guangtian was one of the first backbone intelligence members to be developed.
After the establishment of the intelligence station, the superiors instructed them to prepare for the establishment of anti-Japanese armed forces on the basis of continuing to do a good job in anti-Japanese intelligence work. If we want to develop anti-Japanese armed forces, we must have weapons, so where can we do this? But this could not help Xu Guangtian, because he found that on the moving train, the Japanese army did not strictly guard the guns, one night, he and Hong Zhenhai, Wang Zhisheng three people turned over on the train, dropped a dozen "three eight big covers" off the train, with weapons, they played the banner of the Zaozhuang Railway Team, Hong Zhenhai was the captain, Xu Guangtian and Wang Zhisheng were both squad leaders.
When the railway team was first established, there were only 11 people, and when it developed in the future, there were only a few dozen people, and the number was small but they were all elite soldiers, and Xu Guangtian, as one of the founders, served as the squadron leader of the spear squadron for a long time, participating in the overnight attack on foreign companies, flying cars to engage in machine guns, destroying railways, blowing up bridges, and taking ticket cars. As its fame grew, in 1940 the Zaozhuang Railway Brigade was renamed the Lunan Railway Brigade.
In 1941, it was already approaching winter, the problem of winter clothing in the Lunan Military Region had not yet been completely solved, after the Lunan Railway Brigade received the task, led by Xu Guangtian, with the cooperation of the station chief Zhang Yongji, intercepted the Japanese train full of materials, and captured more than 1,200 cotton cloths, nearly a thousand sets of cotton clothes, as well as quilts, blankets, tweeds and other materials.
In 1943, the Shandong Military Region held a model meeting of combat heroes, Xu Guangtian was awarded the title of Class A combat hero, Xu Guangtian led the soldiers to fight in every way, but grumpy, and a little personal heroism, because of these, he and the captain Liu Jinshan did not get along very well.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zaozhuang set up a railway management bureau, the railway brigade was abolished, and the main and deputy captains Liu Jinshan and Wang Zhisheng served as the chief and deputy directors respectively, while the superiors considered that the spear brigade had all The Same Japanese equipment, and could not bear to be dismantled, so they let Xu Guangtian continue to lead this team.
Seeing that everyone else had become the bureau chief and station chief, and he continued to serve as the captain of the spear squadron, Xu Guangtian was very dissatisfied with this, believing that it was Liu Jinshan's ghost, and later the superiors also found that there was a loophole in the cadre arrangement, and planned to send Xu Guangtian to the military region to study first, and then transferred to the battalion commander of the special service regiment of the Lunan Military Region, but the order had not yet been conveyed to him, Xu Guangtian had already defected to the nationalist army and became the commander of the special agent company.
But after a few months of work, he was disgusted by all kinds of vices in the nationalist army, resigned his post and returned home to become a butcher, after the founding of New China, Xu Guangtian was sentenced to two years, and then in the three years of difficult times, the family life was difficult, he fell seriously ill, and finally died.