The 95-year-old anti-japanese war veteran was awarded the plaque of the people's meritorious service, but it was used to press the grain tank, and even the first class merit of the brigade and the first class of the army, but he was a farmer in anonymity for 72 years. He has never lost a battle in his life, once led a squad and captured five or six hundred people, and he is the heroic veteran Ge Shitian we are going to introduce today.
In 2021, in order to reflect the concern for veterans, the personnel of the veterans service department of Cherry Orchard Town, Xinxian County, Shandong Province, visited the veterans in the town.
After several days in a row, they had arrived at the homes of several veterans, until March 27, when the staff came to the home of ge Shitian, a retired soldier, and they saw that the 95-year-old revolutionary veteran was still in good spirits, and they couldn't help but talk to Ge Shitian.
Although this veteran did not have honor to add to his body, after all, he was a person who had once defended his family and defended the country, and he could not be neglected no matter what. Ge Shitian rarely talked with the staff so excitedly, recalling the glory days of the past for a while, constantly lamenting the days when he and his comrades-in-arms carried guns together, but never mentioned their honor, the staff listened to the old man's narration of the past, while looking at the current situation of the old man's life.
Even if it has reached 2021, the old hero lives in an adobe house, the doors and windows are still old, the house is clean and bright, but it is all old furniture with a water, and the modern electrical appliances are few, even if he lives such a poor life, the old hero still laments that he is much luckier than other comrades-in-arms, and then goes to the kitchen, the old-fashioned stove and grain tank, the cylinder is pressed with a thick wooden board.
At first glance, there seems to be writing on the wooden board. The staff fixed their eyes on it, hey, no, this is actually a plaque of the people's heroes.
Plaque of the People's Meritorious Service
On the right side of the plaque is written "Comrade Ge Shitian Meritorious Service Memorial". How could this ordinary old man have such a great achievement?
The plaque, which was issued in 1949, was finally seen again after 72 years, and the staff looked at the old man with surprise and asked about the merits of the old man.
The old man took out an old-style cloth bag from the house, which contained several military merit medals and commemorative medals, and there were commemorative medals for the liberation of Jinan, two of which were still first-class meritorious medals. I thought I was just an ordinary veteran, not at all remarkable. Only then did the heroes who hid their merits and fame become known to the Chinese people.
After the staff knew all this, they quickly reported it, and the station manager of the service station who learned the news rushed to the home of Ge Shitian's old man for the first time, and when facing the reporter's interview, he still stressed:
"I know that the old man has gone to the battlefield to find battles and made meritorious achievements, but he has been many times, and he has never heard the old man talk about the plaque."
The past of that year, the old man Ge Shitian has not mentioned to others, but has been anonymous for 72 years, until the age of 95 These past events were not turned over.
It was 1949, and Ge Shitian was still in the army and had been awarded the first class merit twice. At that time, the cadres of the fifth district of Guancheng County, Shandong Province, and the representatives of Wukousi Village beat gongs and drums to send plaques, and Ge Shitian's father took the plaque with excitement and hung it happily. The children cheered and the adults were envious.
Later, after Ge Shitian retired from the army and returned to his hometown, he did not pay any attention to his own merits and was willing to work as a farmer at home for a living. The former military career is no longer mentioned, and everyone has forgotten the existence of heroes.
So what kind of magnificent life did old man Ge Shitian have?
Ge Shitian
Ge Shitian was born in 1926 in Cherry Orchard Town, Xinxian County, Shandong Province, from a poor family, in 1943, he was just 17 years old when he joined the army, in the Guan Chao County Brigade as an ordinary soldier, young he even barely carried a gun, but he was bent on fighting devils and driving the Japanese out of China.
In 1948, the Battle of Linfen began, and the strategic location of Linfen was very important. In order to contain us, Chiang Kai-shek put pressure on Hu Zongnan and Yan Xishan, demanding that this isolated city be defended, and linfen defended the city with 25,000 troops.
At that time, Yan Xishan shouted: Defending Linfen is defending Taiyuan. His men were to be in the city and sent a supervision team to supervise the battle.
There are many bunkers around Linfen City, and the Nationalist army also has defensive facilities such as internal trenches and external trenches and barbed wire. Moreover, the terrain of Linfen City is high inside and low outside, easy to defend and difficult to attack.
And our side is also bound to win against Linfen. When Linfen is taken down, several liberated areas can be connected. In the future, the situation will be more favorable to us.
Xu personally commanded the former commander and took the form of tunnel blasting. On April 15, 1948, Ge Shitian and his comrades-in-arms and the enemy launched a fierce battle on the outskirts of Linfen City, in the air, the enemy used air superiority to bombard us in turn, on the ground, the enemy defended the periphery with local troops, counterattacked the position occupied by the main force, and cruelly cast poison gas.
Every time we conquer a place, the enemy will stubbornly fight for it. Underground, the struggle was equally fierce, with 15 broken tunnels we dug and 40 cover tunnels surrounding the sides being blown up more than 10 times.
Ge Shitian was the squad leader at the time, and he led the soldiers in the squad to fight and rush, quickly advancing towards the enemy's trenches, and also covering the engineering troops to build the bunkers to the edge of the enemy's outer city trenches. Ge Shitian was bold and careful, and as soon as he heard the gunshots, he came to his senses.
In Linfen, he was stunned and detoured, leading a squad to quickly solve the enemy's sentry, a strafing, the enemy was caught off guard, thinking that the divine soldiers had descended from heaven, and five or six hundred enemies raised their hands and surrendered without fighting. The military chief exclaimed in disbelief.
Battle of Taiyuan
By May 17, two tunnels that broke the city were successfully dug into the city, and at 18:30, the general offensive of the Battle of Linfen began, the city wall was blown open, the passage was opened, Ge Shitian led the soldiers to brave the enemy's gunfire and bullets to charge bravely, the enemy did not give up resistance, they used the fierce artillery of the artillery battalion to greet Ge Shitian, the shells continued to explode around them, and the comrades fell one after another.
In the charge, a shell exploded around Ge Shitian, in order to cover his comrades, he shouted and fell down, and then quickly pushed away the comrades around him, and the flying shrapnel shot directly through his left chest, and the blood was immediately poured.
Because of this injury, for more than 40 years, he often coughed up blood, often had difficulty breathing, and could not do heavy work. It was not until 1991 that the shrapnel left on his body was completely removed.
The battle lasted until 00:00 on May 18, when the enemy defending Linfen was completely annihilated by us.
Ge Shitian received first-class merit for his bravery in battle.
When Linfen fell, Yan Xishan urgently arranged to "defend Jinzhong and hold Taiyuan firmly," and the cunning enemy would fight if he could win, and run if he could not win. In order to cut off the enemy's source of food, we will be able to advance to the wheat harvest.
We launched the Jinzhong Campaign again. Slightly improving, Ge Shitian sneaked back and joined the battle in time.
At that time, the feeling was that the enemy could not help but fight, no wonder some people laughed and said, it is not that the national army is useless, only that the communist army is too brave. In this battle, although Ge Shitian and they had a small victory, many people in the team were very brave and outstanding, and Ge Shitian also gave up the credit.
This was followed by the Battle of Taiyuan. Rikou and Yan Xishan built a lot of fortifications on the outskirts of Taiyuan. As a result, in the area of forty or fifty miles around Taiyuan, there are many bunkers, reaching more than 5,000. Yan Xishan called this a "hundred-mile defensive line" and a "fire sea area."
Ge Shitian has always been bold in fighting, and after several years of practical combat experience, he was excited when he heard the gunshots, and even if he was injured, he did not change his tenacious nature.
Xiaodian Town is located in the south of Taiyuan, more than 30 miles away from Taiyuan City, and is a very important place. The enemy sent heavy troops to defend. On the night of October 4, our army cut off the enemy's rear road troops, secretly inserted into the north of Xiaodian Town, cut off the enemy's contact with the troops, and secretly entered the northeast of Xiaodian Town, where our main force had to face the enemy's two divisions and three regiments. Ge Shitian's 22nd Brigade and brother brigades served as the main task of encircling and annihilating the enemy's 44th Division.
Hu Zhengping, commander of the 22nd Brigade, mobilized everyone: We must fight well and must not fall behind the brother troops. The political commissar also gave everyone encouragement: the old 44th Division, which was known as the main force, and their major general division commander were killed by us. Playing this patchwork of the new 44th Division is not a problem.
Liberation of Taiyuan
Although the continuous combat has been very tired, but the morale of the people is still high. Ge Shitian, who served as a surprise attack, was already a deputy platoon commander, and Ge Shitian led his comrades to attack bravely, while paying attention to mobile and flexible tactical coordination, thus effectively cracking down on the arrogance of the enemy. In this battle, the commander of the enemy's new 44th Division became our prisoner.
When awarding meritorious service awards after the war, because Ge Shitian held the disease on the cruel battlefield and led the troops to fight with the enemy desperately, his spirit greatly infected his comrades-in-arms and boosted morale, so his platoon was more heroic and tenacious, and was known as "the tip of the sharp knife".
In the fierce battle, the platoon leader was seriously injured, and the command fell to Ge Shitian, who was on fire with both eyes, leading his brothers to fight all the way, the enemy was beaten to flee in all directions, and the desperate Sanlang's frame completely conquered the enemy.
So much so that afterwards, some captives recalled that when they saw the wolf-like man rushing up, his heart was already cold.
In the Battle of Xiaodian, Ge Shitian led his troops to kill the enemy several times larger, effectively responding to the call of his superiors to annihilate the enemy's living forces.
"Never lost a battle. Once I led a squad around the enemy and captured a battalion of five or six hundred guns," Gu Shitian recalled.
Because of his outstanding merits, Ge Shitian received another first-class merit, which was only half a year after the last time he received the first-class merit.
The good news spread to the hometown, so there were scenes of local governments and local people beating gongs and drums to send plaques.
With the end of the victory in the Taiyuan War, Shanxi was completely liberated. After that, Ge Shitian fought many more battles, and Ge Shitian recalled that after several major battles, the enemy's psychological state had almost collapsed, and after the Battle of Qinling, Ge Shitian led the sharp knife platoon to directly tear open the enemy's defense line, and our main force directly broke the enemy's defense line when it went up.
At that time, the enemy defending was quite weak in will to fight, and before the battle was fought, the Kuomintang soldiers had already escaped quite a bit. It is not an exaggeration to describe it as a devastating and decaying one.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Ge Shitian also carried out the struggle against bandits with the troops.
Bandit war
After 11 years as a soldier, he later entered the era of peace, even if he became a company commander, the wounds of that year often occurred, and Ge Shitian felt that it was time to go home to fulfill his filial piety, so he quietly went through the demobilization procedures and returned to his hometown.
Then the plaque was quietly removed. He never told anyone. Instead, he became a farmer silently.
Ge Shitian's great achievements were accidentally discovered, and some people said that he could not have been so low-key.
He just said lightly, in fact, there is nothing. Many comrades who sacrificed are heroes, and the credit is left to future generations. Now that the policy is so good, what else are we not satisfied with.
The children expressed their understanding of their father's low profile, because the old man was such a person.
After interviewing Ge Shitian, a reporter said that it is precisely because of his bravery and tenacity that he can make great achievements, and it is precisely because he is indifferent to fame and fortune that he can raise his life.
This plaque of history has been donated to the museum, educating and inspiring us and our descendants from generation to generation.