In June 1947, Liu Deng's army advanced into the Dabie Mountains in one fell swoop, and at the junction of the three provinces of Eyu and Anhui, it sounded the clarion call of the People's Liberation Army's strategic counteroffensive.
Taking advantage of the rest of the troops, Zheng Guozhong, deputy commander of the Third Column, made a request to his superiors to return to his hometown in Hubei to visit his relatives, and in view of the fact that Comrade Zheng Guozhong had not returned home for 18 years after joining the army, the organization specially approved his request.
After many inquiries, Zheng Guozhong finally found the old house in his memory. He plucked up enough courage to knock on the wooden door. But after waiting for a long time, there was no response from the room.
Just when Zheng Guozhong was standing outside the door quietly waiting, there was an unexpected sound of opening the door behind him, and Zheng Guozhong turned around to look at an old woman standing at the gate. The old woman looked at the man in military uniform in fear and asked
"Who are you looking for, sir?" ”
Zheng Guozhong could no longer suppress the tears in his eyes, he knelt down in front of the old woman and said, "Mother, my son has come back to see you."
The old woman was stunned for a moment, and then trembled and said, "You are guozhong, you are back?" Mother did not dream, over the years, where have you gone, why not send a letter to the family, do you know how worried the mother is? ”
Zheng Guozhong said to his mother: "Mother, you did not dream, your son is back." The son is not filial, and he did not say goodbye without consulting with your second elder, and the son was wrong. ”
What really happened 18 years ago, why Zheng Guozhong chose to join the army without saying goodbye. Over the years, why did Zheng Guozhong not contact his family, and now that mother and son are reunited, where should this family go?
Determined to join the army, do not say goodbye
In 1913, Zheng Guozhong was born in Huang'an County, Hubei Province, his parents were poor and lower-middle peasants, and the whole family lived by cultivating land for others. At an early age, his parents sent Zheng Guozhong to a tailor shop as an apprentice, hoping that he could learn a craft and support his family in the future.
However, in the year when Zheng Zhongguo was discharged, the political situation in the country was chaotic, the warlords were divided everywhere, and the people could not eat enough, so where did they have the money to make clothes?
In 1927, the jute uprising broke out in Huang'an County and Macheng County in Hubei Province, and the people's government was established in both counties, and Zheng Guozhong, who was only 14 years old, began to understand "communism" and revolutionary ideas.
From that time on, Zheng Guozhong secretly resolved to overthrow this group of feudal ruling classes, so that the people could be the masters of their own affairs and let the poor people live a good life.
Zheng Guozhong proposed to his parents the idea of joining the Red Army, but his parents refused, in their opinion, children should honestly farm and support their families, live some stable life, as for the revolution, it is going to die, which parent can bear to let their children do such a dangerous thing?
But Zheng Guozhong did not give up his ideas because of his parents' refusal, he silently waited for the opportunity, and when he grew up a little, he could join the army and make a revolution.
Two years later, the opportunity that Zheng Guozhong had been waiting for finally came, and one day he was working in the farmland, when he suddenly heard the villagers say that the Red Army team was going to come to a nearby village to recruit troops, so he immediately threw down the hoe in his hand and ran desperately to the Red Army's recruitment office.
Zheng Guozhong gasped and asked, "Hello, is this the red army's conscription office?" ”
The Red Army soldiers responded: "Yes, fellow, are you here to join the army?" ”
Zheng Guozhong said: "Yes, I am here to be a soldier, I heard that you are different from other troops, you are a team that helps the people, so I want to join you." ”
The soldiers of the Red Army carefully explained: "You are right, we in the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army are a contingent of people helping the common people, a group of revolutionary contingents struggling to make the peasants the masters of their own affairs. ”
Zheng Guozhong smiled and said, "I just want to join a team like yours, I want to follow you and make a revolution with you." ”
Looking at the thin Zheng Guozhong in front of him, the Red Army soldier said: "Comrade, making a revolution is not a game, it is bloody and sacrificial, I hope you will think about it carefully." ”
Zheng Guozhong said firmly: "I am not afraid, even if my family is poor in this life, I don't want my descendants to continue to be poor, in order to let the people live a good life, I am willing to join the Red Army and fight with you to the end." ”
After listening to this sentence, the Red Army soldiers understood Zheng Guozhong's determination, and he asked Zheng Guozhong to go home to explain to his family, and then returned to the barracks at night to report. Zheng Guozhong first agreed, and then he was afraid that his parents would not agree to join the army, so he chose not to say goodbye.
Zheng Guozhong's parents did not wait until late at night for their son, who should go home for dinner, and the parents were worried about what accident had happened to their children, so they rushed out to look around, but only found an abandoned hoe in the farmland.
At this time, a kind fellow villager reminded them: "The Red Army team came to us two days ago to recruit soldiers, and your family and country may have gone to join the army." The Zheng family couple remembered Zheng Guozhong's previous proposal and could only sigh: "The child is older than the father." ”
After years of conquest, he refused to send letters
After joining the ranks of the Red Army, Zheng Guozhong learned about the grim revolutionary situation. The Red Army needs to face the encirclement and suppression of reactionaries at all times, and sometimes it will be attacked by the landlords' armed forces, so only by surviving can it defeat the enemy and save China.
In order to survive on the battlefield, Zheng Guozhong desperately trained himself when everyone else was resting.
With his heroic fighting style and witty mind, Zheng Guozhong was soon promoted to platoon leader of the Red Fourth Front, and in his first year of enlistment, he joined the Chinese Communist Party. In the face of the Kuomintang reactionaries' many encirclement and suppression battles, Zheng Guozhong always took the lead, charged the front line, and repeatedly made military achievements.
After the failure of the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression operation, in order to coordinate the Long March of the Central Red Army, Zheng Guozhong's Red Fourth Front Army launched the famous Battle of Jialing River. In this battle, Zheng Guozhong led his troops to defeat the strong with weakness and annihilated the troops of an enemy brigade, and since then his name has begun to spread widely in the Red Fourth Front.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Zheng Guozhong was transferred to the 769th Regiment of the 385th Brigade of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army as a battalion commander, and in order to cooperate with the Nationalist troops on the frontal battlefield to defeat the Japanese army, the 769th Regiment decided to attack the Japanese airfield in the Yangmingbao area at night.
In this battle, our army annihilated hundreds of enemies in just one hour, blew up 24 Japanese planes, and the Japanese, who were embarrassed and angry, launched a frenzied pursuit of our army.
At this critical moment, Zheng Guozhong offered to lead the troops to buy time for the transfer of the main force. After that, Zheng Guozhong led a battalion of soldiers to set up a blocking position in the nearby highlands, blocking the attack of the Japanese armored convoy for five hours and helping the large army to escape from danger smoothly.
In 1940, in order to eliminate the resistance forces behind the enemy lines, the Japanese army began to build a large number of bunkers in North China and implemented the "cage policy".
In order to undermine the policy of the Japanese army, the CENTRAL Committee of the Communist Party of China decided that Deputy Commander-in-Chief Peng Dehuai would command the various units of the Eighth Route Army to launch a large-scale anti-"mopping-up" operation, which was also called the "Battle of the Hundred Regiments" because the number of troops participating in the battle was as high as 105 regiments.
Zheng Guozhong, who was the commander of the 769th Regiment at the time, also led his troops to participate in this battle, and in order to boost morale, Zheng Guozhong personally ran to the front line of the battlefield and fought side by side with the soldiers, regardless of the dangers of the battlefield. In order to complete the task of destroying Zhengtai Road in the first stage of the Hundred Regiments War, Zheng Guozhong led a battalion of troops to defend ShinaoShan, and fought bitterly with the Japanese troops who came to support for seven days and seven nights.
Looking at the soldiers around him who sacrificed one after another, Zheng Guozhong said to the other soldiers: "Don't cry to Lao Tzu, fighting a war is inevitable to kill people, there is only one battalion left, I am your battalion commander, there is one company left, I am your company commander, the remaining platoon, I am the platoon leader, even if I die here, as long as I complete the task given to us by my superiors, it is worth it." ”
In the face of the enemy's aircraft artillery attack, Zheng Guozhong led the soldiers to stand on the Lion's Brain Mountain, and by the sixth day, the troops led by Zheng Guozhong had run out of food, but they still held large knives and fought the enemy to the death. The battle continued until the early morning of the seventh day, when the Japanese, seeing that they really had no advantage, could only detour through the area.
After this battle, Zheng Guozhong led his troops to kill more than 400 enemy people, making the first contribution to the Battle of the Hundred Regiments. The CPC Central Committee gave high praise to the battlefield battles and issued good news to the whole army for four consecutive days. Afterwards
Marshal Peng Dehuai said: "The troops guarding Shihu Mountain are brave and tenacious. ”
After the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Kuomintang reactionaries headed by Chiang Kai-shek brazenly launched an offensive against the Liberated Areas in order to seize the fruits of victory and provoked a second civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Zheng Guozhong led his troops to fight in the movement, repeatedly crushing the plans of the Kuomintang reactionaries.
In 1946, Zheng Guozhong was promoted to deputy commander of the Third Column of the Central Plains Field Army with excellent records
。 A year later, without the support of the rear, Zheng Guozhong and other column commanders jointly launched the Battle of Zhangjiadian, annihilating the Nationalist 88th Division and the 62nd Brigade, totaling more than 5,000 people, which greatly improved the morale of our army and shocked the arrogance of the surrounding Kuomintang troops.
In the eighteen years since he joined the army, Zheng Guozhong has never been in contact with his family or written a letter. An old comrade-in-arms once asked, "Guo Zhong, why don't you write a letter to your family so that they know what your situation is now?" ”
Zheng Guozhong smiled bitterly: "We lead the soldiers to fight, we always hang our heads on the waistband of our pants, maybe we will die at any time, I dare not write a letter to my family, I am afraid that I have just given them hope, I will disappoint them." ”
The old comrade-in-arms then said, "What about your father and mother, don't you want them for so many years?" ”
Zheng Guozhong sighed and said, "I don't want to say, that's false, but since ancient times, loyalty and filial piety are difficult to have, since we decided to hand over our lives to the state, we can only grievance their second elders, if there is a next life, I will definitely honor their second elders." ”
After listening to Zheng Guozhong's words, the old comrade-in-arms patted Zheng Guozhong's shoulder, he understood Zheng Guozhong's mood very well, there was a wanderer who was out of the country who did not miss his parents, but in the real world,
Many people have to give up their small homes for everyone.
The wanderer returns home and the mother and son are reunited
In June 1947, Liu Deng's army advanced into the Dabie Mountain area in one fell swoop, which is the junction of the three provinces of Eyu and Anhui, very close to Zheng Guozhong's hometown of Huang'an County, Hubei Province, thinking of his hometown for eighteen years, Zheng Guozhong could no longer bear the thought of his family, he took the initiative to ask his superiors for instructions, and wanted to return home to visit his parents. After the organization learned of this matter, in view of the fact that Zheng Guozhong had not returned home for many years, he specially approved his request.
Zheng Guozhong left home young, and now that he has returned to his hometown after eighteen years, it seems that everything has changed, and it seems that nothing has changed. With the memories of the past, Zheng Guozhong found the old house that contained many memories.
When he reached the gate, he stopped and carefully sorted out his military uniform, intending to use this new look to face his parents, whom he had not seen for eighteen years. Zheng Guozhong gently knocked on the door, but there was no response from the room, and Zheng Guozhong thought that his parents were not at home, so he waited quietly at the door.
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But just as he waited quietly, there was a sound of opening the door behind him, and Zheng Guozhong turned his head to look at an old woman with white hair standing at the door frame. The old woman looked at the man in military uniform in fear, and then asked:
"Sir, who are you looking for?"
At this moment, the deputy commander of the People's Liberation Army, Zheng Guozhong, who was bleeding without tears, no longer existed, and standing in the same place was a homeless wanderer who had been homesick for eighteen years.
Zheng Guozhong fell to his knees with tears in his eyes and choked up: "Mother, my son has come back to see you." ”
Zheng Guozhong's mother was also stunned in the same place, she did not expect that her son, who had been nagging for eighteen years, suddenly came back, and in an instant, joy, grievance, sadness and other emotions surged into her heart. She shook her hands and said, "You are Guozhong, you are back?" Mother did not dream, all these years, where have you gone, why not send a letter to the family, do you know how worried the mother is? ”
Zheng Guozhong said to his mother: "Mother, you did not dream, your son has returned." The son was not filial, he did not say goodbye, he went to join the army without you and his father, and now the son has come back to see you. ”
After the reunion of mother and son, Zheng Guozhong was welcomed into the house by his mother. Zheng Guozhong's mother held her son's hand, afraid that the child would disappear in the next second, and the two told the story of what they had experienced over the years.
Near noon, Zheng Guozhong's father also returned from the field, and when he saw his son who suddenly returned, he was both surprised and surprised, not only made a delicious meal, but also killed the hen who laid eggs in the family and stewed a bowl of chicken soup for his son.
It was getting late, Zheng Guozhong resigned to his parents again, and the parents said goodbye to their sons with tears, and saw that the eyes of the second elder were full of reluctance.
Zheng Guozhong said: "Father, mother, don't cry, wait for your son to finish the battle and come back, then the son will take you to the city and let you enjoy your happiness." ”
After that, Zheng Guozhong returned to the army and successively participated in a series of battles to liberate all of China, such as the Battle of Huaihai and the Battle of Crossing the River. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zheng Guozhong fulfilled his promise to his parents and took the two elderly people to his side to send them to the end of their lives.
On January 11, 1992, General Zheng Guozhong died in Beijing, his whole life has been selflessly dedicated to the cause of the Chinese revolution, he gave up his small family for everyone, just to let the Chinese people live a good life, the heroes will grow old, but their spirit will always live in our hearts.