Speaking of General Xu Shiyou, many people's impressions of him are basically that he is brash, loves to drink, fights bravely, and so on. But in fact, General Xu Shiyou is still a "martial arts master".
General Xu Shiyou was born poor, entered the Songshan Shaolin Temple at the age of 8 to learn martial arts, and learned a skill from an early age, and his martial arts attainments are needless to say. After the battle, he also faced the enemy's real knives and guns on the battlefield, so that the skills he learned were well used and practiced.
Therefore, among all the founding generals, General Xu Shiyou can definitely be called a "martial arts master", and he is rarely an enemy in the army with a hard kung fu. However, Xu Shiyou is not an invincible hand in the world, in front of this founding lieutenant general, he was "knocked down"!
Figure | General Xu Shiyou
This happened during the Red Army period, General Xu Shiyou often found fighters in the army to compete in wrestling, one can exercise, the other can enhance the feelings between officers and soldiers, after all, people who practice martial arts pay attention to "meeting friends with martial arts".
One day, Xu Shiyou came to a company to find someone to wrestle, and he also issued a death order, saying that whoever wanted to let him would absolutely "severely punish him." In fact, with Xu Shiyou's skill, let alone let go, even if he went all out, he might not be able to win him, and because of this, several warriors who came up successively were thrown to the ground by him.
Xu Shiyou was very happy with his repeated victories, and then asked loudly, "Is there anything else that dares to challenge?" ”
Just when Xu Shiyou was proud, a soldier who had just joined the army came out and said, "Chief, I'll try!" ”
When many soldiers saw this, they were shocked and thought to themselves: "Even a veteran who has experienced hundreds of battles is not an opponent of General Xu, can you be a recruit egg?" ”
When Xu Shiyou saw that he was a new soldier, he did not pay attention to him, and the two of them opened up and prepared for war. However, this time, Xu Shiyou really lost, and within a few moves, he was thrown to the ground by this recruit.
Xu Shiyou stood up, patted the dust on his body, and said happily to this warrior: "Boy, you can do it, you are brute force, if you know how to use some skills, then you will be even more powerful!" ”
Xu Shiyou was happy to win, and now he is even happier to lose, perhaps he has finally found an opponent who can pass the move!
This recruit, named "Liu Fei", was the founding lieutenant general of New China!
Liu Fei, born in 1905 in a poor peasant family in Hong'an, Hubei Province, worked as a cattle herder, a row worker and a tea servant in his childhood, and at the age of 16, he went to Hankou Wharf to work as a coolie and trained a brute force.
Later, after joining the Red Army, with brute force and tenacious fighting spirit that was not afraid of sacrifice, he rose all the way up and became a division-level cadre of the Red Army.
General Liu Fei experienced countless battles in his life, but what he never forgot was the years when he led thirty-six wounded men to fight at Yangcheng Lake, when a bullet entered his body and was not taken out until his death.
Figure | General Liu Fei
It was in 1939 that Liu Fei was then the director of the political department of the "Jiangnan Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army" (commonly known as 'Jiang Kang'). Soon after the establishment of this unit, it burned Hongqiao Airport, raided Hushuguan Station, annihilated more than 20 Japanese garrisons, and fought several victorious battles in succession, shaking Jiangnan and causing panic among the Japanese puppet army.
It is worth mentioning that the department has expanded from more than 1,000 people at the beginning of its establishment to more than 5,000 people after only 4 months of development, and the weapons and equipment have been greatly improved, each squad has a light machine gun, each battalion has two heavy machine guns, the general headquarters has also established two heavy machine gun companies, and nearly two hundred machine guns have been transferred to support the New Fourth Army Headquarters and brother units.
However, the excellent performance of the "Jiang Kang" in this area, in addition to shaking the Japanese puppet army, also made the Kuomintang "Loyal and Righteous National Salvation Army" active in this area feel very unhappy, creating friction and making small moves from time to time.
In late September 1939, the "Loyal National Salvation Army" finally launched an offensive against our army. On the 24th of the same month, our "Jiangkang" troops and the reinforcements of the "Zhongyi National Salvation Army" fought at the division level at Baidanshan in Xidong, and the two armies suffered casualties from each other.
In this battle, our army killed and wounded more than 30 people of the "Loyal National Salvation Army" at the cost of more than 20 casualties. Unfortunately, while directing the troops to counterattack, General Liu Fei was hit in the chest by a bullet and seriously injured.
Since it was still a period of cooperative anti-Japanese resistance, in order to avoid the expansion of the conflict, the "Jiang Kang" decided to withdraw the large troops and leave Liu Fei and dozens of other wounded and sick people and more than a dozen medical personnel in Yangcheng Lake to recuperate.
At that time, the medical conditions were too poor, the doctors did not dare to operate, and General Liu Fei's injuries became more and more serious, coughing and bleeding, and often had a high fever to a coma.
The most fatal thing is that the Japanese puppet army knew that some of the wounded and sick of our army were recuperating here, so they launched a blockade and search for this place.
Finally, under the cover of his fellow countrymen, General Liu Fei lay on a simple stretcher made of door panels to command the wounded and sick to maneuver with the Japanese puppet army, lying in the reeds during the day to command covertly, and at night he was carried out for treatment.
However, due to the lack of medical treatment and the harsh environment, many of the wounded suffered from severe sepsis and unfortunately died. By the end of October 1939, only 36 wounded remained.
Figure | Xia Guang with founding Lieutenant General Liu Fei (right).
Liu Fei knew very well in his heart that hiding in this way was not the way to go, so he tried every means to reflect to his superiors, put forward the idea of establishing a "Jiangsu Resistance Road Army," and immediately obtained the approval of his superiors.
In early November of the same year, the Headquarters of the Jiangdong Road Army was officially established, and Liu Fei considered that he was seriously injured and could not command the troops, so he recommended Comrade Xia Guang to his superiors to serve as the commander of the troops, and the rest of the soldiers who had recovered from their wounds formed a special agent company.
Soon after, Liu Fei was secretly sent to Shanghai for treatment, but because the bullet was too close to the heart, it was difficult to remove it according to the medical conditions at that time, so the doctor decided not to open the cavity surgery and only to carry out conservative treatment.
Because of this, this bullet remained in Liu Fei's body forever, and before General Liu Fei died, he said to his children: "I have not left you any wealth in this life, but after I die you can get a gift, which is the wealth of your life." ”
And this "gift" is the bullet in the body! After the general's body was cremated, the bullet was taken out and is still treasured in the Suzhou Revolutionary History Museum.
During the Liberation War, the "Jiang Kang" was reorganized into the Second Division of the First Column of the East China Field Army, with Liu Fei as the division commander and later as the deputy commander of the First Column.
During the Battle of Huaihai in 1948, General Ye Fei, commander of the First Column, was treated in the hospital, and the first column was actually commanded by Liu Fei, winning one battle after another. For example, shortly after the start of the war, the Kuomintang Sixty-third Army was surrounded at Yaowan and completely annihilated after only 8 hours of fierce fighting, which created a brilliant record of a column (army) annihilating the enemy and an army.
After the Battle of Huaihai, Liu Fei, who was promoted to commander of the 20th Army of the People's Liberation Army, led his troops to participate in the battles of crossing the river and Shanghai, and his merits were outstanding.
At that time, Cui Zuofu, a reporter accompanying the army, interviewed Liu Fei, but Liu Fei said that the battle was fought by everyone, and the credit was also given by everyone, and he had nothing to say. But he said to Trizov: "You can write about the Second Division well, and the basis of this unit is thirty-six wounded." ”
After learning about this story, Trizov was so excited that he conducted an in-depth interview and used it as material to write the famous "Blood-Stained Name" in 1957, which caused a sensation in China for a time.
Later, on the basis of interviewing Liu Fei, the Shanghai Shanghai Opera Troupe wrote the script "Ludang Tinder" in combination with this work. In the 1960s, it was adapted into the well-known modern Peking Opera "Sha Jiabang", in which the prototype of the male protagonist instructor Guo Jianguang was General Liu Fei.
Figure | Stills from "Sha Jia Bang"
However, when people "put Guo Jianguang and General Liu into the seat", the general said: "I am not Guo Jianguang." Because in the eyes of the general, Guo Jianguang embodied the excellent qualities of all the "Jiang Kang" comrades-in-arms, and he was just one of them.