Many people who do not know "Zeng Mei" will mistakenly think that this is a woman's name, because the beauty revealed by the word "Zeng Mei" is incompatible with the past of Jinge Iron Horse and Beacon Smoke. In fact, this name is far from myself, Zeng Mei is an iron-boned soldier, and he is also a famous founding major general on the list of generals of the Republic.
He joined the army at the age of sixteen to join the revolution, walked 25,000 miles of the Long March Road, was the direct site of the Zunyi Conference site, he fought day and night with the invading Japanese army to defend the country and liberate Shijiazhuang, he charged forward. In the twenty-five years of zhengrong years, he waded the Xiang River, turned over the snowy mountains, crossed the Yellow River, and pacified the enemy, and spilled his blood for the victory of war and revolution.
It is said that when the old general zeng was in his nineties, he had an MRI examination, and the doctor found that there were still a few pieces of shrapnel left on the old man's skull.
General Zeng Mei shuttled through the rain of bullets and bullets for more than twenty years, from a nameless pawn to the founding general, and his life experience was like a character in a book, full of dangers but wonderful.
Zeng Mei's original name was Zeng Zhaotai, and he later worked next to Premier Zhou, and the premier changed his name to him.
He originally wanted to change his name to "Zeng Virtue" to guide himself to be a person of good moral character, but later he was overheard by Premier Zhou when he was talking to himself, and the prime minister said that although the meaning of "virtue" is good, it is already a word, and it is not easy to use as a name.
Therefore, the prime minister suggested to him: "It is better to call Zeng Mei, which means both beautiful and convenient to call." ”
In 1914, Zeng Mei was born in Xingguo County, Jiangxi, during the revolutionary period, Xingguo County was the famous "Martyr Township", and now there are 23,179 revolutionary martyrs who can be tested. After the establishment of the republic, Xingguo County came out of 56 founding generals, and has always been known as "General County".
Zeng Mei's parents are farmers, and there are five children in the family, Zeng Mei has three older brothers above and one younger brother below. Like many Red Army soldiers in the revolutionary years, Zeng Mei joined the army partly because of the influence of the revolutionary ideas of the time, and partly because of the poverty in his family.
Zeng Mei's brothers went to apprenticeships very early to support the family, and when they were eight years old, the family was so poor that they could not open the pot, and their parents had to pass on Zeng Mei to a slightly better family name in the next village. Zeng Mei was forced to be separated from his parents because of poverty at a young age, so he was able to deeply appreciate the hardships and helplessness of farmers in that era.
In 1929, an independent regiment of the Red Army came to Xingguo County to mobilize the masses to launch an agrarian revolution, and "beating up local tycoons and dividing up the land" has always been a dream of local peasants, so when the local people saw the Red Army, they all beat gongs and drums to welcome them.
15-year-old Zeng Mei huddled in the crowd watching the Red Army singing, he was deeply attracted by the five-star hat on the head of the Red Army soldiers, and was moved by the songs sung by the Red Army. Zeng Mei's children recalled that even when lying unconscious in a hospital bed, Zeng Mei could still sing the song in its entirety:
To be a soldier is to be a Red Army, to be welcomed by workers and peasants everywhere, to be welcomed by officers and soldiers, and no one comes to oppress people...
At the age of 16, Zeng Mei resolutely signed up for the Red Army and became a small soldier in the sixth squad of the second company of the Red Fourth Army Special Service Battalion, thus beginning a military career of more than twenty years.
On October 1, 1934, Zeng Mei, who had been in the Party for two years, had been promoted to the operational staff officer of the General Headquarters of the Red Army, and after the failure of the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign, Zeng Mei and his comrades-in-arms set out from Ruijin Meikeng Village in Jiangxi province and began a long long march. This was the first time Zeng Mei had left her hometown, and it had been more than twenty years since she left. Since then, returning home has become a thing that Zeng Mei has always remembered.
In 1935, the Red Army took Zunyi, and Zeng Mei then stationed here with the central troops.
On January 10, Premier Zhou Enlai sent Zeng Mei on a mission: to reconnoiter a large mansion in the city. The young Zeng Mei had thought that this was just an ordinary small task, but he did not expect that this large mansion would become the place that changed the fate of the party in the future, the address of the Zunyi Conference.
After receiving the task, Zeng Mei loaded his gun and immediately found the large mansion.
Originally the place where the Guizhou warlord Bai Huizhang lived, it is a two-story gray brick building, which is located on the main street of Zunyi City, which is wide and majestic, and it is highly recognizable that it is difficult to find a second similar building in the city.
After Zeng Mei explained her intentions to the janitor, she entered the building to check. He found that the small building had a large interior, plenty of rooms, and was well-equipped, making it an excellent location for the Headquarters of the Red Army. Therefore, he immediately rushed back to report to Premier Zhou on the situation of the mansion. Premier Zhou was also very satisfied after hearing this, and immediately asked the comrades of the Operations Section to enter this house.
Soon after, the leaders of the Party Central Committee held a Zunyi meeting in the large house on the left side of the second floor of the house. This was a life-and-death turning point in the history of the party, and Zeng Mei himself was not only the chosen person for the address of the meeting, but also the witness of the meeting. However, along the way of the Long March, both the party and Zeng Mei himself experienced dangerous moments far more than this time.
The old general Zeng said that in countless life-and-death decisive battles, the bloody battle on the XiangJiang River impressed him the most.
On that occasion, 80,000 Red Army long marches, 40,000 soldiers were damaged on the battlefield, and Zeng Mei's own brother was also sacrificed in this battle. As a person who crawled through the pile of life and death, Zeng Mei saw it very clearly, and he often said to his children that life in the world is nothing more than the word life and death, and since he has survived in such a difficult environment, what else does he ask for?
In the eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zeng Mei participated in the famous Hundred Regiments War, performed well, commanded no less than a hundred large and small battles, and eliminated more than 3,000 Japanese puppet troops in Shanxi and Hebei alone.
As the commander of the troops, Zeng Mei did not advocate letting the soldiers rush and collide with their brains, but skillfully used countermeasures to make the enemy surrender.
In 1944, during a counterattack against Japan in Taiyuan, Shanxi, the troops led by Zeng Mei encountered a large Japanese army. Zeng Mei knew that he might not be able to win a hard confrontation with the enemy, and he might even lose his soldiers.
Therefore, Zeng Mei ordered two regiments to quietly go around the rear of the enemy to disrupt the enemy's deployment, and then launched a sudden attack on the front, making the Japanese army suffer from the enemy. The Japanese were cut off from their rear roads, caught off guard, overwhelmed by the Eighth Route Army' attack, suffered heavy losses, and in the end, the remaining small number of troops had to hide in a cave in a nearby mountain. No matter how the eighth route army officers persuaded them to surrender, the Japanese army refused to come out.
Zeng Mei did not waste time with them, but waved a big hand and ordered the soldiers to fill the hole with soil. The remnants of the Japanese army hiding inside were suddenly panicked, and they had planned to fight the Eighth Route Army here and wait for the arrival of reinforcements, because they expected that the Eighth Route Army would not dare to kill them. Unexpectedly, Zeng Mei reversed the previous "compassionate" attitude of the Chinese army, which made them not know how to be good.
Seeing that they were about to be buried alive, the Japanese puppet army was powerless to resist and could only obediently extend a white flag to the mouth of the cave.
Afterwards, the soldiers in the army understood that why General Zeng Mei, who had always been gentle, suddenly wanted to bury the Japanese alive was just a strategy!
During the Liberation War, Zeng Mei served as the commander of the only brigade of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region and participated in the liberation of Shijiazhuang in 1947, and has since formed an indissoluble relationship with the city.
On November 6, 1947, the Only Brigade was tasked with conquering Shijiazhuang Daguocun Airport, which was located in the northwest corner, which was the only air passage and reinforcement lifeline for the Kuomintang army, and also the breakthrough point for the People's Liberation Army to enter Shijiazhuang, which played a very crucial role in the entire campaign to liberate Shijiazhuang. If daguocun airport can be successfully taken, the task of liberating Shijiazhuang will be half completed.
However, because of this, the enemy's defense here is the strongest, in order to win the battle, Zeng Mei's only brigade took over this difficult "hard bone" without hesitation.
On the night, Zeng Mei first sent a regiment and a brigade to attack the airfield, then let the second regiment of the assist go to the periphery to clear the enemy's stronghold, and finally arranged for the three regiments to wait nearby as reserves, ready to support at any time. This battle was not easy to fight, and the overall situation set up a tight fortress group on the outskirts of the airfield, forming a crossfire network like a spider's web, which was difficult for our army to approach.
After more than ten hours of fighting among the soldiers, a breakthrough was finally made, and the enemy's eastern bunker fell. However, it was not long before the enemy began to counterattack again, launching a frenzied attack on the Single Brigade.
Zeng Mei ordered the soldiers to guard against death: "Even if there is only one person, we must not back down!" ”
Finally, at Zeng Mei's insistence, the Sole Brigade broke through the enemy's last line of defense and successfully took the Daguocun airfield. This victory cut off the Kuomintang's last retreat, and the liberation of Shijiazhuang was just around the corner.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zeng Mei was appointed as a political commissar of the Hebei Provincial Military Region and spent the remaining decades here. For this hundred-year-old general, what he missed most was the small mountain village in Xingguo County, Jiangxi, and he always wanted to go back to his hometown to see.
According to her daughter Zeng Liming's recollection, Zeng Mei did not leave any words before leaving, only wrote two words on the back of her hand: Go home...
Text/Genki Girl QMQ
Reference: Zeng Mei: Hundred Years of General, Legendary Life, Zhou Congcong