The period from 1937 to 1945 was the darkest eight years in China's modern history, during which Japan launched an all-out war of aggression against China. In order to defend the homeland, the two parties united to jointly resist the Japanese and the Kosovars, and paid the blood and lives of thousands of revolutionary martyrs in exchange for victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
However, as soon as the War of Resistance Against Japan ended, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party broke out, and countless enthusiastic men enlisted in the army in order to liberate all of China. Zhang Guibin went to the battlefield to serve the motherland during the Liberation War, but after the victory of the Liberation War, he retired from the army because he was injured.
And the identity was hidden until 1992.
The war has torn families apart
Zhang Guibin was born in 1926 in Haicheng, Liaoning. In that era, there were wars everywhere, so the life of the poor masses was very bitter, and Zhang Guibin's family was the same. Without their own land, they had to work for the landlords to support their families.
Zhang Guibin is the second eldest in the family, and he also has an older brother. My brother was very kind to him, and gave him anything good first. Dad worked as a long-term worker in the landlord's house, and my mother did some needlework, although the family was relatively poor, but it could still meet the basic food and clothing problems.
In the year when Zhang Guibin was just ten years old, his father accidentally lost the landlord's donkey and did not find it for several days, and the landlord was angry and accidentally beat Zhang Guibin's father to death on the spot, because of the favoritism of local officials, the matter was not resolved.
But this matter is not over, the landlord also wants Zhang Guibin's family to compensate the donkey, there is no way for the mother to go to the landlord's house to do long work to pay off the debt. In order to support his family, his brother, who was still a child, began to work outside the home.
At this time, Zhang Guibin particularly hated the landlords and bureaucracy, and the official who favored the landlords was still a member of the Kuomintang government, so he also hated the Kuomintang. One day Zhang Guibin saw the Eighth Route Army passing nearby, and he wanted to join the army at that time, but because he was too young, he was refused.
After a few years, my mother unfortunately fell ill due to long-term overwork. At this time, his brother was still working outside, and Zhang Guibin began to take care of his mother, and usually worked nearby.
Immediately after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, a civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists broke out again. My brother worked in the city, was arrested by the Kuomintang, and then heard nothing. Zhang Guibin had to take care of his mother, so he couldn't find his brother.
Two years later, Zhang Guibin was married, and for various reasons he felt that he was going to participate in the liberation war, because only when all of China was liberated could these poor people have a good life. The night before Zhang Guibin was leaving, his wife told him that she was pregnant, but the purpose of her words was not to make him not leave, but to come back alive to name the child.
Participated in the War of Liberation, wounded and discharged from the army
Zhang Guibin set off early the next morning, came to the county seat, he asked around where the People's Liberation Army was, through the introduction of others, he came to the Liberated Areas, through the recommendation of a political commissar of the Liberated Areas, he officially enlisted in the army and became a glorious People's Liberation Army.
Zhang Guibin had never fought a battle, so he had never touched a gun. After he enlisted, he first participated in the training of recruits in the Liberated Areas. Although Zhang Guibin began to do farm work from a young age and worked to earn money to support his family, his training was not the same as that of farming.
In the first week, Zhang Guibin had to conduct ten hours of professional tactical training every day, as well as four hours of tactical simulation and political ideology education classes. Although the training was very tiring, whenever Zhang Guibin thought of his father and sick mother who died under the oppression of the landlord, Zhang Guibin felt that these were not bitter at all.
In this way, Zhang Guibin carried out more than three months of hard training, because 1948 was the most critical year of the Liberation War, so Zhang Guibin immediately rushed to the front. Because Zhang Guibin had no combat experience, he was still a logistics soldier at the beginning.
In the Liaoshen Campaign, our army decided to liberate and attack the Jinzhou area, but there was a problem that it was necessary to block the Kuomintang reinforcements from other regions. After a long period of deployment, the battle plan was finalized, and Zhang Guibin's troops were arranged to block reinforcements in the Tashan area.
After the gunshots in the Jinzhou area rang out, Zhang Guibin's squad leader said that everyone was cheering up, and a dozen reinforcements over there were coming immediately, and it was time for us to play. After saying that, not a single hour after the situation in Jinzhou was in crisis, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Kuomintang troops in the nearby area to go to reinforcements.
As soon as Zhang Guibin stepped out of the trench, he saw a Kuomintang contingent coming in a mighty way, and the team snaked like a long dragon. This means that there is an uphill battle to be fought.
After the Kuomintang troops entered the designated combat enlistment, a charge horn sounded, and our army first used the minefield to solve the leading troops. Just when the Kuomintang troops were in a hurry, our army immediately covered them with firepower, which was considered to have repelled the first wave of the Kuomintang's attack.
However, Chiang Kai-shek was determined to rescue Jinzhou, because Jinzhou's geographical location was of great importance to the success or failure of the war in the Liaoshen Campaign, so after the first wave of attacks was repelled, the second wave of the Kuomintang attack was launched.
In this way, Zhang Guibin's troops held out in the Tashan area for four days and four nights. In the battle, Zhang Guibin was no longer a logistician, but took up a gun and rushed to the front line. The Kuomintang lost patience when it saw that the Tashan area could not be attacked for a long time, so it sent aircraft and warships to bomb the area.
After several hours of bombardment, the entire force was rapidly reduced by half, and before it could rescue the wounded, the Nationalist offensive was launched again. At this time, Zhang Guibin was seriously injured in the leg because he was hit by the fragments of the shell, resulting in inability to move.
The squad leader asked Zhang Guibin to go down for medical treatment, but Zhang Guibin ripped off a piece of cloth and wrapped it around his leg, and said firmly that as long as I could stand on the position, the Kuomintang troops would not pass through this position before I died. In this way, the defensive battle in the entire Tower Hill area was fought for a total of six days and six nights.
After the victory of the Liberation War, Zhang Guibin's legs were also lame, so he applied for discharge. After retiring from the army, Zhang Guibin's life was very simple, and when he treated his leg injury, Zhang Guibin was unwilling to take out his disability certificate to accept state subsidies.
The daughter did not understand her father's behavior, and she believed that his father was injured because of the liberation of all of China, so the state should take care of his father. But my father explained that when I was a soldier, I did not fight for the country, I fought for myself, I fought for thousands of poor people.
The daughter could not help her father, and could only let Zhang Guibin go. In 2019, the county issued a notice to find heroes who threw their heads and blood for the country on the battlefield. The daughter persuaded Zhang Guibin to participate, but Zhang Guibin directly refused.
My daughter said, I don't want you to receive the reward, but to report your deeds, so that more people can see it, and more people will learn to become people like you.
Under the persuasion of his daughter, Zhang Guibin came to the Veterans Affairs Bureau in Anshan, Liaoning Province, and the staff asked, Are you a veteran? Zhang Guibin took out a piece of yellowed paper and handed it to the staff.
The staff looked at it carefully for a while and found that it was a 1948 tribute book. Then he did not dare to be idle, and handed the letter to his superiors.
The next day, a leader of the military region came, excitedly shook Zhang Guibin's hand, and said, We have been looking for many years, and today we finally found you!