In 1955, our army began to award the title for the first time, and among these more than a thousand generals, there were more than a dozen one-armed generals and one-legged generals, all of whom were extremely heroic and legendary.
The general I want to introduce today is the founding major general who was the most seriously injured, who was both one-armed and lame: Tong Yansheng.
A native of Anfu County, Jiangxi Province, Tong Yansheng joined the Red Army in 1930 and suffered many injuries during his military career.
One year, Tong Yansheng was the leader of the Cha (Ling) You (County) Lian (Hua) guerrilla group, and in a battle, he was surrounded by the White Army, and Tong Yansheng was injured in the left leg by a shell while leading the whole class to rush out of the encirclement.
At that time, the medical conditions were backward, even the simplest use of salt water to rinse anti-inflammatory can not do, tong Yansheng's leg wounds are infected, if you do not deal with the wound in time, then the leg will be more seriously injured, and even may completely lose this leg.
In the absence of anesthetics, Tong Yansheng gritted his teeth and treated the wound with scissors himself, thinking about it hurt! Then, Tong Yansheng applied some herbs and waited for the wound to heal slowly.
However, before Tong Yansheng could wait for the wound on his left leg to heal completely, in order to cover the retreat of the battalion commander, his left leg was injured again, and in this way, he fell with a lifelong disability, walked with a limp, and became a lame general.
How did Tong Yansheng become a "one-armed general"?
In 1944, while fighting the Japanese puppet army, we captured a large number of homemade grenades. These grenades aroused Tong Yansheng's interest, in order to verify the power of these grenades, Tong Yansheng tried to throw one, because it was the first time to use this kind of homemade grenade, Tong Yansheng also had no experience, as a result, the grenade exploded in his hand, and the five fingers of his right hand were blown off, and he could only amputate his leg from the wrist.
At that time, the war was tight, Tong Yansheng was bent on returning to the battlefield to kill the enemy, and did not take his own wounds to heart, so he rushed back to the troops, and as a result, he missed the best healing period, the wound gradually deteriorated, and he could only do surgery to amputate his limb again, and cut off all his right arm.
Tong Yansheng made great contributions to the country, was the most seriously injured among the founding generals, and should be taken care of by the state after the founding of the country, but he politely refused these special treatments and has always been frugal.
During the three years of natural disasters, in order to reduce the burden on the country, Tong Yansheng returned the cooks sent by the organization, built a shed and nest in front of the house and behind the house, planted a lot of vegetables, and raised chickens and ducks and other poultry. However, Tong Yansheng was reluctant to eat it himself, and most of it was distributed to others.
In 1980, Tong Yansheng went to Shanghai to see a doctor, when eating in the cadre canteen, the waiter saw Tong Yansheng together, the shirt on his body was torn open with a large opening, they all secretly laughed, the people next to them were also very surprised, and some people joked: "Your shirt should have been sent to the museum earlier." ”
Tong Yansheng was not angry when he heard this, and said with a smile: "The times are developing, and I do not approve of being so poor all the time, especially you young people, eat better and dress better, I have no opinion, the problem is that you must not forget to work hard." ”
The story of Tong Yansheng tearing his shirt in Shanghai soon spread in the compound of the Jiangsu Provincial Military Region, and everyone praised Tong Yansheng for being strict and kind, hard and simple, and was an example for everyone to learn.