In 1950, the First National Congress of Combat Heroes was solemnly held in Beijing.
A 19-year-old young soldier, with his outstanding military achievements in the country's more than 4 million people, won the honorary title of "special combat hero", it can be said that he is the only one among his peers.
The image comes from the Internet
Later, he responded to the call of the state to fight in Korea, and once again made countless meritorious achievements, and after the war, his prestige had already spread throughout the army.
However, what is surprising is that he should have a bright future, but he chose to return to his hometown after the war and became a coal miner in anonymity.
Until one day in 1998, the old hero suffered from lung cancer due to years of inhaling a lot of smoke, although his children sold the only 12 square meters of the family's house, they still could not make up the medical expenses for the old father's medical treatment, and in desperation, they asked mu Jianhua and Li Yuan, the two leaders of the 47th Army, for help: "My father is a special combat hero, quickly save him." ”
The two leaders were so shocked that they could not speak: "We have been looking for your father for more than forty years", and it is only then that the memory of the old hero is picked up by us again.
It turned out that he was the protagonist who had appeared in the primary school Chinese textbook - Zhang Guofu. Not only that, but even Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou personally met him.
Zhang Guofu (Image from the Internet)
So, why did such a "special combat hero" come to the dilemma of not having money to see a doctor? What exactly did he go through?
The first "fierce man" in the northeast
The old hero's original name was Zhang Guofu, and he changed his name to Zhang Guofu when he was anonymous after retiring from the army. Born in 1931 in Yushu County, Jilin Province, he is an authentic Northeastern Man.
In 1946, at the age of 15, Zhang Guofu became a soldier in the 47th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. As soon as he arrived at the army, the soldiers saw that he was young and tigerish, so they called him "Zhang Huzi".
However, after a period of running-in, no one dared to underestimate Zhang Guofu anymore, and his comrades-in-arms affectionately called him "the first ruthless man in northeast China". Not only because he was cruel to the enemy, but also because he was even more ruthless to himself, he rushed forward without a fight, and after only one year of entering the army, he captured the senior Kuomintang generals alive, and his prestige spread throughout the army.
In 1947, Lin Biao, commander-in-chief of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army, with the consent of the Party Central Committee, prepared to launch a summer offensive against the Kuomintang entrenched here.
At this time, Zhang Guofu's company was tasked with attacking Jiangmi Peak in the north of Jilin Province, and the artillery fire between the Kuomintang and the Communists was extremely fierce, and the scene was once deadlocked.
At this moment, a small young figure suddenly emerged from the communist camp, and under the cover of heavy artillery fire, quietly climbed to the front of the enemy's command post, pulled out a grenade, kicked open the gate of the command post, and shouted loudly: "Surrender your gun and don't kill!" ”
This young figure is Zhang Guofu.
The Kuomintang looked at Zhang Guofu, who was not tall in front of him, but his eyes were very firm, "There is a big posture that if you don't move quickly, you will end up together", and for a while he was scared silly. How could they not have imagined that the person in front of them was so bold that he would smash Huang Long and destroy their old nest in one fell swoop. When the crowd saw that the general trend had gone, they could only obediently surrender, and what was surprising was that among these people was Zhao Bozhao, a kuomintang lieutenant general.
The Kuomintang soldiers who had lost their command posts were like scattered sand, suddenly losing their armor and being swept away by the PLA fighters.
After the war, Zhang Guofu was credited with a great meritorious deed, and he was only 16 years old, and his reputation was greatly enhanced by this incident, and after that, the "Mengjin Bao" even made a big report on the theme of "16-year-old cattle herding baby Zhang Guofu captured Kuomintang lieutenant general Zhao Bozhao alive" to promote the prestige of our army.
If Zhang Guofu at this time is a newborn calf who is not afraid of tigers, then the next Liaoshen campaign has become a highlight moment in his life.
Overwhelming
In September 1948, with the sound of the horn of the Liaoshen Campaign to liberate the whole territory of northeast China, under Chairman Mao's instruction that "Chiang Kai-shek's army must not be allowed to flee the northeast", Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan led their troops to successively conquer Xingcheng, Jinzhou and other places, and Chiang Kai-shek urgently dispatched a large army to come to support, but was intercepted by our army in the area of Dahu Mountain.
Coincidentally, Zhang Guofu's company was around the enemy Liao Yaoxiang headquarters, but whether it could be encountered or not was unknown.
Liao Yaoxiang (Image from the Internet)
The two sides engaged in fierce fighting in a place called "Hujiawo", and more than a dozen charges were repelled by the enemy. Zhang Guofu watched the comrades next to him fall one by one, although sad, he did not retreat to the position, but instead pretended to be injured and crawled next to the fallen comrades, and after the charge horn sounded again, Zhang Guofu first threw a grenade at the enemy, took advantage of the gap between the explosions, jumped up with the explosive canister, and rushed into the enemy command post again with a lightning speed, shouting: "Quickly order to lay down the weapons, or I will die with you." ”
The deafening shouts immediately frightened the crowd into losing their souls, and by the moment of their hesitation, the PLA soldiers behind Zhang Guofu had already rushed in and taken everyone down in one fell swoop.
What was surprising was that the enemy's headquarters, Liao Yaoxiang, was hidden in it, and even Zhang Guofu himself did not expect this charge of his own, which directly accelerated the progress of the entire campaign, and was called "the divine stroke of the Northeast Field Army."
Such a familiar scene was clearly seen by the division leader with a telescope in the distance, and after the battle, Zhang Guofu was praised in person as a "little hero", and he was also rated as a special meritorious hero.
This year Zhang Guofu was 18 years old.
After that, Zhang Guofu continued to participate in large-scale battles such as Liaoshen, Pingjin, and Crossing the River with his troops, and then marched into Sichuan, Xiangxi and other places, jointly participating in the suppression of bandits, and repeatedly performing miracles.
At the first National Congress of Combat Heroes held in Beijing in September 1950, Zhang Guofu was one of only 78 "special combat heroes" in the country.
Not only that, at the meeting, Chairman Mao deliberately shook hands with him, and also let Zhang Guofu and Premier Zhou stand together to compare their heights, Zhang Guofu was so nervous that his palms were sweating, and after a while Chairman Mao smiled happily: "I didn't expect that you Zhang Huzi would fight so badly, but your size is similar to That of Premier Zhou." ”
After the meeting, Chairman Mao also set up a family banquet, specially invited Zhang Guofu, Guo Junqing and other 4 heroes, and encouraged several people to "study hard, work hard, and make new contributions."
There is the armor of "special combat hero" on the outside, and chairman Mao personally encouraged it, which makes Zhang Guofu more courageous on the battlefield.
In 1951, when the Korean battlefield was in full swing, the people's hero Zhang Guofu sang military songs and took a train to embark on a journey to a foreign country.
In the autumn offensive launched by the enemy, Zhang Guofu's company was mainly responsible for defending the 345.6 heights.
At that time, the United Nations army had more than 200 tanks and more than 300 cannons to bomb our army's positions, but despite this, Zhang Guofu still led the soldiers to hold the position for seven days and eight nights with iron will. When they don't have food, they eat cotton wool in their clothes, and when they don't have water, they drink their own urine.
Until the enemy retreated, only Zhang Guofu was left in the whole company to survive, and all the other fighters were heroic and righteous. Zhang Guofu, the "lonely hero", did not let the enemy occupy the high ground until the end, how heroic and courageous.
After the war, none of Zhang Guofu's body was complete, and he could only return to China for treatment if he was seriously injured.
Anonymous, "known to the world" due to illness
A year later, Zhang Guofu fully recovered, as a "special combat hero" carrying countless halos, every scar on his body was a symbol of honor. The future should have been bright, but at this time, Zhang Guofu made a surprising decision - to demobilize and return to his hometown.
The reason is simple, he does not want to cause trouble for the country. As a soldier, it is incumbent upon the country to have difficulties, such as today's Taiping, Zhang Guofu thinks more about living by his own efforts, rather than living through the aura of his comrades-in-arms.
Once, after Zhang Guofu returned to his hometown, the county government staff of Yushu County in Jilin Province found him and prepared to arrange an "iron rice bowl" for him, but Zhang Guofu refused.
The staff was surprised, originally thought that they had not been arranged to a suitable post, so they told Zhang Guofu that he could coordinate, but Zhang Guofu said righteously: "I went to the battlefield to let the people live a good life, and now many of my comrades-in-arms have not been able to come back on the battlefield, I do not want to rely on their light, I have been lying in the merit book, compared to them, I can live is a very happy thing." I was a farmer when I was a child, and now that I'm out of the army, I should live with my own hands. ”
In this way, Zhang Guofu married a rural girl and lived a life of sunrise and sunset.
Young Zhang Guofu (Image from the Internet)
Once, Zhang Guofu saw an advertisement that the Mining Bureau of Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province, was recruiting a large number of coal miners, and he decided to give it a try.
When asking the government to help him issue a letter of introduction, in order not to reveal his identity as a combat hero, he deliberately changed his name to "Zhang Guofu". At this point, all the aura accompanying Zhang Guofu was completely hidden by him, and those military merit badges and meritorious deeds were also neatly put into the box. There is no "Zhang Guofu" in the world, only "Zhang Guofu", which is why the organization has been searching for him for more than forty years without success.
The Mining Bureau first assigned Zhang Guofu to the fire brigade, but after only three years, the fire brigade was disbanded. The factory gave him the job of gunpowder.
This post is the most tired and dangerous post in the factory, not many people are willing to do it, once they are not careful, they are likely to die, but Zhang Guofu did not think so much, and agreed to it in one bite. Not only accepted this job, Zhang Guofu also did his best, and during the work, he often encountered large and small dangers, which were resolved one by one by his composure, calmness, wit and bravery.
Everyone else thought he was stupid, but where did they know how many times Zhang Guofu, who looked ordinary in front of him, had wandered on the edge of death, and how many times he had escaped from the rain of bullets and bullets.
In this way, Zhang Guofu, who makes outsiders look very puzzling, has been working in this position for twenty-five years.
In decades, Zhang Guofu never mentioned his heroic identity to anyone else, and even his family only knew that his father was a veteran and did not know that he was a national hero.
Therefore, the family's life is very poor, and the whole family of seven is crammed into a small house of only 12 square meters.
For this reason, Zhang Guofu decided to build another hut behind the house, but he did not expect to owe sixty yuan of foreign debt, Zhang Guofu has been worried about this matter in his heart, every day he got up early in the morning and came to the coal mine in the dark, picked up some abandoned coal gangue for money to repay the debt, until half a year later, Zhang Guofu paid off this "huge amount".
As several children grew up, they found that their father Zhang Guofu's eyes would be red whenever he ate dumplings during the Spring Festival, and other people's families were happy, but their father was often drunk.
It turned out that whenever he ate dumplings, Zhang Guofu would remember the two warriors who had lost their lives in order to protect more than a dozen dumplings on the battlefield. At that time, on the Korean battlefield, dumplings had just wrapped the enemy bombers and then threw a few bombs, and two fighters desperately tried to move the dumplings, but in the end they were blown up by the enemy bombers, "If they are still alive, how good it would be." The old man Zhang Guofu often thought silently in his heart.
Zhang Guofu (back row, first from right) and his comrades-in-arms
In addition, several children found that when Zhang Guofu watched the TV on the theme of the Liberation War or the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, he was always very emotional from time to time, and even his eyes were red, but when his children asked, they were all prevaricated by him.
Slowly, several of Zhang Guofu's children have grown up, but due to the long-term fighting in his youth and then working in the coal mining bureau, his body has long been overdrawn.
In 1997, the old man's body has been completely unbearable, often inexplicably coughing up blood, several children found out and rushed to Hegang City Hospital for examination, but the doctor said that the old man was suffering from lung cancer and needed to go to the big hospital in Beijing for examination.
Several children made trouble, Beijing's medical expenses they could not afford at all, and finally with the help of the factory people, in the Spring Festival of 1998, the elderly Zhang Guofu was transferred to the Beijing Armed Police Hospital.
But a month passed, and the condition of the elderly Zhang Guofu not only did not improve, but the family's money was also hollowed out. Several children discussed selling the 12-square-meter house where the elderly lived in first in exchange for medical expenses, but despite this, it was still a drop in the bucket.
Just when several people were at a loss, Zhang Guofu's younger daughter Zhang Xiubo accidentally found a box of military merit badges from her old father, and with the attitude of trying it out, several of them found the leaders of the 47th Army, Mu Jianhua and Li Yuan.
When Mu Jianhua and Li Yuan, the two leaders, learned that Zhang Guofu, the "special combat hero" of that year, had been a gunpowder worker for more than twenty years and had lived such a poor life that even if he suffered from lung cancer, he never thought of bothering the organization, he could not help but blush for a while.
At the moment, the two reported Zhang Guofu's matter to the leader of the General Political Department of the Military Region, and soon got a response: "Special Combat Hero" Zhang Guofu enjoyed the treatment of deputy division level, and immediately transferred the old man to the 301 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army, and all fees were waived.
However, due to the fact that the elderly inhaled a lot of smoke when they were young, it was already advanced lung cancer, and even if multiple experts consulted, it would not help.
During the hospitalization of the elderly Zhang Guofu, Li Yuan, Mu Jianhua and other leaders came to visit this "national treasure" hero many times, and every time the old man came, his eyes were red.
In July 1998, when Zhang Guofu was lying dying on his hospital bed, many leaders of the General Staff Department and the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army came to visit him and asked what the old man wanted, Zhang Guofu sat up with his broken body and said with difficulty: "I hope the party and the country are good." After saying that, he raised his arms with difficulty and saluted several leaders in a non-standard salute.
Several people around them had already red eyes and returned a solemn military salute to the old man.
The next morning, Zhang Guofu, a 68-year-old "special combat hero," closed his eyes forever.
Many people will ask, why did this "special combat hero" with only 78 people in the country give up his great future and be willing to hide his name for so many years? As a national hero, even if he opened his mouth to the party organization, no one would say anything.
In fact, this old hero has already used his life to answer us, in the world of the old man Zhang Guofu, some are only dedication, sacrifice, and comrades-in-arms who were born and died with him.
Zhang Guofu (second from left) with other comrades-in-arms (Image from the Internet)
The matter is whisked away, and the merit and name are deeply hidden, which is a portrayal of the old hero's life. Even if he lived the life of an ordinary person, he did not extinguish his love for the country and the people, and the word "hero" is well deserved by the elderly Zhang Guofu!