One night in September 1955, the central government held a grand banquet, which was attended by a very unusual number of people, all of whom were great heroes who had made outstanding contributions during the war years. After the founding of New China, in order to thank these people, the state hereby held this grand event for them, and awarded them medals and military ranks.
For such an honor given by the state, everyone who participated in the dinner party felt extremely proud and proud. One of them, a couple, participated in the event, and both of them were awarded the rank of general. Surprisingly, the husband had never been to the front, but no one objected after the ceremony.
On that night, the couple was arguably the most dazzling focus of the whole banquet, and after they received the rank of general, the comrades-in-arms around them sent blessings one after another, and they gladly accepted the respect of others. It turned out that the husband's name was Gan Siqi and his wife's name was Li Zhen.
Li Zhen and Gan Siqi
For Li Zhen, the only female general, we must have already known something, but for Gan Siqi, perhaps we don't know enough. So who is Gan Siqi? He had never been to the front, but why did he still get the rank of general?
In the military, Gan Siqi and Li Zhen were known as the "Twin Generals". As one of the twin generals, Gan Siqi's experience does not seem to be so ordinary. Gan Siqi was born in 1904 and is a native of Hunan Province. He was born into a peasant family with 6 brothers, and he was the fourth oldest.
At that time, the lives of ordinary people were very hard, and for Gan Siqi's family, it was indeed not so easy to take care of 6 children. Gan Siqi's parents are not in good health, although there are several houses and more than a dozen acres of land at home, but the large population makes them only able to live on miscellaneous grains throughout the year, and their lives are very compact.
Gan Siqi and Li Zhen
At the age of seven, Gan Siqi reached the age of school, and at this time he was assigned to a private school to study. Mr. Jiang is a private school teacher with the surname Jiang, but he likes heroes very much, and often tells students about ancient heroes such as Yue Fei and Lin Zexu. As his student, Gan Siqi listened with fascination. Therefore, under the influence of Mr. Jiang, Gan Siqi gradually cultivated the ambition to become a hero.
Although reading can increase his knowledge, but the family's economic situation makes him feel embarrassed, after three or four years in the private school, Gan Siqi had to drop out of school because of family difficulties. After coming out of the private school, he worked and taught himself, very diligent and hardworking. Once he encountered a problem in the process of self-study and could not be solved, so he went to the private school to find Mr. Jiang to answer, went to several times and did not see Mr. Jiang, until later learned that Mr. Jiang had already been killed.
Mr. Jiang was not afraid of danger before his death, and showed a spirit of righteousness and awe, which deeply affected Gan Siqi. To this end, he took Mr. Jiang's last words before his death as his motto to motivate himself.
Li Zhen and her husband
Although he was very sad about his husband's death, the situation at home was not optimistic, and his father was seriously ill at this time. Soon, my father was driving to the west of the crane. After the death of his father, Gan Siqi's family became more and more embarrassed, but for Gan Siqi, these difficulties did not stop his thirst for knowledge.
Seeing such a tireless descendant in the same clan, the patriarch of Gan Siqi was deeply moved, so he donated money through the ancestral hall to complete his studies. Later, Gan Siqi was sent to the county No. 2 Elementary School with excellent results, where he met many outstanding people.
Gan Siqi cherished this precious learning opportunity, in the school he studied harder, tirelessly, through his own hard work, he was admitted to the provincial middle school. During his secondary school studies, he actively participated in various social progress activities, and after three years of study, he was admitted to changsha political science and law professional school. In 1926, he became a member of the Communist Party.
Gan Si Qi
In the winter of 1925, Gan Siqi returned to his hometown during the winter vacation. After returning to his hometown, he heard that there was a bully named Yang Zhize in the village, who set up a public court to kidnap the women of the people and appropriated the government's public funds returned to the villagers for himself. After hearing about these phenomena, Gan Siqi encouraged the people to summon up the courage to ask the bullies for money. But the masses were afraid of Yang Zhize's obscenity and did not dare to go. To this end, Gan Siqi decided to uphold justice for the masses.
The next day, Gan Siqi summoned several good friends to find Yang Zhize together. After seeing Yang Zhize, Gan Siqi exposed his various crimes on the spot, and after hearing these words, Yang Zhize felt that he could not hang on to his face, so he shot one of his classmates, and then called out to his subordinates to arrest people.
Gan Siqi called in the ordinary people waiting outside, and the people all stood up and fought with Yang Zhize, and then Gan Siqi also launched a mass parade and sued Yang Zhize to the provincial court. After all kinds of public opinion, the provincial government had to deal with Yang Zhize. Under the leadership of Gan Siqi, the interests of the masses were brought back, and since then, his status and prestige in the crowd have become higher and higher, and everyone has greatly admired his courage and believed that this person must be a pillar in the future.
In August 1931, the Kuomintang mobilized an army to approach the border of Xianggan and Gansu, hoping to eliminate the base area. At this time, Gan Siqi had already served as the party representative of the independent 1st Division. In his position, he actively studied with the division leaders strategies against the enemy. After discussion, they decided to harass the enemy who invaded Yongxing County.
Intercept the enemy by means of guerrilla warfare, cutting them off from the outside of the city. At night, the guerrillas lit torches around the county seat, causing the enemy to misunderstand our army and not know how many troops our army had. After several harassments, the enemy felt very tired and panicked, and finally decided to evacuate from the county seat.
After the Fourth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee, because of Wang Ming's wrong command, our army was forced to implement a strategic shift. On the way to strategic transfer, most of the soldiers of our army marched continuously, and some of them could not bear the torture, and there was a slack in thinking. In October 1934, due to the failure of the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, the Red Army was forced to start the Long March.
Li Zhen
In the course of the Long March, our army not only had to deal with the enemy's attack, but also had to overcome the problem of shortage of resources on the way forward, and food was the first major problem encountered by the soldiers. The troops stipulated the uniform distribution of barley noodles, and at the same time stipulated the time and quantity of meals, and only a handful of barley noodles could be given at each meal. Therefore, many Red Army soldiers often marched hungry, and it was easy to faint or starve to death in the middle of the road.
Once, when the instructor of a company of the 17th Regiment distributed food, he gave himself an extra handful that was reflected by the soldiers to the regimental political department, which attracted the attention of the head of the unit. For this reason, the instructor was removed from his post, and the decision to remove him was personally issued by Gan Siqi.
Although Gan Siqi is very serious in politics, he is also very concerned about the soldiers in life, which is also his consistent work and ideological style. At that time, he followed the Red Second Front across the meadow, because they were the last to cross the meadow, so there was basically nothing to eat. To this end, Gan Siqi tried to eat some unknown wild vegetables on his own.
Long
This practice is very dangerous, once poisoned, there is no way to rescue, but Gan Siqi can not take care of so much. Every time he found a new wild vegetable, he was always the first to try it, and after making sure that there was no poison, he informed the troops to look for it.
In the army, Gan Siqi showed deep concern for his comrades-in-arms, and he commanded the soldiers out of the meadow. The reason why the Red Army was able to achieve so many victories when the logistical equipment was far from keeping up with the enemy was because there were many people like Gan Siqi. They did excellent political work in the ranks of the Red Army.
In the army, Gan Siqi must ensure that the soldiers' thinking does not slip and always follow the decision of the central authorities. He conscientiously carried out the tasks assigned by his superiors and regarded the party's political work as the lifeline of the building of the Red Army. After arriving at the Political Department of the Second Army, Gan Siqi actively helped the Second Army to carry out political construction.
To this end, he dispatched a number of political cadres to serve as political commissars and political organ staff in the Second Army, including Li Zhen. Under his leadership, the system of the Second Army became more and more sound, and the military development was unprecedented.
In 1937, the all-out War of Resistance began. Gan Siqi followed the troops to the battlefield, and at this time he served as the deputy director of the Political Training Office of the 120th Division. Before setting out, the commander He Long made a series of pre-war mobilizations for the 120th Division. At the mobilization meeting, Gan Siqi led all the commanders and fighters to shout "Down with Japanese imperialism!" The oath greatly boosted the morale of the soldiers.
On October 8, 1937, the Eighth Route Army recaptured the county seat of Ningwu County, and after entering the city, it found the suffering of the people in the city. When Gan Siqi learned of this situation, he used the atrocities of the Japanese Kou as a teaching material to motivate the warriors to fight in blood.
After the soldiers listened to his story, their hearts were filled with anger, and they vowed to drive the Japanese out of the land of China completely. In May 1938, the Party Central Committee decided to establish a revolutionary base area in Daqingshan, and Gan Siqi became a political worker selected and transferred, calling on political workers to unite with ethnic minorities and unite them to resist Japan together.
During the battle, Gan Siqi said: "All work, life, and victory in battle depend on the strong guarantee of the party organization, and the reason why the troops have been able to make a lot of military achievements is because the party's political work has been done well and provided a huge driving force." Gan Siqi likened political work to a bullet aimed at the enemy, saying that every bullet should be accurately aimed at the enemy.
During the Liberation War, our army captured many Kuomintang soldiers, because many of them were captured and brought in. In order to rapidly expand the strength of our army, Gan Siqi carried out arduous activities in the troops, and after carrying out these activities, the thinking of the troops has been markedly improved. After peng Dehuai learned about the situation, he decided to go to the grass-roots level for an inspection, and accompanied by Gan Siqi, he personally heard the evaluation of political work cadres from the grass-roots level. After listening, Peng Dehuai praised it and ordered it to be promoted throughout the army.
Conferment ceremony
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Gan Siqi went to the Korean battlefield and after returning to China, he served as deputy director of the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army. At the 1955 commendation conference, he was awarded the rank of general. Although he did not go to the front, he did not do any worse work behind the scenes than on the front line, so no one questioned his honor later.
General Gan Siqi has worked hard for political work all his life, and he has given his share to the country and the people. It is precisely because of his selfless dedication and outstanding talent that our people's army was able to exert outstanding combat effectiveness during the war years. As a revolutionary, Gan Siqi deserves our remembrance and commemoration.