Lu Zhengfu
“
In my life, I have mainly done three things: playing Japan, managing railways, and playing tennis.
This is the founding general Lu Zhengcao's modest summary of his life.
On October 3, 2009, Lu Zhengcao died in Beijing at the age of 106. With the death of Lü Zhengcao, all 57 founding generals have entered history, but their outstanding military achievements and legendary lives will forever be recorded in the annals of history.
On October 20 of that year, the memorial service site of Babaoshan Funeral Home was held. Zhang Xueliang's niece, Zhang Luyu, who rushed back from abroad, said: "My heart is very uncomfortable. Elder Lü has always been worried about the Zhang family, and he has always hoped that Zhang Xueliang can return to China in his later years. ”
Zhang Luyu was not wrong. Lü Tongyu, the son of Lü Zhengcao, said:
His father had a wish that zhang Xueliang could return to China.
”
This is an article about the life of Lu Zhengcao. Why was Lu Zhengcao awarded the title of general? Why did he not forget Zhang Xueliang in his later years? What is his untold legend? After reading this article, you can find the answer.
In January 1905, a boy fell to the ground in a poor peasant family in Tangwangshanhou Village, Haicheng County, Liaoning Province. Parents named the boy Lu Zhengchao. Shortly after Lü Zhengchao's birth, the Russo-Japanese War ended and Japan won. At that time, the South Manchuria Railway passed near the village, and the Japanese army constantly widened the railway embankment, forcibly occupied the cultivated land of the common people, and often had japanese beatings.
South Manchuria Railway
When he was 8 years old, when Teacher Lu Zhengchao crossed the train track, he was stabbed in the head by a Japanese bayonet, and the blood flowed immediately. Lü Zhengchao was very angry and vowed to join the army when he grew up and drive out the Japanese invaders. Lü Zhengchao renamed himself "Lü Zhengcao", which means to practice military warfare against Japan.
Lu Zhengcao's parents were too poor, and after 4 years of primary school, he still dropped out of school. After dropping out of school, Lu Zhengcao insisted on self-study. In 1922, Lü Zhengcao officially began his military career and signed up for the Northeast Army, when he was 17 years old.
Lu Zhengcao had a strong desire to serve the country, and opportunities soon came to his side. Once, Zhang Xueliang found that Lü Zhengcao's handwriting was beautiful, so he recommended him to take the exam of the Northeast Lecture Martial Arts Hall, and Lü Zhengcao passed the exam with excellent results. Once again, he entered the school to study, or a military school, and Lu Zhengcao cherished it very much.
At that time, The Tangwutang was the highest-ranking institution in the northeast, and from the fourth period onwards, Zhang Xueliang concurrently served as the supervisor of the Tangwutang. Therefore, Lu Zhengcao and Zhang Xueliang are both superior-subordinate relations and teacher-student friendship. Such a relationship laid the foundation for the two to establish a deep friendship.
Chang
In October 1925, Lü Zhengcao graduated from the Daowu Hall, and his graduation results were excellent, and he could have a good position in the Feng Department. Lü Zhengcao went straight home, but because of the serious factional struggle of the Feng clan and the fact that the generals were mostly profiting for themselves, which made him deeply disappointed.
Zhang Xueliang did not forget Lü Zhengcao, and in December of that year he sent someone to take Lü Zhengcao to his side and make him the lieutenant of the major, following him around. Lu Zhengcao later recalled:
After graduating from the DaowuTang, Zhang Xueliang established the Three and Four Fronts Corps Headquarters in Jinzhou and made me his lieutenant as a major. Later, he wanted me to study aviation in Japan, but I didn't succeed because I was injured in the hand. At the beginning of 1928, he sent me to Shenyang to serve as an officer of the Tongze Club, a place of cultural and entertainment activities for senior military and political personnel, to unite the military and political figures in northeast China.
Lu Zhengcao remained by Zhang Xueliang's side until the "Xi'an Incident" broke out. Two months before the incident, Zhang Xueliang transferred Lü Zhengcao from the commander of the 647th Regiment of the Northeast Army to Xi'an and put him in charge of the internal work of Zhang Mansion. This is a heavy trust, and Lu Zhengcao has personally experienced the "Xi'an Incident".
On December 25, 1936, Zhang Xueliang decided to personally send Chiang Kai-shek to Nanjing. Before leaving, Zhang Xueliang called a meeting of senior officers of the Northeast Army. Lu Zhengcao and others strongly opposed Zhang Xueliang's decision, and Zhang Xueliang said: "There are Song Ziwen, Song Meiling and Duan Na as a guarantee, no problem, I will come back in three days." ”
Zhang Xueliang and Chiang Kai-shek
On the occasion of the separation, Lu Zhengcao said to Zhang Xueliang:
After a week of waiting for you, if you don't come back, I will go back to Hebei to take control of the troops.
The two had no idea that when they met again, it was more than half a century later, in 1991.
As soon as Zhang Xueliang sent Chiang Kai-shek to Nanjing, he was placed under house arrest, and the Northeast Army was leaderless and was soon disintegrated by Chiang Kai-shek. Lü Zhengcao kept his promise to Zhang Xueliang, and a week later he rushed back from Xi'an to the regimental headquarters of the 691st regiment in Xushui, Hebei. What's next?
Lu Zhengcao thought twice and decided to follow the Communists. On May 4, 1937, with the approval of the Northern Bureau of the Communist Party of China, Lü Zhengcao secretly joined the Communist Party. According to the instructions of his superiors, Lü Zhengcao led the 691st Regiment to firmly resist the Japanese and remained in the base areas of Central Hebei to carry out anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare.
When Zhang Xueliang learned of Lü Zhengcao's choice during house arrest, Zhang Xueliang's fourth brother Zhang Xuesi relayed to him:
Bizhi (Lü Zhengcao's word), you have taken the right path.
Lü Zhengcao," who had frightened the enemy in guerrilla warfare in the Jizhong Plain, was praised by Chairman Mao as "a model for upholding guerrilla warfare in the plains and a model for persisting in the people's armed struggle." ”
Nie Rongzhen and Lü Zhengcao (right)
After the "Lugou Bridge Incident" in 1937, the anti-Japanese battlefield in North China was gradually defeated by the Japanese attack, and Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 691st Regiment to follow the Fifty-third Army to retreat south. However, Lü Zhengcao received a new instruction from the Northern Bureau of the COMMUNIST Party of China to stay in the Jizhong Plain to carry out guerrilla warfare.
Fighting in the Jizhong Plain was not an easy period, and the plains that could not be seen here were backward in weaponry and equipment, and the battles were very arduous. After a fierce battle with the Japanese army, Lü Zhengcao lost contact with the military department. At that time, many senior generals of the 691st Regiment secretly joined the Communist Party, and Lu Zhengcao called everyone to a meeting.
The result of the meeting was as follows, and the whole regiment was separated from the national army sequence and renamed the "People's Self-Defense Army", and Lü Zhengcao was elected commander. Armed with the idea of guerrilla warfare, Lü Zhengcao led the People's Self-Defense Army to creatively invent tactics such as mine warfare and tunnel warfare in the course of "counter-sweeping."
Lü Zhengcao's troops fought mostly hard battles, and he led his troops to go deep into Zeze, cross an country, enter Boye, go to Li County, and fight Gaoyang, and everywhere he went the enemy was frightened. During the fiercest period of the fighting, Lü Zhengcao's troops fought five battles in one day. Unlike other generals, Lü Zhengcao often took the lead and directly participated in the command of the front line.
Ambush of the Eighth Route Army
In May 1938, the "People's Self-Defense Army" was reorganized into the Third Column of the Eighth Route Army, and Lü Zhengcao was appointed commander of the Jizhong Military Region and commander of the Third Column of the Eighth Route Army. The Battle of Zhangshi Village, a classic battle in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, was called by Chairman Mao as "an example of guerrilla warfare on the plains adhering to village defense warfare", and Lü Zhengcao was the direct commander, and this battle created a record of about 1:10 casualties between the enemy and us.
On May 1, 1942, Okamura ordered more than 50,000 Japanese puppet troops to carry out the "May Day Sweep" of the Jizhong Plain. This "sweep" was very different from the past, and the Japanese puppet army adopted tactics such as "attacking from ten sides" and "encircling the iron wall" in an attempt to completely eliminate the main force and leading organs of the Eighth Route Army of the Jizhong Military Region.
In view of the grim situation in which the enemy was outnumbered and outnumbered, Lü Zhengcao reduced it to pieces and formed a flexible mobile unit to maneuver with the enemy. Lü Zhengcao has his own set of ways of commanding the war."
If you have six or seven points to win, you dare to play.
During the two months of the Japanese army's "May Day sweep," Lü Zhengcao and political commissar Cheng Zihua led their troops to fight the Japanese army more than 270 times, and used the main tactic of "foot blitzkrieg" to bankrupt Okamura Ninji's "iron wall encirclement," which created a miracle in the history of Chinese and foreign wars.
The outstanding performance in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in the Jizhong Plain made Chairman Mao look at Lü Zhengcao with astonishment. In the winter of 1944, Lü Zhengcao came to Yan'an as a deputy to the "Seventh Congress", and he finally met Chairman Mao.
Yan'an, the holy land of revolution
Two days after arriving in Yan'an, Chairman Mao personally invited Lü Zhengcao and Lin Feng, secretary of the party committee of the Jinsui sub-bureau, to dinner, and the three of them ate and talked until late at night. After this meeting, Lu Zhengcao read Chairman Mao with increasing respect. Soon, Lü Zhengcao was elected as an alternate member of the Central Committee of the Seventh National Congress.
On August 9, 1945, the Soviets launched an offensive against the Kwantung Army, which was entrenched in the northeast. The Party Central Committee ordered Lü Zhengcao to lead his troops to march to Chahar and Rehe to directly cooperate with the Soviet-Mongolian army in fighting against the Kwantung Army. During the Liberation War, Lü Zhengcao had a well-known title, "Railway Commander".
In July 1946, Lü Zhengcao became the director and political commissar of the Northeast Railway General Bureau, and his most important duty was to manage the railway well and try his best to tap the transportation capacity of the railway. On the eve of the Liaoshen Campaign, the railway mileage controlled by the People's Liberation Army in the Northeast Liberated Area reached more than 5,700 kilometers, and the length of the line opened to traffic reached 9,818 kilometers, accounting for 98% of the northeast line.
Being responsible for railway transportation in the northeast directly determined Lu Zhengcao's main work after the founding of New China. In March 1949, the Party Central Committee appointed Lü Zhengcao as deputy director of the Railway Department of the Central Military Commission and deputy commander of the Railway Corps. After the founding ceremony, Lü Zhengcao served as vice minister of the Ministry of Railways.
After the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the volunteer army was controlled by the enemy because of its air superiority, and the logistics transport line was bombed day and night by US warplanes. In October 1950, Lü Zhengcao had another title, Commander of Military Transport of the Volunteer Army. Lü Zhengcao organized the establishment of a volunteer aid brigade to aid the DPRK, and on many occasions went directly to the DPRK to direct the on-site repair of the railway, and finally established a steel transportation line that was constantly bombed and could not be destroyed, which greatly supported the volunteer army's front-line operations.
The volunteer army entered the Korean War
Since then, Lu Zhengcao has had an indissoluble relationship with the railway construction of New China. The opening of the Sichuan-Qianqian Line in October 1965, the Guikun Line in October 1966, and the Chengdu-Kunming Railway in July 1970 poured countless painstaking efforts into Lu Zhengcao.
In his later years, in addition to worrying about the construction of the railway, There was a person who let him worry about his stomach, Zhang Xueliang. In the 1980s, cross-strait relations were loosened, and Lü Zhengcao learned a lot about Zhang Xueliang through Zhang Xueliang's niece Zhang Luyu, and the two exchanged letters.
In March 1991, Zhang Xueliang, who had just been freed, went to the United States to visit relatives and friends. On March 24, the mainland announced to the outside world: "
General Zhang Xueliang is an outstanding figure in China's modern history and a hero of the Chinese nation throughout the ages, and for decades, we have been very concerned about him. Now that he and his wife have arrived in the United States, we are happy to learn from relevant reports that he is in good health. If he himself is willing to go back to the mainland to have a look, we are of course very welcome. We respect his own wishes.
Zhang Xueliang and Lu Zhengcao talked
Lu Zhengcao was very excited to learn the news of Zhang Xueliang's visit to the United States, and despite his physical troubles, decided to go to the United States to invite Zhang Xueliang back to China. Before leaving, Lu Zhengcao made meticulous preparations, and on May 29, he finally settled zhang Xueliang at the home of Jiang Shiyun (i.e., Mrs. Bei) in New York. At this time, Zhang Xueliang was 91 years old, and Lu Zhengcao was 86 years old.
The two met again after more than half a century apart, but the friendship between the two was not inferior to time. Zhang Xueliang recognized him at a glance, held out his hand from a distance, and the conversation began happily in greeting.
Zhang Xueliang:"
I can be superstitious now, believe in God.
Lu Zhengcao:"
I am also superstitious and believe in the people.
The two looked at each other and laughed. The first day of meeting ended quickly, and the two also had lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. When they were separated, Lu Zhengcao once again issued an invitation to Zhang Xueliang and found a place to talk well the next afternoon.
During the next day's talks, Lu Zhengcao submitted Deng Yingchao's handwritten letter to Zhang Xueliang. In the letter, Deng Yingchao invited Zhang Xueliang to return to the mainland to have a look. Zhang Xueliang read and read the letter again, and after a long silence said:
Lu Zhengcao and Zhang Xueliang met
I am a person who clearly wants to go back, but now that the time is not up, I will be involved in the mainland and Taiwan when I move... I don't want to make it politically complicated for my personal matters.
Due to various reasons, Zhang Xueliang declined the mainland's invitation, and did not think that this would become Lu Zhengcao's biggest regret in his later years. In November 1992, Zhang Xueliang's niece Zhang Luyu brought a letter to Lü Zhengcao:
"Zhengcao Brother Huijian: Returning to Taiwan from the United States, everything is fine, but the ear and vision have been greatly degraded, and the old man of Jiuyi can know so well." Greetings to the Princes of the Center. Zhang Xueliang said goodbye to Taipei on November 30. ”
On October 14, 2001, Zhang Xueliang died in Hawaii, USA, at the age of 101. When Lu Zhengcao, who was far away in Beijing, learned the news, his heart was extremely sad, and he finally failed to wait for Zhang Xueliang to return to China.
Lu Zhengcao has a special hobby, playing tennis. For a long time, Lu Zhengcao, who was the president of the Chinese Tennis Association, once said: "
When I was in the Northeast Army, Zhang Xueliang played tennis, and I also practiced with him, just like that, until I was 90 years old. Later, when I really couldn't move, I went to give people awards.
Lu Zhengcao was playing tennis
An optimistic attitude and maintaining exercise are the secrets of Lu Zhengcao's longevity, and one of his favorite sentences is, "
The most joyful sunset is infinitely good, and life is rare to be busy.
Before Lu Zhengcao died, he asked for the funeral to be done from Jane. In the eyes of Lü Zhengcao's nephew Lü Zongren, his uncle's decision was normal, because he was very strict about the education of his children.
Lü Tongyu, the eldest son of Lü Zhengcao, said: "My parents respect the interests of our brothers and sisters, but there is a little requirement, everything must be self-reliant, he will not be anyone's protective umbrella, and must not make special in his name." "Lu Zhengcao repeatedly told his children,"
He is only a survivor of the war, and the common people are the real heroes. Without the heroic fighting and bloody sacrifices of the people of Jizhong, it is difficult to say whether these people would have survived.
Lü Tongyu did not live up to his father's expectations, he was a famous missile expert on the mainland. Lü Tongyu has been researching surface-to-air missiles all his life, participated in the development of the "Hongqi 9 air defense missile", and won the special prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.
Lu Tongyu
This article commemorates the founding general Lu Zhengcao. There are no years at all, some are just others carrying the weight for you. Now that we live in times of peace, we should remember history and not forget the martyrs.