On December 12, 2018, the Xiyuan Hotel in Beijing held a huge commemorative meeting. The people who attended the commemoration meeting were all well-known in China. There were He Xiaoming, daughter of Marshal He Long, Liu Jian, grandson of Marshal Zhu De, and Xiao Xinghua, son of General Xiao Ke. More than a hundred descendants of the founding fathers gathered together. The reason why they appear here is to commemorate one person, who is the founding major general, the one-armed general Peng Qingyun. That day was the 100th anniversary of The birth of General Peng Qingyun.
General Peng Qingyun's early life
In 1918, General Peng Qingyun was born in Yongxin County, Jiangxi Province, to an ordinary peasant family. Because of his family's poverty, he only read for a few years. He first studied at a private school in his hometown, and during the Great Revolution, he studied for a year at a night school run by the Peasant Association. After that, he joined the Children's League, the Junior Team and the Chinese Communist Youth League. In 1933, he joined the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. In 1934, he joined the Communist Party of China.
During the Agrarian Revolutionary War, he also followed the Red Army to participate in the Long March. In the course of the Long March, Peng Qingyun unfortunately contracted typhoid fever, and due to the shortage of drugs at that time, his comrades-in-arms gave him 8 silver dollars and left him. After Peng Qingyun fainted, the troops in the rear found him and rescued him. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he served as a commando commander in the Guangling-Lingqiu ambush in Shanxi Province, and led his troops in a deadly battle with the Japanese army.
Eighth route army
The reason for General Peng Qingyun's one-armed arm
In September 1938, the Japanese army invading China gathered tens of thousands of troops and besieged the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area centered on Mount Wutai. The commando team led by Peng Qingyun participated in the ambush of the first part of the Japanese independent mixed brigade. The ambush was a complete victory, and Peng Qingyun commanded the commandos to carry the spoils of war. The commandos jumped into the car, removed their weapons, ammunition and military supplies and began to retreat. But before they could withdraw, Japanese reinforcements rushed in. During the battle, Peng Qingyun's right elbow joint was pierced by a bullet.
After the battle, Peng Qingyun was sent to the Front Hospital of the Ministry of Health of the 359th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army for rescue. Due to the lack of medical treatment and medicine in the Eighth Route Army Hospital at that time, the medical conditions were not good, so Peng Qingyun's wound was infected, seriously eroded, and his condition continued to deteriorate. At that time, his right arm was swollen like a big purple eggplant, bulging and cracking, and even the doctors in the hospital were helpless. Originally, the troops wanted Dr. Bethune in the rear to operate on Peng Qingyun, but coincidentally, Dr. Bethune went to the front line to rescue the wounded.
General Peng Qingyun was shot
Peng Qingyun waited there for 4 days, but Dr. Bethune still did not return. At that time, Pan Shizheng, the political commissar of the Ministry of Health of the 359th Brigade, was so anxious that he called Brigadier Wang Zhen for help. When Brigadier Wang Zhen learned of this, he instructed: "Immediately send Peng Qingyun to the front line to find Dr. Bethune!" When Peng Qingyun was sent to the frontline hospital where Dr. Bethune was located by his comrades-in-arms, he had missed the best time for treatment, and the whole person was dying. Dr. Bethune said: "In order to save his life, he had to have an amputation. Therefore, after this battle, Peng Qingyun became a one-armed general.
Dr. Bethune
Despite losing his right arm, Peng Qingyun insisted on staying in the fighting unit. During the Liberation War, he entered the northeast with the troops, serving as the political commissar of the 14th Regiment of the 28th Division of the 10th Column and the director of the Political Department of the 29th Division, and successively participated in the battles of Liaoshen, Pingjin, and Hengbao. In 1951, he entered the DPRK with the 47th Army and led the 141st Division to build the Nanyangli Airfield, making great achievements. In 1955, Peng Qingyun was awarded the rank of major general. And it is precisely the older generation of proletarian revolutionaries like him who shed their heads and spilled their blood in exchange for our happy life today. Therefore, we must remember history, keep in mind the mission, and never forget the heroes who contributed to the motherland!