During the period of revolutionary war, Comrade Chen Yi was always able to unite the troops well and twist them into a rope, and one of the very important tricks was that he was able to discover and use in a timely manner those outstanding military and political talents who were competent for his duties.
In January 1938, Ye Fei, then commander and political commissar of the Independent Division of the Red Army in eastern Fujian, reported to Chen Yi, who presided over the establishment of the New Fourth Army, the construction and operation of the independent division of the Red Army in eastern Fujian. After carefully listening to Ye Fei's report, Chen Yi raised questions on many specific situations, and Ye Fei was very familiar with the situation of the independent division and answered them very well. In this report, Chen Yi was deeply impressed by Ye Fei.
After the New Fourth Army took root in the Jiangnan region, Chen Yi thought about the question of how to achieve greater development. At this time, he remembered Ye Fei and decided to let his capable general carry a regiment of troops to the north of the river.
Before Ye Fei set out, Chen Yi personally gave him the pseudonym "Nie Yang" in order to avoid difficulties in the Kuomintang Third Theater. Later actual combat proved that Chen Yi's discovery and appointment of Ye Fei was extremely correct.
Ye Fei has strong ability to work independently, has a high level of policy theory, and is fully capable of carrying out work independently. After arriving in Jiangbei, he extensively contacted various local non-governmental anti-Japanese armed forces, flexibly and flexibly carried out guerrilla warfare against the Japanese army and the puppet army, significantly expanded the anti-Japanese democratic base areas, and quickly replenished the personnel, guns, and funds of the New Fourth Army, and there were hundreds of machine guns supplied to the New Fourth Army Headquarters alone.
Chen Yi and Ye Fei
After the Jiangbei troops of the New Fourth Army were greatly developed, Chen Yi felt that the military struggles in Jiangnan and Jiangbei were complicated and needed more people who could shoulder heavy responsibilities. So Chen Yi used his method of discernment again, and this time the person he found was Tan Zhenlin.
Chen Yi asked the New Fourth Army headquarters to send Tan Zhenlin to the Jiangnan region to independently command the Troops of the Eastern Road and to expand and develop the strength of the Eastern Road alone. After Tan Zhenlin arrived at the Jiangnan headquarters, he greatly appreciated the achievements already made by the Jiangnan troops and agreed with Chen Yi's views on the ways and methods of the Jiangnan troops' struggle against the enemy. With regard to some comrades saying that Chen Yi is the so-called "man, gun, and money doctrine," he clearly expressed his opposition to the erroneous criticism of Chen Yi.
On the question of how to deal with the anti-communist upsurge provoked by the Kuomintang diehards, he even coincided with Chen Yi's viewpoint, holding that it is necessary to adhere to the principle of "consolidating to the south, fighting to the east, and developing to the north," independently lead and develop the Communist Party's own anti-Japanese armed forces, and maintain the party's leading position in the anti-Japanese national united front, so that there is no need to pay any attention to the unreasonable interference of the Kuomintang reactionaries.
From left: Rao Shushi, Chen Yi, Tan Zhenlin, Liu Ruilong, Su Yu
Tan Zhenlin said to Chen Yi: "When I arrive at the East Road, I hope that through the method of running a teaching team, I can train a hundred company commanders and a hundred instructors as soon as possible, a total of 200 military and political cadres at the company level." "I want to strive to get 10,000 people and guns as soon as possible on the basis of the activities of the 'Jiang Kang' and the current 'Standing Vertical' Regiment." After Chen Yi listened, he was both surprised and relieved, he knew that Tan Zhenlin was a person with great opinion and methods, and he would definitely do what he said.
Sure enough, Tan Zhenlin not only exceeded his tasks brilliantly, but also gradually grew into a senior general of the East China Field Army, who together with Su Yu planned and commanded the "Seven Wars and Seven Victories" Campaign of Suzhong, jointly led the Huaye Inner Line Corps with Xu Shiyou, insisted on consolidating the Shandong base area and annihilated the Kuomintang army in large numbers, and participated in and led the famous Huaihai Campaign as a member of the General Front Committee of the Huaihai Campaign. History proves that Chen Yi's vision is keen, and most of the talents he discovered became the leading backbone of the Later East China Field Army and the Third Field Army.
There are generally two ways to employ people: one way is to "use talent to be talented", that is, through their own high-level professional guidance, exert their influence in the professional field to drive subordinates to carry out their work; the other way is to "use virtue to influence subordinates", that is, to influence subordinates through their own moral prestige, as long as the big principle issues are not out of line, let the subordinates go to work, but ask too much about specific business work.
Marshal Chen Yi's style of recognizing and employing people belongs to the latter, he is frank and open-minded, broad-minded, never put up an official shelf, especially good at relying on his own personality charm to attract talents, influence talents, and give play to the enthusiasm of talents, rarely directly interfere with the specific work of subordinates, especially will not "point fingers" and "point fingers" to the work of subordinates, but let the talents solve their own problems, unless it is when they really need his help, this is a very high realm of employment.
"Talented", his professional level must be the highest in the team, through his professional authority and influence, to lead the team to complete the task.
His professional level is not necessarily very high, but his leadership quality and leadership prestige must be very high, and he can ideologically lead the team to complete the task.
Compared with the two, the more we go to the grass-roots level, the more we need the leadership style of "using talents to make a difference", because in grass-roots units, especially grass-roots units with strong professional skills, it is difficult to convince the public without excellent professional level. On the contrary, the more we reach the high level, the more we need to "use virtue to make a royal talent", because after reaching the high level, the requirements for specific professional levels are not high, mainly a kind of political leadership and ideological leadership, so if there is a lack of leadership prestige and mass credibility, even if the level of individuals in a certain professional field is high, it will not help to effectively implement leadership and employ people.
Excerpt from | "Leadership Digest" January 2022, the original title of "Chen Yi's Imperial Talent Technique"
Source of the manuscript | WeChat public account of "Communist Party member"
This article is written by | Zhang Jie
Responsible Editor | Zhang Feng
WeChat Editor | Late note