In the early 1980s, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Kim Il Sung, leader of the Korean People's Republic of Korea, visited China to participate in the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. He was personally received by Deng Xiaoping and other central leaders.
In between conversations, Chairman Kim Il Sung made a request to Deng Xiaoping: "At the beginning, in the 15th Army of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army, there was a combat hero named Chai Yunzhen, who heard that he was still alive, and hoped that the Chinese government could help find this person. I've been looking for thirty years and I've never been there. ”
Qin Jiwei, commander of the 15th Army, also attended the meeting, and when he heard Kim Il Sung make such a request, he said to Deng Xiaoping: "This Chai Yunzhen, who was brave and tenacious in the battle of Park Dafeng, was awarded the honorary title of first-class combat hero by the headquarters of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army after the war, but after he returned to China for treatment, he lost contact, and his situation is not known for the time being, and once he finds out, he will immediately report to Chairman Jin." ”
After hearing these words, Deng Xiaoping immediately instructed Qin Jiwei: "As long as Chai Yunzhen is still alive in this world, as long as people are still on China's territory, even if they are looking for a needle in a haystack, we must also fish him up and send people to find Chai Yunzhen as soon as possible!" ”
Chai Yun-jin on the Korean battlefield
Speaking of this Chai Yunzhen, the time will go back to May 1951, when the fifth campaign to resist the United States and aid Korea was officially in full swing.
After the Fifth Campaign, the logistics supply line of the Chinese Volunteer Army was cut off by the American Army, and the army had to retreat northward, and the United Nations Army immediately launched a counterattack while our army was retreating, and the general headquarters of the Volunteer Army at that time appointed Qin Jiwei's 15th Army as the rear of the palace.
At dawn on May 28, the U.S. 25th Division and the Canadian 25th Brigade, supported by aircraft and tanks, pursued the volunteers all the way to Park Taeksho.
Pu DaFeng is located more than sixty miles southwest of Jinhua, the mountain is steep, densely forested, is the enemy's adventure to attack Jinhua must pass through, at this time, the enemy is fierce, the main force of the volunteer army is still in progress, if the United Nations army breaks through The Park Dafeng, it will lead to heavy casualties of the retreating volunteer army.
At this time, Qin Jiwei ordered the 3rd Battalion of the 45th Division of the 15th Army to take on the task of blocking Park Dafeng, and the 3rd Battalion, after receiving the order, immediately built fortifications on the spot, preparing to deal with the American troops who might attack at any time.
The enemy also saw that Park Dafeng was an obstacle in front of him, and for this reason he did not hesitate to carry out a heavy attack. Because this is their main road, only by breaking through this opening can the mechanized troops attack better.
The defensive officers and men of our army crushed the Canadian brigade that came to attack, and seeing that the Canadian army could not take Park Dafeng, the American army decided to take the field personally, and then the soldiers of the volunteer army resisted the strong attack and artillery fire of the American army, and finally the two sides fought a white-knife battle, but still could not break through our army's position.
On the 3rd day of the war, the enemy carried out a nine-hour bombardment of the Ridge of Pu Dafeng, which was less than one kilometer away, with a dense barrage of shells and bombs, when the mountain was knocked down a few feet, and the sharp mountain was flat, and the aircraft and shells never stopped in this place.
On the 4th day of the blockade battle, the seventh and ninth companies were all wiped out, and finally only 27 lightly wounded were left, and finally the messengers and cooks were also on the battlefield.
At this time, in order to hold the position, the 3rd Battalion immediately organized a counterattack, and Chai Yunzhen was ordered to serve as the squad leader of the 7th squad. Chai Yunzhen led 9 fighters into the main peak position, braving the enemy's artillery fire to fight the enemy to the death, because only by holding on to Park Dafeng could we buy time for the transfer and consolidation of the position of the large army.
After 5 days and 5 nights of fierce fighting, the UN army successfully occupied the two hills of Park Dafeng and opened up the route of the UN army's offensive. Our army's defensive line collapsed almost completely.
At this critical juncture, in order to be able to retake the hills occupied by the US army, the battalion commander Wu Shangzhi ordered Chai Yunzhen to bypass the enemy's fire point, climb the cliff and attach his arms, and approach the commanding heights from behind.
Wu Shangzhi's temper was very fierce, and his eyes bulged up and he said to Chai Yunzhen: "Resolutely take down the mountain for me, if the mountain can't come down, you don't want to come to see me!" ”
At this time, Chai Yunzhen did not respond to this order, because he had no one under him.
The battalion commander looked at him with his eyes: "There is no one!" With that, he went and grabbed two messengers and gave them to him. In this way, the three of them climbed up the hill together.
On the way up the hill, three people were found by the enemy, dense bullets poured down, and a messenger was unfortunately shot.
After an hour, the enemy's machine guns stopped, and Chai Yunzhen grabbed the favorable fighter, led another communicator, and quietly approached the enemy position.
At this time, the unknown messenger carried two grenades, picked them up, and directly rushed upwards, and the two men bravely rushed up and took down the second hill occupied by the enemy.
After rushing up the hill, the two men immediately began to collect the enemy's weapons and waited for the order of the battalion headquarters command post, but it was already six o'clock in the evening, and there was no one from the command post.
At this time, another ridge of Pu Dafeng was still under the control of the enemy army, and if they attacked after dawn, it would be difficult for the two of them to hold their positions, and at midnight, Chai Yunzhen made a bold decision to attack the enemy camp at night.
After some terrain investigation, it was decided that behind the enemy was a cliff and there was no defensive army, so it was decided to climb the cliff and attack from behind.
It was easy to go up the hill and difficult to go down, the top of the hill had been beaten down a few feet, the top of the hill had been loosened by artillery bombardment, and in the difficult crawl, the jaw was hanging out of blood.
Halfway up the cliff, there were American defenders, but because they were asleep, they didn't make any effort to take the two defenders down.
He climbed up the cliff, and behind the dark tree stumps, Chai Zhenyun found a half-hidden cave with a clanging sound inside, and with experience, Chai Yunzhen immediately made a judgment: This is the enemy's command post.
After he approached the enemy's command post, in such an unprepared situation, Chai Yunzhen took out the grenade, quickly threw it in, and scattered fiercely at the enemy inside, killing the commander.
By dawn, it was already the seventh day of the blockade battle, and at this time the entire main peak position was still in the hands of the volunteers, but there was only Chai Yunzhen alone in the entire position, and the messenger who covered his at the other main peak did not know whether he was dead or alive.
Chai Yunzhen picked up the guns and ammunition abandoned by the enemy on the position, and he had to face a new round of attack from the enemy alone.
A forest at the foot of the mountain was shaking, Chai Yunzhen took a closer look, it was a black regiment, Chai Yunzhen machine gun strafed them, he shot down on the high ground, but also more targeted. In this way, he alone resisted many enemy attacks.
At that time, the enemy he killed had already paved the way up the mountain, and the enemy could only climb up the dead man's body and use the corpse as a cover, and by noon, Chai Yunzhen was running out of ammunition, and only an automatic rifle was left in his hand.
When a black soldier was only more than ten meters away from Chai Yunzhen, Chai Yunzhen ran up with an arrow step, threw a shot at it, and began to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.
Chai Yunzhen's height is not very high, only about one meter six, while the black man has about one meter nine, the strength of the two sides is very different, but Chai Yunzhen did not flinch, the two people hugged and fought. The black man pushed Chai Yunzhen to the ground and smashed the door of his head with a stone, and Chai Yunzhen's brain door was smashed, and the blood flowed.
Chai Yunzhen also grabbed the face of the black soldier with his hand, the black man opened his mouth, bit off one of Chai Yunzhen's fingers, and smashed the door of Chai Yunzhen's head with a stone again, when Chai Yunzhen immediately saw a black in front of his eyes, and immediately fainted on the ground, unconscious. It turned out that when he fell to the ground, the black soldier thought he was dead and ignored him. When Chai Yunzhen woke up again, he found himself lying in the hospital.
At this time, the supporting army rushed to quickly drive the enemy away, and when cleaning up the battlefield, Sun Hongfa found that Chai Yunzhen was still breathing, so he immediately carried him to the rear hospital, where he had 24 scars on his head and had been unconscious. After several days of rescue, Chai Yunzhen was able to wake up.
Our army also finally won the victory in the Battle of Pu Dafeng, in which more than 1,340 enemy people were annihilated, and more than 200 of them were destroyed by Chai Yunzhen alone.
Search by all means
In 1952, the General Political Department of the Volunteer Army issued the first order, awarding Chai Yunzhen and other meritorious heroes and first-class combat heroes the honorary title.
However, this hero's medal was not claimed for a long time, and Chai Yunzhen actually disappeared.
Chai Yunzhen was rescued from the battlefield by Sun Hongfa at that time and sent to the hospital in the rear, when Chai Yunzhen had been in a coma and was sent to the hospital in Baotou City for treatment two months later. After that, he lost contact with the original troops. And there is no death record in the file, how did this person disappear?
At that time, all the fighters who participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea had a roster, but because the cultural level of the recorders at that time was not very high, they only made simple records, or used many homophones, and the names and places of origin of many soldiers were often mistaken.
But later, after some searching, the whereabouts of Chai Yunzhen were not found for a long time, but his heroic deeds had already spread throughout the Chinese and North Korean armies, and the military chiefs of China and North Korea did not give up looking for Chai Yunzhen in the decades that followed.
In 1980, Kim Il Sung's visit to China once again mentioned Chai Yun-jin's situation, and Qin Jiwei, who was already the minister of national defense at the time, issued an order: "Every effort must be made to find Chai Yunzhen!" ”
After that, Qin Jiwei began to organize, nationwide searches for Chai Yunzhen, and according to a veteran of Chai Yunzhen's work at the time, Chai Yunzhen's accent was from the southwest. So according to this clue, in the southwestern provinces, through various media, the old general must be found.
At this time, the whereabouts of Chai Yunzhen became the common concern of the old chief and the military and people of the two countries.
On September 12, 1984, Sichuan Daily published a special search notice:
Chai Yunzhen, a first-class combat hero and a special meritorious hero, was the former squad leader of the 7th squad of the 8th Company of the 3rd Battalion of our unit, who was seriously wounded in the battle of Pak Dafeng in North Korea, broke a finger, and was separated from the troops after the war. Please contact the original escort team in person or in person who is in the know, after seeing this notice.
Finally, under the inquiry of many parties, I found out the whereabouts of Chai Yunzhen, who had been working as a farmer in his old home in Sichuan for 32 years.
It turned out that in April 1952, after Chai Yunzhen recovered from treatment, he thought that he was already seriously injured, and if he returned to the army, he must have caused trouble to the country, and at that time, the country's economy was so bitter that he did not want to accept the state's subsidies anymore, and it was better to go home and rely on himself.
So Chai Yunzhen went through the discharge procedures, and since then he has left the army and returned home. At that time, his superiors also sent him a subsidy of 80 yuan, and he could receive 1,000 kilograms of rice, and Chai Yunzhen felt too satisfied.
After returning to his hometown, Chai Yunzhen, when the local clerk registered his name, mistakenly wrote the word "Zhen" as "zheng", and he did not go to his heart, and he has been using the name Chai Yunzheng ever since. In the past 32 years, Chai Yunzhen has served as a brigade leader and township chief to work silently, never confiding his exploits to others, and no one would have thought that he was a lone hero on the Korean battlefield.
"Dad, why do you have so many scars on your head?" As his son Chai Bingrong grew up, he was very curious about the scars on his father's head and the broken fingers.
"The scar on his head was smashed by the enemy!" Fingers are also bitten off by enemies! Chai Yunzhen's eyes were filled with sadness, "During the battle, my comrades-in-arms were sacrificed, and I survived." After a pause, he added, "We have completed the task entrusted to us by the organization." ”
Later, Chai Bingrong had reached the early thirties and worked as a tractor driver in the local area, and one day when he was resting, he casually copied a copy of the "Sichuan Daily", saw this search notice, and thought: "Isn't this my father?" Chai Bingrong immediately returned home with the newspaper and found his father, but his father denied it.
Because at that time, his name had been changed to Chai Yunzheng, after all, there were many people with the same name, for this name in the newspaper, the old man's first reaction did not think of himself, and he did not know how an old farmer could appear in the newspaper.
The son read the newspaper carefully to see if it was really the father, maybe it was the same name, after all, there was still a word difference in the name, and when he saw a sentence, "In the Battle of Park Dafeng, the index finger was broken." Chai Bingrong was even more convinced that the person he was looking for was his father.
Chai Bingrong repeatedly persuaded his father, after all, that the state was looking for someone to take a look at first, even if his father was not the person he was looking for in the newspaper, it would be okay to go and see it first.
Chai Yunzhen, under the persuasion of his son, decided to go to the military camp to report first, and that day, he wore a pair of water glue shoes and a hat with a circle straw hat on it, and the shoes and pants were covered with mud, and he went to the military camp with his son.
At the gate, the guards would not let them in, and the guards said, "Which one are you looking for?" ”
Chai Yunzhen said: "We went to the military headquarters to visit the chief. ”
When the sentry at the gate of the barracks went in and reported to his superiors that there was a man named Chai Yunzhen who had asked to see him, Director Wen, who was in charge of the reception, was overjoyed and took Chai Yunzhen into the barracks like a guest of honor.
Even at this time, Chai Yunzhen did not understand, nor did he know, what had happened in the past thirty years, why the troops could make him such a warm old farmer who worked at sunrise and rested at sunset, and in the conversation, he actually said that he had become the focus of everyone's search for a time, and even became a big hero.
During the handshake, Director Wen noticed that Chai Yunzhen's finger was missing and asked, "How did you get hurt?" ”
Chai Yunzhen replied, "It was bitten off by the enemy." ”
"What other places are injured?"
"My head was broken." He said that and unveiled his hat.
Director Wen immediately stood up and began counting, shaving his hair and counting, counting 24 openings.
Because after Chai Yunzhen's search notice was published, the army also received many veterans with the same name and surname from all over the country in the past three years, but after screening, it was found that they were not the heroes to be found. This time, the father and son of the Chai family came to the door, and everyone was extra cautious.
In order to further verify whether this Chai Yunzhen was the combat hero they were looking for, the troops gathered those veterans from all over the country and sandwiched them among the soldiers of similar age for Chai Yunzhen to identify.
Director Wen pointed to one of the men and asked him if he recognized them. When Chai Yunzhen saw the moment he saw that person, he was immediately excited, and the tears could not stop flowing, that person was Sun Hongfa, a comrade-in-arms who had been close for many years, thirty years ago, when Chai Yunzhen was dying on the position, it was Sun Hongfa's troops who rushed to the position and carried Chai Yunzhen to the hospital in the rear, after which the two lost contact.
The two embraced each other at once, and tears flowed down. It was determined that he was the hero that both China and North Korea had been looking for.
One day in October 1984, Chai Yunzhen, a 56-year-old farmer from Dafo Township, put on a brand-new military uniform and hung a military medal on his chest, and everyone snapped in welcome and listened to the old hero tell his history.
After finding Chai Yunzhen, Qin Jiwei was very happy in his heart, and personally set up a banquet at home and received his former subordinate.
When Qin Jiwei asked him what difficulties he had, Chai Yunzhen said, "Old Chief, all the soldiers in my squad have been sacrificed, and I am left alone." I live in this world, I should do something for my comrades-in-arms, I myself have no requirements for the organization. ”
After saying something, Qin Jiwei was deeply moved, he was a real hero.
Not martyrs, but living heroes
The news of finding Chai Yun-jin quickly reached Kim Il-sung's ears, and when he heard the news, he immediately invited Chai Yun-jin to visit North Korea and participate in the 35th anniversary of the Chinese Volunteer Army's combat in North Korea.
In October 1985, Chai Yun-jin, as a fighting hero of the Chinese Volunteer Army, set foot on the land of North Korea again, and the scenes here 33 years ago were like yesterday.
For more than thirty years, the mountains and rivers have been unharmed, and things are not human.
During this period, Kim Il Sung received Chai Yun-jin twice and awarded him the Order of Freedom and Independence of the First Class. Kim Il Sung told him: "If chai yunzhen is found, history should be rewritten, chai yunzhen is not a martyr, but a living hero." ”
During his visit to North Korea, Chai Yunzhen visited the North Korean Military Museum and the Martyrs' Cemetery of the Volunteer Army. In the military museum, when the translator pointed to a sketch portrait hanging on the wall, he said, "This is your 'portrait.'"
The translator also told him that he had built a fake tomb and erected a tombstone for him on the position of Park Dafeng, and it turned out that the North Korean side at that time also thought that he had died, so it commemorated him in this way.
Chai Yunzhen looked at his "portrait" and said, "But I'm still alive!" I have to take this 'relic' back! ”
After the translation, the North Korean side also agreed to Chai Yunzhen's request, and Chai Yunzhen personally removed his "remains" and brought it back to keep it in his home.
In his later years, Chai Yunzhen was already full of children and grandchildren, and he usually loved to watch TV the most, but he was very reluctant to watch war movies, because whenever he saw the war plot, he would burst into tears, and all kinds of battlefield past events could not help but come to mind.
He set an "iron law" for his family, saying: "Medals belong to comrades who have sacrificed, and no one in the family is allowed to say that they are the family of a combat hero!" Nor shall any care or preferential treatment be received. "And I also hope that my children and grandchildren can join the army and defend the country."
In his later years, Chai Yunzhen said that he still had a wish that had not been fulfilled, that is, he wanted to go to Park Dafeng again and go to the place where he had fought to worship his comrades-in-arms, but this wish he said was difficult to realize.
Because in 1985, when he went to North Korea, he made this request to the reception staff, but Park Dafeng now belongs to the territory of South Korea, and if he wants to worship, it also involves a lot of diplomatic matters, which is very troublesome.
But the staff also comforted him: "Don't worry, you are still in good health, there are still many opportunities in the future, and when the Korean Peninsula is peacefully reunified in the future, your wish will come true." ”
Chai Yunzhen listened and said, "Good! Then I wait! ”
But the old hero did not wait for this day to come. On December 26, 2018, the battle hero Chai Yunzhen bid farewell to this world peacefully, which became the regret that the old hero could not complete in his lifetime.
On June 29, 2021, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the ceremony of awarding the "July 1st Medal" was held, and Chai Yunzhen's name was also among them, but in the list, his name was indeed framed, and he could never come to the scene to receive this honor that belonged to him, but his deeds will always be remembered by his motherland.
It is precisely because of the efforts of these volunteer martyrs that we have this happy life today, this is the founding battle of China, and their tearful heroic deeds should be remembered by everyone.