In 1955, at the founding ceremony, Han Xianchu should have been awarded the title of lieutenant general, but Chairman Mao said when reviewing that Han Xianchu had meritorious service and that lieutenant general should be promoted to general. What made him the only one of the 1,032 generals to be promoted by exception?
The seniority of the lieutenant general, the merit of the general
Han Xianchu, born in 1913 in Hong'an, Hubei Province, was a founding general who dared to disobey even the orders of President Peng and had the title of "Whirlwind Commander" on the northeast battlefield. During the Liberation War, the 40th Army he led was a fierce tiger army, and in the northeast, north China, central China, and central and southern battlefields, there were Han Xianchu's famous names, and he had no defeat, so Han Xianchu was also known as a general who always won.
There are many stories describing how bold and brave Han Xianchu was, for example, Jiang Once said that the army has two hegemons, one is Xu Shiyou and the other is Han Xianchu; others say that he is full of guts, more courageous than Zhao Zilong in ancient times. The famous general Xu Shiyou admired him very much, and once someone asked Xu Shiyou who his most admired general was, Xu Shiyou said: "Han Xianchu, he is the general I admire the most." ”
Asked why, Xu Shiyou said that because Han Xianchu had courage and strategy, there was no battle in this world that he could not win. Xu Shiyou also said, "If you say that I am bold, then he is a tiger who is invincible to anyone." ”
Even Xue Yue, the Kuomintang god of war and who created the Heavenly Furnace Tactics to greatly destroy the Japanese army, was ultimately defeated by Han Xianchu's men. Du Yuming, commander of the nationalist army in the northeast, once said when he left the northeast that the most difficult thing to deal with in the eighth route army was Han Xianchu's team.
At the age of 17, Han Xianchu joined the Communist Party of China, and later joined the guerrillas, and when he was young, he dared to fight and took on dangerous tasks many times. At the age of 21, he followed the Red 25th Army and was almost killed in battle while passing through dushu Town, Chengxian County, Henan Province.
At that time, the 25th Army was surrounded and blocked by five branches and three divisions of the Nationalist Army, the 25th Army only had nearly 3,000 people, while the Nationalist Army was nearly 30,000 people, and the situation was very passive, and Han Xianchu's 224 regiment was the vanguard unit and encountered fierce resistance from artillery fire. At that time, the commanders and fighters sacrificed their lives and forgot their deaths, and ordered the soldiers to "resolutely resist the enemy and never retreat."
Han Xianchu led his troops to the forefront, repelled the enemy many times, defended an important position, and then drew a large knife to lead the troops to carry out a white-knife battle with the enemy, and finally successfully repelled the enemy. After that, he experienced the first and second encirclement and suppression, and every time he was a pioneer, he rushed to the front, and in the battle of Gepai Town, he was unfortunately injured, and his left arm fell ill.
In July 1935, when he accompanied the Long March of the Red 25th Army, Han Xianchu served as the commander of a battalion, when the troops had just crossed the Malian River to reach the town of Banqiao, and a battalion behind the palace was raided by enemy cavalry, Xu Haidong, who was still a deputy commander at the time, quickly rushed to command, but the other side was too mobile, so he was also surrounded. At this time, Han Xianchu led his troops to attack brazenly, repelled the impact of the cavalry with a fierce posture, covered Xu Haidong's rush out of the siege, and saved the founding general.
In the third anti-encirclement and suppression campaign, Han Xianchu was also a pioneer. Later, he was promoted to the commander of the 75th Division of the Red 15th Army, which made his military ability quickly apparent. During the Red Army's eastern expedition to Shanxi, he guarded the Yellow River crossing with most of his troops, led only one battalion to contain the strength of the enemy's five regiments, pinned down at least three thousand enemies, and covered the headquarters of Chairman Mao and Peng Dehuai. Such a strong record made him promoted to deputy commander of the Middle Route Army, and after the end of the Eastern Expedition, he was promoted to deputy commander of the Red 78th Division, and then participated in the Red Army's Western Expedition.
Han Xianchu was invincible in his attack and made great achievements in battle, during which he did not forget to learn knowledge and improve himself. In 1937, he entered the second phase of the Yan'an Anti-Japanese Military and Political University, and his experience on the battlefield coupled with the systematic study of theoretical knowledge made Han Xianchu gradually have the appearance of a generation of famous generals.
Subsequently, in August of the same year, the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, with Han Xianchu as the deputy commander of the 688th Regiment, and the first battle after the reorganization was the famous Battle of Pingxingguan, which annihilated more than a thousand Japanese troops and gave a shot in the arm for the War of Resistance. After that, he was successively promoted to brigade commander of the 344th Brigade and commander of the Third Military Subdistrict of the Hebei-Luyu Military Region. In 1938, the Japanese army attacked the Shaanxi region, facing the enemy's siege, the 689 regiment led by Han Xianchu and the main force of the 129th Division of our army were ordered to annihilate the enemy army, and in this battle against the enemy with a huge disparity in strength, they still won victory.
In 1945, after the Japanese army announced its unconditional surrender, Han Xianchu went to the northeast and participated in the battle to create the northeast base area, gradually growing into a general who dared to fight and dare to fight, and gradually commanded and participated in the Xinkailing Campaign and the Northeast Summer Offensive, and even took the initiative to launch the famous Anhai Campaign. After that, he fought back and forth more than fifty times a month, pulled out more than forty enemy strongholds, and annihilated more than 6,000 enemy troops, without a single defeat.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Han Xianchu was appointed deputy commander of the 12th Corps, and successively led the army to liberate Wuhan and Changsha and establish the Hunan Military Region. Because of his outstanding military achievements in the Liberation War, he was immediately appointed deputy commander of the Hunan Military Region. After that, he went all the way south, conquered South China, and even trained troops in the tactics of crossing the sea in his spare time, laying a solid foundation for the victory of liberating Hainan Island.
Liberation of Hainan Island
After the founding of New China, while the whole country was celebrating, the smoke of war did not dissipate. In some battlefields in East China, Central South, Southwest China, and Northwest China, there are still remnants of reactionaries. However, under the overwhelming advance of the People's Liberation Army, these opposition forces collapsed and retreated one after another, and the remnants of the troops withdrew to Taiwan Island, Hainan Island, Zhoushan Island, and Min-Zhejiang Coastal Islands. Because there is no sea and air force, the straits have blocked the footsteps of the PLA on the mainland, and the enemy hopes to use the strait graben to firmly hold the islands, use the sea as a boundary, and fantasize that these projectile lands will be the last base for their counterattack on the mainland.
In March 1950, the Battle to Liberate Hainan Island began. Without Han Xianchu's determination, Hainan Island would not have returned to the motherland so quickly, and it is possible that like Taiwan today, it will become a bridgehead for foreign countries to contain China, and the jurisdiction of the South China Sea will be impossible to talk about.
Why? When the Battle of Hainan Island broke out, no one knew that the Korean War was about to break out on June 25. On June 27, the U.S. Seventh Fleet cut off the Taiwan Strait and prevented the People's Liberation Army from liberating Taiwan. If we could not take Hainan Island before the outbreak of the Korean War, and the US military would also block the Qiongzhou Strait, Hainan may not be liberated.
In fact, there were many difficulties in liberating Hainan at that time, mainly because of the lack of ideological unity among the troops. At that time, New China had been established, Siye had fought all the way from Changbai Mountain to Hainan Island, other troops were demobilized, married and had children, and this unit was still fighting, and soldiers were likely to sacrifice before dawn and become the last wave of troops to fall, so many soldiers had scruples.
The most representative is ning Xianwen, the chief of staff of the 40th Army at that time, in the Liberation War, he was also a tiger general, born into death has never been afraid, but when liberating Hainan Island, he was afraid, and even by smashing his own feet to avoid the war; secondly, the People's Liberation Army had no experience in crossing Hayden Island, in October 1949, the Three Wild Army failed in the Kinmenten Island operation, and the bitter lessons of this month before made Chairman Mao have to carefully consider the time of the Hainan Campaign, at the same time, many soldiers also had no confidence. They all want to wait for the equipment to arrive and then fight;
There were also superiors who did not support it, because no one knew that the Korean War was about to break out, from the central government to Siye, to the Guangdong Military Political Committee, to the 15th Corps that presided over the attack on Hainan Island, they all thought that the preparation time was not enough, and it was enough to fight before the end of 1950. Therefore, the superiors issued an order to postpone the battle in February and March until June and July.
However, Han Xianchu believes that if Hainan Island does not fight before the valley rains and misses the monsoon season in April, it will have to wait for another five months. The People's Liberation Army's sailing ships crossing the sea must rely on the monsoon wind from north to south, and after the valley rains, the direction of the monsoon will change, and without the wind, our army's ships will not be able to pass. It is advisable to chase the remaining brave to the poor Kou, not to become the overlord of the school, Han Xianchu repeatedly wrote to the court to ask for war: the time is not waiting, we must step up all preparations, and launch an attack before March. Finally, Han Xianchu's telegram persuaded Lin, who in turn persuaded Chairman Mao, and the Central Committee informed the Siye 15 corps to immediately begin to implement the plan.
At that time, the main troops of our army attacking Hainan were the 40th Army led by Han Xianchu and the 43rd Army led by Liu Zuopeng, and their enemy was Xue Yue, the general of the Nationalist Army, who had 100,000 troops under his command, as well as planes and ships, and instead of having air force cover, even the ships necessary for island operations were dozens of sailing ships that the soldiers had been looking for for a long time, and the rest were some wooden boats.
However, even though the combat conditions were so difficult, Han Xianchu still firmly believed that we must fight, and that the war would be won and liberate Hainan Island in one fell swoop. Although many people did not support combat before, the 40th Army led by Han Xianchu has never stopped training in maritime combat.
He organized the soldiers to undergo strict training every day, such as shooting on the sea surface and training in wooden boats to cross the sea, so that the vast majority of the northern troops at that time changed from "Siberian tigers" to "dragons on the sea" one by one, which greatly strengthened the combat effectiveness of the troops. It was also under his strict operational requirements that the soldiers of the 40th Army played a great role in the course of the battle.
In March 1950, he first sent small troops to launch two sneak attacks, accumulating a lot of experience for the success of the later troops. In April, Han Xianchu personally led the main force to a forced crossing, risking death in the Qiongzhou Strait, and quickly broke through the Kuomintang defense system, creating a precedent of forced landing operations with wooden sailing ships in the absence of a navy and air force.
After successfully landing on Hainan Island, Han Xianchu rushed forward happily, and the soldiers next to him were worried about the general, and seeing his actions, the adjutant next to him quickly transferred a company to protect him. After the general offensive began, Han Xianchu took the lead as a soldier and led the command post into the sea with the first echelon, at this time the Qiongya column on the island seized the beachhead position to cover the landing troops, and launched a fierce frontal battle with the well-equipped Kuomintang reactionaries at Lingao Point, attracting the strength of nearly two divisions of the enemy army at the cost of more than 600 casualties, and successfully dragging down their encirclement and interception of our army's landing troops. Looking back at the Battle of Hainan Island, Han Xianchu has a credit to the successful liberation of Hainan Island that cannot be ignored.
III. Conclusion
Just over a month after the liberation of the whole territory of Hainan Island, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea broke out, and Han Xianchu once again set foot on the battlefield, was appointed deputy commander of the Chinese Volunteer Army, directly commanded the western front, participated in the first to fifth battles, played the name of "Long Live the Army", and even more obeyed Chairman Mao's orders in the third campaign, led the troops directly through the "38th Line", annihilated nearly 20,000 elite enemy troops, and broke the conspiracy of the United States to strive for a moment of respite and thus make a comeback.
Unfortunately, because of the perennial rush to the front line, resulting in many physical injuries, coupled with the harsh environment at that time, the age was also older, and the fierce battle made the fierce general helplessly fall ill. In early 1953, he was sent back to China for treatment, and after only three months of recuperation, Han Xianchu asked for orders to go to the battlefield again. The upper echelons sympathized with the veteran general, whose left arm had been injured and atrophied, and did not let him go to the front line again, and appointed him as the chief of staff of the Central and Southern Military Region, allowing him to carry out civilian work and recuperate well. The Campaign to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was also announced in July of the same year. Later, many people interviewed Han Xianchu, and when he talked about his combat experience, he just said: "The opponent does not know how strong I am!" ”
In 1955, when our army first assessed the ranks, Han Xianchu was originally proposed to be rated as a lieutenant general because of his lack of seniority, but compared with other generals, Han Xianchu's time to participate in the revolution was indeed short. When the list of military ranks to be evaluated was sent to Chairman Mao for approval, Chairman Mao carefully checked the names one by one, and was very surprised when he saw that Han Xianchu had only been rated as a lieutenant general, and Chairman Mao said at that time: "Han Xianchu has made great merits, and the appraisal of titles should be considered in all aspects, and we must not forget his contributions in the liberation of Hainan Island in 1950." After that, the matter of lieutenant general Han Xianchu's promotion to general was finalized.
Before Han Xianchu was recognized as a general, he had always been at the forefront of the battlefield, he was a general who was good at using troops, able to use theory to guide practice, and at the same time made continuous progress in successive wars, and was an extremely good front-line commander. Until Han Xianchu was elderly and seriously ill, his heart and mouth were reading "Taiwan, Taiwan." In October 1986, Han Xianchu died in Beijing, and the following year, in his hometown of Hong'an, his ashes were placed in the Hong'an Martyrs' Cemetery.