My grandfather was a hero

Author: Zhong Zhifang

History condenses the grandeur and paints the October sun to the fullest. On the national day holiday celebrated by the whole country, the son who returned from college for a vacation sensibly leaned on his grandmother's bedside. Accompanied by my grandmother, who recovered at home after surgery, carefully watched the popular "Chosin Lake".

The sick grandmother weakly pointed to the PLA on the screen and asked her son, "Is this fighting little Japan?" Or fight the Kuomintang? When I heard my son say that it was the volunteer army to resist us and aid Korea and fight the Yankees, my grandmother turned her head to look at me and said, "Then your grandfather has not participated in this battle."

How? Remembering the silent, taciturn, thin, dark, hunchbacked old man who had to buckle his soft and collapsed liberation hat on his head in the summer to keep warm, and who held a medicine jar all day, had he ever participated in the war? Seeing that my mother was confused in my heart, she suddenly came to the spirit and emotionally told us about my grandfather's heroic history.

Grandfather Cheng Tiemu was born in September 1924 in a poor peasant family in Bichangping Village, Huangsha Township, Yizhang County. At the end of 1939, he had just turned 15 years old when he was arrested. He first served as a soldier in the heavy battalion of the Kuomintang 73rd Army, and at the end of 1940, he was transferred to the heavy machine gun company of the 3rd Battalion of the 151st Regiment of the 51st Division of the 74th Army. The 74th Army was the ace army of the Kuomintang and had a very strong combat capability. As a half-grown child, he followed the "Ace Army" everywhere to fight hard battles.

In March 1941, the Japanese army concentrated two divisions and a mixed brigade, and the troops attacked the Nationalist forces in the Shanggao area of Jiangxi in three ways. Soon the 70th Army's defensive line was broken, and the situation was critical. He immediately followed the 151st Regiment to Ducheng to block the Japanese army. Only then did they arrive at Ducheng, and before the fortifications were repaired, the Japanese army came. They could only rely on the existing terrain features to fire at the Japanese. The Japanese devils fell in front of them, and the back rushed up again. The fighting was extremely fierce, with heavy casualties on both sides. But they preferred to die rather than retreat, and repeatedly repelled the Japanese attack, and the battle lasted for three days and three nights. The Japanese saw that the way forward was blocked, so the soldiers divided into two ways and tried to bypass their defenses. After Chen Chuanjun, the commander of the 151st Regiment, discovered the Japanese attempt, he left a battalion to defend the Ducheng defense line, and he led two battalions to another high ground in the southwest to drag the Japanese army there. The next day, Commander Li Tianxia's division arrived and surrounded a mixed brigade of the Japanese army. In order to save this mixed brigade, the Japanese army dispatched planes and tanks, and a company also came to the rescue. With them on both sides, the Japanese mixed brigade broke through. They immediately changed from siege to pursuing the enemy, and the Japanese army retreated while fighting and fled back to the garrison. At this point, the Battle of Shanggao was over. His 51st Division was awarded the title of "No. 1 Martial Arts Certificate of Land, Sea and Air" by the Central Military Commission.

In September 1941, he took part in the Battle of Changsha with his troops. After encountering the Japanese army in Hubei, he fought for two days, and only after receiving orders did he withdraw from the battlefield and return to Yichun, Jiangxi.

In May 1942, he participated with his troops in the Battle of Zhejiang. They encountered the Japanese in the mountains south of Quzhou, Zhejiang, and they fired the first shots at the Battle of Zhejiang. The battle lasted for three days and three nights, with heavy casualties on both sides. Seeing that they could not win, the Japanese withdrew.

In May 1943, he accompanied his troops from Hengshan to Changde to participate in the Battle of Western Hubei. At that time, it was raining every day, the roads were muddy, and the carriages and horses were often stuck in the mud, and they had to be pushed and carried. The soldiers were drenched in rain, and many people were cold. He led his horse and followed the troops one foot deep and one foot shallow on the muddy road for 10 days before reaching the taoyuan county border of Changde. At this time, the defense of Shimen had begun, and the 51st Division, despite fatigue, arrived at Shimen the next day and launched an attack on the Japanese army. The two sides fought fiercely for many days, and when the battle was at its most difficult time, Commander Chen Chuanjun personally led the team down to the company to fight. He was also assigned to the Heavy Machine Gun Company of the Second Battalion as an ammunition man. Because of the marching battle, he did not take a bath for many days, and he had a lot of lice on his body, and he would fall into the bowl when he ate, and he could only endure. By the beginning of June, the Japanese army had only a few troops left to fight, and the large troops were quickly withdrawn. The 51st Division seized this favorable opportunity, concentrated the strength of the whole regiment, quickly annihilated this small number of Japanese troops, and went after the large Japanese troops. With the cooperation of fraternal troops, the Japanese army could only fight back, and the Japanese army, which suffered heavy casualties, could only withdraw from the battlefield. He pursued the retreating Japanese army with his troops, Lianke Hubei Zhijiang, and the public security, until he received orders to stop the pursuit.

In late November 1943, the Defense of Changde began. By the time his unit arrived at Hehuan from the Qijiahe battlefield, Changde had been occupied by the Japanese army. Commander Wang Yaowu ordered his troops to retake Changde, and he followed his troops desperately to attack and advance in the direction of Changde City and occupied Deshan. From Hezhu to Changde City, the battle lasted for six days, and finally recaptured Changde with the cooperation of friendly forces. Then they launched an interception and fierce pursuit of the retreating Japanese army, until the Japanese army retreated to Lishui, and then turned to a defensive position along the river line, and the Battle of Changde ended.

From the arrest of Zhuangding at the end of 1939 to the unconditional surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945. He fought with the "ace army" of the Kuomintang and heroically killed the enemy. In mid-September 1945, under the leadership of division commander Zhou Zhidao, he and his comrades-in-arms accepted the surrender of the Japanese army in Hengyang and completed the task of collecting Japanese weapons.

In May 1946 his 74th Army was reorganized into the 74th Division, and in June he participated in the Civil War with the 74th Division. In May 1947, after being captured in the Battle of Menglianggu, he joined the East China Field Army and served as a soldier in the 7th Company of the 3rd Battalion, 49th Regiment, 17th Division of the 6th Column.

In June 1947, during the campaign to conquer Kaifeng, Henan, he was already a soldier in the People's Liberation Army, and he took over the explosive package left by the sacrificed squad leader and machine gunner. Using his knowledge of the performance of heavy machine guns, he approached the enemy bunker with wit and determination, and blew the enemy bunker into the sky. He also captured five enemy soldiers, captured one machine gun, five rifles, and five hundred rounds of ammunition. He gloriously joined the Communist Party of China in the line of fire!

On November 6, 1948, with the cooperation of the Central Plains Field Army, the East China Field Army to which he belonged launched the Battle of Huaihai, which shook the ancient and modern times and marked the history of Yongbiao Qingshi. At that time, his company participated in the battle of encircling Huang Botao's corps in Nianzhuang, Xin'an Town, east of Xuzhou, specifically attacking Hanzhuang. At dawn, the general offensive trumpet sounded. As the leader of a group of commandos, he led two fighters toward the enemy. On the advance, two soldiers died heroically, and he alone, under the cover of his comrades-in-arms, rushed to the enemy's forward position and quickly threw a grenade into the enemy's trench. As the smoke from the explosion rose, he picked up his machine gun and swept it wildly, then shouted, "Surrender your gun and don't kill!" The enemy was intimidated by his momentum and obediently raised his hands. At dawn, he took six captives and a captured machine gun and handed them to the platoon commander. Turning around, he rushed into the enemy gap that had just been torn open, and pounced on the deep stronghold where the enemy was holding. However, when he rushed to the front of the enemy position again, an oncoming grenade exploded, more than twenty pieces of shrapnel were embedded in his whole body, and he fell in a pool of blood...

Fortunately, under the timely rescue of his comrades-in-arms, he miraculously survived!

He has only been in the Chinese People's Liberation Army for only four years, and has participated in five battles, once for the second class, once for the third class, and once for the fourth class, and has won the title of second-class people's hero.

After the founding of New China, his unit served as a guard at the Nanjing Military Academy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and he served as a civil servant to General Peng Shaohui. However, due to the fact that he had more than twenty pieces of shrapnel left all over his body, he would be in pain and uncomfortable when he encountered rainy days. Fearing that his physical problems would affect his work, in June 1952, he took a sick and disabled person and asked to be demobilized back to the village.

Until his death in June 1996 due to a recurrence of old injuries, he had been an honest farmer in The Village of Bichangping in Huangsha Township. He never reached out to ask the organization for any treatment, and asked his family not to expose his affairs in the army, let alone to trouble the organization in his name. He kept telling his family that he had lived more than forty years longer than his comrades who had sacrificed, and he was satisfied!

Probably afraid that my son and I did not believe in this history of my grandfather, my tearful grandmother struggled to get up from the bed, trembled under the support of her son, opened the large wardrobe door, and groped out a small old box to open, which was neatly lined with three military merit badges and a second-class people's hero medal; below there was a second-class people's hero certificate.

It turned out that my grandfather, who was as silent as a mountain and as stoic as a rock, was really a people's hero!