In 1955, a military rank conferment ceremony was about to be held in Zhongnanhai, Beijing, which was to award honors to some people who had made outstanding contributions to New China.
At this time, it was morning, and the sun came out early, making the day sunny.
"Old Gan, have you washed up, we don't have much time to consume, after breakfast we will rush to the venue." Li Zhen sat at the dinner table and shouted in the direction of her husband's washing.
"Okay, I'll speed up a bit, you don't have to worry, I'll be fine in a moment." Li Zhen's husband, Gan Siqi, replied to her.
Sure enough, in less than two minutes, Gan Siqi came out. He sat down at the dinner table, and then said to Li Zhen: "Eat, let you wait for a long time, you can eat it yourself, you don't have to wait for me." ”
After Li Zhen heard this, she replied with a smile: "It is not interesting to eat alone, and the rice still needs to be eaten by two people." ”
After breakfast, they set off for Zhongnanhai together. After arriving at the venue, they met many former old comrades-in-arms, each with a happy smile on their faces, talking to each other easily, and the general content was to ask each other about their living conditions.
When the ceremony was about to begin, Li Zhen anxiously pulled her husband Gan Siqi and said, "You show me your clothes and hair, whether you have them neat, if not, help me sort them out." ”
Gan Siqi heard his wife say this, so he looked up and down, and after confirming it, he said to her: "No problem, it is all neat, just wait to receive the award!" ”
As a result, Li Zhen breathed a long sigh of relief.
The conferment ceremony was personally conferred by Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao said to Li Zhen: "It is really remarkable that China has you, you are the only female general since the founding of New China, and you can be regarded as setting a very good example for chinese women!" ”
After Li Zhen heard this, her heart was very happy, but she still replied: "Chairman, you have passed the prize, I am not so strong." ”
When Mao Zedong heard that Li Zhen was so modest, he said to her husband, Gan Siqi, "But your wife is modest? She should have boasted. ”
Gan Siqi replied to Mao Zedong: "The chairman is right, we will also work hard in the future to make due contributions to the country and the people." ”
First, as a child bridesmaid, her life is tragic
In the autumn of 1908, the weather in Liuyang, Hunan Province, had slowly cooled down. At this time, a family gave birth to a baby girl in the morning.
The family's surname was Li, the head of the family was called Li Guangtian, and his family had a total of five children, including this newborn child, there were a total of six girls, which disappointed him to the extreme. Because in the old society, men were inferior to women, and women could not make their so-called contributions to their families, and finally had to marry, so having daughters would be rejected.
In order to give birth to a son, Li Guangtian desperately gave birth to a child. As for these six daughters, that is, Li Zhen, Li Guangtian really did not like it, so he gave her a random name, called "DanWazi", which literally means to be born in the morning.
This name was sloppy and not elegant, but it followed Li Zhen until she went to participate in the revolution and gave herself a formal name, thus truly abandoning the name "DanWazi", which had been called for eighteen years.
At that time, Li Zhen's family was very poor, and she had so many children, so the family's life became more difficult.
In order to make life better, Li Zhen's parents can only sell some of the children in the family and become child brides-in-law for others, so as to greatly reduce the burden on the family and not make it difficult to live.
In 1914, when Li Zhen was less than seven years old, he was ruthlessly sold by his parents to a landlord surnamed Gu as a child bridesmaid.
She was still young and didn't know what was happening, she only remembered her mother saying to her: "After that, you have been living in the ancient family, his family is richer than our family, and they will certainly not treat you badly, and they will be your parents in the future." ”
Living in a strange environment at a young age, it is inevitable that she will be a little afraid, but she will not be allowed to react halfway, and she will be called by her mother's family as a donkey.
The former child bridesmaids, in essence, were also a maid, who needed to be responsible for the life and living of the whole family, and they also had to take good care of the young master of the family, that is, their own future husbands.
Time is passing little by little, and Li Zhen has slowly become accustomed to such a life, and she does not dare to have any complaints.
In 1923, the social atmosphere seemed to have undergone some changes, which also encouraged li Zhen, who had always swallowed her anger, to change. After Li Zhen learned some outside news, she wanted to secretly escape from the Gu family and go out to work to earn money to support herself.
However, unfortunately, he was discovered by the Gu family and could only be forced to become related to the young master of the Gu family.
Second, escape the clutches of the devil and join the revolution
After getting married, Li Zhen's life did not improve at all, but developed in a worse direction, and even once, Li Zhen desperately wanted to commit suicide by throwing herself directly into the river, fortunately, she was persuaded to come back by her neighbor's aunt.
After that, Li Zhen was completely disappointed in the Gu family, so she always tried to escape from the Gu family.
Until the spring of 1926, the spring wind of the revolutionary war blew to the land of China, and the revolutionary wave blew toward Liuyang, where Li Zhen was located, and also made Li Zhen feel the hope of rebirth.
She immediately took advantage of the fact that the ancient family was not paying attention, went to the women's association to register, at this time, she changed her name from "Danwazi" to "Li Zhen", which means "unswervingly carry out the revolutionary cause".
After that, Li Zhen got rid of the identity of "child bride" and began to follow the Communist Party to the world.
In the same year, Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12" coup d'état and began to order the execution of hunting and killing of the Communists, as long as they were Communists.
As a member of the Communist Party, Li Zhen also fell into a tragic situation, as long as he was bumped into by the Kuomintang, naturally he had no chance of survival.
Reminded by her uncle and grandfather, she escaped the Kuomintang and began her own career as a fugitive. Even in the process of fleeing, someone mutinied and encouraged her to submit to the Kuomintang together, and the only reply she received was: "It is impossible, I cannot defect." ”
In order not to be discovered, Li Zhen eventually disguised herself as a female worker in the tax bureau, and she did not return to fight until after the Nanchang Uprising.
After her comeback, she used her appearance conditions to disguise herself as some social people, looking around for intelligence and uploading to the central government, making a lot of contributions to the central government.
In 1927, Li Zhen became a member of the Liudong Special Branch of the Communist Party of China and formed a heroic guerrilla force. Their purpose is to eliminate harm for the people and benefit the people, which in essence is to uphold the purpose and principle of the Communist Party to serve the people and be responsible for the people.
The following year, Li Zhen led his guerrillas to fight with the local criminal and evil forces, and the common people expressed strong support.
In order to ensure the foolproof task, Li Zhen thought of a good way, that is, all the people in the guerrilla group disguised themselves and disguised as local people, so as to catch those evil forces off guard, so that they would have no ability to fight back and could only obediently surrender.
Indeed, Li Zhen won the battle, and those ordinary people who were oppressed by the criminal and evil forces were rescued, and the common people all shouted in unison: "Long live the Communist Party!" Li Zhen also felt extremely proud and proud of this.
The guerrillas led by Li Zhen also did many admirable things, one of which was really touching to tears, that is, Li Zhen jumped off a cliff with the guerrilla fighters.
Under the circumstances, Li Zhen and the guerrillas were already surrounded by regiments, and under the pressure of the enemy' steps, they could only push back all the way back, and then they were forced to the edge of the cliff. Li Zhen understood that if he was captured alive by the enemy, he would definitely find ways to get some useful information out of their mouths, in order not to let the enemy get the handle, Li Zhen made instructions to jump off the cliff after some thought, only to hear her say: "Jump! "Everyone jumped together and went straight down the cliff.
Fortunately, Li Zhen survived and rushed out of the enemy's encirclement.
After Li Zhen recovered from his wounds, he once again threw himself into the revolutionary war without hesitation. During the Western Expedition, Li Zhen gave full play to her abilities, and she made great contributions to the transmission of military intelligence.
At that time, the sky was drizzling and the mountain roads were slippery, and under such a harsh environment and enemy attacks, the troops accidentally scattered.
In order to pass on information to the chief, Li Zhen disregarded the danger to his life, rode down the high slope with a washbasin, found a large army, and passed on important information, which was provided by this later operation.
Of course, Li Zhen's contribution is far more than that, which is a small part.
Third, there are no children in life but the orphans of martyrs are raised
In the subsequent battles, Li Zhen was treated with a posture of "not letting the eyebrows be shaved". Li Zhen is a woman, but she has reached heights that many men cannot reach, and has made many contributions to the country, and her name has become a household name.
During the campaign, Li Zhen met her second husband, Gan Siqi. The two met on the battlefield, so in addition to sweet love, the two also have a tenacious comradeship.
However, in the few years after the two married, they did not give birth to a child, Li Zhen knew his situation, and also persuaded her husband Gan Siqi to say: "I can't give you children, do we want to divorce, you go to marry another wife, so that you can pass on the family lineage." ”
Gan Siqi immediately refused: "If we don't have children, we will also live together, and I will not divorce them in order to have children." ”
Li Zhen and her husband have been living very poorly, basically in the eyes of outsiders. Even under such living conditions, Li Zhen still raised more than 20 martyr orphans, although she herself did not have children, but looking at those martyr orphans, it was really unbearable, so she raised them as her own children from an early age.
Li Zhen's contributions are all in the eyes of the Party Central Committee. Therefore, in 1955, the award ceremony awarded Li Zhen the rank of "major general", and her husband Gan Siqi was awarded the title of "general", and thus the scene described at the beginning appeared.
It can be said that Li Zhen's acquisition of this title is also well deserved.