In 1998, Mu Jianhua, a retired veteran leader of the Forty-seventh Army, received a letter of help from a woman, saying that her father was originally a soldier under his command, who had made many meritorious achievements, and had also been rated as a special combat hero, had eaten with great people, and is now a coal miner, diagnosed with lung cancer, and his condition is very serious, and he urgently needs to be transferred to a hospital with better conditions for surgical treatment. I was really shy, so I found the side of the army, hoping to get some help to save my father's life. The old leader asked the guards around him to understand the truth of the matter, but when he heard the name of the veteran, he was shocked, and bluntly said that this was the hero he had been pursuing for forty-six years! Why did a hero who had once made great achievements in battle turn into a worker who dealt with coal mine gunpowder? What kind of glorious past did he have, and what turns did his life experience, so that he had no money to see a doctor in his later years? Why would the old leaders of the Forty-seventh Army search for him for decades without success?
Zhang Guofu and his family
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Video link: He captured the enemy lieutenant general at the age of 16, the great man personally invited to dinner, why did he give up his heroic status as a worker?
A 16-year-old lone hero
This veteran whose identity shocked the leader of the unit is called Zhang Guofu, who was born in Yushu County, Jilin Province, and has grown up to be a tiger with a tiger's head and a tiger brain, so he has a nickname called "Tiger". The daimyo Zhang Guofu also has a rather contemporary atmosphere, reflecting the people's ardent expectations for the reunification and prosperity of the country during the war years. Zhang Guofu is a northeasterner, the people of the three eastern provinces have experienced many devastation and tribulations in the history of modern wars, I believe that every Son and Daughter of China has heard about it, from childhood living in the land of war, seeing the broken mountains and rivers and the displacement of the people, Zhang Guofu's heart is full of hatred for the Japanese invaders, he has been determined to join the army since he was a child, hoping that he can grow into a mighty warrior like a tiger and leopard, so as to have a contest with these hostile forces that endanger the country.
The Japanese army entered Heilongjiang
However, when Zhang Guofu was born, it was already the winter of 1931, so before he could reach adulthood, the vigorous Anti-Japanese War had already come to an end. However, although the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression was victorious, the course of the Struggle of the Chinese nation did not end there; the Japanese were driven out of the country, and the ambitious Leaders of the Kuomintang also began to free up their hands to eliminate those detachments that did not conform to their own concepts. Although Zhang Guofu did not read much and understood that only the Platon Army was the contingent that truly benefited the people, he resolutely threw himself into our army and became a soldier of the 359th Brigade of the Northeast Democratic United Army, which was also the predecessor of the Forty-seventh Army of the People's Liberation Army.
The front line was tight, Zhang Guofu had not undergone too much professional military training before he was sent to the battlefield, but he did not have the slightest timidity, people like his nickname, every time he went into battle to kill the enemy like a tiger descending the mountain, the performance was very heroic. In fact, Zhang Guofu was also the epitome of most of the Chinese soldiers in that era, many of them came from peasant families, did not know a few big characters, stepped forward to join the army and serve the country at a time of national crisis, did not have time for professional modernization training, learned to shoot guns and throw grenades and went directly to the front line, relying on their own body exercised in perennial labor to fight in bloody battles, selfless and fearless, they are the heroes of the country and the nation, the founders of our peaceful life today, and they are always worth remembering. Back to Zhang Guofu's side, he followed the troops to various places to build a miracle, less than a year into the army to become famous, but also captured a heavyweight prisoner at the age of 16.
Zhang Guofu (left) and his comrades-in-arms
At that time, in May 1947, most of the three eastern provinces were still in the hands of the Kuomintang troops, and the central leaders carefully examined the overall struggle situation in the country, formulated a new battle plan, and prepared to launch an active offensive to encircle and annihilate the Kuomintang troops stationed in the northeast. At that time, Zhang Guofu was stationed in his hometown of Jilin with a large army, and the troops received the combat tasks assigned by the superior leaders, and they wanted to use Jiangmi Peak in the north of Jilin Province as a breakthrough point to tear a hole in the defensive front of the Kuomintang army. The reason why Jiangmi Peak is called Jiangmi Peak is precisely because it is high and densely forested, backed by the Songhua River, the terrain is very dangerous, and it is also a strategic commanding height that the Kuomintang army attaches great importance to, and it is heavily guarded, so it is not easy to take this place.
The two belligerents fought fiercely for a whole day and night, and the PLA's charge still did not make any substantial progress, and the leaders of the troops were impatient, but they were forced to occupy the strategic commanding heights by the enemy, and for a while they could not think of any good way to defeat the enemy and win. The enemy was at a high place, our army was at a low place, the troops produced a large number of casualties, seeing that the situation on the battlefield was very unfavorable to our army, the comrades-in-arms around him fell one after another, Zhang Guofu's eyes were red, he volunteered to express to the superior leaders that he was willing to be a member of the death squad, carrying a few grenades and quietly rushing to the enemy's position. Under the cover of the PLA fighters behind him, Zhang Guofu arrived at the enemy's position in a very short time, but he did not rush to expose his body, but instead detoured back to the vicinity of the enemy's combat headquarters, taking advantage of the enemy's lack of defense, threw the grenade he was carrying into it, and caught the enemy by surprise, and several personnel in the headquarters were either annihilated or captured.
PLA fighters fight
Because the headquarters was stopped, the Kuomintang troops on the opposite side began to be chaotic, running around like headless flies, and were quickly seized by the People's Liberation Army and taken down in one fell swoop. Among the enemy prisoners captured this time was Zhao Baizhao, a Kuomintang lieutenant general, who was originally deployed at the front line at the headquarters, but was stopped by Zhang Guofu's surprise attack and surrendered. The battle was a complete victory, Zhang Guofu made the first contribution, was commended by the superior leaders, and the heroic deeds were also published in the newspaper, and for a time he became famous, and at this time he was only sixteen years old.
A legendary military career
Zhang Guofu, who became famous in World War I, did not become complacent because of his achievements this time, but more actively fought on the front-line battlefield, inflicting a major blow on the enemy army, and continuing his magnificent military career.
1948 was the most important year of the Liberation War, the three major battles of the Liaoshen Campaign began, the Kuomintang army's advantage in the northeast had been lost, relying on the last few positions to resist stubbornly, the People's Liberation Army swung its division north and launched a general offensive in mid-September. Zhang Guofu once again participated in the front-line battle, because his unit's combat mission was to block the Kuomintang troops who came to support, so he had been marching in a hurry. At this time, Zhang Guofu's 359th Brigade of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army had long been officially renamed the 47th Army of the People's Liberation Army, under the command of the Northeast Field Army, and met the Kuomintang reinforcements in the area of Dahushan.
Northeast Field Army
The enemy's firepower was fierce, the people's liberation army had a high fighting spirit, and the two sides fought each other inextricably, and for a while they could not distinguish between victory and defeat. Zhang Guofu asked for help again, and led a small group of vanguard commandos, carrying a large number of grenades and explosives packs, to the opposite side. The Kuomintang side also knew that this time life and death were at stake, so they concentrated their firepower on Attacking Zhang Guofu and his entourage. The comrades-in-arms around him were sacrificed one after another in the rain of bullets and bullets, and Zhang Guofu also knew that this was not the way to go, so he was in a hurry, pretending to be hit, and fell to the ground, and then when the enemy's attention was attracted by the charge of the large troops, he moved forward inch by inch, and finally approached the forefront of the Kuomintang army's position, using the experience of the last battle, threw the explosive package to the temporary command post arranged by the enemy army on the front line, and captured the thief first. Zhang Guofu was discovered by the enemy and shot at him, he found a cover to hide his body, at this time the main force of the People's Liberation Army also seized the opportunity to rush up and surround the panicked Kuomintang troops. Many Kuomintang soldiers knew that there was no hope of victory and took the initiative to lay down their weapons and surrender to our army, but the rest of them had the intention to continue to resist, but the enemy was outnumbered, and there was no specific battle plan, and they were quickly defeated.
The scale of this battle was not large, but the significance behind it was quite far-reaching, because after the troops submitted the battle report to the superior leaders, they learned that the Kuomintang army they had accidentally hit and bumped into was not small, and the front headquarters that was blown up by Zhang Guofu was the liaison office of the Ninth Mobile Corps under the senior Kuomintang general Liao Yaoxiang. After the liaison office was blown up, the Kuomintang troops could no longer receive radio information in their entirety, and the Kuomintang troops with damaged communications were afraid of their hands and feet on the battlefield, which made the PLA occupy more favorable positions in the Liaoshen Campaign, and the process of victory was also accelerated. The Northeast Field Army took the enemy position like a bamboo all the way, and Zhang Guofu, who created the "stroke of god", was once again vigorously praised by the superior leaders.
Platon soldier
There is such a witty saying when describing the difficulty of the troops' meritorious service: "The third-class military merit stands and leads, the second-class military merit lies down, and the first-class military merit family members receive it." The specific meaning can be understood by everyone after thinking about it, but this law has been broken here in Zhang Guofu, because in 1948, he had just turned seventeen years old, and his chest was full of military merit badges.
After that, Zhang Guofu continued to follow the troops to the south to fight in the northern war, first entering Guannei to cooperate with friendly troops on the Pingjin battlefield, and then going all the way south, participating in the Battle of Crossing the River and the liberation of the Great Southwest after the founding of New China and the battle against bandits, and has been struggling to kill on the front line of the battlefield, with more and more fame and merit. In May 1950, the central leadership held the First National Congress of Combat Heroes, which not only commended those heroes who threw their heads and spilled their blood on the battlefield, but also consolidated the fruits of victory in the Liberation War and added joy to New China. The troops selected 307 "combat heroes" from among the 4 million PLA soldiers from all over the country, and 78 from these 307 people to award the honorary title of "special combat heroes", and the nineteen-year-old Zhang Guofu was impressively listed, the youngest. At the meeting, the central leaders cordially shook hands with Zhang Guofu, and after the meeting, they also specially set up a family banquet to entertain him and several other combat heroes with outstanding merits, encouraging them to maintain good habits and strive to create new achievements. Encouraged by the leadership, Zhang Guofu felt a surge of pride in his heart, and he insisted on conducting military training every day to improve his combat capability and go wherever there was a need.
The second from the left is Zhang Guofu, who attended the commendation meeting
In 1950, a civil war broke out on the Korean Peninsula, which borders China's northeastern border, which was originally only a small internal dispute, but was intervened by the United States. The United States forced the United Nations, which had little say at the time, to take the lead in forming a "United Nations Army" including the strength of more than a dozen countries through its own action plan, brazenly interfered in the Korean civil war by force, in an attempt to gain more benefits by fishing in muddy waters, and also dropped several shells in the Dandong area of the mainland under the banner of carelessness, seriously threatening China's territorial integrity and the safety of people's lives.
Out of the dual considerations of defending itself and aiding its allies, the central leadership decided to allocate a part of its troops and form the Chinese Volunteer Army to go to the Korean front to confront the ambitious United Nations army. The first troops to be sent to the battlefield were the Northeast Field Army, which was close to Korea and the environmental conditions were more similar, and the soldiers could enter the combat state more quickly. Zhang Guofu's Forty-seventh Army was also in the ranks of dispatch, including Zhang Guofu, many soldiers were elated, they originally thought that after the founding of the country, they might not need to fight a war, focus on the development of production, did not expect to be able to go to foreign battlefields to compete with foreign soldiers, and their determination to defend their families and defend the country was even firmer. Zhang Guofu continued to fight heroically on the Korean battlefield, and the United Nations army launched the autumn offensive in 1951 in an attempt to gain more benefits for its negotiators in the process of signing the armistice agreement by oppressing the volunteers on the frontal battlefield, that is, in this battle, Zhang Guofu's company was stationed on 345.6 unnamed heights and did not give in.
Volunteers entered Korea
At that time, the situation on the battlefield was very unfavorable to Zhang Guofu and others, the troops were surrounded by the United Nations troops on the opposite side, the logistics could not be replenished, weapons and ammunition had to be saved, and the most difficult thing was that the food was consumed after seven days and eight nights. The warriors were so hungry that they cut open their cotton clothes and belts and boiled them to fill their hunger. However, even if the conditions were difficult, Zhang Guofu and his comrades-in-arms around him still fought side by side, relying on their iron will and tenacious and indomitable spirit of struggle, stubbornly guarding their positions and repelling the enemy's charge again and again. In the end, the enemy army was unable to retreat and leave because of the inability to follow, Zhang Guofu and others finally breathed a sigh of relief, looking back, there were few troops left, and their bodies were all covered with color, even Zhang Guofu was covered in blood and his right leg was fractured. Because of his serious injuries, Zhang Guofu reluctantly retired from the battlefield and returned to China for treatment.
In 1952, Zhang Guofu, who was successfully discharged from the hospital, was specially assigned by the organization to go to the military academy in Hengyang, Hunan Province, for further study. Everyone knows that this is the meaning of the army preparing to promote him, as long as he studies well in the military school, masters a certain degree of professional knowledge, and must have a bright future after graduation, but what everyone did not expect is that Zhang Guofu chose another completely different path of life.
Volunteer soldiers fighting fiercely with the enemy
Demobilized and returned to his hometown, he hid his name in anonymity
Because his family was poor, Zhang Guofu did not read much, he joined the army early to serve the country, the world went around in the north and the south, and the leaders of the troops sent him to the artillery school in Hengyang, Hunan Province, for further study after learning about the situation. After successfully graduating from school, the leadership arranged for Zhang Guofu to serve as a middle-level cadre of the army, and he was a special combat hero with outstanding combat achievements, such an assignment was reasonable, and the soldiers were also satisfied and convinced. However, Zhang Guofu himself refused, he took the initiative to find the leader, asked him to take back his life, and said that he knew that his personal ability was limited, and he was ready to demobilize and return to his hometown, to be a worker fighting on the front line of production, and to contribute to the country in another way.
The leader of the unit saw that he was resolute, agreed to his application for discharge, and also said that he could arrange a more relaxed "iron rice bowl" for him, not for his personal gain, but just to take care of his body, after all, he had also suffered many injuries on the battlefield. But Zhang Guofu still refused after thanking the leader's kindness, he bluntly said that he only wanted to make the country better when he joined the army, did not think of relying on merit in exchange for fame and fortune, and said that all the achievements were achieved together with his comrades-in-arms, and could not take advantage of everyone's credit to make special. The leader praised Zhang Guofu for his high style and bright festival, and told him that if he had difficulties, he would come to the army to find himself. The heroes and martyrs of the older generation are like this, serving the country and the people not for themselves, and the spiritual wind and bones make future generations admire.
Zhang Guofu old photo
In this way, the former special combat hero returned to his hometown, became a farmer with his back to the sky, and married a simple local girl. However, farm work is not something that anyone can do well, at least Zhang Guofu is not very good at it, and he decided to find another job. I heard that the mining bureau in my hometown was recruiting people, this work was bitter and tired, and most people couldn't bear it, but Zhang Guofu, who was full of honors, went to apply. Not only did he gladly take up his post, Zhang Guofu also went to the officer in his hometown and asked him to help him open a certificate, change the original name "Zhang Guofu" to "Zhang Guofu", and never mention to anyone his previous military career in the army and the honors he had won, which was also the reason why the leaders of the Forty-seventh Army had not found any trace of Zhang Guofu for many years. Later, the Mining Bureau closed down due to poor management, and Zhang Guofu applied for a local gunpowder worker who made gunpowder. This job is very dangerous, but Zhang Guofu is not timid, he thinks that he has broken through the guns and bullets, and he will be difficult to stop by gunpowder, and the work must always be done by someone, and it is more reassuring to do it himself. Zhang Guofu worked in the workplace for more than thirty years, and did not rest until he retired.
Because people in that era advocated having many children and many blessings, Zhang Guofu's family also had many children, a total of five large and small. More children means large expenses, the family's main economic source is Zhang Guofu's meager salary, life is very poor, catching up with the factory efficiency will not be able to eat. In fact, as long as Zhang Guofu takes out the medal and registers it with the local relevant departments, the quality of life of his family will also be improved, after all, the army is subsidized for veterans, not to mention the combat heroes like Zhang Guofu who have been personally received by great people. But Zhang Guofu has not done this, and he does not want to cause trouble for the organization.
Zhang Guofu (first from right) and his family
As the days passed, Zhang Guofu's identity was also known to his family, the reason was that when his daughter went out to run errands, she passed through the exhibition hall of the Forty-seventh Army and found that the soldiers in a certain photo were not only close to their fathers in name, but also looked very similar. After the daughter returned, she asked her father, and finally knew that the old father, who was full of fireworks in his impression, was once a combat hero who had experienced a magnificent history of war and had made many meritorious achievements. Zhang Guofu's children were well educated, and their father told them not to publicize their past stories, and they did the same.
However, the weather was unpredictable, and the veteran who had bowed down for the country eventually fell seriously ill due to physical reasons and was urgently sent to the hospital in 1997. The disease was menacing, knocking down the veteran, and Zhang Guofu was still suffering from lung cancer that was extremely difficult to cure, and soon, the family's money was at the bottom, several children were unable to afford the medical expenses, and their father's condition did not improve, and they secretly wrote a letter of help to the leaders of the Forty-seventh Army, hoping that the troops could help. In fact, the leaders of the Forty-seventh Army have also been looking for Zhang Guofu over the years, after all, it will soon be the turn of the century, and the comrades who once lived and fought together have died one after another, and the rest of them are worried about each other, but zhang Guofu has changed his name, and he is also very low-key, so he has been unable to do anything. Knowing Zhang Guofu's current situation, the leaders of the Forty-seventh Army transferred him to a hospital in Beijing for treatment, and soon arranged for surgery. But what is stifling is that the reason why Zhang Guofu suffered from lung cancer is on the one hand because he was attacked by artillery fire on the battlefield when he was young, and on the other hand, because he has been dealing with minerals and gunpowder for a long time, which have caused irreversible damage to his body, so now his condition can only be controlled at most, and cannot be cured at all.
The tombstone of Zhang Guofu and his wife
In 1998, Zhang Guofu's illness worsened, his life was in danger, his family asked him what other wishes he had, he forced himself to confess his children, and after death, he would bring his ashes back to his hometown, he knew that the army intended to bury him in Babaoshan and give him the honor of a combat hero, but Zhang Guofu did not want this, he felt that he was now an ordinary person. On July 11 of the same year, the sixty-seven-year-old Zhang Guofu passed away, but the hero's soul returned, his spirit was not destroyed, and his children still adhered to his teachings, did not use their status as a heroic descendant in exchange for anything, and lived the previous life step by step. Many veterans returned to a peaceful life after the end of the war, no longer mentioning the glory days of the past, but history will not forget them, and the people should always remember them.