One day on October 2, 1973, Zhongnanhai.
Zhou Enlai took a list and handed it to Mao Zedong, and when the chairman looked at it, he frowned:
"Enlai, these people who have not fought in the war can participate in the study class, why is there no Zhang Yingcai?"
Zhou Enhuan said: "There is still one session of our study class, and Zhang Yingcai has been arranged in the second session. ”
After listening to Zhou Enlai's words, a smile appeared on the chairman's face.
The "Central Reading Class" was opened in 1973, and those who were eligible to participate were at least the members of the Ninth Central Committee.
The students of the first reading class included Wang Hongwen, Chen Yonggui, Ni Zhifu, Wu Guixian and so on.
Among them, Wang Hongwen was vice chairman of the CPC Central Committee, Chen Yonggui and Wu Guixian served as vice premiers of the State Council, and Ni Zhifu was then the secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee.
Seeing this, everyone must have such a question in their hearts:
Who is Zhang Yingcai, and why is his position in Chairman Mao's heart so important?
There is a saying circulating in the troops: Third-class merit is buried in the work, second-class merit is more injured and disabled, first-class merit should be exchanged for life, special merit? That would be almost legendary.
Those who have made special merits will all die in their lives.
However, Zhang Yingcai had made 9 special merits and was still alive. In The history of the Chinese military, he is a unique existence.
Let us follow in the footsteps of Zhang Yingcai to understand his legendary life.
In November 1938, a team was marching on the side of the Zhengtai Railway.
This unit was the 212th Brigade of the Eighth Route Army, and they were about to take part in the battle mission of ambushing the Japanese army.
At this time, the correspondent quickly ran to a person who looked like a chief: "Report chief, that little guy is coming again." ”
The chief was named Sun Dingguo, who was originally a general of the Jin Sui Army, who served as the security commander of the Seventh Branch Bureau, during which he joined the CCP, and later launched an uprising, parting ways with Yan Xishan and serving as the brigade commander of the 212 brigade of the Taiyue Military Region.
Sun Ding said firmly Chinese: "There is going to be a war soon, and we can't let him follow, it's too dangerous." ”
The little guy mentioned by the correspondent is the protagonist of this article - Zhang Yingcai.
Zhang Yingcai was born in December 1924 to a poor peasant family in Wanrong County, Shanxi.
In today's parlance, the family is poor.
The mother was frail and sickly, and the family of several people was supported by the father alone.
When Zhang Yingcai was 8 years old, his father was seriously injured working for the landlord and could no longer work, and the family life was in trouble.
As the saying goes, the children of the poor have long been in charge, and Zhang Yingcai, who is less than 9 years old, has taken up the burden of the family with his young shoulders, chopping firewood, planting vegetables, and herding sheep for the landlord's family.
Many children of his age are still spoiled in front of their parents, pampered in every way, and study in the classroom.
However, he wanted to come in the wind and rain to herd sheep for the landlord, and if he was not careful, he would be scolded by the landlord, and he would not have enough to eat or wear warmly.
Once, he was sitting in the landlord's livestock shed drinking a bowl of corn porridge, and he walked over with the young master of the landlord, who was about the same age, and what was in the bowl was steaming dumplings.
Zhang Yingcai smelled the fragrant smell of dumplings and couldn't help but swallow his saliva straight into his stomach.
While eating the dumplings with relish, the landlord young master said to Zhang Yingcai, "Want to eat it?" As long as you call me 'Grandpa', I'll give you dumplings to eat." ”
Zhang Yingcai did not speak, his eyes widened in anger, and he clenched his fists tightly.
Seeing that he had no reaction, the young master said, "Born poor ghost, that is, the life of drinking polenta, what is stronger?" ”
Zhang Yingcai was angry and smashed the young master's bowl to the ground with his fist.
The young master was lying on the ground and crying.
After a while, the supervisor came, hung him up, and whipped him violently, beating him to the skin.
Zhang Yingcai did not ask for forgiveness, and his fist clenched even tighter.
That night, he really wanted to burn down this evil landlord's manor. But when I thought of my sister who was waiting to be fed, and my mother lying in a hospital bed, I couldn't help it. He told himself to swallow his anger, make more money, and let his family eat enough.
But the sky has unpredictable storms, god does not have long eyes, and always can't go through with him. In the summer of the year when he was 11 years old, Zhang Yingcai went out early and went to the col of Gufeng Mountain to herd sheep.
Mayday, the child's face, said change will change. When I went out, the sky was still clear, and after a while, lightning and thunder, fierce winds, and heavy rain.
The sheep scattered and fled, a bag of cigarettes, the wind stopped, the clouds opened and the sun rose, but more than 20 sheep were gone.
What to do? Zhang Yingcai did not dare to return to the landlord's house, let alone go home to see his parents, and could only hide in the broken temple of Lone Peak Mountain.
In the deserted ruined temple, there was no food or drink, and Zhang Yingcai could only pick wild fruits everywhere to eat.
But wild fruits could never replace food, and within a few days he was dizzy and dark, and his walk was shaky.
On this day, he went up to the tree to pick wild fruits, and his eyes were dark, and he planted them. When he woke up, he found himself lying in a broken temple, and an uncle next to him was feeding him millet porridge in one gulp.
The person who fed him porridge was an old cook of the Eighth Route Army.
Zhang Yingcai had vaguely heard of the "Eighth Route Army" and knew that they were the ranks of the poor. However, the "soldiers" he had seen before were all oppressive to the people, and the rich people had a nostril out of their breath. Therefore, he did not believe that there was really a team in the world with the same heart as the poor. Now that he saw that the Eighth Route Army had treated him so well, he began to believe it a little.
So, soon after he woke up, the first thing he had to do was ask to join the Eighth Route Army.
His request was naturally rejected, because the troops were fighting everywhere every day, and it was certainly not okay to take a teenage child with them. Besides, Zhang Yingcai's body was still very weak, and when he fell from the tree, he still broke his feet, and how to march with a limp? Moreover, the troops also had combat tasks and could not stay and wait for him.
In this way, Zhang Yingcai was left behind.
Before leaving, the troops arranged for him to go to a cultural school and told him to pick him up when he grew taller. But a year later, two years later, the head of the unit still said that he was not tall enough.
Zhang Yingcai could no longer wait, and when the troops came again, he would follow them, persuade them to retreat, and then follow them. Wherever the troops went, he followed them, like plasters, and attached them.
In this way, after following him for more than ten days, the head of the unit had no way to take him and made an exception to accept this sheep herding baby.
No one thought that this one of their decisions would make our army have more legendary "soldier kings".
After joining the army, Zhang Yingcai did not smile and still frowned. Because he came to the army to kill the enemy, he was arranged to do propaganda work in the army. All day long, it is either writing slogans, or putting up slogans, or holding meetings to mobilize the masses.
After two years in the army, he had not even touched the gun, could Zhang Ying be willing?
In 1941, the opportunity to fight finally came.
The Japanese army began to frantically "sweep" the anti-Japanese base areas in Yuenan on the front line of Anze, Yicheng, and Fushan, and Zhang Yingcai's 212 brigade bore the brunt of it. After Zhang Yingcai heard about it, he went to ask for battle again.
The superior said: "The troops are short of personnel, and this time if you do not invite the battle, we will let you go up, depending on your performance." ”
On March 20, fighting began.
Zhang Yingcai's unit, under the leadership of the regimental commander, went deep into the border of ZhaoCheng, and organized a surprise attack on the Japanese position of 200 Lipu that night, eliminating more than 10 Japanese troops and capturing 2 puppet soldiers.
No one expected that Zhang Yingcai, who was just starting out, actually killed a Japanese army when he went to the battlefield for the first time.
In June, the 212th Brigade was ordered to open up a base area.
Zhang Yingcai's unit went deep into the north of Fushan to cover the establishment of the Fushan County Government.
The Japanese army on Fushan came out to attack, and company commander Zhang Yaxiong commanded the troops to attack the enemy, not only repelling the enemy's attack, but also capturing several puppet troops.
However, during the retreat, Zhang Yaxiong was shot and killed. Zhang Yingcai volunteered and led five comrades to cover everyone's retreat, causing the Japanese army to suffer heavy losses and leave more than a dozen corpses.
The Japanese army suffered such a big loss, became ashamed and angry, and once again organized its troops, and in the early morning of one day, it made a surprise attack and invaded the Buddhist Temple Ridge where our army was stationed.
Zhang Yingcai's company blocked the advancing Japanese army and covered the retreat of the brigade headquarters.
But the enemy came prepared and surrounded our army from all sides.
Seeing that the Japanese army was getting closer and closer, the brigade commander ordered Zhang Yingcai to cover the retreat of the troops, but before Zhang Yingcai could leave, a grenade was thrown and landed next to him.
Zhang Yingcai did not hesitate to pounce on the brigade commander and protect the brigade commander with his body.
The brigade commander was unharmed, but Zhang Yingcai's shoulder was hit by shrapnel, and the blood flowed.
However, Zhang Yingcai could not care about bandaging, and he and his comrades in the company killed a bloody road to cover the smooth breakthrough of the brigade headquarters.
In this battle, Zhang Yingcai's performance was even more eye-catching, not only praised by the brigade commander, but also received a nickname of "Zhang Desperate".
Zhang Yingcai hated the enemy to the bone, and when he arrived at the battlefield, he would put his life and death aside and fight for himself. Due to his outstanding performance on the battlefield, Zhang Yingcai improved rapidly. In October 1944, Zhang Yingcai grew from a soldier to a deputy instructor of the 5th Company of the 57th Regiment.
At this time, he had only been in the army for three years and had just turned 20 years old.
In 1946, Zhang Yingcai, who had become a company commander, participated in the first large-scale campaign, the Battle of Lüliang.
In early November 1946, Hu Zongnan, commander of the First Theater of Operations of the Kuomintang Army, in order to attack Yan'an, dispatched troops from Southern Jinnan, dispatched 2 integrated divisions and 4 brigades, and crossed the Yellow River west into Shaanxi.
As a result, there was a gap in jinnan, and there were only 6 brigades of troops.
In the 10 counties of the Lüliang region, there was only one regiment of regular troops in the second theater, and the remaining 10,000 people belonged to the local troops mainly of the security regiment.
Chairman Mao decisively issued the order, and the 4th Column led by commander Chen Geng and political commissar Xie Fuzhi, and the 2nd Column, commander and political commissar, joined forces to eat this enemy in the Lüliang area.
From November 22, the participating units advanced from all directions to Lüliang.
They conquered the counties of Daning, Yonghe, Puxian and Shilou.
After that, the three major armies converged and marched towards the enemy's most heavily defended and fortified cities, Yuxian and Zhongyang.
By December 12, a vast area stretching from Zhongyang in the north to Jixian in the south, the Yellow River in the west, and the Tongpu Railway (Datong Fenglingdu) in the east had been liberated, and the local defenders were completely annihilated, and more than 50 officers under Yang Chengyuan, commander-in-chief of the Jinxi region of the Second Theater of Operations, were captured.
This rapid offensive, after threatening the side of the Nationalist army that was trying to attack Yan'an, surprised Hu Zongnan, and he immediately ordered the two reorganized divisions from Jin into Shaanxi to retreat to Jinnan.
At the same time, he ordered the strength of 6 brigades in Linfen and Jixian to counterattack the Puxian and Daning areas.
Zhang Yingcai's 9th Company, in this battle, undertook a very difficult task: together with two other brother companies, they blocked the enemy who came to break the siege at Dongyang Village.
At that time, the Kuomintang army facing it was well-equipped, enough to have an integrated division, which had an absolute advantage.
We only have three companies, the weapons are made in all countries, the ammunition is not enough, and there are still many new recruits in the company.
But these recruits, all young men who turned over and joined the army in the land reform, have high morale.
As soon as Zhang Yingcai said that he wanted to form a death squad, everyone rushed to the front.
Relying on their firepower and numerical superiority, the enemy was not afraid, and they shouted and rushed to Zhang Yingcai's position.
Looking at the enemy in the mountains, Zhang Yingcai thought that it was difficult to hold on, and he decided to take the initiative to attack unexpectedly.
Zhang Yingcai took off his shirt, bare-chested, wielded a knife in one hand and a gun in the other, leading 35 daredevils to suddenly attack and pounce on the enemy group with the pressure of Mount Tai.
The enemy thought that our army had few troops and would definitely hold its position, but he did not expect that our army would take the initiative to attack, so that it would be frightened to roll urine, throw away its weapons, and run away in all directions, like a headless fly.
Zhang Yingcai and the soldiers were invigorated when they saw the situation, and launched a pursuit, taking advantage of the enemy's rout, Zhang Yingcai promptly ordered the soldiers to clean up the battlefield and capture a lot of weapons and ammunition.
But then the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, and the 9th Company was in danger.
Due to some problems in the communication link, the 3rd Company and the 8th Company withdrew their troops first, and the 9th Company led by Zhang Yingcai fell into a situation of fighting alone, and the enemy rushed to the position like a tide from all directions.
However, Zhang Yingcai calmly and calmly took advantage of the complex terrain to repulse 8 enemy attacks in 9 hours and waited for reinforcements.
In this battle, Zhang Yingcai and his comrades-in-arms killed 349 enemies and were collectively commended by their superiors.
After the battle, the troops held a special celebration meeting, and the special hero Zhang Yingcai, dressed in red silk and wearing a large red flower on his chest, stepped onto the podium to receive the award.
Zhang Yingcai was very excited, and his face was like a big red cloth. When he spoke, he nervously said "Thank you for the party for cultivating me" and "thank you for the party for feeding me."
Later, he found a step for himself and said: "The party is a mother, has been cultivating us, feeding us to grow, feeding is not wrong." ”
This year, Zhang Ying was only 22 years old.
After receiving the title of "Special Hero", he did not get complacent, but told himself that he wanted to make new achievements and could not lie on the merit book.
In June 1948, the time came for Zhang Yingcai to make meritorious contributions again.
On June 21, 1948, in the first phase of the Battle of Eastern Henan, Kaifeng was conquered by our army.
Chiang Kai-shek was furious and ordered the Qiu Qingquan Corps, which was composed of the reorganized 5th Army and the reorganized 83rd Division, to continue to advance toward Kaifeng, and the District Shounian Corps, composed of the reorganized 72nd and 75th Divisions and the newly organized 21st Brigade, detoured from the minquan area to Kaifeng via Sui County and Qixian County. Attempts to retake Kaifeng.
Our army took the initiative to abandon Kaifeng, formed a shock group with the 1st, 4th, and 6th Columns of the East China Field Army and the 11th Column of the Central Plains Field Army, and set up an ambush between Sui County, Qixian County, taikang, and in the minquan area, determined to encircle and annihilate the Shounian Regiment in the district.
In order to cooperate with the main force of the East China Field Army in the Suiqi Campaign, Zhang Yingcai's regiment was responsible for blocking the 83rd Division of Qiu Qingquan's corps.
The commander of the 83rd Division was Li Tianxia, who could not save the 74th Division in the Battle of Menglianggu, the division was a member of the Nationalist army, well-equipped, and all the american weapons, this time, they prepared tanks.
It should be known that the division has been following Qiu Qingquan's corps, and Qiu Qingquan ran away in tanks during the Battle of Huaihai.
As soon as the battle began, the enemy infantry followed 6 tanks and pounced on our position.
There are no anti-tank weapons, but we have "Zhang Desperate".
Zhang Yingcai roared: "Everybody lie down, let go of the tank, and beat the guys after its ass!" ”
When the enemy rushed to the front, Zhang Yingcai shouted: "Fight! ”
The enemy was behind the tank, unable to see the situation ahead, and at first he could not hear the gunshots and thought that the other side had withdrawn.
When they came to the front, our army roared like a light and heavy firearms coming out of the ground, and the enemy was all dumbfounded.
They threw away their weapons and scurried around.
The tanks that rushed in front of them alone and went deep were not ambiguous, turned around, and tried to escape.
"Where to escape?" Zhang Yingcai rushed up with the explosives package.
Only to hear a loud rumble, the tank nested.
The initial battle was unfavorable, and Li Tianxia, commander of the Kuomintang 83rd Division, was furious and frustrated. He brought in a brigade and ordered them to take their positions at all costs.
Unexpectedly, Zhang Yingcai changed his strategy and made a preemptive attack. Without waiting for the Kuomintang attacking troops to approach, Zhang Yingcai, who was ambushed in the middle of the road, led the soldiers to take the initiative to open fire.
The enemy was again caught off guard, and the brigade commander was horrified when he heard the gunshots. He didn't know how many troops we had, so he turned around and ran.
Angry and frustrated, Li Tianxia ordered the artillery of the whole division to fire together and carpet bombarded the position where Zhang Yingcai's first battalion was located.
In the overwhelming artillery fire, the 1st Battalion suffered heavy losses, reducing its staff by one-third, and Zhang Yingcai's left shoulder was hit by shrapnel and bloodied.
The enemy shelled for a full hour, and the soil on the position was turned over.
They estimated that no one on the position would be alive, so they sent the infantry to swing up to "receive" the position.
In fact, Zhang Yingcai had long expected that the battle would be fierce, and he did not press all his belongings. In other words, he broke his arm — left a hand and called out two platoons as a reserve.
When the enemy came to the frontal position, the reserve team came out from the left and right, and the enemy did not expect it, and it was chaotic.
In this way, one of Li Tianxia's brigades fought for half a day, launched 9 consecutive attacks, suffered more than 700 casualties, and captured more than 150 people, and as a result, the position was still firmly in the hands of our army.
In November 1948, Zhang Yingcai once again made meritorious contributions to the people.
Those familiar with modern history know that that winter, the War of Liberation entered its final turning stage.
Our army has transitioned from guerrilla warfare to regular warfare because the situation between the enemy and ourselves has undergone changes in favor of our side. The Kuomintang troops lost the initiative on the battlefield, and their strategy changed from an all-out offensive and a key offensive to a key defense.
In this situation, the Battle of Huaihai began.
Zhang Yingcai's unit was opposed to Huang Wei's corps.
Before the Battle of Huaihai began, Huang Wei was in Henan. After the start of the war, the commander-in-chief of Xuzhou "suppressed the general ordered the Huang Wei Corps to quickly concentrate on Xuzhou." Huang Weisui led the 12th Corps from Zhumadian on the 8th and moved closer to Xuzhou via Mengcheng and Suxian. A week later, arrived in Fuyang.
On the morning of the 20th, it reached the area south of the Xun River and found that the People's Liberation Army had occupied positions along the Xun River. Huang Wei was uncertain and stagnant, so he stationed the corps headquarters in Nanpingji.
At this time, the People's Liberation Army took advantage of the false occupation of Mengcheng and cut off the retreat of the Twelfth Corps.
On the 25th, Huang Wei's corps was encircled by our army layer by layer in the shuangduiji area.
The 12th Corps is a member of the Nationalist army, well-equipped and the most effective in combat.
Like the Qiu Qingquan Corps, most of them were American equipment, with tanks, armored vehicles, and 105mm American-made howitzers.
Zhang Yingcai's 1st Battalion also gnawed hard bones in the encirclement and annihilation battle, blocking the enemy reinforcements of 2 brigades.
Before leaving, the regimental commander smiled at Zhang Yingcai and said, "Zhang Desperate, what are your plans for this battle?" ”
Zhang Yingcai saluted and said loudly: "Guarantee to complete the task and strive to make meritorious contributions again!" ”
In this blockade battle, Zhang Yingcai once again blinded the enemy.
He placed very few troops on the front to confuse the enemy, and deployed the main force and heavy fire such as machine guns and mortars on both flanks. The enemy did not know that there was deception, and still followed the old routine, bombarded with artillery fire, and then the infantry pressed on.
When the infantry rushed up, crossfire on both sides beat them to the ground. In less than a quarter of an hour, there were corpses all over the position.
In this way, the enemy's two brigades took turns to attack, but they could not move, leaving behind hundreds of corpses, while the 1st battalion only killed more than 48 people.
On December 11, the final attack on Huang Wei's corps began, and Zhang Yingcai led 1 battalion to attack the headquarters of the 14th Army of the Kuomintang Army in one fell swoop.
At this time, a nationalist officer rushed out with a gun, Zhang Yingcai's eyes were fast, he raised his hand to shoot, and the enemy was shot and fell to the ground.
Later, after the prisoners identified it, the officer who was killed was Xiong Shouchun, commander of the enemy's Fourteenth Army.
At the end of the battle, Zhang Yingcai made meritorious contributions again, and his battalion was awarded the "Steel Battalion".
On the eve of the National Day in 1950, the Great Hall of the People held a commendation meeting for combat heroes, and of the 375 combat heroes who attended the meeting, only 7 were honored with special merit, and Zhang Yingcai alone won 9 special merits.
Therefore, when the great leader Chairman Mao met for the first time, he specially called him to the front, looked at him carefully, and said, "Are you Zhang Yingcai?" ”
Chairman Mao shook Zhang Yingcai's hand and asked, "Have you ever been to Dabie Mountain?" ”
"Chairman, I haven't been to Dabie Mountain. I am from Chen Geng's army, and I have only been to Funiu Mountain. Zhang Yingcai replied.
"Anyway, you're amazing!"
"During the Three Kingdoms period, there was a Guan Yunchang in Shanxi, a famous general through the ages, but he was only a general who passed five levels and slashed six generals, and you made great contributions 13 times, twice more than him, and was stronger than him!" Mao Zedong said.
A year later, Zhang Yingcai came to Beijing, where he was again received by the great man and attended Mao Zedong's family banquet.
Mao Zedong specially asked the chef to make him a knife-cut noodle that Shanxi people like to eat, and specially asked the waiter to put a bottle of Shanxi old vinegar in front of him.
This is the leader's highest salute to the hero.
In 1955, Zhang Yingcai was awarded the rank of colonel, and he later held the position of deputy commander of the army.
In July 2018, Zhang Yingcai, a 94-year-old "soldier king", passed away at the General Hospital of Chengdu Military Region.
When we breathe free air in a peaceful environment, let's not forget the thousands of veterans like Zhang Yingcai who have spilled their blood for us.