As the founder of New China, Chairman Mao was not only a great statesman and revolutionary, but also a learned scholar. Similarly, Chairman Mao also had a deep knowledge of poetry and calligraphy.
He inscribed many words in his life, most of which became classics and have survived to this day. For example, the inscription for Liu Hulan "The glory of life, the greatness of death"; inscription for Lei Feng "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng"; inscription for Zhang Side "Serve the People"; The inscription for the youth of the country "Study well, improve every day".
The language is concise and capable, and the inscriptions are both deep, meaningful, and catchy, and it can be seen from these inscriptions that Chairman Mao's profound cultural skills and calligraphy attainments.
Chairman Mao's inscription
However, in 1951, someone discovered that there was an obvious typo in Chairman Mao's inscription, and in the inscription for artillery, "artillery" was written as "artillery soldier".
Why did Chairman Mao inscribe the artillery? And why is the simple cannon word written as "artillery"? Is the chairman really writing wrong, or is there some ulterior motive? All this must start with Chen Xilian taking office as artillery commander.
At the beginning of 1950, in order to speed up the pace of liberating all of China and reduce the casualties of front-line combat units, the Party Central Committee decided to form one of the most powerful branches of the army, artillery. When discussing who should be the commander of the artillery, Chairman Mao personally appointed Chen Xilian, then first secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Party Committee and mayor.
As to why Chen Xilian was chosen as the commander of the artillery, Chairman Mao said half-jokingly: "In the Red Fourth Front Army back then, Chen Xilian was a famous 'small steel cannon', and of course he was an expert in artillery!" ”
Chairman Mao's small steel cannon Chen Xilian, born in the famous general county of Huang'an (now Hong'an), Hubei, because of his poor family, joined the Red Army at the age of 14. Don't look at the young age, but on the battlefield, Chen Xilian fought heroically, had a flexible mind, and repeatedly made combat merits, and soon grew from a small soldier to an excellent commander and fighter of the Red Army, successively serving as a company instructor, battalion political commissar, regiment political commissar, deputy division commander and other posts.
In September 1935, at the age of only 20, he was promoted to the commander of the 10th Division of the 4th Army of the Red Fourth Front, becoming one of the youngest division commanders of the Red Fourth Front Army and even the entire Red Army.
After a battle, when the superior leaders summed up, they praised Chen Xilian in public for his bravery and tenacity in battle, like a small steel cannon. In the Red Army at that time, small steel cannons were the most powerful weapons, and the leader's praise made Chen Xilian very happy. Since then, the nickname "Little Steel Cannon" has spread among the Red Army and later even to Chairman Mao's ears.
In the years that followed, Chairman Mao always paid attention to this "small steel cannon" of the Red Fourth Front, from the night attack on the Japanese airfield in Yangmingbao in the Anti-Japanese War, to following Liu Deng's army to Dabie Mountain during the Liberation War, and later capturing the important town of Tangyin in northern Yubei and capturing alive the commander of the enemy's 12th Column, the Tanglin thief Sun Dianying. Chairman Mao was deeply impressed by Chen Xilian's resolute combat style and determination to fight and win, so he was appointed as artillery commander in 1950.
Chief Liu Deng conveyed the central order to Chen Xilian and said that Chairman Mao personally named him to enter Beijing as an artillery commander. Chen Xilian was flattered by this and said to the two chiefs: "I have always been commanding troops on the front line, and I have been able to achieve some results, but it is also because the two chiefs are in command of the overall situation, and now I am asked to go alone and form an artillery unit. ”
In this regard, Chief Liu Deng said that the order has been issued, and it is his duty to obey the order as a soldier, and he is a general personally appointed by Chairman Mao, even if he does not believe in himself, he must believe in Chairman Mao's vision. With the encouragement of the two chiefs, Chen Xilian immediately expressed his firm obedience to the order and would certainly live up to the expectations of Chairman Mao and the two chiefs.
In this way, after handing over the work at hand, Chen Xilian rushed from Chongqing to Beijing to officially serve as artillery commander.
After taking office, Chen Xilian immediately devoted himself wholeheartedly to the work of establishing artillery organs and expanding artillery units. Although he is not an artilleryman, with many years of experience in leading troops to fight wars, Chen Xilian believes that artillery is different from infantry and is a branch of the army with high technical requirements; in order to develop and strengthen artillery units, it is necessary to train artillery cadres and improve the tactical and technical level of cadres, which is a key factor in improving the combat effectiveness of the entire artillery unit.
To this end, Chen Xilian focused his work on the establishment of artillery academies; under his own planning, the Central Military Commission established artillery academies, with him personally serving as its director, and major military regions also successively established artillery schools, which began to train artillery cadres for the troops in a steady stream, thus laying a good foundation for the large-scale development of artillery in the future.
At the beginning of 1951, the Artillery School of the Military Commission prepared to set up a school magazine called "Artillery Education." In order to make the school magazine more popular and increase the enthusiasm of officers and soldiers to read it, Chen Xilian specially sent a report to the Central Committee, imploring Chairman Mao and Commander-in-Chief Zhu to write an inscription for the school magazine of the artillery school.
At that time, when the Korean War broke out and the demand for artillery on the battlefield increased greatly, Chairman Mao and Commander-in-Chief Zhu attached sufficient importance to and supported Chen Xilian's work in order to quickly expand our artillery strength.
Sure enough, the day after the report was delivered, the inscriptions of Chairman Mao and Commander-in-Chief Zhu were sent to the artillery school. Chen Xilian was very happy and immediately called the main leaders of the artillery school together to admire the inscriptions of the two leaders.
Commander-in-Chief Zhu's inscription was relatively long, and he encouraged the officers and men of the artillery academy to work hard to educate and improve their ideological level and artillery technology, so that they could better defend the motherland.
After reading Commander-in-Chief Zhu's inscription, everyone opened Chairman Mao's inscription, which contained only one sentence: "Struggle to build a powerful people's artillery!" ”
Although Chairman Mao's inscription is short, it is magnificent, and it is catchy to read, making people's hearts surging, their blood boiling, and they suddenly have a sense of pride in defending their homes and defending the country.
Just as everyone was impressed by Chairman Mao's inscription, someone whispered: "There is a typo in the inscription. After a closer look, everyone found that the artillery in the inscription was written as "artillery soldier".
Although Chen Xilian did not read much and had a limited level of education, he still knew the cannon character, and it was clear that it was next to the fire character, why would Chairman Mao write it next to the stone character? Could it really be that Chairman Mao wrote it wrong?
Impossible, how could the learned Chairman Mao make a mistake? Chen Xilian did not believe that Chairman Mao could write a typo, and in his opinion, the chairman must have written this way because of his deep meaning, but his own level was limited and he could not understand the meaning of the chairman.
In order to find out the cause of the matter, Chen Xilian hurriedly ordered someone to ask the staff who delivered the letter, asking Chairman Mao why he wrote artillery as "artillery soldiers".
The staff explained: "When the chairman wrote the inscription, I was also next to him, and I asked the surrounding staff at that time, how to write the artillery word, is it next to the fire word or the stone character? Everyone was puzzled by the Chairman's meaning, and replied one after another: "Of course, it is next to the word fire." ”
Listening to everyone's answers, Chairman Mao smiled and said: "The earliest cannons in China were stone cannons, so let's use stone characters." ”
The staff saw that Chen Xilian was still puzzled, and continued: "Cannon is a heavy shooting weapon that can fire shells, and the earliest cannons in ancient China were mechanical stones (trebuchets in film and television dramas), and it was not until the Song Dynasty invented gunpowder that there were artillery. In order to respect history and reflect the breadth and depth of Chinese culture, Chairman Mao deliberately wrote it next to stone characters. ”
After listening to the words of the staff, Chen Xilian and others suddenly realized and understood Chairman Mao's intentions, and at the same time were impressed by the Chairman's profound knowledge and wisdom and greatness.
Chairman Mao's inscription has been used by the Artillery Academy to this day, and it is engraved on the giant sculpture wall in front of the office building, always encouraging every officer and soldier passing by.
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