Source: Shaoguan Historical Record
Among the founding major generals awarded in 1955, one was Peng Xianlun, the only founding general from Nanxiong, Guangdong.
Sacrifice his wife and ion to make a revolution
In 1895, Peng Xianlun was born into a poor family in Shangshuo Village, Youshan, Nanxiong County. After attending private school for five years, he dropped out of school due to his family's difficulties, and then worked as a farmer herding cattle at home. Because of the poverty of his life and his bitter hatred for the exploitation and oppression of the landlord's old wealth, when the spark of revolution blew to the land of Nanxiong, he resolutely embarked on the road of turning over and seeking liberation. In 1925, Peng Xianlun joined the peasant movement and was elected as a member of the Shuxi Agricultural Association. In 1926, Peng Hsien Lun joined the Communist Party of China. In August, he became a member of the Sixth District Agricultural Association of Nanxiong County. On August 23, Peng Xianlun attended a provisional meeting of more than 3,000 county citizens convened by the then Kuomintang Nanxiong County Party Department, the Federation of Trade Unions, and the County Farmers' Association, accusing county magistrate Deng Weixian of "destroying party affairs, oppressing workers and peasants, bending the law and harming the people, and being extremely greedy." After the congress, Peng Hsien Lun participated in a demonstration and demanded that the authorities of the Guangdong Provincial Nationalist Government remove Deng Weixian from his post and investigate him. Under pressure, the authorities of the Guangdong Provincial Nationalist Government had to remove Deng Weixian from his post. After the victory of this struggle, Peng Xianlun's ideological consciousness was further enhanced and he realized the great strength of the masses of the people. After that, Peng Xianlun continued to actively propagate the revolutionary theory of the Communist Party of China and vigorously launched the peasant movement. On December 1, 1927, the Nanxiong County CPC Committee was established, and Peng Xianlun was elected as a member of the county party committee.
In 1928, under the leadership of the Nanxiong County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, a large-scale peasant riot broke out in Nanxiong. Soon, the Nanxiong County CPC Committee held a meeting of 10,000 people in Huangkeng to announce the establishment of the Nanxiong County Soviet Government, and the government office was located in a Western-style building in Peng Xianlun's hometown Shangshuo Village. After the enemy learned of the establishment of the Soviet government in Nanxiong County, he sent more than 2,000 troops to besiege the village of Shangshuo. The peasant Red Guards resisted vigorously, but failed due to the disparity in strength. After the enemy captured the village of Shangshuo, he first burned down the Western-style building where the Soviet government was located, and then launched a massacre against the people of Nam Hung's pro-revolutionary support. Hundreds of people were killed in Nanxiong, thousands of houses were destroyed, and tens of thousands of peasants were left homeless.
Pang Hsien Lun was one of the leaders of the Nam Hsiung Rebellion. After the struggle was frustrated, despite the harsh environment, Peng Xianlun chose to join the local guerrilla group and persisted in the armed struggle. He broke through with the county party committee and went up to Oil Mountain to fight guerrilla. The enemy hated him so much that he sent men to dig his grandfather's grave and smash the tombstone. The reactionary leader gritted his teeth and shouted: "Peng Xianlun, you take the lead in distributing my grain and creating my rebellion!" Today, I will dig your family's ancestral grave!"
Peng Xianlun was the only child in the family, and before joining the revolution, he married Ye Zhuomei, a rural girl from a poor family, and the two had a child. After Peng Xianlun went up the mountain to fight guerrilla, Ye Zhimei and her children desperately fled and hid, and the reactionaries vowed to "cut the grass and remove the roots" and "cut off Peng Xianlun's post", and hunted and killed his three-year-old son everywhere. One day, Ye and her children hid in a rice field and happened to be seen by a peasant couple working in the field. The parents did not know Ye Qiaomei, but they knew at a glance that she was the person the Kuomintang reactionaries were looking for. The hearts of the poor are directed towards the Communist Party for the toiling masses. They asked Ye Zhengmei to dress up as their own family, and the big guys worked in the fields together. After a while, the enemies who were chasing Ye Zhimei arrived, and asked them if they had seen a strange woman running by with a small child, and the villagers said that they saw it and pointed in another direction. The reactionaries left, and the villagers hid Ye and her children in the mountains and hid for three months. Ye Zhimei pulled the child up alone, and also worked hard for him to go to elementary school. In the red base area of that year, there were many mothers like Ye Qiaomei.
Fighting spirit on the Long March
In February 1930, Peng Xianlun joined the Red Army in Nankang, Jiangxi, and participated in the first to fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" battles. In September 1934, the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" battle was lost, and the Red Army had no possibility of turning the tide of the war in place. In October, the CPC Central Committee and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission led the main force of the Central Red Army of 86,000 people to embark on a long journey of strategic transfer, beginning an unprecedented feat in world history. Pang participated in this strategic shift.
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Peng Xianlun returned to Nanxiong Youshan with his family to visit relatives. He told a story to the masses in his hometown:
The fighters of the Red Army fought all the way and marched all the way, and did not have time to take care of personal hygiene, so they all had beards and ballasts. When the Long March passed through the snowy mountains, it was snowing heavily and the weather was freezing cold. His and his comrades' long-untrimmed beards were covered with ice particles, and his hands and feet were as stiff as popsicles. During the march, he came across a comrade-in-arms who was also a native of Namchon. This comrade-in-arms was already the commander of the Red First Army, but he was sick and could not walk. Seeing his fellow countryman, the commander of the Red Army was very excited, he tightly held Peng Xianlun's hand, and said with tears in his eyes: "I am about to see Marx." In the future, if the revolution is victorious, if you are still alive, you will definitely go to Nanxiong for me to see my parents. If the old man is gone, please toast me at their grave. When he finished speaking, tears ran down his cheeks. Peng Xianlun also burst into tears, he didn't know what to say, so he could only hold his fellow villager's hand tighter. After a moment of silence, the regiment leader gently sang "The Internationale", along with which he whispered. On the arduous long march, they encountered difficulties and sacrifices, and they encouraged themselves to persevere by singing "The Internationale".
Peng Xianlun said that after crossing the snowy mountain, he never saw this fellow Nanxiong again, and perhaps he had died for the revolution.
Integrity and original intention throughout life
After Peng Xianlun arrived in northern Shaanxi with the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, from August 1936, he successively served as the chief of the organization section of the Political Department of the Red Fourth Army, the chief of the quartermaster department, and the political commissar of the military medical department; Director of the Supply Department of the 9th Division of the Red Army; Director of the Supply Office of the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Division of the Red Fourth Army; Chief of the cashier section of the supply department of the Red First Army. At the beginning of 1939, Peng Xianlun entered Shandong with the first part of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and Peng Xianlun was the political commissar of the Supply Department of the 15th Division, the political commissar of the Supply Department of the Shandong Military Region, and the political commissar of the Logistics Department of the Binhai Naval District. During this period, he raised grain and fundraising, cleared land for production, and opened factories, ensuring the supply of troops. During the Liberation War, Peng Xianlun served as deputy logistics director and political commissar of the Supply Department of the New Fourth Army and Shandong Military Region, political commissar of the Supply Department of the East China Military Region, and political commissar of the Supply Department of the Shandong Military Region.
During Peng Xianlun's revolutionary career, because of his position, he often dealt with money and goods. He always followed the front-line combat troops in the line of fire, collected materials taken from the enemy, such as weapons, ammunition, clothing, food, etc., quickly processed and distributed them, so that the troops could quickly be replenished with ammunition and equipment, and ensured that the troops had sufficient material conditions for operations and operations.
Peng Xianlun's revolutionary career spent most of his time doing logistics work for the army and managing a lot of materials, but he lived a life of hardship and simplicity, honesty and public service, and never used his work to benefit himself and his family.
In the winter of 1937, Peng Xianlun received a cotton coat. He wore this cotton coat until 1944 and stayed with him for almost 8 years. There are 21 patches on the cotton coat alone, which can be said to be a stack of patches, and there is no complete cloth to be seen. In this way, he was reluctant to replace it. Later, this cotton coat was exhibited as an educational exhibit at the Production Saving Exhibition of the Shandong Military Region.
After a long hard life, Peng Xianlun suffered from tuberculosis. There is a shortage of drugs in the field, and there is no specific drug for the treatment of tuberculosis. The organization took care of him and gave him two chickens a month, as well as a little egg and sugar. But Peng Xianlun said, now is a difficult time, everyone's life is very hard, I can't be special. After the organization sent people to persuade him many times, he reluctantly agreed to keep some of them. Peng Hsien Lun was not only extremely strict with himself, but also never sought personal gain for his family and fellow villagers, showing the noble character of a communist.
After the victory of the revolution, Peng Xianlun's lung disease became more and more serious, so he went to a nursing home to recuperate. At that time, there was a large cherry tree in the nursing home, full of red fruit, and Peng Xianlun beckoned the staff to pick cherries. When her youngest daughter saw it, she didn't know that picking cherries was handed over, so she wanted to pick them and eat them, and Peng Xianlun reasoned with her kindly: "The tree belongs to the public, and the fruit on the tree is also the public, so it should be handed over to the public."
In the spring of 1950, Peng Xianlun returned to his hometown after a twenty-year absence. Some people thought that he had become a high official, and he was in charge of money and goods, and he must have returned to Guangzong Yaozu, and asked him to take money to his hometown and his own home. After listening, he patiently explained and enlightened them: "I do have money in my hands, and it is a lot of money, but this money is not my personal one, it is public, I cannot use a single copper plate indiscriminately, and the organization is disciplined." He added, "My food and clothing are provided by the government, and in addition to this, there is a small amount of pocket money." The family wants money, takes it from my savings, and I do what I have. He taught his relatives that as relatives of Communist Party cadres, they should not think of foxes and tigers and eat without hard work; everyone in the new society must work, and only when everyone twists into a rope to do a good job in production can they have enough food and clothing and gradually live a good life.
In May 1955, the central authorities awarded Peng Xianlun the rank of major general of the People's Liberation Army Chinese the People's Liberation Army, and awarded him the Order of Eighty-One of the Second Degree, the Order of Independence and Freedom of the First Class, and the Liberation Medal of the First Class.
On May 1, 1958, Peng Xianlun, who had suffered from tuberculosis for many years, passed away at the age of 63.
From peasants to "logistics stewards" of the people's army, Peng Xianlun always maintained his revolutionary character of honesty and hard work throughout his life, leaving many valuable spiritual wealth and fine traditions for future generations.
A promising nation cannot be without heroes, and a promising country cannot be without pioneers.
On the road of the new Long March, let us understand the original mission of General Peng Xianlun, get the spiritual motivation to move forward, and work together to build a better new Nanxiong!
(Author Huang Shucai, unit: Nanxiong City History Office)