On February 22, 1989, General Zhu Liangcai, the first political commissar of the Beijing Military Region, died of illness at the age of 89.
Zhu Liangcai, a native of Rucheng, Hunan. After Zhu Ying, the governor of Liangguang in the Ming Dynasty, his family was wealthy, and when he was in middle school in Hengyang, he accepted progressive ideas, and after graduating from middle school, he returned to his hometown to teach.
In 1928, Zhu Liangcai participated in the Southern Hunan Uprising led by Zhu De and Chen Yi, and later went to Jinggangshan with the team. On Jinggang Mountain, Zhu Liangcai and the later general of the Republic Tan Zheng served as the secretary of the military department of the Red Fourth Army, and there were only two army leaders at that time, the army commander Zhu De, and the party representative Mao Zedong. In fact, Tan Zheng is Mao Zedong's secretary, and Zhu Liangcai is Zhu De's secretary. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhu Liangcai wrote a reminiscence article "Zhu De's Flat Dan" based on his own personal experience, which was included in the primary school textbook, in fact, he also hid Zhu De's flat Dan.
After that, Zhu Liangcai successively served as the political commissar of the 9th Division of the 3rd Red Army and the political commissar of the 15th Army of the Red 5th Army, and was awarded the second-class Red Star Medal by the Second National Congress of the Chinese Soviet Republic in 1933. In the Xiangjiang Campaign after the start of the Long March, the Red 34th Division, the "desperate guard division", broke through to cover the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, and almost all 6,000 soldiers were killed, and Zhu Liangcai, who was then the director of the Political Department of the 34th Division of the Red 5th Army Corps, was sent to the rear hospital due to his wounds, becoming the only surviving division-level cadre.
After the Red First and Fourth Front Armies met with Maogong, Zhu Liangcai was transferred to the post of director of the Political Department of the 31st Army of the Red Fourth Front Army. After the defeat of the Western Route Army, Zhu Liangcai, who was then the deputy director of the Political Department of the Red 30th Army, begged all the way back to the Western Army, and was later appointed as the Organization Minister of the Political Department of the Western Army, responsible for the review and screening of the returned Western Route Army personnel.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhu Liangcai served as director of the Political Department of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, and promptly discovered and publicized advanced models such as the "Five Heroes of Langya Mountain", "Li Yong, the Militia Hero", and "Rong Guanxiu, the Mother of the Soldiers". During the Liberation War, Zhu Liangcai assisted Ye Jianying in establishing North China Military and Political University, and served as deputy political commissar and director of the Political Department.
In April 1955, the North China Military Region was officially renamed the Beijing Military Region, with Yang Chengwu as commander and Zhu Liangcai as political commissar. In September, Zhu Liangcai was awarded the rank of general. During the war years, Zhu Liangcai was wounded three times, leaving headache sequelae, in order not to affect the work, in 1958, three years after the award, he took the initiative to ask for retirement to give way to a young comrade, becoming the first founding general to take the initiative to withdraw from the leadership position, Chairman Mao once ridiculed him: People occupy the pit and do not, you and do not occupy the pit!