Zhang Jichun is the No. 3 person in the Second Field Army, who has been on Jinggang Mountain and walked the Long March, and his status in the Second Field Army is second only to Liu Deng.
According to such a standard of resume, he should have a place in the list of founding generals.
However, we searched through the list of the founding generals of New China, but we did not find him.
In fact, he should have been tied for Su Yu, Chen Geng and others as the founding generals, but in the end he was removed from the list of founding generals.
What's going on?
Zhang Jichun is a native of Yizhang, Hunan, born in 1900. When he was a teenager, he studied at Hengyang No. 3 Normal School, and it was here that he heard Chairman Mao's speech, which opened his revolutionary road.
Zhang Jichun was influenced by Chairman Mao's speeches, and he often read progressive books and periodicals, and his thinking became more and more progressive, and he often participated in the student movement and the peasant movement.
In 1925, after graduating, Zhang Jichun worked as a teacher in his hometown primary school. While working as a teacher, Zhang Jichun actively participated in the local peasant movement, organized peasant associations, and mobilized peasants to carry out revolutionary movements.
In January 1928, Zhang Jichun participated in the Southern Hunan Uprising, and in April, he followed the uprising troops to Jinggangshan, and successively worked in the Party Committee of the 32nd Division of the Red Fourth Army and the Party Committee of the 28th Regiment of the 10th Division.
In the ranks of the Red Army at that time, Zhang Jichun's education was relatively high, and he wrote good articles.
Organizationally, proceeding from this point, Zhang Jichun was arranged to focus on propaganda work and political work.
During the Red Army period, Zhang Jichun always worked on the propaganda front. He opened a newspaper of the Red Army to encourage the fighting enthusiasm and spirit of the soldiers through publicizing the deeds of outstanding soldiers.
Zhang Jichun took into account the fact that many Red Army soldiers and the masses in the Soviet areas at that time did not have a high level of education and could not read much, and he also wrote scripts, rehearsed programs, and publicized through stage plays why the Red Army wanted revolution and why the Red Army was fighting, and disseminated revolutionary principles among the Red Army soldiers and the masses in the Soviet areas through a simple and clear situation.
After the start of the Long March, Zhang Jichun followed the 37th Regiment of the 13th Division of the Red Fifth Army Corps as the rearguard.
The task of the rearguard units was difficult, they were responsible for guarding the rear, covering the transfer of central and main forces.
In order to accomplish this task, the sacrifices and costs paid by the rearguard troops were enormous, and often after bloody battles, they had already distanced themselves from the main forces.
At the beginning of the Long March, the situation in the Red Army was not good. Forced to leave their base areas, they lost more battles than won too little, and were heavily surrounded by enemy troops in front and behind.
For a time, a pessimistic mood spread among the fighters.
Zhang Jichun was keenly aware of this sign of danger, and he strengthened ideological education in the troops through mobilization at meetings, heart-to-heart talks, and encouragement, so as to help the confused soldiers rebuild their confidence and reunite the morale of the troops.
During the Liberation War, Zhang Jichun served as the deputy political commissar and director of the Political Department of the Second Field Army, and his status in the Second Field Army was second only to Liu Bocheng and Deng Gong, and he could be regarded as the No. 3 person in the Second Field Army.
In the second half of 1947, with the continuous victory of the battle, Erye captured many Kuomintang soldiers.
How to do the work of these captured soldiers and how to win them over became Zhang Jichun's task.
Zhang Jichun treated the soldiers patiently, arranging for them to be disseminated to the PLA's policies and goals through performances, speeches, and pictorials, which resonated with them in their hearts and encouraged them to join the camp of light.
Under Zhang Jichun's work, many Kuomintang soldiers changed their thinking and joined the PLA.
Although Zhang Jichun is not a general, the political work he is responsible for is equally important. Zhang Jichun successively participated in the political work of leading the major battles of Shangdang, Handan, marching into the Dabie Mountains, Huaihai, crossing the Yangtze River, and southwest China, and made indelible contributions to the victory of these important battles.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhang Jichun first served as the No. 3 chief of the Southwest Military Region and participated in the work of suppressing bandits in the southwest region.
In 1954, Zhang Jichun was ordered by the Central Committee to transfer to the Central Propaganda Department.
In 1952, our army began to prepare for the assessment of military ranks. In 1955, the People's Republic of China held a grand ceremony to confer military titles.
We now know that in 1955, a total of 1,052 generals received the rank of general. Among them, there are 10 marshals, 10 generals, 55 generals, 175 lieutenant generals, and 802 major generals.
The above set of data is the final result of the award, but what is not known is that the initial list of generals was not only 10 people, but actually 11 people.
It's just that when Chairman Mao reviewed it in the end, one of them was deleted.
The person who was deleted was Zhang Jichun
No matter from the point of view of the time he participated in the revolution or the degree of contribution, Zhang Jichun is qualified to become the founding general.
The reason why Chairman Mao wanted to delete his name was because he had already left the army at that time. Moreover, at that time, the Central Committee decided that all comrades who had left the army would no longer participate in the evaluation of military ranks.
It is precisely for this reason that although Zhang Jichun has been fighting all his life, he has no military rank.
Afterwards, Premier Zhou talked to Zhang Jichun and explained the situation to him. Zhang Jichun firmly said: I obey all the arrangements of the party organization and have no complaints!
During the turbulent years, Zhang Jichun was also wrongly criticized and treated, and his body and mind were greatly damaged. In September 1968, Zhang Jichun died unjustly at the age of 68.
In 1979, the central government held a memorial meeting for Zhang Jichun to rehabilitate Zhaoxue, and his former boss Deng Gong presided over the memorial service for him.
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