Wang Dewei/text
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression on the mainland and the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War (1995), and also the 100th anniversary of the birth of my grandfather, Wang Lihuan, former major general and commander of the 130th Division of the 53rd Army of the Northeast Army.
I have lived with my grandparents since I was 3 years old, and I have a lot of respect for my grandfather. His character, his profound knowledge, made me admire him very much from a young age. My grandfather left me at the age of 90, but his extraordinary life, his voice, smile, and gestures are deeply imprinted in my mind.
His grandfather, Wang Lihuan, was born in Liaoyang County, Liaoning Province. He graduated from the Fengtian Normal School in 1921, and after graduating, he worked as a teacher for a year before working in a coal mine. The Japanese forcibly seized the coal mines, more than 500 Chinese workers were expelled, and my grandfather was almost killed. Since then, he has had great hatred for the Japanese invaders. In 1927, he entered the seventh infantry department of the Beijing branch of the Northeast Lecture and Wutang, and in 1930, he entered the research class of the Northeast Army High School. After the 918 Incident, my grandfather served as a staff officer, battalion, regiment, and major general division commander of the Northeast Army, and participated in the war against Japan in the Great Wall, Rehe, Luandong and other places. In 1936, he participated in the "Xi'an Incident" that shocked China and the rest of the world, which further stimulated his patriotism. After the July 7 Incident in 1937, he participated in the anti-Japanese war on the Yongding River, Shijiazhuang, Zhanghe River and the north bank of the Yellow River. In 1944, he was incorporated into the Expeditionary Force and went to Burma, India, and Vietnam to participate in the war against Japan. In battle, my grandfather bravely killed the enemy, was wounded six times, did not get out of the line of fire five times, lost his sight in his left eye, and was called "the general of hemiana". In 1948, his grandfather served as the commander of Shenyang's urban defense, he swore not to fight the civil war, had contact with the Communist workers, led the uprising, and contributed to the liberation of Shenyang. After 1956, he has been a member of the Standing Committee of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and director of the General Office of the Working Group, the head of the Taiwan Propaganda Group, a member of the Standing Committee of the Liaoning Provincial Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang, and a member of the Unity Committee of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang. He supported the leadership of the Communist Party, the socialist system, and the party's united front, and was sincerely pleased with the vigorous development of the cause of socialist construction.
Grandfather had a career of 23 years, of which 14 years were against Japan, and he traveled almost all over the country. In my memory, after the September 18 Incident, the Northeast Army retreated into the pass with hatred, participated in the "Xi'an Incident", defended the Yellow River Iron Bridge, and participated in the "Yunnan-Burma Campaign". I would like to record them in memory of my grandfather and to commemorate the martyrs who died in the World Anti-Fascist War and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression on the mainland.
I remember that when my grandfather talked about the fall of the Northeast after the September 18 Incident and the withdrawal of the Northeast Army from the Northeast, his heart was very heavy. After that, the songs of "My home is ...... on the Songhua River in Northeast China," "918, 918," and "...... from that miserable time" were widely circulated among the officers and men. Whenever I recalled this, my grandfather always sang this bleak and tragic song excitedly in that old voice, and tears glistened with tears in his eyes. He said: "At that time, the vast number of officers and men in Northeast China hated the Japanese army and Chiang Kai-shek's policy of non-resistance, and their hearts were full of a strong desire to fight back to their hometown, but Chiang Kai-shek ignored the country's difficulties and shouted 'If you want to fight abroad, you must first settle the inside' and 'if you want to resist Japan, you must first destroy the Communist Party.'" ”
In September 1935, Chiang Kai-shek set up the "Northwest Bandit Suppression Headquarters" in Xi'an, concurrently serving as commander-in-chief, with Zhang Xueliang as deputy commander and acting as his commander-in-chief. Zhang lived in Xi'an City, and transferred two corps of the Northeast Army to various parts of northern Shaanxi, and three regiments of the 129th Division where my grandfather belonged were stationed in Yan'an, Ganquan, Luochuan and other counties. His grandfather served as the colonel of the 684th Regiment and guarded Luochuan City. Zhang Xueliang was dissatisfied with Chiang's failure to resist the war and the encirclement and suppression of the Red Army and suffered successive defeats, and was inspired by the anti-Japanese passion of the Red Army and the masses, which inspired the determination to oppose the civil war and resist Japan and restore the land. In February 1936, Zhang Xueliang went to Luochuan to live and met with Li Kenong, director of the Red Army Security Bureau. In March, the 684th Regiment was transferred to Yan'an and garrisoned. On the night of April 8, Zhang Xueliang went to the Qiaoergou Catholic Church in Yan'an to talk with Zhou Enlai and Li Kenong. According to my grandfather, 20 years later, before the Bandung Conference in 1955, at the "Double Twelve" commemorative meeting held by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Xi'an, Premier Zhou shook hands with his grandfather and said cordially: "You are tired on the Ganquan Road." For this reason, my grandfather repeatedly expressed his admiration for Premier Zhou's amazing memory and sincere attitude towards others. On December 12, 1936, the "Xi'an Incident" occurred that shocked China and foreign countries, and Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng forced Jiang to resist Japan. At night, my grandfather received an order to strictly guard Liupan Mountain and block Hu Zong's southward and eastward advance, when he led the 684th Regiment to capture Liupan Mountain. On December 25, Zhang escorted Chiang to Nanjing, where Chiang treacherously detained General Zhang Xueliang. In order to rescue the commander-in-chief, the Northeast Army had internal strife between the main battle and the main and the two factions, and Wang Yizhe was killed. The Northeast Army followed Zhou Enlai's advice and accepted the reorganization of the Eastern Diversion in order to unite against Japan. The Northeast Army, which numbered hundreds of thousands, was reduced by Chiang Kai-shek into five infantry corps, one cavalry corps, and one artillery brigade. My grandfather was incorporated into the 53rd Army-16th Division, with division commander Zhou Fucheng and 4 regiments, Zhang Shaoxian, commander of the 695th Regiment, Wang Lihuan, commander of the 696th Regiment, Lu Zhengcao, commander of the 697th Regiment, and Zhang Yuchi, commander of the 698th Regiment.
In 1937, during the July 7 Incident, my grandfather participated in the Battle of Yongding River (from July 8 to 10, 1937, the 53rd Army defended Yongqing County on the south bank of the Yongding River), the 696th Regiment suffered heavy casualties, and the entire Yongding River was lost, and all troops were ordered to withdraw to the line from Baoding to Jinghai and deploy positions along the south bank of the Daqing River. In February 1938, my grandfather was ordered to guard the Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou and occupy a position at the east end of Gaoqiao Village on the west bank of the Qi River at Tagang Station. On 12 February, the Japanese army and air force jointly attacked our position, and the battle was extremely fierce. At about four o'clock in the afternoon, my grandfather was commanding the battle in the shelter, when he observed the enemy situation from the lookout, he was discovered by the enemy, the Japanese army's evil bullets entered through the lookout hole, my grandfather was seriously wounded in the head twice, the bullet in the left eye was blind, and blood flowed down his cheeks. After evacuating the battlefield to the regimental headquarters, the chief of staff said, "But it's here!" My grandfather fainted and was escorted by the ambulance team to the rear hospital in Luoyang City for treatment. At the beginning of April 1939, when he had surgery, there was no anesthetic, he gritted his teeth and asked the doctor to pull out the bullet, and the doctor said: "Fortunately, the bullet is stuck in the eyebrow bone, otherwise the consequences are really unimaginable!" In May 1939, he was transferred to Xi'an Hospital in Xi'an City for treatment, and it was not until the end of 1939 that the wound gradually healed. In 1940, my grandfather took a boat to Haoxue via Chongqing, Sichuan, and returned to the 116th Division as a major general and deputy commander. In January 1942, he was transferred to the 130th Division as a major general and deputy division commander, and in 1942, the 53rd Army was incorporated into the expeditionary force sequence.
The Chinese Expeditionary Force was formed and sent to fight in Burma against the following historical background. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the international fascist camp and the anti-fascist camp became more distinct. Since then, the United States and Britain and China have formed an alliance on the basis of joint resistance against Japan, and the people's war of resistance against Japanese aggression on the mainland and the anti-fascist war of the people of all countries in the world have also converged. The Chinese Expeditionary Force was formed in accordance with the "Sino-British Agreement on the Joint Defense of the Yunnan-Burma Road" on December 23, 1941, and immediately went deep into Burma to fight the Japanese invading army.
After receiving the order, the 53rd Army marched to the areas of Midu and Menghua in western Yunnan for training, which lasted one year, and in 1943 the whole army was equipped with American-style equipment. The Expeditionary Force had two army groups, the Eleventh Army and the Twentieth Army. The 53rd Army was under the command of Huo Yuzhang of the 20th Group Army, and his grandfather was appointed commander of the 130th Division. In May 1944, the Chinese Expeditionary Force began a counteroffensive against the Japanese forces on the west bank of the Nu River. The strategic deployment decided that the 20th Group Army would forcibly cross the Nu River along the banks of Lichaiba and Shuanghongqiao and attack in the direction of Tengchong. When my grandfather's 130th Division crossed the Nu River in May, fierce fighting lasted seven or eight days due to the stubborn resistance of the enemy at Horseshoe Mountain and Datangzi in front of him, and a confrontation was formed. After three or four days of fierce fighting, the enemy gradually weakened, and the enemy's stronghold was occupied by the 53rd Army, with heavy casualties on both sides. The 53rd Army won the first round. The hardest battle in which the 53rd Army participated was the Battle of Tengchong. The Tengchong enemy army had a solid defense, the terrain in the city was complicated, and the 53rd Army undertook the task of attacking the area around the eastern city, and the Tengchong Battle lasted for more than two months. The Chinese army had 380,000 men besieging Tengchong. The main force of the Japanese army had more than 40 planes, which took turns bombing the positions of the Chinese army day and night. More than 40 planes of the US Air Force began fighting with the Japanese Air Force at 10 a.m. every day, and the battle lasted more than 70 days, the Chinese army attacked step by step, the Japanese army was defeated and retreated, and the main force of the Japanese army was completely annihilated. My grandfather said that when attacking Tengchong, it was very difficult, and every time a wall or courtyard was captured, it was impossible to advance unless it was blasted with explosives first and the walled houses were blown down. The recovery of Tengchong City, a foot of wall, a room, and a courtyard were all exchanged for flesh and blood and lives by officers and soldiers.
Later, my grandfather was ordered to lead his division across the river to capture Nankan, and together with friendly and neighboring troops, cut off the enemy's return route on the Sino-Indian Highway, and expanded the results of the battle along the Sino-Indian Highway to the west. On January 22, 1945, contact was made with the vanguard of the newly formed First Army in India, so that all the Japanese troops on the Sino-Indian Highway were swept away, and the Sino-Indian Highway was completely opened.
In his "Essays on the Indo-Burmese Battlefield," Mr. Lu Derun, a reporter of Chongqing's Ta Kung Pao in India and Burma, vividly described the moving scene of Miao Si's meeting with the division, and wrote about the exciting scene of Liu Runchuan, commander of the 116th Division of the 53rd Army, and Wang Lihuan, commander of the 130th Division, and Sun Liren, commander of the Army stationed in India. My grandfather once told us that he was wearing a gray cotton uniform and barefoot straw sandals, and he said: That really shows the strong will and courageous fighting spirit of the Chinese army. The hardships of the Yunnan-Burma campaign cannot be described in words. When the 53rd Army attacked Gaoligong Mountain, the officers and men had no provisions, and they all dug up wild vegetables and bamboo roots to satisfy their hunger. In the rainy season, the forest is dense, the pines and cypresses are towering, and the temperature difference between the mountains and the mountains is huge. The landslide slope is steep, the mountain road is rugged, the cliff is precipitous, you can only bend your knees to climb, and there is no one for 300 miles. Without the deep hatred and hatred of the Japanese fascists, without the patriotic feelings and sense of national justice, and without the great alliance of the world against fascism, how could the Yunnan-Burma Campaign be won?
The Yunnan-Burma Campaign opened up the Sino-Indian Highway, relieved the Japanese army of the threat to the west side of the Chinese battlefield, broke the blockade of the Japanese army on American aid to China, and also contained a large number of Japanese troops, thereby reducing the pressure on the Allied forces in the Pacific Theater and making indelible contributions to the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War.
My grandfather was alive for almost a century. After his death, the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference gave him a fair evaluation, calling him "a patriotic officer with a sense of justice who grew up in the Northeast Army led by General Zhang Xueliang" and spoke highly of his performance during his work in the CPPCC. My grandfather was a man of integrity, and although he was strict with me, I learned a lot from him how to be a human being. I'm proud to have such a grandfather, and I'm proud to have it. I am also a member of the CPPCC Regional Committee, and I will inherit my grandfather's legacy and work hard to build the socialist motherland and accomplish the great cause of the motherland's reunification.
Selected from the seventh series of "Selected Literary and Historical Materials of Fengtai".