Liuyang, Hunan, on the banks of the Liushui River, gave birth to China's first founding female general - Li Zhen. In 1955, Li Zhen, who had been awarded the rank of soldier, returned to his hometown and province, which was a real return to her hometown for a woman who came out of the countryside. The old folks all came out to greet her, and the streets were crowded with people, all vying to see the legendary female general. Li Zhen was surrounded by the crowd, very beautiful.
Outside the crowd, only one person seemed absent-minded, even a little frightened. This person is Li Zhen's first husband, and everyone calls him Gu San.
From "Dan Wazi" to Li Zhen
Li Zhen was born into a very poor peasant family, and counting her, she had a total of 6 daughters. Two days after the birth of her youngest sister, Li Zhen's father died of illness. The pillars of the family are gone, how should 7 women survive in the old society?
In 1914, because the family could not afford to eat, Li Zhen was sold to the family of a wealthy local family surnamed Gu. Before leaving home, her mother told her that she was going there to work, and that she was going to work hard and that she would take her home when she had earned enough money.
When Li Zhen arrived at the Gu family, he knew that he was going to be the child daughter-in-law of the third Gu of his family.
The Xinhai Revolution fired the first shot of democracy, but the spread of democratic ideas was still limited to the cities with developed information. In the rural areas of Hunan where Li Zhen lives, people's thinking is still backward and feudal.
This year, Li Zhen was only 6 years old. She didn't have a name at the time, and everyone called her "Dan Wazi". The ancient family treated her as a slave. How the child daughter-in-law in the old society can live depends on the character of the owner's family.
Zhu De's wife, Kang Keqing, was also a child bride when she was a child, and she was very lucky to find a gentle couple, and after the early death of their son, Kang Keqing became their daughter. Li Zhen doesn't have the luck of her at all, the Gu family relies on being a rich family, and they don't treat their child daughter-in-law as a person at all. Even if they run away and die, they think they can just buy another one. Li Zhen's days in the ancient family were very dark.
When Dan Wazi was less than ten years old, he shouldered all the dirty work in the family, not to mention laundry, chopping wood, and cooking every day.
The parents of the Gu family habitually beat her, scolded her, and treated her as a slave. Danwazi's childhood was very depressing every day. She pinned her only hope on Gu San, she thought that he was a husband anyway, and at least he would protect himself. And Gu San is very machismo, he only listens to his parents, let alone help her, he is the same as his parents, he beats her and scolds her at every turn, and when something unpleasant happens, he will be angry with her.
For a while, Dan Wazi couldn't hold on and wanted to commit suicide, and the old people in the village kept persuading her that it would be good if the ancient family members were gone in the future. But without the elders, will the ancient three treat her well? There is no end in sight on such a day.
With the development of the Great Revolutionary Movement, the Hunan and Jiangxi areas became a key area for popularizing democratic ideas. After receiving the revolutionary ideas, Danwazi felt that he had finally seen the dawn of life.
She began to frequently participate in the democratic revolutionary movement in the countryside and gained a certain prestige in the local area. When she was fifteen years old, she was already a revolutionary warrior.
Gu San looked at her more and more unpleasantly. How can a woman's family show her head every day? Danwazi couldn't make sense with him, and when he heard that there was a revolutionary contingent in the town, he simply ran away from home.
However, as soon as she walked out of the village, someone told the Gu family, and they arrested her without much effort.
After going back, Dan Wazi was beaten badly, until her body was full of bloody wounds, and her clothes were tattered, and the elders of the Gu family threw her aside, and specially told everyone that she was not allowed to be drugged.
Soon after, the Gu family forcibly held a wedding for Danwazi and Gu San. Gu San confined Dan Wazi, did not let her go out, and insulted her more often. Danwazi accepted the new ideas and gained confidence with the support of the villagers, of course, he would not obey him as before. Gu Sanjian saw that someone supported Dan Wazi, and he didn't dare to beat her like before.
Dan Wazi's heart to escape has never been extinguished.
In 1926, under the detailed plan, she took advantage of the night to climb out of the gate. When she found the revolutionary team, she still spoke in a childish country accent, and said loudly, I want revolution.
In March 1927, Danwazi officially joined the Communist Party, and the revolution was vigorous, and notices to arrest her could often be seen on the street. The Gu family was afraid of being implicated, so they gave her a letter of resignation and didn't want her at all. At this point, Dan Wazi is very satisfied. With the feeling of rebirth, she named herself "Li Zhen", which means that she is loyal to the revolutionary cause.
She said that she was a revolutionary in life and a revolutionary ghost in death. Her will was superhumanly strong, telling herself that she would walk on the road of revolution all her life.
Participated in the revolution of the drama marriage
Li Zhen was definitely the most fierce wave of people in the revolution. After the April 12 coup, the survival of the Communists became more and more difficult, and they were often besieged and intercepted. Li Zhen was the chairman of the soldiers' committee of the Liudong guerrillas at that time. She is bold and ruthless, and in the face of critical circumstances, she can often burst out with extraordinary courage.
In a guerrilla war, Li Zhen's team was beaten to only five people. Step by step, they were forced to the edge of the cliff, and they ran out of bullets in their hands. When the enemy heard that there were no more gunshots on their side, they shouted very proudly: "Surrender when there is no fire!" This sentence made Li Zhen's anger value reach its peak - Shi can be killed, but not humiliated. Moreover, if the enemy catches them alive, they will inevitably torture them to death.
Li Zhen said to his comrades-in-arms: "We will never be prisoners, if we have the backbone and are real revolutionaries, jump with me!" ”
After saying that, she took the lead, jumped into the jump, and fell into the cliff with her comrades.
Li Zhen's courage may be a lucky charm on her body. There were layers of trees on the cliff, and among the five people who jumped, Li Zhen and another comrade-in-arms were hung by a branch and finally survived. And this encounter also led to Li Zhen's first miscarriage.
The father of Li Zhen's child is Zhang Qilong, another Communist Party member and front-line revolutionary. His encounter with Li Zhen was dramatic.
In 1928, Zhang Qilong was betrayed by traitors, arrested by the Kuomintang on the way to a meeting, and imprisoned. The surrounding roads are extremely heavily defended, and the best way to rescue Zhang Qilong is to disguise. Someone suggested that the rescuers should sit in a sedan chair, pretend to be married and send the bride, and carry them into the checkpoint. Li Zhen is the only woman in the team, so she took the initiative to ask Ying to complete this mission.
This is a different experience for Li Zhen. She had a gloomy marriage, and now she wears a wedding dress and sits in a sedan chair, which has a sense of erasing the gloom of the past. If it weren't for the sedan chair stuffed with weapons, she might have felt like she was really going to marry again. The Kuomintang people really did not strictly check the sedan chair, and Li Zhen and his comrades-in-arms successfully mixed in and threw themselves into a dangerous battle.
The comrades-in-arms were divided into two routes, some of them were in the front to catch people, others were in the rear to supply ammunition, and they fought cleanly, and Zhang Qilong soon returned to the base camp of the Red Army. Everyone looked at Li Zhen, who was wearing a wedding dress and sitting in a sedan chair, and began to joke at Zhang Qilong: "Your bride is here!" ”
Zhang Qilong blushed and couldn't say a word. After a while, he suddenly approached Li Zhen and asked her directly if she was willing to be his real bride. Li Zhen was stunned.
In fact, Zhang Qilong and her have cooperated in a war for a long time, and he has always liked her, but he has not had a chance to confess. Li Zhen nodded shyly, so she had her second marriage. A few days later, the two held a simple wedding in the army.
When Li Zhen survived the cliff covered in blood, Zhang Qilong's situation was not much better.
In 1932, Zhang Qilong was imprisoned because of a disagreement with Liu Shijie. At this time, not long after Li Zhen officially registered her marriage with him, she asked someone to tell Zhang Qilong that she would never leave him for these reasons.
However, Zhang Qilong did not want Li Zhen to be implicated. He deeply knew that Li Zhen was absolutely loyal to the revolution, and this cause was more important to her than her life. Therefore, Zhang Qilong wrote a divorce agreement and sent it to Li Zhen.
Li Zhen got the divorce agreement, like a bolt from the blue. She approached the Soviet District Security Bureau and filed a complaint, hoping that their marriage would be preserved. The Security Bureau ruthlessly dismissed it. In desperation, the newly married wife, with tears of sorrow, signed her name on the divorce agreement.
Li Zhen's second marriage died abruptly.
Awarded the rank of soldier and returned home
After the divorce, Li Zhen went to the party school to study for two years. In the past two years, she has escaped from her "illiterate" identity and walked out of the sadness of the past. She once again threw herself into the revolutionary work in the Hunan and Jiangxi Soviet areas, and with 200 percent of her vigor, she went on with all her might, never wanting to think about getting married again.
Li Zhen doesn't treat herself as a woman at all, she is in a crowd of men all day long, she is not in a hurry, the people around her are in a hurry. In 1934, Li Zhen served as the head of the Organization Department of the Hunan Provincial Military Region and met Chen Congying, Ren Bishi's wife. She told Li Zhen that their comrade-in-arms Gan Siqi was interested in her.
Li Zhen simply laughed when she heard this.
Gan Siqi is a person she knows, and she is her top boss. He is an old Red Army, and he has gone to study, and he has both ability and culture. A person who has drunk foreign ink can be interesting to her, a female soldier who was born as a child daughter-in-law in the countryside?
Li Zhen felt that this must be an excuse for Chen Congying to introduce the object. She told Chen that the two of them would definitely not be able to get along, so forget it as soon as possible.
However, Gan Siqi is interested in Li Zhen, not Chen Congying's nonsense. She saw that Li Zhen didn't believe it, so she directly conveyed Gan Siqi's original words: "You have a solid style, pungent and capable, loyal to the party, and a great lesbian!" ”
Li Zhen listened, a little shy. Thinking of Gan Siqi's character and style, she agreed to Chen Congying.
Under the mediation of this enthusiastic matchmaker, Li Zhen and Gan Siqi came together, and their wedding was presided over by General He Long. People say that the couple are "single-minded and revolutionary".
Soon after Li Zhen and Gan Siqi got married, the Long March began.
The Red Army soldiers climbed snow-capped mountains and crossed meadows, and naturally there was no need to say much about the hardships involved. Li Zhen is a woman, and under the beating of the wind and sun all year round, her physical fitness should be better than ordinary people. And she endured more pain than most people – she was born prematurely during the Long March.
The revolutionary cause is blood-blooded, and it waits for no one. The sweetness of a newlywed couple still has to make way for a career. Li Zhen gave birth to a frail child, who died tragically soon after. It is a miracle that she can hold her big belly and carry the arduous Long March. Li Zhen understands the truth that everything can't be both, and has been persuading herself to think about it. After this premature birth, she lost the ability to have children.
Li Zhen's hard work has won her due reward. In 1955, on the tower of Tiananmen Square, Li Zhen was awarded the rank of major general, and Gan Siqi was awarded the rank of general.
Zhou Enlai took Li Zhen's hand and said happily: "Congratulations, Comrade Li Zhen, you are the first female general in our New China!" ”
This year, Li Zhen took her husband back to her hometown in Hunan to save her family. Returning to this small village again, you can imagine how excited she was.
Back then, she lived worse than pigs and dogs, and was a slave to be bullied by the ancient family. Now, with her own efforts, relying on the party and faith, she has finally broken out for herself. How satisfied she must be!
The old three who were powerful and blessed back then were completely soft now - before Li Zhen returned to his hometown, it was spread all over the village, and the skinny Dan baby back then actually became a general! Will she seek revenge on herself! Late at night, Gu San lay on the bed, tossing and turning, feeling that his life was short, maybe when Li Zhen came, he would be arrested, how did he treat Dan Baby back then, and now she will return it!
The more Gu San thought about it, the more frightened he became, so he simply put on his clothes and went out and went to the village party secretary's house. As soon as he saw the village party secretary, he knelt down excitedly and begged the village party secretary to save him. The village party secretary only felt that he had never seen the world, and he had no interest at all. He told him that now society has changed, and it is not the same as before. An official of such a big family will care about you?
Until Li Zhen left, Gu San was living in terror. Before leaving, Li Zhentuo, the village party secretary, brought a sentence to Gu San: "Everything has passed, the revolution has been victorious, and we have entered a new era." Hearing this, Gu San slumped in his chair and let out a long sigh.
Li Zhen's old age was happy and quiet. She and Gan Siqi often hold parties at home, and the children of relatives and friends often stay at their homes. They sponsored more than 20 orphans of martyrs, including the descendants of their deceased comrades. Li Zhen often takes her children out to play on weekends, making up for the regret of being childless for life.
In 1990, Li Zhen died at the age of 82. Her relics consisted only of 4 medals, 4 rattan chairs, two suitcases, 11,000 yuan, 2,500 yuan treasury bills and two small gold bars. According to her will, the assets were used for her and Gan's hometown education, fundraising for the Soong Ching Ling Children's Welfare Foundation, and her party dues as a member of the Communist Party.