Text: Mu Qiao
The statements in this article are based on reliable sources of information and are detailed at the end of the article
Preface
In the golden autumn of 1955, the first award ceremony of the Chinese People's Liberation Army was successfully held in Beijing, and the ten marshals, together with more than 1,600 generals, were collectively called "founding generals" by later generations.
But among them, it is inevitable that there will be some controversies, some people feel that they are wronged, some people are envious and jealous of others, and some people who are unwilling to bear public opinion, choose Gao Feng Liangjie, and take the initiative to ask for demotion, such as Xu Haidong, the second largest general after Su Yu.
The name Xu Haidong is indeed not so loud and familiar to us, because since 1938, he has gradually moved away from the battlefield and worked in the rear.
This made many people feel that he was not worthy of the rank of general, even including Xu Haidong himself, but Chairman Mao of the Party Central Committee never agreed to his request for demotion.
So, is Xu Haidong's rank of general appropriate? Why is it in front of Chen Geng and others? What's the story behind his iconic "dimples"? And why didn't anyone send a wreath to him after he died?
"People who have made great contributions to the Chinese revolution"
"Prime Minister, I would like to be able to lower the ranks." Soon after the ceremony, Xu Haidong approached Premier Zhou Enlai and asked him to convey his proposal to Chairman Mao.
Premier Zhou smiled directly, and then comforted him cordially, saying that everyone's military rank was finally determined after being unanimously approved by the central leading comrades, and it would not be arbitrarily awarded for no reason, and naturally it would not be changed at will.
Including Chairman Mao himself, he once praised Xu Haidong, saying that he was "a person who has made great contributions to the Chinese revolution", and this is also considered to be an important reason why he became a general, so what is Xu Haidong's "great merit"?
This goes back to the Red Army period, when he generously lent Chairman Mao 5,000 pieces of ocean! Directly pulled the Central Red Army out of the predicament.
Xu Haidong was born in Huangpi County, Hubei Province (now the new town of Dawu County), which was also the birthplace of the later Jute Uprising, and can be said to have a rich revolutionary soil.
Xu Haidong's family background was very ordinary, oppressed, in order to make a living, he worked in the coal kiln since he was a child, and it was not until 1925 that he came into contact with and successfully joined the Communist Party of China, and his life began to take a major turn.
From joining the National Revolutionary Army to participate in the vigorous Northern Expedition, to participating in the leadership of the Jute Uprising, and developing and building the Hubei-Henan-Anhui border region, Xu Haidong formed one peasant army after another, fought guerrilla attacks across mountains and rivers, and eventually became the first batch of Red Army commanders and fighters.
From the Red 27th Army, to the Red 25th Army, from western Anhui to northeast Hubei, Xu Haidong has also proved his military ability again and again, under all kinds of pressure, and lack of food and clothing, Xu Haidong was in a coma for two days and one night, and after waking up, he vomited a mouthful of blood.
Under the heavy pressure of the Kuomintang reactionaries, life in the base areas was not easy, and under such circumstances, it was easy for the troops to lose confidence, and the test of the military commanders was also very severe.
Xu Haidong (right)
Xu Haidong is naturally deeply aware of this, so whenever there is a battle, he is the first to take the lead in the charge, and sometimes even to facilitate the movement, to prevent the destruction of the only clothes he has, and to face the rain of bullets bare-chested.
Seeing that the chiefs were like this, the soldiers were even more enthusiastic, and their fighting beliefs were high.
It was also under the leadership of Xu Haidong that the Red 25th Army caught the cracks, rose to the occasion, and created many miracles of winning more with less, and in the battle of Guangshan in 1934, it directly wiped out more than 4,000 enemies.
Commanders and fighters of the Red 25th Army, the first from the right in the front row is Xu Haidong
Through one battle after another, the Red 25th Army not only replenished its guns, ammunition, food, and horses, but even expanded the size of its ranks, and provided a more stable construction environment in the base areas.
"No guns, no cannons, the enemy made us", this lyric was also very applicable at the time, since it was impossible to dodge, it was better to take the initiative to attack, Xu Haidong and others The outstanding performance of Mao and Zhou in the Central Soviet Region was also full of praise.
However, this situation did not last long, and soon, because of Bogulid's erroneous command, the Red Army lost the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, and in order not to make unnecessary sacrifices, it had to start the Long March.
The Red 25th Army set out from the Dabie Mountains and went to northern Shaanxi through Funiu Mountain, during which it trekked through mountains and rivers, experienced all kinds of difficulties, and the political commissar Wu Huanxian unfortunately died, and Xu Haidong himself was also shot through the left side of his face by a bullet in the battle.
Fortunately, the bullet did not hurt the vital point, and after four days of treatment, Xu Haidong woke up and gradually resumed his work.
After the wound was completely healed, a small depression appeared on Xu Haidong's uneven cheeks, and people who were not familiar with his experience would think that it was a natural dimple.
In October 1935, Xu Haidong, who arrived in northern Shaanxi a month ahead of schedule, finally had to meet the legendary Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai and others.
After receiving Chairman Mao's handwritten letter, Xu Haidong flew on his horse and ran for more than 70 kilometers, and his footsteps kept coming to the cave where he met.
Before Xu Haidong could speak, or wait for the people around him to introduce him, Chairman Mao had already stepped forward quickly, holding each other's hands tightly, and speaking his representative Hunan accent, cordially and emotionally condoled.
At that time, the Red Army could not have enough to eat, and the periphery of the various base areas was surrounded like iron barrels, and communication basically relied on letters, and sometimes it was normal to have a break of two or three months, or even half a year, and if the will was not firm enough, there was almost no possibility of survival.
Therefore, Chairman Mao's sentence "You have worked hard in the past few years" really spoke to Xu Haidong's heart, but he looked at the thin leader and understood that the situation of the central leadership was not much better than himself, so he swallowed the grievances he just wanted to blurt out.
After a period of greetings, they discussed the current situation, and before parting, Chairman Mao also specially left a radio station for Xu Haidong and told him to keep in touch.
With Chairman Mao's encouragement, Xu Haidong was full of energy, and returned to the front line on the same day, began to arrange troops to resist the Kuomintang army, and won the victory in the Battle of Zhiluozhen.
At the end of the year in a blink of an eye, the cold wind was bitter on the Loess Plateau, and the Central Red Army, which had just arrived in northern Shaanxi, because production and life had not yet been on the right track, the soldiers were almost still wearing thin clothes and trousers, and their feet were still tattered straw sandals.
If you don't find a way to solve the problem of wintering, the combat effectiveness of the team will be greatly reduced, and there will even be non-combat attrition, which will be too much to lose.
Chairman Mao thought for a while, and then wrote a letter to Xu Haidong, at that time Xu Haidong was already the commander of the Red 15th Corps, with a certain "family background", in the letter, Chairman Mao proposed to borrow 2500 oceans from the 15th Corps to solve the urgent need.
Seeing this, Xu Haidong immediately called the minister in charge of materials, and after some calculation, he determined that he still had 7,000 yuan under his hands.
Without saying a word, he sent someone to send a full 5,000 yuan to the Central Red Army, leaving only 2,000 yuan for his team to make some basic cotton clothes.
After Chairman Mao received the money, he was very moved, and said humorously and affectionately: "This is what I personally borrowed, and I must repay it in the future, Comrade Haidong is a person who has made great contributions to the Chinese revolution!" ”
"No one is more mysterious than him"
American journalist Snow was the first Westerner to visit the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo border region, and he visited the "red zone" in depth and had good exchanges with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.
Later, he wrote a very famous documentary work - "Red Star Shining on China", in which he once commented on Xu Haidong: "Among the military leaders of the Communist Party of China, I am afraid that no one can compare with Xu Haidong...... It's even more mysterious. ”
How did Xu Haidong become mysterious?
Snow
It turned out that after years of conquest and difficult environment, Xu Haidong, who had been injured many times, had various illnesses that were difficult to get rid of, so after participating in the Battle of Pingxingguan in 1938, Xu Haidong began to recuperate in the rear for a long time.
Later, although he went to the New Fourth Army to lead soldiers for half a year, his body was still unable to withstand the pressure of the front-line commander after all, and he vomited blood many times.
After Chairman Mao heard the news, he specially issued an eight-word order to Xu Haidong: "Calm down and recuperate, the sky falls", and in this way, Xu Haidong basically bid farewell to the front-line work completely.
It can be said that when Xu Haidong was brilliant, it was when the party and the people's army were weak, and when it came to the much-anticipated War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, he happened to take off his robe.
After 17 years of silence, it was not until the 1955 award ceremony that Xu Haidong appeared in front of everyone, and some young generals who made their careers in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression may not even be so familiar with this name.
Therefore, when Xu Haidong was announced as one of the top ten generals of the founding of the People's Republic of China, ranking second only to Su Yu, various controversies and public opinion came to his face.
Let's not compare with Chen Geng, Xiao Jinguang and others, who are also generals, but put Xu Haidong in the list of generals, and his fame does not seem to be as great as Wang Zhen, Xu Shiyou, Zhang Aiping, Han Xianchu, Yang Chengwu, and other generals with brilliant results.
Xu Haidong was also taken aback when he heard his name, he thought that he had been sick very early, and he had been absent from most of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, and his merits were not worthy of the rank of general at all, so he refused to accept anything.
However, the leaders of the Party Central Committee, including Chairman Mao, not only did not forget the key contributions made by Xu Haidong in the early days of the revolution, but remembered them deeply.
Without Xu Haidong's arduous support in Hubei, Henan, and Anhui, the Central Soviet Region would have faced even greater pressure, and without Xu Haidong's efforts in the snow, the Central Red Army would inevitably have suffered a catastrophe.
Later, Chairman Mao thought about Xu Haidong more than once.
During the period when the veterans were impacted, Xu Haidong could only rely on a wheelchair to move, but even so, on the eve of the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Chairman Mao still specially named Xu Haidong to attend the meeting, which was the most powerful support for him.
After Xu Haidong got the notice, he burst into tears instantly, struggled to sit up from the bed, and said excitedly: "I will climb to the Great Hall of the People!" ”
No one sent wreaths, and they were rehabilitated after many years
But as the days passed, the elderly Chairman Mao had no energy to continue to take care of these old comrades-in-arms, and in 1970, Xu Haidong's family was "evacuated" to Zhengzhou, bearing too many groundless accusations.
In March of the same year, General Xu Haidong, who was suffering from illness, died at the age of 70, and under the instructions of "Mr. Lin", the funeral was simple, no memorial, no mourning, no obituary, no party flag, and no flowers.
In this way, Xu Haidong, who dedicated his life to the revolution, was hastily buried after his death, and no one even laid a wreath, which was deserted. It was not until 1979, under the arrangement of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, that General Xu Haidong was restored to his honor.
Resources:
[1] Henan Party History Fang Zhi: "Mao Zedong once commented that Xu Haidong was "a person who made great contributions to the Chinese revolution"
[2] Communist Party of China News Network: "The Commander Gave Title in the Early Years of the Founding of New China"
[3] Party History: "The person who smiled at the camera was the general Xu Haidong, and the dimples on his face when he laughed were actually bullet holes"