As everyone knows, 1998 was a special and unforgettable year for our country, because in this year there were serious floods in the Yangtze River, Nenjiang River, Songhua River and other river basins on the mainland, and it was the third basin-wide flood in the 20 th century after 1931 and 1954, especially the Nenjiang and Songhua rivers were the most serious basin-wide floods in 150 years.
Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, and Heilongjiang provinces were the hardest hit by the flood disaster and were most affected by the disaster, so the state dispatched a total of 360,000 officers and men of the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police, and 110 generals to take part in the flood fighting and rescue work.
Among them, Lieutenant General Dong Wanrui, deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region, commanded the flood fighting and rescue work in the Yangtze River section, so who is the commander-in-chief of the flood fighting and rescue work in the Harbin area?
In contrast, the commander-in-chief of the flood fighting and rescue in the Harbin area is one level lower than the commander-in-chief of the Yangtze River flood fighting front, Lieutenant General Dong Wanrui, who is Major General Yang Fuchen, commander of the 40 th Group Army of the Shenyang Military Region.
Under the leadership of Liang Guanglie, commander of the Shenyang Military Region, and Jiang Futang, political commissar, and under the command of Major General Yang Fuchen, commander-in-chief of the Harbin region's flood fighting and rescue work, hundreds of officers and men of the people's army formed a "death squad" to build a human wall to block the flood, and the group army laid more than 30,000 wooden piles and excavated 1.5 million cubic meters of earth and stone.
It stands to reason that Major General Yang Fuchen has made meritorious contributions in commanding the flood fighting and rescue efforts in the northeast region, but unfortunately he was not promoted to the rank of lieutenant general of the deputy military region, but retired after reaching the maximum length of service of a major general at the rank of regular army.
Yang Fuchen, who was born in August 1940 in Taihe District, Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, joined the army relatively late, such as General Liu Yuejun, the last commander of the Lanzhou Military Region, who enlisted at the age of 16, and General Liu Dongdong, political commissar of the Jinan Military Region, who joined the army at the age of 15.
Before joining the army, Yang Fuchen worked as a farmer at home for a time after finishing school, and worked as a worker in the Jinzhou Ferroalloy Factory for a year before joining the army, and then enlisted in the army and was assigned to the 356th Regiment of the 119th Division of the 40th Army of the Shenyang Military Region, becoming a glorious PLA soldier.
After coming to the army, Yang Fuchen pursued progress, and it took only 4 years to be promoted, from a grassroots soldier to a military clerk and surveyor, and was promoted to the commander of the guard platoon of the 356th Regiment in 1964. In view of the fact that Yang Fuchen did not have a high academic background, did not go to a military school, and his overall military theoretical literacy was limited, so his promotion time at the regiment headquarters was also very slow, and he had 12 years of training, successively serving as a staff officer of the regimental training unit and head of the regimental training unit, until January 1977, when he was transferred to the 119th Division of the 40th Army as the chief of the training section.
During his tenure in the training unit of the 356th Regiment, that is, from April 1967 to January 1968, Yang Fuchen also participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Vietnam.
As we know, in August 1964, US President Johnson dispatched 64 bombers aboard the aircraft carriers of the US Navy's Seventh Fleet to bomb a number of military bases in North Vietnam, creating the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident," which was a great attempt to expand the war and seriously threatened the security of China's southern Xinjiang.
As the saying goes, "auxiliary vehicles depend on each other, lips and teeth are cold", if North Vietnam is taken by the United States, it will be quite unfavorable to us, so the mainland agreed to North Vietnam's request and sent troops to Vietnam to participate in the war, and on August 1, 1965, it began to send antiaircraft artillery units, engineering units, railway units, mine-sweeping units, logistics units, etc., to secretly enter North Vietnam to carry out air defense operations, rush to repair bombed-up roads, railways, bridges, airports, and other facilities, and take up the task of mine clearance and logistical support.
The 40th Army of the Shenyang Military Region sent the strength of one artillery regiment to participate in the round battle to resist US aggression and aid Vietnam, which was mainly composed of three independent antiaircraft artillery battalions of the army antiaircraft artillery regiment (actually one battalion, but the structure of the regiment), the 118th Division, the 119th Division, and the 120th Division, totaling an antiaircraft artillery regiment composed of four antiaircraft artillery battalions, and then cooperated with the 64th Antiaircraft Artillery Division of the Fuzhou Military Region to participate in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Vietnam.
27-year-old Yang Fuchen, a member of the 119th Division, spent seven months in the Vietnam battlefield, personally participating in rotational battles to counter American aggression.
It can be said that participating in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Vietnam was a special and unforgettable experience in Yang Fuchen's military career.
In fact, in Yang Fuchen's 40-year military career, there is a special coincidence, which is an experience that many people usually do not encounter, that is, Yang Fuchen has served in 2 regiments, 2 divisions, and 2 armies, and they are all "company" troop numbers, and he has served as the military commander of the regiment, division, and army 3 times.
First of all, Yang Fuchen served in the 356th and 357th regiments.
The 356th Regiment and the 357th Regiment are both regiments under the jurisdiction of the 119th Division of the 40th Army, from the beginning of Yang Fuchen's joining the army to December 1976, they served in the 356th Regiment for 16 years, and the officer was the head of the regimental training unit.
After stepping down as the head of the 356th Regiment Training Unit, Yang Fuchen once became the chief of the division training section, and in June 1979, he was officially promoted to a regimental-level officer and promoted to the commander of the 357th Regiment of the 119th Division, which was his first middle and senior command military commander.
Secondly, Yang Fuchen served in the 119th Division and the 120th Division.
Yang Fuchen served in the 119th Division twice, but did not become the division commander, first in January 1977 after stepping down as the head of the 356th Regiment as a training unit, he was promoted to the 119th Division as a training section chief, and only stayed for 2 years before being promoted to the commander of the 357th Regiment, he also only stayed in the post of regiment commander for 2 years, and was transferred back to the 119th Division in March 1981 as the deputy division chief of staff.
At this time, Yang Fuchen was already ranked among the middle and senior leading cadres, and he had very high requirements for his military leadership ability and organizational and command ability, so he served as the chief of staff of the 119th Division for one and a half years, and then went to the PLA Military Academy (now the National Defense University) for a two-year systematic study. After returning, he was once promoted to the deputy chief of staff of the army at the division level, and in November 1985, he was transferred to the commander of the 120th Division of the 40th Army.
Finally, Yang Fuchen served in the 39th Army and the 40th Army.
Yang Fuchen served in the military department four times, and all of them were not separated. As mentioned earlier, after graduating from the PLA Military Academy, Yang Fuchen was promoted to deputy chief of staff of the 40th Group Army in August 1984, and became the commander of the 120th Division transferred for about 1 year; He was in charge of the 120th Division for three years, and Yang Fuchen was transferred to the military headquarters of the 40th Army for the second time, and was promoted to the chief of staff of the 40th Group Army at the deputy army level in July 1988.
After two years in the post of chief of staff of the 40 th Group Army, Yang Fuchen crossed the group army and was transferred to the deputy commander of the 39 th Group Army of the Shenyang Military Region in June 1990.
However, this is not the last position of Yang Fuchen's military career, and the commander of the 40th Group Army is his final military destination. After serving as the deputy commander of the 39th Group Army for four years, Yang Fuchen returned to the 40th Group Army in March 1994 and was promoted to the post of commander at the regular army level.
It can be seen that General Yang Fuchen started as a small soldier in the 40th Army, and it took him 40 years to become the commander of the 40th Army and complete his military career.
Here, I salute General Yang Fuchen!