On March 15, 1955, the famous patriotic general Wei Lihuang, together with his wife and other family members, returned to the mainland of the motherland from Hong Kong, and the CPC Central Committee attached great importance to the return of General Wei Lihuang, and Comrade Tao Zhu, who was then secretary of the South China Bureau, personally received him in Guangzhou.
The news of Wei Lihuang's return to the mainland also shocked other Chinese in the world; after all, his status was extremely special; he had served as the commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang's northeast "suppression" during the Liberation War, and he was also a general that Chiang Kai-shek had greatly valued, so according to reason, Wei Lihuang could not have abandoned Chiang Kai-shek and gone.
In fact, the relationship between Wei Lihuang and Chiang Kai-shek is indeed quite complicated, and since Chiang Kai-shek launched the April 12 counter-revolutionary coup, the relationship between the two of them has gone through two stages, the first stage, which is that Wei Lihuang is very loyal to Chiang Kai-shek.
Because at this time, Wei Lihuang always regarded Chiang Kai-shek as a leader, believing that only under his leadership could China complete reunification and complete the Three People's Principles Revolution of Mr. Sun Wen, the father of the country, so he obeyed Chiang Kai-shek and won many victories on the battlefield for Chiang Kai-shek.
In this process, General Wei Lihuang successively participated in the Second Northern Expedition War, and later the Central Plains War, because of his outstanding performance, helped Chiang Kai-shek defeat other warlords, so many people called him one of Chiang Kai-shek's "Five Tiger Generals".
However, after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Wei Lihuang had a new understanding of Chiang Kai-shek, and he was very dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek's passive anti-Japanese policy, so he gradually changed his thinking, which also made Wei Lihuang take the military power by Chiang Kai-shek after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan and sent him to visit abroad.
The main reason why Wei Lihuang served as the commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang's northeast "suppression" in the late stages of the Liberation War was that Chiang Kai-shek had no one to use, so he was hurriedly summoned back to China, but at this time, Wei Lihuang was already different from Chiang Kai-shek in the past.
It is also for this reason that after the founding of New China, Wei Lihuang, who was living in Hong Kong, sent a congratulatory message to the new government in Beijing, and chairman Mao and Premier Zhou responded to his friendly moves.
Until 1955, with the maturity of the time, Wei Lihuang finally returned to the motherland after a five-year absence, which was a good thing for New China, and the public opinion impact was huge, of course, for General Wei Lihuang himself, it was a good thing, who would be willing to leave his homeland!
It is worth mentioning that shortly after General Wei Lihuang returned to China, such an incident occurred, and according to General Wei Lihuang's son Wei Dao, who then came to recall that after his father returned to China, he kept visiting and meeting guests, inspecting the current situation of the motherland, and preparing to write a statement on his return to China.
In fact, this statement was mainly for some of Taiwan's friends in robes, so after the draft was completed, Wei Lihuang took the original and found some old comrades of the Central Committee, hoping that they would give him some opinions.
Of course, these veteran comrades also put forward many guiding opinions, but what people did not expect was that at this time, the comrades who were specifically responsible for the work toward Taiwan put forward the hope that Wei Lihuang would add one or two sentences to the statement to self-criticize the past history.
Why? The most important reason is that during the period of the agrarian revolutionary war, Wei Lihuang helped Chiang Kai-shek to participate in the "suppression of bandits" operations many times, especially in the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region, Where Wei Lihuang served as the commander-in-chief of the "Suppression of Bandits" in Eyu-Anhui, caused great damage to our Soviet region, and made a lot of contributions to Chiang Kai-shek.
Afterwards, in order to reward Wei Lihuang for his "suppression of bandits" merits, Chiang Kai-shek also deliberately rezoned Shangcheng, Lu'an and other counties and became the so-called "Lihuang County", that is, the predecessor of Jinzhai County.
Therefore, at this time, these comrades hoped that Wei Lihuang would be able to "self-criticize" in the statement, which was also out of his own "good intentions", but after Premier Zhou Enlai learned about this matter, he stopped it, and Premier Zhou gave instructions.
Premier Zhou believes that if such words are added to the statement, it is easy for people to have other ideas, which will make people feel unreal, and secondly, Premier Zhou believes that General Wei Lihuang is a patriotic general, and the previous things were his duty as a soldier, and now we must not do this kind of thing that hurts The feelings of General Wei Lihuang.
In this way, because of Premier Zhou's instructions, General Wei Lihuang's statement on return to China was finally published by Xinhua News Agency without moving, of course, although this article was not changed, it still caused a sensation at home and abroad, in which General Wei Lihuang said with deep meaning:
"In the past five years, under the leadership of the Communist Party and Chairman Mao, the motherland has made great strides in all kinds of facilities, unprecedented in history, and its prestige in the international arena has become increasingly high externally, enabling all nationalities to coexist harmoniously at home, and forming an unprecedented unity,...... Heartfelt words, respectfully! The responsibility is arduous, and the treasures are precious! ”
Speaking of which, perhaps some friends have become curious about Premier Zhou's instructions, and Premier Zhou does not approve of Wei Lihuang's "self-criticism" in his statement. In fact, Premier Zhou's instructions are very correct, and in simple terms, Premier Zhou has taken into account three crucial reasons for doing so.
First of all, premier Zhou himself said, do not hurt the feelings of General Wei Lihuang, because Since the period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, General Wei Lihuang has always been friendly to our party, and even many people do not know that as early as this period, Wei Lihuang established friendship with Chairman Mao, President Zhu De, and Premier Zhou through some of his own practices.
At that time, Wei Lihuang was the deputy commander of the Second Theater of operations and the commander-in-chief of the former enemy in the anti-Japanese battlefield, and our Eighth Route Army was precisely the sequence of battles in the Second Theater, but General Wei Lihuang behaved differently from other Kuomintang generals, he did not engage in "friction" and treated the anti-Japanese army equally.
For example, he once ignored Chiang Kai-shek's orders, withstood some pressure, and specially supported the Eighth Route Army with a large number of medicines and military supplies, and in 1938 alone, the military supplies personally allocated to the Eighth Route Army by General Wei Lihuang had millions of rounds of ammunition.
In addition, Wei Lihuang knew that there were many "anti-communist" people in the Kuomintang, so every time he distributed materials to the Eighth Route Army, he personally arranged them; on one occasion, when he was delivering supplies to the Eighth Route Army, he personally visited Yan'an, and Chairman Mao warmly welcomed him.
What we said above is only the first reason, and the second point is also very important, that is, General Wei Lihuang himself is a famous anti-Japanese general, during the War of Resistance, he fought in the south and the north, first to resist the Japanese at the Yellow River, and then to lead the expeditionary force to fight abroad, is a world-famous general.
For example, during the Liberation War, the People's Liberation Army also captured many generals of the National Army, but New China remembered their former anti-Japanese merits and treated them well after transformation.
Of course, General Wei Lihuang needless to say, he is a general who has returned to the motherland at the invitation of the people, and for such a patriotic general, if he is allowed to "self-criticize" his past behavior in his statement, this is obviously not the belly of a big country, let alone the style of Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou.
Just as the so-called "great virtue carries goods," Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou were able to invite Wei Lihuang back to China in order to strengthen relations in the Taiwan Strait and strengthen the unity of the people of the motherland.
The two reasons we mentioned above can actually be said to be internal reasons, and the last reason is external, and this external reason, Premier Zhou also attaches great importance to, which is to set an example for other Kuomintang generals.
As everyone knows, after the end of the War of Liberation, many patriotic Kuomintang generals did not go to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek; some of them went to the United States, and some of them temporarily lived in Hong Kong; and these people were all people who had made certain contributions to the country and had great influence.
In this case, the first return of General Wei Lihuang is a very good beginning, and many Chinese living overseas are also watching this matter, at this time, let's imagine, if Wei Lihuang has "self-criticism" in his return statement, then what will these people think?
Speaking of this, the author was once again impressed by Premier Zhou's cleverness, and it was precisely because of his foresight and his attitude of welcoming these influential former Kuomintang generals back to China with an attitude of not counting the previous suspicions, that many people who left the mainland later returned to China, such as Li Zongren and others who later returned, it was because they saw the friendly attitude of New China towards this group of people, which strengthened their belief in returning to China.
Combining the above three reasons, I think everyone has an understanding of the importance that Premier Zhou attaches to General Wei Lihuang, and the book is returned to the truth, and after General Wei Lihuang returned to China, he successively served as a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, and made certain contributions to the motherland to the best of his ability.
It is a pity that General Wei Lihuang died in Beijing at the age of sixty-three because of a myocardial infarction a few years after returning to China, and after the death of General Wei Lihuang, the Party Central Committee gave a funeral of extremely high standards and set up a funeral committee with Premier Zhou as the chairman of the committee and six marshals, and the Party Central Committee evaluated him as "a patriotic soldier who started well and ended well."
Today, I truly restore the return of General Wei Lihuang today, I hope that everyone can remember that this former famous anti-Japanese general, let us pay tribute to General Wei Lihuang!