On June 10, 1999, Chen Xilian suddenly felt a headache after getting up, and it did not relieve for a day, so he was sent to the 301 Hospital by his family that night.
Because Chen Xilian had just done a routine examination half a month ago, he knew that all the examination indicators of his body were basically normal, so looking at Mrs. Wang Xuanmei's frown and worried expression, Chen Xilian held her hand and said in a relaxed tone: "It's okay, I'll go back in two or three days." ”
At about nine o'clock that night, Chen Xilian waved to the children who were guarding the ward and said, "Go back, you still have to work tomorrow." But no one expected that this was his last words to his relatives. At 23:45 that night, the hospital suddenly notified Chen Xilian's relatives that he was critically ill and died at the age of 85 after ineffective rescue.
As a founding general, General Chen Xilian died suddenly without leaving a single word, leaving many regrets. Fortunately, he fought all his life and fought for the people and for new China, and his outstanding deeds in fighting the country and protecting the country and the mountains will be remembered by the mountains and rivers and history will be remembered.
During the war years, he fought with blood and was a famous general of a generation with outstanding meritorious service, and made outstanding military achievements for the birth of new China; during the period of peaceful construction, he bravely shouldered the heavy burden of building the artillery contingent, and left a chapter of great color in the National Defense Forces.
First, they were oppressed and threw themselves into the revolution
Chen Xilian was born in January 1915 to a peasant family in Pengjia Village, Huang'an (now Hong'an) County, Hubei Province.
At the age of not remembering, Chen Xilian's father died of a serious illness, which is almost the beginning of all tribulations for every family with a prime-age labor force as the pillar.
At first, in order to treat his father's illness, Chen Xilian's mother sold all the family property. After the death of his father, the family reached the point of being in debt. In desperation, Mother Chen could only tearfully and bitterly sell her sister to traffickers for the price of a few oceans.
Former residence of Chen Xilian
The father died, the sister was sold, the original poor but also able to shelter the wind and rain of the small family fell apart in an instant, the pregnant mother can not do anything, can only take the young Chen Xilian step by step through every village in Huang'an, begging along the way, just to survive.
It is said that "the heavens will descend upon the Si people, and they must first suffer their hearts, strain their bones, and starve their bodies", and this sentence is most appropriate to describe Chen Xilian's childhood experience. Begging for a living is already difficult, during this period Chen Xilian mother and son were also beaten and scolded by chen zhibin, a distant uncle, only because he felt that the mother and son went out to beg for food and lost the face of the Chen family.
Chen Zhibin was not only mean to the mother and son of the Chen family, he was also a village bully, often doing evil and bullying people in the township.
Seeing that the mother and son of the Chen family had become a problem even living, as a so-called distant relative, he not only stingy to help, but also accused the mother and son of ridicule. Mother Chen couldn't help but return a few words, which made Chen Zhibin angry and beat her badly.
Watching his mother being beaten so powerlessly to resist, the young Chen Xilian resented and hated in his heart, and the only thing he could do was to silently go forward to support his mother and swear in his heart that he would take revenge when he grew up.
At the age of 10, Chen Xilian, who was slightly older, could work in the fields, so Chen Mu rented more than one acre of land for the landlord, took Chen Xilian and his younger brother Chen Xili to settle down, and ended the turbulent and displaced days. Since then, Chen Xilian has herded cattle for landlords and worked as a long-term worker, which has been a few years.
In November 1927, when the Jute Uprising broke out, in order to get the clue that the revolutionaries were hiding, the Kuomintang reactionaries colluded with some local village tyrants to let them report the news of the Communists as soon as they had news, and Chen Zhibin was one of them.
In this darkest moment, while retreating to the mountains to fight guerrilla warfare with the enemy, the Communists left some fighters to persist in the struggle on the spot, accumulating strength in their own areas and towns to continue fighting. At that time, Li Xiannian, a revolutionary fighter in the village with Chen Xi, was responsible for carrying out mass propaganda in the areas of Huang'an Gaoqiao and Bali District, beating up local tycoons, hunting down extremist reactionaries, and eliminating harm to the poor.
Li Xiannian was young
As one reactionary after another was arrested and killed, Chen Zhibin, who was finally harming the township, was also targeted by Li Xiannian and his comrades-in-arms. At the end of 1927, on a snowy night with a bitter north wind, Li Xiannian and his comrades knocked on the door of Chen Xilian's house.
Hearing that they were going to kill Chen Zhibin, Chen Xilian, who was only 12 years old, was not afraid, but instead got up from bed and volunteered: "I will lead the way!" ”
So under the leadership of Chen Xilian, a group of guerrillas successfully sneaked to the door of Chen Zhibin's house, and when Chen Xilian called the door open, everyone rushed up and cleanly killed Chen Zhibin. After the incident was accomplished, Li Xiannian and others also posted a notice at the door of Chen Zhibin's home, counting his piles of crimes one after another, not only to eliminate harm for the people, but also to boost the morale of the revolution and set an example for others.
Seeing that the great vengeance was easily repaid, little Chen Xilian seemed to see the dawn and hope. The seeds of revolution were planted in the hearts of this little teenager, waiting only for the spark to burn. A year later, Chen Xilian served as the head of the children's regiment in his hometown. During this period, he also secretly ran out of the landlord's house to join the army, but was refused because of his young age.
Just like that, another year passed, and another thing happened, which completely prompted Chen Xilian to leave his hometown and join the Red Army. It was an afternoon in the autumn of 1929, and 14-year-old Chen Xilian was cultivating the land for the landlord, when he suddenly had unbearable abdominal pain and fell directly to the ground in pain.
However, instead of pitying him, the landlord angrily scolded Chen Xilian for being lazy without saying a word, and slapping him with a whiplash and a severe blow to his face. In those days, the landlord was a heavy and difficult mountain to shake on the peasants, and such things often happened.
In the past few years of long-term work, Chen Xilian has also been often beaten, and his body has long been scarred. But this time, Chen Xilian, who could not bear it, finally decided to resist, and he rushed forward to knock the landlord to the ground, and then ran out to hide on the mountain in one breath.
Chen Xilian knew that he had run into trouble and could not stay any longer, so the idea of "joining the Red Army" rekindled in his heart, but he could not rest assured of his mother and younger brother, and could only nervously wait for news in the mountains. He thought that if the night had passed so plainly, he might still be able to go down the mountain and come home, live with his mother and brother, and live on.
However, fate did not let him go, and the landlord would not let him go, and that night, Chen Xilian's mother was severely beaten by the landlord who came to vent her anger just because she could not say the whereabouts of her son. The next day, after a cattle herding friend met Chen Xilian in the mountains, he quickly told him what happened to his mother last night.
Chen Xilian hated and angered when he learned of this, he knew that there was no way back behind him, only by throwing himself into the revolution could he avenge his mother, could he eradicate these rats that sucked the blood and sweat of the people, and could he fundamentally change his fate of being slaughtered by others!
So Chen Xilian asked his friend to bring a message to his mother, saying that he had joined the army, and then resolutely walked outside the village. This walk is more than ten years, at this time the teenager Chen Xilian still does not know, this walk fundamentally changed his life.
Second, fight in blood and make outstanding achievements
In 1929, at the age of 14, Chen Xilian joined the guerrilla group of Xu Haidong and Zhan Caifang, and joined the Red Army at the age of 15 and joined the Party. Although he was young when he joined the army, he was known as the "little steel cannon" because of his bravery in battle, and became famous in the army.
Chen Xilian (left)
Counting Chen Xilian's battlefield career, it is necessary to mention that the "night attack on Yangmingbao" was the battle, which was also Chen Xilian's first independent operation. In this battle, Chen Xilian, who was only 22 years old, led an infantry battalion and destroyed 24 Japanese aircraft in one fell swoop, dealing a heavy blow to the arrogance of the Japanese army.
In 1937, the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, Chen Xilian served as the commander of the 769th Regiment of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, in order to cooperate with the frontal battlefield of the Kuomintang army, he was ordered to go to the anti-Japanese front line in central Jin, and led his troops to insert into the rear of the Japanese army in Xinkou.
At that time, the Japanese army was resisted by Chinese soldiers because of the advance of ground troops and logistics supply transportation, so they chose to frequently dispatch aircraft to strengthen air bombardment while increasing transport forces.
When a large number of Japanese aircraft painted with sun symbols roared past the heads of local soldiers and civilians in a blind posture, not to mention the fear of the people and the anger of the soldiers.
Chen Xilian realized that the japanese fighter plane was too much of a threat against the Japanese military and civilians, which would not only cause direct danger, but also indirectly affect morale, and it was necessary to find a way to eliminate it and strike hard at the arrogance of the Japanese army. However, unlike the spoof section of the anti-Japanese drama in which "the vegetable bag is used as a grenade, and the rifle is fired at the plane", Chen Xilian launched the operation on the basis of rich experience and deployment.
First of all, by observing the height and time of the enemy plane's infestation, Chen Xilian judged that the Japanese airfield was nearby, and then found a local compatriot who was arrested by the Japanese army to do labor, and sure enough, he learned that there was an airport in Yangmingbao, 10 miles away.
Subsequently, Chen Xilian led the reconnaissance fighters to secretly sneak into the vicinity of the airport, and after figuring out the basic information such as the number of enemy fighters, the number of personnel, and the scale of defense, a night attack plan already had a general shape in his mind.
In the end, after careful planning, Chen Xilian and his troops unexpectedly attacked the Japanese airfield, destroying 24 Japanese aircraft one by one by tying up multiple grenades and throwing them into the cockpit, dealing a heavy blow to the Japanese army.
As soon as the good news came out, it immediately triggered a shock to the Chinese people at home and abroad, and the morale of countless Chinese sons and daughters was boosted. But at that time, when the Kuomintang officials first heard the news, they did not want to believe it at all, believing that with a group of infantry and a few broken guns of the Eighth Route Army, they could shoot down 24 well-equipped Japanese planes.
However, for several days in a row, Yangmingbao did not have any planes to take off, and taiyuan and other places that had been bombed had no more Japanese planes circling over the city, and they finally had to admit this fact and secretly wondered in their hearts. Afterwards, Wei Lihuang, deputy commander of the Kuomintang Second Theater, who had been under the pressure of Japanese artillery fire in the Xinkou area, even personally called Zhou Enlai to express his respect and gratitude.
Although both then and later generations relished and praised the battle, General Chen Xilian still reflected afterwards and believed that this battle was not fought perfectly. First, at that time, everyone had limited understanding of the aircraft, only that the efficiency of latte shovel cutting was too low; second, after the aircraft exploded, many soldiers were too late to run and died.
However, the battle of Yangmingbao was not only the first victory of the 129th Division in the War of Resistance, but also enabled Chen Xilian to accumulate mature experience in independent combat, and the guerrilla combat form of "sabotage warfare" also came into being, and also played an important role in future operations against the enemy.
After that, Chen Xilian successively participated in countless battles of all sizes, such as the anti-"Nine-Way Siege" and the Hundred Regiments War, and constantly learned and practiced from actual combat, laying a solid foundation for him to serve as the commander of the Third Column of the Central Plains Field Army (hereinafter referred to as the Nakano Third Column), which is known as the "Tiger Column".
During the Liberation War, Chen Xilian led the Nakano Sanzhong, under the direct leadership of Comrades Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, as the Left Route Army to directly insert into western Anhui, won the first victory at Zhangjiadian to completely annihilate the 88th Division of the Kuomintang Army, and rebuilt the base area in western Anhui, realizing the strategic intention of the superiors.
The ensuing Battle of Huaihai was not only a strategic decisive battle between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, but also a brilliant battle for Chen Xilian. In this battle, Chen Xilian was named by Liu Deng to capture Su County, and after 10 hours of fighting, Chen Xilian successfully completely annihilated 12,000 enemy defenders and captured the deputy commander Zhang Jiwu alive, leaving the Nationalist forces concentrated in Xuzhou in a situation of isolation and helplessness.
After beautifully winning this offensive battle with a finishing touch, Chen Xilian, under the instructions of Liu Deng, led the third column to annihilate the Huang Wei Corps, the ace unit of the Kuomintang army, by surprise.
In 1949, the Second Field Army (hereinafter referred to as Erye) established the Corps, and Chen Xilian, who was only 34 years old, was already the commander of the Erye 3rd Corps, the youngest of the 17 corps commanders of the whole army.
Chen Xilian (right)
3. Lead the construction of artillery
Chen Xilian's accumulated achievements made Chen Xilian known in the army as "the first in the number of battles" and "small steel cannons", and it was precisely because of this that Mao Zedong decided to let him take the helm of the artillery. In April 1950, Mao Zedong appointed Chen Xilian as the commander of the artillery of the Central Military Commission.
As the most powerful branch of the army, artillery has always been a major focus of the development of the strength of the armies of various countries, and Stalin once praised artillery as the "god of war". However, it was not until after the founding of the People's Republic of China that the embarrassment of the Chinese army, plagued by "insufficient firepower" due to the slow construction of artillery, was alleviated.
In November 1950, on the battlefield of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the volunteer army's reserve artillery had less than 4 divisions, and the scale of fire coverage and anti-air defense strength were seriously insufficient. Chen Xilian immediately made a request to the Central Military Commission to transfer a total of 8 infantry divisions from various military regions to rebuild new artillery units.
Although Chen Xilian's reaction had been so rapid, the battlefield could not wait for anyone, and the new artillery team would be put into actual combat one day later, and the volunteers on the front line would be constrained by firepower for one more day.
Fortunately, Chen Xilian continued to extend his strong style of being good at fighting hard, vicious, and dangerous battles to the expansion of the leading artillery contingent, adopted the "tense, surprise, and wartime training methods," and completed the task of refitting and training the new artillery unit in only two or three months.
First of all, Chen Xilian set up 8 training bases in 4 provinces, and then, while training cadres to master artillery tactics and techniques, organized soldiers to follow the technical backbones of the old artillery units to learn equipment and practice, and finally the two sides conducted joint training.
As soon as the newly expanded artillery units were trained, they would be immediately transported to the battlefield of the front line of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, playing an important role. By the end of 1953, the reserve artillery strength of the whole army was more than three times that of the beginning of 1950.
Of course, the expansion of the size of the artillery contingent is only one aspect of Chen Xilian's work; after all, artillery is different from the general branches of the army, and in addition to having soldiers, it is even more necessary to have equipment, otherwise only the soldiers will be allowed to ride mules and horses and carry old miscellaneous artillery, even if they have learned more advanced tactical techniques, when facing a well-equipped enemy, it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice.
At the end of 1951, he also served as the director of the Ordnance Department of the Central Military Commission, and under his overall planning, he ordered thousands of Soviet-style artillery and corresponding supporting equipment, and also repaired the old miscellaneous artillery that could be used, so that the artillery weapons and equipment had a qualitative leap from quantity to quality.
In addition to expanding the scale and equipping equipment, Chen Xilian also focused on strengthening the construction of various artillery academies. Because artillery is both a combat class and a technical class, the cultivation of talents is also very important.
With the care and support of the CPC Central Committee and the Central Military Commission and the planning of Chen Xilian, since 1951, five artillery schools for training command personnel, 3 technical schools for training practical skills, 8 preparatory schools for cultivating other qualities, 10 cultural accelerated middle schools, and 1 cadre short training base have also been completed.
With the continuous flow of a large number of regularized and modern artillery units into the battlefield, the gap between the enemy and ourselves in the equipment of the volunteer army has gradually narrowed. In ground combat, the artillery showed great power, supporting the infantry to consolidate the position on the one hand, and direct fire output to annihilate the enemy on the other hand. During the air scramble, the artillery did not fall behind, and the dense anti-aircraft artillery fire crushed the American attempt to blockade the volunteers in the air. It can be said that the addition of artillery has made leaps and bounds in the fire support of the volunteers.
Externally, the artillery led by Chen Xilian was able to wield power over the Korean battlefield. Internally, during the shelling of Kinmen, it was even more threatening to shake the Taiwan Strait. In the mid-1950s, with the support of the United States, the Kuomintang army has been clamoring for "counter-attack on the mainland" and constantly shelling the coastal areas of Fujian, with extreme arrogance.
On August 20, 1958, at the Beidaihe Conference on the deployment of punitive shelling against Taiwan, Mao Zedong asked Chen Xilian:
"After the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was fought, were there any shells left?"
After receiving Chen Xilian's affirmative reply, Mao Zedong instructed Chen Xilian to personally go to the front line and participate in the preparations for the shelling of Kinmen.
The shelling began on August 23, 1958, and continued until January 1959. During this period, the artillery destroyed a large number of enemy military defenses, completed the task of punitive shelling, and dealt a blow to the arrogance of the Kuomintang and the imperialism behind it.
Chen Xilian worked in the artillery of the Central Military Commission for a full 9 years, during which time he did not fail in his mission, and the artillery of our army has made remarkable improvements in many aspects, such as the scale of construction, the ability of actual combat, the quality of qualified personnel, and the degree of regularization and modernization, and has led the artillery to make outstanding contributions in the struggle against the enemy in resisting aggression and consolidating national defense.
Fourth, the martyrs are in their twilight years and their hearts are full of excitement
During the war years, Chen Xilian was the founding general who fought in bloody battles, and in the peace years, Chen Xilian was the commander of the military region of Shubian Anbang. In October 1959, Chen Xilian was transferred to the Shenyang Military Region as commander, and worked for 14 years, until the end of 1973, when he returned to the Beijing Military Region as commander.
As the "eldest son of the republic", the northeast is not only the main industrial base of our country, but also the barrier of the capital, and its strategic position is self-evident. In this position, Chen Xilian not only wants to maintain local stability, but also ensures the stability of border defense.
In 1969, when Chinese border patrols were attacked by Soviet troops on Zhenbao Island, Chen Xilian immediately deployed Zhenbao Island to fight back in self-defense and repelled it with artillery fire.
Of course, in addition to his outstanding achievements, Chen Xilian, like all the revolutionary martyrs of the older generation, also had a firm belief in communism and lofty ideological and moral cultivation.
In February 1995, when Wang Baosen, the former vice mayor of Beijing, embezzled hundreds of millions of yuan in embezzlement and embezzled hundreds of millions of yuan of public funds for economic crimes, Chen Xilian angrily whispered in a Hong'an accent: "Such a person should be killed." ”
On May 7 of the same year, NATO bombed China's embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese journalists were unfortunately martyred, and Chen Xilian, who was already eighty years old, shed tears of emotion when he watched the news broadcast, and said sadly: "This is power politics, and there is no reason to talk about it!" Such a little girl is dead, and the deception is too much..."
In addition to his excellent personal style, Chen Xilian also strictly requires his children to be hardworking and simple. In his lifetime, he had never opened his mouth to the organization about his four children, and before his three sons joined the army, he told them:
"Be an honest person, start from the grassroots level, believe in the organization, and obey the leadership."
When his second son, who was a pilot, was unfortunately killed while performing a flight mission when he was 32 years old, Chen Xilian instead put forward two points to the people sent by the organization to comfort him: First, he did not have to worry about the emotions of his family, he would do his work; second, although accidents in air force training were inevitable, this kind of thing could not be careless, and we should learn lessons in the future.
Throughout the life of General Chen Xilian, it was a life of revolution, a life of fighting, and a life of selfless dedication to the party and the people. He has joined the revolutionary ranks with great fervent hope since he was a teenager, and since then, whether he has galloped on the battlefield in the war years or built the country in peacetime, he has still remained unchanged in his inner ideals, and even when he is old, he still upholds the heart of a pure child, such a pure and great spirit of fighting for the revolution all his life is admirable.
Source:
1. The life of Comrade Chen Xilian Source: Hubei Party History Network Originally published in People's Daily, June 22, 1999
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/tbgz/cxl/sp/201412/t20141230_57550.shtml
2. Legendary General Chen Xilian Source: Hubei Party History Network Originally published in Decision-making and Information, No. 4, 2000
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/jcfb/jscq/201709/t20170926_127916_2.shtml
3. General Chen Xilian and the Construction of People's Artillery Source: Hubei Party History Network Originally published in Party History Tiandi, No. 4, 2009
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/jcfb/jscq/201606/t20160621_103440_4.shtml
4. Li Xiannian and Chen Xilian: Two premiers in one village, a monument to a thousand autumns Source: Hubei Party History Network
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/jcfb/jscq/201504/t20150413_64403.shtml
5. People's Heroes, Heroes and True Colors -- Deeply RememberIng Comrade Chen Xilian Source: Hubei Party History Network Originally published in People's Daily
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/tbgz/cxl/hywz/201501/t20150112_58370.shtml
6. "Not only can we fight wars, but we can also unite people in particular" -- RememberIng General Chen Xilian Source: Hubei Party History Network Originally published in Beijing Daily
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/tbgz/cxl/hywz/201501/t20150127_59563.shtml
7. Chen Xilian and his loving mother Source: Hubei Party History Network Excerpted from Shanxi Family Daily
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/tbgz/cxl/hywz/201501/t20150127_59564.shtml
8. Those Magical Tactics in the Battlefield Behind enemy Lines in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression Source: Hubei Party History Network Originally published in Guangming Daily
http://www.hbdsw.org.cn/tbgz/zggcd/dsgs/202103/t20210331_172804.shtml