On September 28, 1994, an ordinary courtyard in Beijing's ordinary alley was unusually lively, with laughter in the courtyard, children playing and the elderly laughing.
The laughter seemed to infect the pigeons of the neighboring house, and a group of gray raindrops flew over the courtyard, leaving only a clear string of laughter.
On this day, it is the 80th birthday of the owner of this courtyard, General Hu Qicai, the former deputy commander of the engineering corps.
Hu Qicai
His children are back, and the children' children, his grandchildren, this is the miracle of the years, from one person plus another, to the big man who derives it.
Seeing that his eldest son had just passed his fifty-fourth birthday and that the youngest child had reached the age of confusion, General Hu Qicai fell into contemplation, and his face appeared in a solemnity that was not in harmony with the joyful atmosphere in front of him.
How did you get through this life? 80 years have passed, and he has gone through 80 years of ups and downs, perhaps because after too many tribulations, the general is particularly satisfied with the scene of the children in front of him, and the three generations are happy and harmonious.
His gaze swept over his six sons and one daughter, and finally fixed on his wife Wang Zhiyuan, and the general smiled and began to recall what happened in Shandong fifty-five years ago, when he fought a beautiful battle called love.
General Hu Qicai was both a victor and a prisoner of this love, and this dual identity benefited him infinitely throughout his life.
In 1986, General Chi Haotian, then the political commissar of the Jinan Military Region, re-entered Yimeng and heard an old man tell the story of the battle that year, and the old man said that he was happy, and he also shook the dry cigarette bag and sang: "Hu Qicai, really brave, commanded the eight roads to fight Yeyuan, killed the devils thirty-three, captured a translator alive, oh yo, oh yo, oh yo, oh yo." ”
General Chi Haotian was very pleased, and his excitement was indescribable, so he personally recorded this anti-Japanese song and gave the book to the old man Hu Qicai.
Like the legend that Hu Qicai is really brave, after many years, it is still lingering in the old yimeng district, and Hu Qicai also sings the songs of his hometown Huang'an in his heart.
When the gong rings, 480,000 men fight, women deliver food.
Let us savor this song and ballad, the gong sounded, 480,000, 400 to 480,000, Huang'an was even renamed Hong'an, the people who emerged on this road, I am afraid that no one has considered whether this is a general's road or a road of no return.
Hu Qicai was among these 480,000 people.
One day in August 1930, when Hu Qicai was still a Young Pioneer, he was holding a red gun and standing guard at the top of the dushanzhai mountain in his hometown, and the captain of the brigade suddenly called everyone to a meeting and said: "Whoever is in charge of the Red Army, sign up!" ”
Hu Qicai immediately jumped up and shouted, "I'll report one." ”
At that time, there were three conditions for signing up for the Red Army: first, peasants, second, thick cocoons on their hands, and third, being able to endure hardships and run.
After registering his name, when Hu Qicai went down the mountain, he just bumped into his father, and his father asked him where to go, and Hu Qicai said vaguely: "Go elsewhere." ”
Puzzled, the father asked him, "Where the hell are you going?" Hu Qicai couldn't see it, so he had to tell the truth.
His father dragged him back to the family's temporary residence and explained to him the difficulties of the family, but Hu Qicai made up his mind to become a Red Army, saying: "As long as the family members do not die of hunger," After saying this, Hu Qicai walked barefoot and left.
This walk, out of the original, through the northwest, north China, east China, northeast China, across the Yalu River, through tens of thousands of miles of clouds and moon, out of the nine deaths of a lifetime.
Shortly after joining the Red Army, Hu Qicai was incorporated into the Red Fourth Army, which passed through the snowy mountains and meadows three times during the Long March, and after reaching northern Shaanxi, Hu Qicai was already wounded five times.
Wounded for the fourth time, the enemy's bullets penetrated Hu Qicai's left knee, he was almost unable to move, he was about to cross the QinLing Mountains, Hu Qicai's heart was heavy, he could endure hardships and run, and for a commander of the Red Army Camp, it was more important than anything.
The regimental political commissar found Hu Qicai: "The ridge to be crossed tomorrow is very large, and your injuries..."
Hu Qicai was anxious as soon as he heard it: "Political Commissar, my injuries are not serious, I can go!" ”
The political commissar looked at Hu Qicai silently for a while before he said: "I will leave you a few pieces of ocean, first arrange for you to recuperate in the homes of ordinary people, and when your injuries are healed, then go to catch up with the troops. ”
Hu Qicai looked at the political commissar and said firmly: "If you have to let me stay, please ask the political commissar to make up a shot for me, the Red Army is my home, I will not go anywhere!" ”
In 1938, after experiencing the Long March and further studying in the Kang Da, Hu Qicai was ordered to be transferred to the Shandong Column of the Eighth Route Army, and in 1939, he was appointed as the political commissar of the fourth detachment of the Shandong Column.
In September, after taking office, Hu Qicai found that there was only one battalion of decent troops under his command, and he began to carry out the work of unit integration, on this day, he came to the four major teams in Xintai, and the captain guided the political commissar of the detachment to inspect his team.
Suddenly, Hu Qicai was slightly frightened, and there was a petite and cute girl in the ranks of the Shandong Han.
Hu Qicai, a 25-year-old old Red Army, fell in love with this girl at first sight at this moment.
Therefore, Hu Qi quickly made a "strategic deployment" and sent scouts to a "short assault".
Hu Qicai launched a comprehensive and rapid love offensive, and after the four brigades were integrated into the four detachments, the smaller girl was organized into the propaganda team, and it was then that Hu Qicai learned that her name was Wang Zhiyuan.
Wang Zhiyuan
As soon as he saw Wang Zhiyuan, Hu Qicai's heart could not be calmed, and for the first time in 25 years, he knew the taste of love.
He first asked Huai Yadong, the chief of the security section, to express his intentions to Wang Zhiyuan, and at the same time, the clever guards also saw the chief's thoughts and took the initiative to find Wang Zhiyuan for the political commissar to do ideological work.
However, after "spying on military intelligence" several times, he had not yet detected the meaning of the other party, and Hu Qi could not sit still.
Although Wang Zhiyuan is not tall, under the background of the Shandong Han, she looks more and more petite and cute, and her eyes are big and bright, so that Hu Qicai's heart flutters and jumps as soon as he looks at her.
Wang Zhiyuan is a native of Ye County, Shandong Province, born in 1921, although the family is not rich enough, but also can be regarded as a poor family of Zhishu Dali, at the age of 7, the Wang family's parents sent their daughter to a private school, at the age of 8, officially went to primary school, after graduating from college, to Qingdao's first cotton printing and dyeing factory to work.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Wang Zhiyuan and his brother Wang Chuanwen joined the Eighth Route Army, joined the army for less than half a year, Wang Zhiyuan joined the party, and was selected to study at the Column Party School.
Two months later, the purge of the Japanese devils began, and Wang Zhiyuan and seven or eight classmates were scattered together to the four brigades in Xintai.
After learning about Wang Zhiyuan's personal situation, Hu Qicai's love for her became deeper and deeper, so he decided to end the reconnaissance and attack head-on.
Hu Qicai, 25 years old, with seven years of military experience, fought such a "love war" for the first time, he had some drums in his heart, but he still bravely confessed his heart to the girl.
Hu Qicai thought that they should have a fate, his hometown was in Hubei, after three crossing the meadow, five times wounded, should have gone to the New Fourth Army but was sent to the Shandong column, as if in addition to the revolution is to meet this girl to meet and meet.
It is impossible to have such a marriage opportunity one step earlier or later, it should be that the old man under the moon has already pulled this red line.
The 25-year-old Hu Qicai gave birth to a square face, thick eyebrows and starry eyes, looking very spiritual, a stop before, tiger and tiger, and moreover, he was in an important position at a young age, and his future prospects were unlimited.
But Wang Zhiyuan's confession to Hu Qicai is not happy, and her concerns are two points: Hu Qicai is older, although Hu Qicai was only 25 years old at that time, but Wang Zhiyuan was only 18 years old, seven years older than her, and second, Hu Qicai spoke Hubei dialect, she sounded a little difficult, afraid of affecting future emotional communication and exchanges.
After hesitating for a long time, Wang Zhiyuan still decided to try it out with this Hubei Man first.
The power of love is irresistible, and after getting along with Hu Qicai for a long time, Wang Zhiyuan felt that his Hubei dialect sounded different, and gradually, in Wang Zhiyuan's view, the 25-year-old boy has become synonymous with maturity and security in her mind.
When two faithful, pure hearts meet, any distance between space and time, any concern and trouble, is eclipsed, and the acquisition of love is as natural as a ripe melon, as clean as water plucked from a clear spring, as seamless as the fusion of water and milk.
Their marriage application was handed over, and the secretary of the Shandong branch gave instructions after reading it: "Agree to the marriage of Comrade Hu Qicai and Comrade Wang Zhiyuan." ”
Hu Qicai and Wang Zhiyuan
On November 11, 1939, the eve of the battle, at about 10 o'clock in the evening, the lights of the four detachments of the Shandong Column were still on, and after studying the operational deployment, everyone was still tired.
The people cheered and unanimously agreed that Hu Qicai's wedding would be held tonight, and everyone first went to find the bride with a shy face, the headquarters management section prepared a simple meal for them, and the leading comrades of the column and the Yimeng District rushed to congratulate them.
The wedding was finally over after a while, and when the crowd dispersed, a couple of new people were left in the new house, and then they found that there was no bedding in the new room, so the two decided not to alarm the comrades who had gone out early in the morning.
They spread the grass on the people's kang, took a sack as a quilt, and spent the wedding night simply and sweetly.
The next morning, Hu Qicai led the troops on a expedition, and the two did not spend their honeymoon, leaving the bride Wang Zhiyuan with endless thoughts and worries.
The revolutionary companions of the war years were like this, but "if the two loves are long, are they in the twilight of the dynasty?" Hu Qicai and Wang Zhiyuan both felt that although they were separated, the heart that loved each other had never changed.
In September 1940, Hu Qicai was appointed commander of the first detachment of the Shandong Column and commander of the Second Division, and before Hu Qicai was ordered to report to the Duozhuang Mountain Column Headquarters in Mengyin County, 50 kilometers away, Wang Zhiyuan gave birth to their first child, named Hu Luke.
Hu Qicai had to take this pair of weaker and more valuable mother and son with them to the mountain.
The mother in the moon marched behind enemy lines with a nine-day-old baby, and the difficulty of which could be imagined, Hu Qicai was fierce, holding his weak wife on the horse's back, and carefully holding her on the horse.
The two men's children, Huluk, only 9 days old, were placed in baskets and carried by the soldiers in turn, and the uncles of the Red Army trembled and trembled, and the baskets were shaky, but they became a good cradle.
This innocent and immature child brought a lot of joy to the soldiers who were marching hard, but sometimes there were accidents, and once when passing through the enemy's blockade line at night, little Luke cried twice, and the adults squeezed a handful of sweat in their palms, fortunately the enemy did not hear.
Once again, the troops led by Hu Qicai encountered the enemy halfway through, and after the battle began, they had to hide Wang Zhiyuan and the child in the grass stacks of the masses, and the next day they sent fighters to bring their mother and son back.
When the march reached The Battlehouse in Mengyin County, Hu Qicai had just reported to the Mountain Column Headquarters when he encountered the enemy's frenzied sweep, when he had only one company of troops around him, and it was impossible to fight with the enemy, in order to take good care of his wife and children, he had to persuade his wife to temporarily separate, let her escape with the masses, and finally saved the safety of mother and son.
In August of the following year, the troops were reorganized again, and in September, Hu Qicai was transferred to a brigade as deputy brigade commander, still fighting in Yimeng.
In the winter of that year, the Japanese and puppet troops carried out a two-month-long sweep of the Yimeng mountain base area with a force of 50,000 people.
This sweeping operation by the Japanese Kou caused Comrade Zhu Rui, the secretary of the Shandong Bureau, who had changed Hu Qicai's name, to lose his wife and children forever.
Zhu Rui's wife was named Chen Ruoke, a mild-mannered young intellectual, after the fall of Dagu Mountain, when she broke through and retreated, she lost contact with the troops, unfortunately fell into the hands of the enemy, from the day of arrest, Chen Ruoke began to hunger strike, shortly after imprisonment, she gave birth to a thin baby.
Before being killed by the enemy, Chen Ruoke hugged the child she had just given birth to, and she was stabbed to death by the enemy with a bayonet, and she was only 22 years old at the time.
Hu Qi knew that if the wife and children of the revolutionary comrades fell into the hands of the enemy during the battle, they would never survive, and when he found out that the enemy had swept away, he resolutely decided to leave the children under the age of one in Yiwenzhuang in Yinan County, ask a fellow villager to feed them on his behalf, and let his wife break through with the troops.
Because the newly born child of the woman in Iwenzhuang died tragically, when little Luke was delivered to her, her heart was very complicated, watching this young child shed tears, and later, the Japanese army rushed into her shack, and the mother picked up Luke and hugged her tightly in her arms.
The enemy asked, "Say, is it the child of the Eighth Way?" ”
The woman replied firmly, "My own!" ”
The enemy looked at her suspiciously, then at the child, and then with a vicious smile provoked the swaddle with a bayonet, dragging from one end of the kang to the other, the woman could not bear it any longer, pounced on and protected the child with her body, and the enemy withstood the shack with confidence.
The mother of YimengShan guarded a child who was not related to her with selfless love, but, sadly, her husband was killed.
After the sweep, the woman ran away for some reason, there was no news, after the founding of the country, Wang Zhiyuan and his wife have been looking for her whereabouts, but there is no news, she and Wang Zhiyuan and his wife have never seen each other again.
In September 1942, Hu Qicai was transferred to the Party School of the Shandong Branch to participate in the rectification study, and it was not until March 1943, when the spring returned to the earth and everything recovered, that he returned to the coastal area.
During his studies, Hu Qicai received a telegram from his comrades-in-arms: Wang Zhiyuan gave birth to a second child, named Lu Sheng.
Like his brother Huluk, Lu Sheng also experienced the test of war in his infancy.
On the sixth day of Lu Sheng's birth, the enemy carried out a "dragnet encirclement" of the Luzhong organs and troop garrisons, and Wang Zhiyuan, under the cover of Zhang Hengqian, the leader of the militia in the western wall of Yinan, hid in Tibet and saved his life.
Lu Sheng was carried to a woman's house in the mountains, while Wang Zhiyuan and another female comrade were taken to hide in a higher hidden cave by the militia captain.
This hole is on the side of the road, in the evening Rikou passed through here, the horse's hooves stepped on the stones at the mouth of the cave, and at night they encountered the ghost brigade resting here, and Wang Zhiyuan in the cave held a grenade and trembled all night, she thought, if the enemy found herself, then she would die with them.
The next day, the enemy found the medicine cotton in the militia captain's home, beat the old mother of the family to death, and forced her to say the whereabouts of the Eighth Route Army.
In May 1944, Wang Zhiyuan gave birth to the third Elder Lu Wen in a small village opposite Yiwenzhuang, which was their last child named "Lu" and the first time Wang Zhiyuan sat in confinement safely and steadily after marriage.
On August 15, 1945, the Chinese people, especially the residents of the anti-Japanese base areas, who had fought bloody for eight years, finally won the final victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Yimeng Mountain was full of gongs and drums and firecrackers firing in unison, and Hu Qicai and Wang Zhiyuan also took the three sons scattered in the hometown to feed them, and bathed in the joy brought by the victory.
On the land of China, which has just won victory, the clouds of civil war are shrouded.
Two months later, Hu Qicai received the order to accompany Commander Luo Ronghuan and political commissar across the sea to the northeast battlefield, and from the moment he received the order to go to the northeast, Hu Qicai was ready to leave, first explaining the work, and then gathering the whole family.
Wang Zhiyuan was serving as a pharmacist at the Medical Department of the Luzhong Military Region at that time, the eldest and the third child were in the home of Mother Sun in Yiwenzhuang, and the second son, Lu Sheng, was in the home of Mother Liu in Cui Jiazhuang.
Although Mother Liu and Mother Sun are not the biological mothers of the three children, but they raised their children from childhood to adulthood, the feelings are already quite deep, as soon as they heard that Hu Qicai and his wife were going to the northeast, the two adoptive mothers silently shed tears when they sent them off, which caused Hu Qicai, a tough man, to also leave tears.
But Hu Qicai did not intend to take the children with him, he sent the children to the father-in-law's house in Zhuyou Village, Ye County, and Wang Zhiyuan never returned home or wrote a letter to his family after he left home after joining the army in 1938.
After many years, after the two old people saw their daughter who had been away from home for many years, they were even more in tears, seeing the strange aunt and three grandchildren, they were shocked at first, followed by joy, and the old two were busy cooking and cooking to entertain the daughter's family.
When they heard that their daughter and son-in-law were going to the northeast and wanted to leave the children in their care, the two old men readily agreed, and rummaged through boxes and cabinets to find warm clothes for Luke.
Due to the urgency of the task, Hu Qicai stayed at his father-in-law's house for only two days before leaving.
After six years of marriage, marrying the daughter of a flower-like jade, the first time he came to the door, he did not bring anything, and he left his children to take care of them, Hu Qicai was not comfortable in his heart, but he also had no way.
In early November, hu Qicai and Wang Zhiyuan both changed into the clothes of ordinary people, and before getting on the ship, the troops educated the cadres: they followed the customs of the countryside, and they could not stand on the boat with their backs to the boat, and they could not say a word.
In this way, the fighting career of Hu Qicai and his wife in the northeast battlefield began.
On November 8, 1945, Hu Qicai came to Andong by car and reported to the Headquarters of the East Manchurian People's Autonomous Region, and the person who received the report was Comrade Xiao Hua, commander and political commissar, and Comrade Xiao Hua appointed Hu Qicai as the commander of the third column on behalf of the organization.
The next day, Hu Qicai left for Dagushan, where the Third Column was stationed, and began his fighting career in the new battlefield in the northeast.
In December, Wang Zhiyuan was about to give birth to his fourth child, perhaps because of the transitional sea and land travel from Shandong to the northeast, causing signs of premature birth, and the logistics department of the column arranged for Wang Zhiyuan to give birth to a former Japanese army hospital that xinkailing had just received.
On December 11, this less than month child finally came to the human world safely, Wang Zhiyuan named him Dongkai, which means the meaning of the northeast song, because it was the war years, the environment was very complicated, the hospital could not stay much longer, the fourth day of giving birth to the child, Wang Zhiyuan returned by train with the help of guards.
They sat in an open-top carriage, and Wang Zhiyuan hugged the child tightly, leaning on a small stove for warmth, and rushed back in the wind and snow in The Liaodong land in December.
But when they were about to reach their destination, an accident occurred, the train derailed, they were almost injured, the train stopped halfway, could not start for a long time, in order not to let the child get cold, can only find a fellow home to avoid the wind and cold.
The guard held Dong Kai for 4 days, Wang Zhiyuan led the 5-year-old Luke, knocked on the door of a family, the person who opened the door was an old lady, once he saw that Wang Zhiyuan was weak, and then looked at the child in the guard's arms, he said apologetically: "Girl, it is not that I can't pity you, it is unlucky to enter the door of someone else's house in the month," After saying that, the door was slammed shut.
Wang Zhiyuan had no choice but to shout outside the door: "Big Lady, we are the Eighth Route Army!" After saying a series of good words, the old lady finally let them in the door and brought out a hot meal, and two hours later, the train started, and they thanked their fellow villagers and embarked on a journey back to the Great Lonely Mountain.
Wang Zhiyuan gave birth to three children, and the confinement of the three times was not peaceful, however, she never complained to Hu Qicai.
After the passion of first love, in the long-lasting marriage, love turned into worry, into support, into responsibility, and it is precisely with such a solid rear that Hu Qicai can show his genius on the battlefield of liberating the three eastern provinces.
In the autumn and winter of 1946, when the Kuomintang army in the northeast tore up the armistice agreement for the second time and launched a large-scale attack on southern Manchuria, Hu Qicai participated in the Xinkailing Campaign organized and commanded, and the twenty-fifth division of the 52nd Army, the elite unit of Chiang Kai-shek's sister-in-law, known as the "Thousand Mile Colt", was the first to annihilate an entire division of the enemy on the northeast battlefield.
Hu Qicai (right)
During the Liberation War, Hu Qicai successively served as the commander of the third and fourth columns of the Northeast Democratic United Army, and the first deputy commander of the Forty-first Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
On October 1, 1948, Hu Qicai participated in the National Day ceremony as an alternate representative of the First National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
In 1950, Hu Qicai went to serve as the commander of the Liaodong Army, and on October 17 of the same year, our volunteer army crossed the Yalu River, and Hu Qicai sent away a batch of comrades-in-arms across the river, and he could no longer sit still.
In May 1952, the Northeast Military Region approved his request to enter the DPRK to participate in the war, who knew that as soon as he left, Wang Zhiyuan needed surgery for difficult childbirth, and the doctor asked his relatives to sign it, or deputy commander Zhao Chengjin signed it.
Wang Zhiyuan gave birth to 5 children in the war, and the delivery was relatively smooth, but this one was different, more naughty and willful, it was a daughter, and the couple named the child Hu Lili.
After returning from Korea, Hu Qicai entered the senior department of the Nanjing Military Academy, and in Nanjing, Wang Zhiyuan gave birth to his last child, Dongning.
Works by Hu Qicai
In October 1954, Hu Qicai won a difficult battle, successfully graduated from the senior department of the Nanjing Military Academy, and was assigned to the engineering corps as deputy commander and chief of staff.
Hu Qicai once again learned from scratch and picked up difficult professional books, and in the following 30 years, his footprints traveled all over the north and south of the great river, from the coast of the East China Sea to the northwest plateau, where is the most arduous place, where there are engineering troops, where there are footprints of deputy commanders.
On April 4, 1985, Hu Qicai was ordered to leave as the main post of the Grand Military Region, and he did not stop after dropping out of school, and he and his wife practiced calligraphy together.
In addition, Hu Qicai also wrote a memoir in which he repeatedly expressed his gratitude to his wife:
"My good companion, good helper Comrade Wang Zhiyuan, walked with me all her life, worked hard and complained, shared hardships and hardships, as a wife and mother, she made special contributions, paid sacrifices, she is my good wife, a good mother of my children, a good comrade on my revolutionary road, I sincerely thank her!"
In 1997, Hu Qicai died at the age of 83.
In 2013, Wang Zhiyuan died at the age of 92.