In 1953, Mao Zedong took a group photo with Chen Yi, Yang Shangkun, Zhang Aiping, Luo Ruiqing and others when they inspected Nanjing
As a professional soldier and a staunch revolutionary, Zhang Aiping is not only a hot-blooded boy who is extremely idealistic and dares to be bold, but also a temperamental person who is untamed and good at poetry. It is precisely because of his fierce personality and sharp and self-determined personality that from his youth, he was regarded as "an alternative in the Communist Party". Mao Zedong said of him: "Good crime! Ye Jianying said to him, "Full of thorns!" Deng Xiaoping said: "There are a few people in the army who can't afford to provoke, you Zhang Aiping, that's one!" And his own motto is: "Do not shame yourself from fame and fortune, but distinguish between true and false shame and slavery!" ”
Mao Zedong, Ye Jianying, and Deng Xiaoping's evaluation of Zhang Aiping, which seems to be critical, actually reveals a philosophical affirmation of the abnormal performance that is different from the environment in the abnormal environment that is accustomed to it.
After the Lushan Conference in 1959, some of the senior members who came to Lushan on the same plane as Peng Dehuai avoided the plague and did not want to board the plane that Peng Dehuai returned to Beijing under various pretexts, only Zhang Aiping had no scruples and calmly accompanied Peng Dehuai to return to Beijing. On the plane, he greeted Peng Dehuai as usual, giving some warmth to Mr. Peng, who was lonely and miserable because of his wrongdoing.
Zhang Aiping once said: "Peng Dehuai taught me to be a man, and Zhou Enlai taught me to do things." Afterwards, someone asked Zhang Aiping: Aren't you afraid of this and that? Zhang Aiping replied frankly: "Peng Dehuai is still our comrade, and doesn't the resolution of the Eighth Plenary Session also call him a comrade?" When Marshal Chen Yi heard about this, he exclaimed, "General Ai Ping has the wind of Yi De (Zhang Fei)!" ”
For decades, in the life of the party and the political life of the country, Zhang Aiping's attitude is very clear: "I do not follow anyone, I only follow the truth!" "No one can make me bow my head without truth!"
In the 1960s, Zhang Aiping accompanied Mao Zedong to receive PLA commanders and fighters
Zhang Aiping said that he had "four fearlessness" in his life: not afraid of the Mandate of Heaven, not afraid of adults, not afraid of the words of saints, not afraid of power. The sinister situation can best test people's spiritual hardness. In March 1975, after Ye Jianying's repeated mobilization, Zhang Aiping put on her battle robes and returned to the science and technology commission system to focus on rectifying the 230 factory.
In March 1977, Zhang Aiping made a comeback again, successively serving as director of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission and deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army. In May 1980, he successfully organized and directed the launch of China's first intercontinental missile, and in September of the same year he became vice premier of the State Council. In November 1982, he was appointed State Councilor and Minister of National Defense, and made significant contributions to national defense construction and the revolutionization, modernization, and regularization of our army, especially the construction of national defense science and technology and weapons and equipment. In November 1987, Zhang Aiping was appointed as a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Advisory Committee and retired to the second line.
——Excerpted from Essence of Literature and History, Issue 04, 2013