Shu Jian Chinese Director and Professor of the Department of Military Thought and Military History at the National Security College of the National Defense University of the People's Liberation Army
The historical glory of the people's army is forged by blood and life and is always worth remembering; the historical development of the people's army is driven by loyalty and responsibility, and will always inspire us to move forward. On the occasion of the 93rd anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, I recommend five books introducing the glorious history of the people's army to the vast number of readers.
The first is Xu Yan's The Great Wall of Blood: A History of the People's Liberation Army Written for Young People. The book is vividly narrated, illustrated and textual, objectively, rationally and multi-perspective to tell the history of the Chinese People's Liberation Army for more than 90 years, and at the same time includes wonderful war paintings by many well-known contemporary painters. The "original intention" of the CPC and the people's army under the leadership of the CPC is to make the country rich and strong and to enable the people to get rid of poverty and live a happy life. In the spirit of letting the younger generation understand the "original intention" of the older generation, the author not only wrote a thrilling military history and war history, but also wrote a spirit.
The second is Jin Chonghe's Decisive Battle: How Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek Viewed the Three Great Battles. The three major battles of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin were strategic decisive battles between the Kuomintang and the Communists during the Liberation War, so why were the Kuomintang troops so vulnerable and even defeated? The book analyzes the reasons for the success or failure of the three major battles from a strategic perspective, which is extremely rare in similar research works. From many historical materials, the author has stripped away the cocoon and advanced layer by layer, analyzing one by one how Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek coped with the three major strategic decisive battles, what was their leadership ability, and what were the consequences? I believe that after reading the book, the reader will have the answer.
The third is the "Korean War" by military writer Wang Shuzeng. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Chinese Volunteer Army's entry into the Korean War. In the war that broke out on the Korean Peninsula, the Chinese Volunteer Army fought with their lives against the strong enemy in a life-and-death battle. The book not only vividly describes the war, but also profoundly explains the national spirit in the war and shows the strength of the human spirit. As a documentary literature, the book has won the first Chinese People's Liberation Army Literary and Art Award, the second Lu Xun Literature Award, and the Ninth Chinese People's Liberation Army Literary and Art Award.
The fourth part is the "Long March of Pictures" (series of books) edited by Qu Qingshan. The book was carefully compiled by the former Central Party History Research Office, the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, the 15 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) through which the Red Army's Long March passed, and the Party History Department of Shanxi Province over many years, and was divided into six volumes: "Overture Volume", "Red Army Volume", "Red Second Army Volume", "Red Fourth Army Volume", "Red Twenty-fifth Army Volume", and "Conference Division Volume", combining historical narratives and scene displays in the form of pictures and texts, and intuitively displaying the great epic poem of the Red Army's Long March in a panoramic and intuitive manner. Reading this book is both a spiritual baptism and a spiritual revelation.
The fifth part is the "Documentary of China's Revolutionary War" (series of books) edited by Hou Shudong and others. In order to comprehensively depict the history of China's revolutionary war, a number of military historians inside and outside the military have spent 12 years in the cold and summer, and have displayed in detail the magnificent epic of China's revolutionary war with a rigorous academic style and vivid and lively documentary writing with long-term teaching and scientific research efforts and a large number of historical materials. This series of books is divided into records of the agrarian revolutionary war, the war of resistance against Japan, and the war of liberation, which has a certain enlightening effect on readers' understanding of the history of China's revolutionary war and the fine traditions of the people's army, grasping today, facing the future, and plunging into the great cause of the new era with a high-spirited and uplifting spiritual outlook.
(This article was published in China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Magazine, No. 15, 2020)