On August 22, 1937, according to the second cooperation agreement between the two parties after the Xi'an Incident, the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government announced that the main force of the Red Army would be reorganized into the "Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army". On the 25th, the Central Committee of our Party issued an order to reorganize the First, Second, and Fourth Fronts of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the Northwest Red Army into the "Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army", referred to as the Eighth Route Army.
After the establishment of the Eighth Route Army, Ye Jianying was originally scheduled to serve as chief of staff and Zuo Quan as deputy chief of staff, but At this time, Ye Shuai was serving as a representative of our party's office in Nanjing, responsible for coordinating the relations between our party and the Kuomintang, and assisting Premier Zhou in rescuing comrades who were secretly imprisoned by the Kuomintang.
With this in mind, the Central Military Commission decided to let Deputy Chief of Staff Zuo Quan temporarily conduct the work of chief of staff and set up a forward general headquarters, with Zuo Quan as the former chief of staff, responsible for the military command of the Eighth Route Army and assisting Zhu and Peng in their work.
In May 1942, the Japanese army dispatched a large army to launch a large-scale attack on the Taihang Mountain base area, raiding the forward headquarters of our army. In order to buy time for the former commander to transfer, Zuo Quan, who was the chief of staff, took the initiative to ask to lead the team to cut off the rear. On the 25th, Zuo Quan was unfortunately hit in the head by a Japanese shell during the battle of the Cross Ridge breakout in Liao County (now Zuo Quan County) in Shanxi, and died heroically.
After Zuo Quan's death, the position of chief of staff of the Forward General Command was vacant.
Even though Zhu and Peng are still in grieving over the sacrifice of General Zuo Quan, the military affairs are busy, and the deputy chief of staff of the headquarters and the chief of staff of the forward general headquarters are the most important posts in the army.
General Zuo Quan, a famous anti-Japanese general
At this time, after careful consideration, General Manager Peng submitted a list of candidates for chief of staff to the Party Central Committee. In this list, Mr. Peng recommended three candidates to the Central Military Commission, namely Lin Biao, Ye Jianying and Teng Daiyuan.
The post of chief of staff of the General Headquarters of the Forward is the most important post of our army, which has a bearing on the future life and death of our army. On the contrary, if our army is not selected well, it may suffer setbacks due to discord in the next war.
Therefore, such an important position is not something that can be held by a random person. First of all, he must have a keen sense of battlefield smell and be able to judge the truth and falsity of intelligence on the battlefield, so as to provide accurate and feasible suggestions to the superiors; second, he must have enough courage and courage to bravely point out and correct the wrong decisions made by the superiors; and finally, he must have enough prestige, and only when the soldiers obey him, he can manage the troops well.
At this time, the three candidates recommended by General Peng all met these three conditions; Lin Biao, Ye Jianying, and Teng Daiyuan were all the most suitable candidates for my position as the chief of staff of the former finger at that time; Lin Biao was a famous general who broke the myth that the Japanese army was invincible"; Ye Jianying was a veteran general who had become famous in the Northern Expedition; and Teng Daiyuan was one of the early founders of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and all three of them were qualified and capable of leading the Eighth Route Army.
After some deliberation, the Central Military Commission finally decided to make Teng Daiyuan deputy chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army and chief of staff of the Forward General Headquarters.
Teng Daiyuan
Why did the Central Military Commission choose Teng Daiyuan?
First of all, the most direct reason was that at that time, only Teng Daiyuan was able to assume the responsibilities of the former chief of staff in the shortest possible time.
At that time, Lin Biao was sent to Chongqing by our party to join Premier Zhou in charge of the negotiations between our party and Chiang Kai-shek to continue to cooperate in the anti-Japanese resistance, and this talk was more than a year, and it was obvious that Lin Biao could not withdraw from serving as the chief of staff of the former command; Ye Jianying was already in several positions at that time, not only the chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army (the Eighteenth Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army), but also the chief of staff of the Central Military Commission, a member of the Central Education Commission, and the vice president of the Military Academy. Obviously, it is no longer possible to take into account the busy post of former Chief of Staff. As a result, the Central Military Commission finally decided that Teng Daiyuan would serve as the chief of staff of the former command.
Secondly, there is another important reason for choosing Teng Daiyuan as the chief of staff of the former finger, that is, Teng Daiyuan and Mr. Peng have long experience in cooperation, and without too much running-in, the two can quickly and tacitly participate in the command work. In 1928, Teng Daiyuan and Mr. Peng once launched the Pingjiang Uprising in Pingjiang, Hunan Province, when Mr. Peng was the commander of the Fifth Red Army and Teng Daiyuan was the party representative.
Moreover, Teng Daiyuan's qualifications, abilities and prestige were enough to serve as the chief of staff of the former command, and he could also lead the Eighth Route Army well.
The name Teng Daiyuan may not be familiar to people today, but he was the early founder of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the founder of the new Chinese railway industry. As far as New China is concerned, his merits are not inferior to that of any of the meritorious founders of New China.
Pingjiang Uprising Uprising Song
Teng Daiyuan, born in 1904 in Hunan to an ordinary Miao peasant family, is a rare ethnic minority general in our party. In 1923, Teng Daiyuan entered the Hunan Provincial Second Normal School in Changde for further study, and during his time in school, he organized the Mayang Xinmin Society with some progressive classmates and founded the more well-known school magazine "Jinjiang Chao" at that time. The following year, Teng Daiyuan joined the Communist Youth League of China. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1925 and was one of the earliest members of our Party.
Since joining our party, Teng Daiyuan has been active in the front line of the revolutionary struggle, preaching communist ideas, carrying out peasant movements, and organizing peasant armed forces in the Hunan area. On July 22, 1928, Teng Daiyuan, Peng Dehuai, Huang Gongluo, and others launched and led the Pingjiang Uprising in Pingjiang County, Hunan Province, established the Fifth Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and opened up the Xiang'egan Revolutionary Base Area. In mid-December of the same year, Teng Daiyuan and Mr. Peng led the main force of the Fifth Red Army to Jinggangshan, joined the Red Fourth Army, and then merged with them to form the Thirty-third Regiment of the Red Fourth Army, at which time Teng Daiyuan served as the deputy party representative of the Red Fourth Army and the representative of the regiment party.
The Pingjiang Uprising was able to win, and Teng Dai was far from indispensable. Afterwards, General Manager Peng once said that without Teng Daiyuan, there would have been no subsequent Red Fifth Army and the Xiang'egan Revolutionary Base Area, and teng Daiyuan played an important role in the formulation and deployment of plans for disarming the reactionary forces and plotting against middle- and lower-ranking officers at that time.
In 1930, the Red Third Army was established, and Teng Daiyuan served as political commissar. In August of the same year, the Red First Army and the Red Third Army met in Liuyang County and merged into the Red First Army, with Teng Daiyuan as deputy general political commissar and political commissar of the Third Army, while Chairman Mao was appointed as the general political commissar of the Red Army. At this time, Teng Daiyuan's position was almost the same as Chairman Mao's, which showed that his seniority in the party was very deep.
Battle sequence and list of commanders of the First Front of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army
In 1933, Teng Daiyuan began to serve as the director of the Armed Mobilization Department of the Central Military Commission of the Soviet Union, and successively participated in the first to fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" wars in the central revolutionary base areas. In the anti-"encirclement and suppression" operation, Teng Daiyuan accurately understood the enemy's military deployment, put forward many feasible suggestions to the leaders of our party, and made indelible contributions to the victory of our army, so he also won the second-class Red Star Medal of the Central Revolutionary Military Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic.
In September 1934, he went to the Soviet Union to study and attended the Seventh Congress of the Communist International held in July 1935. In December 1937, he returned to Yan'an and served as the chief of staff of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, responsible for assisting the Party Central Committee in commanding the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army and other Chinese troops to fight against the Japanese army.
After the Incident in Western Jinxi in 1939, Teng Daiyuan was ordered to go to the northwest region of Jin to command our army in the anti-stubborn struggle, smashed the first anti-communist upsurge launched by the diehards of the Kuomintang, strengthened the anti-Japanese armed forces of our party, and initiated the establishment of a revolutionary base area in northwestern Jin, cultivating a large number of fresh blood for our party.
Isn't such a qualified, capable, and prestigious person the best candidate for the chief of staff of the Forward General Command?
On January 2, 1949, Teng Daiyuan, Lin Yi and their children took a photo in Pingshan County, where the headquarters of the North China Military Region was stationed
Therefore, based on the above reasons, the Central Military Commission eventually appointed Teng Daiyuan as the former chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army to assist General Peng in his work. After that, Teng Daiyuan cooperated sincerely with General Manager Peng, successively participated in the command of the Shangdang Campaign, the Pinghan Campaign and other battles, commanded the frontline soldiers and civilians to fight heroically during the most difficult period of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in North China, and overcame the difficulties step by step, making immortal contributions to the development and growth of the Eighth Route Army.
In 1948, Teng Daiyuan became the minister of railways, responsible for the construction of the national railway. At that time, he once said such a sentence: "Wherever the field army fights, the railway will be repaired", which is to do our best to provide transportation convenience for the PLA.
With Teng Daiyuan's seniority, ability, and outstanding contributions to new China, according to normal circumstances, when he was awarded the title in 55 years, Teng Daiyuan would have been awarded the rank of general no matter what, and there is no doubt about his seniority and military achievements alone; at the time of the Pingjiang Uprising, Mr. Peng, who led the uprising with Teng Daiyuan, was awarded the rank of Marshal, and by 1930, he was the deputy general political commissar of the Red First Army, which was equivalent to Chairman Mao's status. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he was also the chief of staff of the Central Military Commission and the former chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army.
It can be seen from this how high Teng Daiyuan's status was at that time, and when he was awarded the title in 55 years, Teng Daiyuan was absolutely eligible to be awarded the rank of general, but in fact, in the end he was not awarded any military rank, why is this?
Teng Daiyuan accompanied Chairman Mao on his inspection of the railway
This is related to Teng Daiyuan's final choice.
In 1949, after the founding of New China, for the sake of the construction of New China, Teng Daiyuan obeyed the party's arrangements, withdrew from the army, entered the people's government, and served as the minister of railways. That is to say, when the title was awarded in 55 years, Teng Daiyuan was no longer in the army.
At that time, when awarding titles, Chairman Mao pointed out: "In principle, it is better for cadres who are transferred to local posts not to participate in the evaluation of military ranks." As a result, Teng Daiyuan decided to listen to Chairman Mao's words and voluntarily abandon the military rank assessment, and he felt: "I only need to pay behind the motherland, I don't care about these things." Minister Teng Daiyuan's pattern is really admirable.
On December 1, 1974, Teng Dai's elderly predecessor died of illness in Beijing. Before his death, he also wrote down the two words "service", which showed the selfless dedication of Teng's predecessors, and his life was silently doing things and living a low-key life, which was really admirable.