My father was neither a general nor a marshal, his name was Li Yuhui, he was the deputy company commander of the machine gun company of the 386th Brigade of the 772nd Regiment of the 129th Division during the Red Army period, and according to his words, he was an ordinary Red Army soldier of the "Old Second Regiment".
Later, because he lost his left eye in battle and had weak vision in his right eye, he had no choice but to turn to logistics. He often said that he was a person with a "big life", from the soldier, squad leader, platoon leader, and deputy company commander of the machine gun company, as long as there was a combat mission, he rushed to the front, encountered many dangers, and suffered many injuries, and luckily rubbed shoulders with the god of death in the rain of bullets and bullets.
Everyone in my hometown knows that there is a white-bearded "old Red Army"
There were not many old Red Army soldiers in Qinshui County who participated in the Long March, and my father was one of them. My father's name was Li Yuhui, and as far back as I can remember, the title of "Old Red Army" is synonymous with my father. Within a radius of tens of miles, not many people know his father's name, but as long as the "old Red Army" is mentioned, everyone will suddenly realize. "Oh! I know, it's the white-bearded old Red Army in Xiliang Village. ”
In 1903, his father was born in an ordinary peasant family in Tuxing Town, Pingchang County, Bazhong City, Sichuan Province, with four brothers and sisters, the father ranking the eldest, and two younger brothers and a younger sister below. My father's grandfather was a well-known old Chinese medicine doctor in the local area, and he was both loving and very strict with his father's eldest grandson. Since he was a child, his father often followed his grandfather to read and write, and the "Three Character Classic" and "Hundred Family Names" were all memorized at that time.
In 1932, his father secretly joined the Red Guards behind his family's back. My grandfather passed away early, my grandmother is a timid and fearful little foot old lady, she saw that her father always mysteriously came out early and returned late, she couldn't help but worry, one day stood at the door of the courtyard early, stopped my father who was ready to go out for interrogation, my father had to tell the truth, told my grandmother that she had joined the Red Guards, which was an organization specifically for the people to find food and eat. Grandma let her father out half hesitantly and half worriedly, and looking at her father's back, Grandma's heart hung in mid-air.
One day in the waxing moon of 1933, every household was preparing for the New Year. Grandma was busy making tofu, and my father stepped into the stove room in the twilight, took the barrel in Grandma's hand and began to work. He pretended to be calm and told his grandmother that all the members of his Red Guards had joined the Red Army and that the team was about to leave.
Grandma panicked and asked her father how many days to go, and my father said that he would definitely not be able to come back in a few days, and three or five months or even longer could not be said. Grandma anxiously asked her father, "Did you tell your daughter-in-law and children, what should you do if you leave them?" The father said, "If everyone thinks only about their own little family, then who will join the army to defend the country?" My grandmother, who had always loved my father, was silent and shed tears.
When it was dark, my father quietly walked out of the house, and before he could reach the door of the courtyard, Grandma came out of his house. She grasped her father's arms tightly with her thin hands, her lips trembled so much that she couldn't speak clearly, and repeatedly instructed: "Son, when you go out, you must let your mother rest assured." She took off the silver bracelet on her wrist and said: "There is nothing else of value in our family, this silver bracelet was still given to me by your grandmother when I married, poor and rich, you take it, in case you are trapped on the road, it is better to change some food..." The father had a sour nose, resolutely put the bracelet back on grandma's wrist, and comforted her: "Absolutely will not fall to that step, maybe I will come back to see you soon." In this way, my father left the land where he had raised him in the early morning of the waxing moon and set out with the procession. That year, the father was married and had two sons, one six and one four. When he left, the two children were still sleeping peacefully, and the father himself did not expect that at this moment, a farewell was the eternal trick.
The father joked that he had "meat nails"
In October 1935, my father's unit set out from Sichuan and embarked on the world-famous Long March. The difficulties and obstacles on the Long March are well known to everyone, and whenever I asked, my father always said with a calm face, "It's difficult, how can it not be difficult!" No matter how difficult it is, it will always have to go on, and it will always be overcome." According to my father's recollection, on average, more than fifty kilometers of rapid marching every day during the Long March, an average of three days will encounter a fierce war, and it is common to eat not a single grain for several days. Grass roots, tree bark, insects, etc., everything that can be found will be used to pad the stomach, and there are constantly comrades around them who die, some die in battle, some starve to death, and some freeze to death.
When crossing the Jiajin Mountain, the wind and snow are continuous, the road is wet and muddy, and when you reach the middle of the mountainside, there is no longer a road, and every step is extremely difficult and dangerous. Even so, the troops advanced tenaciously in an orderly and tenacious manner. The soldiers who walked in front of them kept passing on messages to the back, sometimes marching orders, sometimes encouraging each other and strengthening their faith. When they finally reached the top of the mountain, the warriors looked at each other, did not know each other, and all of their faces turned eggplant-like purple. As we descended the mountain, the weather slowly became better, much easier than going up the mountain, and the troops increased their march.
When he went down the mountain to repair, his father found that all the nails on his feet were missing, and he didn't know when they were worn off. It is said that ten fingers are connected to the heart, but the feet that are frozen numb not only do not feel the pain, but even when they find it, they can't even see the blood. Father said that he was not the only one in this situation, and some of his comrades were even so serious that they froze their toes.
Years later, my father's toes grew bean-like balls of different sizes, and every once in a while he had to use a scraper to cut off the hard skin. My father's legs also contracted incurable eczema during the Long March, and even my children still remember my grandfather's foot washing when they talk about their father.
Every night, my father had to use particularly hot water to relieve the itching of his legs, and my father held a teapot in one hand and squeezed the top of a towel in the other, and alternately covered the calf with hot water. While repeating the action of pouring hot, the father's body was trembling, and his mouth was "hissing" and hissing, enduring the pain of burning the skin brought by the hot water of seventy or eighty degrees, but also enjoying the burning sensation to reduce the refreshing itch.
Eczema accompanied my father for decades throughout the second half of his life, often itching in the middle of the night and not being able to sleep, sitting on the bed desperately scratching, scraping with a knife, all kinds of ointments, cool oil, and using smoke oil to make self-made ointment, all kinds of methods have been tried, and there has been no effect. Until his death, his father's legs were scarred, often burned after a hard scab, because the itch could not help but open, the two calves looked more vicissitudes than the trunk of a hundred years old, plus the hard balls on the toes instead of nails, let people look shocking, heartbroken. The father, who said it was a memorial to him from climbing the snow-capped mountains, laughed and told the children that he had grown "flesh nails."
Father unforgettable 24-year-old Ye Sung-hwan regimental commander
In 1937, when he went north to resist the Japanese, his father was organized in the machine gun company of the 386th Brigade of the 772nd Regiment of the 129th Division, and in a battle in Taoyuan, Hebei Province, his father was injured in a shell bombardment and lost his left eye, and his right eye vision could only be seen within two meters (second class B). After this injury, my father often fell behind due to blurred vision, and the troops marched, he was always struggling to catch up, but he had no spare strength. Many times when the troops arrived at their destinations, the assembled investigators always missed him, and after two days, when his comrades thought he could not return, his father was exhausted and stumbled to find the troops back.
Portrait of Li Yuhui
The longest time was when the father was left behind and disappeared for seven or eight days, and the comrades all lamented that this time they must not come back, maybe they were sacrificed, but the father once again unexpectedly appeared in front of everyone. Later, taking into account his father's physical reasons, the organization let him serve as an administrator, a comprador, a secretary and other positions, buying daily necessities for his company, running to the village office, and allocating grain. My father carried out the orders to the letter, went from village to village to hire people and livestock to transport supplies, and comprehensively guaranteed the logistical supply of the troops.
Father often said that he was a "big life" person, from the soldier, squad leader, platoon leader, machine gun company deputy, until he was disabled to logistics, every time he had a combat mission, he ran to the front, encountered many dangers, and suffered many injuries, but he was always lucky to rub shoulders with the god of death. Every time he mentioned his "great destiny", his father would always recall his old regimental commander Ye Chenghuan bitterly.
Ye Chenghuan was his father's old regimental commander when he was in the 772nd Regiment, and people used to call the 772nd Regiment the "Old Second Regiment (referring to the long march formation)", this young regimental commander was respected by everyone as the "old regimental commander", and because he had already served as the regimental commander during the Red Army period, although he was young, his seniority was old. At that time, his father was the director of the second battalion, and because he made the food of the second battalion very well, Commander Ye was deeply impressed by his father.
On several occasions, Commander Ye praised the logistics work of the Second Battalion at meetings, saying that Li, the chief executive of the Second Battalion, was a good way to get by. Once my father transported millet back, just in time to meet the leader of the Ye regiment, the leader of the Ye regiment grabbed a handful of yellow chengcheng millet from his pocket and said heartily: Good rice, this clear and bright polished rice, just like the soldiers of our old second regiment, there is no chaff valley, no chaff skin, everyone is good! This approachable, heroic and courageous Leader Ye in his daily life was martyred in the Battle of Changle Village at the age of 24.
His father in peacetime often recalled the leader of the Ye regiment who had sacrificed himself for the revolution at a young age, saying that he really wished he could replace him. His father thought that Commander Ye was younger and more cultured than himself, that he spoke politics and military affairs, and that if he were alive, he could make greater contributions to the country.
The cadres set an example and impressed my father
In 1942, the Taiyue Column Rectification School was stationed in Xiliang Village, Zhengzhuang Township, Qinshui County, and his father was transferred to the director of the Rectification School. Many of the people who came to study were his old leaders in the company, and some were his fellow countrymen, who were very happy to serve their father. My father lived with them for a year and eight months, still leaving early and returning late, buying and allocating supplies everywhere, and taking good care of everyone's lives. During that time, the headquarters of the army was in Shili Township, Qinshui County, fifty miles away, and my father had to go to the headquarters every few days, and in addition to receiving grain, he also had to receive various supply expenses such as cadet allowances, office work, and maternal and infant care at the supply office. Father felt that he had a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, and every time no matter how late he would rush to the road, he would go back on the same day and never let everyone worry.
In the rectification school, everyone trusted their father. According to his father's recollections in his later years, Pu Dayi's allowance when he studied at the Rectification School was all kept by my father, and he said that as long as he was satisfied, he would occasionally drink a little wine, eat meat a few times, and smoke every day, which was enough. As a fellow of Pyeongchang, and older than Pu Dayi, his father felt obliged to take good care of this little fellow who was the leader of his superiors. Every once in a while, my father used the money to buy some meat, fried it to help him keep it in a jar, and set aside a little to heat it in an iron spoon when serving wine. Pu Dayi said happily, "Old Li, you are the chief of affairs who deserves to be competent, and my monthly money is only enough to spend five days in my own pocket, but you can let me have meat and smoke every day, or will you plan?"
Zhou Xihan was also studying at the rectification school at that time, and Zhou Xihan often asked his father to help him carry tobacco leaves, and once his father helped him buy tobacco leaves, and when he saw that he was busy, he helped him stir-fry. Looking at the dry tobacco leaves, thinking that Zhou Leader worked hard every day until late at night, all based on this tobacco leaf to refresh his mind, his father took it upon himself to use a little cooking oil to mix in the fried tobacco leaves. Zhou Xihan was stunned after taking a sip after he got it, turned his head and asked his father, "Old Li, why are today's tobacco leaves so fragrant and so smooth?" The father said truthfully, and Zhou Xihan was very angry and said, "Old Comrade Li, didn't you let me make a mistake?" This is really a collective oil, and I must deduct money from my allowance next month."
At the end of the next month's checkout, Zhou Xihan actually remembered these few drops of oil, and specially ran to watch his father deduct three cents from the account, before nodding his head with confidence and saying, "Old Li, I can smoke these cigarette leaves in a down-to-earth manner." The cadres' exemplary and upright manners impressed my father so much that he adhered to principles all his life and disciplined me and my children very harshly.
Editor: Wang Xiangming