At about 14:30 on September 27, 1955, the first people's liberation army general awarding ceremony since the founding of New China.
At this ceremony similar to the good Han of Liangshan and the order of Tang Taizong to paint the portraits of twenty-four heroes hanging in the Ling Yan Pavilion, the ten marshals and ten generals of New China were produced. Among these ten generals, Su Yu ranked first in the list. For this honor, the young military wizard's attitude was very indifferent: "It is high enough to appoint me as a general." I'm only too high, not too low. However, contrary to the attitude of General Su Yu himself, there were many people who complained about him.
Huang Yanpei, a heavyweight democrat at that time, said that with Su Yu's talent, he fully deserved the honor of marshal. In addition to the people of the time, many descendants of both the military and the political circles also regretted that General Su Yu had not been able to take command.
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What was astonishing was that Premier Zhou, who had always cherished talent and loved talent, actually voted against it in the first place when Chairman Mao proposed that Su Yu be included as a marshal.
So, why did Su Yu, who had such a high voice, fail to take command? Why did Premier Zhou want to "take the marshal with a horizontal knife"? And listen to me in detail.
Regarding the fact that General Su Yu was unable to take command, there are several speculations in the field of historiography at present. First, General Su Yu himself had a humble personality, and in order to take into account the overall situation, he was unwilling to compete for merit and asked himself to withdraw from the ranks of marshals. From General Su Yu's remarks that "only too high, not too low", we can see that this young talent is indeed a humble and self-defending general. In fact, ci Shuai, this is not the first time in Su Yu. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, Su Yu resigned as commander twice and took up his deputy position. The leader originally admired this fearsome offspring and released words to give Su Yu a marshal, but Su Yu was "unappreciative", and the reputation sent to him was thus pushed away, and after the award ceremony, he was angry at the old subordinates who were unfair to him, so that they would stop discussing this kind of "low-level fun" topic. Su Yu da his people, can not be said to be indifferent.
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The second possibility is that General Su Yu and the marshal lost their arms, and it is not impossible to do nothing. At that time, there were five criteria for evaluating marshals, and Su Yu did not meet the second criterion: he held a leading position at the regimental level in the Red Army. This one is obviously a question of Moral Qualifications. At the time of the Nanchang Uprising, Su Yu was just an inconspicuous squad leader. Throughout the period of the revolutionary war, that is, before the Red Army was reorganized and renamed, Su Yu's highest position was that of chief of staff of the Red Seventh Army, not yet the leader of the corps. Even if Su Yu's military talent is outstanding, and he is even known as the "God of War" in the future, it is indeed difficult for him to be promoted from a squad leader to a regimental-level cadre in just ten years. Similarly, the third principle also stuck Su Yu's neck on the issue of seniority and previous military ranks. Therefore, to be dogmatic and strictly check the evaluation criteria, General Su Yu did lose in seniority, and had to be relegated to the first general, and did not have the title of marshal.
In fact, it is not difficult to analyze it and see that Premier Zhou's "horizontal sword to seize the marshal" is precisely aimed at the "defect" of General Su Yu's lack of seniority. As early as the period of the Huaihai Campaign of the Liberation War, Su Yu was questioned by his superiors and subordinates because of his shallow seniority and young age, and he suffered some grievances, and once he was really angry and even went to the CPC Central Committee. Marshal Chen Yi and Premier Zhou, who cherished their talents and loved talents, did not blame this indignant young general, but gave Su Yu a lot of care and comfort with kind words, and let Su Yu's spirit, who had suffered defeat and grievance, be invigorated and destroyed the nationalist army with one blow.
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Nowadays, the ten marshals and ten generals are evaluated, and hundreds of millions of pairs of eyes across the country are staring at the evaluation results. The number of ten marshals is really limited, and if one person is given, there will be a corresponding one or even several people being squeezed out. If Su Yu, a young marshal with a relatively low qualification, were given a quota, it would inevitably cause an old revolutionary with seniority and high hard work to be squeezed out of the position of marshal, which would not have a good impact on Su Yu. As the saying goes, humble benefits, full of losses, trees are big. For Su Yu to come to the top and be reused, there have always been voices of doubt within the party and the army. Premier Zhou hoped that when he conferred the title, Su Yu would "take a half step back" and be ranked first among the great generals, so that he would not bury Su Yu's talents or cause unprovoked trouble for this indisputable offspring, and this is precisely where the premier's wisdom and thoughtfulness in understanding and employing people has to be said to be really clever.
Looking at the first awarding ceremony in New China, we have a lot of feelings. Just like the name of the place where the medal is awarded, in the face of fame and fortune, if the recipients and the recipients can "self-denial and re-salute", in addition to their talents, they are even more benevolent, so why worry about the lack of unity and disharmony within the party and the army? Why worry that the generals cannot settle their own positions, let go of the "low-level fun" of competing for a meritorious name, and have the "high-level taste" of serving the people?