On the night of January 7, 1950, an emergency telegram signed by Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping, and He Long was handed over to Zhang Guohua, commander of the Eighteenth Army: "The main force of the Eighteenth Army is assembled in the Leshan and Danling areas for training. Zhang Guohua and a responsible comrade of each division quickly came to Chongqing to receive new tasks. ”
After receiving the telegram, Zhang Guohua was a little surprised. The three chiefs not only personally signed the order, but also summoned the principal leading cadres of the Eighteenth Army division and above, which showed that this mission was extraordinary.
On January 10, Zhang Guohua and Tan Guansan arrived in Chongqing by boat from Luzhou and immediately met Liu Bocheng, chairman of the Southwest Military and Political Committee. Liu Bocheng conveyed to them the decision of the CPC Central Committee on marching into Tibet and the decision of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee: the Eighteenth Army will undertake the mission of entering Tibet.
To commemorate this important and great task, after a meeting in Chongqing, Zhang Guohua and Tan Guansan walked into the photo studio with several cadres of the Eighteenth Army.
Pictured: Group photo of cadres of the Eighteenth Army
After accepting the task of entering Tibet, the Eighteenth Army conscientiously studied the instructions of the CPC Central Committee and the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on marching into Tibet and meticulously studied the ideological, organizational, and material preparations for the march.
Since at that time, the leading cadres of the Eighteenth Army at all levels, from top to bottom, were all short of quotas to varying degrees, and after the tasks were issued, the whole army of the Eighteenth Army carried out organizational and cadre readjustment; at the same time, more than 200 cadres who had already gone down to work in the local areas of southern Sichuan were withdrawn from the troops, equipped with the leading bodies of the army, and supplemented other leading cadres at all levels; in addition, a number of cadres were transferred from the southwest military region's troops and local specialized departments such as communications, confidential information, medical care, foreign affairs, and public security.
Pictured: "Political Mobilization Order for the Liberation of Tibet"
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > only the right lung is still determined to enter Tibet</h1>
On this day, a tall, emaciated middle-aged cadre came to Zhang Guohua to report. He was Le Yuhong, who had been the head of the Propaganda Department of the Eighteenth Army, and an old subordinate whom Zhang Guohua greatly appreciated, and he was affectionately known as "Ah Le".
Le Yuhong, who had already been appointed as the director of the Culture and Education Department of the Nanjing Municipal Federation of Trade Unions, immediately packed up his bags and returned to the army as soon as he received Zhang Guohua's handwritten letter. However, after arriving in Chongqing, Le Yuhong was told after a physical examination that his health was not suitable for plateau life and could not enter Tibet.
At the age of 42, Le Yuhong, who had suffered from tuberculosis as early as his childhood, was arrested and imprisoned for underground party work in Shanghai, and was tortured and tortured, and his body was devastated, leaving him with the root cause of the disease.
Qian Xinzhong, then director of the Health Department of the Southwest Military Region, personally examined him and found that his left lung at that time had atrophied and dried up, his right lung was compensatory to the left and had calcification points, and his cardiopulmonary function was very poor.
The oxygen content of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is low, and the average person will have hypoxia when he goes there, and will obviously feel breathing difficulties, while Heyhiro only has half a lung, such a cardiopulmonary condition will be difficult to adapt to plateau life, and it is very easy to cause the condition to worsen.
Happy Yu Hong was already fully prepared, how could he be willing to withdraw from the team entering Tibet like this. He constantly argued with the doctors and expressed his determination to enter Tibet. At the persistent request of Le Yuhong, Zhang Guohua specially invited medical experts and the director of the Organization Department to discuss together, and finally decided: you can try it, if your body is not working, you can return as soon as possible.
Le Yuhong finally fulfilled his wish to enter Tibet and eventually succeeded in reaching Lhasa.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="98" > preparations for the march</h1>
Driven by the slogan of "planting the red flag on the Himalayas," commanders and fighters wrote letters of determination one after another, set off meritorious service competitions, and there was an upsurge of everyone striving to march into Tibet and all units implementing preparations for the march.
Next, the troops entering Tibet will have to solve an even more difficult task. As the army marched westward, the grain was self-supplied, and the task of supporting the transportation of materials for the march into Tibet was extremely arduous and arduous, and it became the key and key to the march into Tibet.
The Support Command of the Southwest Military Region used Xinjin as its support base to quickly carry out the work of transporting materials and repairing roads.
As early as March 18, 1950, Mao Zedong gave instructions on the logistical supply of troops entering Tibet: "March into Tibet and do not eat anywhere. "In order to do everything in its power to support and guarantee the troops entering Tibet, the Southwest Military Region did its best to solve the problems of food, clothing, sideline food, medicine, ordnance and equipment needed for the march, and received strong support from all parts of the country.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="100" > three-year-old "warrior"</h1>
On March 7, 1950, the Eighteenth Army held a grand oath-taking meeting in Leshan.
Commander Zhang Guohua read out the oath of the Eighteenth Army to march into Tibet and liberate Tibet. Later, the oath was written in a small book called the Marching Manual, and the soldiers of the Eighteenth Army were hand-held.
Photo: March handbook
On the podium of the mobilization meeting, a little girl of about 3 years old also clapped and raised her fist with everyone, she was Zhang Xiaonan, the daughter of Zhang Guohua. At that time, Commander Zhang Guohua and his wife took their young daughter with them and went to Tibet with the army, so Xiao Yan became the youngest "soldier" in the army entering Tibet.
Pictured: Zhang Xiaonan, daughter of Zhang Guohua's military commander
Unfortunately, just as the army was about to go out, the young boy died of pneumonia and ineffective rescue.
Today, we have no way of knowing what kind of grief Commander Zhang Guohua had in his heart at that time. The next day, the commander was seen in front of the soldiers as usual.
The small difficulty of dying prematurely and the exemplary role of Zhang Guohua injected the strength to advance courageously into this heroic force that faced difficulties.
On March 29, 1950, the advance command post led by Wang Qimei, deputy political commissar of the Eighteenth Army, Li Jue, chief of staff of the Second Army, and the advance troops of the North Road led by Wu Zhong, commander of the Fifty-second Division, and Tianbao, member of the Tibet Working Committee of the Communist Party of China, set out from Leshan, thus opening the prelude to the march to Tibet.
Tune in today (August 25) at 20:00
CCTV-4 "National Memory"
Documentary on the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet
it
"Determination to Enter Tibet"
The exclusive debut of the whole network is all in the central video APP,
Click the Globe tab,
Search and follow Memory of the Nation!
I want to watch the latest episode [in advance].
Scan the QR code below to take a sneak peek!
Episode Director: Zhang Fang
Poster Maker: Tian Ding
Editor: Ma Aijie
Editor-in-Chief: Chen Xi, Cui Ming