On May 28, 1940, there was such a grand scene on the streets of Chongqing: 100,000 soldiers and civilians escorted a coffin in the middle of the road, and all the people present were sad and wept, and the whole city of Chongqing was shrouded in great sorrow. When he arrived at the Chaotianmen Wharf, Chiang Kai-shek personally supported the spirit and picked up the steps. Feng Yuxiang and other important government officials wore black veils to solemnly greet the spirit.
The National Government issued a state funeral order and included its tablets in the Shrine of the Faithful Martyrs. During the escort of the coffin, there were Japanese planes circling 3 times above, and the team did not panic in the slightest, changing the scene of the past rushing to avoid. Curiously, the Japanese aircraft did not bomb this time.
Such a sensational scene comes from the person lying in the coffin, he is the famous anti-Japanese general Zhang Zizhong, who has participated in many major battles such as the Central Plains War, the Great Wall War of Resistance and the Linyi Defense War, and has made outstanding military achievements, and was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the 33rd Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army.
Zhang Zizhong
Unlike most revolutionary generals who came from poor backgrounds, Zhang Zizhong was born in a family of officials and eunuchs, and his father Zhang Shugui was an official to Wupin, although he was not rich and noble, but his family was also well-off and lived a rich life.
Zhang Zizhong received a good education from a young age, entered a private school at the age of 6, and was admitted to the Linqing Higher Primary School at the age of 17, and has always been taught literary knowledge such as "Four Books and Five Classics" And Confucius and Meng, and the traditional morality of loyalty and filial piety and benevolence has planted seeds in Zhang Zizhong's heart.
In his spare time, Zhang Zizhong was obsessed with novels about the bloody martial arts fighting, and he often held a copy of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or "The Biography of Yue Jingzhong" and read it with relish, and when it came to the meal, his mother called him to go to dinner, and he was indifferent.
Every boy has a heroic dream in his heart, and the vivid character image in the novel makes the teenager Zhang Zizhong very inspired, and to a certain extent, it also affects the direction of his life.
In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution broke out, and in the same year, Zhang Zizhong was admitted to the Tianjin Beiyang Law and Politics School, which was the most famous law school in northern China at that time, and he learned about the "Three Peoples Theory" and the bourgeois revolutionary program proposed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in this school full of ideological collisions.
Sun Yat-sen
A series of slogans such as "expelling the Tartars, restoring China, establishing the Republic of China, and equalizing land rights" led to a rapid change in Zhang Zizhong's thinking, and he was no longer bound by the Confucian and Mencius doctrines such as benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom. At the end of 1911, Zhang Zizhong joined the Chinese League Without concealing his family and joined the vigorous democratic revolutionary movement.
In September 1916, on the recommendation of a friend from his hometown, Zhang Zizhong defected to the command of the warlord Feng Yuxiang and was appointed as a lieutenant. Because Zhang Zizhong had gone to college and could write and fight, he was promoted quickly and became a division commander within a few years.
When Zhang Zizhong was the commander of the student battalion, he also gained a nickname "Zhang Pickpocket". It was the winter of 1923, when the troops were training, heavy snow was flying, the weather was freezing, and the extremely bad weather made many officers and men feel afraid of difficulties, and they were lazy and unwilling to get up.
Feng Yuxiang
Zhang Zizhong was very anxious and decided to lead the soldiers to overcome the difficulties, and one morning, there was still heavy snow in the sky, and he gathered all the soldiers of the battalion and asked: "What if the enemy attacks on a snowy day?" The soldier replied, "Resolutely resist!" ”
Watching the soldiers gradually get dressed, Zhang Zizhong continued:
"Now that it's snowing, you don't want to practice, what else are you talking about fighting?" The first thing we do as soldiers is not to be afraid of suffering. Now, please take off your cotton coats and run with me! ”
As soon as the words landed, Zhang Zizhong took the lead in taking off his cotton clothes and ran on the snow, the soldiers were stunned, and when they reacted, they also took off their cotton clothes and chased after Zhang Zizhong. Since then, the nickname of "Zhang Peel" has spread among the Northwest Army.
In January 1938, the Itagaki Division landed in the Qingdao area to conquer Linyi and join the Isogu Division on Jinpu Road in a vain attempt to take Xuzhou in one fell swoop. In order to defend Linyi, Zhang Zizhong took the initiative to ask Miao to lead the 59th Army to Linyi to support the 40th Army.
The 59th Army marched day and night, and after reaching Linyi, the army was already very tired, and Zhang Zizhong ordered a two-day rest. In the early morning of March 14, the 59th Army launched a fierce attack on the right side of the elite Japanese 5th Division. The soldiers were so fast that they surprised the enemy and annihilated thousands of enemy troops overnight.
When the enemy reacted, it launched a fierce counterattack against our army, and the two sides began to fight each other, and even briefly met each other, repeatedly charging and killing on both sides of the Yi River, and the 59th Army suffered heavy casualties, and the company commander and platoon commander were almost all changed.
Such a fierce battle was fought until the early morning of the 16th, and a telegram was sent from the theater of operations: Our army suffered heavy casualties and suggested retreat. Zhang Zizhong said:
"Our army suffered heavy casualties, the Japanese casualties are not small, now the enemy and we are struggling to support, just to see who can survive to the end, our 59th Army will not give up until it defeats the enemy!" No refund! ”
It turns out that Zhang Zizhong's judgment was correct. By 10 p.m. the battle was fought, the 59th Army had broken through and launched an unprecedentedly fierce attack on the enemy, and the fighters had already put life and death aside, and all of them had killed the red eye.
Finally, at 4:00 a.m. on the 17th, all the main positions of the Japanese army were occupied. At the same time, the 49th Army seized the opportunity, touched the rear of the Japanese army, struck a fierce blow at the arrogance of the Japanese army, and cooperated with the frontal attack of the 59th Army, and it was a fierce battle of three days and three nights, and finally crushed the Japanese army crossing the river.
Our army annihilated more than 2,000 Japanese troops at a heavy cost of more than 6,000 casualties, and successfully blocked the first wave of the enemy's attack. Subsequently, in the more than 50 days of blockade warfare, the "miscellaneous army" led by Zhang Zizhong and other generals, under the huge disparity in weapons, equipment and strength, successfully repelled the three attacks of the elite Japanese army "Itagaki Division", laying the foundation for the great victory of Taierzhuang and having a great impact on the entire anti-Japanese situation.
In May 1940, in order to control the traffic in the Yangtze River Basin and cut off the transportation line in Chongqing, the Japanese army gathered 300,000 troops to launch an attack on Zaoyang and Yicheng in Hubei Province. The "Battle of Zaoyi" began. Zhang Zizhong, as the commander-in-chief of the 33rd Group Army, decided to personally lead his army across the Xiang river to the east to fight against the Japanese.
Before leaving, Zhang Zizhong personally informed all the troops and generals:
"The country has come to such a point that there is no other way but for me to die for it. I believe even more that as long as I can make this determination, our country and the nation of our five thousand years of history will never die at the hands of the three islands of the Uighurs. The determination to die for the country and the nation is unclear, the stone is not rotten, and it will never change in the slightest. ”
Even today, these words make people's blood boil and tears.
Subsequently, Zhang Zizhong led more than 2,000 people to cross the Xianghe River in the east to fight with the Japanese army dozens of times, and the Japanese suffered heavy casualties. Later, because Chiang Kai-shek received false information and made a wrong judgment on the situation, when the Japanese army attacked on a large scale, our main force failed to evade in time.
More unfortunately, Zhang Zizhong's telegram code was deciphered by the Japanese army, and the Japanese army knew our army's deployment very well, and on May 14, Zhang Zizhong and a large number of Japanese troops met head-on. On the 15th, Zhang Zizhong's troops were reduced to 1,500 men, and they were surrounded by more than 6,000 Japanese troops in the village of Gouyanli.
The disparity between the enemy and our forces was extremely large, Zhang Zizhong and the soldiers struggled to resist until the afternoon of the next day, during which the Japanese army launched 9 charges, our army stubbornly held until the last person, observed that there was no big movement on our army's position, the Japanese army shouted to it: surrender the gun and do not kill, surrender quickly, leave you a life.
Zhang Zizhong angrily raised his machine gun and fired a burst of strafing at the Japanese army, indicating his attitude. Seeing that the surrender was fruitless, the Japanese army quickly rushed to the position to surround Zhang Zizhong, and at 4 p.m. on May 16, Zhang Zizhong was assassinated by the Japanese troops who rushed in front of him and martyred himself.
The Japanese army verified Zhang Zizhong's body, and there were 8 wounds on his body, including 2 shell wounds, 1 bayonet wound, and 5 gunshot wounds. In the face of such an admirable opponent, the Japanese army had a high respect for him. He was then buried with the finest coffin and ordered the whole army to salute and stop the air raids for a day.
After learning of Zhang Zizhong's martyrdom, Huang Weigang, commander of the 38th Division, led a death squad and desperately snatched zhang Zizhong's remains. On the morning of the 28th, the National Government issued a "Rongzi No. 1" letter of honor and mourning to Zhang Zizhong, and in the afternoon, Chiang Kai-shek and other important government officials held a solemn memorial ceremony for Zhang Zizhong. His wife Li Minhui also committed suicide by hunger strike and went with Zhang Zizhong.
Huang Weigang
On April 16, 1982, Zhang Zizhong was posthumously recognized as a revolutionary martyr. On September 10, 2009, Zhang Zizhong was named "100 Heroic And Exemplary Figures who Made Outstanding Contributions to the Founding of New China". Although General Zhang Zizhong has left us, his spirit will always inspire us and inspire generations of young people!