After the September 18 Incident, the Japanese imperialist aggressors committed heinous crimes in the three eastern provinces, burning and looting, doing whatever they wanted. By 1933, Japanese devils were even more rampant! Deliberately creating incidents, encroaching on Shanhaiguan, and approaching the foot of the Great Wall.
The Great Wall is the crystallization of ancient Chinese architecture, the pride of the Chinese people, and the symbol of resistance to foreign invasion. Now the little devil has put the cannon at the foot of the Great Wall, and the bloody Chinese the people are extremely angry and will never agree.
At that time, Zhao Dengyu, a bloody man from Shandong, was serving as the brigade commander of the 109th Brigade of the 37th Division of the 29th Army, leading the town to guard the Xifeng Pass of the Great Wall. In the face of the well-equipped and arrogant Japanese army, several battles were sacrificed a lot. Zhao Dengyu was furious and decided to rely on his own advantages to surprise the night attack. After careful study, a superb death squad was selected, each with a large knife, and on a snowy night, they broke into the base camp of the Japanese army.
This is the "big knife cut at the head of the devil" that has been passed down by the Chinese to this day!
In this surprise attack, Zhao Dengyu led a large knife team to break into the enemy camp, slashing left and right, such as chopping melons and cutting vegetables, killing Japanese devils shouting father and mother, and fleeing everywhere.
In the Battle of Xifengkou, Zhao Dengyu's troops and other troops hacked and killed more than 5,000 Japanese troops, which greatly boosted the depressed national morale since the 918 Incident and excited the whole country. And Zhao Dengyu, who also became famous for this battle, became an unparalleled national hero in the hearts of Chinese.
After the July 7 Incident, Zhao Dengyu, commander of the 132nd Division of the 29th Army, was promoted to commander-in-chief of the former enemy in Nanyuan, and was responsible for fighting against the Japanese in the Nanyuan area of Beijing. On July 28, 1937, in the battle with the Japanese devils, The Zhao Division led the soldiers to kill the enemy with inferior weapons such as rifles and large knives.
At noon, Commander Zhao was ordered to assemble the whole division at the Great Red Gate. Ambushed by the Japanese army on the way to the transfer, Zhao Dengyu was seriously wounded and died, only 39 years old, and a generation of famous generals spilled blood on the land of Beijing and Hebei.
At the time of Master Zhao's death, his wife Ni Yushu was not yet 30 years old, and he already had a 4-year-old son, Zhao Xuewu, and a 2-year-old daughter, Zhao Xuefen. At this time, she was 8 months pregnant. On July 31, the Kuomintang government issued a commendation order to posthumously honor Zhao Dengyu as a general, but this did not change the life of General Zhao's wife and daughter's family.
As the war intensified, the Kuomintang was gradually defeated and retreated, and the Japanese occupied Peiping, and the defeated Kuomintang government did not take care of the orphans and widows of the Zhao family, and finally left the Zhao family and fled south.
In October, in Beiping, the autumn breeze was strong, and the pedestrians in the wide streets of Xijiaomin Lane in Beijing hurried by, and not far away, the Japanese puppet army and gendarmes in the city were interrogating and searching for patriots in Beijing. At this time, in a remote bungalow. Suddenly, there was a cry of a baby, and Zhao Dengyu's second daughter was born safely more than 2 months after his death.
Considering that she had no financial resources to stay in Beijing and was in danger of being taken hostage by the Japanese at any time, She decided to lead her family to flee south.
In Shangqiu, Henan, the Zhao family encountered Kuomintang troops. When people knew that it was Master Zhao's family, there were often well-meaning people who sent rice to send noodles, and sent coal when it was cold. Life is hard, but there is always a care.
In 1938, after the Japanese captured Xuzhou, it soon entered the eastern part of Henan. In early June, Kaifeng was captured. In order to prevent the Japanese army from moving south, the Kuomintang ordered the explosion of the Yellow River Garden Mouth Dam, causing more than 800,000 people in Henan to die in the belly of fish and more than 10 million people to be displaced.
The Zhao family also became one of the refugees, wandering around, and immediately encountered the defeated and fleeing Kuomintang army, where they could take care of this orphan and widow. In 1940, the family was exiled to Kaifeng, Henan Province, and the whole family relied on Mrs. Zhao to sell hand ornaments to survive. The eldest daughter, Zhao Xuefen, is also attending primary school in Kaifeng, and for the safety of the family, Mrs. Zhao never told her children that their father was Zhao Dengyu, a famous anti-Japanese general.
After the fall of Wuhan, the war in the north gradually ended, and the Zhao family finally returned to Zhao Lou Village, the hometown of Heze in Shandong Province, and was sponsored and welcomed by the villagers. Life settled down, and the Zhao brothers and sisters studied at the local Heze School. In Zhao Lou Village, whenever japanese ghosts came to search and arrest Zhao Dengyu's widow, the villagers would risk their lives and deaths to ventilate the news and help escape the clutches of the devil.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Beiping Municipal Government and people from all walks of life held a public memorial meeting for General Zhao, and Li Zongren delivered a speech, highly praising General Zhao Dengyu's great achievements and burying General Zhao's spiritual seat at the West Crossing by the Lugou Bridge to show that future generations will never forget.
In July 1947, Liu Ruming, the former general of the 29th Army of the Nationalist Government, was stationed in Shandong, and he persuaded Lady Zhao's family to withdraw with them, but Lady Zhao did not want to leave her homeland and refused Liu Ruming's kindness.
After the founding of New China, when the Beijing Municipal Government was cleaning up and registering real estate, it found that a deserted house near the Gulou Fang Brick Factory was the old residence of General Zhao, and inquired from General Tong Linge's descendants that there were still descendants of the Zhao family, so they sent someone to take the Zhao family back to Beijing from Shandong.
Mrs. Zhao sold the old mansion to the state, bought a courtyard from elsewhere, and lived in peace. Mrs. Zhao lived in Beijing until her death in 2001 at the age of 91.