Braiding: Dawn Whistle (fxsw2021)
Source: Ningtun Industry Contributor
Admiral Zhang Haiyang
The first time I met General Zhang Haiyang dates back to the early 1980s. At that time, he was the chief of the Propaganda Department of the Military Political Department, and I was an officer in the Organization Unit of the Political Department of the 181st Regiment. Once, he came to the regiment to conduct research, and General Xiaosong asked me to go to the regimental guest house to find him and report on the construction of spiritual civilization in the regiment. As a young officer in the regiment, reporting to the chief of the military department is somewhat restrained. When I arrived at the guest house, I gently knocked on the door of his room, went inside and told myself, explained my intentions, and reported the situation. I remember reporting back, and it took less than ten minutes to finish. Then he and I came to our unit to visit our sister who was visiting her family here on vacation, the wife of Xiaosong Of Longshou.
In July 1983, my third unit chief, Chen Honggeng, had just arrived at the first battalion to take up his post, and unfortunately died while moving back to his hometown in Jiangsu, and the wife of the unit chief came to the team to deal with the aftermath. At this time, General Zhang Haiyang had already served as a political commissar in the regiment. One day, he asked me to go with him to North Province (where the county seat of Tianshui county was located at the time) and buy a student bag at a newly opened department store. At the time, I didn't know what he meant by buying a school bag. On the way back to the regimental headquarters, he told me in the car: "If you go back and give this school bag to the family of your unit chief, you will say that I gave it to his children." Although this incident was small, it was very impressive to me and is still fresh in my memory.
The picture above shows a group photo of all the staff of the Organization Unit. From left: Officers Ning Tunye, Yin Xinmin, Zhao Fengxiang, Dang Turnaround, Unit Chief Chen Honggeng, Officer Yan Jingyuan.
In August 1983, on the eve of his visit to the Beijing Institute of Political Science, the regiment was preparing to hold a lecture on the newly promulgated "Regulations on Punishing Crimes Committed by Military Personnel." One morning he called and asked me to go to the second machine. After seeing me, he said, tomorrow there will be a general meeting in the regiment, and I will have a speech at the meeting, so you can go back and prepare for it. At the meeting, I am ready to talk about these several layers of meaning. He said, I remembered. Although I don't know shorthand, I record fairly fast. When I returned to the political office, I immediately sorted it out. In the afternoon, I gave him the prepared speech, copied neatly and neatly. He looked at it and said in a loud voice, very good, very good. In fact, the speech I prepared for him was spoken from his mouth word by word, and I recorded it with a pen word by word. Back in the political section, I simply went along, tinkered with it, turned his dictation into a written speech, and that was it.
In May 1985, I was transferred to the Organization Section of the Political Department of the Division, in charge of the collection of heroic model deeds. At the end of July of the same year, Liu Baoshun, a volunteer soldier of the Military Affairs Section of the Division Headquarters, went to Beijing for recruitment. In those days, accommodation in Beijing was quite tight. At first, we lived in the basement of the guest house of the People's Liberation Army Beijing Institute of Political Science at No. 88 Fuxing Road in Beijing, and when we encountered a bath, the noise was too loud. After the coordination of General Zhang (who was studying at the Beijing Institute of Political Science at the time and was about to graduate), we moved out of the basement and lived in the house above the guest house. At that time, he also gave us a ticket to visit The Fortress Garden, Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall and the Great Hall of the People in Zhongnanhai, where we could visit, and introduced me to the location and situation of the three major commercial districts of Xidan, Wangfujing and Qianmen in Beijing, so that we had time to go there and take a look. We lived in Beijing for more than 20 days, interviewing Wu Xian'en and Xiao Xuanjin, deputy commanders of the Beijing Military Region, Chen Xiang, deputy political commissar, Wang Shaochuan, vice minister of the Ministry of Railways, Wu Kunshan, director of the Highway Bureau of the Ministry of Communications (traffic headquarters of the Armed Police Force), Pu Yun, wife of Zheng Weishan, former director of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee, and Mrs. Yang Han, vice president of the Seventh Academy of the Navy, and interviewing Wan Haifeng, political commissar of the Chengdu Military Region, by telephone. Hearing that Li Changru, political commissar of the North Sea Fleet, was on vacation in Beijing, we rushed to his house when we heard the letter, but unfortunately he went back to Qingdao, Shandong, where the troops were stationed, and Air Force adviser Li Shi'an was also recuperating in Qingdao at that time. At that time, when I saw the chief in Beijing, it was not that I could see him immediately, but I had to make an appointment with the secretary in advance and wait for the notice. At the same time, the head of the Beijing Military Region did not live in the compound of the Military Region. This situation was only known after we rushed to the compound of the Beijing Military Region in the Eight Great Divisions of Xishan, and the chief's family was scattered in the large and small hutongs in the city. The few I went to, all of them were exclusive. Wang Shaochuan, vice minister of the Ministry of Railways, the head of the pistol regiment during the Red Army period, lived in a courtyard with carved beams and painted pillars. Pu Yun, the wife of Zheng Weishan, former director of the Central Organization Department, lives in a villa on Jingshan Road, and we asked Deputy Commander Wu Xianen to interview him in the high-ranking cadre ward of the Plaster General Hospital, and we made an appointment to meet for more than a week. These old Red Army chiefs were very enthusiastic to see us. In particular, General Chen Xiang, deputy political commissar of the Northern Military Region, learned that we were in Beijing and sent his crown car to take us to Fuwai Street, where his family lived. At that time, a deputy director of the Beijing Military Region took the "August 1st" condolence group of the military region to visit the chief's home. He said to them, the old troops are coming, you wait a little longer. In Beijing, we had planned not to look for him again, so as not to cause him any more trouble, because he had just returned to Beijing from Tianshui, and we had already met and interviewed him. I heard that when we arrived in Beijing, his old man must see us. In Tianshui, we heard him say that Mrs. Yang Han, vice president of the Seventh Academy of the Navy, knew a lot about the situation. When we arrived in Beijing, we felt that it was a little difficult and inconvenient to find her. Because the situation we wanted to know was the situation of her ex-husband, we had to consult Deputy Political Commissar Chen. Deputy Political Commissar Chen spoke very clearly and very happily, and he told us not to have any worries and to boldly go to the interview. He said that they usually looked for Mrs. Yang Han because of their friendship with her ex-husband. When we went to Beijing, we mainly collected the deeds of martyr Wu Xianyuan, the leader of the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region and the former logistics director of the Red 28th Army. This was one of the martyrs named by the central government at that time.
In 1986, our unit was still on the front line of border defense in Yunnan and participated in the defense operation in the Laoshan area. One day in June, I accompanied Yang Zhongmin, director of the regiment's political office, to the position of the Second Company, and in 014, we met the division's political commissar General Zhang Haiyang unexpectedly. It is said that this time, he solved the problem of woven bags urgently needed for reinforcement fortifications for the second company. In front of the command post of the 014 Second Company, after a brief greeting, Commissar Zhang and his party returned to the division command post Pingzhai, and we went straight to the 012 position.
The picture above shows the situation of General Zhang Haiyang, the political commissar of the division, when he met us in 014 during the Battle of the Yunnan Wheel. From left in the front row: General Zhang Haiyang, political commissar of the division, gao Yunpeng, author and instructor of the Second Company.
The picture above shows Yang Zhongmin (right), director of the RegimentAlpolitan Political Office, and the author (left) taking a photo of the Jianbei Tuanji during the Battle of the Dian Dynasty.
In October 1987, when the troops returned to Tianshui, Gansu Province, from the Laoshan Front, I was transferred from the field unit to the Xianyang Army Reserve Infantry Division under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi Provincial Military Region. At that time, the family had not yet moved from Tianshui to Shaanxi. Once, I returned to Tianshui from Shaanxi and met General Zhang Haiyang, the political commissar of the division, at the railway station, and as soon as he saw me, he called out my name, said that I was already a friendly army, and warmly shook hands with me and asked me about my situation in the Shaanxi Provincial Military Region. This was the last time I met General Zhang Haiyang after I left the 181st Regiment. Later, one year, the Lanzhou Military Region was still headquartered in Xi'an to hold a military conference, and I heard that General Zhang Haiyang also participated in this meeting. When I learned of the situation and went to see him, the meeting had ended, General Zhang had left the office, and the room sign of the room of the guest house of the Shaanxi Provincial Military Region where he had stayed was still posted on the door. Facing the room sign on the door, I could only sigh, feeling that I was one step too late to see the chief.
General Zhang Haiyang, born in July 1949 in Pingjiang, Hunan, joined the army in February 1969 and joined the party in November 1969. He successively served as a soldier, deputy squad leader and squad leader of the 2nd Company of the 183rd Regiment of the 61st Division of the 21st Army, a platoon commander of the Wired Electric Company of the 21st Army Signal Battalion, an officer of the Cadre Department of the Political Department of the 21st Army and a deputy director of the Propaganda Department, a deputy political commissar and director of the Political Office of the 189th Regiment of the 63rd Division of the 21st Army, the director of the Propaganda Department of the Political Department of the 21st Army, and the political commissar of the 181st Regiment of the 61st Division of the 21st Army (during which he studied at the Political College of the People's Liberation Army from September 1983 to July 1985). Political Commissar of the 61st Division of the 21st Army (during which he led the troops to participate in the defense operation in the Laoshan Area from December 1985 to July 1987), deputy director and director of the Political Department of the General Staff Service Department, political commissar of the 27th Group Army, deputy political commissar of the Beijing Military Region, political commissar and secretary of the Party Committee of the Chengdu Military Region, political commissar and secretary of the Party Committee of the Second Artillery Corps, vice chairman of the Legal Committee of the 12th National People's Congress, and member of the 17th and 18th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China.
About the author: Ning Tunye, a native of Qianxian County, Shaanxi Province, was born in October 1956, enlisted in the army in December 1974, joined the Party in May 1977, and participated in the defense operation in the Laoshan area from December 1985 to July 1987. He successively served as a soldier of the infantry company, a hygienist and secretary of the battalion headquarters, an officer of the organization unit of the regimental political department, a political instructor of the company, the head of the organization unit of the regimental political department, the officer of the organization section of the divisional political department, the chief of the propaganda unit of the regimental political department, the deputy director of the regimental political office (with the deputy top), the director, the chief of the propaganda section of the division political department, the regimental political commissar, the secretary of the party committee, and the rank of colonel.