In 1959, at a banquet celebrating the tenth anniversary of the founding of New China, Commander-in-Chief Zhu De, when he saw a person in the crowd, he suddenly smiled and went straight to that place. He pointed at the man and smiled and said, "Comrade Battalion Commander, do you remember me?" ”。 What is the point that the "comrade battalion commander", who was already a general of the Republic, was shyly unable to speak?
Time back to the Nanchang Uprising in 1927, General Yuan Yelie, who was serving under General Ye Ting at the time, ordered his subordinates to "tie up" an officer in his 40s and put him in the barracks in the midst of chaos. Subsequently, Zhou Enlai sent someone to Yuan Yelie's place and told him a shocking news. The officer in his forties was none other than the famous Jude.
That's where it happened in 1959. The small battalion commander at that time had become the founding general of the republic, and Zhu De was already the commander-in-chief of the republican army, but he was still so happy when he talked about the events of decades ago. In fact, the legend of General Yuan Yelie is more than this, it is said that he and Chairman Mao still have some relationship, what is the matter?
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="7" >, Chairman Mao's student</h1>
Yuan Yelie, like Chairman Mao, was a native of Hunan, and he loved to learn from an early age, from private school to high school to Hunan Provincial Grade A Industrial School, where he came from a poor peasant family and became a rare "high-achieving student" at that time. However, the poor family situation greatly affected Yuan Yelie's education process.
Soon after enrolling in a grade A industrial school, Yuan Waselie was forced to drop out of school and return home because his family was poor and unable to support expensive tuition fees. However, Yuan Yelie did not give up the road of study, he continued to study, continuous efforts, and finally in 1921 was admitted to the Hunan Provincial First Division, that is, the school where Chairman Mao had studied.
After graduating from the First Division, Chairman Mao did not leave the school, but continued to serve as the chief of the First Division, and was subsequently hired as a teacher of the First Division because of his outstanding talent. When Yuan Yelie entered the school, Chairman Mao was no longer in the First Division, but he would return to his alma mater from time to time to give lectures to students.
Yuan Yelie, who was a young student at that time, liked to listen to Chairman Mao's lessons, especially Chairman Mao's "Communist Manifesto", which directly made Yuan Yelie firmly choose marxist belief. Since then, Yuan Yelie has been frantically learning About Marxism and actively participating in the School's Marxist study group.
In 1924, Yuan Yelie graduated from the First Division, by which time he had firmly believed in the revolution and decided to go to Guangzhou, the revolutionary center of the country at that time. Subsequently, he was admitted to the Guijun Officers' School, where he met many revolutionary talents, such as Jiang Xianyun, one of the three masters of Huangpu. Influenced by these people, he had formal contacts with the party organization.
At the behest of the party organization, Yuan Yelie established the Mars Society within the school and gathered a large number of young progressive officers. Subsequently, a warlord rebellion broke out in Guangzhou, and Yuan Yelie led the members of the Martian Society to Huangpu to participate in the battle against the rebels. Subsequently, Yuan Yelie stayed at the Whampoa Military Academy and worked in the Political Department. At this time, his direct leaders were Zhou Enlai and Nie Rongzhen.
In 1925, Yuan Yelie joined the Communist Party of China and officially became a member of the party. Subsequently, the Northern Expedition began, and Yuan Yelie was assigned to serve under General Ye Ting. During the Northern Expedition, Yuan Yelie showed a fierce fighting posture that was not afraid of death, which impressed General Ye Ting. But when the victory of the revolution was in sight, Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the revolution and the vigorous Northern Expedition failed.
In order to save the revolution and to preserve the seeds of the revolution, the Chinese Communist Party decided to hold an uprising in Nanchang. Yuan Yelie also followed General Ye Ting's team to Nanchang. It was here that the story mentioned above occurred between Yuan Yelie and Marshal Zhu De.
There is a deep relationship between Yuan Yelie and Chairman Mao, and he and Chairman Mao are both fellow countrymen and alumni, and even barely a student of Chairman Mao's teachings. Under the influence of Chairman Mao, he had already thrown himself into the revolution as early as the founding of the Communist Party of China, although he was only a major general when he was awarded the title in 1955. But his qualifications were older than many lieutenant generals, admirals, and even marshals. But what happened to this veteran general who was imprisoned shortly after?
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="2" > two or four and a half years in prison</h1>
After the Nanchang Uprising, Yuan Yelie was sent to Guangxi with his fierce military achievements, changed his name to Yuan Zhenwu, and under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and others, prepared for the uprising. Here, Yuan Yelie went deep among the masses to propagate revolutionary ideas, expose the crimes of reactionary officers, and attract a large number of low-level soldiers. After a period of work, the Communists in Longzhou finally succeeded in planning the uprising and temporarily seized control.
But the reactionary forces were too strong, and soon after, the place of Longzhou fell into the hands of the enemy again. Yuan Yelie's unit was in a dangerous situation of isolation and helplessness. However, Yuan Yelie did not give up, led his troops to break through the siege, turned to fight for more than 7,000 miles, and finally met with the large troops in victory. Yuan Yelie also relied on this combat experience to be appointed as the commander of the 59th Regiment of the Seventh Red Army.
However, Yuan Yelie's luck was not very good, and in 1931, because of a serious injury in a battle experience, he had to move to Shanghai to recuperate. However, here, Yuan Yelie was unfortunately discovered by the patrol police of the British Concession that he was studying communist works, and he was arrested and imprisoned.
In prison, Yuan Yelie was subjected to inhuman treatment, tiger stools, electrocution, and waterboarding in turn, but even so, Yuan Yelie did not reveal his comradely identity. After the enemy exhausted many methods, he had no choice but to sentence Yuan Yelie to five years in prison. Later, Yuan Yelie was released from prison early because of the amnesty. However, the Kuomintang reactionaries did not intend to let him go.
After his release from prison, Yuan Yelie was again imprisoned in the so-called "Reflection Institute". The enemy forced Yuan Yelie to write a "letter of repentance", but Yuan Yelie was very firm in his revolutionary beliefs and did not want to do such a thing, and in the end the enemy had no choice but to release him from prison.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="4" > three, underrated major general</h1>
After his release from prison, Yuan Yelie worked hard to get in touch with the organization, but because Yuan Yelie had been imprisoned for too long, the party organization was afraid that his purity would be affected, so it inspected him, during which time Yuan Yelie could only serve as a military instructor in the rear area. Therefore, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Yuan Yelie almost never went to the front, resulting in relatively weak military achievements, but he made great contributions to the work of cultivating revolutionary backbones, and sent a large number of cadres to the front.
At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Yuan Yelie was transferred to Qinghe, Shandong Province, as chief of staff, and in this position, Yuan Yelie showed strong command skills and achieved dozens of victories. Therefore, during the Liberation War, Yuan Yelie was also promoted to deputy commander of the Bohai Naval Region and achieved great military achievements.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Yuan Yelie was transferred to the navy and participated in the creation of the navy. In this post, Yuan Yelie combined many years of military teaching and experience as a unit commander to cultivate a large number of backbone forces for the navy and formed a naval team with a high level of modernization and strong military literacy.
In 1953, when Chairman Mao inspected the East China Navy, Yuan Yelie, then political commissar of the East China Navy, went to greet him. Although the two have the truth of teachers and students, they rarely see each other. Therefore, when Chairman Mao listened to Yuan Yelie's introduction, he said to him, "Oh, you are Yuan Yelie, you are Yuan Yelie." After many years, Chairman Mao still remembers this student who once listened to his lectures offstage, but at this time, the identities of the two have undergone great changes, and China has also undergone great changes.
Throughout the revolutionary career of General Yuan Yelie, he was senior, had strong command ability, and made many military achievements. But because of the prison disaster of more than four years, he missed too much, missed the Long March of the Red Army, missed the most difficult period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and finally could only be awarded the rank of major general. But this "old battalion commander" of the Nanchang uprising is definitely underrated.
Text/Leyu
References: "Founding Major General Yuan Yelie", Chen Yanggui