The picture shows General Fang Huai photographed by a reporter from the Yangtze River Daily in 2012. Photo by reporter Li Ziyun
Yangtze River Daily Rong Media, February 16 (reporter Tang Huaming) the pair of feet that have walked through the 25,000-mile long march have stopped.
Today, the 102-year-old old Red Army and founding major general Fang Huai passed away in Wuhan, and there is no longer a Red Army in Wuhan. Since then, we have lost a general who experienced the Long March, experienced hundreds of battles, made immortal merits for the cause of people's liberation, and the establishment of a new China. At the time of grief, the past of my many years of association with General Fang Huai came to mind.
Last spring, I was invited to Tucheng in Xishui County, Guizhou Province, to participate in the activities of Xishui County's public sacrifice to the martyrs of the Battle of Qingbanpo. Before leaving, I made a special trip to the Wuhan General Hospital of the People's Liberation Army to visit the elderly Fang Huai. Walking into Elder Fang's hospital room, he, wearing an oxygen tube, sat down on the sofa and immediately smiled at my little comrade-in-arms. I have interviewed and visited the elderly many times before. When I gave him a military salute, the old man struggled to reach out and take my hand and let me sit next to him. The staff and medical staff on the side told me that it was difficult for the old man to speak. So our conversation took place in the "translation" of the staff.
In April last year, this reporter visited General Fang Huai at the Wuhan General Hospital
I told the old man Fang Huai that he was going to the area where the Central Red Army of Zunyi, Guizhou, crossed the Chishui River, to participate in the activities to commemorate the martyrs of the Red Army at Qingbanpo, and asked if the old man needed me to do anything. The old man said that he would greet the descendants and villagers scattered on the banks of the Chishui River on the banks of the Red Army. At that time, the people there gave great support to the Red Army in the Long March, and although the people there were very poor and miserable, the people sent food and straw shoes to the Red Army. After the Long March left Zunyi, he never went back to visit the villagers there.
On the 2018 Qingming Festival, the reporter was invited to participate in the public memorial activities of the Red Army martyrs of the Battle of Qingbanpo held in Xishui County, Guizhou Province, and on behalf of General Fang Huai, he comforted the villagers on the banks of the Chishui River
In a previous interview, Fang Huai had described the difficulties and dangers of the Long March. He once told me that when the Central Red Army March to Zunyi, the most difficult thing was that there was no food or drink. Some of the red army troops passed through Zunyi, and many comrades did not have a good meal for 3 days and 3 nights, and even drinking water was very difficult. There is such a description in the "Long March Suite Song": crossing the mountain, the road is difficult to walk, the sky is like fire, the water is like silver, relatives send water to quench thirst, military and civilian fish and water family relatives ...
When this reporter was paying homage to the red army martyrs in Qingbanpo, Tucheng, Xishui County, Guizhou, he took a photo in front of the Tucheng Red Army Field Hospital with Zhu Xinchun, son of General Zhu Liangcai, Xie Piao, son of Xie Jueya, and Xiao Yun, son of General Xiao Hua
General Fang Huai remembered that after the Red Army occupied Zunyi, he got a boiled goose egg with a knife handle in the south of Zunyi, and although he was so hungry and panicked, he was reluctant to eat it for several days on the march. From Guizhou to the border of Yunnan, I saw a spring on the side of the mountain. Fang Huai then took out the goose egg and ate it with the other three comrades-in-arms. A goose egg was eaten by four people, which could not solve the problem of hunger at all, and it was the goose egg given to him by this common man that the general remembered for a lifetime.
On April 6 last year, after taking part in the public festival at Qingbanpo, I set out from the old site of the Red Army's crossing of Chishui in Tucheng, Xishui County, along the Chishui River through Gulin, Renhuai, Yaxi, and Loushan Pass to Zunyi. Hu Jinghua of Taiping Town, Gulin County, Liu Shuhua, Li Xiaochun, and Fu Yuanping of Zunyi Yaxi, the descendants of those who had supported the Red Army's Long March and scattered the Red Army, felt incomparably warm about General Fang Huai's concern. Fei Kanru, an expert on the study of the Long March of the Red Army, the former director of the Zunyi Conference Memorial Hall, and an associate researcher, said that a centenarian who participated in the 25,000-mile Long March and a founding general still remember the villagers who helped him more than 80 years later, and also entrusted people to come and greet everyone.
Character Profile: Fang Huai, formerly known as Lai Fanghuai, used to be known as Lai Shilu. Born in 1917 in Yudu, Jiangxi, he joined the Red Army in 1932 and joined the Party in 1933. Fang Huai is one of the "aviation fires" of our army. After the founding of New China, he successively served as the director of the Aircraft Navigation Department of the Civil Aviation Bureau of the Central Military Commission, the manager of the Chinese Civil Airlines, and the deputy commander of the Air Force of the Wuhan Military Region, and was awarded the rank of major general in 1955. He was awarded the Order of August 1, Second Class, the Order of Independence and Freedom, second class, the Liberation Medal of the Second Class, and the Medal of Merit of the Red Star of the First Class.
He was born in 1917 to a poor peasant family in Yinkeng Ping'an Village, Yudu County, Jiangxi Province. He joined the children's group at the age of 12. In 1931, he joined the Communist Youth League of China. In 1932, he joined the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. In 1933, he was transferred from the regiment to the Communist Party of China. In October 1934, he accompanied the Long March of the Central Red Army.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he served as a cadet in the flight training class of the Xinjiang Aviation Corps. During the Liberation War, he served as an associate of the Training Office of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army Aviation School, the captain of the Flight Brigade, the director of the Aviation School Office in Shenyang, and the director of the Combat Education Division of the Aviation Bureau of the Central Military Commission.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as the director of the Aircraft Navigation Division of the Civil Aviation Bureau of the Central Military Commission, the director of the Operations Division of the Air Defense Force Headquarters, the director of the Aviation Affairs Department and the Director of the Telecommunications Division of the Civil Aviation Bureau of the Central Military Commission, the manager of the civil aviation Chinese, the principal of the Third Aviation School of the Air Force, the commander of the Air Force Division, the deputy commander, the commander of the Army, and the deputy commander of the Air Force of the Wuhan Military Region. In 1983, after Fang Huai left for retirement, he has been living in Wuhan.
【Editor: Zhu Jie】