In 1954, Yang Dezhi returned to China from the front line to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and transferred him back to China mainly to study, and entered the Nanjing Military Academy to study the campaign.
At the beginning of the establishment of the campaign department, the then president of the Nanjing Military Academy planned to recruit 60 cadets, the purpose of which was to enable the generals to learn cultural knowledge, political knowledge, and battle examples, and to train them to become military generals who could adapt to modern warfare.
As we all know, many generals are "mud legs" from the background, Yang Dezhi is a typical example, he is a native of Zhuzhou, Hunan, his father is a blacksmith, he has followed his father to learn to make iron since he was a child, and after a little older, he went to Anyuan Coal Mine in Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province as a worker, and he had no chance to study at all.
In 1928, 17-year-old Yang Dezhi participated in the South Hunan Uprising and embarked on the revolutionary road, followed the uprising team to Jinggangshan, after which Yang Dezhi studied while fighting in the army, and became a tiger general, and in 1954, Yang Dezhi was 43 years old at that time, which can be said to be a success.
However, as an important general of New China, Yang Dezhi, who has experienced a hundred battles, is only 43 years old, which can be regarded as young in ancient and modern times, both at home and abroad.
Yang Dezhi was appointed as the director of the campaign department, but he also had to take classes with the students, and many powerful generals came to the military academy.
However, when it comes to learning, everyone has a bit of a headache, no less than fighting a big war, the cultural course is too difficult to learn, everyone has come up with the strength to gnaw bones on the battlefield, as the head of the department, Yang Dezhi naturally has to lead by example, in order to improve the level of learning, he often asks his wife Shen Gejun for advice.
Shen Gejun is Yang Dezhi's original wife, is a college student, graduated from Hebei Provincial Daiming Women's Normal School, with the help of his wife Yang Dezhi made rapid progress, but what made Yang Dezhi difficult was learning Russian, which required a lot of memorization, and Yang Dezhi was not good at rote memorization.
Russian is taught by Soviet teachers, every once in a while Soviet teachers will test, randomly answer in class, Yang Dezhi is often called in the classroom to ask questions, it is very embarrassing to not answer the questions, in order to avoid embarrassment, Yang Dezhi thought of discussing with Soviet teachers in private.
Yang Dezhi privately discussed with the Soviet instructor and asked not to mention his name in class, and the Soviet instructor readily agreed at that time, Yang Dezhi was very happy that the two sides had reached an "agreement", and after that, he would not recite Russian, and he also showed off with other students in the same class.
But when it came time to take Russian, the instructor named and checked the recitation, and the first one named Yang Dezhi, who was unprepared, was stunned for a moment, and stood up with an embarrassed face, and those students who had heard Yang Dezhi's boasting couldn't help laughing.
Yang Dezhi never expected that he wanted to "go through the back door" but suffered a big loss, and became the "laughing stock" of his classmates, I have to say that the Soviet teachers really had a set, and Yang Dezhi "cured" it well, and other students naturally did not dare to slack off on studying, and Yang Dezhi also studied seriously from then on.
In the end, after 3 years of study, all 52 students of the campaign department passed the examination and graduated successfully, and when the title was awarded in 1955, 5 of the 52 students were awarded generals, including Yang Dezhi and Han Xianchu, Wen Yucheng, Zhang Zhen, Liao Hansheng and others were awarded lieutenant generals, and 25 major generals.