In the autumn of 1955, our army held the first large-scale award ceremony in history to commend the generals who made important contributions to the victory of the Chinese revolution and the founding of New China. A total of more than 1,000 founding generals and 1,266 founding colonels were honored at the ceremony. Among them, many founding colonels devoted themselves to the great cause of the revolution as early as the early days of the revolution and made many military exploits. Six years later, more than 550 of them were promoted to major generals. However, there was one founding colonel who was different. In September 1949, he joined the People's Liberation Army, when the Liberation War was nearing its end and the war had calmed down, so he did not make significant achievements in the army. Despite his modest qualifications and inconspicuous achievements, he was ranked with many old revolutionaries and was awarded the rank of colonel. This special person is Yang Fuxing. Yang Fuxing, born in 1929, is in Zhuoni County, Gansu Province.
His father, Yang Jiqing, was the 19th Tusi of Zhuoni, with heavy troops, and was appointed by the national ** as the commander of Taomin Road Security. At the beginning of September 1935, when the ** Red Army crossed the Gannan area, Lu Dachang, commander of the 165th Division of the Kuomintang, sent Yang Jiqing to lead the vanguard in order to block the Red Army. Lu Dachang tried to take credit for Yang Jiqing's strength, or to scapegoat him in the event of his defeat and take the opportunity to annex his territory. Yang Jiqing's brilliance lies in the fact that he saw through Lu Dachang's tricks and ordered the troops to get out of the way and avoid clashes with the Red Army. When the Red Army passed through Dhoni, it showed extreme discipline and did not infringe on the interests of the local masses, which was in stark contrast to the army under Lu Dachang. Yang Jiqing was deeply touched by this, and personally arranged for the repair of the damaged cliff plank road, so that the Red Army could pass through Diebu smoothly.
At that time, the ** Red Army experienced continuous battles, the soldiers were exhausted, and there was little food reserves left. After learning of this situation, Yang Jiqing personally provided the Red Army with 300,000 catties of grain and a batch of dried meat. For the troubled Red Army, this was undoubtedly a relief in disguise. In addition, he took in many wounded and sick Red Army soldiers who had difficulty moving and sent people to take care of them. Some of the sick and wounded recovered from their wounds to catch up with the main forces on the front line, while more than 200 others remained in the area. Yang Jiqing not only did not send troops to stop the Red Army, but also provided them with 300,000 catties of food. After learning of this, Lu Dachang hurriedly reported the situation to Hu Zongnan in detail. Hu Zongnan was dissatisfied in his heart and instructed Lu Dachang to find an opportunity to get rid of Yang Jiqing. However, Yang Jiqing was extremely cautious, and Lu Dachang could not find a breakthrough.
In the summer of 1937, he paid a lot of money to bribe two regiment commanders under Yang Jiqing, and then used internal and external collusion to raid the Taomin Road Security Headquarters on the night of August 25. Due to the haste of the action and the bribing of his cronies, Yang Jiqing was quickly defeated, and he and his eldest son Yang Kun and seven others were brutally murdered, while his wife Yang Shouzhen and second son Yang Fuxing were placed under house arrest. Subsequently, the national ** announced the abolition of Zhuoni Tusi, and established a temporary maintenance committee in Zhuoni, appointing Ji Congzhou as the chairman of the maintenance committee and the commander of Taomin Road security. However, Lu Dachang underestimated Yang Jiqing's influence in Zhuoni, and his killing provoked the indignation of the locals, and his loyal troops soon launched a counterattack, eventually killing Ji Congzhou. Subsequently, the locals supported Yang Jiqing's second son, Yang Fuxing, to serve as the 20th generation of Zhuoni Tusi and the commander-in-chief of the Taomin Road Security Command.
At that time, Yang Fuxing was only 8 years old, and his mother Yang Shouzhen handled everything on his behalf. This period coincided with the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the fierce Battle of Songhu, and Chiang Kai-shek's limited control over Zhuoni, who had to recognize Yang Fuxing's status as a Tusi and officially appointed him as the commander-in-chief of the Taomin Road Security Command in 1943, when he was only 14 years old. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the War of Liberation broke out, and ** once had an advantage, but as time went by, the situation gradually turned against them. In particular, the collapse of the reorganized 74th Division dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the **. Despite being far away in Zhuoni, Yang Fuxing was always concerned about the war situation, was very dissatisfied with the corruption of the people, and gradually leaned towards revolution. In order to prevent him from falling to the PLA, Chiang Kai-shek summoned him to Nanjing in the name of training him and sent him to study at the Army University, essentially controlling him.
In the spring of 1949, Yang Fuxing graduated from the Army University. In order to get rid of the shackles, he asked to return to Zhuoni on the pretext of organizing troops against the PLA. Chiang Kai-shek was in the midst of successive military defeats, and when he heard that Yang Fuxing wanted to return to Zhuoni to resist the PLA, he immediately agreed and awarded him the rank of major general.