"Paying homage to the general" is the romance of every Chinese man, and it is also the ambition of every soldier when he joins the army, since ancient times.
The first award of titles in New China was in 1955, the year in which the generals who made great contributions to the independence of the nation, the founding of New China, and the victory of the revolutionary cause ushered in their glorious moment.
To this day, the affairs of the top ten marshals and ten generals are still talked about.
Among them, there is a general whose experience is quite special, especially so that the *** who is responsible for the work of awarding military ranks does not know what to award.
So he found *** and asked, "What rank should be awarded?"”
After knowing that it was this person, he said, "Let him decide for himself." ”
This general who can "set his own" is named Liu Ziqi, so what kind of special experience does he have that makes *** say such things as "set by himself"?
Hunan is a place of outstanding people, since ancient times.
There are thousands of founding generals who came out of Hunan, and among the PLA military personnel officially determined by the ** Military Commission, 41% are of Hunan nationality.
Among them, there is Liu Ziqi from Liuyang.
In 1900, Liu Ziqi was born in a poor family in Liuyang, because the family was poor, Liu Ziqi did not study, he worked for the landlord when he was a little older, and was later sent by his father to be an apprentice.
During those years, the warlords fought wars for many years, and the land was often unharvested, and no one could see hope in such days.
And it was in this context that Liu Ziqi was sent to the spinning factory in the county as an apprentice, and he also saw the wider world outside.
The county seat is no smaller than the rural area, and there are often intellectuals who carry out democratic propaganda, and this is how the ignorant Liu Ziqi came into contact with the idea of democracy.
The "May Fourth Movement" in 1919 dealt a heavy blow to the decadent society and sowed the seeds of light throughout the country.
Liu Ziqi's county town was also a frequent force for workers' movements, and Liu Ziqi was actively involved in them, believing that the workers had to fight for their own power, and could not wait for the rotten ruling class to "move their hearts".
It is precisely because of his full knowledge of the workers' movement that he has always spared no effort in these movements, which has also made him popular among these workers.
At that time, however, the working class had no armed forces of its own, and although the Kuomintang under Sun Yat-sen had its first cooperation with our party, this cooperation broke down after Chiang Kai-shek's regency.
A counter-revolutionary coup d'état of "April 12" made our party and the democratic personages of the whole country miserable, and it was under such a "white terror" that Liu Ziqi honorably joined the Communist Party of China.
He was born early, and he was already 27 years old when he joined our party, but he joined early, and he was not far behind.
After joining our party, Liu Ziqi was appointed by the organization to return to his hometown to carry out the agrarian revolution and set up a joint defense team in the local area.
Originally, this joint defense force was to have the power to resist when the reactionary warlords came to suppress it, but unexpectedly, the local people were very supportive of the revolution, and there were many people with lofty ideals who came to admire it, and the team soon numbered more than 1,000 people.
This was a very precious group of armed forces during the agrarian revolution.
After the organization learned about it, it approved the joint defense team to be changed to the Second Division of the Liuyang Red Guards, and Liu Ziqi, the organizer, naturally became the commander of the Second Division.
At that time, it was the early 30s, and most of the division commanders in the early 30s were in the rank of general after the founding of New China, but why was Liu Ziqi not a general?This is related to his three ups and downs in the course of the revolution.
In 1930, the Red Army made an attempt to revolt against the large city of Changsha, and Liu Ziqi led the Second Division to respond to the attack of the Red Third Army.
He fought very bravely on the battlefield, and the Red Third Army soon crossed the Liuyang River and began to attack Changsha.
It's just that our army's armed forces are weak after all, while the warlord He Jian has the support of Chiang Kai-shek and is well-equipped, and the armed forces of the two sides are not at the same level.
In order to avoid causing a bigger **, our army took the initiative to withdraw from the occupied Changsha city, and the second division also followed the Red Third Army to join the Red First Army, and was reorganized into the Red First Army.
Here, Liu Ziqi met the founder of the Red Army and the leader of the party
At the beginning of the revolution, he knew that there was a fellow villager who was the leader of Xu **, and now he admires him even more when he sees his fellow countryman.
In a speech, ** said that many of them were peasants, and it was difficult to command the army well without cultural knowledge, so he called on army leaders to Xi themselves.
Liu Ziqi, who was already the division commander at that time, thought so, he had never read since he was a child, and he was almost thirty years old and couldn't read a few big characters.
In order to respond to the call of ***, he took the initiative to resign from the position of division commander and entered the camp school established by our party for further study.
This study and Xi experience made Liu Ziqi have a deeper understanding of communism and strengthened his revolutionary aspirations.
After coming out of school, he was appointed by the organization as the head and political commissar of the 13th Regiment of the Independent Fifth Division, unlike other generals who returned from school who were appointed to higher positions, Liu Ziqi changed from a division commander to a regiment commander, which is actually a degradement.
There is no authoritative literature about the reason for his demotion, but it is said that Liu Ziqi killed people during this period.
He killed the Kuomintang prisoners, and at that time, our party was very strict in governing the army, and Liu Ziqi killed people regardless of party and military discipline, and he wanted to be killed at that time.
However, the superiors remembered Liu Ziqi's contribution to the revolution, and the Kuomintang prisoners did a lot of evil, so they were only demoted.
And Liu Ziqi did not shake his faith because of this, he still led the 13th Regiment to charge on the battlefield, and was soon appointed as the commander of the independent third division because of his military exploits.
Since then, he has participated in several anti-"encirclement and suppression" operations with ***, and has made many achievements in them.
Soon after the end of the Red Army's Long March, our party opened up a new situation and wanted to open up revolutionary base areas in many parts of the country.
Liu Ziqi felt that the new stage required new knowledge, so he resigned from his position in the army again and entered the Red Army University to study Xi.
It was not until after the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War that Liu Ziqi returned to the army again.
He teamed up with ** and led the 120th Brigade of the 359th Division of the Eighth Route Army to the anti-Japanese front line to fight, and created base areas in Shanxi, Hebei and other places.
If the title is awarded by the standard of this period, Liu Ziqi is at least a general, but because he was almost absent from the War of Resistance Against Japan, his military rank is not enough to match the general.
And the reason why he was absent from the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was because he was Xi study.
It was in 1939, when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was entering a white-hot stage, and he once again took the initiative to apply to the ** Party School to learn Xi culture.
This Xi, Liu Ziqi did not end until the end of the Anti-Japanese War, which also made him miss the main stage of the Anti-Japanese War, which also seriously affected his award.
In 1945, after graduating from the Party School, he was appointed as the commander of the security of Harbin City, and his position in the army was the commander of the 20th Brigade of the 7th Division of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army.
It was not until 1948 that Liu Ziqi was transferred again to the post of commander of the Eighth Independent Division, another division commander.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Liu Ziqi was appointed chief of staff of the Hunan Military Region, and finally ceased to be a division commander.
In 1952, Liu Ziqi was transferred to the former Guangdong Military Region and served as the deputy commander of the former Guangdong Military Region.
In 1955, when the military was awarded, the main considerations were military merits, seniority, and appointment, and these three points were comprehensively evaluated.
According to ***'s proposal, those who have already served in the local area should no longer participate in the awarding of military ranks, which makes ***, who is also enough to be rated as a "marshal", not be rated as a "marshal".
Later, *** tried his best to resign from the rank of "generalissimo" proposed by the generals, and used it as a commendation, hoping that everyone would not care about the level of the rank.
**Statement, but also let the person in charge of awarding the title breathe a sigh of relief, in line with the principle of fairness, in order not to let the soldiers chill, **has always been very serious and careful.
This is the problem encountered when awarding Liu Ziqi.
According to his qualifications, Liu Ziqi had already raised a team of 1,000 people at the beginning of the establishment of the Red Army, which can definitely be regarded as one of the "roots" of the Red Army.
In addition, he participated in several major armed uprisings in the early days, including the Changsha Uprising mentioned above, which also added a lot to Liu Ziqi's qualifications.
can be calculated according to military merits, Liu Ziqi is not as good as other generals, and even inferior to many lieutenant generals, which also makes it a little difficult to choose.
Finally, in terms of position, Liu Ziqi was the deputy commander of the military region at that time, and according to the standards at that time, the deputy commander could be a lieutenant general and a major general.
But if he is rated as a lieutenant general, ** I am worried that other lieutenant generals will have opinions.
In addition, Liu Ziqi is his old subordinate, who served as the political commissar of the Northeast Field Army during the Liberation War, and Liu Ziqi is the commander of the Eighth Division.
In other words, if *** awarded Lieutenant General Liu Ziqi with seniority, he was worried that some generals would say that he was "seeking personal gain", and if it was directly awarded to Major General, he felt that it might make Liu Ziqi dissatisfied.
Since it was so difficult to decide, **simply found *** and let *** decide this matter.
And when he heard that he was struggling with Liu Ziqi's rank, he also felt that he should be cautious, and finally he clicked ***:
Since you can't say for sure, and I can't say for sure, then you might as well ask me and let him evaluate himself and decide for himself. ”
**'s words made *** suddenly like "clearing the clouds", so after he went back, he called ** to Liu Ziqi's office of the former Guangdong Military Region.
At that time, Liu Ziqi was returning to the office after work, and when the secretary informed him of the call from Beijing, he stepped forward quickly and picked up **.
Hearing the voice of *** on the other side, Liu Ziqi suddenly wondered:
Old chief, do you have something to do with me?”
**In **, I talked to Liu Ziqi about the evaluation of military ranks, and according to what *** said, let Liu Ziqi "decide by himself".
Liu Ziqi thought it was something important, it turned out to be a matter of rating, and after listening to ***'s words, he also understood ***'s difficulties, so he took the initiative to speak:
I fully accept any arrangement of the organization, in my opinion, the Major General. ”
**Seeing that Liu Ziqi's consciousness was so high, he was also quite happy, he praised Liu Ziqi a few words in **, and then hung up**.
With Liu Ziqi's self-evaluation, the evaluation of ** has gone a lot smoother.
In fact, at that time, the pressure was not small, and the evaluation was for the whole army, and everyone came from different places at that time, and even the army from was different.
Take the base area as an example, ** was the Shandong base area in the early days, and later went to the northeast and became a member of the Northeast Field Army, that is, the Fourth Field Army.
Everyone comes from different backgrounds, and it is impossible to be exhaustive in the evaluation of the title, so there was even a general crying because of the evaluation at that time.
This made a lot of noise at the time, and at that time, *** also used the story and said "Men don't flick when they have tears, but it's not time to confer the title" to beat these generals who were dissatisfied because of the award.
Of course, there are also many people like Liu Ziqi who are voluntarily demoted, among which General Su Yu is the most famous.
Su Yu participated in the revolution very early, and had outstanding performances in various periods, especially during the War of Liberation, and was the "undefeated god of war" on the battlefield in East China.
** once told foreign ambassadors about Su Yu, saying that he was "a general who is very capable of fighting wars in our country", and when evaluating the title, ** also said that he "can be awarded the rank of marshal".
**'s comments naturally prove Su Yu's military exploits and qualifications, however, the marshal rank was demanding at that time, and it was necessary to achieve "balance".
Ten marshals, the East China Field Army already has **, if there is one more Su Yu, it will inevitably make the officers and men of other military regions feel inappropriate.
Therefore, ** discussed with Lai Chuanzhu and other evaluation groups to evaluate Su Yu as a general, and at that time, a general approached Su Yu to talk about it, and even told Su Yu that he wanted to express his "dissatisfaction" to the ** Military Commission.
Unexpectedly, Su Yu said that this was "too high", and even he planned to find the evaluation team and ask for another downgrade, and it was enough to be a general.
In the end, this matter was a *** knock on the board, let Su Yu be the first general, and let Su Yu not shirk again, so there was the first general Su Yu.
And Su Yu's request for a demotion also made many generals deeply ashamed and no longer expressed dissatisfaction with the evaluation of the title.
On September 23, 1955, the first military award was officially held in Huairen Hall in Beijing, and Mr. Zhu attended the award.
** Orders for the rank of the ten marshals are signed, while *** is issued for generals, generals, lieutenant generals, and major generals.
On this day, all major newspapers across the country reported on the awarding of titles, and the masses of the people were proud and happy to have this group of generals.
Whether it was Su Yu, Liu Ziqi or other generals, they all made great contributions to the establishment of New China.
And the evaluation of the title is a complex and comprehensive matter, and it is impossible to cover all aspects, so these generals who take the initiative to "demote" are noble and worthy of admiration.