Author: Hu Wei Recommender: Wang Huangyi.
Hu Wei (1920-2018), a native of Xincai, Henan Province. He participated in the revolution in 1937 and joined the Communist Party of China in 1938. During the Liberation War, he served as the director of the Political Department of the 2nd Vertical and 4th Brigade of the East China Field Army. In 1949, he served as the commander of the 61st Division of the 21st Army. In 1953, he participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea and served as the chief of staff of the 21st Army of the Volunteer Army. In 1961, he was promoted to the rank of major general. After 1962, he successively served as deputy commander, military political commissar, and commander of the 21st Army. In 1969, he served as deputy commander of the Lanzhou Military Region and commander of the 21st Army. He was elected as an alternate member of the ** term and was promoted to deputy chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and director of the General Office of the Central Military Commission in December 1974. On June 20, 2018, Hu Wei died in Beijing at the age of 98 due to ineffective medical treatment.
Embark on a revolutionary journey
I was born on the 24th day of the eighth lunar month in 1920 in Huying Village, about 60 miles west of Xincai County, Henan Province. In my childhood, my family had more than 150 acres of land, which was rented out except for a part of the land cultivated by hired workers. By 1933, when my third brother and I were studying in Kaifeng at the same time, the family only relied on selling surplus grain to provide for the two of them to go to school, and it was also quite difficult financially.
It is said that my great-grandfather and grandfather were both in Xiucai, and when I was born, they were both long dead and had not seen each other. My father studied in a private school for a few years, was not highly educated, took care of housework, and died in 1936. Her mother was a housewife, who had never gone to school, and was relatively capable, and she was in charge of all the affairs of the family, and died in 1937. There are three brothers and sisters-in-law, and several nephews. The eldest brother attended the old system of middle school, and later worked as a clerk (a small clerk in the management of school administrative affairs) at Xincai County High School, and died in 1948. The second brother had studied privately and had been at home all the time, and later became the director of the joint security department, and was suppressed in the land reform movement. The third brother graduated from the normal school in the late Kaifeng period, because he could not find a job, he was admitted to the cotton inspection class held by the Henan Provincial Department of Construction for training, and was assigned to a small town in Anyang County as a cotton inspector, and later returned to the county as a primary school principal, and died in 1959. Two of the nephews went to Taiwan in 1948, and three worked as family farmers. After I joined the revolution, I did not have contact with my family for a long time, and I did not know anything about my brother and nephews until the early 60s.
I went to primary school in this village from the age of 6, and was admitted to Xincai County Middle School at the age of 12, and went to school for a year, because the school was a new school, and the conditions were very poor in all aspects, so I was admitted to Henan Provincial No. 1 Middle School (later renamed Kaifeng Junior High School) in 1933, and in 1936, I was admitted to Henan Provincial Kaifeng High School at the age of 16, and I studied until I joined the army in 1937.
When I was studying in Kaifeng, I worked very hard, my Xi grades were relatively good, and I won scholarships in junior high school and high school, on the one hand, because young people had a strong desire to learn, on the other hand, there was a general threat of unemployment after graduation, and after entering high school, I chose science, also considering that I could be admitted to a science and engineering university in the future, and it would be easier to find a career after graduation.
During my study in Kaifeng, I came into contact with a large number of literary works, and my interest was very strong, reading more works by Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Ba Jin, Guo Moruo and others, and also reading some translated works by Soviet, French, and German writers.
In order to study literature, learn from each other, and practice writing, in the second year of junior high school, Zhao Xiuye and I (later renamed *** Song Xixing (later renamed Song Jiansheng) initiated, and contacted ten classmates to organize the "Qimao Literature and Art Society" in order to enlighten its mouth, and compile the "Qimao Poster", * The way to read and be a man, save the world.
In addition to using students' contributions, the members of the Qimao Society are actively writing, everyone divides labor to write, and hangs it on their own, and most of their spare time is spent on writing posters. The activities of the Kaimao Club have had a positive impact on the students. Progressive literary works are very appealing, and articles propagating the anti-Japanese struggle and salvation strongly inspire progressive young students. Many of my classmates and I were dissatisfied with the reality and hoped to resist the aggression of Japanese imperialism and to have a better society.
Kaifeng is close to North China, and after Japan occupies the three eastern provinces, it is approaching North China step by step, and the great rivers and mountains of the motherland have fallen under the iron hooves of the Japanese invaders, and the people are in dire straits. In the face of the situation of national peril, most of my classmates and I became more and more enthusiastic about the anti-Japanese war and salvation, and actively participated in the students' anti-Japanese and salvation activities. At the end of 1935, I was an active member of the Kaifeng students' support for the Beiping students.
3. Five students went to the streets and suburbs to carry out anti-Japanese war and rescue propaganda activities. The Kuomintang adopted a policy of non-resistance against the Japanese invaders, clamored that "if you go outside, you must first secure the interior", wantonly arrested anti-Japanese war personnel, seized anti-Japanese war publications, suppressed the student salvation movement, and surrendered to the Japanese invaders.
Xincai County is close to the Dabie Mountains, and you can hear some information about the Communist Party and the Red Army. Official propaganda says that the Communist Party kills people and sets fires, and the Communist Party has a communist wife. However, what came out of the common people was that the Communist Party fought the world for the poor, loved the common people, spoke kindly, bought and sold fairly, and if the Kuomintang soldiers were caught unwilling to follow them, they would give them silver dollars to go home, and so on.
Chiang Kai-shek mobilized heavy troops to encircle and suppress the Red Army, but the Communists and the Red Army triumphantly marched to northern Shaanxi and embarked on the anti-Japanese front, issuing a call to stop the civil war and unite against Japan. Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng detained Chiang Kai-shek in Xi'an and forced him to resist Japan, and it was the Communist Party that brought about the peaceful settlement of the Xi'an Incident.
In 1935 and 1936, two large-scale student salvation movements in Kaifeng were initiated and led by a few Communist Party students from Kaifeng High School and Henan University, and their actions expanded the influence of the Communist Party. My classmate Wei Hongyun (who joined the party at school and changed to Wei Feng after joining the army) gave me direct influence and help, and through his introduction, I got to know Sun Guolu, the person in charge of the Communist Party of Kaifeng High School, and Wu Zuyi, a member of the Pingjin Exiled Student Union. All this has given me a strong admiration and yearning for the Communist Party.
In mid-October 1937, I went home to mourn my mother, and in early November I returned to school. At that time, the Japanese army had entered northern Henan, Kaifeng began to be bombed by Japanese planes, and the school could not attend classes. After discussing with Wei Hongyun, Liu Naizhao (renamed Liu Ye after joining the army), Li Dongxuan (renamed Li Hui after joining the army) and other classmates, everyone agreed that the national crisis was at hand, and they should immediately enter the war of resistance and could not move with the school, and agreed that Wei would contact the Communist Party organization to go there.
At that time, the Kuomintang and the army were recruiting students, Tang Enbo was in Bishui, Zhang Fu was in Luoyang, and Henan Province held the so-called "Anti-Japanese War Training Class" in Kaifeng, and the Communist Party's Fan Wenlan and Ma Zhiyuan (i.e., Liu Zihou) opened a training class at Henan University. About a week later, the Kuomintang ** wanted to take over the training class and run it by their government, but we didn't want to, so we left on our own and moved to the Xichuan Fellow Villagers Association (Wei is a native of Xichuan) to live temporarily, preparing to find another place. There are 8 students who moved together, and everyone talks about going to ** every day, some propose to go to Linfen, and some propose to Yan'an.
One afternoon, Wei brought a comrade Zhang (I can't remember his name) from the Kaifeng local party to meet with them, and he asked each of them to talk about their situation and why they wanted to find the Communist Party. After everyone finished talking, Comrade Zhang said: "It's good that you all want to go to Yan'an, but there are many people who go to Yan'an, and after studying there for a Xi while, they have to be assigned to various places." Now there is a Communist-led guerrilla force in southern Henan, which is in great need of people, and there are people who have arrived in Kaifeng. If the students wish, they can go with him. You can go to 7 of the 8 first, and the other student is not mentally prepared enough, so let's talk about it after thinking about it. After hearing this, everyone expressed their willingness to go to southern Henan.
Two days later, Wei brought Comrade Li Zijian of the Special Committee of Southern Henan to meet with them, and after studying and deciding, in the name of the propaganda team of the students returning to their hometowns in southern Henan, they would get off the train from Suiping or Qushan, and then walk to the Shiluan River to pick up the relations, and then the people concerned would take us to find the guerrillas. Everyone was very excited about going to the guerrillas led by the Communist Party, and that night they turned to the dictionary and changed their names to the word fire, saying that they wanted revolution and threw themselves into the fiery struggle.
After a short period of preparation, we set off in mid-December, got off at Suiping, learned that there were bandits and robbers along the way, and the road was not easy to walk, and then turned to Queshan to get off, and after two days of walking to Shiluanhe, after finding a relative, he led by him to arrive at the Jiaozhuyuan Southern Henan People's Anti-Japanese Independent Regiment near Dengzhuangpu in Piyang County on December 24, and entered the Communist Party-led troops.
The Independent Regiment was renamed by the Red Army guerrillas in Henan-Hubei. In 1936, Zhou Junming and other comrades founded this guerrilla force, which started with only 7 people and 3 guns, and later grew to more than 100 people, and then reduced to more than 40 under the brutal encirclement and suppression of the Kuomintang army. After 1937, with the support of the Red 28th Army, two landlord armies were eliminated, and the army was redeveloped. After the start of the Anti-Japanese War, it was renamed the Southern Henan People's Anti-Japanese Independent Regiment in October, with the guerrilla leader Zhou Junming as the head and Lin Kai, the organization minister of the Henan Provincial Party Committee, as the political commissar. When we arrived, the whole group was about 400 people.
Three days before we arrived, Fan Siman and three other female classmates arrived at the unit. Seven of us were the second batch of young students to arrive in the army, and the leaders and comrades of the unit warmly welcomed us to join the army. After a two-day break, Wei Feng stayed in the Propaganda Unit of the Political Department to work, and the rest were assigned to the first company. The soldiers were simple, enthusiastic and optimistic, they brought straw to make bunks for us, boiled water and cooked for us, helped us put on military uniforms, taught us how to use and keep our guns, stood guard with us, told us how they fought against the Kuomintang army, how they fought bad goods (referring to the local tyrants and inferior gentry), how they did mass work, and how the masses helped the guerrillas, and so on. In just a few days, the fighters and we were like brothers and family, and we proudly felt that we had turned from students to warriors.
In early January 1938, after repelling the attack of the Kuomintang security regiment, the troops moved to Zhugou Town in Queshan County, at this time about 20 young students came from western Henan, and the regiment headquarters transferred us from the company to set up a teaching team with the new students, nearly 30 people, the regiment headquarters did not appoint responsible cadres, nor did there be any training plan, and Wei Feng was responsible for all the work. The course was taught by local leading comrades and Red Army cadres from Wuhan, and covered topics such as the Ten Programs, the united front, guerrilla warfare tactics, political work in guerrilla warfare, and mass work. We had never heard of these things before, so we took notes and learned Xi them carefully. These introductory courses have helped me a lot in my future career.
After entering the teaching team, I discussed with Liu Ye and Li Hui to apply for membership in the Communist Party of China, and talked to Comrade Wei Feng, who said that you should write an application for joining the party, and Comrade Li Zijian and I would be your introducers to join the party. At that time, there was no set of procedures such as filling out the form, so the three of us used the paper torn from the Xi practice book, and each of us wrote a report on the application for joining the party and sent it. On the evening of February 8, 1938, Lin Kai (head of the Organization Department of the Henan Provincial Party Committee, who had been sent to the Independent League as political commissar at that time) and Tong Zhongyu (head of the Organization Department of the Henan Special Committee) came to me to talk with Liu Ye and Li Hui, and Wei Feng and Li Zijian both participated. Comrade Lin Kai said: On behalf of the party organization, I approve the three of you to join the Communist Party of China. Then he talked about the Communist Party's stand and the requirements for party members, and encouraged us to Xi study hard, work actively, fight bravely, temper and grow up in the struggle, and strive for victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the realization of socialism in China all our lives.
We were all very emotional. From this day on, I became a glorious member of the Communist Party of China from a young student from a landlord family and began the revolutionary journey.