In the midsummer of 1949, Li Houkun, who had always worked diligently and was simple, received a new appointment: he went to Fujian to take over as the logistics director of the 10th Corps.
Li Houkun. Li Houkun and his wife both work in the logistics department, and they were overjoyed to receive this appointment, and immediately packed their luggage and prepared to go.
The couple has a three-year-old son, and in order to ensure basic safety along the way, Li Houkun specially brought a nanny and a guard platoon of about 40 people.
According to common sense, there are more than 40 PLA companions along the way, which should be very safe.
But who knows, when Li Houkun and his party set off from Ningbo and passed through Shengxian County to rest, the instructor of the Shengxian army saw Li Houkun and his party's team, but his face was full of bitterness, and bluntly said: "More than 40 people are enough!."”
Why would the instructor say such a thing?Could it be that someone is waiting on the road to deal with Li Houkun?Will a family of three be able to reach their destination smoothly?
August 1949 was the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it was also the seventeenth year that Li Houkun joined the party.
Li Houkun is a native of Gaoji Temple, Hubei Province, and his family conditions were not very good when he was a child, so when he was studying and learning Xi, he helped his family do farm work.
Li Houkun has been studying for about 3 years, not to mention how much knowledge he can learn in these 3 years, but he is relatively proficient in Japanese common sense, words and arithmetic, etc., which is very rare in the war period at that time.
In September 1930, 19-year-old Li Houkun joined the Young Pioneers, during which his advantages of being good at propaganda and agitation were discovered, and he had read books for three years when he was a child, and in less than half a year, he joined the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and served as a sergeant of the propaganda team.
In 1932, with his outstanding ability, Li Houkun was promoted to the post of director of Lenin's Office to do propaganda work, and it was also in this year that he joined the Communist Party of China.
Later, under the leadership of the party, Li Houkun was not afraid of difficulties and courageously forged ahead in both combat and propaganda work, and in 1935, he also participated in the 25,000-mile Long March that impressed countless Red Armymen.
On the Long March, the Red Army not only had to face bad weather and the enemy troops to pursue, but also often faced the problem of shortage of food and grass.
Although the main force of the Red Army had made full preparations for grain and grass before deciding to take the Long March, the bad weather along the way (walking swamps, climbing over snow-capped mountains, etc.) made everyone's supplies impossible to preserve.
In this process, Li Houkun, who was then the director of the Supply Department of the 24th Military Medical Department of the Ninth Division, almost every day he opened his eyes and thought about how to solve the problem of material shortage.
Preparing materials seems simple, but in practice, there are many requirements.
To raise money, how to raise in place, what will happen on the way, how to avoid lack of success, etc., all need to be considered, it can be said that it requires both a very meticulous mind, but also to be able to coordinate the overall situation, and also have a certain propaganda foundation, and these are also a test for Li Houkun.
After the end of the Long March, Li Houkun has always been responsible for supplying this sector, whether it was in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression or in the face of the Kuomintang Civil War, he has always adhered to a conscientious work attitude and a thrifty life style.
In 1947, Li Houkun had been promoted to the logistics director of the Ninth Column of the East China Field Army
"The soldiers and horses have not moved, and the grain and grass go first. ”On the front line of the battlefield, he always remembered the importance of grain and grass, and did not dare to neglect it for a moment.
That year, he needed to move around according to the change of the war situation because of the preparation of grain and grass, and in just one year, he was mobilized four times, and even one of his comrades-in-arms couldn't help but sigh
"That year, the Shandong Corps was able to gallop left and right on both sides of Jinnan and Luxi to deter the enemy, which had a lot to do with the logistics work done by Li Houkun. ”
In April 1949, the battle of crossing the Yangtze River officially began, and the People's Liberation Army crossed the Yangtze River and took Nanjing directly, completely shattering Chiang Kai-shek's last illusion.
Before the battle, Li Houkun also took great pains to prepare the grain and grass, in order to be able to smoothly prepare and transport the grain and grass across the river, he made a series of extremely accurate arrangements on the transportation route and arrival time.
Later, when facing an interview with reporters, Li Houkun said:
"In logistics work, calculation is particularly important, the arrival time of the materials is early, or late, it is not good, it is easy to affect the battle, and the material procurement should also be paid attention to, the raising of too much, will cause a burden to the people;There is less to raise and not enough soldiers, and these are the things that can affect success or failure in battle. ”These are the summaries of Li Houkun's experience in the more than ten years since he joined the party, and these experiences have cultivated his Xi habit of "good steel must be used on the blade", and at the same time, these Xi habits are also deeply engraved in his bones, until the unexpected sudden outbreak in 1949.
Li Houkun. In July 1949, Li Houkun received a new appointment, that is, to take over the post of logistics chief of the 10th Corps of Sanye.
After receiving the notice, Li Houkun's wife Ge Yufang began to quickly pack her luggage, and at the same time, Li Houkun also arranged for the accompanying personnel.
Two large trucks can seat more than 40 PLA people's troops, and one jeep is just one car for Li Houkun's family of three, guards, drivers, and nannies.
Since the liberation of Nanjing in April, the speed of liberation in all parts of the country has also been significantly smoother, but in the process, many areas still have some armed forces that have been left in the mountains to take up the business of robbing houses and houses, and there are guard platoons to accompany them, and they are more secure in terms of security.
On August 3, Li Houkun's vehicle slowly drove into Shengxian County, and they arrived a little late, it was already past noon, and it was a hot time.
Coming out of the stuffy car, everyone felt a cool breeze XiXi and a burst of refreshment.
After the group had lunch in Shengxian, Li Houkun told the guard platoon to rest in place for a while, and then set off at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when the weather was not so hot.
Who knows, after Liu Honglin, the instructor of the Shengxian Brigade, heard Li Houkun's words, he hurriedly said:
"It's too late to leave tomorrow morning, and tomorrow morning we'll send troops to escort everyone for a while. ”When Li Houkun heard this, he immediately refused, and said that he had more than 40 people to escort him, and his safety was guaranteed.
After Liu Honglin saw Li Houkun's refusal, he was also a little anxious in his heart, and hurriedly said:
"More than 40 people** is enough, there are rampant mountain bandits along the way, and we send people to escort the most difficult section, which is also safer. ”
In fact, everyone understands this truth, and it is naturally safer to escort more people, but for Li Houkun, who has been doing logistics work for a long time, good steel must be used on the blade, and the problem of rampant mountain bandits is not only here, there are many places, and if their own people can solve it, they will trouble the army as little as possible.
What's more, it was a time when all parts of the country were facing liberation, and the employment of the army was also very nervous.
So, Li Houkun rejected Liu Honglin's proposal, and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, as soon as the time came, the large troops got into the car one after another and drove in the direction of the destination.
Before getting into the car, Li Houkun may have had a premonition that there would be a hard battle to fight next.
He walked straight to the front of the big truck, emphasized the situation that he might encounter next, and mentioned that the spirit of sacrifice is the duty of every soldier, and on the road to liberation, it is inevitable and every soldier needs to have.
At that time, everyone was ready to encircle and suppress the mountain bandits, but they didn't expect that the mountain bandits had encountered them, but there were few survivors in the end.
After the vehicle drove through Changle Town, the road was not easy to walk, especially in the section of Yangjieling, the bumpy road made the big trucks "panting", and the speed of progress became very slow.
The jeep, who was sandwiched in the middle, saw that the truck was driving very slowly, so he walked towards the front, and when he drove to Hucun, the sun had already set.
The jeep drove forward against the sunset, and suddenly, the vehicle stopped, and Li Houkun looked at it, and it turned out that a roadblock suddenly appeared in front of the vehicle.
This barricade is not normal!The PLA has not set up roadblocks here!
Li Houkun looked at the roadblock and motioned for the guards to get out of the car to take a look, and at this moment, two men wearing white straw hats jumped over from the side of the road and said with a ruffian face: "If you want to go over, you have to pay for the transportation!."”
After Li Houkun and the guards got out of the car one after another, Li Houkun shouted:
"Why do you take money!?”When the two men saw Li Houkun's momentum, they were so frightened that they immediately turned around and ran, and disappeared on the side of the road in a few seconds.
Fortunately, Li Houkun and his entourage had already taken precautions, and at this time, the truck in the rear also arrived, and the number of people on the other side was about the same as the number of Li Houkun's guard platoon, more than 40 people.
After a fierce battle, the opponent's combat strength was invincible, and he fled in a hurry, this fierce battle came and went quickly, and at the end, two female bandits were captured by the People's Liberation Army.
After a brief interrogation, Li Houkun learned that one of the two people was a family member of the secretary of the Shengxian Party Department of the Kuomintang, and the other was Ma Xiaohua, the director of the "**Shengxian Southwest Office".
After briefly asking about the identities of the two people, Li Houkun did not rush to kill them, but after telling them about our party's policies, he let them go.
Immediately afterwards, Li Houkun ordered to continue on the road, but at this moment, the truck suddenly had another problem, and he didn't know what was going on, so he couldn't start.
And just as the driver wanted to get out of the car to check the situation, a burst of ** sound that was even more violent than just now suddenly sounded in the sky, and in the night, I saw about 100 people suddenly rushing out.
This is obviously another group of people, Li Houkun didn't have time to think, he quickly crouched under the jeep, and there was another fierce battle, as time passed, the other party saw that he was invincible, and he quickly hid.
In Li Houkun's view, this is the worst situation, if you want to break through the other party's block, you must carry out a surprise attack, and at this time, Li Houkun has only five or six people around him, and if you want to carry out an assault, the number is not enough.
Seeing that it was not possible to delay like this, Li Houkun took a few people around him and took the lead in breaking through to the other party, however, when Li Houkun rushed to the bottom of the ditch, he was accidentally hit by the opponent's bullet and fell in a pool of blood.
When the bandits saw Li Houkun falling, they opened fire violently, and left the scene of the fierce battle within a few minutes.
After the fierce battle, not a single sound could be heard, and even the birds perched on the trees at dusk and the animals chirping on the roadside seemed to have disappeared.
After a while, the surviving driver walked out of the hidden corner, he looked at the blood in the night, hurriedly got into the car to check on the wounded, only to see that Ge Yufang was also lying in a pool of blood and had long since lost his breath, while Li Xianguo, who was only 3 years old, was nowhere to be seen.
Li Xianguo went to **?Li Houkun is in **?After calming down, the driver immediately drove and carried Ge Yufang's body to Dongyang County, 40 kilometers away, to ask them for support.
After the People's Liberation Army stationed in Dongyang learned that Li Houkun and his entourage had been attacked, they immediately launched a comprehensive search of the place where the incident occurred, and then found Li Houkun's body at the bottom of a ditch.
However, Li Houkun and Ge Yufang's son Li Xianguo did not have the slightest movement.
And, judging by the scene described by the surviving PLA, this was not a simple mountain bandit attack, why do you say that?
First, these mountain bandits shot so many people and didn't loot much property, their purpose was like going straight to killing.
Second, there was no trace of Li Xianguo at the scene, which is very suspicious, if it is a mountain bandit, there is no need to rob the child at all.
Thirdly, the two female bandits captured at the beginning were reactionary elements.
Sure enough, as the investigation and pursuit unfolded, except for the Kuomintang reactionaries among the more than 40 people who appeared at the beginning, even the more than 100 people who suddenly appeared later were not ordinary mountain bandits.
The leader of that group of people was none other than one of the remnants of the Kuomintang who were still unwilling to accept the defeat of the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang.
After the liberation of Jinhua in May 1949, some remnants of the Kuomintang were unwilling to accept the defeat, so they secretly gathered some ruffians and stragglers abandoned by the Kuomintang everywhere to form 56 armed forces of various sizes, and An Ihua was one of them.
These bandits attacked the liberated towns and villages everywhere, and in the process robbed the People's Liberation Army of the People's Liberation Army's equipment and shot and killed hundreds of innocent people.
And An Ihua's attack on Li Houkun was also premeditated.
The day before Li Houkun and his entourage set off, Li Houkun's secretary went to a cigarette shop to buy cigarettes, and while talking to the cigarette seller, he accidentally revealed Li Houkun's whereabouts, and this cigarette dealer happened to be a residual agent of the Kuomintang.
Kuomintang agent.
The news went around and went, and it reached An Wuhua's hands, so there was an attack on Li Houkun and Ge Yufang on the way.
In the destruction of these bandits, the sacrifices of Li Houkun and his wife, the People's Liberation Army, and innocent people were like heavy bricks pressing on the hearts of every patriot.
By 1951, these 56 bandits were finally completely wiped out, and in the process, Li Houkun's son Li Xianguo was finally found in a peasant family after some twists and turns.
It turned out that Li Xianguo was quietly taken away by a soldier at that time, and the two hid in a bridge hole, and after the gunfire stopped, the soldier ran to a village not far away with 3-year-old Li Xianguo and entrusted Li Xianguo to a peasant.
After that, Li Xianguo was adopted by Li Houkun's comrade-in-arms, Xie Shengkun, deputy political commissar of the Wuhan Military Region.
Xie Shengkun. Conclusion:
The sacrifice of Li Houkun and Ge Yufang is heart-wrenching and extremely regrettable, they knew that there were bandits ahead before they set off, but they were still fearless and indomitable, which was admirable.
After the murder of Li Houkun and his wife, some people in later generations said: If Li Houkun had promised Liu Honglin to let the army escort him early the next morning, would the result have been different?
In fact, it was still very difficult to do this, because at that time they did not know that the reactionaries would arrange two groups of people to wait there in advance, so it was impossible for Li Houkun to be escorted by the army according to his always simple style.
Fortunately, after more than two years, all 56 bandits were wiped out, avoiding the victimization of more comrades and giving Jinhua a clear picture.