One day in 1972, the 96-year-old Wang Xiuzhi came to the end of her life, she took the hand of the marshal in front of the bed and said slowly, "Forward, you are a kind person." Xun Xuan follows you, and I am relieved to die! ”
The Xunxuan in the old man's mouth is her daughter Cheng Xunxuan, the second wife of Marshal ***, as early as 40 years ago in 1932, she was killed by Zhang Guotao in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet District. Since then, Xu Shuai has been hiding from his old mother-in-law, and he has been filial piety for 40 years, until the old man left with a smile. But in my heart, the feelings for my deceased wife have always been unforgettable, until 1984, when the old man who was over eighty years old wrote a memoir and called him "my lover Cheng Xunxuan".
Cheng Xunxuan, born in 1911 in a poor peasant family in Huang'an County, Hubei, she never studied, but she was smart and lively, and loved to talk and laugh. In 1928, Cheng Xunxuan, under the influence of his brother Cheng Qiguang, participated in the revolution. Cheng Qiguang is the captain of the special team of the Red 31st Division under ***.
In the revolutionary ranks, Cheng Xunxuan was mainly responsible for women's work, leading local women to cut their hair and feet, fighting for freedom of marriage, and also organized a food delivery team, a laundry team, and a propaganda team to do logistics work for the Red Army, take care of the wounded and sick, and was a well-known women's director in the Tanshugang area.
In 1929, ** was sent from Shanghai to the northeast Hubei base area, served as the deputy commander of the 31st Division of the Red Eleventh Army, this unit is the old team of the Jute Uprising, the division commander Wu Guanghao, who has just died not long ago, is a legendary figure in the local area. **Coming here is equivalent to parachuting, although he is the deputy division commander, but after Wu Guanghao's sacrifice, there is no new division commander, that is, to actually lead this army, to gain the trust of the local people, it is not easy.
** has always been elegant, approachable, and leads by example when fighting, and also pays attention to the strengths of the local natives, and soon gets along with the local people. In a battle, ** injured his leg by jumping off a cliff, and it was not easy for no one to take care of him, Chief of Staff Cao Xuekai and the captain of the third team Ni Zhigao knew that *** had been widowed for many years, so they took the initiative to match him with Cheng Xunxuan.
Cheng Xunxuan was an 18-year-old girl at the time, participated in the revolution and became a Red Army, and naturally admired the heroic and good fighter, and Xu Shuai's elegant demeanor also made her quite fond of her. And the ***, who has always been calm and sophisticated, also admires this little girl who loves to talk and laugh, and is lively and active. Cheng Xunxuan speaks straightforwardly, does not beat around the bush, ** once said that she "has no one standing guard on her lips".
What's even more rare is that Cheng Xunxuan is very familiar with the local customs and customs, and the women's work is also doing well.
Not long after the two met, in order to make it easier to take care of the injured ***, the two of them held a simple and lively wedding like lightning. In current words, ** and Cheng Xunxuan are flash marriages. But in that war-torn era, the revolutionary feelings that burst out in an instant were cherished by each other.
This year, Cheng Xunxuan was 18 years old and **28 years old.
The wedding was held in the ancestral hall of the Cheng family, and the team leader Cheng Zhaoli said: "The Red Army is a lifesaver for our poor, and there is no empty house, so let them do it in the ancestral hall!" Ke Ying (Cheng Xunxuan's original name) married Master Xu, but the glory of our Cheng family, you have to be lively. The eldest brother Cheng Qiguang also said, "The family has no opinions, so let's do it!" ”
Soon after the marriage, **'s leg injury recovered, and soon returned to the front line to lead the troops to fight, while Cheng Xunxuan stayed in the rear and continued to do local women's work.
In the two years after marriage, he exerted his military genius on the front line, led the Red Army to achieve brilliant results, and successively smashed Chiang Kai-shek's three "encirclement and suppression" of the Red Army in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Region, and was promoted to the commander of the Red Fourth Army. But it was also during this time that he almost lost any news of his wife Cheng Xunxuan.
Until one day, ** asked the guards to send their torn clothes to his wife Cheng Xunxuan, and asked her to take the time to make up for it. As a result, the guards came back with their torn clothes, bringing bad news, and Cheng Xunxuan was arrested as a reorganization faction and a counter-revolutionary. At that time, *** was already the best military commander of the Red Fourth Front Army, who would arrest his wife behind his back?
This person is Zhang Guotao, secretary of the ** branch of the Communist Party of China's Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet District and chairman of the Military Committee, the supreme leader of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet District, and can be said to be the "emperor" of the Red Fourth Front Army. * knew that Zhang Guotao carried out a "rebellion" in Hubei, Henan and Anhui and killed many Red Army soldiers, but he didn't expect that Zhang Guotao would attack his wife.
**Soon understood that Cheng Xunxuan would never have any problems, Zhang Guotao's move was aimed at himself. It's just that Zhang Guotao is covering the sky in the Soviet area, what can he do? No matter how high-status the generals are, such as Zeng Zhongsheng, Xu Jishen, Kuang Jixun, and other famous people, they were all poisoned by Zhang Guotao.
In fact, this is not the first time Zhang Guotao has arrested Cheng Xunxuan, he has arrested him once before he led his troops south, and he wanted to get black materials from Cheng Xunxuan's mouth to frame him. But Cheng Xunxuan was not moved by coercion and temptation at all, gritted his teeth, and resolutely refused to cooperate, so he was released and sent to the factory to force labor.
Maybe Zhang Guotao is still a little jealous of ***'s military power, so when *** is still there, he doesn't dare to kill him. When *** just led his troops to fight south, Zhang Guotao couldn't wait and arrested Cheng Xunxuan again. In prison, interrogators from the Security Bureau severely tortured Cheng Xunxuan.
Regarding Zhang Guotao's torture methods during the suppression of rebellion, Major General Yang Kewu recalled that experience: "When Zhang Guotao was engaged in the 'suppression of rebellion,' I served as the chief of the Political Section of the Fourth Front Army, specializing in 'suppressing rebellion,' and killed some people. The punishment is also very cruel, such as pouring chili pepper water, nailing bamboo sticks to the fingers, standing on fire bricks, ** hanging, etc., and beating them hard.
In order to pry Cheng Xunxuan's mouth open and slander *** as a member of Chiang Kai-shek's AB regiment, Zhang Guotao imposed an extremely cruel punishment on this 20-year-old woman. The interrogators ordered Cheng Xunxuan to be hung on the beams of the housebeat Cheng Xunxuan's buttocks with a leather whip, and after three consecutive days of whipping, Cheng Xunxuan was beaten to the point that his skin was open, especially his buttocks were beaten to the point that flesh and blood were flying and both strands were rotten.
Cheng Xunxuan is a weak woman, who "has no one standing guard on her lips" on weekdays, but at this moment, after suffering such a poisonous hand, she chose not to say a word, and refused to frame and betray her husband until death. She said to her comrade-in-arms Zhang Bo, who risked his life to come to see her in the cell
The Security Bureau forced me to give false testimony and frame the commander (** is a "reorganization faction", and I would rather die than do anything sorry for the commander. I said that *** was loyal to the party and could not be framed, so they tortured me repeatedly, and my buttocks were all broken, and now I can't even walk a few steps, and it seems that I won't live long.
Huang Fengxian is Cheng Xunxuan's aunt, and was also imprisoned with her, after Zhang Guotao ordered her to be executed, she took off a red cotton jacket she wore when she married ***, handed it to her aunt Huang Fengxian and said: "Auntie, your child is still young, you have to be strong and strive to get out alive." You can keep this dress warm up", and asked her to tell her husband ***"Your wife is loyal to you and loyal to the party. I died for the revolution, don't feel sorry for me. ”
Soon, Cheng Xunxuan was tied up and escorted to the execution ground, and his life at the age of 21 came to an end. Wang Xiuzhi gave birth to five children in his life, and four of them gave their young lives for the revolution.
When Cheng Xunxuan was shot, ** was still commanding and blocking the enemy in Wuxian Mountain, Qiliping Town, and he never knew his wife's whereabouts. When he led the Red Army to fight in many directions, he never stopped asking people to investigate, but there was no news.
It wasn't until 1937 that ** escaped death and returned to Yan'an after experiencing the annihilation of the Western Route Army, only to hear that after his wife was arrested that year, she refused to betray herself to death, and was finally shot. According to the fellow refugees who were locked up with Cheng Xunxuan, on the eve of his execution, the fellow refugees also heard long mountain songs coming from the cell where Cheng Xunxuan was being held.
Hearing this bad news, ** heartache. At the Red Army University in Yan'an, ** met Zhou Chunquan, the head of the security bureau of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet District, who came to study, and questioned him"Why did you take my wife and shoot her? What exactly is she guilty of? ”At this time, Zhang Guotao had been purged from the party, and Zhou Chunquan had no choice but to admit, "She is not guilty, she was arrested and tortured at that time just to get your black material." ”
Many years later, ** directly pointed out that he had a "wife-killing enmity" with Zhou Chunquan, which became the biggest mistake made by the founding general Zhou Chunquan in his life.
Cheng Xunxuan's sacrifice was a great blow to ***, especially knowing that his wife died for himself, he was even more sad and angry, hating himself for failing to protect his wife. After Cheng Xunxuan's sacrifice, ** never wanted to have feelings for any woman again. First, it is difficult to give up his sincere love for Cheng Xunxuan, and secondly, he doesn't want to affect others.
It wasn't until 7 years later that **, under the introduction of Zhu Rui and Chen Ruoke, married Wang Shuanglan, a local women's worker, in Mengyin, Shandong, and accepted a new relationship. In 1946, after divorcing Wang Shuanglan, he met Huang Jie, who had the same disease as him, and the two grew old.
But even so, the pain in my heart has been difficult to eliminate. Every time she coaxed the old man Wang Xiuzhi to smile, she was also immersed in the nostalgia for his deceased wife again and again.
She didn't even leave a **, but she left that sonorous and powerful "loyalty", which is the best portrayal of her short and gorgeous life.