Founded in 1946, the Northwest Hubei Military Region was formed by the combination of a column and a brigade of the Central Plains Military Region that broke through into the northwest of Hubei and the Jianghan Military Region, with a total of five military regions under its jurisdiction.
Judging from the staffing at that time, the staffing of the leading organs of the Northwest Hubei Military Region was still relatively solid, with Wang Shusheng serving as commander and political commissar, and three deputy commanders and two deputy political commissars at the same time.
The chief of staff was concurrently the third deputy commander, and the director of the political department was a special person, so the Northwest Hubei Military Region had seven principal leaders at that time. Of the seven principal leaders of the Northwest Hubei Military Region, only four military cadres participated in the 55-year awarding of titles.
Among them, three political cadres did not participate in the awarding of titles, the first deputy political commissar Liu Zijiu and the second deputy political commissar Wen Minsheng were transferred to local work, respectively serving as the vice minister of labor, the minister of posts and telecommunications, and the director of the political department, Lu Zhenqiu, died in 47 years.
Among the four military cadres who participated in the award, Commander and Political Commissar Wang Shusheng was awarded the rank of general, First Deputy Commander Liu Changyi was awarded the rank of Lieutenant General, Third Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff Zhang Caiqian was also awarded the rank of Lieutenant General, and Second Deputy Commander Luo Houfu was only awarded the rank of Colonel.
Luo Houfu's military rank in 1955 was not only two levels lower than that of Liu Changyi and Zhang Caiqian, who were also deputy commanders, but also one level lower than the ranks of some cadres of military subdivisions under the jurisdiction of the Northwest Hubei Military Region.
For example, Liu Jianting, political commissar of the 2nd Army Division, Li Renlin, commander of the 4th Army Division, and Zhang Xiulong, commander of the 5th Army Division, were all awarded the rank of major general in 1955.
In fact, according to the contributions and qualifications made by Luo Houfu during the war years, he met the conditions for being awarded the rank of lieutenant general, as evidenced by the fact that he was awarded three first-class medals in 1955.
Luo Houfu was born in Hong'an, the first general county, under the influence of the Jute Uprising, Luo Houfu was only 20 years old Luo Houfu successively joined the Red Guards and the Red Army, and later served as the commander of the Third Road Guerrilla Division in Northeast Hubei Province.
After the main force of the Red Fourth Front Army and the Red 25th Army left the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area one after another, Luo Houfu led the guerrilla division to persist in the guerrilla war in the Dabie Mountains for about three years, calling him "a banner of the Dabie Mountains."
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Luo Houfu entered the New Fourth Army, and after the establishment of the Fifth Division of the New Fourth Army, he was appointed as the commander of the 14th Brigade. During the Liberation War, Luo Houfu mainly worked in the Central Plains Military Region, and after the establishment of the Xiaogan Military Division, Luo Houfu was appointed as the commander of the Military Division.
After the establishment of the Hubei Military Region, Luo Houfu was promoted to deputy chief of staff of the military region. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the level of the Hubei Military Region was very high, equivalent to the level of the corps, and the deputy chief of staff of the corps was at the level of a regular army and could be awarded the rank of lieutenant general or major general. Therefore, until the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Luo Houfu's position was not low.
There are several theories as to why Luo Houfu was only awarded the rank of colonel in 1955:
The first theory is that when Luo Houfu was the commander of the military division, he once set up a factory by calling on the cadres to contribute, and then distributed the profit to everyone, and when he was awarded the title, he was affected by this incident.
The second theory is based on the first version, saying that a security chief ran to the factory that Luo Houfu called for preparation, because this security chief also contributed to the revolution before, Luo Houfu also kept him, and later this matter was stabbed, and the security chief was confirmed as a guilty person, and Luo Houfu was punished for it.
The third theory is that Luo Houfu was punished for helping his father-in-law sell tobacco and soil.
To this day, there are different opinions as to which statement is true. There is no doubt that the rank of colonel must have been influenced by something. But fortunately, in 1961, Luo Houfu was promoted to the rank of major general and became one of the 1,614 founding generals.