In 1991, General Yang Dezhi was invited to attend a gathering of the older generation of the Red Army in Beijing, attended by the country's founders and generals. On the day of the party, General Yang Dezhi arrived at the venue early.
Despite his 80 years of age, he did not sit in the seat of the auditorium like everyone else, but stood at the gate like a soldier, his eyes fixed on the distance, as if waiting for someone to arrive.
Yang Dezhi's staff persuaded him to enter the venue and sit down, but Yang Dezhi insisted on waiting. This made everyone present wonder, as the founding general of the People's Republic of China, Yang Dezhi, what kind of character made him pay so much attention to it, so he had to come out to greet him in person?
It wasn't until that character appeared that everyone understood that Yang Dezhi was respectfully waiting for his old chief, the old general Li Jukui, who enjoyed the reputation of "General Saint"!
Li Jukui, like Yang Dezhi, is a Hunan fellow who is recognized by ***. In 1926, during the Great Revolution, Li Jukui became a soldier of the National Revolutionary Army and participated in the Northern Expedition under Tang Shengzhi.
Coincidentally, at this time, ** joined the Northern Expedition with his own team, and Li Jukui was fortunate to be transferred to ***'s regiment and met ***. Although the Kuomintang nominally crusaded against the warlords, many of the armed forces still had the bad habits of warlords, and many officers were domineering, dictating to the soldiers, and engaging in bureaucratic style, which made Li Jukui deeply dissatisfied.
** The close relationship with the soldiers made Li Jukui deeply admired. **Always care about the soldiers, advocate being close to the soldiers, eat together, eat consistently, and treat subordinates gently and considerately.
This attitude towards his subordinates made Li Jukui determined to follow *** to the end. Therefore, after Chiang Kai-shek launched a "counter-revolutionary coup", Li Jukui decisively gave up his identity as a Kuomintang soldier, chose to follow *** to participate in the Pingjiang Uprising, and joined the Communist Party of China.
At the first party group meeting, Li Jukui firmly stated that he would follow the party's pace for the rest of his life. In the 5th Regiment of the 1st Independent Division, he fulfilled his oath with actions.
He worked his way from squad leader to brigade captain and participated in battles in Wenjia City, Changsha and other places. Later, due to the disparity in strength between the enemy and us, ** decided to lead the troops to Jinggangshan to join the division.
On the first day Li Jukui arrived in Jinggangshan, ** came to lecture him. ** Told about the Red Army soldiers"Three Rules"——Asking for nothing in return, not sparing his life, no worries, deeply imprinted in Li Jukui's heart.
Not only did he keep it in mind, but he was also appreciated and recognized by ***. Although *** has never been admired"Fellow relations", so as not to form a bureaucratic wind, but Li Jukui, as a first-class Hunan villager, has won the respect of the first-class.
In 1928, ** led his troops to leave Jinggangshan to meet the main force of the Red Army, and ** led his troops to stay. However, the enemy took the opportunity to launch an attack on the Jinggangshan base area"Battle of Jinggang Mountain"And so it broke out.
In the early days of the Battle of Jinggang Mountain, the Red Army faced great difficulties, and the situation in Huangyangjie and Bamian Mountain was very serious. Li Jukui successfully thwarted a wave of enemy attacks at Liping, but soon new enemies continued to arrive, and the enemy was far outnumbered by them.
In such a situation, Li Jukui led his men in a fierce battle with the enemy for four days and four nights, and his endurance was so strong that the Kuomintang reactionaries suffered a deep headache.
However, due to the great disparity between the enemy and us, ** finally decided to evacuate Jinggangshan. In the process of evacuation, Li Jukui took on the important task of opening the way. Later, when *** and *** met again, he mentioned Li Jukui's heroic performance in the defense of Jinggang Mountain, ** immediately praised him as an iron-clad Hunan man, and remembered him.
Since then, ** often calls him "my little fellow".
Mao Gong personally picked up Li Jukui and remembered this incident, which was undoubtedly a supreme honor for Li Jukui. In 1930, the Kuomintang reactionaries regarded the Communist Party as a thorn in their side and launched three "encirclement and suppression".
In these three encirclement and suppression, Li Jukui took the lead, charged into battle, and was good at using tactics such as attacking, blocking, and guerrilla warfare.
Due to his outstanding military achievements, Li Jukui was appointed commander of the 1st Division of the Red 1st Army in February 1933, and the Red 1st Division has always been the pillar of the Red 1st Army. When Li Jukui took office, the corps commander specially reminded him that if he did not do well in the Red 1st Division, he would not let him go easily.
However, Li Jukui soon gave a satisfactory answer.
Li Jukui performed an outstanding performance in the fourth "anti-encirclement and suppression" campaign, and he used the tactic of "organizing the whole division to penetrate and outflank" to successfully destroy one of the enemy's divisions and one brigade at Dalongping, and to capture the enemy's division commander Li Ming.
This record can be described as a crushing victory, and the political commissar of the Red 1st Army was also very excited about it, and even shouted "Long live the Red Army". However, due to the influence of Wang Ming's "leftist" mistakes, the Red Army exposed serious problems in the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression operation, which eventually led to defeat and had to start the Long March.
Before the start of the Long March, ** appointed Li Jukui's troops as the vanguard, responsible for opening the way and covering the main force. Li Jukui lived up to his mission, led the troops to take the big road, drill the small road, and even climb the mountains and cross the river, all the way to the Wujiang River, but was finally blocked by the surging river.
In the face of the double blockage of the Wujiang River and the enemy, as well as the frantic pursuit of the Kuomintang army, Li Jukui decisively issued the order to force the crossing of the Wujiang River. Because the ships were taken away by the enemy and his own side lacked engineers to build bridges, Li Jukui was in a hurry and instructed Yang Dezhi to use bamboo rafts to build bridges, and at the same time, regardless of the danger of artillery fire, he personally organized troops on the battlefield to carry out a rapid attack, and finally successfully crossed the Wujiang River.
After he led his troops across the Wujiang River, he marched to Zunyi without stopping. The enemy did not expect that the Red Army would be able to cross the Wujiang in such a short time. Li Jukui, Yang Dezhi and others descended from the sky and occupied Zunyi City with lightning speed, laying the foundation for the convening of the Zunyi Conference.
The Zunyi Conference was a turning point in the life of the people, and it was at this meeting that the political situation dominated by the first party was established, and the brilliant revolutionary cause was later born.
Therefore, ** attaches great importance to and is grateful to Li Jukui, a fellow villager who opened the road to Zunyi City.
After the Battle of the Four Crossings of Chishui, the Red Army faced the most dangerous life-and-death blockade in the process of the Great Transfer, the Dadu River. The Dadu River is an important tributary of the Yangtze River, the water flow is turbulent, and the waves are higher than the other, so it is called the land of natural danger.
Especially in the section of Anshun Field, there is no guarantee of safe passage by boat. It is said that Shi Dakai of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was once blocked by the Dadu River here, which eventually led to the annihilation of the entire army.
Therefore, knowing that the Red Army's road-opening force had reached the Dadu River, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized heavy troops in an attempt to destroy the Red Army in one fell swoop and keep them on the Dadu River forever. However, the Red Army was not deterred by this difficulty, and they moved forward bravely, and finally succeeded in crossing the Dadu River and continuing their way.
Life and death Dadu River, the decisive battle ground of the brave warriors. Faced with the task of forcibly crossing, ** specially selected Li Jukui, who had successfully crossed the Wujiang River. Shouldering responsibility, fortunately, the sky is endless, Li Jukui snatched two small boats from the enemy, and together with Yang Dezhi, selected seventeen elite warriors and gave them an extraordinary mission.
Time was pressing, the warriors were already in position, and the next day they began a heroic battle. After the warriors boarded the boat, Li Jukui commanded Yang Dezhi to provide cover, and the precision artillery bombardment of the sharpshooter Zhao Zhangcheng suppressed the enemy's offensive.
Shells rang out around the warriors, and huge waves crashed into their faces like a frenzy. But they did not flinch and moved forward bravely. Life and death in Dadu River, their figures, forever in the annals of history.
In the battle to forcibly cross the Dadu River, the commander Li Jukui did not dare to relax in the slightest; he paid close attention to the dynamics of the battlefield, skillfully arranged the time for attacking and suppressing, and went all out to protect the people crossing the river.
In this dangerous battle, with the careful deployment of Li Jukui, the seventeen warriors successfully landed on the opposite bank, quickly occupied the enemy's position, and broke the Red Army's defense"The ghost gate is closed"。
After this battle, Li Jukui became famous, and the Red 1st Regiment also became famous. Praise for him"Trailblazer", full of praise for the Red 1 Regiment. And Yang Dezhi proudly said that all this is"The division commander is well led"。
However, in later accounts, Li Jukui's name rarely appears, and this is because of his low-key personality, he never boasts, and always remains humble.
Yang Dezhi once felt injustice for Li Jukui, but in Li Jukui's view, the most important thing in that battle was not personal gains and losses, but the fighting spirit of the Red Army. Years from now, our names may be forgotten, but the spirit will live on forever.
Li Jukui is capable of literature and martial arts, and he is not shocked by honor and disgrace. However, even such a strong person has times when he loses in battle. In October 1936, ** ordered the implementation of the Ningxia campaign plan, and Li Jukui's river-crossing troops were changed to the Western Route Army, crossing the Yellow River to the west, and were pursued and intercepted by the "Ma Jiajun" and 100,000 "militia groups" in Gansu and Qinghai.
Due to the large gap between the enemy and our strength, the Western Route Army was finally annihilated, and Li Jukui was forced to disguise himself as a beggar, begging all the way, and after a difficult journey, he reached northern Shaanxi and returned to the team.
He once felt deep remorse for his failure, but when he saw *** again, he benefited greatly from the relief of **. The Chairman's Words: "How can there be a constant victory? You are glorious even though you are defeated, and you don't have to worry about it! ”
It gave him a lot of encouragement. He summed up the lessons of his failures, faced setbacks with more composure, and realized the qualities that a true general should have. Soon after, the Anti-Japanese War broke out, and after experiencing a defeat, he behaved more steadily in the war.
In the Battle of Shentouling in 1938, he and Chen Geng and others adopted the tactics of "strong shrinkage and throwing eggs with stones", and successfully annihilated 1,500 Japanese troops.
This tactic was hailed as "first-class guerrilla tactics" and was deeply hated by the Japanese army.
In the southeastern part of Shanxi, southern Hebei, and northwestern Shandong, Li Jukui led his troops in an arduous battle with the Japanese army. In the face of the Japanese army's tactics such as "three lights" and "big sweeps", the anti-Japanese base areas were once in a predicament.
However, in this difficult period, Li Jukui resolutely carried out the practice of "streamlining the administration of the army," streamlined the personnel of the organs, improved work efficiency, and put some personnel among the masses to work together with the masses to develop production, thus fully arousing the enthusiasm of the base areas and helping them to tide over the most difficult period.
In 1942, when the Japanese army attacked the Taiyue area in 14 routes, Li Jukui and his wife further improved the tactics of combining military and civilian forces. He extensively mobilized the people, launched ambush warfare, mine warfare, and implemented the strategy of "clearing the wilderness with empty rooms" to cut off the enemy's food and ammunition supplies, and finally defeated the mighty Japanese army.
The tactics adopted by the military and civilians in the Taiyue area were highly praised by Yan'an and hailed as "a banner of the Taiyue anti-Japanese base area", and Li Jukui's contribution naturally cannot be ignored.
With the broadening of operational thinking, Li Jukui is no longer limited to front-line operations, and he will take on logistical supply work when needed. During the War of Liberation, he was responsible for the logistics and supply of the Liaoshen Campaign and the Pingjin Campaign.
General Li Jukui is a true "general saint" who firmly believes in the principle of "being able to civilize and use military force, and not being shocked by honor and disgrace." He is not only proficient in military strategy, but also has profound attainments in logistics.
His humility and talent allowed him to successfully take charge of the logistics support work of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea during his tenure as deputy chief of staff at the Fourth Field Army Command. He is affectionately known as the "King of Logistics" and the "King of Oil".
His outstanding performance made the commander-in-chief and political commissar of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army praise him and made him an important figure in the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
** and Li Jukui encountered difficulties on the Korean battlefield, and they were confused about how to ensure the transportation of logistics supplies. ** has always been a direct and irritable person, he even directly threatened Li Jukui, if the logistics can't keep up, he will settle accounts with him.
Although Li Jukui felt pressure, he still stubbornly went to find a solution. He realized that the US Air Force had absolute air supremacy and often bombed the logistics and transportation routes of the Volunteer Army, resulting in the destruction of supplies.
In order to deal with this situation, Li Jukui racked his brains and finally came up with a clever plan. He planned to set up a number of prevention and control posts along the transportation line to monitor the enemy's maneuvering direction and adjust the transportation work in conjunction with the monitoring of the air defense posts.
He also adopted the method of "echelon stockpiling" of supplies in order to cope with possible shortages. Although this was a difficult decision, Li Jukui believed that it was a necessary step to protect logistics and ensure victory in the war.
When enemy aircraft are dispatched, the air defense post will immediately sound the alarm, and the ground transport troops will immediately take cover according to the movement of the enemy aircraft. Since then, the number of incidents of material destruction has decreased significantly.
The U.S. military was unable to destroy the logistics of the volunteers, so they began a day and night blockade, resulting in the inability of the volunteers to make fires and cook. It's a bitter winter, how can you fight without food?
At this time, the "logistics king" Li Jukui came up with a clever plan - using fried noodles as dry food. His advice was endorsed by *** and ***. As a result, in the rear of the Korean battlefield, there was a spectacular scene of "every household making fried noodles".
In less than a month, the first batch of 4 million catties of fried noodles was delivered to the volunteers, which solved the urgent need and laid the foundation for the subsequent victory in the war.
Li Jukui, China's "oil king" and "logistics king", once accepted the appointment of the Ministry of Petroleum Industry in China, led people to the difficult northwest region to develop oil fields, and successfully developed Karamay Oilfield, Yumen Oilfield, Daqing Oilfield, etc.
Busy with oil development, Li Jukui missed the ceremony of conferring military ranks on the founding generals in 1955, causing his titles to be put on hold until 1958.
When Yang Dezhi learned about it, he felt injustice for Li Jukui and thought that he should be awarded the rank of general.
Although Li Jukui's merits were great, he failed to receive the title because his combat exploits were slightly inferior to the standard of generals. He shifted his focus to logistics and his exploits diminished. However, he did not take the rank of military to heart, but encouraged his friend Yang Dezhi not to pursue fame too much.
Li Jukui's broad mind is admirable, and Yang Dezhi has deep respect for him. In 1991, after Yang Dezhi learned that his old leader Li Jukui was also going to attend the party, he ignored the staff's obstruction and personally greeted him at the door.
The two old comrades-in-arms who had been separated for a long time were excited to see each other again after many years of absence, and they shook hands and talked at the door. At this moment, everyone suddenly realized that it turned out that General Yang Dezhi insisted on personally greeting the veteran General Li Jukui, who was known as the "General Saint", and his prestige and prestige, as well as his heroic performance during the war years, were enough to make General Yang Dezhi, who was also a general, admire.