In 1955, General Fu Qiutao was awarded the rank of founding general for his outstanding achievements in the revolutionary war years, becoming one of the 57 founding generals. Unlike generals such as Han Xianchu, Deng Hua, Sanyang, and Ye Fei, Fu Qiutao is not known for his military exploits, so among the many founding generals, his popularity is not so high, and what this article wants to tell is his story.
Fu Qiutao was born in 1907 in a poor family in Pingjiang County, Hunan Province, a famous old revolutionary base where the Pingjiang Uprising led by ** took place. Moreover, Pingjiang has also produced countless famous generals in history, such as Zhong Qiguang, Su Zhenhua, Zhang Zhen, Liu Zhijian, Wu Xinquan, Zhong Wei, Ouyang Wen, etc., they are all Fu Qiutao's hometowns.
Fu Qiutao participated in the Hunan Peasant Movement at the age of 18, and during the 10-year Agrarian Revolutionary War, he served as secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee and political commissar of the Hunan Provincial Military Region. **After the Red Army's Long March, he led more than 5,000 people to persist in the struggle in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi for 3 years.
At the beginning of 1938, the New Fourth Army was established, the guerrillas in the southern provinces were organized into four detachments, and the Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi Red Army led by Fu Qiutao was organized into the first regiment of the first detachment of the New Fourth Army, and Fu Qiutao served as the deputy commander of the first detachment and the head of the first regiment.
The first detachment has a total of 2 regiments, and the commander is ** marshal;
The commander of the second detachment is Zhang Dingcheng, and the deputy commander is General Su Yu;
The commander of the third detachment is General Zhang Yunyi, and the deputy commander is ***
The commander of the fourth detachment was Gao Jingting, a famous general of the Red 25th Army.
In January 1941, Chiang Kai-shek arranged the Southern Anhui Incident that shocked China and the rest of the world, when Fu Qiutao was the commander and political commissar of the 1st Column of the New Fourth Army in southern Anhui, and he was ordered to move north with his troops.
On January 6, the Southern Anhui Incident occurred, Fu Qiutao's unit was suddenly attacked by enemy troops, and the only radio station was also burned in the war. Fu Qiutao immediately convened a meeting of cadres to discuss the specific plan for breaking through.
After that, Fu Qiutao's troops attacked forward and conquered several enemy hills one after another. At this time, Zhao Lingbo, deputy commander of the detachment, asked the troops to retreat and rest, "Those who do not obey the order will be punished according to the army."
Xiong Yingtang, the head of the regiment at that time, raised objections, but he completely ignored them. Later, Xiong Yingtang led his troops to storm the enemy's mountain, and when he reached the halfway point of the mountain, Zhao Lingbo ordered the trumpeter to blow the retreat trumpet.
Fu Qiutao was very angry when he learned of the situation and asked the guards to find Zhao Lingbo, but Zhao Lingbo had already defected to the enemy. Faced with this situation, Fu Qiutao had no choice but to command the troops to break through alone.
After a month of hard fighting, a column led by Fu Qiutao had more than 1,000 people break through the encirclement, accounting for 90% of all the people who broke through the Anhui Incident. In our textbooks, there is a passage that says something like this:
More than 9,000 people from the military headquarters and directly under the New Fourth Army were surrounded by more than 80,000 Kuomintang troops, and most of the rest died except for more than 1,000 people who broke through the siege. ”
The "break through with more than 1,000 people" in this sentence mainly refers to the troops led by Fu Qiutao.
In this breakout, Fu Qiutao entrusted his youngest daughter to the local villagers for the sake of safety, and it was not until after the founding of the New Communist Party that this daughter returned to his side, and Fu Qiutao renamed her "Fu Huan".
After the reorganization of the military headquarters of the New Fourth Army, Fu Qiutao served as the deputy commander of the 7th Division of the New Fourth Army, with Zhang Dingcheng as the division commander and Zeng Xisheng as the political commissar.
During the War of Liberation, Fu Qiutao entered Shandong with the New Fourth Army and served as secretary of the Lunan Party Committee, political commissar of the Lunan Military Region, commander and first deputy political commissar of the Lunan Military Region.
On the eve of the Huaihai Campaign, the East China Bureau, considering that the scale of the battle was too large, decided to set up the East China Front Support Committee, with Fu Qiutao as the director, responsible for the deployment of manpower, material resources, and financial resources in East China to support the front line.
We know that the first marshal once famously said: "The victory of the Huaihai Battle was pushed by the common people of Shandong with small carts." "At that time, more than 2 million people in the liberated areas of Shandong supported the front line with stretchers and carts.
From repairing transportation and ensuring communication lines, to establishing grain depots and grain stations, rushing to make cotton clothes and quilts, to mobilizing the people, organizing the people, to transporting the wounded, cleaning the battlefield, escorting prisoners, mobilizing and joining the army, ......
At that time, the front line was in full swing, and 3 million catties of grain were needed every day, adding up to hundreds of millions of catties. Behind these arduous and meticulous work, there is Fu Qiutao, the specific organizer.
In "The Battle of Huaihai", we see that Du Yuming's group was besieged in Chenguanzhuang, and our soldiers could still eat meat buns in the wind and snow, which is not an artistic fabrication, but a real thing in history. Not only that, but our meat buns also supported the dismantling of Du Yuming's group.
After the founding of the new Communist Party of China, Fu Qiutao served as the secretary of the Shandong Branch and the political commissar of the Shandong Military Region, and soon after he was transferred to the first to serve as the secretary general of the demobilization committee, participating in leading the resettlement of millions of soldiers. After that, he served as the minister of the People's Armed Forces for a long time, and made outstanding contributions to the militia building work in New China.
Fu Qiutao held that in a possible anti-aggression war in the future, the strategic position and role of the militia should not be underestimated. At that time, the military commission was in charge of the militia work was the first marshal, Fu Qiutao took the initiative to ask Ying, hoping to sum up the valuable experience of China's establishment of the militia, and edit it into a book, Xu Shuai immediately agreed when he heard it.
In 1978, the compilation team of "Chinese Militia" was established, and Fu Qiutao dedicated all his last life experience to this cause. At that time, he was already in his late teens, but he was still working hard, and he took the comrades of the compilation team to travel all over the old revolutionary base areas in many parts of the country and collected a large number of valuable historical materials.
In October 1980, after the completion of the first draft of "Chinese Militia", Fu Qiutao spent five months revising and confirming the first draft word by word. At this time, he was already suffering from lung cancer and his condition was very serious, but Fu Qiutao not only did not relax because of this, but worked harder.
During that time, he got up at 3 o'clock every morning, and sometimes insisted on working at night, just like that, Fu Qiutao completed the last major event in his life and left without regrets on May 25, 1981.
As ** said in his eulogy: "His life was a life of fighting, a life of hard struggle, and a life of dedication to serve the people." ”