The 43rd Army, one of the four field trump cards, is regarded as the "big brother" of all field armies, and even the "big brother" of the entire PLA. The bloodline of this army can be traced back to the Ye Ting Independent Regiment during the Northern Expedition, which was the first armed force in the hands of our party, participated in the Nanchang Uprising, went to Jinggang Mountain, and was incorporated into the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, fighting devils in North China, and after the "Southern Anhui Incident", it was changed to the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Division of the New Fourth Army. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the 3rd Division and the 7th Brigade advanced into the Northeast, and in 46 years, it was combined with the 7th Division of the Eighth Route Army, which was also the old foundation of the 115th Division, to form the 6th Column of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army, and was renamed the 43rd Army in 48. Ye Ting's Independent Regiment was originally known as the Independent Regiment of the Iron Army, and the 43rd Army was also known as the "Iron Army". 
Zhang Yimin, a veteran who survived with his "sixth sense" and from Heilongjiang, is a veteran of the 43rd Army and has made several contributions in the war to liberate the northeast. At the end of 1947, the 52nd Regiment of the 18th Division of the 6th Column, where Zhang Yimin was located, was ordered to attack Li Qibaozi on the outskirts of Shenyang. The 52nd Regiment is called "Yellow Regiment" in the army, and the regiment commander Huang Hairong served as a guard for Xiao Jinguang before the Long March. This regiment was reorganized from the selection of a group of veteran Red Army backbones and local armed forces of the Bohai Naval Region in Shandong after the 5th Division of the New Fourth Army entered Shandong in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War. According to Zhang Yimin's recollection, the 52nd Regiment had a strong local imprint, and most of the soldiers came from Cangzhou, Nanpi County, Yanshan County and Qingyun County in Hebei Province (Qingyun was under the jurisdiction of Cangzhou in the early days). When Zhang Yimin first arrived at the 52nd Regiment, he was very impressed, and felt that all the commanders and fighters were "like wolves and tigers", and they were all heroes who were not afraid of death. 
The battle of Li Qibaozi will be unforgettable for Zhang Yimin for the rest of his life. It was too cold, braving the severe cold of minus 35 degrees Celsius, the snow fell heavily, and when the sacrificed comrades fell, the red snow was sprinkled on the snow, blood red and snow white, which was particularly dazzling. People are so slow to move from the cold, and raising guns and ** have become slow motion. Zhang Yimin was a member of the assault company, and as they advanced, they were stopped by enemy machine-gun pillboxes. A soldier of the demolition team crawled forward to blow up the bunker, and Zhang Yimin heard him say fiercely, "Lao Tzu is ready to put down here today with more than 100 catties!" "Every time the 52nd Regiment fights, the most heard is such a rhetoric. Unfortunately, the warrior died before he could get close to the pillbox. Li Qibaozi still took it, and later Siye fought Liaoyang, Anshan and other places, and the whole winter offensive ended, Zhang Yimin was uninjured and was promoted from the deputy platoon commander to the main platoon. 
In late May 1948, the 52nd Regiment participated in the siege of Changchun together with its brother units, and the first task was to capture the airport in the western suburbs of Changchun. The Kuomintang defenders in Changchun were well-armed and equipped with American-style 105mm howitzers, which were extremely powerful. Zhang Yimin joined the army late, and he had never seen such fierce artillery fire before, which was filled with black fog and shook the ground. Zhang Yimin and the squad leader of the assault company rushed to the vicinity of a house with more than a dozen fighters, and the enemy began shelling again. Not far away there was a dilapidated two-story Japanese-style building, and not far away there was a large dung pit that had dried up. The artillery fire was very intensive, and the squad leader proposed that everyone jump into the dung pit to hide. According to Zhang Yimin's recollection, he had a strange feeling at that time, and he himself couldn't explain why, so he tried his best to dissuade everyone from jumping, and he might also be shelled in the dung pit. But the squad leader did not listen, and took the lead in jumping into the dung pit, and then five or six fighters also jumped down. 
Zhang Yimin and the other fighters were scattered and hidden, he had just fallen down against the corner of the house, and a cannonball seemed to have an eye, and it just landed in the dung pit, and all the people below were killed. After a while, the shell hit Xiaolou again, and the soldiers hiding inside were either killed or wounded. Zhang Yimin was also buried under the rubble, and only when the shelling stopped did he struggle to climb out. After the battle ended that night, Zhang Yimin realized that a small wound in his leg was bleeding, and it turned out that a small piece of shrapnel had entered it. He didn't take it seriously, just bandaged it briefly. Later, a pimple grew on the wound, and it was not until the 60s that another operation was performed to remove the shrapnel. 
From the army to the naval hero, Zhang Yimin is a native of Binxian County, Heilongjiang Province, born in 1929. He said that he was an atheist, but in his later years, he recalled an experience from his childhood and felt that his fate was incredible. In 1935, Zhang Yimin was 7 years old, and his father took him to a temple in the town during the Chinese New Year to pay New Year's greetings to the abbot "Yu Da Monk" (the abbot had saved his father's life before). The abbot touched Zhang Yimin's head and said in surprise: This child is upright, he is a military attache when he grows up, and he will experience a lot of dangers, but every time he can turn evil into good fortune, he will be famous all over the world in the future, and he will live a long life. His life's fame is in the South China Sea. Zhang Yimin wrote a memoir when he was 87 years old, and looking back on his life, he felt that the prophecy of the old monk was very accurate, "What the old monk said 80 years ago has been fulfilled in the course of my life." I was amazed and puzzled. ”
He graduated from the Northeast Anti-Japanese Military and Political University in 1947, and several classmates took the initiative to ask to go to the field army. At that time, the 6th Column was fighting in the Siping area, so Zhang Yimin was assigned to the 52nd Regiment of the 18th Division to which the 6th Column belonged. The troops could only send them to Dunhua, and they walked all the way from Dunhua to Yantou Mountain, the headquarters of the 6th Column. Zhang Yimin said, "This road is not too far, only three or four hundred miles", but it is summer, it is raining, all the way is muddy, and it takes seven or eight days to reach the place, and several people have become small flowers. Beginning in 1947, Zhang Yimin followed the troops to fight in the south and north. For example, in 55 years, when he cooperated with the operation of Yijiangshan Island, he commanded his torpedo boat in the waters of Dachen Island to sink the Kuomintang gunboat "Dongting", which caused a sensation in the whole army. Later, Zhang Yimin successively served as the political commissar of the detachment (division level), the deputy political commissar of the Zhoushan Combat Base of the Navy, and the political commissar (at the army level).