In 1955, when he learned that the old chief was only a colonel, the founding lieutenant general Lin Weixian shouted injustice!
In the autumn of 1955, Lin Weixian sat on the train to Wuhan, his heart full of excitement and memories. He was reminded of the scenes of the early days of the revolution.
At that time, he was just a correspondent. While carrying out the vigilance mission of the special service battalion in northeastern Hubei Province, it was attacked by the enemy. During the breakout, he was knocked down by a bullet and fell into a coma.
The comrades could not carry him with him in an emergency, so they left him in a pool of blood. He is surrounded by fallen comrades, and his fate is in jeopardy. The enemy retreated quickly after the battle, and he was lucky enough to escape. However, without timely treatment, he is likely to die from excessive blood loss or wound infection.
Fortunately, the instructor returned to the battlefield a few hours after the battle and buried the remains of his fallen comrades. When he found that Lin Weixian was still breathing, he immediately took action. The instructor rescued Lin Weixian from the pile of dead people and took him to seek treatment. This time, Lin Weixian was able to pick up a life.
In the years that followed, Lin Wei was first taken care of by the instructors. However, due to the transfer of duties during the war years, he had not heard from the instructor for a long time. It wasn't until a meeting that he learned that the instructor was serving in Wuhan, so he immediately stepped on the train to Wuhan.
In a bungalow in Wuhan, Lin Wei first met the instructor, and when he saw the rank of colonel on the instructor, he couldn't help but burst into tears and sighed: Old chief, why are you a colonel? In terms of qualifications and contributions, this is so unfair!
This instructor's name is Luo Houfu, and he has incomparable honors: he stayed behind five times and defended the red flag in the Dabie Mountain area; In 1955, he received three medals of the first class, becoming the only recipient among the colonels. However, his military rank is only colonel, which is very strange.
During the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the Dabie Mountain area became the focus of contention among many parties. The Kuomintang Gui Department noticed this strategic location and sent Liao Lei and others to lead their troops, which posed a great threat to our army. At the same time, the Japanese army also invaded the Chinese mainland on a large scale, resulting in the ** rout on both sides of the Yangtze River and the Dabie Mountain area, and the situation was very grim.
In this context, Luo Houfu saw the opportunity and actively contacted those righteous men who were eager to resist Japan and the Red Army that had been separated earlier. In less than a year, he managed to gather more than 1,000 people to form the Sixth Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Brigade. Their appearance overjoyed the military headquarters of the New Fourth Army and gave them the recognition of their number.
With the end of the Battle of Wuhan, the Japanese invaders supported the Eighth Army of the puppet Central China People's Army in the areas of Xiaogan and Huangpi in Hubei, with a scale of more than 20,000 people and strong strength. And Xiaogan and Huangpi happened to be the active areas of the Sixth Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Brigade. Luo Houfu decided to take bold direct action and carry out a surprise attack on the military headquarters of the puppet army.
Early one morning at the end of May 1939, the Sixth Guerrilla Brigade of the New Fourth Army and the Fifth Independent Guerrilla Brigade of the 21st Group Army adopted the "heart-digging tactic" and successfully launched a surprise attack on the puppet Eighth Army. Due to the uneven quality of the puppet army, coupled with the surprise attack of Luo Houfu and others, the puppet army quickly collapsed.
In this operation, Luo Houfu showed excellent military ability. In the following years, he successively served as the commander of the First Regiment of the Henan-Hubei Advance Column and the commander of the 14th Brigade of the Fifth Division of the New Fourth Army. In the early days of the Liberation War, as the deputy commander of the Jianghan Military Region and the commander of the 1st Independent Brigade, he participated in the difficult Central Plains Breakout.
In the breakout operation, Luo Houfu led the 1st Independent Brigade to successfully break out of the encirclement, but then received an urgent telegram from the Central Plains Bureau, requiring him to lead his troops back to meet the left column. Although this was extremely dangerous for them, Luo Houfu did not hesitate, immediately turned back, and finally joined forces with Wang Shusheng's troops to form the Northwest Hubei Military Region, of which he served as deputy commander.
However, the Northwest Hubei Military Region was in a harsh environment, and although five military subdivisions had developed, it could no longer be maintained by February 1947. In the end, Wang Shusheng ordered all military regions to withdraw, while Luo Houfu chose to stay and continue to lead his troops to carry out guerrilla operations, which was the fourth time he stayed behind.
In the following months, Luo Houfu faced extremely difficult battles, but with their rich experience in guerrilla warfare, they were never annihilated by the enemy, and successively established several small base areas, effectively containing the enemy. In May 1947, he joined Zhang Caiqian's Jiangnan Column, and then went north to Henan, Anhui and Suzhou.
In the autumn, Liu Deng's army leaped thousands of miles into the Dabie Mountains and formed a number of new military regions in the local area, and Luo Houfu was appointed deputy commander of the third division of the Hubei-Henan Military Region. However, due to various factors, Liu Deng's army failed to gain a foothold in Dabie Mountain, and finally transferred out in March 1948, while Luo Houfu stayed again and continued to carry out guerrilla warfare, which was the fifth time he stayed behind.
Despite the difficulties, with the development of the war of liberation, the situation gradually tilted in our favor. Luo Houfu waited for the later **, cooperated with the troops crossing the river to liberate Hubei, and has been holding positions in Hubei, including deputy chief of staff of the Hubei Military Region and deputy director of the Political Department.
Although Luo Houfu was not in the main force for a long time, his courage and determination made him stick to the battlefield and made important contributions to the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation. Compared with his former subordinate Lin Weixian, due to the different battlefield environment and the belonging of the troops, the development trajectories of the two are also different.
Luo Houfu's tenacity and perseverance are indeed admirable. His performance on the battlefield is admirable, and it may be difficult for others to persist in doing so. He has gone through all kinds of hardships, and it is really a hardship!
In 1961, Luo Houfu's promotion to major general once again proved his excellent performance. His contribution is undoubtedly enough to be called the mark of a general!