In June 1925, the Northern Expedition was in full swing, and the Second Army of the National Revolution stationed in Henan was in an unfavorable situation, so it had to withdraw from Luoyang.
Yue Weijun, commander of the Second Army, sent a telegram to Wuhan**, asking for more than the newly graduated Whampoa Military Academy students.
On this day, the herald reported that eight Whampoa graduates had come to report.
The adjutant muttered in a low voice: "The good seedlings of Huangpu have been picked up by Lao Jiang's First Army, and it is estimated that those who come to our Second Army will pick the rest." ”
No matter who he wants, he wants to give as much as he wants. The army commander Yue Weijun, who was looking at the map, said without raising his head.
At this time, a thick Shanxi accent outside the door shouted loudly:"Report, eight people, including the first platoon leader of the Whampoa Student Army, were ordered to report for duty. ”
*** during the Whampoa period
At this time, Yue Weijun, who was already anxious, waved his hand, just asked about the situation briefly, and sent *** to the teaching group as a staff officer.
The adjutant was right, ** was indeed someone that Lao Jiang looked down on in Whampoa, so he was stuffed into the Second Army, which was not a descendant.
But Yue Weijun probably wouldn't have dreamed of itIt was this weak young man in front of him who wiped out his 34th Division in only 7 hours in the "first anti-encirclement and suppression" operation six years later, and he was captured alive by the Red Army.
And that's not all,This young man also brought out more than 800 founding generals, swept thousands of armies, and 30 years later became the legendary figure with the highest military rank in the first phase of Whampoa.
1. Lao Jiang commented that he was "unproductive in the future".
In April 1924, when the tide of the Great Revolution swept across the Yangtze River, Sun Yat-sen felt the importance of military strength, so with the help of Soviet advisers, he established the Whampoa Military Academy.
A total of 350 formal students were enrolled in the first phase of Whampoa, and those who previously taught in the countryside were among them.
Whampoa Military Academy. During his studies at the military academy, he was low-key and humble, worked hard, and although he was not as dazzling as Jiang Xianyun, Chen Geng and other classmates, he also stayed in school with excellent results as the platoon commander of the third student army.
During this period, Lao Chiang often used public weapons for private purposes, and regarded the Whampoa Military Academy as a hotbed for cultivating his cronies. Every once in a while, in the name of inspection, he would summon outstanding students into the principal's office for a private conversation.
On this day, it was ***'s turn to be called, and when he walked into the principal's office, he saw Principal Jiang in a straight military uniform and a serious face, and he was still a little nervous in his heart.
Lao Jiang saw *** for the first time and saw that he was not only thin and weak, but also had a rustic face, and he was a little unhappy in his heart, so he asked him in Zhejiang: "What is your name?" ”
"My name is ***
**'s Wutai Mountain accent made Lao Jiang listen to it very hard: "Are you ** person?" ”
"Shanxi people. ”
What did you do before joining the army? ”
"Elementary school teacher. ”
Lao Jiang asked, ** replied softly, and his indifferent expression made Lao Jiang very dissatisfied.
Lao Jiang is giving a speech.
You must know that most of the students who were selected by the principal to talk were excited, their voices were loud, and they were eager to show what they had learned in their lives in order to win the principal's favor.
Lao Jiang quickly lost interest in the student in front of him, he waved his hand and sent *** out, and the first conversation between the two ended uneventfully.
That night, Lao Jiang recorded his opinion on *** in his diary, thinking that he"There will be no future results"., you should be a teacher, even if you go to the battlefield, you are unlikely to make a contribution.
Since then, Lao Jiang has never paid attention to this student againBut what made him most unbelievable was that this "unproductive" student actually grew up to be the commander-in-chief of the three main forces of the Red Army in a short period of seven years, beating hundreds of thousands of enemy troops with their heads and rats, making him unable to sleep and eat in the second half of his life, and regretting it.
Second, debut is the peak
In March 1927, Lao Chiang's ambition was gradually exposed, and he was also faced with a major choice in his life, the personal experience of Whampoa, the Eastern Crusade and the Second Army, so that he could see the true face of Lao Chiang, and resolutely chose to join the Communist Party of China on the eve of "changing the sky".
Not only that, but he alsoHe changed his name from "Xiang Qian" to "Forward", determined to "move forward" for the Chinese revolution
**After arriving in Shanghai, the party organization secretly gave him a note, which only reads"Looking for ***In four words, the original intention of the organization was to let *** follow *** to participate in the Autumn Harvest Uprising in preparation.
But by mistake, ** went to Guangzhou, but he couldn't continue to look for ***, he could only travel to Hailufeng and Dongjiang mountains, successively served as the chief of staff and division commander of the Red Fourth Division, and led the troops to persist in guerrilla warfare.
*** during the Red Army
In 1929, the 27-year-old *** rushed to the Dabie Mountain area and was ordered to form the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Base Area, and at the same time served as the deputy commander of the Red 31st Division, officially starting his magnificent career as a horseman.
The 31st Division is an old unit that came out of the Jute Uprising, the commander of the 31st Division at that time had just died, and the whole team was disheartened, although it was the establishment of four regiments, but there were only 300 peasant soldiers, many soldiers still carried broadswords and spears, and some even had nothing in their hands.
However, he was not discouraged, and with his excellent training ability, he trained a group of peasants who had never even touched a gun into a strong combat unit in a short period of time.
In the face of the enemy's three encounters, the 31st Division won five battles and five victories, and also created the myth of destroying seven enemy regiments in a single month, easily breaking the enemy's encirclement, pursuit, and interception.
*** during the Red Army
**When I fought with the 31st Division for the first time, the enemy's strafing was impenetrable, and the soldiers were so frightened that they lay on the ground and did not dare to move.
Since then, the battle has been the tightest, and there has been a figure. ***, who served as the political commissar of the 30 Army under ***, recalled:
"Forward has an amazing military courage, never knows what fear is, every time there is a bad battle and a tough battle, he is always full of spirit and high morale. ”
Therefore, the army under the command of ** is always good at fighting tough battles and evil battles, which is inseparable from the brave and fierce command style.
In 1931, the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Red Army was expanded into the Red Fourth Front ArmyAt the age of 30, *** was promoted to commander-in-chief and became the first person among the Whampoa students to become a military commander.
**Inscription. In the autumn of 1931, he sat in Wuhan and personally commanded the third "encirclement and suppression" of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base areas.
** Awe-inspiring and fearless, in more than a year, he led the Red Fourth Front Army to win four battles and four victories, annihilating more than 60,000 enemy troops, not only smashing Lao Chiang's third "encirclement and suppression", but also snowballing in the operation to more than 40,000 people, with a population of more than 3 million, and the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area entered its heyday.
In November 1931, the First Congress of the Chinese Soviets was held in Ruijin, and the congress decided to award the first medal in the history of our armyOrder of the Red Banner。In recognition of the commanders and fighters of the Red Army who made outstanding contributions to the Soviet regimeBe one of 8 recipients of this honor.
Command the battle.
It is worth mentioningIn the anti-encirclement and suppression operations during the same period, the results achieved were the largest, and the number of enemies destroyed ranked first in the whole army.
It can be said that at that time, ** was not the biggest opponent in Lao Jiang's heart, ** was, his reward from the enemy was the same as Zhu Mao, tied for the top.
I just don't know if Lao Jiang remembered the silent "good student" in the principal's office back then.
However, Lao Jiang's vision of people has never been very good, and Bai Chongxi once said that Lao Jiang led only one infantry battalion commander to lead the army.
In 1935, the Red Fourth Front Army and the Red Army met, and finally saw the "four-character" note that I had been thinking about for a long time, and eight years had passed.
**Said with a smile:"I heard that you have been looking for me for eight years, and I have been looking for you for eight years, Lao Jiang didn't look down on you back then, because he didn't know the goods. ”
** with ***
Three, a bad hand of cards into a king bomb
In addition to having superhuman military talent, he is also good at ideological and political work, especially good at playing a bad hand into a king bomb.
When in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area,Almost from scratch, he developed a peasant army of 300 people into an iron-blooded army of 40,000 people, and it took him only two years to go from a partial division to the main force.
Once, *** led the Red 1st Division and Xu Jishen's Red 2nd Division to meet. Xu Jishen looked at the 1st Division, which had just been divided a few months ago, which had been expanded from 1,000 to 3,000 people, each of whom was carrying five consecutive Hanyang Formations, plus a newly built machine gun regiment, and asked with envy:"Man, how the hell did you fight? ”
In 1947, ** went to Jinnan to take office, and when Liu Deng's army went south, he took almost all the main forces, leaving him with less than 60,000 local miscellaneous troops, all of whom were low-quality recruits with little combat experience.
In contrast, Yan Xishan's troops entrenched in Shanxi are not local militias, and the regular army alone has 300,000 and is well-equipped. The disparity between the strength of the enemy and us is too great, and the liberation of Shanxi looks like a mirror, so the task given to him is only to stabilize the situation in Shanxi.
**In the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region.
However,Give full play to his characteristics of being good at turning "bad cards" into "king bombs".He chose to temper the recruits in the flames of war, take advantage of the favorable terrain of Shanxi, make extensive use of tactics such as tunnel warfare, quick decisive battles, and annihilation warfare, and adopt the policy of skillfully luring the enemy into depth, then going around in circles, and finally breaking them one by oneIn the end, this unit was tempered into a sharp-edged "Linfen Brigade".
Of the ten classic combat examples in the history of our army, ** alone commanded four.
The good news sent back from Shanxi like snowflakes made *** extremely excited, and asked again and again how it was played? There will also be a case of war ** for the whole army,Evaluation*** Use soldiers like gods".
After conquering Yuncheng and Linfen, ** swept through Jinzhong with 60,000 people, and adopted outflanking and besieging and flexible tactics to annihilate most of Yan Xishan's elite field corps.
It also includes the Japanese troops that Yan Laoxi incorporated after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War. ** After learning of this before the war, it was issued"Completely destroy the Japanese invaders and avenge your compatriots! ”of the combat order.
In the face of the former enemy, the People's Liberation Army became more and more courageous, and finally annihilated the Japanese army, and the contest between the Chinese and Japanese armies finally came to an end.
*** after the founding of the state
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as the first chief of the General Staff of New ChinaHe is also the only person who has held the three highest military positions at the same time: Chief of the General Staff, Minister of Defense (and Deputy Prime Minister), and First Deputy Chairman of the Military Commission
**A lifetime of brilliant achievements, commanded by a fierce general,Of the more than 1,000 founding generals who participated in the awarding of titles in 1955, more than 800 of them were brought out, like Han Xianchu, Xu Shiyou, Wang Shusheng, Qin Jiwei, **Wang Jinshan and other tiger generals in the world were all old subordinates, and some people said with emotion:"Fighting with Xu Shuai, it's hard to think about it. ”
**Group photo with the old subordinates of the former Fourth Front Army.
Although he has a high prestige in the army, he has always maintained a low-key and modest nature.
Before the title was awarded in 1955, when he learned that he was named a marshal, he always felt guilty and uneasy, and he said to his wife Huang Jie:"He was lucky to survive the long war from the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army to New China, many comrades-in-arms sacrificed, if they didn't sacrifice, the marshal and the general should be theirs, **Give me the rank of marshal, I'm ashamed! ”
For this reason, ** specially wrote a letter to *** to excuse himself:"Now that the revolution has succeeded, there is no need for me to be a marshal anymore. ”
When *** received the letter, he immediately replied:"It is enough for a former comrade to contribute to the revolution from birth to death, and it is only natural that a marshal should be appointed. ”
**Give Xu Shuai the title.
On September 21, 1990, Xu Shuai passed away, and before his death, he left a will: he did not say goodbye to the body after his death, did not hold a memorial service, and scattered his ashes in Dabie Mountain and Taihang Mountain, and scattered them in the places where he had fought for the revolution.
In his heart, he felt nostalgia for his sacrificial comrades-in-arms and attachment to the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area.
"Forward, forward", I would like to use this article to remember the beloved Marshal ***.