In October 1949, a resolution made by the Kuomintang Central Executive Committee was published, in which the Kuomintang Executive Committee severely condemned Zhang Zhizhong, a former famous Kuomintang general, and expelled him from the party.
Speaking of this, many people may have wondered why zhang Zhizhong had a very high status in the Kuomintang system and was the most valued general used by Chiang Kai-shek, so why was he expelled from the party at this time?
It turned out that before this, Zhang Zhizhong was entrusted by the Kuomintang side to go to Beiping to conduct final negotiations with our party, and at that time, Li Zongren, acting president of the Kuomintang, tried to rule by drawing a river, and our party must have categorically rejected this unreasonable demand.
In this way, the Peiping peace talks finally broke down, and with it, a million people's liberation troops crossed the Yangtze River, but just after the Beiping negotiations, Zhou Enlai, who had always been extremely appreciative of Zhang Zhizhong, decided to keep him on the side of our party.
To this end, Zhou Enlai took great pains to let the members of the underground party in Nanjing secretly take General Zhang Zhizhong's family out of Nanjing, thus relieving Zhang Zhizhong of his worries, and only then did he tell Zhang Zhizhong the truth about his intentions, and with zhou Enlai's efforts, Zhang Zhizhong finally conformed to the trend of the times and stayed in Beiping.
First of all, during the period of the Great Revolution, he had a lot of friendship with Zhang Zhizhong, and he knew very well that he was upright and loved the motherland, and during the period of the agrarian revolutionary war, although Zhang Zhizhong was in the Kuomintang camp, he never fought directly with our party, and he always advocated the idea of taking the lead in resisting Japan, and was a famous "United Communist Anti-Japanese" faction in the Kuomintang camp.
It was precisely on the basis of a friendly attitude toward our party that Zhou Enlai took the trouble to decide to leave Zhang Zhizhong in Beiping; of course, after General Zhang Zhizhong stayed in Beiping, he also played a huge role; first of all, in his personal name, he sent a telegram to Tao Zhiyue and Bao Erhan, military and political leaders of the Xinjiang Kuomintang, imploring them to conform to the situation of the times and choose an uprising.
And General Zhang Zhizhong once served as the military and political chief of the Kuomintang Northwest, and he also had a friendship with these two, so Tao Zhiyue and Bao Erhan attached great importance to Zhang Zhizhong's call, and in the end they also chose to revolt, so the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang, General Zhang Zhizhong was also indispensable.
In addition, as early as the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, General Zhang Zhizhong personally went to Xinjiang to help our party do a big thing, when he was entrusted by Zhou Enlai to go to Xinjiang to rescue hundreds of cadres of our party who were imprisoned by Sheng Shicai, among whom there were Chairman Mao's brother-wife Zhu Danhua and his son Mao Yuanxin.
After General Zhang Zhizhong came to Xinjiang, with his influence in the Kuomintang, the authorities quickly released people, and eventually these people returned to Yan'an safely, among which Chairman Mao was even more appreciative of General Zhang Zhizhong's actions, because among these people there were younger brothers and sons, Chairman Mao also affectionately called General Zhang Zhizhong a benefactor of the Mao family.
It is precisely because of the above-mentioned acts of intimacy with our party that after the founding of New China, General Zhang Zhizhong was entrusted with a heavy responsibility and became vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and one of the few state leaders among the members of the democratic parties.
It is worth mentioning that although General Zhang Zhizhong is not a member of our party and is a person of the democratic party, because of his personal integrity, many founding fathers of our party are willing to associate with him, except for Premier Zhou, many marshals have deep friendships with him, and there is such a thing, which is enough to see the nobility of Zhang Zhizhong's personality.
It was 1959, when General Zhang Zhizhong heard about the Lushan Conference, he was very anxious, he couldn't sleep for several days and nights, he always wanted to do something, so he planned to write a letter and give it to Chairman Mao, and in this letter. Zhang Zhizhong wrote tens of thousands of words, including Marshal Peng Dehuai, and Zhang Zhizhong said in the letter:
"Peng Dehuai's life is very simple, he is very strict with himself, he does not pour out the face wash water, keeps it and then washes his feet, in short, I have a very hard and simple impression."
From here, it is not difficult for us to see that in this letter, General Zhang Zhizhong gave an objective account of his understanding of Marshal Peng Dehuai, and it is obvious that General Zhang Zhizhong is speaking for Marshal Peng Dehuai.
But what was surprising was that just when the letter was about to be sent to Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou Enlai learned of this matter, and he did not send the letter to Chairman Mao, but chose to intercept the letter, according to Zhang Yichun, the son of General Zhang Zhizhong, after his father's letter was intercepted by Premier Zhou, Premier Zhou entrusted his secretary to bring a message to his father Zhang Zhizhong.
Among them, Premier Zhou's secretary told Zhang Zhizhong, and the premier told him: "I received your letter, please rest assured, I will deal with the rest of the matter, and your task now is to rest well." ”
From Premier Zhou's words, it is not difficult for us to see that he is very concerned about General Zhang Zhizhong, but speaking of this, some people may have doubts in their hearts, since Premier Zhou is so concerned about General Zhang Zhizhong, why should he intercept this letter?
In fact, I would like to tell you that Zhou Enlai chose to intercept this letter from Him precisely because he was concerned about General Zhang Zhizhong, in other words, this is Premier Zhou Enlai's protection of General Zhang Zhizhong.
If you think about it, General Zhang Zhizhong is not a member of our party, and at this time he will inevitably bring some trouble to himself when he stands up and speaks; of course, what kind of person General Zhang Zhizhong is, and before he wrote this letter, he must have anticipated the possible results, but as a soldier, General Zhang Zhizhong has a straight personality, and he cannot but say that he wrote this letter.
But after all, Premier Zhou was the premier of a big country, his ideas were more comprehensive, and he understood better that this letter from General Zhang Zhizhong at that time would not change the overall situation, so from the overall situation, Premier Zhou finally intercepted General Zhang Zhizhong's letter.
However, despite this, from this matter, we can still see the personality charm of General Zhang Zhizhong, and although he is a person from a democratic party, this boldness to speak out is also worthy of our respect.
In fact, such things have happened many times in the life of General Zhang Zhizhong, and he has always insisted on what he thinks is correct and will not waver in the slightest, for example, as early as the Kuomintang period, Zhang Zhizhong was criticized by Chiang Kai-shek for his outspokenness.
It was November 1945, and Chiang Kai-shek was preparing to tear up the Double Tenth Agreement and start a civil war, and at this time, Zhang Zhizhong specially wrote to Chiang Kai-shek, asking him not to start a war and to properly resolve the problems between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party by political means.
But at this time, Chiang Kai-shek, where will he care about this, he is fighting for his current strength to occupy an absolute superiority, he intends to achieve his dictatorship through force, and General Zhang Zhizhong is extremely resistant to Chiang Kai-shek's attitude, and he said to Chiang Kai-shek:
"After eight years of protracted war of resistance, the people of our country have exhausted their wealth and wealth, and they are in the midst of fierce waters every day, and if war breaks out again, it will increase the suffering of the people and violate the wishes of the people."
However, at this time, Chiang Kai-shek could not listen to any persuasion and insisted on waging war, and in the end what awaited him could only be defeat, but fortunately, General Zhang Zhizhong finally sided with the people, and in terms of one point, he was worthy of the Chinese nation.
On April 6, 1969, a generation of famous generals Zhang Zhizhong died in Beijing at the age of seventy-nine, and when his life came to an end, Zhang Zhizhong's heart was still thinking about the reunification of the motherland, and it is worth mentioning that just after Zhang Zhizhong's death, because of the scale of his funeral, a controversy broke out.
The leader of the United Front Work Department in charge of this matter at that time held that Zhang Zhizhong was a member of the democratic party and had worked in the Kuomintang again, so in that special era, it was not appropriate to carry out a large-scale farewell ceremony for his body.
Premier Zhou was very dissatisfied with the United Front Work Department's proposal, and Premier Zhou believed that although General Zhang Zhizhong was not a member of our party, he was loyal to the motherland all his life, so the farewell ceremony should not only be held, but also attended by himself.
In this way, because of Premier Zhou's suggestion, the United Front Work Department finally held a solemn funeral for Zhang Zhizhong, and at the memorial service, Premier Zhou not only personally came to bid farewell, but also made a high-level bow to Zhang Zhizhong's body, which is a summary of Premier Zhou's half-century friendship between him and General Zhang Zhizhong.
In fact, in the author's opinion, it is very necessary to hold a farewell ceremony for the body of General Zhang Zhizhong; although he is a person from a democratic party, his contribution to the motherland is obvious to all, and our party's ability to hold a grand memorial service for such a figure precisely reflects our party's broad mind.
In addition, the author believes that, leaving aside others, just talk about the merits of General Zhang Zhizhong's anti-Japanese resistance, he is also worthy of people's commemoration, speaking of this, many people may not know that General Zhang Zhizhong is one of the earliest generals in the Chinese military to participate in the anti-Japanese resistance.
As early as 1932, during the Songhu War of Resistance, Zhang Zhizhong was appointed by Chiang Kai-shek as the commander of the Fifth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, leading the main elite troops of the Nationalist Army to participate in the 128 Songhu War of Resistance in order to reinforce the 19th Route Army.
As we all know, the Songhu War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression broke out earlier than the all-round outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the reason why the Japanese army was slow to launch an all-out war of aggression against China was that it had a tentative attack, which was met with strong resistance from our Chinese army and dealt them a heavy blow, which made the Japanese army dare not act rashly.
The article writes that even if it is over here, throughout the life of General Zhang Zhizhong, he has always taken upholding justice as his life creed, he dares to speak out, always puts the interests of the country and the nation in mind, his great and generous life, all of which are the country's peaceful service, he is worthy of the title of "General of Peace" given to him by posterity, let us always remember this patriotic Chinese soldier.