Don't want casualty figures, just Tower Hill!
Tashan was not only a barrier to Jinzhou, but also the most critical place to prevent the enemy from moving north for reinforcements.
In the Liaoshen Campaign, the Tashan Resistance Battle was a turning point in victory, and it was also a miracle in the history of human warfare.
There are no natural obstacles in the terrain of Tashan, and there is almost no danger to defend, but it has witnessed the perseverance and courage of the Chinese soldiers.
Located in Tashan Township, Lianshan District, Huludao City, Liaoning Province, there are tombstones of nine founding generals.
In 2014, Li Hongmao became the ninth general buried in Tashan, but he was not with the other eight
The Nine Generals' Heroic Soul Tower stands on the mountain, and the Great Wall of Blood and Fire protects Liao Shen
In Tashan Township, Lianshan District, Huludao City, Liaoning Province, there is a red tourist landscape that is extremely rare in China.
There are the tombstones of the nine founding generals of the Republic who participated in the Tashan Resistance Battle in the Liaoshen Campaign, standing solemnly on the site of the battlefield full of heroic atmosphere.
In the Northeast Battlefield in October 1948, the Tashan Resistance Battle was thrilling and indelible.
From October 10 to 16, the soldiers of the Second Corps of the Northeast Field Army engaged in fierce fighting with the Kuomintang army for six days and six nights in this area, which did not seem to have any natural defensive advantages.
In the face of the enemy's magnificent offensive, the PLA soldiers on this land, with their indestructible determination and sacrifice, repelled the onslaught of the enemy again and again and held their positions.
This battle not only smashed the offensive plan of the Kuomintang's "Eastern Advance Corps" and annihilated more than 7,000 enemy troops, but also completely disrupted Chiang Kai-shek's strategic deployment, won precious time for the liberation of Jinzhou, and also ensured the initiative and final victory of the Liaoshen Campaign.
The Tashan Resistance Battle was not only a key turning point in the Liaoshen Campaign, but also a miracle in the history of human warfare.
Here, the PLA commanders and fighters displayed military wisdom and heroism beyond ordinary people, and they faced the elite troops of the 11 divisions of the Kuomintang Army, which were well-equipped and supported by the navy and air force.
Under such unfavorable conditions, the PLA fighters held Tashan with their lives.
The bloody battle of Tashan left the soul of the heroes, and the loyal bones rested together with the comrades
In February 1987, Lieutenant General Wu Kehua, member of the Central Advisory Committee and former commander of the Guangzhou Military Region, passed away peacefully in Guangzhou.
This veteran of the four directions, in the last moments of his life, left a last wish, he hoped that his ashes could return to Tower Hill and reunite with those comrades who died in the war.
Wu Kehua, 35 years old at the time, as the commander of the fourth column, personally commanded the Tashan blockade, which lasted six days and nights of tragic battles deeply imprinted in his heart and became a lifelong memory.
On August 1, 1988, on the occasion of the founding day of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Wu Kehua's last wish was fulfilled.
His wife, Zhang Ming, with deep sorrow and endless respect, gently scattered General Wu's ashes near the "Martyrs' Tower" in Tashan, which was once the forward command post of the "Tashan Heroic Regiment" in accordance with the principle of simplicity in funeral.
Wu Kehua's cemetery does not have a luxurious tombstone, nor does it have an independent tomb, so he is like this, as an ordinary soldier, resting in that land baptized by artillery fire.
General Wu Kehua's life was full of war and gunsmoke, and the Tashan Resistance Battle was undoubtedly the most difficult but glorious chapter of his career.
It was that battle that made him remember the deep affection with his comrades, and it was that battle that made him firm in his determination to sleep with his comrades after death.
In that stormy era, General Hu Qicai stood up with an almost legendary posture and forged a brilliant military career.
The story of Hu Qicai is an inspirational legend who has gradually risen from an ordinary soldier to a senior general.
Since the squad, platoon, company, battalion, brigade, and division, he has never fallen behind, until he has become a general who will go down in history.
General Hu was still young in the post of political commissar of the 11th Red Division, only 20 years old.
Since then, he has led the troops to fight in Luzhong for seven years in the flames of the Anti-Japanese War, and has faced countless tough battles against the enemy.
In the Battle of Xinkailing, he showed his might, leading his troops to annihilate more than 8,000 enemy troops.
The bloody battle of Tashan was the highlight of his military career, and Hu Qicai personally went to the front line and commanded the battle without fear, so that the enemy's navy and air force could not break through the strong defensive line.
At that time, Chiang Kai-shek was incredulous about the situation of the war, and personally took a plane to observe Tower Hill and exclaimed.
Chiang Kai-shek did not expect that the cooperation of the three armies by sea and air would not be able to help a corner of Tashan.
After the liberation, Lieutenant General Hu Qicai served as the deputy commander of the engineering corps, but his heart was always concerned about Tashan.
Four times I visited the battlefield that was once filled with gunpowder, and every time I visited the old command post or the ruins of the forward position, I was always silent for a long time, as if I was in dialogue with the past years and the heroic souls of my comrades.
He once whispered to his wife: "I must return to Tashan after death, so that my soul can be stable." ”
If he thinks of Tashan, Hu Qicai often can't sleep at night, as if all the past events are vivid.
It was not until July 4, 1997 that Hu Qi died suddenly of stomach bleeding, which was also the day of Hong Kong's return to the motherland.
When he heard the news before he died, he felt a little relieved.
Admiral Zhang Wannian, his old subordinate, who was also a veteran of the battle in Tower Hill, represented the Chinese army at the handover ceremony in Hong Kong.
Hu Qicai's last wish is unpretentious, but it shows a warrior's deepest attachment to the land.
He only wishes to be buried in Tower Hill.
Tashan, a place that has been baptized by gunsmoke, originally did not have a martyr's cemetery.
In the spring of 1952, a memorial tower to commemorate the Tashan Resistance Battle was completed in the west tower of Tashan.
However, ten years later, it was discovered that the original memorial tower was actually erected on the position of the former Kuomintang army.
Jiao Yushan, the first head of the "Tashan Heroes Regiment", and his comrades-in-arms Cheng Yuanmao and Bao Renchuan discovered this situation when they revisited the battlefield.
They reported this sighting, and if it weren't for this unexpected discovery, perhaps the Tower Hill Memorial Tower would still be in its original location.
After the approval of the Central Military Commission, the garrison used explosives to blow up the untimely memorial tower.
On October 15, 1963, the new memorial tower was inaugurated on the site of the former forward command post of the "Tower Hill Heroes".
Despite this, the memorial facility on Tower Hill is the only one tower, and there is no mausoleum or tombstone.
The ashes of General Wu Kehua were scattered near the "Martyrs' Tower", and his heroic soul was returned to the earth, but the bones of other martyrs who participated in the war could not sleep on this red soil.
In 1997, the Huludao Municipal People's Government, in view of the responsibility of history and the importance of commemoration, was determined to find a home for the heroes.
They decided to build a cemetery around the original Tashan Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Tower, where all the martyrs who died in the Tashan Resistance Battle were buried together.
Let the heroic spirits of the heroes be truly reunited and defend this holy land forged with blood and fire.
In this way, Fang Xian's respect for history and heroes, and Fang Xian's responsibility for the future.
Soon after the completion of the Tashan Revolutionary Cemetery, the souls of the four generals seemed to have been summoned and returned to "home".
These four generals, they were separated from their comrades-in-arms during their lifetimes, and it seems that even time is solemn.
These heroic souls who once fought side by side against the enemy, and their thoughts about each other are comparable to the clouds and mist that have accumulated for a long time in the deep mountains, and they will eventually need a heavy rain to wash them away.
On the 50th anniversary of the victory of the Liaoshen Campaign and the liberation of Northeast China, on this day, the general's family members gathered in Tashan with deep sorrow and unfulfilled wishes.
On November 2, 1998, the former site of the forward command post of the former Tashan Heroes became the common resting place of these four founding generals.
On that day, the solemnity and solemnity of the martyrs' cemetery seemed to silence time.
Wang Zhiyuan, the wife of General Hu Qicai, held a heavy urn in her hand, accompanied by the widow of Major General Li Fuze, chief of staff of the Fourth Column of the Tashan Blockade and later deputy director of the National Defense Science and Technology Commission, as well as the family members of Major General Jiang Xieyuan and Major General Jiao Yushan, who were known as the "black-faced generals."
They are here not only to complete a funeral ceremony, but also to let these heroes who love each other and this land deeply be reunited forever in the place where they once fought bloodily.
General Wu Kehua's family carved an inscription in front of a newly erected tombstone.
Generals Jiang Xieyuan and Jiao Yushan were gone as early as 1990, Li Fuze died in 1996, and General Hu Qicai left us in July 1997.
Their ashes, after years of waiting, finally returned to Tower Hill on this day, to the land they had guarded with their blood.
The iron-blooded general returned to Tashan, and the beacon years were long sleeping
On May 31, 2000, an iron-blooded general bid farewell to the world in the capital.
He was the political commissar of the fourth column who commanded the Tashan blockade, the former political commissar of the PLA armored corps, and Lieutenant General Mo Wenhua, who died at the age of 90.
The death of the old general made the Central Military Commission full of high respect in the eulogy, every sentence of which was painful.
And General Mok's ashes were not immediately returned to the soil.
There is a kind of waiting in his last wish, "waiting" for an old comrade-in-arms in the columbarium of the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery.
Who is he waiting for, one might ask?
Three years have passed quietly, and the mystery has finally been revealed.
On June 12, 2003, Lieutenant General Ouyang Wen, deputy political commissar and director of the Political Department of the Fourth Column in the Tashan Blockade, the first editor-in-chief of the People's Liberation Army Newspaper, and former vice minister of the Fourth Ministry of Machinery Industry, closed his eyes under the same starry sky.
Soon after, on July 1, the 82nd anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the ashes of two generals, Mok Wenhua and Ouyang Wen, were transported back to Tashan, the land that witnessed their youth and blood.
On the north side of the joint burial tomb of 743 martyrs, people erected two white marble tombstones for them, which are snow-white and solemn.
At this moment, the leaders of the fourth column of the Northeast Field Army in the Tashan Resistance Battle finally rested in this place where the heroic souls gathered.
At this point, history seems to have come to a successful end.
On the Qingming Festival in 2005, the ashes of Major General Jiang Minfeng, the first political commissar of the "Tashan Heroic Regiment" and the former deputy political commissar of the PLA Engineering Corps, were also buried in Tashan, realizing the general's long-cherished wish before his death.
These eight generals' tombs, the style is unified, the specifications are similar, the material is the same, the front is inlaid with the general's porcelain bust color photo and a bright red five stars, and the back of the tombstone briefly records the magnificent life of the generals.
In October 2014, when the bell rang for the 66th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Tashan, an affectionate and solemn ceremony was quietly staged in Tashan.
On that day, the ashes of Li Hongmao, the chief of staff of the 12th Division of the 4th Column of Dongye and the founding major general of the People's Republic of China, were respectfully placed in the ashes of the soldiers of the Tashan Resistance War not far from the Tashan Resistance War Memorial Tower.
General Li Hongmao finally fulfilled his last wish here, and returned to this land where he had fought bloodily.
General Li Hongmao's life can be described as a handsome one.
He was a survivor of the Red West Route Army, half of his life, seriously wounded many times, and was rated as a second-class A disabled soldier.
Even after retiring from the army, he still maintained the simplicity and revolutionary nature that came from the war, and lived a simple and elegant life.
It is worth mentioning that he was buried with General Li Hongmao in this land where heroic souls gathered, as well as his wife Ma Dunxiang.
She was also a participant in the Tashan Resistance Battle, and served as a military doctor in the Fourth Column Hospital of the Northeast Field Army.
According to the relevant policy, her ashes are buried with her husband, so that the two old comrades-in-arms can also rely on each other and sleep together in the last resting place in this world.
General Li Hongmao did not choose to be buried under the Nata Mountain Memorial Tower, but chose to be closer to the location of the Tashan battlefield.
This may be his last obsession as a veteran, hoping that his final destination can be closer to the battlefield where gunsmoke and artillery were once billowing and artillery fire.
There, not only his comrades-in-arms, but also the blood and dreams of his youth.
Resources:
The souls of the nine founding generals gathered in Tashan Zhang Kaixin