On September 9, 1976, the great leader Chairman Mao passed away in Beijing. China was shocked, the whole world was grieved, and the entire land of China fell into infinite grief.
When an old man who was over seventy years old heard the news, he was shocked and sorrowful, flooding him like a tide. The old man almost fainted and his health deteriorated from then on.
On January 28, 1977, on this cold winter day, the coldness of life gradually eroded into the old man's body.
While his consciousness was still clear, he used his remaining strength to tell his family his last wish in life: "I have nothing to regret in this life. I just want to return to Chairman Mao after death." .”
A few days later, the old man passed away and stayed on that frosty cold day forever.
Who is the old man? Why did he leave such a last wish on his deathbed?
The old man is Chairman Mao's loyal guard, General Long Kaifu, known as the "Major General Porter".
Tragic childhood experience
On the second day of the second lunar month in 1908, it was the traditional day when the dragon raised its head. A boy was born in Huo Tian, Chaling County, Hunan Province. Named Tan Luo Zai by his family.
He was born into a very poor peasant family with three brothers. Even though the family of six lived frugally and worked all day long, their lives were still very tight.
In such a family life, companionship has become a luxury. Tan Luozai's parents are traveling all day long, barely maintaining the family's livelihood.
In 1908, China was still at the end of the decadent rule of the dark Qing Dynasty , with broken mountains and rivers, internal and external difficulties, and social turmoil. God's will failed to fulfill man's wishes, and man-made disasters were accompanied by natural disasters in successive years.
My parents, who were working outside, were still being brutally exploited and oppressed by the landlord class. In such a long-term life of being sucked up by society and the landlord class, their parents became sick from overwork, and Tan Luozai lost his life when he was only four years old. His mother.
His mother passed away, and his father was also deeply affected. He had to rely on himself to support the family of five despite his illness. It was an unsustainable poor family, and now it is even more difficult to find a way to survive.
So, after a long ideological struggle, his father sent the young Tan Luozai to his deceased wife's brother, adopted him as his adopted son, and changed his name to Long Kaifu.
Long Kaifu, who was still very young, still lived a very poor life after following his uncle. He made a living by herding cattle for the landlord's family every day. At the age of only six or seven, he had to go to the fields to farm.
Long Kaifu and his relatives and friends have been living hard, but life has not chosen to be kind to these poor people. When Long Kaifu was 15 years old, his uncle who raised him, like Long Kaifu's mother, died of overwork due to long-term labor and oppression.
Long Kaifu could only live with his grandfather, who was a mason. Long Kaifu, who was hard-working and able to endure hardships, learned masonry from his grandfather. He walked around the streets doing brickwork to support himself and his grandfather.
In the process of working hard to live, Long Kaifu also witnessed the unlimited oppression and exploitation of the poor and working people by the local tyrants and evil gentry.
Therefore, while he was learning masonry, he secretly practiced martial arts, hoping to gain a skill. Come and make your life and your grandpa's life a little better.
Just when he was full of hope for life, bad news broke into his life again. The grandfather, who depended on each other for life, left Long Kaifu and passed away because of years of hard work and lack of money to take medicine and receive treatment.
The deaths of relatives one after another made Long Kaifu more and more aware of the darkness of this society. He no longer wanted to live in exploitation and oppression all his life like his relatives, friends and elders.
As a result, young Long Kaifu strengthened his confidence. He wanted to resist the oppression of the landlord class bureaucratic capital . He wanted to disperse the dark clouds. He wanted to use his own strength to break through this barrier. He wanted to stand up and be his own master. , be the master of your own country!
Start a revolutionary life
The era at that time was not only a dark era, but also an era of constant awakening. Various revolutionary activities, and worker and peasant movements were booming across the country.
Although they were just sparks in various places, these flames ignited the revolutionary will in Long Kaifu's heart, and he participated in many surrounding revolutions and struggles.
Long Kaifu joined the farmers' association in his hometown. It was in the farmers' association that Long Kaifu started his life of participating in the revolutionary struggle movement organized by our party.
In January 1924, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party achieved cooperation, and the vigorous National Revolution swept from south to north, sweeping through the land where the people were in dire straits under the rule of warlords.
The newly founded Communist Party of China, relying on its firm revolutionary beliefs and its great purpose of serving the people, launched a vigorous and turbulent workers' and peasants' movement across the country in response to the wave of the great revolution.
In these worker-peasant movements, Long Kai, who came from a poor family, saw that this great political party was sincerely dedicated to and fighting for the people. Therefore, from then on he had the hope of joining the ranks of this people.
However, in 1927, the Chiang Kai-shek Group brazenly launched the "April 12 Counter-revolutionary Coup" in Shanghai. Countless communists and countless advanced revolutionary masses were massacred, and the great revolution was immediately shattered.
The Kuomintang's reactionary rule in Hunan immediately joined in. Xu Kexiang launched the " May Day Incident" in Changsha. The entire Changsha and even the entire Hunan were shrouded in white terror.
The Communist Party in Hunan was greatly crushed and suppressed. In Long Kaifu's hometown of Chaling, many revolutionary masses and Communist Party members were arrested and massacred.
Faced with the increasingly severe Chaling Revolutionary situation, Long Kaifu had to leave his hometown to find party organizations and revolutionary teams to contribute his own strength to the fight against reactionary rule. From Guangzhou to Wuhan, Long Kaifu has been looking for the revolutionary ranks of the Communist Party of China.
However, various places were shrouded in the massacre and arrests of the Communist Party by the Kuomintang reactionaries, and reactionary coups were staged everywhere.
Long Kaifu, who was looking for the revolutionary team to no avail, made inquiries while working as a coolie. With the help and persuasion of an insightful person, Long Kaifu decided to return to his hometown of Chaling and wait for the arrival of the revolutionary team.
Finally, God paid off. Not long after Long Kaifu returned to his hometown of Chaling, he met the workers' and peasants' revolutionary army who came to liberate Chaling. Long Kaifu was overjoyed and immediately found this Red Army and expressed his intention to join the revolutionary team.
This team is the revolutionary army led by Chairman Mao himself.
Long Kaifu is an upright and simple man, has a letter of introduction from the Agricultural Association, knows martial arts, is physically strong, and has extremely firm revolutionary beliefs. Therefore, Long Kaifu was quickly included in the revolutionary ranks.
Due to lack of relevant war experience, Long Kaifu has not yet been incorporated into the combat force. He was strong and strong and started working as a porter at the army station. Long Kaifu's diligent work soon attracted the attention of a chief. This leader is Chairman Mao.
During the conversation with Long Kaifu, after learning that the two were fellow villagers, Chairman Mao switched to communicating with him in a friendly local accent. Long Kaifu also poured out his heart and soul, sharing his past experiences and revolutionary enthusiasm. Expressed easily.
After receiving Chairman Mao's affirmation, he joined the security company beside the Chairman and stayed with Chairman Mao for 18 years.
From porter guard to porter major general
After becoming Chairman Mao's bodyguard, Long Kaifu embarked on a simple and legendary life.
is different from other guards in the security company. In addition to ensuring the safety of the chairman, Long Kaifu also has this special task. That is to serve as guards for Chairman Mao's two flutes.
These two baskets are not ordinary. One of them can be said to be the archives of , the former enemy committee of at that time. There are many important documents, manuscripts and important seals of the former enemy committee.
The other basket can be called Chairman Mao’s creative collection, which contains some of the Chairman’s most cherished books and his creative manuscripts. Today, Longkaifu can be said to be the top security system of the National Museum of China.
One chief and two bamboo baskets occupy the most important part of Long Kaifu's heart.
After joining the army, Long Kaifu followed the troops and experienced many life-and-death battles. However, no matter how critical the situation was or how dangerous the environment, Long Kaifu would cling to these two baskets of important information.
Later, he followed the Red Army on the 25,000-mile Long March. Crossing the river, he held the two bamboo baskets high, even if he was soaked, the documents could not be damaged.
Climb the snowy mountain, cross the grassland , the mountain is high and the road is steep, and the mud is difficult to walk. If you are not careful, you may fall into the abyss, and your bones will be difficult to survive.
Long Kaifu took out the documents in the basket, packed them in packages, and tied them tightly to his body. He kept thinking in his mind, "The people are there, the information is there, the lives are there, and the manuscripts are there."
In this way, when he followed the Long March troops to Hui Division in northern Shaanxi, all the documents and materials were preserved intact.
During his eighteen years as a guard for the Chairman, Long Kaifu established a deep relationship with the Chairman. He has won everyone's respect with his sincerity, bravery, perseverance and persistence.
In 1928, after a major victory, Long Kaifu discovered many "books" in the captured city. He thought that the chairman loved reading and writing very much, so he thought about taking these books back to the chairman to read.
But at that time, Long Kaifu could not read a single Chinese character. The "books" with dense characters he brought back were actually account books and land tax inventories.
Although it was a little joke this time, his sincerity moved everyone. The chairman took the initiative to serve as Long Kaifu's first teacher, teaching him how to read and read.
Long Kaifu was also very hard-working and serious about his studies. He studied continuously during his free time. During the Long March, he used tree branches to write and practice calligraphy on the ground without pen and paper.
Later, in addition to picking up the two baskets of information for the chairman, Long Kaifu also took on the task of organizing the information. Since he had a certain cultural foundation, he was very comfortable in sorting out the information, with almost no mistakes.
Of course, in addition to protecting and organizing these materials, Long Kaifu also made great achievements on the battlefield.
In 1929, when the Red Army was fighting the enemy in Dabaidi, due to the backwardness of weapons and equipment, the battlefield situation that was originally favorable to us was about to be reversed. At this critical moment, the leaders and guards of the Red Army also went into battle to kill the enemy.
Long Kaifu saw the leader taking the lead and was very anxious, wanting to go on the field to kill the enemy and protect the leader. But even at this moment, he did not forget his responsibility to protect the data.
He found a pregnant woman who could not go to the battlefield to help him take care of the documents. After settling in, he immediately rushed into the hail of bullets and fought bravely against the enemy. Under the leadership of the leader, the Red Army regrouped and won in one fell swoop.
With his good performance in this battle, Long Kaifu entered the front-line combat team and was dispatched to the Luofang area to carry out guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.
The "modern weapons" in the hands of Luo Kaifu, who was the commander of the first company of the Central Guard Regiment at this time, were only three Hanyang rifles. The rest of the weapons and equipment were still cold weapons. Compared with the equipment of the Kuomintang reactionaries, it was a huge difference. Different places.
However, he did not back down because of the disadvantages of weapons and equipment. Instead, he relied on his guerrilla tactics, firm belief, the heroic fighting of the soldiers and the support of the people to beat the well-equipped Kuomintang reactionary troops to the bitter end.
When the mission was over and Long Kaifu and his party returned to the base area, the number of soldiers and weapons in the company had increased significantly, which dealt a heavy blow to the arrogance of the local Kuomintang reactionaries.
In this way, this guard who worked as a porter beside Chairman Mao fought bravely and selflessly from the Agrarian Revolution to the Liberation War, and participated in many major battles.
After the founding of New China, Long Kaifu also actively participated in the construction and development of the motherland. In 1955, he was awarded the rank of major general and was affectionately called "Major General Porter".
During Long Kaifu's life of joining the revolution, Chairman Mao has always been his guide in life and his revolutionary mentor. The time spent with the Chairman has become the most precious memory in his life.
Therefore, after learning the news of Chairman Mao's death, Long Kaifu was distraught and cried bitterly: "Chairman, what will we do if you are gone?"
He has been in poor health ever since. Things got worse and worse. When he was dying, General Long Kaifu was sometimes sober and sometimes confused. But no matter what state he was in, he kept talking about Chairman Mao. He kept talking about wanting to return to the Chairman, and even friends came to visit him. He also wanted to bring Chairman Mao to eat the fruits he sent.
He said to his family: "I was born for Chairman Mao, and I will definitely follow him." On February 3, 1977, Long Kaifu, the "Porter General" completed his 60th anniversary. Nine years of revolutionary life.
After General Ye Jianying learned about General Long Kaifu's words on his deathbed, he was extremely moved and immediately agreed to his family's request.
General Long Kaifu returned to Beijing and was laid to rest in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery , overlooking the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall and sleeping next to Chairman Mao.
A pure heart is loyal, and China will always remember the revolutionary soul, from a child of a poor family to a porter and guard to the founding major general of the country.
Long Kaifu used his loyal and steadfast life to write a great revolutionary poem to us. Together with thousands of revolutionaries of the older generation, he wrote a gorgeous chapter of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation!
