In 1958, New China was about to celebrate its tenth anniversary. In order to give the people a satisfactory answer, this year, basically all work entered an intense stage.
At this juncture, no one dared to relax. In order to complete the task at hand to a high degree, Su Yu, the then Chief of General Staff of the People's Liberation Army, decided to go to Changsha, Hunan, to conduct an on-the-spot investigation to ensure that all the data on hand was authentic and credible.
Coincidentally, Su Yu's hometown is in Huitong, Hunan, which is not far away from Changsha. Now he finally has the opportunity to return to Hunan. The staff accompanying him suggested that Su Yu take this opportunity to go home and visit after the incident.
In response, Su Yu firmly rejected the staff. He knew that the staff were well-intentioned, but in his opinion, this trip was to complete organizational tasks. He led the team to Changsha for the purpose of conducting an inspection. If he took the opportunity to go home to visit relatives, he would be leaving his post without authorization. This would undoubtedly be a violation of discipline. He could not use public services for personal gain.
Although Su Yu showed no intention of going home to visit relatives on the surface, in fact, he could no longer control his longing for his hometown. Now that he has come to his hometown of Hunan, he cannot go home to visit his mother. Su Yu's heart is really full of mixed emotions.
Fortunately, the appearance of a distant relative one day brought comfort to Su Yu's noisy heart:
"Your parents are in good health, so don't worry too much. Your brothers and sisters are all at home now, and they are contributing to the construction of their hometown. ! Now, the family is well fed and warmly clothed, so just keep it in your heart!"
The words left by the distant relative made Su Yu worry about it. After the inspection, he went to another area with peace of mind and continued the inspection.
However, what Su Yu never expected was that after missing this opportunity, he would never be able to return to his hometown again in this life.
1. Passing away with regret
In 1981, Su Yu was 74 years old. Different from that year, Su Yu no longer had the heavy responsibility. Unfortunately, at this time, he was already tortured by illness.
In the ward, he had long lost the high spirits of his youth. He was seriously ill and could only lie in bed. Thinking back to his more than sixty years of revolutionary career, Su Yu felt that this life was great. However, there was only one thing that he was unwilling to let go of.
Suffering from physical discomfort, he asked someone to bring him paper and pen. On the hospital bed, with his trembling right hand, Su Yu wrote a letter and handed it to the central government: "I know that my time is running out, and I hope that I can return to the hospital at the last moment." Check it out at home, and hope the central government will approve it! "
Falling leaves and returning to their roots has been an unchangeable sentiment deep in the hearts of Chinese people since ancient times. Su Yu, who had experienced life and death on the battlefield, could not escape the same. When he was seriously ill, he just wanted to go home and take a look at his hometown.
After receiving Su Yu's letter, Comrade Hu Yaobang responded immediately, hoping that Su Yu could wait until medical experts analyzed his physical condition before deciding whether to return to his hometown.
Soon, the judgment results of medical experts came out, but the results were not satisfactory. According to the results of various examination data, Su Yu's various body functions have turned on red lights. Once there is any deterioration, the consequences will be disastrous. Therefore, traveling long distances at this time is definitely not advisable.
In the end, under the advice of medical experts, Hu Yaobang had no choice but to reject Su Yu's invitation to return home.
At the same time, in order to appease Su Yu, Comrade Hu Yaobang thought of another way. He arranged for Su Yu's old partner Zhang Zhen to temporarily go back to Hunan for Comrade Su Yu to join the party and see the specific situation in his hometown for Su Yu. In addition, Comrade Hu Yaobang also assured Su Yu that once his physical condition improves, the central government will immediately arrange for him to return to his hometown.
At this time, Zhang Zhen felt uncomfortable returning to his hometown for his brother. In order to let his old friend on the sick bed see the appearance of his hometown as soon as possible, when he received the task of returning to his hometown for Su Yu, he hurriedly Immediately, Zhang Zhen took Su Yu's secretary and other comrades to Hunan Huitong. In Su Yu's hometown, he personally visited the places where Su Yu had lived and played. He also took photos one after another and recorded all the places.
Su Yu was so excited that he shed tears when he received those photos. After taking those photos in his hands, he looked through them one by one. In the photos, there were the old house where he once lived and the Camellia oleifera tree that his parents planted in the courtyard in his memory. He slowly fell into memories.
Seeing Su Yu's behavior, he was afraid that his friend would be too excited to recuperate, so Zhang Zhen stepped forward quickly, took away the photos, and handed over the and specialties that he had been carrying for a long time.
Before this, the attentive Zhang Zhen asked the doctor whether Su Yu could eat the food he brought. After getting the doctor's permission, Zhang Zhen felt at ease and brought the specialties he brought to the ward.
Taking small bites of the specialties from his hometown, the look of cherishing them made Zhang Zhen's eyes wet. However, Su Yu did not shed tears again. At this time, he had a smile on his face. There seemed to be a trace of regret and bitterness in the smile. Perhaps he had expected in his heart that this might be his last taste of his hometown.
At that time, Su Yu's headache had reached the point where the medication could no longer control it. Not only did he have constant headaches all day long, he would even faint from the pain sometimes. Even now, he can only speak intermittently and vaguely.
After Zhang Zhen sent those photos, Su Yu seemed to have put aside the matter of returning to his hometown and never mentioned it again. Instead, he urged his wife and staff to prepare for his death.
On February 5, 1984, General Su Yu, who ultimately failed to defeat the disease, passed away with regret. His wife, Chu Qing, followed his will and scattered his ashes in more than 20 places where he fought. Among them, General Su Yu's hometown, Huitong County, Hunan, was the first place to go.
2. Misfortune in later life
Speaking of why the central government arranged for Zhang Zhen to return home in place of Su Yu, we must mention the life-and-death friendship between the two. After Su Yu died of illness, what Zhang Zhen did showed the friendship between the two to the people of the country.
Just after Su Yu returned to Hunan for inspection mentioned at the beginning of the article, Su Yu returned to Beijing. Not long after, he received a job transfer appointment from the Ministry of National Defense. Su Yu was ordered to serve as deputy minister of defense and concurrently as deputy president of the Academy of Military Science. However, This position transfer was not a promotion. Before receiving the appointment letter, Su Yu had just been "criticized" and labeled a "hat" at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission. The enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission was even called the "Millet Criticism Conference."
Although the central government vigorously vindicated the previous wrongful convictions, Su Yu, as the number one general, has not yet taken off the "hat" that was placed on his head. Until his death, Su Yu could not wait for documents from his superiors to vindicate him.
In order to redress the grievances of his friend, Zhang Zhen started working on it after his friend passed away and ran around for it. At one time, he devoted all his body and mind to redressing the grievances of his friend.
Fortunately, his hard work was not let down after all. Under Zhang Zhen’s call, on September 11, 1984, with the vocal support of many central leaders, in the introduction of Su Yu in the "Encyclopedia of China. Military Volume", the Central Military Commission added the following sentence: "In 1958, he was wrongly criticized in the anti-dogmatism."
Just such a short sentence washed away the grievances of the deceased Su Yu.
is just over a dozen words, but it contains the hard work of dozens of people. In order to wash away the grievances committed by General Su Yu, under Zhang Zhen's entrustment, Yang Shangkun and others jointly wrote no less than ten letters and handed them over to the central government.
Zhang Zhen was not really satisfied with this in his heart. In his opinion, Su Yu, who was willing to sacrifice his life for the revolutionary cause, should not end up like this.
In order for more people to know about Su Yu's achievements, Zhang Zhen deliberately searched for a large amount of relevant historical materials and did a lot of publicity work, so that people all over the country learned about General Su Yu's deeds and achievements.
In October 1992, Zhang Zhen, who was 78 years old, still had not forgotten the injustice suffered by Su Yu. As the then vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, he once again found Su Yu's old subordinates and mentioned the matter of clearing General Su Yu's name again.
On October 28, 1993, the Central Military Commission received a letter jointly written by five senior subordinates of Su Yu, including Huang Yifan and Huang Yesong, suggesting that a commemorative meeting be held to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of General Su Yu.
On December 25 of the following year, two major public publications, the People's Liberation Army Daily and the People's Daily, jointly published a memorial article titled "In Memory of Comrade Su Yu." This article was signed by Liu Qinghua and Zhang Zhen, two vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission.
This memorial article attracted widespread attention in the society as soon as it was published. The article specifically pointed out that at the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission in 1958, Comrade Su Yu was wrongly criticized and suffered unfair treatment for a long time. At the end, it specifically stated that the Central Military Commission unanimously agreed that this matter was a major mistake in history.
Although the central government did not hold a commemorative meeting, the publication of this article completely means that the 36-year-old grievances of General Su Yu have finally been completely washed away.
As Su Yu's old comrade-in-arms, Zhang Zhen, who has been working hard, can finally let go of his obsession.
3. The pain tortured me for half my life
After that, General Su Yu came into people’s sight again. In the autumn of 2007, a reporter entered Yuer Hutong in Beijing and talked about it.
That year was the 100th anniversary of the birth of General Su Yu. A reporter named Chen Rongkun arrived at General Su Yu’s home before the appointed time. The interviewee was General Su Yu’s wife, Comrade Chu Qing.
Hurrying slowly, he finally managed to stay within the agreed time. As soon as he entered the courtyard, Chen Rongkun looked around for the best recording location. He looked around in the courtyard and finally settled on the living room where General Su Yu often received guests during his lifetime. After hurriedly asking people to set up the machines and setting up the video recorder , Chen Rongkun signaled to Mrs. Chu Qing, who was standing at the door silently and smiling as she watched them operate everything, that it was time to start.
Under the reflection of the sunlight outside the door, Mrs. Chu Qing, who walked slowly over, looked extremely thin and thin, as if a gust of wind could blow people away.
What is very different from her appearance is that Mrs. Chu Qing is not as taciturn as she seems. Instead, she is extremely talkative. She answered every question asked by Chen Rongkun eloquently.
Especially when Chen Rongkun mentioned General Su Yu and their revolutionary careers, Mrs. Chu Qing's eyes, which were originally calm, slowly shone with light. At the age of 80, she happily told the story of how she and her husband fell in love.
However, as she spoke, her eyes suddenly dimmed, and her expression was very sad. If you look closely, you can see a trace of regret in it.
Chen Rongkun did not dare to interrupt when he saw this and could only continue to listen.
"He has been injured six times during his lifetime of marching and fighting, but two of the head injuries almost ruined the rest of his life!"
Holding back his sadness, he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, and Chu Qing continued to talk intermittently.
"The shrapnel followed him for 54 years, until he died and was cremated..."
said that after her husband passed away, Chu Qing couldn't bear it anymore, and covered her face and cried in front of everyone.
General Su Yu suffered two head injuries. The first time the shrapnel just grazed his right ear and did not stay in his head. The second time was during the battle in Shuinan. A shell fell next to Su Yu and the fragments flew into his head. The fragments that entered the head could not be removed after that.
Due to limited medical conditions at the time, Su Yu felt lucky to be able to save his life from the battlefield. However, this injury left him with a lifelong illness.
To this day, as a wife, Chu Qing still clearly remembers the painful appearance of General Su Yu who poured cold water over his head in order to relieve the pain.
Such a battlefield hero who was praised by Chairman Mao as "able to command four to five hundred thousand troops", who was good at defeating many with less and achieved many great victories, suffered from illness for the rest of his life, and could not escape the clutches of the disease until his death...
