In 1955, our army conducted its first full-service military rank conferment. More than a thousand commanders who had walked through the hail of bullets were awarded the rank of general, including 798 major generals.
This article will introduce one of the major generals. He joined the Communist Youth League and the Red Army at the age of 16. He joined the party at the age of 18. He experienced the Agrarian Revolution, the Anti-Japanese War, and the Liberation War. He was injured nine times in the war and survived. He eventually became the founding major general of our country, but he was assassinated by his subordinates less than two years later, which is sad! He is the founding major general Li Fa.
Li Fa is a native of Lu'an, Anhui Province. He was born in October 1913. He has been very disgusted with the landlord bullies who bully the weak since he was a child. When he was 16 years old, he joined the local Communist Youth League and fought against the oppression of the landlords. He became very popular in the local area. Have a reputation.
In the same year, he joined the Red Army and received more formal training. In November 1929, under the guidance of the 32nd Red Division, the Liu'an Central County Committee launched the Six (An) Huo (Mountain) Peasant Uprising, and Li Fa participated in it.
Li Fa, who had experienced the temper of the war, grew up quickly in the army. He first served as the squad leader in the Red Army . Due to his outstanding performance, he was promoted to the platoon leader of the machine gun company. At that time, our army's firepower was scarce, and the machine gun company could be said to be the leader of the battle. The main force, here he successively participated in important tasks such as the anti-"encirclement and suppression" operations in the base area and the southward operations.
In the battle, Li Fa fought bravely and dared to fight. However, because of this, he had to leave the team to recuperate due to injury in 1932. After recovering from his injuries, his original unit was mobilized to form the 25th Red Army, and he was appointed company commander of the 25th Red Army's special agent battalion.
Soon, he was appointed as the commander of the heavy machine gun company of the 224th Regiment, and participated in the Long March with the 25th Red Army. As the main force in the army, Li Fa led the charge in the battles of Dushu Town, Sanyaosi, and Yujiahe, and made great contributions to the troops' smooth arrival and establishment of the Hubei-Henan-Shaanxi Revolutionary Base.
During the anti-"encirclement and suppression" struggle in the base area, Li Fa was promoted to the battalion commander of the 225th Regiment, and led his troops to serve as the rearguard of the entire army. He repelled the pursuit of the national army that was several times larger than his own, allowing the main force to fight with The Northern Shaanxi Red Army successfully joined forces.
In 1936, Li Fa was appointed as the commander of the 264th Regiment of the Red Army, and participated in the Eastern Expedition to Shanxi. After completing his mission, he led his troops to participate in the Western Expedition, serving as the leader of the Red 2nd and Red 4th Regiments. The front army's march north created favorable conditions.
Due to his outstanding performance, Li Fa was arranged by his superiors to study at the Red Army University and the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. During this period, he also served as the commander of the 224th Regiment of the 75th Division of the old army.
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he was assigned to Shandong to organize local armed forces to carry out anti-Japanese work. Here, he successively served as the commander of the advance detachment of the Shandong column, the leader of the column's special agent regiment, the leader of the first independent detachment, and the chief of staff of the detachment. and cooperated with troops from various places to smash the Japanese army's raid on the central base area of Shandong.
In 1944, his superiors arranged for him to further study at the Central Party School. After completing his studies, just as the War of Liberation broke out, his superiors placed him at the forefront of the war as the commander of the First and Second Military Divisions of the Bohai Sea Region.
In the local area, he not only commanded the troops to repel the attack of the National Army, but also vigorously developed the construction of the liberated areas. Later, the East China Bureau of the Communist Party of China, East China Military Region and other core agencies were transferred to the Bohai area. This shows that his superiors have high regard for his ability. of trust.
After serving as the chief of staff, deputy commander, and member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of the Bohai Sea Region, he commanded the troops to participate in the Jinan Campaign. He also vigorously developed the industry, agriculture, and commerce in the Bohai Liberated Area, supporting a large number of manpower and material resources for the front line, and for the liberation made a huge contribution to the victory of the war.
After the founding of New China, Li Fa was appointed as the commander of the Bohai Navy Region. He then entered the advanced class training of the Nanjing Military Academy of the People's Liberation Army. After graduation, he served as the deputy commander of the 31st Army of the People's Liberation Army and was stationed on the front line in Fujian.
In 1955, when our army was conferring titles, he was awarded the rank of major general. He was only 42 years old at the time.However, such a general who fought in various places during the Revolutionary War, repeatedly made military exploits in fierce battles with the National Army and the Japanese Army, and was rated as a second-class disabled person due to his injuries, was shot dead by his subordinates in March 1957. .
At that time, when Li Fa went to Xiamen to inspect the military training work of the grassroots troops, when he arrived at the third battalion of a certain regiment, he was assassinated by the battalion's machine gunner Ling Fafeng and died under the gun. Afterwards, Ling Fafeng also detonated a hand grenade and committed suicide.
Since the cross-strait confrontation was at the time, and Xiamen was at the forefront, we were deeply angered by this last time and judged it to be an assassination by a spy, and set up a special investigation team to investigate.
However, after detailed investigation, it was discovered that Ling Fafeng was not bribed by the special agents. It was just because he was not adaptable to the army environment and had a twisted mentality. He wanted to attack the platoon leader, but he happened to encounter General Li Fa who came to inspect the work, which led to the incident. tragedy.
Although some people have always believed that enemy agents were behind this incident, the investigation was personally led by the founding general Tan Zheng, and the investigation report was also published in " Bayi Magazine ", which is still very credible.
Some of the problems in personnel management and officer-soldier relations at the grassroots level mentioned in the report also attracted the attention of superiors, who made great improvements in relevant aspects early on, further promoting the development of our army's combat effectiveness.
General Li Fa made great contributions to the revolution during his long fighting career, and was deeply loved by front-line officers and soldiers. His sacrifice was a huge loss to our army, and his spirit is worth remembering forever.
