▲ Zhao Zenglin
I studied staff business at the Military Academy. While studying, I wrote a long paper, which was valued by the college and exhibited in the Honors Room. At this time, Deputy Commander Zhao Zenglin of the 62nd Division was also studying in the Command Department of the Military Academy. He saw my thesis on display and spread the word to the division. Perhaps for this reason, after I came back, I was appointed as the deputy section chief of the Teacher Training Section, and a year later, I was appointed the section chief.
In the beginning, the section chief was Gu Zhanhong, and he planned the military training. I had time to consider the business development of the division and regiment staff. According to the instructions of the division chief and after more than two months of investigation and understanding, it is deeply felt that the situation of the division and regiment staff is not optimistic. The main reason is that the staff is aging and there is no new force to take over. For example, most of the training staff officers at the division and regiment levels are intellectuals who joined the army in Zhejiang in 1949 and 1950. After short-term staff training and long-term practical work training, they all have strong professional capabilities. However, it has not cultivated new forces in more than 10 years, and there are few follow-up people. The situation is the same for other departments in the division headquarters. This situation of inconsistency needs to be changed urgently.
▲Gu Zhanhong
So I discussed with Section Chief Gu Zhanhong and suggested that the division chief hold a staff training team and select company and platoon cadres with higher education levels to study and cultivate new staff members to meet urgent needs. Our idea was quickly confirmed by the division chief. So, plans were made and notifications were sent out. In less than half a month, everything was ready, and the training team of the 62nd Division started school in late May of that year. The students participating in the
training team are outstanding company and platoon cadres and new staff officers and staff of the division headquarters selected by each regiment, with a total of more than 30 people. They are all younger, have a higher level of education, and have better company work experience. The goal of the training is very clear, which is to train staff officers at the division and regiment levels, focusing on combat training staff business, while also learning professional knowledge such as artillery, communications, engineering, chemical defense, and logistics. The method is mainly indoor teaching combined with field work. I will be the team leader and teacher leader, and I will hire leaders of relevant professional departments and offices and senior staff officers with professional expertise to serve as teachers. The training period is 5 months. When
was formulating the training plan, he compressed the content that I studied in the Staff Department of Nanjing Military Academy for two years according to the principle of "less but more refined" and divided it into five units: headquarters work principles; understanding, using and labeling pictures; military knowledge; formulating combat documents; and writing tactical scenarios, focusing on laying a solid foundation and creating more conditions for improvement in actual work in the future.
▲ Du Shaosan
The classroom is located in a large room with desks and chairs. The teaching conditions are not very good, but it still meets the needs of teaching. On the first day of school, Division Commander Du Shaosan personally made a mobilization report, clarifying the importance of staff business to the headquarters' work, and put forward the requirements for successfully running this staff training team. In our past work, we know that Division Commander Du has always attached great importance to the construction of the headquarters and focused on improving the quality of staff personnel. This is his consistent leadership style . The teacher's speech greatly encouraged everyone and established the confidence to teach and learn the staff business well.
▲ Xu Hongxue
After the official start of the class, they will first learn the working principles of the headquarters as planned, and will be taught by Xu Hongxue, chief of staff of the division, in person. The leader's attention has made a good start for the training team. Everyone is very enthusiastic about learning. They take the initiative to come to the classroom to review the classes they took during the day in the evening. Especially the map recognition and mapping tasks are particularly interesting. First, memorize each symbol, practice it repeatedly, and compare it on the spot to find the exact location. When drawing, it is even more important to be accurate, clear, and beautiful, and there must be no mistakes at all. Otherwise, "a slight difference will result in a loss of thousands of miles." This is absolutely unacceptable to every staff officer. The students practiced it over and over again, marking one picture after another according to the situation, until they completely passed the inspection.
The preparation of combat documents is also a basic skill that staff officers must have. Whether it is a battle order, battle plan or various support instructions, everyone writes them over and over again based on the tactical scenario, and revise them again and again, so that the text is concise and the content is clear, neither vague nor lengthy.Everyone knows that as a staff officer, it is a necessary condition to convey the commander's determination, orders and instructions in a timely and accurate manner. This is the basic skill of a staff officer. When everyone was studying, they paid attention to mutual evaluation and evaluation, and in the end they gradually met the requirements.
After five months of enthusiastic and intense study, everyone felt that the time was very short, and everyone felt that the harvest was not small. All passed the exams on theory, charting assignments, military knowledge, and formulation of tactical scenarios, with more than 80% of the candidates passing the test. After returning to the army, trainees from each regiment basically work in the training department of the regiment headquarters. This training team has delivered a batch of new forces to the construction of division and regiment headquarters.
▲ Ma Baoan
A few years later, some of the old staff officers were demobilized and transferred to other jobs, and these comrades came to take their place. Some have also served as leaders of departments and units and made due contributions to the construction of the army. It is particularly important to mention that among the training teams, there are some very outstanding students who will later hold important positions in the army.
Among the students at that time were Ma Baoan, Shen Baoxing, and Xue Baohu. Because the names of the three of them had the word "宝" (宝) in their names, and their academic performance was particularly excellent, everyone called them "Three Treasures (宝)". These three comrades were later transferred to work in the training department. Xue Baohu was later transferred to the Operations Department of the Lanzhou Military Region, and then returned to the 62nd Division (Lanzhou Military Region Garrison Division) as the division commander.
▲Xue Baohu
After Comrade Ma Baoan became the deputy section chief in the Division Training Section, he was transferred to the National Defense University of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. Later, he became a fourth-level professor in the Strategic Teaching and Research Office, with a full military rank and the rank of major general. Of course there are many other outstanding comrades.
For example, Comrade Liu Shuangxi, after graduating from the training team, returned to work in the training section of the 186th Regiment, and later served as the leader of the regiment, and was gradually promoted to deputy commander of a certain army. The ability of these comrades to hold important positions in the army is of course mainly the result of their hard study and hard work; but this training team undoubtedly also gave them an opportunity to "make their mark".
▲Liu Shuangxi
When I met Comrade Ma Baoan in Beijing in 1998, he said to me affectionately: "The training team of the 62nd Division changed the direction of my work in the army. Originally, I had already served in the regiment. I was appointed as the deputy instructor and asked to be a political cadre. Later, the division organized a training team and the regiment selected me according to the conditions of the division's transfer students, so I changed to military work. "After hearing this, I said jokingly: "Don't regret it." I added, "You will be very good if you become a political cadre."
(The author was originally the training section chief of the 62nd Division, and later switched to work in Nanchang.)
