Zhao Xiguang’s biography

Zhao Xiguang’s grandfather, Zhao Zhiding, lost his father when he was young. His family was poor and he was forced to make a living. He went to Beishan Hewan (today’s Hengshan Village, Wayao Town, Longyang District) to work with his relatives to open up wasteland, and later settled in Zhonghe Hengshan Village. His father Zhao Duanxiang and his third uncle Zhao Cixiang worked in farming, while his second uncle Zhao Hexiang drove horses. Hengshan is located in an alpine mountainous area with cold water and dry grass. The only food crops are corn, tartary buckwheat, and potato, and the yield is extremely low. Even in good harvest years, the villagers can only avoid starvation. In famine years, they can only rely on mountain wild vegetables to satisfy their hunger. , which shows the harshness of their living environment and the hardship of their lives.

The three brothers of Zhao Xiguang’s father’s generation are hard-working, simple and loyal people, and they can barely make a living. The harsh environment, hard life, and strict family education made Zhao Xiguang develop a hard and simple habit and style since he was a child. At the same time, he also developed a reserved and persistent simple temperament unique to mountain people. As Zhao Xiguang grew older, he also became dissatisfied with reality, and his desire to get rid of poverty and pursue happiness became increasingly strong.

In 1916 (the fifth year of the Republic of China), he was admitted to the Fifth Normal School of Yunnan Province from Hewan Private School. Along with classmates such as Lu Renyao and Li Shangpin, he initially began to understand, explore and observe the outside world. In an era when the whole of China is dilapidated, the situation is very turbulent, the people are in dire straits, and people of insight are preparing for reform and change, Zhao Xiguang is forced by his family and society to decide that once he steps into this trend, he will have no choice but to Unstoppable and courageous.

After he came into contact with new cultural knowledge, he studied extremely diligently. Especially being influenced by Mr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary thoughts opened his eyes even more, and he determined to be a patriotic soldier who realized Mr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary ideas. In 1919, after Zhao Xiguang graduated from Baoshan Normal School, he gave up his job opportunity as a primary school teacher. With the support of his second uncle Zhao Hexiang, he was introduced by Bao Guocai, the commander of the mixed brigade of the Yunnan Army in Guangdong and recommended by his relatives, and went straight to Shaoguan, Guangdong. He studied military affairs at the Army Lecture Hall chaired by Li Genyuan (there is also a theory that he went directly to the Army Lecture Hall in Kunming, Yunnan). Later, he transferred to the Kunming Army Lecture Hall and graduated in 1921. He was introduced by Li Gengen to the Second Brigade of the Guangxi-Jiangxi Army and served as an intern platoon leader and platoon leader. After the Northern Expedition in 1926 and many years of war, he fought through hundreds of battles without any danger, and finally emerged from the hail of bullets and was promoted step by step. Although he was promoted through bloody battles, compared to other colleagues, his career was just a bump in the road and he had to be promoted.

The real society is incompatible with the society he ideally wants to build. People in the real society are unpredictable and sinister, and they are not what they seem. He was particularly dissatisfied with the Kuomintang, headed by Chiang Kai-shek, who pursued a system of employing relatives in the military that relied solely on the Huangpu clique as direct descendants, and used despicable means of ostracizing and suppressing dissidents using both hard and soft tactics. At the same time, we are deeply disappointed with the ugly atrocities committed by Kuomintang officials who are corrupt and bend the law, regardless of the life and death of the people, and are only focused on promotion and wealth. Especially after the 8-year arduous and arduous war of resistance against Japan, he further saw clearly the viciousness of the internal struggle among the high-level Kuomintang ruling groups, and then recognized their reactionary nature and ugly face. The peaceful uprising that insisted on abandoning darkness and turning to light laid the foundation for this. In 1938, when Zhao Xiguang served as deputy division commander of the 5th Division of the 36th Army of the Kuomintang and was stationed in Chongqing, he was ordered by He Yingqin, the commander-in-chief of the Wuhan Defense War, to reorganize the 167th Division of the Kuomintang. As the vanguard of the 36th Army participating in the Wuhan Defense War, Zhao led his troops to Hankou to report to the former enemy commander-in-chief He Yingqin and deputy commander-in-chief Wan Yaohuang. He immediately gave Zhao the task of inheriting the designation of the 167th Division and reorganizing the division. Zhao did not know why. Quite surprised, He explained: "The designation of the 167th Division has been explicitly revoked long ago because the division commander Xie Wenying failed in the battle and lost the Madang Fortress, and was executed by military law. Now it is up to you to organize it, and I hope you will do it well." Zhao Xiguang's troops were given new weapons and equipment, and Zhao Baoguo accepted the task eagerly without saying a word. Later, due to the needs of the Anti-Japanese War situation, He Yingqin temporarily placed the newly formed 167th Division under the command of Hu Zongnan. Since Zhao was not a close associate of Hu, Hu refused on the spot. After He Yingqin explained in detail, Hu reluctantly accepted.

Soon after Hu Zongnan's 14th Corps was defeated and transferred, in order to save himself, Hu used the Japanese army to eliminate the dissident Zhao Xiguang, and ordered the Zhao troops to insist on guarding the cover at Yiaogu Pass for 24 hours before retreating. Zhao out of national justice, After holding on for 24 hours, they continued to fight fiercely with the Japanese army for a whole day and night before retreating to pursue Hu Zongnan's large forces. After catching up with Hu Zongnan's large force in two days, Hu was extremely surprised and confused. He thought that Zhao's troops had been wiped out by the Japanese army, but it turned out that the day after Hu's transfer, he reported that the newly formed 167th Division had been completely wiped out. In this battle, Hu Zongnan, out of affection and helpless to Zhao Xiguang, asked Zhao to go to Tongguan for training and promoted Zhao to the position of commander of the 36th Army. While training, he was also responsible for Shaanxi River Defense. This prevented the Japanese army from invading the northwest from Tongguan, Henan. Zhao Xiguang was born in poverty, so he was well aware of the hardships of the masses and grassroots officers and soldiers. No matter where he was stationed, he educated the officers and soldiers to fully respect the customs and habits of the local people. He often went to the company to investigate and understand the difficulties of the grassroots officers and soldiers, helped them solve their difficulties, and worked with the grassroots officers and soldiers. He worked hard and lived a hard life, so wherever he went, he was deeply loved by the local people and grassroots officers and soldiers.

When he discovered that the soldiers who went to cut down the wood for the construction of Shihezi City were often injured because they were too slippery on the snow-capped mountains at 20 to 30 degrees below zero, he immediately sent people to organize iron nails and distributed them to every soldier who went up the mountain. One pair for each person and let them tie it to the soles of their shoes. From then on, it was rare for warriors to fall and get injured while going up the mountain. He went to the Nanshan logging site to inspect the work and found that there were many wild boars in the mountains, so he ordered each company to send two soldiers with good marksmanship to go up the mountain to hunt wild boars to solve the problem of oil and meat for the soldiers. When it was discovered that the wooden house where the soldiers lived was leaking, they sent people to the mountain to cut grass and repair it. When he discovered that there were various saws used by the military industry for logging, he asked, "Which saw do you think is the best?" The soldiers said, "Fish belly saw" and listed the many advantages of the fish belly saw. Zhao accepted the soldiers' opinions and Someone was sent to buy many fish maw saws, which greatly improved the efficiency of logging.

Zhao Xiguang has always respected the customs and habits of ethnic minorities and interacted harmoniously with ethnic minorities, thus winning the favor of ethnic minorities. One day in May 1947, when General Zhang Zhizhong inspected Hotan and returned to the Kashgar Commissioner's Office to check in, he was surrounded by thousands of petitioners against the Kuomintang. Zhang Zhizhong and the petitioners remained in an exhausted stalemate until midnight. In desperation, Zhao Xiguang After hearing the news, they rushed to the backyard and entered Zhang Zhizhong's residence to relieve the crisis. The crowd saw Zhao coming to the rescue. Since everyone had a good impression of him, they did not embarrass him and let him go. So Zhang Cai, under Zhao's escort, arrived at Shule Military Headquarters. During the war-torn years, Zhao Xiguang not only traveled thousands of miles away to fight, but he also never forgot about his impoverished hometown. He was well aware of the poverty and backwardness of his hometown and the ignorance of the masses. He made up his mind and funded the establishment of Guanghua Primary School in Hengshan in 1938 (the 27th year of the Republic of China) (named because Zhao Xiguang's Chinese character is Chonghua). Since the Kuomintang implemented a military service system of "drawing one out of three out of five out of two" to force young men into the army, with the completion of Hengshan Guanghua Primary School, the local township baojia were intimidated by Zhao Xiguang's reputation and did not dare to come to recruit young men into the army. In order to avoid military service, this resulted in Students from far and near Baoshan have come to Hengshan Guanghua Primary School to study, and the school, which is not too big in the first place, is almost overcrowded. At that time, the number of students in Shanghewan Primary School, which was located in the cultural and educational center of Wayao and had a long history of running schools, was greatly reduced, making the school's education expenses unsustainable. For this reason, the principal of Shanghewan Primary School sued Hengshan Guanghua Primary School many times. Steal their students to the Baoshan County Government School Board.

In order to maintain the military service system at that time and temporarily stabilize the teaching order of Shanghewan Primary School, the Baoshan County Government contacted Zhao Xiguang in various ways and obtained Zhao Xiguang's request: "Hengshan Guanghua Primary School does not engage in special activities, and arrests are strictly prohibited in the school. However, after the promise that "the school has no right to intervene when students go home on September and students on their way back to school on Sunday", the order of students from Hengshan Guanghua Elementary School being enlisted in the army was restored. When he learned in the letter that his uncle's family was still short of clothes and clothing in winter, he spent his own money to buy some quilts and sent them by plane to his home village in Hengshan Village, Baoshan, Yunnan for airdrop support.

Zhao Xiguang's poor background and growth in difficult circumstances also cultivated his upright, simple and determined nature that requires progress. This nature also destined him to stand on the side of the people. From 1947 to 1949, Zhao Xiguang always insisted on the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang. First, he supported Zhang Zhizhong’s policy of implementing peace, stability, progress, and construction in Xinjiang; then he believed that the troops had the responsibility to defend the territory and protect the people, and could not put national sovereignty and people’s lives at risk. On the grounds of disregard, he refused Acting President Li Zongren's order to mobilize troops to the east to participate in the civil war; later, he closely cooperated with General Zhang Zhizhong and General Tao Zhiyue, and secretly met with General Tao Zhiyue in Yanqi to reach an agreement to wait for the Japanese army to enter Xinjiang. After the order was stabilized, a secret agreement was made to hand over the military power, disarm and return to the countryside, and then went into tit-for-tat confrontation with the Kuomintang's powerful military figures in Xinjiang, Ye Cheng, commander of the 78th Reorganized Division, Ma Chengxiang, commander of the 1st Reorganized Cavalry Division, and Luo Shuren, head of the military reunification agent stationed in Xinjiang, and firmly advocated an uprising.

The Zhao troops are stationed in Turpan (1st, 2nd, 3rd Brigade), Yanqi (1st, 2nd, 8th Brigade), Aksu (65th Brigade), and Yarkand (4th Cavalry Brigade) in southern Xinjiang. , Kashgar (9th Cavalry Brigade) and other important military towns, trapped Ma Chengxiang and Ye Cheng's troops stationed in the area from Manas east to Qitai and Hami. They were surrounded by the Mongolian People's Republic of China in the north, Zhao Xiguang in the south, and Zhao Xiguang in the west. It is surrounded by the national armies (revolutionaries) of the three districts of Yining, Tacheng and Atel.

At that time, Zhao Xiguang, as the deputy commander-in-chief of the Xinjiang garrison, the commander-in-chief of the southern Xinjiang garrison and the commander of the reorganized 42nd Division of the Kuomintang, led his troops to participate in the peaceful uprising, bringing Xinjiang, which accounts for one-sixth of China's land area, to peaceful return. People came to China. At that time, Xinjiang was in a complex state in which there were East Turkestan separatist forces and interference from foreign forces in the west, the Kuomintang Ye, Ma and Luo troops stationed in the middle, and the various forces controlled by Zhao Xiguang in the south were restricting and balancing each other. Which side was slightly out of control? If you make a mistake, the balance of power will be lost, and there will be a danger of affecting the whole body. Because General Zhao Xiguang, who was in a pivotal position, understood the righteousness well, he played a mainstay role in the peaceful uprising in Xinjiang, thus ensuring the success of the peaceful uprising. In China in the 1950s, almost everyone knew General Zhao Xiguang. They all knew that he was a heroic, adept, upright, simple and kind-hearted standard Chinese general. He understood the righteousness well, demanded progress, and was unwilling to follow the popular trend and join in the other's misfortune. He was highly regarded by General Zhang Zhizhong and General Tao Zhiyue, who were the military and political chiefs of Xinjiang at the time. According to his subordinate Fang Peng, Zhao Xiguang has always taken the famous saying "civilians do not love money, military generals are not afraid of death" as his motto, and he always used it to warn his officers and soldiers. Although he was honest throughout his life and lived in poverty, he still sternly rejected the idea of ??Wu Zhuchen, the director of the Military Supplies Department under his subordinate, to prepare a pension for him, and brought Wu's wrong idea to the Prime Minister's Memorial Weekly for public criticism. Educate officers and soldiers to safeguard and cherish the honor and personality of military personnel.

Wu Zhuchen once cared about Zhao Xiguang and said: "You are so incorruptible and have no savings. Once you retire, how will you spend your old age? As long as you agree, we will get one or two hundred thousand in pension funds for you. I don't know. What do you think?" Although Zhao knew Wu's good intentions towards him, he said to him: "This plan is an insult to me. The life of officers and soldiers is so difficult now. Is it appropriate for you to let me seek personal gain? Plan for me!"

Zhao Xiguang employs people regardless of geographical proximity. As long as they have both talent and talent, they will be promoted and reused. On the contrary, for those who are uneducated and have bad conduct, they will never be used even if they are as close as brothers. He rejected the request of his second brother Zhao Xijie who wanted to be promoted and make a fortune, and asked his fifth brother Zhao Xiyu to join the company and serve as soldiers like ordinary soldiers. As a senior general of the Kuomintang army, Zhao Xiguang did not take advantage of nepotism to serve in his army. It is in sharp contrast to the countless complicated employment relationships among the military and political officials at all levels in the Jiang family at that time, and the official way of promotion and wealth. After the victory of the peaceful uprising in Xinjiang, Zhao Xiguang led the Shihezi city construction project and the entire corps' infrastructure work as deputy commander of the 22nd Corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and director of the Shihezi City Construction Engineering Office. He had been engaged in military service for almost half of his life and did not understand infrastructure, so he bought many architectural books from Beijing and studied on his own without sleep or food.

In the freezing wind and heavy snow-covered Gobi, the commanders and soldiers were fighting at the forefront of construction. He often encouraged us with the words: "We are engaged in a great cause that will open up the world. The first military reclamation city will be born in our hands. What are we afraid of if we have to suffer a little now?" Officers and soldiers endure hardships and stand hard work.

Because he worked hard day and night, devoted himself to the construction of the new city, he fell ill from overwork and suffered from severe gastric cancer. During his illness, he sincerely expressed his sincerity to Shi Ji, who came to visit him. Said: "I have spent most of my life hanging out in the reactionary forces of the Kuomintang and standing on the opposite side of the people. I am guilty. The uprising of September 25th (i.e. September 25, 1949) was initiated by General Zhang Wenbai (Zhang Zhizhong) and Tao Under the guidance of Commander (Zhiyue), I came to stand on the side of the people. Unfortunately, I only had more than five years to work for the people, let alone reform my mind, and I suffered from this fatal disease. It won't last long. It seems that I can only be a soldier under the leadership of the party, but cannot be a member of the proletarian vanguard." After saying this, he sighed, unable to speak, and burst into tears. This shows his sincerity, love and attachment to the party, the country and the people, and his yearning for future ideals.

Destroyed by the disease and due to ineffective treatment, the famous general sadly passed away at home in 1955, completing his short and glorious life.