Iron-Boned General Zhao Tiezhu

“As long as I’m alive, I can kill the enemy!” Fifteen-year-old Zhao Tiezhu, a boy from Hebei, joins the Red Army with a chipped woodcutter’s knife in hand. On the Long March, he chews on boiled leather belts, fights through the bloody battle at the Xiang River, and trudges over the snowbound Mount Jiajin. Clinging to those words, he crawls out of the heaps of the dead and makes it to northern Shaanxi.

When the war against Japan breaks out, he bombs planes at Yangmingbao and fights with bayonets at Pingxingguan, becoming a warrior the Japanese fear. During tunnel warfare, he clutches a machine gun and roars, “Come at me if you’ve got the guts!” He nearly loses his life. Nurse Xiuqin gives him something beyond fighting the enemy to care about with a bowl of gruel and a few words of concern.

After Japan surrenders, he dreams of a peaceful life with Xiuqin, but the Nationalist army shatters that hope by seizing grain and forcibly recruiting men. “My parents and the land we’ve just been given are behind me!” He fights from the Huaihai Campaign to the banks of the Yangtze, crossing the river with the cloth shoes Xiuqin made for him tucked away.

Just as he settles into a new home, war flares up again at the Yalu River. In the bitter cold, he leads his men through the tunnels at Shangganling, passing around apples and enduring artillery fire. His old commander roars at him, “Come back alive!”

Years later, now a general, Zhao Tiezhu is asked at a military academy, “Are you afraid to die?” He unbuttons his collar and reveals his scars. “I am! But behind me are my loved ones and my land...” His calloused hand strokes his old uniform. “Once you put on this uniform, you never take it off!”

From a boy with a woodcutter’s knife to a general of the People’s Republic, Zhao Tiezhu writes a legend with his life. His love for the land, devotion to his loved ones, and loyalty to his uniform keep him steadfast to the very end.