WUHAN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Fuqing, 95, wears a hat almost every day -- not to keep himself warm, but to ease the sequelae of head injuries he suffered in a fierce battle over 70 years ago.
Zhang was a soldier in the Northwest Field Army, one of the main forces of the Chinese People's Liberation Army during the Liberation War, which lasted from 1945 to 1949.
He was honored by the Northwest Field Army several times as he braved enemy fire in the battles and was twice given the honorary title of "Combat Hero."
However, Zhang decided to keep his past achievements a secret, even from his wife and children. For over six decades, his military medals were carefully kept in a leather box and hidden from his family.
Sun Yulan, who married Zhang in 1954, knew the scars on her husband's head and right armpit are from his battles in the Liberation War, but she had no clue that he was a war hero with so many honors.
It was not until the end of last year when authorities were collecting and recording veterans' information that his life story was revealed.
"What I did was nothing compared with my comrades who sacrificed their lives in the war. I'm in no position to show off my achievements," Zhang said.
On an early morning in November 1948, Zhang, loaded with over 30 kg of grenades and explosives, led a commando team of three on a mission to blow up the enemy's bunkers.
Zhang destroyed two bunkers that day but was severely wounded in the head by a bullet. The other two soldiers in his team were never seen or heard from again.
"I can't help but miss my comrades from time to time. It's too hard to forget them," Zhang said.
He said on each year's Tomb-Sweeping Day, an occasion when Chinese honor the deceased, he would take his military medals out of the box, stare at the medals and reminisce about his comrades who lost their lives on the battlefields.
In 1955, Zhang retired from the army and chose to work as a primary-level official in Laifeng County, then a remote backwater in central China's Hubei Province. The county is more than 400 km away from Zhang's hometown in the northwestern Shaanxi Province.
Sun recalled that when she and Zhang first arrived in Laifeng, they did not even have a bed in their room. All they had at that time was a quilt, a basin, a cup and Zhang's leather box.
"I have never been afraid of dying on the battlefields. How could I fear the tough conditions?" Zhang said.
Since then, he has devoted his life to the cause of eradicating poverty in Laifeng County.
In the early 1960s when local farmers suffered severe food shortages, Zhang stayed in the farmers' homes and helped them with farm work for more than 20 days every month to tide them over.
In 1975, Zhang started to work as a village cadre in Gaodong, a poverty-stricken village tucked away in the mountains with no access to roads, water or electricity.
"To alleviate poverty, we must build a road to link Gaodong with the outside world," Zhang said.
In the following two years, Zhang and the villagers toiled to build a 5-km-long dirt road, about two-thirds of which was perched on a cliff.
When the project was complete, the shabby road finally allowed tractors to transport food and water into the mountain village.
"Zhang was in his fifties at that time and wasn't in good physical condition, but he put all his heart into the road construction project," said Dong Xiangcai, Zhang's former colleague at Gaodong.
Now Gaodong Village has shaken off poverty, and the dirt road built over 40 years ago has been upgraded to a wide concrete road.
While Zhang has devoted his heart and soul to poverty reduction work, he has stuck to a thrifty lifestyle.
Tian Hongli, another former colleague of Zhang, said when Zhang worked in Gaodong, his family's dinner used to be only some radishes, vegetables and soup. "Many villagers had better food than them," Tian added.
Such a simple lifestyle has been maintained by Zhang even after his retirement in 1985. "Now that I'm retired, I can't make as many contributions to our country as before. So I need to stay as thrifty as possible," he said.
In 2012, Zhang's left leg was amputated because of an illness. But less than a year later, he stood up again on a prosthesis because he did not want to be a burden for others.
"I hope my children will work wholeheartedly for the country and people, instead of wasting time on taking care of me," he said.
"However hard it is, I'm content with my life as long as I can bring benefits to other people," he said.
