CCTV -- Has China's Most Brilliant Military Marshal of the Last Century Lost His Name?

This lady rarely watches TV. Today I accidentally caught CCTV's The Eighth Route Army. What this lady was most concerned about was how Marshal Lin Biao was treated. I never imagined that China's most brilliant military marshal of the last century would be treated as if he'd lost his name.

In the TV drama, everyone else is addressed by surname plus title or called by name directly. Only Lin Biao is called "Division Commander." For the new generation that has little exposure to history, they probably don't even know who this "Division Commander" is. The most laughable thing is that the actor selected looks nothing like Marshal Lin Biao. You should know that at the time Lin Biao's health was already not very good -- just because his name is Lin Biao, does that mean you can select a hulking brute without caring whether the resemblance is there? Why must everyone else's accent match, while Lin Biao can lose even his appearance and name? CCTV -- has China's most brilliant military marshal of the last century lost his name?

It can be said this way: regardless of what happened to Lin Biao afterward, his military talent and military achievements can never be forgotten. Who created the miracle of a single company defeating an entire division? Who led troops in the First Anti-Encirclement Campaign and captured Nationalist 18th Division Commander Zhang Huizan alive? Who in his first command of large-scale army operations annihilated the Nationalist 52nd Division in the Battle of Huangpo? Who commanded the 115th Division at Pingxingguan to wipe out over 1,000 men of the Japanese Sakagaki Division's 21st Brigade -- known as the "Flower of the Army" -- shattering the myth of Japanese invincibility? Who was called a genius military commander by Stalin and invited to join the Soviet General Staff's work? Who in 3 years successively annihilated 1.08 million troops under the commands of three famous generals -- Du Yuming, Chen Cheng, and Wei Lihuang -- liberating the entire Northeast as a resource-rich strategic zone and cultivating a powerful strategic reserve? Who took only 29 hours to capture Tianjin's city defenses, which Fu Zuoyi claimed could hold for half a year as "impregnable"? Who fought from the white mountains and black waters to the farthest corners of the land, sweeping through thousands of troops like rolling up a mat? These questions all have one common answer: Lin Biao.

In the 21st century, we cannot avoid the necessity and obligation of studying the Lin Biao question!