Zhang Fuqing reads at home on March 31 (XINHUA)

Zhang Fuqing, a war hero, has kept a low profile, devoting himself to serving the people for more than seven decades. The following is an edited excerpt of a Xinhua News Agency report on him:

Zhang Fuqing, 95, wears a hat almost every day, not to keep himself warm, but to ease the aftereffect 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 battles and was twice given the honorary title of combat hero.

However, Zhang kept his past achievements a secret, even from his wife and children. For over six decades, his military medals were carefully hidden in a leather box away from his family.

Sun Yulan, who married Zhang in 1954, knew the scars on her husband's head and right armpit were from 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 the government was updating veterans' information that his history was revealed.

"What I did was nothing compared to 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 died on the mission.

"I miss my comrades and remember them often," Zhang said.

Every year during the Qingming Festival, an occasion when Chinese people honor the deceased, Zhang takes his military medals out of the box, stares at the medals and reminisces 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 northwest China's 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 the time was a quilt, a basin, a cup and Zhang's leather box.

"I was never afraid of dying on the battlefields, how could I fear tough conditions?" Zhang said.

Since then, he has devoted his life to the cause of eradicating poverty in the county.

In the early 1960s when local farmers suffered severe food shortages, Zhang 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 had to 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 bring food and water into the mountain village.

"Zhang was in his 50s 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 has shaken off poverty, and the dirt road built over 40 years ago has been upgraded to a wide concrete one.

While Zhang has devoted his heart and soul to poverty reduction work, he has maintained a thrifty lifestyle.

Tian Hongli, another former colleague of Zhang's, said when Zhang worked in Gaodong, his family's dinner used to consist of some radishes, vegetables and soup. "Many villagers had better food than they did," Tian added.

This simple lifestyle was carried into Zhang's retirement in 1985. "Now that I'm retired, I can't make as many contributions to the country as before. So I need to be 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 prosthesis because he did not want to be a burden to others.

"I hope my children will work wholeheartedly for the country and its people, instead of wasting time 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.

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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