One day in early March 1950, chairman Mao had just returned from a visit to the Soviet Union and was delivering the latest instructions in the Purple Light Cabinet when Lin Boqu suddenly rushed in and handed Chairman Mao a telegram that was "deeply repugnant."
Limber Canal
Opening the telegram, Chairman Mao first glanced at the signature, only to see that it was densely written: Deng Xiaoping, Liu Bocheng, He Long, Song Renqian, Chen Geng ... Exactly 21 names. Before reading the contents, Chairman Mao realized that something big must have happened in the southwest region, otherwise it would be impossible for all military and political cadres to jointly send an emergency telegram to the central authorities.
After making some psychological preparations, Chairman Mao began to shift his gaze to the contents of the telegram, and after only one glance, Chairman Mao immediately took the case and said: "This matter must be seriously handled, and it cannot be postponed!" ”
Soon after, under the order of Chairman Mao, the People's Liberation Army dispatched 39 armies and more than 1.5 million troops to quickly launch a protracted "clean-up and suppression struggle" throughout the country. In just three years, the PLA has annihilated more than 2.6 million enemies. It was also after this "struggle to clean up and suppress" that the people of the whole country truly lived a life of living and working in peace and contentment.
Chairman Mao
What exactly did Deng Xiaoping and others write in their telegrams to Chairman Mao? Why was Chairman Mao so angry? What kind of "purge and suppression campaign" actually needed to send millions of troops, which took 3 years? Today, Bo Ge will take everyone to relive the unprecedented "bandit crisis" at the beginning of the founding of New China.
On April 23, 1949, Nanjing was officially liberated, and Chiang Kai-shek's dream of dictatorship gradually fell apart. Just when Chiang Kai-shek was at a loss, Wang Xufu, then director of the General Affairs Office of the Kuomintang Army School, suddenly handed over a report on "evil poison." After reading it, Old Jiang immediately sent his confidant Mao Renfeng to meet Wang Xufu. Soon, a great conspiracy begins...
Mao Ren Feng
In this report, Wang Xufu repeatedly stressed the strategic importance of the southwest region, and more importantly, he also suggested that Chiang Kai-shek be able to open a "training class for guerrilla backbone cadres" and gather all the reactionary armed forces in the southwest region by means of coercion and inducement, such as bullies, bandits, and hooligans, to train them in relevant ways, and then release these people after the fall of the southwest in the future. These people can not only become the eyes of the Kuomintang, but also cause a lot of trouble to the PLA.
At this time, although Chiang Kai-shek was reluctant to admit that the Kuomintang had lost the situation, he deeply agreed with Wang Xufu's plan, and then he immediately ordered Mao Renfeng to contact Wang Xufu, not only promoting Wang Xufu's rank, but also providing a lot of financial support for Wang Xufu's plan.
Chiang Kai-shek
After Wang Xufu's extensive lobbying, his men quickly gathered nearly 5,000 rogue bandits from all over the world, and Kuomintang agents specially taught this group guerrilla guides, guerrilla tactics, and the legacy of the Founding Father. At the end of the training, the Kuomintang not only awarded the bandits a military rank, but also distributed them with a large number of weapons and ammunition.
On October 1, 1949, with Chairman Mao's shouts at Tiananmen Square, the land of China finally ushered in a new era, but just when the people of the whole country thought that they could begin to live a happy and stable life, the "remnants" carefully trained by Chiang Kai-shek began to move.
By the beginning of 1950, the number of bandits had reached one million across the country, of which the southwest region was the largest. The terrain in the southwest is complex, and it has become the place where banditry is most rampant. Under the instructions of Kuomintang agents, these bandits often disturbed regional stability, not only spreading rumors unfavorable to our party and our army, but also often carrying out large-scale armed attacks on villages and government institutions.
In just a few months, nearly 7,000 cadres, militiamen, and progressives of our Party were killed by bandits, and many roads, bridges, and rivers in the southwest were mostly destroyed by bandits.
In order to achieve their ulterior motives, the Kuomintang even made a promise to the bandits: to kill a cadre who went south, a reward of 100 yuan; killing a local cadre, a reward of 50 yuan. For a time, under the frequent invasion of bandits, the southwest region gradually became a dangerous place where people were panicked and turbulent.
Although Deng Xiaoping, He Long, and others also sent a large number of troops to carry out the task of suppressing bandits, the bandits were too well-informed, and coupled with the high mountains and dense forests in the southwest region, it was extremely difficult to search, so the work of suppressing bandits in the southwest region has been difficult. It was not until february 5, 1950, after the "Longtan Temple Massacre" that Deng Xiaoping and He Long and others finally couldn't bear it.
Deng Xiaoping
On the day of the "Longtan Temple Massacre", Zhu Xiangli, who was then the political director of the 178th Division of the People's Liberation Army, went to Chengdu to perform official duties under the escort of the guard squad, and when they passed through the longtan Temple area, they were suddenly surrounded by bandits. During the battle, because the guard squad was outnumbered, the warriors fell one by one, and eventually Zhu Xiangli was also captured by the bandits.
In the face of the bandits' severe torture, Zhu Xiangli was not afraid; instead of asking for forgiveness, he also conveyed to the bandits our party's policy of surrender and advanced ideas, but unexpectedly, this group of inhuman bandits not only stripped Zhu Xiangli of all his clothes, but also inflicted a series of inhumane cruelties on Zhu Xiangli, such as cutting his tongue, cutting his ears, and goinguging out his eyes, and finally burned Zhu Xiangli alive with boiling water.
Zhu Xiangli
Immediately after the massacre, Deng Xiaoping, in conjunction with all the leaders of the southwest region, sent a telegram to the central authorities entitled "Successive Large-Scale Armed Uprisings In Various Parts of the Southwest." In the telegram, Deng Xiaoping wrote this infuriating text:
The Kuomintang bandit army launched armed riots in various places one after another, raping and killing women, plundering grain, robbing and killing people, attacking county towns, and inciting mass riots... More than 80 staff members in Pingtang County were brutally killed, Zhu Xiangli, director of the Political Department of the 178th Division of our army, and many cadres and fighters were brutally killed, and the bandit force is spreading and developing at an extremely rapid speed.
Chairman Mao was furious after receiving the telegram, and then immediately gave instructions: "If the bandits are not suppressed, the people's revolutionary power in all localities will be threatened, it will be difficult for the land reform to continue, and it will be even more impossible for the people of the whole country to truly be in charge..."
On March 16, under the instructions of Chairman Mao, the Central Military Commission immediately issued an order to the whole country to "Suppress Rebel Bandits and Establish a New Revolutionary Order." A nationwide "struggle against bandits" has officially begun...
Beginning around March 1950, the Central Military Commission mobilized 39 armies from various military regions, with a total strength of more than 1.5 million troops, and launched a huge-scale struggle against bandits throughout the country, and the southwest region, where bandits were most rampant, naturally became the focus of this struggle against bandits.
The operation was divided into two stages, depending on the location of the bandits' activities, the first of which was mainly aimed at the bandits in the towns, only in this way could the rapid march of the troops and the supply of logistical materials be guaranteed.
The struggle against bandits
In the first stage of the operation against bandits, our army made very smooth progress, destroying a number of bandit dens and shooting and killing many bandit leaders, including Wu Jie, the bandit leader who killed Zhu Xiangli. Many bandit leaders, after witnessing the People's Liberation Army's determination to suppress bandits, have chosen to surrender themselves and ask for meritorious atonement. In less than a year, the armed forces in the town were largely eliminated, and the real difficulties of this struggle against bandits had just begun.
From the end of 1950, the PLA's struggle against bandits began to enter the second stage - the elimination of bandit forces in mountainous areas and rural areas. However, as the People's Liberation Army shifted the focus of its struggle to the southwestern mountains, it was discovered that the difficulty of suppressing bandits here was far beyond imagination.
The bandit agents hiding in the mountains are very familiar with the local terrain, and they often disperse into small forces, from time to time they will come out to carry out surprise attacks on our army, and once they find that the situation is not good, they will quickly hide. In addition, this group of bandits often coerced the local people to pass on various information of the People's Liberation Army to them, and for a time, our army suffered heavy losses, and in the face of this difficult situation, our army had to order the troops to suspend the attack and formulate a new plan for suppressing the bandits as soon as possible.
Soon, the command of our army formulated a three-step strategy of "political disintegration, military strikes, and uniting with the masses." The so-called political disintegration is to convey to the prisoners of bandits and defectors the idea of "combining repression and leniency" in their policies. Those bandits who have committed many evils and are not forgiven are severely punished, so that the bandits can truly feel the serious consequences of confrontation with the organization and the people, while for those "consensual" bandits, they adopt a policy of education first and then release, using their family and family relations to do the work of the bandits and disintegrate the bandit forces from within.
In terms of military strikes, our army can give full play to its powerful reconnaissance capabilities and, after grasping the movements of the bandits, adopt the flexible and mobile tactic of "changing the enemy into us." Abandon the original tactics of concentrated strikes, divide our troops into multiple groups, and implement the "guerrilla-to-guerrilla" troop deployment plan; after all, guerrilla warfare is our army's strong point.
In terms of uniting with the masses, our army has sent many small groups to go deep into the mountainous areas to not only expose the conspiracies of the bandit agents to the local people, but also often help the masses to produce and live. Our military has infected the people in the mountainous areas with practical actions, and slowly, the local masses' awareness of suppressing bandits has become stronger and stronger. With the support of the masses, our army has not only been able to grasp the latest movements of the bandits' agents in a timely manner, but has also completely eliminated the living space of the bandits.
With the resolute blows of our army and the active cooperation of the local masses, the bandit agents in the southwest mountainous areas were dealt a heavy blow, but in the course of the suppression of bandits, our army also paid a considerable price.
When suppressing the bandit agents in the heishui area of western Sichuan, our army was first ambushed in the middle of the road, with more than 50 casualties, and later surrounded by bandits because of insufficient understanding of the terrain, with nearly 200 casualties.
Many bandits themselves are local people, very familiar with the local people's living customs, they often disguise themselves as ordinary people, after launching an attack on our army's bandit troops, they hide in some little-known caves, and when our army enters the caves to pursue and suppress, these unscrupulous bandits will blow up the cave entrance, introduce the dark river water, and drown the People's Liberation Army alive in the cave.
In the face of defeat, the soldiers of our army are never discouraged, and they will always adjust their state in the shortest possible time, and then throw themselves into a new round of bandit warfare again. After witnessing the PLA's determination to suppress bandits, the enthusiasm of the masses in various localities also rose rapidly, and as soon as they heard the news of the arrival of the PLA troops, the masses would actively provide our army with all kinds of useful information, and even many courageous people would personally lead the way for our army.
By 1953, the large-scale struggle against bandits throughout the country had come to an end, and in just three years, millions of troops had been dispatched, and our army had wiped out 2.6159 million bandits and secret agents, captured more than 2,000 artillery pieces of various types, and had millions of guns. It not only eliminated the remnants of the Kuomintang's forces in various places, but also completely eliminated the crisis of banditry throughout the country and effectively stabilized the newly established people's power.
The intensity of the struggle against bandits was even greater than that of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation. Many PLA soldiers saw the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, but after the founding of New China, they fell into the battle against bandits, and their sacrifices were silent, but they were also vigorous. It was precisely their bloody struggle that drew a real end to the victory of the Chinese revolution.
The "struggle against bandits" that lasted for three years gradually smashed the plan of Chiang Kai-shek and Kuomintang agents to "counterattack the mainland," and at the same time made the people of the whole country truly feel the unchanged original intention of the CPC for the country and the people. One of them, an old man who experienced the War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation, sighed: "I have lived for more than 50 years and have never seen such a peaceful world. ”
Our nation, our country, has experienced nearly a hundred years of humiliation, and has witnessed decades of national drift, but all crises have gradually stabilized under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and only the Communist Party of China is the party that can truly make the people the masters of their own affairs.
Founding Ceremony
As our revolutionary martyrs said: "We have fought all the battles that should be fought, and our descendants will not have to fight!" "Countless martyrs have used their lives and blood to win us a glorious new China, and in addition to forging ahead, we must also remember the heroes who carry the weight for us, they are the idols that are most worthy of our worship."