"My family has no shortage of food and clothing, and there are hundreds of acres of land, but why should I arm the peasants in this way?" The aim is to overthrow imperialism and warlords, overthrow decadent feudal rule, and establish a revolutionary regime in which the workers and peasants are the masters of their own affairs. But the Kuomintang reactionaries will not allow us to do so; they want to maintain the rule of the warlords, to inhumanely kill our unarmed comrades, to suppress the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants, and to defend the revolution by taking up arms against the enemy knife to knife and gun to gun?! This is a passage that Luo Ziping, chairman of the Hengyang County Farmers' Association, said in mid-September 1927 at a meeting of backbone elements from all over Zeshan Nunzi near Daiquan Pavilion.
This is the great feeling and great responsibility of the Hengyang Communists at the critical juncture when the cause of the party and the people has suffered serious setbacks, and the Communists of Hengyang have the great feeling of giving up their small homes for everyone, not avoiding hardships and dangers, and coming forward.
Figure | Luo Ziping
Luo Ziping, also known as Luo Songtao, was born on May 20, 1886 in Nanquan Township, Hengyang County (now part of Hengnan County) to a feudal landlord family. Of the five brothers he came in second. In his childhood and adolescence, Luo Ziping boldly spoke for the poor people around him, and was deeply loved by the people of the four townships.
(1) Betraying the feudal family and embarking on the revolutionary road
In 1908, Luo Ziping was admitted to the Hunan South Road Normal School (the predecessor of the Provincial Third Division) with excellent results, and then was admitted to the Changsha Law and Politics College. After the success of the Xinhai Revolution, yuan shikai, a great thief who stole the country, lost power and humiliated the country, and the warlord Tan Yanmin colluded with foreign forces to step up the brutal rule and oppression of the people of Hunan.
In 1913, Luo Ziping invited a group of patriotic and progressive students to give speeches on national salvation everywhere, effectively exposing and accusing the evils of reactionary warlord rule and giving great encouragement to the local people. Luo Ziping returned to his hometown with a feeling of indignation. He worked as a teacher at Quanxi Temple Elementary School for several years and served as the principal of the school. During this period, he actively participated in many revolutionary activities of the "Shonan Students' Federation" and successively maintained close contact with the revolutionaries of the Third Division of his alma mater, Jiang Xiaoqing, Jiang Xianyun, Huang Jingyuan, etc., and his revolutionary conviction was further strengthened.
Picture | the site of the Shonan Students' Federation - Pontoon Bridge Office
In 1925, after the "May Thirtieth" massacre, the "Shonan Students' Federation" soon organized the Hengyang "Snow Shame Society" in solidarity with Shanghai, and Luo Ziping actively participated in the struggle activities of the "Snow Shame Society". The seizure and burning of "enemy goods" and the crackdown on profiteers have made a sound and brilliant effort, which has aroused the concern and attention of Comrades Mao Zedong and Guo Liang, who often come to Hengyang to guide the work of the party and the regiment. In the winter of 1925, through the introduction of Guo Liang and Peng Pingzhi, Luo Ziping joined the Communist Party of China.
(2) Establish peasant association organizations and set off a revolutionary upsurge
In March 1926, Luo Ziping, who was a member of the Hengyang County Committee of the Communist Party of China, received instructions from the provincial party committee to prepare for the Northern Expedition. In April, the Hengyang County Party Department of the Kuomintang under the cooperation of the Kuomintang was proclaimed, and Luo Ziping joined the Kuomintang as a member of the Communist Party in accordance with the arrangements of the Party organization, and at the same time served as a standing committee member of the county Party Department and the head of the Peasant Department.
In order to mobilize the peasant masses to rise up and make a revolution, Luo Ziping returned to the countryside around his hometown of Nanquan and Quanhu, first starting with his own revolution, and despite his father's vigorous opposition, he resolutely opened his own barn and let the local poor masses pick up the valley and survive the famine, which caused a sensation in the entire Nanxiang for a while and united the vast number of poor peasants in the local area. By the end of April, he had trained and developed his younger brother, Luo Songqiao, to join the Chinese Communist Party, and two younger brothers were also under his influence to join the revolution.
Figure | the former residence of Luo Ziping in Hengnan County
In June, Luo Ziping took advantage of the northern expeditionary army's mighty entry into Hengyang and immediately, in the name of the county peasant department, instructed the secret peasant associations in various places to quickly turn into public activities. On June 10, the Hengyang County Farmers Association was established. In August, the first model farmers association in Hengyang County, the Beixiang "Shenhuangshan Farmers Association", was announced, and Luo Ziping personally came to congratulate and spoke with the plaque of "Model Farmers' Association". Immediately after, farmers' associations across the county sprung up like mushrooms. In less than three months, the total number of agricultural associations at the district and township levels has reached more than 130, and the number of members has reached 80,000. The vast countryside is full of shiny dart teams. Some local tycoons and gentry were frightened and fled away. The membership of the farmers' association also soared to more than 600,000 in a few months! In October, luo Ziping was unanimously elected by the representatives of local farmers' associations, and served as the chairman of the Hengyang County Farmers' Association. After the establishment of the county peasant association, it led the peasants to carry out the campaign of reducing rent and withdrawing the mortgage, set up district and township peasant associations, pickets, and expanded the ranks, so as to strictly guard against the counterattack of reactionary forces.
After Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup in Shanghai, Luo Ziping received instructions from the provincial party committee, organized a special court, and successively tried and suppressed three major reactionary leaders, including Liu Kasa-sheng, Peng Jianchu, and Huang Qingxuan, and dealt a blow to the counter-revolutionary arrogance of those local tycoons and inferior gentry who were eager to make a move. Following the "Ma-Ri Incident" in Changsha, the "Qin-Ri Incident" occurred in Hengyang, and Luo Ziping was listed as one of the "Five Murderers" and offered rewards everywhere to arrest him. At the end of April, Luo Ziping disguised himself as a businessman, secretly went to Changsha, then went straight to Wuhan, and then received instructions from the party at a higher level, returned to Nanxiang in late June, began to rebuild the party organization, gathered all revolutionary forces, and stepped up preparations for the launch of revolutionary armed struggle.
Pictured| counter-revolutionary coup
In mid-September, Luo Ziping held a meeting of backbone revolutionary elements in various places in the name of the "God of Wealth Society" in the Zeshan Nunnery near Daiquan Pavilion, and recruited more than a dozen comrades to join the Communist Party of China. At the same time, the Wutianqi branch of the CPC was established. After that, a number of grass-roots rural party branches such as Yongcishan, Zaoshuao, and Xiao Yunji were restored, and the fighting strength was constantly enhanced.
(3) To form an armed army of workers and peasants and to wage a revolutionary struggle
At the end of December, the Shonan Special Committee held an important meeting on the specific deployment and implementation of the armed insurrection in Hengyang in a small boat on the surface of the Xiangjiang River near the Qingcao Bridge near the North Gate of Hengyang, known as the "Jiangxin Conference". Luo Ziping attended the meeting as a member of the Shonan Special Committee. The meeting decided to set up the Shonan Action Committee, with He Yinxiu as secretary and Luo Ziping as a member. The meeting drew up a plan of action to quickly hold the "Nianguan Rebellion" in Hengyang in response to Zhu De, Chen Yi, and other places to carry out the "Shonan Uprising" in Chenzhou and other places. At the same time, Qu Miaocheng and Luo Ziping immediately established the Seventh and Eighth Divisions of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army in the southern and northern townships of Hengyang respectively, pushing the armed revolutionary struggle in the surrounding rural areas to a climax. In accordance with the specific division of labor of the Shonan Action Committee, Luo Ziping quickly summoned the scattered peasant Red Guards of Nanquan, Quanhu, Yongxing, Zaoshu'ao, Maodongqiao, Xiaoxinqiao, Sulfur City Pit, And Shitan, which belonged to Nanxiang Township, and gathered at Nanxiang Temple to obey orders. And by Luo Junyi, Luo Songqiao, Zhang Jiucheng and other military cadres, rectify the weapons, ready for military violence at any time.
On February 2, 1928, the Eighth Division of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army was formally established at Nanxiang Temple. Luo Ziping served as the commander of the division, and Liu Yumo served as the representative of the division party, and the soldiers were immediately divided into two roads.
Picture | Nanxiang Temple, the former site of the armed insurrection headquarters of the Eighth Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army
Immediately the army was divided into two roads, Luo Ziping led the main force of more than 300 people, and Luo Junyi went to attack the maodongqiao regiment defense bureau with strong firepower. The other road was led by Liu Yumo, the representative of the division party, Luo Songqiao, and Zhang Jiucheng, two regimental commanders, who directly attacked Zhang Gongqiao to hunt down and kill the big bully Jiuzhi, and when Luo Ziping led the team to the Maodong Bridge, the regimental defense bureau heard the news and fled in a hurry, and also threw down a small number of weapons. At the same time, the rebels who attacked Zhang Bow Bridge also got their hands on it, and the big bullies advocated that Jiuzhi be executed, the zhuangyuan burned down, and a large amount of grain was distributed to the local poor people. The revolutionary armed forces were greatly encouraged. The next day, the Eighth Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army held a mass meeting of several thousand people, calling on the people to act at once and to take part in the revolutionary armed struggle to eliminate the reactionaries. In just one week, the flames of the revolutionary armed insurrection swept through the whole of Nanxiang, shocking the reactionaries in Hengyang, hurriedly mobilizing troops, and gathering the reactionary landlord regiments of various lines in Nanxiang to defend themselves and come to "suppress them." In the early morning of February 9, Luo Ziping and the main troops of the 27th and 28th regiments of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army, totaling more than 500 people, as well as more than a thousand revolutionary masses who came to support the uprising, were surrounded by hundreds of enemies and some landlords at Fangtoubu (present-day Shicun, Jingshan Township, Hengnan County).
In mid-February 1928, Luo Ziping and Luo Junyi, chief of staff of the division, held a secret military conference at Luo Baoshan's house in Dingjiabu to prepare to meet the team sent by Jiangxi to receive them the next day, with Jinggangshan. The meeting was held until about 2 p.m. Everyone did not disperse, but took a nap on the spot and prepared to go the next morning. Because of the fatigue of running for days, the Eighth Division's internal traitors took advantage of the silence in the middle of the night to quietly sneak out of Dingjiabu and report to the enemy, which attracted Mao Hongju, the leader of the reactionary investigation team, and led the county standing team and more than 300 people from door to door to surround the small village of Ding Jiayao before dawn, and flocked to arrest Luo Ziping. In the end, Luo Junyi was killed, and Luo Ziping was arrested in the burning ao pond.
Picture | Luo Ziping was captured by the enemy at the second pond under the Dingjiayao Fire
After Luo Ziping was escorted to Hengyang City by heavy enemy troops, wang Bin, the newly appointed governor of Hengyang County of the Kuomintang, pretended to greet him, in a vain attempt to induce Luo Ziping to defect and surrender himself. Luo Zipingyuan glared at qing and scolded the enemy loudly: "You shameless wine-colored people, give me this set less!" Communists will never be afraid of death, they will kill if they want to kill, they will cut when they want, and they will not waste their time! Wang Bin still refused to die when he saw the situation, and tried to further induce Luo Ziping to confess the situation of our party organization, but Luo Ziping rebuked him even more severely: "Except for you guys and dogs, forty million compatriots are all ... Before the words could be heard, he angrily raised a kick and kicked over the banquet. Wang Bin and other Communists who were well versed in Luo Ziping would never easily obey, lest they change over time, so that they could kill him in the early morning of February 25, 1928, at the age of 42.
Pictured| Chairman Mao Zedong personally issued a commemorative certificate of the glorious sacrifice of the martyr Luo Ziping
After liberation, in order to commemorate this martyr who made important contributions to the revolutionary struggle in Hengyang, the local people's government changed the name of Nanquan Township to Songtao Township, where the martyrs were located, and renamed Nanquan Primary School songtao Primary School. The heroic name of Luo Ziping (Luo Songtao) will always be engraved in the hearts of the people of Hengyang!
(Source: Biography of Hengyang Heroes)