Introduction: The Red Fourth Front is one of the three main forces of the Red Army. A large part of the founding generals came from this team, and the most representative one was Xu Shuai, the commander-in-chief of the Red Fourth Front. As we all know, the number one figure of the Red Fourth Front during the Red Army period was Zhang Mou, the leader of the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region, and the second figure was Chen Changhao. So is Xu Shuai the number three person? In fact, this third chair has someone else, and has had an unpleasant experience with Xu Shuai, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he has a "revenge for killing his wife", he is Zhou Chunquan, who was added as a member of the Politburo at the Shawo Conference in 1935 and awarded the rank of general in 1955.
Zhou Chunquan was born in 1905 to a poor peasant family in Huang'an County, Hubei Province. Like most children of his time, he lived a life of hunger and cold. But his father was not willing to do nothing at home, so he took him away to make a living. Years later, the Zhou family has improved economically, and at the age of 12, Zhou Chunquan was able to study at the Wuchang Provincial First Model Primary School, and after graduation, he became a grassroots worker at the Huigong Weaving Factory in Hankou. It was also during this period that he came into contact with advanced revolutionary ideas and joined the workers' movement under the leadership of our Party.
In a series of revolutionary struggles, Zhou Chunquan was very positive. He was not only solid in his work and advanced in thought, but also a rare intellectual among the working people. As the saying goes, "gold always shines", and Zhou Chunquan's unremitting efforts have finally won the recognition of our party. In 1926, Zhou Chunquan joined the party honorably and returned to his hometown to lead the local peasant and workers' movement according to the instructions of his superiors. The following year, the Jute Uprising broke out, and Zhou Chunquan was elected secretary of the Huang'an County Agricultural Committee, becoming one of the grassroots backbones of the early development of our party, which was also a qualification that many generals did not have in 1955.
In 1929, Zhou Chunquan, who had distinguished himself in the revolutionary movement, was promoted to a member of the Standing Committee of the Eyu Border Special Committee; the following year, he became the director of the Political Protection Bureau of the Soviet Government of Eyuwan Province. At this point, he officially entered the upper echelons of the Red Army.
Although everything seems to be a natural progression, the unexpected is about to happen.
Zhou Chunquan joined the revolution earlier, his military career began with the Red Fourth Front, and after entering the Eyu-Anhui Soviet government, he served as the director of the Security Bureau, so he could be described as obedient to Zhang Mou, the "number one" of Eyuwan, and even had an almost obsessive worship. When Zhang Mou was in charge of the Eyu-Anhui Soviet District, he vigorously carried out a "purge of rebellion" movement within the party, trying to sweep away dissidents and make our party into his own political party. And Zhou Chunquan, as the director of the Security Bureau, has become a "sharp weapon" in his hands.
It was also at this time that Zhou Chunquan and Xu Shuai formed a grudge, what was going on?
The matter also started from Xu Shuai's wife, Ms. Cheng Xunxuan. As early as 1928, Cheng Xunxuan threw himself into the revolution and has been working in the base area. In 1929, Xu Shuai was unfortunately wounded in battle with the enemy in the Eyu-Anhui-Suzhou area and was escorted to the base area for treatment, and it was Cheng Xunxuan who was responsible for taking care of Xu Shuai at this time. Under the meticulous care of Cheng Xunxuan, Xu Shuai's wounds healed quickly, and the two people also formed a revolutionary friendship. After performing the tasks assigned by his superiors, Xu Shuai and Cheng Xunxuan came together smoothly, at this time Cheng Xunxuan was 18 years old and Xu Shuai was 28 years old. After marriage, the two fell in love, and even became a good story in the whole army.
But this sweet and happy life did not exist for too long before it was shattered, and Zhou Chunquan was an important party.
In 1932, Xu Shuai was ordered to lead his army to the front line to fight the enemy, and Cheng Xunxuan continued to work and live in the base area as always. But suddenly one day, Zhou Chunquan, who was the director of the Security Bureau, led people to break into Xu Shuai's home and arrested Cheng Xunxuan without saying a word.
It turned out that this was a "purge" campaign launched by Zhang Mou, the leader of Eyuwan Province, whose purpose was to attack Xu Shuai. As long as Cheng Xunxuan can be made to personally recognize Xu Shuai as a "reorganization faction", he can confirm the listed crimes and remove Xu Shuai's military power.
In his cell, Cheng Xunxuan suffered great physical and mental torture, but even if he was covered in bruises, he did not betray his husband at all. Seeing that the plan had failed, at the behest of Zhang, Zhou Chunquan sent people to secretly execute Cheng Xunxuan, who was only 22 years old at the time.
The news of Cheng Xunxuan's death has been concealed. In 1937, Zhou Chunquan, who had seen the true face of Zhang Ren, told Xu Shuai the truth of the matter. Although Xu Shuai was sad and angry, he was very calm, and he questioned Zhou Chunquan: "She has not committed any crime, why did she arrest her and beat her?" At this time, Zhou Chunquan had already changed his thinking and regretted his behavior, explaining: "At that time, Chairman Zhang ordered me to arrest people, just to get your black materials." If he had been replaced by someone else, he would have been furious a long time ago, but Xu Shuai was a great man of a generation after all, and he did not pursue Zhou Chunquan anymore, let alone retaliate against him, showing the style of a real general.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhou Chunquan did not follow the large troops to the front to fight the Japanese army, but was appointed as the principal of the first branch of the Anti-Japanese War to cultivate and send outstanding talents to our party and our army. Not going to the battlefield does not mean that there will be no war, at least Zhou Chunquan confirmed this.
In 1941, the white-hot stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the first branch of the Anti-Japanese War was located in Daqingshan, at the eastern foot of the main peak of Yimeng Mountain, which was nearly 700 meters above sea level, and was the intersection of the three counties of Fei County, Mengyin and Yinan. At the end of the year, Japanese general Hata Shunroku commanded more than 50,000 Japanese puppet troops to invade our base areas in an attempt to completely encircle and annihilate the living forces of our army. Due to limited conditions and errors in intelligence, nearly 3,000 leading cadres of the Shandong region of the Kang University and our party mistakenly entered the encirclement of the Japanese army.
On 30 November, the first shots were fired from enemy and enemy military posts, and the situation immediately became critical. Zhou Chunquan was not in danger, immediately held an emergency meeting, and after repeated consideration, issued a breakthrough order to the whole army. Although the First Branch of the Anti-Japanese University at that time was a paramilitary unit, it was obviously difficult to fight with tens of thousands of well-equipped Japanese troops and cover the breakthrough of the organ personnel. Zhou Chunquan constantly sent soldiers to reconnoiter the battle situation on the front line, and after summarizing it, he found that 4 hours had passed since the gunshots rang out in the morning, but judging from the speed and direction of the Japanese army's march, it seemed that he did not find the mistaken entry of our army, and it was like a completely untargeted mountain.
Zhou Chunquan boldly speculated that this Japanese army was carrying out a "sweeping" mission in the Yimeng Mountains, and it would not be until night at the earliest to completely encircle the base area. Therefore, Zhou Chunquan ordered Yan Jiesan, deputy director of the school's training department, Wen Jinghe, commander of the fifth squadron, and Cheng Ke, the instructor of the second squadron, to break through in three ways, and Chen Huatang, the leader of the fifth brigade, was responsible for covering. After Zhou Chunquan's order was issued, the commanders and fighters at all levels acted separately, and the soldiers marched forward bravely, miraculously breaking away from the encirclement of the Japanese puppet army.
This time, the most tragic breakthrough battle in the history of the Shandong War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression successfully demonstrated Zhou Chunquan's superb command art. He made use of military anti-jamming tactics to disrupt the enemy's "sweeping" task first, so that the other side could not complete the encirclement according to the scheduled time, and then used the time difference to arrange troops to attack from different directions, although he paid the price of sacrificing nearly a thousand people, but finally won the successful breakthrough of more than 9,000 people.
If everyone thinks that Zhou Chun's all-round teaching ability to fight is his greatest merit, it is really wrong. What Zhou Chunquan really excelled at was engaging in logistics work, and he was also a "pioneer" in the logistics support construction of our army after the founding of New China.
After the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, our volunteer army has not established a logistics department, and the logistics work of the front-line troops has relied on the Northeast Military Region, so that the logistics command post is far away from the troops, the strength is thin, the supply line is too long, and many other hidden dangers have emerged, and it is simply impossible to adapt to modern warfare. At the end of 1950, when Zhou Chunquan, then political commissar of the Logistics Department of the Central And Southern Military Region, was "forcibly" left by General Peng to manage logistics when he was on the Korean front to learn about logistics support.
After analyzing the current situation of our volunteer army's operations in the DPRK, Zhou Chunquan immediately put forward his opinions and rectification plan to the Central Military Commission, and organized a logistics headquarters with a number of 80 people and served as the commander-in-chief himself.
In the early stages of the Korean war, our volunteer army sang triumphantly all the way, which led to the supply line getting longer and longer, often exposed to the eyes of the enemy air force and subjected to indiscriminate bombardment, which made the already insufficient logistical support force worse. To this end, Zhou Chunquan hurriedly transferred several units, including the East China Military Region and the Northwest Military Region, to form logistics detachments to join the DPRK in the war. In addition, he also set up 5 logistics support divisions in North Korea, with 5 large stations under each division, and 10 transport regiments in 6 military regions, each with 2,000 people and equipped with transport vehicles. In this way, with the efforts of Zhou Chunquan, the logistics support force of the Volunteer Army has been increased to 17 regiments and 8 battalions.
Zhou Chunquan also devoted himself to the research and construction of railway lines in North Korea; dispatched engineers to build bridges and repair highways; and organized backbone soldiers to learn about the maintenance of vehicles and weapons and equipment. All kinds of measures soon made the soldiers on the front line have no worries. Van Vleet, commander-in-chief of the US Eighth Army, exclaimed: "The Communists still carried supplies to the front with incredible tenacity and perseverance, creating an amazing miracle." After the end of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Zhou Chunquan was appointed first deputy director and deputy political commissar of the General Logistics Department of our army because of his major contributions to logistics and supplies.
Conclusion: Although Zhou Chunquan's life is quite controversial, on the whole, the flaws are not hidden, and whether it is from the seniority, ability or the merits of our party and our army, it is worthy of the title of founding general in 1955. On July 28, 1985, founding general Zhou Chunquan died of illness at the age of 80.