"We've found an organization!" Chief of the report, we are female soldiers of the Women's Independent Regiment of the Western Route Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. We've been looking forward to this day for more than a decade! "In 1950, in a den of bandits in northern Gansu, dozens of women dressed in different costumes cried with their heads in their hands. Just opposite them were PLA fighters who had completed their task of suppressing bandits.
Bloody West Road Army
The Western Route Army of the Red Army is a legendary and tragic contingent. In 1936, the Red Army launched a arduous western expedition in order to open up the "international passage" with the Soviet Union. The main force of the Western Expedition was to establish the "Western Route Army" on the basis of the Red Fourth Front. These fighters, who had just experienced the Long March, were preparing to open up the Hexi Corridor and establish a solid revolutionary base area on the front lines of Qinghai, Gansu, and Xinjiang.
In the northwest region, there are two strong and fierce warlords for many years, namely the so-called northwest "two horses" Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui. The Actions of the Red Army touched the interests of ma Bufang, a warlord entrenched in Qinghai, and as a result, they were blocked by the "Ma Family Army" of the other side. Ma Bufang's team is linked by religion and family, tough and stubborn, and very cunning on the battlefield. On the other hand, the Western Expeditionary Army itself was short of troops, and the ammunition supply was all pitifully small. In the end, after insisting on fighting for a year, it was defeated by the Western Route Army and almost completely destroyed.
A fleeting army of women
Among the Western Route Army, there is a unit that suffers even more lamentable, that is, the "Girl Scout Army" in the Red Army: the Women's Vanguard Regiment.
The Women's Vanguard Regiment, formerly known as the Women's Independent Division of the Red Fourth Front, was established after the Central Red Army entered Sichuan in 1935 after the reorganization of the original and new women's units, and the division was headed by Zhang Qinqiu, vice minister of the Textile Industry Department of the New China. In addition to the tasks of guarding organs, Red Army hospitals, warehouses, transporting ammunition, and transferring the wounded, this contingent also undertook certain combat tasks.
After the Long March, the women's independent division suffered heavy losses, so on the eve of the Western Expedition in 1936, it was reorganized into the "Women's Anti-Japanese Pioneer Regiment", referred to as the Women's Pioneer Regiment, and in October of the same year, it accompanied the Western Route Army on the Western Expedition.
The Women's Vanguard Regiment consisted of more than 1,300 female soldiers, most of whom were female soldiers who had experienced the Long March, and were generally very young, most of them were eighteen or nineteen years old, even their regimental commander Wang Quanyuan was only 23 years old (Zhang Qinqiu had been promoted to the head of the Organization Department of the Western Route Army). The combat effectiveness of this contingent should not be underestimated, and it played an extremely important role in battles such as Guanjia Mountain and Yiyi Mountain.
The most tragic battle of the Women's Vanguard took place in early November 1936. At that time, they went with the main force to the area of Gulang County, and suddenly encountered the interception of Ma Bufang's cavalry team. In order to cover the transfer of large troops, Wang Quanyuan led the women's regiment to stay behind to block the pursuing soldiers. The female warriors faced the enemy's danger and skillfully coped, causing many casualties to the enemy. But they had too little ammunition, and soon all the bullets and grenades were gone. A group of girls with an average age of only 20 years old had to wield large knives and engage the enemy in close quarters like five big and three thick male soldiers. This battle was killed in the dark, the women's regiment suffered heavy losses, and all the soldiers of the three battalions and one company were gloriously sacrificed!
In March 1937, the Western Route Army broke through in the direction of Qilian Mountain when the war situation was unfavorable, and the women's regiment was again assigned to serve as a rear guard. Although they have brother troops around them, the Red Ninth Army, they are all the same difficulties. Soon, the women's regiment suffered heavy losses again in the battle of Liyuankou and suffered serious attrition. Soon after, the women's regiment took the initiative to undertake the task of blocking the attack and covering the transfer of the headquarters to the area around Shiwo Mountain. Unexpectedly, Ma Bufang relied on the mechanical advantage of the cavalry to cut off the women's regiment from the main force. After three days and three nights of bloody fighting, the regimental commander Wang Quanyuan was also injured, and the women's regiment had only more than 200 people left. It was in this context that the Women's Vanguard still stood out. Sadly, they panicked and plunged headlong into the Gobi. The Gobi Desert was extremely cold at night, and the warriors were forced to light a bonfire to keep warm. In a dark world, the campfire was particularly obvious, and soon attracted the pursuing soldiers. At this time, the female soldiers were no longer able to fight and were all captured by the enemy.
Since then, there has been no longer a single unit of women in the Red Army. The Women's Independent Division and the Women's Vanguard Regiment, as the only large-scale women's fighting groups in the history of our country, are short-lived.
The tragic situation of the captured female soldiers
In the semi-feudal era of the northwest at that time, it is conceivable what a group of female captives would face. Ma Bufang first systematically insulted the female soldiers, and then rewarded the female soldiers to his subordinates. These female soldiers, who had red blood flowing from their bodies, began a life of darkness, not only to be humiliated by the enemy, but also to endure inhuman abuse, and the living conditions were even worse than those of livestock. Wu Fulian, the political commissar of the women's league, was eventually humiliated and committed suicide by swallowing a needle. And there are many female soldiers like her, and they have not been able to see the day of national liberation.
Later, Zhang Qinqiu, the founder of the women's group, was rescued and returned to Yan'an. The regimental commander Wang Quanyuan endured humiliation and burden, and through his own wisdom escaped from the tiger's mouth in 1939 and reported to the Lanzhou office of the Eighth Route Army to return to the army. However, due to the policies at that time, Wang Quanyuan could only return to her hometown to live in the end. Most of the female soldiers of the Red Army can only continue to live in the magic cave, staying up day by day, hoping that their troops can achieve victory.
Bandits in the northwest
In August 1949, the HEADQUARTERS of the People's Liberation Army decided to launch the Lanzhou Campaign and take Ma Bufang's important town in Gansu in one fell swoop. This battle was fought very hard, and the terrain outside Lanzhou was complex, making it difficult for the Platon Toma to carry out. However, today's People's Liberation Army is no longer the Red Army of the Western Expedition, with strong troops and sophisticated weapons, and soon reversed the situation and completely liberated Lanzhou at 12 o'clock on August 26. After that, the People's Liberation Army directly took Ma Bufang's old nest, Xining, and completely defeated this warlord who had plagued the northwest for hundreds of years.
However, in this series of battles, a large number of "Ma family troops" revolted or surrendered. This should be a good thing, but it also has its hidden dangers. These Ma jiajun had no consciousness, and uprisings and surrenders were all means of preserving their strength. What's more, many "Ma Jiajun" carried horses and guns, and flocked to the mountains and forests in groups of three or five, becoming bandits who were smoother than loach. The wariness of them cannot be relaxed at all. Soon, Peng Dehuai, commander-in-chief of the Northwest Field Army, sent instructions: "The Majia Army is reactionary, cruel and stubborn, and must be vigilant against its counterattack." ”
In 1950, it was time to come. The old department of the Ma family army, which had originally announced the uprising and surrendered, was inspired by the enemy and brazenly launched a rebellion! For a time, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, and even Xinjiang were all in turmoil under the agitation of the remnants of the former Majia Army. Moreover, unlike the bandits in the mountains of the southwest, the remnants of these Majia army moved extremely quickly with the mechanical power of the horses, so it was not easy to eliminate them. From 1950 to 1953, the so-called bandit suppression work in the Great Northwest was actually an operation around the elimination of the remnants of the Majia Army.
The most fierce of these bandits was a man named Ma Chengfu. He was ma bufang's cavalry brigade commander, and after the collapse of Ma Bufang's group, he led his own team to camp in the Qilian Mountains. Here, he recruited rebels, colluded with local knifemen, habitual bandits, and remnants of the Kuomintang, and haunted between the desert, the Gobi, and the snow-capped mountains, killing people, setting fires, robbing and kidnapping tickets. Later, he formed the so-called "Northwest Detachment of the Mainland Restoration Corps" and became the vanguard of the Kuomintang to disturb the situation in the northwest.
Of course, the Chinese People's Liberation Army will not allow this enemy to act arbitrarily. Soon, a company of the Thirty-third Regiment of the Tenth Division of the Fourth Army went deep into qilian mountain and launched a surprise attack on Ma Chengfu's bandit gang, resulting in Ma Chengfu being killed. Soon, the People's Liberation Army raided the bandits' old lair, Laochabaozi, Dongxiang County, and captured all the so-called "high-level leaders" of the enemy. After the battle, the PLA troops checked the local population situation and inadvertently found the female Soldiers of the Red Army who had been caught in the hands of the enemy more than a decade ago, so the scene at the beginning of this article occurred.
Compensation for the lost personnel of the Western Route Army
The appearance of female soldiers in the Red Army made the plausibus executives attach great importance to it, and they immediately sent people to investigate the situation. It turned out that the female soldiers who were captured that year were far more than them. In addition to most of them still being trapped in bandit dens, many people have taken refuge in the mountains and have married local men. Now they are overjoyed to see the success of their comrades, who have been separated for more than a decade.
In order to allow these female Soldiers of the Red Army to live in peace of mind, the state quickly introduced relevant policies: on the one hand, it increased the intensity of suppression of bandits, completely eliminated the remnants of the Majia Army, and rescued the former female soldiers of the Red Army; on the other hand, it comforted and comforted the female soldiers who had already had children with the local people, and provided economic subsidies. For example, He Fuxiang, the commander of the second battalion of the women's regiment, has been working as a hard worker in Wuwei after the team was broken up, and then became a female worker in a garment factory in Jiuquan at the invitation of her comrade-in-arms Yang Wenju, not only with a stable income, but also because of her participation in the revolution in 1927. She later rejoined the party, and her party age was calculated from 1934.
Later, not only did the female soldiers of the Western Route Army have a policy, but other scattered commanders and fighters also had a policy. In 1983, Wu Xiuquan and other veteran leaders issued an open appeal, and the central authorities made clear stipulations accordingly: First, all the displaced and scattered personnel of the West Route Army in that year should be renamed "veterans of the West Road Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" and certificates would be issued; second, a monthly subsidy of 40 yuan would be paid to those who did not have stable economic income; third, the medical treatment of veteran soldiers should be imitated by the standard of retirement, and the expenses would be fully reimbursed by the relevant government departments; fourth, the construction of the Martyrs' Cemetery of the West Road Army to commemorate the revolutionary martyrs. They did their best for the motherland, and now the motherland will not forget them.