Founding General Chen Zaidao, who participated in the Jute Uprising, was one of the famous 72 heroes of Mulan Mountain. During the Red Army period, Chen Zaidao was known for his bravery and good fighting, and served as the commander of the Red 4 army.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Zaidao's most successful "masterpiece" was the creation of the anti-Japanese base area in southern Hebei, which was an important strategic fulcrum of our party in the North China Plain.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, and Chen Zaidao served as the deputy brigade commander of the 386 Brigade. In January 1938, Chen Zaidao was appointed commander of the Eastward Column of the Eighth Route Army, leading a small force of 500 people in 5 companies to advance into southern Hebei.
At that time, the situation in southern Hebei was extremely chaotic and complicated, and the Japanese puppet army colluded with bandits and miscellaneous armed forces to burn and loot everywhere, doing no evil and doing nothing wrong, and making the common people secret. The common people look forward to their troops coming to rescue them and stabilize social order.
On the 15th, the eastward column entered Weijiazhuang in Longping County (present-day Longyao County). There were more than a hundred households in Weijiazhuang, and when the troops first entered the village, the masses were a little alarmed. However, as soon as it was explained that the unit was the Eighth Route Army reorganized by the Red Army, coupled with the fact that the commanders and fighters spoke kindly and behaved well, they quickly won the trust of the common people.
In the afternoon, the troops prepared for the evening camp, and a section chief of the headquarters quarreled with the people over a paving board. After Chen Zaidao knew about it, he immediately criticized the section chief fiercely, and led him to apologize to the common people and take the initiative to plead guilty. The common people were very touched to see the commander personally come to ask for guilt, and praised the discipline of the eastward column.
Afterwards, Chen Zaidao immediately ordered the troops to camp outside the village, and the troops were stationed for several days, carrying water and sweeping the floor for the common people, doing peasant talk, and propagating the party's ideas, and the military and the people were immersed in a happy atmosphere.
However, for the initiators who have committed many evil deeds, Chen Zaidao will not be so polite.
At that time, the southern Hebei region was full of bandits, miscellaneous troops, and various meetings and gates, and there were many "commanders" like cattle feathers, and several forces recruited each other to buy horses and compete for hegemony.
The bandit leaders Liu Motou and Qiu Qingfu, who were entrenched in Ren County, had a total of three or four thousand men and horses, committing many evil deeds, and the masses hated them to the bone. Another force was Wang Wenzhen, the head of the Julu County Security Regiment, and Zhen Fuxi, the police chief, who secretly colluded with the Japanese army. There were also reactionary "six departures," who heard that Chen Zaidao had led the anti-Japanese column to ji'nan and immediately united in a vain attempt to take advantage of chen zaidao's unstable foothold in the southern Hebei region to completely annihilate the anti-Japanese column.
They united with the bandit headquarters in Fanjiazhuang, north of Nangong City, and carefully set up the "Hongmen Banquet" and calculated Chen Zaidao.
In this three-entry courtyard, the Eight Immortals Table has been prepared. Qiu Qingfu, Zhen Fuxi, Wang Wenzhen, and Liu Motou were already waiting in the seats, and several machine guns were set up on the roof, and three steps and one post outside the courtyard, five steps and one sentry were deployed.
Chen Zaidao only brought three warriors into the hospital for a banquet.
During the banquet, Liu Motou continued to toast and give speeches, and just as Liu Motou came over to toast again, Chen Zaidao pulled out his pistol, twisted Liu Motou, and shouted: "Tell your people to lay down their weapons, otherwise, they will shoot you first!" ”
Liu Motou trembled and ordered his men to lay down their weapons. At this time, the two soldiers who came in with Chen Zaidao sent a signal to the troops ambushed outside the village.
Chen Zaidao gathered the bandits together to conduct education, expounded our party's anti-Japanese principles and policies with the great righteousness of the anti-Japanese resistance, and then organized the forces of various factions.
Chen Zaidao bravely went to the "Hongmen Banquet" this time, disarmed the local bandits, expanded the anti-Japanese forces, and opened up the situation in southern Hebei. In just over 3 months after the eastward column entered southern Hebei, the troops expanded 20 times, from the original 500 people to more than 10,000 people. Commander Liu and Political Commissar Deng of the 129th Division were very happy to see that the situation in Southern Hebei had undergone earth-shaking changes, and Master Liu praised Chen Zaidao for "a lot of ideas."
In May 1940, Chen Zaidao served as the commander of the Ji'nan Military Region and led the military and civilians in the base areas in a five-year battle against the Japanese puppets. Chen Zaidao later had a sentence about the hardships of creating a base area: "After five years of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in southern Hebei, I don't know what it is like to strip off and sleep. ”