01. Xu Jishen
Xu Jishen was born in 1901 in Lu'an, Anhui Province, the same age as Xu Xiangqian. He joined the Socialist Youth League in April 1921, and in May 1924, on the recommendation of the Communist Party of China, he was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy and was organized into the first phase of the 2nd team, which belonged to the same team as Chen Geng.
During his time at the military academy, Xu Jishen, together with Jiang Xianyun, Chen Geng, and others, was the backbone of the "Young Soldiers' Federation." After graduating in November 1924, he was assigned to Wang Bailing's 2nd Regiment of Teaching Regiment as a platoon leader, becoming one of the few Huangpu students to enter the "ancestor" of Chiang Kai-shek's concubine unit.
Xu Jishen participated in the First and Second Crusades with the army, took the lead in battle, fought bravely, and was promoted to company commander. In October 1925, he was transferred to the 7th Regiment of the 3rd Division of the 1st Army as an acting party representative. However, due to the "Zhongshan Ship Incident", Xu Jishen was transferred to the 2nd Squadron of the Political Training Class as the captain, and lost the development platform of the 1st Army in the authentic Whampoa Party Army.
In May 1926, Xu Jishen was sent to the Ye Ting Independent Regiment as the commander of the 2nd Battalion, began the Northern Expedition with the army, and a few months later was promoted to the chief of staff of the 73rd Regiment of the 25th Division (also known as the Ye Ting Independent Regiment). At this time, the leader of the group was Zhou Shidi, a classmate of the first phase of Huangpu. Soon after, he was appointed commander of the 72nd Regiment of the 24th Division (Division Commander Ye Ting), on a par with Zhou Shidi.
In May 1927, Xu Jishen was wounded in battle and went to Shanghai for treatment, losing the opportunity to participate in the Nanchang Uprising three months later. After recovering from his injuries, he engaged in two more years of secret work.
In March 1930, Xu Jishen went to the Eyu-Anhui Soviet District as the commander of the Red 1st Army.
At this time, Eyu-Anhui was far from becoming the second largest Soviet region after the Jiangxi Soviet District a year later, and was divided into three base areas in northeast Hubei, southeast Henan, and western Anhui, and the Development of the Red 1st Army into the most powerful Red Fourth Front Army was still a few years away. Previously, in June 1929, Xu Jishen's Huangpu Phase I classmate Xu Xiangqian was sent to Eyuwan as the deputy commander of the Red 31st Division in northeastern Hubei.
After Xu Jishen arrived, the three base areas were unified, and the Red Army that did not belong to the three places was also reorganized into the Red 1st Army, with a total of more than 2,300 people, Xu Jishen served as the commander, and Xu Xiangqian became the deputy commander and commander of the Red 1st Division, becoming his direct subordinate.
This reorganization realized the unified leadership and command of the Eyu-Anhui Red Army and was an important turning point in the history of the development of this Soviet region.
From June to August 1930, Xu Jishen, together with Xu Xiangqian, commanded the Red 1st Army to attack the city and annihilate more than 7,000 Kuomintang troops. The Red 1st Army also rapidly grew to more than 5,000 people, consolidating and expanding the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Area. Subsequently, he led his army to disrupt Chiang Kai-shek's first "encirclement and suppression" deployment in the Soviet zone, and annihilated more than 3,000 Kuomintang troops in Lianke Guangshan, Luoshan, Jinjiazhai, Mabu, Dushan, Yejiaji, and other places, creating an example of an annihilation war in which less won more.
In January 1931, the Red 1st Army and the Red 15th Army merged to form the Red Fourth Army, and the commander was Kuang Jixun, the former commander of the Red 6th Army in Hubei's Honghu Su District, who was more qualified, and Xu Jishen withdrew from the position of the main person in charge, but still served as the commander of the Red 11th Division.
Soon, Zhang Guotao was sent to the Eyu-Anhui Su District and became the leader of the saying one. Xu Jishen was immediately suppressed by Zhang Guotao, who tried to exclude dissidents in order to establish authority. A few months later, he was smeared with the name of "reformist" and "counter-revolutionary" and killed in Guangshan, Henan, and regrettably died under the butcher's knife of the internal "comrades", at the age of 30.
02, Zeng Zhongsheng
Zeng Zhongsheng was born in June 1900 in Zixing, Hunan Province, his ancestors were martial artists, his family was superior, and he was well trained from an early age.
After graduating from middle school, at the age of 20, he joined the warlord Shen Hongying's department, and was soon highly appreciated for his shrewdness and courage, and was promoted to staff officer. However, he was not accustomed to the warlords' approach, and came into contact with progressive ideas, leaving Shen Hongying's troops in 1923.
In 1925, Zeng Zhongsheng was admitted to the fourth phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and half a year later transferred to the second team of the Political Science Brigade, and became classmates of Liu Zhidan, Zhang Lingfu and others at the same time.
Like Chen Geng, he had seen a lot before entering Whampoa. As soon as he entered Whampoa, Zeng Zhongsheng joined the "Young Soldiers' Federation" and soon became a backbone in direct opposition to the "Sun Wen Doctrine Society", and was one of the contributors to "Young Soldiers".
Shortly after graduating in January 1926, Zeng Zhongsheng was sent to Tang Shengzhi's Former Enemy General Headquarters of the Northern Expedition as the chief of the organization section of the Political Department, and then resigned to become the chief writer of the Republic of China Daily in Hankou.
After Chiang Kai-shek's "April 12" coup d'état in April 1927, Zeng Zhongsheng went to Moscow to study at Sun Yat-sen University, and returned to China the following year, successively serving as the chief of the staff section of the Central Military Commission and the minister of the Armed Workers' and Peasants' Department.
In September 1930, he was sent to Eyuwan and was fully responsible for the military and political work of this Soviet region. Zeng Zhongsheng thus became the number one leader in the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region, and also became a figure who made outstanding contributions to the development of this base area and the Red Fourth Front.
At this time, Xu Jishen, a student of the Huangpu First Term who came here half a year earlier, served as the commander of the Red 1 Army, and Xu Xiangqian, who came earlier, was a deputy commander, and both became his subordinates.
As soon as Zeng Zhongsheng arrived at his post, he sent a telegram ordering Xu Jishen, who was far away from the base area to fight near Wuhan, to return to the division and put the main task on consolidating the base area and breaking Chiang Kai-shek's "encirclement and suppression."
In January 1931, Zeng Zhongsheng merged the Red 1st Army and the Red 15th Army into the Red Fourth Army, with a total of more than 12,500 people, and appointed Kwong Jixun as the commander, Xu Xiangqian as the chief of staff, and the two divisions under his command were respectively served by Cai Shenxi and Xu Jishen, the first students of Huangpu.
Zeng Zhongsheng made two direct contributions to the Eyu-Anhui Su District.
The first was to break the first large-scale "encirclement and suppression" of the Soviet zone mobilized by 100,000 people mobilized by Chiang Kai-shek. In March 1931, Zeng Zhongsheng commanded Xu Jishen and Cai Shenxi's two divisions, completely annihilated Yue Weijun's 34th Division, and captured more than 5,000 people below Yue Weijun alive.
The second is the rapid expansion of the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Area. Within a few months of his arrival, the Eyu-Anhui Su District had grown to an east-west length of about 300 miles, a north-south width of about 150 miles, and a population of 2.5 million, making it the second largest Soviet district after the Central Soviet District of Jiangxi.
But tragedy soon fell on Zeng Zhongsheng's head.
In March 1931, Zhang Guotao "parachuted" to Eyuwan and became the number one in this Soviet area, and Zeng Zhongsheng only served as the political commissar of the Red Fourth Army.
In order to establish his new absolute authority, Zhang Guotao must use the name of the party to attack leaders who had previous prestige, and Xu Jishen and Zeng Zhongsheng were the first choice for his goals. Zeng Zhongsheng was quickly put on his head with a hat of "opposing the Fourth Plenary Session".
In August 1931, Zeng Zhongsheng and Xu Xiangqian, the new commander of the Red Fourth Army, changed Zhang Guotao's unrealistic battle plan of "attacking Anqing and threatening Nanjing", and immediately made a decision, turning to attack the Yingshan area, and won a great victory.
Zhang Guotao not only did not give commendations, but felt that Zeng Zhongsheng and Xu Jishen had become an obstacle to his establishment of authority, and soon after, he put Xu Jishen on the charge of "false accusations" and put Xu Jishen on trial in public and executed him secretly. Although he did not take action against Zeng Zhongsheng for the time being, he was charged with various charges and dismissed from his post, and the post of political commissar of the Red Fourth Army was taken over by Chen Changhao, a confidant he had brought from Shanghai.
In November 1931, the Red Fourth Front was formally formed, with Xu as the former commander-in-chief and Chen Changhao as the political commissar.
Zeng Zhongsheng, who had lost his main leadership post, was still very determined, and later became the commander of an independent division reorganized from the local troops, defeating Chiang Kai-shek's army of "encirclement and suppression" by defeating the strong with weakness on many occasions. During the battle, he was also shot in the arm, but he was not healed and returned to the battlefield.
In October 1932, due to Zhang Guotao's erroneous military command, the Red Fourth Front was forced to withdraw from Eyuwan and marched aimlessly westward. Zeng Zhongsheng was very worried about this, and at the meeting of cadres at and above the red fourth front division, Zeng Zhongsheng made a sharp criticism of Zhang Guotao.
Zhang Guotao superficially accepted the opinion and appointed Zeng Zhongsheng as chief of staff of the Northwest Revolutionary Military Commission, while at the same time making up his mind to wait for an opportunity to get rid of Zeng Zhongsheng.
In December 1932, the Red Fourth Front created the Sichuan-Shaanxi base area, and nine months later, the army grew to 5 corps and more than 80,000 people, surpassing the strength of the Red Army and becoming the strongest Red Army in the country.
Zhang Guotao has never "forgotten" Zeng Zhongsheng, and in August 1933, after full preparation, he arrested Zeng Zhongsheng under the guise of a pretext. Because Zeng Zhongsheng had a great influence in the Red Fourth Front, he did not dare to kill him hastily, but instead imprisoned him for a long time.
In June 1935, the Red Fourth Front and the Red Front met at Maogong. After hearing the news, Zeng Zhongsheng wrote a letter expressing his desire to work and be subject to censorship. Zhang Guotao realized that if he did not start again, he would bring himself a huge "trouble". In August 1935, he ordered the killing of Zeng Zhongsheng, who was only 35 years old.
Before and after his imprisonment, Zeng Zhongsheng summed up his actual combat experience and wrote famous military works such as "Key Points for Fighting with the Sichuan Army," "Essentials for Guerrilla Warfare," and "Key Points for Fighting with the 'Encirclement and Suppression of the Red Army,'" and became the first general of the Red Army to make outstanding achievements in military theory.
His "Battle Tips for 'Encircling and Suppressing the Red Army'" is a huge work written under Zhang Guotao's imprisonment, with nearly 30,000 words. The book analyzes 10 kinds of "encirclement and suppression" tactics of Chiang Kai-shek's army, and summarizes the strategies and tactics of concentrating superior forces on each side of the breakthrough, as well as protracted warfare, quick decisive battles, and mobile warfare, which have great practical combat value.
(This article is excerpted from "The Barrel of Chiang Kai-shek's Gun - From the Whampoa Military Academy to the Huangpu Department", People's Publishing House, 2013 edition, by Zhang Xiongwen)