"The wolf who goes up the mountain is not as fierce as Ma Bufang in Qinghai." This is the lyrics of a small song circulating in the Great Northwest in the 1940s. As the song goes, Ma Bufang is the most cruel and fierce, absurd and tyrannical one in the "Ma Family Army".
It is precisely because of his "cruelty and fierceness" that during the Liberation War, the People's Liberation Army "looked at him differently" and gave him a "special treatment" that only Ma Bufang had: if he was not accepted to surrender, he must be completely annihilated!
Our army has always given preferential treatment to prisoners, and during the War of Liberation, our army accepted the uprising, surrendered to the Kuomintang army, and accepted the reorganization of millions of troops. So why is ma Bufang so exceptional? This has to start from the tragic experience of the Red Army's Western Route Army.
In 1936, after the three main forces of the Red Army met the division, the Ningxia Campaign was aborted due to the split caused by Zhang Guotao. Subsequently, more than 21,800 people from the Red 5th Army, the Red 9th Army, and the Red 30th Army formed the Western Route Army and embarked on the road of the Western Expedition alone.
The "MaJia Army" mobilized 170,000 troops and launched a frenzied attack on the Western Route Army.
The Hexi Corridor is sparsely populated and a horse is flat, and most of the "Majia Army" that has been entrenched here for many years has fought on horseback and come and gone like the wind, while the officers and men of the Western Route Army have gone through a journey of thousands of miles, and they are tired and tired, and they are forced to fight and consume with the "Majia Army" in position warfare.
After several battles, the "Ma Family Army" learned the tenacity and bravery of the Red Army and immediately adjusted its tactics. When the Red Army took the initiative to launch an offensive, they put the militia regiments on the front line, and the elite troops were recuperating and waiting for work; when attacking the Red Army, they adopted the method of playing "encircling three and one que" and when the Red Army retreated, they pursued and fought fiercely with the opposing brigades of cavalry; when the two armies were opposed, they adopted man-sea warfare and wave warfare, without giving the Red Army a chance to breathe.
They were more like ghosts haunting the Western Route Army, giving the Red Army time to mobilize the masses, resettle the wounded, and replenish its forces.
After many bloody battles such as Yongchang, Gaotai, Nijiayingzi, and Sandaoliugou, the Western Route Army inflicted many heavy losses on the Majia Army, but also suffered casualties, and Dong Zhentang, commander of the Red 5 Army, Chen Haisong, political commissar of the Red 9 Army, and Zheng Yizhai, director of the General Supply Department, were killed one after another, and the rest retreated into Qilian Mountain.
According to post-war statistics, the West Route Army killed about 7,000 people, including 143 cadres at or above the regimental level and more than 20 cadres at and above the army and division level. About 5,600 people were brutally killed after being captured, about 4,700 people were rescued and returned to Yan'an, and about 4,500 people were scattered along the way.
The "Ma Family Army" telephoned Chiang Kai-shek to ask for credit on the one hand, and launched a large-scale massacre of the captured personnel of the Western Route Army on the other. In Zhangye alone, Ma Bufang killed more than 3,200 captured soldiers of the Western Route Army. Their methods of killing people are extremely cruel, including burying alive, shooting, burning, picking hearts, taking bile, cutting tongues, and so on.
Many of the captured Red Army soldiers were raped by enemy officers, and even given to their subordinates as wives and concubines, and some were sold in many places. What's more, Ma Buying, ma Bufang's brother, actually took out thirty "living people's guts" of the Red Army and made eye drops...
In 1937, the Red Army's Western Route Army was brutally attacked by the "Majia Army", and 12 years later, in 1949, our People's Liberation Army finally waited for the opportunity to repay their blood debts and avenge the hatred of the soldiers of the Western Route Army.
On May 26, 1949, Peng Dehuai, commander of the First Field Army, in accordance with the central combat policy of "clamping down on horses and fighting Hu, first Hu and then horses", first concentrated his forces on a decisive battle with Hu Zongnan, and in early June suppressed Hu Zongnan's troops to the Fufeng, Baoji, and Fengxian areas, and Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui retreated to the areas of Yingzhou and Changwu.
On July 11, the First Field Army launched the "Battle of Fumei", annihilating more than 44,000 people of Hu Zongnan's four armies, Hu Zongnan's troops retreated to the Qinling front in defeat, and Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui retreated west to the Pingliang area.
Just as the First Field Army was preparing to fight a decisive battle against the "Erma" in the Pingliang area, the "Erma" retreated without a fight, of which Ma Bufang withdrew to Lanzhou and Ma Hongkui withdrew to Yinchuan.
To the north of Lanzhou City is the gushing Yellow River, the mountains in the east, south, and west are towering, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the fierce battle between the People's Liberation Army and the "Majia Army" has not progressed for a day.
The First Corps of the First Field Army took away the old nest of the "Ma Family Army" in Linxia in one fell swoop, and forced Ma Bufang to draw two cavalry brigades from the Lanzhou front to return to Xining, so that the resistance of the PLA to attack Lanzhou was suddenly alleviated a lot.
Ma Bufang felt that Lanzhou was in danger, and he sent an urgent telegram to the Nationalist government in Guangzhou, hoping that they would urge Hu Zongnan and Ma Hongkui to come forward to break the siege; on the other hand, he sent people directly to Yinchuan to ask Ma Hongkui for help.
Ma Hongkui was Ma Bufang's elder, but the two had long been at odds, and Ma Hongkui reluctantly cobbled together 1 Helan army to garrison the Ninggan border, which was enough to give Ma Bufang face. But Hu Zongnan himself is difficult to protect, where will there be the heart and ability to rush to lanzhou. Ma Bufang saw that the situation was not good, and on August 24, he flew to Xining alone, and ran to Chongqing with his family and gold and silver, and handed over his "donkey son" Ma Jiyuan to command.
Ma Jiyuan's title of "donkey son" comes from a folk joke. Chiang Kai-shek once met with Ma Bufang and Ma Jiyuan's father and son at the "Presidential Palace." Chiang Kai-shek greeted Ma Bufang with a happy face, and he pointed at Chiang Ching-kuo to introduce Ma Bufang: "Come, come, I will introduce you to you, this is inuyasha Jingguo." ”
Chiang Kai-shek said it casually, but ma Bufang was embarrassed. I thought to myself, Chiang Kai-shek called his son with the humility of "dog", so how can I introduce my son?
Although Ma Bufang joined the army at the age of 14, there is not much ink in his belly, but after all, he is an old jianghu, he thought about it a little, pointed at Ma Jiyuan and said: "This is Ma Jiyuan of Donkey Day!" This is a phrase often said by farmers in the Northwest.
Chiang Kai-shek was stunned at first, and then he laughed.
Later, Ma Bufang also told others about this "meeting" of Chiang Kai-shek. He said: "The president said that his son is a dog son, then mine can only be a donkey son." ”
At dawn on August 25, the People's Liberation Army siege forces launched a general offensive. After fierce fighting, the People's Liberation Army captured Shenjialing, Dogwa Mountain, Gucheng Ridge, Majia Mountain and The Highest Peak Of Funan Mountain, Known as the "Lanzhou Lock Key", and the city of Lanzhou was exposed to the fire control of the People's Liberation Army.
Ma Bufang's "donkey son" Ma Jiyuan saw that the main positions on the outskirts had fallen within a day, with heavy casualties among soldiers and no trace of foreign aid, and on the evening of the 25th, he prepared to retreat across the Yellow River Iron Bridge to Xining. However, when he took his troops to the Yellow River Iron Bridge, he found that the People's Liberation Army had taken control of the Iron Bridge.
"Donkey Day's Ma Jiyuan" could not take care of others, he disguised himself as an ordinary soldier and fled to Xining in the chaos, while the main force of his garrison in Lanzhou became the turtle in the urn.
At 12 o'clock on the 26th, the People's Liberation Army completely annihilated the Remnant Enemy of Ma Bufang Group in Lanzhou. After 5 days of fierce fighting, Lanzhou was liberated. The First Field Army annihilated more than 27,000 enemy troops at the cost of more than 8,700 casualties, eliminated the main force of the Ma Bufang Group, and opened the door to Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang.
General Wang Zhen was ordered by Peng Dehuai to lead the First Corps to pursue the victory and directly attack Xining. "Donkey son" Ma Jiyuan panicked and chose to flee for his life again, and he climbed on the plane in panic and fled to Chongqing. Ma Bufang's disciples and soldiers who had painstakingly operated for decades were scattered in an instant, and Xining City became an empty city. On September 6, a unit of the First Field Army marched into Xining.
On September 19, the 19th Corps of the People's Liberation Army signed an agreement on peaceful liberation with Ma Hongbin, one of the "Three Horses of the Northwest.".
Although Ma Hongkui's Ningxia Corps declared to the outside world that "although there are one soldier and one pawn left, it must also fight to the end", Ma Hongkui himself secretly made preparations to flee Yinchuan. On September 1, 1949, Ma Hongkui went to Chongqing under the pretext of attending an emergency military conference of the Kuomintang and handed over the command of the battlefield to his son Ma Dunjing. After some tossing, Ma Dunjing handed over the command of the front to Lu Zhongliang, commander of the 128th Army, and then fled to Chongqing.
Ma's father and son fled Chongqing, the Ningxia Corps immediately fell and scattered, soldiers fled in groups, and officers sent peace telegrams to the Platon Army. On the afternoon of September 23, the representatives of the Ningxia Corps and the 19th Corps of the People's Liberation Army reached the "Agreement on the Peaceful Settlement of the Ningxia Issue".
At this point, our army completely crushed the "three horses in the northwest."
As the saying goes, good is rewarded with good, and evil is rewarded with evil. In contrast, the People's Liberation Army accepted the surrender of other "erma" troops, and the only thing that did not give Ma Bufang a chance until Ma Bufang's army was completely destroyed, which was ma Bufang's exclusive "special treatment".
The People's Liberation Army's record of completely annihilating Ma Bufang's troops made the "Majia Army" history from then on, and also avenged the soldiers of the Western Route Army who were brutalized by the "Majia Army" 12 years ago.