On January 4, 1941, Ye Ting and Xiang Ying divided the New Fourth Army headquarters and directly subordinate units into three columns and were ordered to begin moving north.
At first, the road was basically smooth, but when it marched to Maolin on January 6, it was attacked by the Kuomintang troops who had been ambushed for a long time; because Ye Ting, Xiang Ying and other major leaders of the New Fourth Army, after a 7-hour meeting, they still could not come up with an effective response plan and lost the best time to break through.
The next day, Gu Zhutong, commander of the Third Theater, ordered the 32nd Group Army to launch an attack on the New Fourth Army, and after many days of bloody fighting, the New Fourth Army had reached the point of running out of ammunition, and in addition to not receiving effective instructions from the central authorities, the New Fourth Army lost the opportunity to break through at Xingtan.
On the 14th, Rao Shushi considered that Ye Ting had many old friends in the Third Theater and suggested that he go down the mountain to negotiate with the Kuomintang army, but after Ye Ting went down the mountain, not only could the negotiations fail, but he was also imprisoned; seeing that Ye Ting had not seen Ye Ting's return for a long time, Rao Shushi had a premonition that something must have happened, so he organized his troops to break through desperately.
On 12 March, several people settled in the bee cave on Chikeng Mountain, but after several days of fighting, Liu Houzong, an aide-de-camp of the military department, lost confidence in the revolution.
Xiang Ying, a high-ranking general who had experienced hundreds of battles, did not sacrifice himself on the road of charging, but fell under the gun of a traitor.
Xiang Ying is a native of Jiangxia, Hubei Province, and xiang Ying began to lead the workers' movement long before the founding of the Communist Party of China, and has deep seniority in the party.
In 1934, due to the defeat of the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign, the base areas of the Central Soviet Region were decreasing day by day, and the Party Central Committee organs and the Central Red Army were forced to leave the Jiangxi Soviet Region, which had been in operation for many years, and implemented a strategic transfer; before leaving, the Central Sub-Bureau and the Central Military Region were established, with Xiang Ying as secretary and commander and political commissar of the military region, leaving Behind to persist in guerrilla warfare, which also laid the groundwork for Xiang Ying's future fate.
In early October 1934, the main force of the Red Army participating in the Long March began to assemble, and Xiang Ying commanded the Red 24th Division to take over the defense of the main force of the Red Army, tightly sealing the news and covering the assembly of the main force; after the Central Red Army began the Long March, Xiang Ying immediately led the remaining troops and turned to guerrilla warfare, which lasted for three years.
On July 7, 1937, the Japanese Kou launched the Lugou Bridge Incident, which shocked China and foreign countries, and began to invade China in an all-round way; at this critical moment, the two parties once again joined hands to jointly resist foreign enemies; according to the agreement between the two sides, the three main forces of the Red Army on the Long March to northern Shaanxi were reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, and the Red Army guerrillas who insisted on guerrilla warfare in the south were reorganized into the New Fourth Army.
Finally, Chiang Kai-shek unilaterally made a decision to appoint Ye Ting, who had left the party for many years, as the commander of the New Fourth Army; in the autumn of the same year, Ye Ting arrived in Yan'an, met mao Weiren, and expressed his willingness to work under the leadership of the party; at this point, the party Central Committee also agreed to Ye Ting's appointment as commander of the New Fourth Army and appointed Xiang Ying as deputy commander and secretary of the branch of the New Fourth Army.
Because Ye Ting was not a party member, he could not participate in party activities or view the party's confidential documents according to the regulations; however, Xiang Ying considered Ye Ting's embarrassing situation and promptly took the initiative to inform Ye Ting of the decisions of the party central committee in order to facilitate his work.
Even so, the different experiences, personalities, and styles of the two men are bound to produce great contradictions in their future work; and Ye Ting, as a military commander, also feels that he is only a nominal military commander and does not have much real power, which led to his many departures, and finally under the repeated persuasion of Zhou Enlai, Ye Ting returned to the New Fourth Army.
It was also these contradictions that when the New Fourth Army was surrounded in Maolin, the opinions could not be unified, and the best time to break through was missed, resulting in the Heavy Damage of the New Fourth Army.
So, after Xiang Ying's unfortunate sacrifice, how did the two children left behind live afterwards?
Xiang Ying's eldest daughter was Xiang Suyun, born in Shanghai in 1931; before Xiang Suyun was born, her father Xiang Ying had gone to work in the Central Soviet District, and the name was given to her by the educator Tao Xingzhi.
In 1938, due to the invasion of the Japanese Kou, Xiang Suyun, who was studying in Huai'an, came to Yan'an; soon after, Xiang Ying was ordered to go to Yan'an for a meeting, which was the first time that father and daughter met, and stayed for a total of 12 days; but what people did not expect was that this was the first time and the last time; Xiang Suyun later recalled: His father gave me his father's love for his life in those 12 days.
After the meeting, Xiang Ying bid farewell to his children and continued to go to the anti-Japanese front to kill the enemy; after Xiang Ying was killed in the Anhui Incident in 1941, Xiang Suyun did not know about it, and did not learn the unfortunate news until 1945.
In 1948, Xiang Suyun was sent by the central government to the Soviet Union to study textiles, and after returning to China, he worked in the textile industry for a long time until his retirement in 1991.
Xiang Ying's only son was Xiang Xuecheng, who, like his sister, spent time with his father for a short time; as the child of a martyr, Xiang Xuecheng grew up and joined the military camp, and was a senior officer in the Navy's North Sea Fleet, but unfortunately, Xiang Xuecheng died of illness in 1974.