At the end of 1934, according to the instructions of the superiors, more than 2,900 people of the Red 25th Army, under the leadership of commander Cheng Zihua and deputy commander Xu Haidong, held high the banner of "the second advance detachment of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army to resist Japan in the north", set out from He Jiachong in Luoshan, Henan Province, and embarked on the long march.
In the following year, the legendary red 25th army successively moved to Anhui, Henan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Gansu and other places, created the Eyu-Shaanxi base area, traveled nearly 10,000 miles, and finally won the victory of the Long March. At that time, there was a folk song describing the victory of the Red 25th Army's Long March yongping hui division that sang: "A red flag flutters in the air, and the Red Twenty-fifth Army has come up." Coming to the Shaanxi Ganluo River, the working people like it."
Although the Long March of the Red 25th Army was not as thrilling and eye-catching as the Long March of the Central Red Army, it independently persisted in the armed struggle, successively won victories in the battles of Guojiahe, Changlinggang, and Fushanzhai, and also retained the revolutionary flames, and created the Eyu-Shaanxi base area; in particular, in the course of the Long March, the Red Twenty-fifth Army, which fought in the Eyu-Anhui Border Region, faced the enemy's cruel encirclement and suppression under extremely difficult and difficult circumstances, the situation in the base areas was grim, and it also suffered heavy losses, the fiercest of which was the Battle of Yujiahe.
Yujiahe is the combination of Luonan, Shangxian and Shangnan counties, and in the depths of the dense forests of the mountains in Danfeng County, Yujiahe Street is a narrow street with a bend in the middle, resembling a ox yoke head, and at the top corner of this bend, a large-plate paved house stands on the street. When the Red 25th Army arrived that year, this was a medicine shop, the hall name "Chun Yongmao", due to the better terrain, the troops crossed the Python Ridge into the Yujiahe camp, and decided to convene a meeting first to create a revolutionary base area in Eyu and Shaanxi.
In order to mobilize the masses and do a good job in propaganda work, the Red 25th Army was responsible for engraving propaganda materials by Liu Huaqing, then chief of the Political Department Section, and to this day in the Yujiahe Memorial Hall, there are still precious handwritings of General Liu Huaqing, the main content of which is "What is the Red Army", and in plain language, it expounds the nature, purpose, tasks, and relevant policies of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, proposing that 'the Red Army is the army of workers and peasants, and the Red Army is an army under the command of the Soviet government.' This leaflet had a tremendous impact on the broad masses of the people in the new district and expanded the appeal of the Red Army.
Liu Huaqing, chief of the propaganda work section, actively propagated the Ideas of the Red Army among the masses, propagating propaganda wherever he went; slogans, slogans, and leaflets were everywhere on the walls, trees, and stones; he built up revolutionary confidence in propaganda and mobilizing the masses; in view of the characteristics of the rural masses with low level of education and little literacy, he wrote many revolutionary ballads, using them as weapons to unite the masses and crack down on the enemy, thus playing an important role in actively expanding the ranks of the Red Army.
Liu Huaqing, a poor peasant family in Liu Yuanyuan Village, Lüwang Town, Dawu, Hubei Province, once entered a private school when he was a child, and also entered a new school to study, and he had a relatively solid writing; when he joined the Red Army, the leaders of the Red Army asked him how well he wrote.
Indeed, Liu Huaqing's words are very beautiful, there is a strong feeling, in the use of pen to make a lot of ends, but also has a deep understanding, on the whole, both the breath of Yan Lu Gongxing's book, but also what Shaoji's pen meaning, the strength between the lines, let people fall in love at first sight, especially the experience of a different experience, is a combination of understanding and practical experience of the product, there is its unique side, there is a kind of bones hidden, pen and ink exudes an optimistic spirit and a clean and rigid momentum, Be able to see an attitude towards life, be positive and optimistic, and admire the words like others after appreciation.
It was also here that the Red 25th Army, while resting its troops, doing a good job of propaganda, and holding an important meeting, began the fiercest battle of the Long March. At this time, it was the middle of winter, the cold current was surging, the temperature was plummeting, the north wind was biting, it was chaotic and confused, and the Yujiahe Meeting of the Commanders and Fighters of the Red Army was in an intense process.
What people did not expect was that while the meeting was in progress, the 360th Regiment of the vanguard of the enemy's 60th Division followed and quickly seized the seven-mile shaded mountain beam of Yujiahe Street, and the enemy was commanding and swooped down on Yujiahe Street. The situation was urgent and the meeting was suspended. Deputy commander Xu Haidong first led a regiment to run, and the commander Cheng Zihua also led a regiment to follow closely. The battle began.
About 1 km north of the Yujia River, it is the Qiliyin Ridge. It turned out that the Red 25th Army had not yet had time to rest when it reached the Yujia River, and the enemy's large army chased after it. Because the Red 25th Army's outposts stationed at the East Mountain Pass of the Yujia River were overly tired, relaxed their guard, and failed to discover the enemy's situation in time, the enemy army seized the favorable terrain of the Mountain Beam of the Seven Mile Yinling Ridge at the beginning of the battle and launched a fierce attack on the Red Army.
Commander Cheng Zihua and deputy commander Xu Haidong led the troops to counterattack, launched a charge against the enemy, recaptured the Qiliyin Ridge East Mountain Pass, and follow-up troops rushed to coordinate to repulse the enemy. Although the victory was achieved, but this battle was very difficult, when the army commander Cheng Zihua took the lead in the charge, he was pierced by the enemy's heavy machine gun bullets in his hands, the arteries were broken, due to excessive bleeding, after which Cheng Zihua often fell into a coma, and this coma lasted for more than 2 months.
In this vicious battle, Xu Haidong was seriously injured and was hit by a bullet through the left side of his face. Cheng Zihua immediately asked the medical staff to treat him, and then he raised his telescope to observe the battle situation and command the battle. At this moment, the enemy army found his position and shot at here, Cheng Zihua could not dodge, both hands were hit by bullets again, and more seriously, the left wrist, which had been seriously injured twice, this time the arterial blood vessel was broken, and the blood flowed continuously.
Due to the poor medical conditions of the Red Army during the Long March, everyone could only boil cloth strips in salt water, stuff them into the wounds and pull them back and forth to wipe them, the hands of the military commander Cheng Zihua fell into a lifelong disability, the deputy commander Xu Haidong also fainted because of his injuries, he was carried to the temporary hospital by the soldiers, his cheek was pierced by a bullet! Penetrated from his left cheek and out of his right ear, fortunately, it did not stay in it, and Xu Haidong was also hanging in the balance.
The Red 25th Army won the fierce battle of Yujiahe, left the revolutionary base area of Eyuwan and took the lead in reaching northern Shaanxi, and successfully completed the historical mission of serving as an "advance team" entrusted by its superiors. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Cheng Zihua, the military commander, became an important leader, and the deputy military commander was awarded the founding general, while Liu Huaqing, the section chief in charge of propaganda work, later achieved greater achievements and became a leader at the level of the state.
In order to remember the history of the battle of Yujiahe, the locals built a four-corner pavilion in Yujiahe, and the monument stood in the middle of the four-corner pavilion, and two Red Army commanders were also placed on the stone stele here. Tell future generations about those glorious years.