As we know, the Red Army's Long March originated from the defeat of the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, and there were many reasons for the defeat, which can be summed up in nothing more than two points: First, the enemy changed tactics and adopted the bastion doctrine of "advancing step by step, encircling layer by layer, and advancing step by step." At that time, the "left-leaning" leaders of the Red Army at that time silently abided by the rules of the front and used military dogmatism to start a passive defensive war of "using fortresses to divide troops and guard against the enemy outside the country's gates," which led to a war of attrition and heavy losses suffered by the Red Army. The second point was that the enemy was too strong, and at this time the most advanced weapons and equipment at that time were adopted, the most typical of which was the Battle of Huwan in Fuzhou, Jiangxi.
Huwan Battle Monument
At that time, the "left-leaning" leaders were anxious to recover Lichuan, the seat of the Soviet government of Fujian Province, which had been lost, and ordered the Red Third Army and the Red Seventh Army to attack Huwan near Fuzhou, and then retake the lost land in one fell swoop.
Lieutenant General Xu Tingyao of the Nationalist Army
At that time, the enemy stationed in Huwan was Xu Tingyao's Fourth Division, which was a Guangdong unit reorganized from the former Zhang Fakui's department, and its combat effectiveness was very strong. Xu Tingyao, formerly known as Qiyao, zi yuexiang, a native of the pioneer village of Kaicheng Town, Wuwei County, Anhui Province, he was the third infantry section of the Baoding Army Officer School, and after graduation, he went south to join the Guangdong Army.
After the battle began, in the face of the fierce attack of the Red Army, the enemy was not in a hurry, and soon they dispatched aircraft and armored vehicles to cooperate with the infantry, because the tanks had firing holes, they could form a mobile fire point, under the blockade of the enemy's dense fire net, the Red Army's attack was quickly blocked, and the casualties of the charge were very large, even if our machine gun company covered the infantry company on one side to cover the counterattack of the infantry company, and was violently shelled by the enemy, there were many casualties, although the organization of several counter-shocks, they failed to expel the enemy.
It turned out that the enemy's division was precisely an elite unit that had just been equipped, not only with armored vehicles and aircraft to assist in the battle, but also set up a radio communication platoon equipped with 15-watt radio stations, and established a radio communication squad equipped with 5-watt radio stations at the headquarters of infantry regiments, which constituted a radio communication system at the two levels of divisions and regiments. What was particularly surprising to the Red Army was that this division also had artillery companies, not only small artillery and mortars, but also howitzers and Krupp mountain guns, and once the fire of the war began, the Red Army could not lift its head.
Armored vehicles used in the Battle of Huwan
Our heroic Seventh Red Army has just been formed, and this unit was reorganized from the independent divisions and regiments of the local Red Army in northern Fujian, northwestern Fujian, and some of the border areas between Fujian and Gansu, and is the main force of the Central Red Army, which assumes the role of a strange force in the front and flank of the main battlefield of the Central Soviet Region and the Central Red Army.
However, when the enemy's armored vehicles attacked the Red Army positions as a precursor, the bullets fired by the machine guns and submachine guns did not work at all; these cadres who had always been born in guerrilla warfare, and the commanders and fighters known as "guerrilla fighters" had never experienced such a scene, and they were a little overwhelmed; in fact, they were not timid and afraid of the enemy, but did not go through this posture, and only watched their positions being occupied by the enemy.
As the saying goes, the soldiers and horses did not move, the grain and grass went first, and in the battle of Huwan, the enemy troops stationed here had long been prepared, and in the battle, they ate imported canned food and meat. Its food was a world apart from that of the Red Army. In order to fight this battle well, the Red Army carried forward the style of arduous struggle. At that time, such an incident circulated in Jinxi Huwan reflected the food situation of the Red Army from the side.
At that time, Huang Baochu, a farmer in Jinxi Langju Shangqiao Village, had two acres of radish fields, and that morning he came to the field to see, yesterday he was still full of green radish leaves, how did he disappear one night? Isn't it his own old eyes that he is dizzy and has not seen clearly? He wiped his eyes with his rough hands, and the turnips in the field were indeed gone. If the cow eats it, the cow eats the leaves, the radish is still growing in the soil, and the ration is still guaranteed. But when he looked closely, there were pits in the field one by one, not only without leaves, but also with no radishes, obviously plucked by someone. He slumped down on the field in frustration and looked at the radish field in a daze.
The poor farmer sat in the field for a while and cried, hoping that this turnip would be exchanged for some oil and salt money, and the family would survive the famine, not expecting to disappear overnight. At this moment, the sun was rising from the east, and suddenly something in the field shone in the sunlight, and his eyes were shining. On closer inspection, it turned out to be several copper plates. How can there be copper plates in the field? He looked around as he thought. "Oops! The fields are full of copper plates! He cried out in delight. It turned out that there were different numbers of copper plates in the turnip pits, and the fields were full of grass shoe footprints.
With surprise and joy, Huang Baochu picked up the copper plates in the radish pit one by one, took off his coat and carefully wrapped them. After inquiring about it afterwards, I learned that it was precisely the Red Seventh Army led by Xiao Jinguang who was ordered to set up a position in the area of Huwan Octagonal Pavilion, and some of the Red Army rushed to Shangwei Village, which was not far from the position, late at night and camped near the village. At this time, the Soldiers of the Red Army had not eaten for a day, were hungry and thirsty, and were very tired, so they had to pull out the radishes of Huang Baochu's house to fill their hunger. Because it is inconvenient to find the owner of the household late at night, many copper plates are placed in the radish pit as money to buy turnips. Huang Baochu carried a copper plate far beyond the value of two acres of radishes, and was moved to tears. On the way home, he chanted as he walked, "Good man! The Red Army is really a rare good man in the world! ”
Although they ate turnips and carried rifles, our heroic officers and men of the Red Army, faced with the rampant attack of a strong enemy armed to the teeth, had no fear and fought tenaciously; some Of the Red Army soldiers ran out of bullets, the enemy occupied the Red Army positions, and began to divide and encircle the fighters and took up the dangling knives and engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, and the guerrillas who served as rescuers also joined the fighters in slashing and smashing stones with large knives, and when the big stones were thrown, they threw the cobblestones and launched a final struggle with the enemy. The fifteen-year-old trumpeter put down his rice bag and the kettle, grabbed the remaining two grenades and rushed into the enemy group... Unfortunately, after two days and one night of fierce fighting, our army suffered a lot of casualties, and Huwan was not conquered, so we had to withdraw from the battle.
After the defeat in the Battle of Huwan, the "left-leaning" leaders of the Red Army did not learn lessons from their defeats, sum up experience, and change the offensive line of adventurism, but listened to different opinions and began to wage a brutal struggle against comrades who had raised different opinions and dealt a ruthless blow. At that time, Xiao Jinguang, the political commissar of the Seventh Red Army, disagreed with this campaign, and was held accountable as a commander of the troops, dismissed from his post, expelled from the party, and handed over to trial, and then sentenced to five years in prison. At the same time, it was Mai Nongben, the political commissar of the Fourteenth Regiment of the Fifth Red Division, who was subsequently executed.
Monument to the Martyrs of Manonburn
Xiao Jinguang we know that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was awarded the founding general, and this time he was released after only one month of detention and sent to the Red Army University as a teacher. Mai Nongben, a native of Jinling Village, a western suburb of Nanning, Guangxi, participated in the Baise Uprising, served as an instructor of the Second Battalion of the Second Column of the Red Seventh Army, and accompanied the army on an expedition north after the reorganization of Hechi, which was later known as the "Little Long March". It lasted nearly 9 months, traveled 7,000 miles, experienced more than 100 large and small battles, broke the enemy's encirclement, pursuit, blockade, and interception, and overcame various difficulties. Arrived at the Jiangxi Central Revolutionary Base Area to meet the Central Red Army Division, merged into the Red Third Army Corps as the regimental political commissar, and mistakenly killed and died in this battle.
History has proved that the defeat in the Battle of Huwan had nothing to do with the commanders and fighters in specific operations, and was entirely caused by the erroneous military line of "left-leaning" adventurism. In 1945, the central government rehabilitated Mai Nongben, who was posthumously recognized as a martyr and built the Mai Nongben Martyrs' Tomb in his hometown.
General Huang Kecheng, who later took part in the Battle of Huwan, recalled that the most painful battle of this battle was fought in a nest, and some commanders and fighters who were originally brave and good at war were also accused, and even sacrificed their lives.