In the period of the agrarian revolution, among the reactionary armies encountered by our heroic Red Army, it was the most ruthless, fierce and brutal, bloodthirsty, most animalistic army of Qinghai Ma Bufang Majia army, and the most numerous. Ma Jiajun, which originated in the grass and flourished in a chaotic world, the core power adopts the feudal succession method of father and son, brother and brother, and because the chief and important figures are all surnamed Ma, they are called "Ma JiaJun" by posterity, during the Republic of China period, this reactionary army was entrenched in the northwest region of Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai, plus its leading figure Ma Bufang advocated force, was bloodthirsty and murderous, and practiced cruel feudal rule over the local people, especially with extreme hatred for the Red Army and other progressive forces, and committed heinous crimes against the Western Route Army of our Red Army.
In November 1936, the Fifth, Ninth and Thirty Armies of our Red Army, with a total of 21,800 men, opened up international lines of communication, forcibly crossed the Yellow River, and entered the Hexi Corridor of Gansu province in order to cooperate with the ningxia combat plan of the main Red Army. However, because the Red Army was far away from the base areas and in a state of activity, coupled with the harsh natural environment, the lack of logistical supplies, and the encirclement and blockade of the Majia Army, which fought alone, after nearly half a year of bloody battles, due to the huge disparity in the strength of the enemy and ourselves, the corpses were full of snow, and finally because of the lack of ammunition and food, the Ma family army owed a heavy blood debt for the frenzied slaughter of the officers and men of the Western Route Army of the Red Army.
Still
This heroic Western Route Army of the Red Army has successively experienced the Battle of Gulang, the Battle of Gaotai, the Tug-of-War of the Ni Family Camp, and the sweeping of Liyuan Fort. In the absence of ammunition subsidies, no rescue, and lack of support, with strong revolutionary convictions, brave fighting spirit, and regard death as a homecoming, more than 200,000 or 300,000 enemy troops with strong firepower composed of aircraft, heavy artillery, and cavalry fought tenaciously for more than half a year, they preferred to die unyieldingly, thousands of Red Army soldiers stained the battlefield with blood, made heroic sacrifices, and wrote countless heroic deeds that can be sung and wept.
Participating in and directing all the Majia army to "encircle and suppress" the Western Route Army was a main regiment commander of the Majia Army, named Liu Chengde, who was a native of Hualong, Qinghai, born in 1903 (the twenty-ninth year of qing Guangxu), born in the army, and graduated from the Lanzhou Officers' Training Corps of the National Coalition Army. At first, he served as the commander of the non-commissioned officer teaching company of the 4th Mixed Brigade (brigade commander Ma Bufang) of the Gansu Army, and then the unit was renamed the non-commissioned officer teaching company of the 1st Provisional Division (division commander Ma Bufang) of the Nationalist Army, and still served as the commander of the major company, and the unit was expanded to the 1st Division (Division Commander Ma Bufang) of the Qinghai Army, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel battalion commander, and when the Red Army West Road Army entered the Hexi Corridor, he served as the 596th Regiment of the 298th Brigade (Brigade Commander Ma Bukang) of the 100th Division (and Division Commander Ma Bufang), still serving as the colonel regimental commander, and the main regiment.
At that time, the Red Army's Western Route Army occupied Yongchang Dongshilipu, where there were only a few dozen people, and Liu Chengde's regiment was the vanguard regiment that mainly attacked Dongshilipu. Liu Chengde said to the officers and men: "The commander has already become angry, saying that our regiment is not effective in combat!" This attack on the East Ten Mile Shop can only advance and cannot retreat, and violators of military law will be punished! He then ordered the first battalion to attack Yongchang East Pass along the north side of the road to prevent reinforcements from the Yongchang Red Army; the second battalion as the main battalion to attack the front of Shilipu; the seventh and eighth companies of the third battalion to attack the right bunker of Dongshilipu; and the ninth company as a reserve.
At the beginning of the battle, three more aircraft dropped bombs and strafed over the East Ten Mile Bunk, and some houses collapsed and caught fire. The fierce battle began, under the cover of aircraft, ma jiajun rushed into the east ten mile shop, killing people when they saw them, and grabbing things when they saw them. At this time, a regiment of the Red Ninth Army detoured from Dongzhuang back to the east side of Dongshilipu and surrounded the Majia Army in Dongshilipu, and the battle was extremely fierce.
Subsequently, Liu Chengde adopted the method of encircling in pieces and breaking through each one, and the Red West Road Army posed a huge threat, especially after the Red Army crossed Wuwei, the place occupied from Baba and Chenjiananzhuang in Yongchang County to the county seat of Shandan County, which was about 120 kilometers long and about 10 kilometers wide, and was a narrow and narrow Pingchuan River, located at the waist of the Hexi Corridor. In accordance with the instruction of the superiors on November 19 that "a consolidated base area should be established in the Yongchang, Ganzhou, Liangzhou, and Minqin areas," the Military and Political Committee of the Western Route Army decided to establish a base area centered on Yongchang and Shandan, so it scattered the troops in this area and formed a "long snake array." In this way, the troops were scattered and arranged, which just caused a fragmentary siege for the Ma family army, and each opportunity to break through, but he fell into a passive beating situation, and the Yongchang Battle Liu Chengde caused huge losses to the Western Route Army.
Relying on the superiority of cavalry, Liu Chengde pursued the Red Army in a thorough pursuit, and with superior strength, pursued the Red Army without cavalry assistance, and held on like a dog; although the Red Army marched day and night and walked in front, the Horse Army always followed closely, making the Red Army running and tired, making the Red Army have no time to rest, and even time for eating and resting was not easy to get. Sometimes the meal had just been prepared, and the horse bandit cavalry arrived, that is, they had to fight immediately. Some personnel and wounded and sick members of the headquarters of the Red West Road Army, as well as troops performing rear guard tasks, were chased by the cavalry of the Majia Army and sacrificed a lot. Such a scene has occurred countless times in various battlefields in the Hexi Corridor, and whenever this situation is encountered, the wounded and sick, women and organ personnel with the weakest self-defense ability are the most damaged.
Liu Chengde, the commander of the main regiment of the Ma Family Army, has always been tormented by a desire to stabilize his position and be promoted again, hoping to make meritorious contributions, even at the expense of his brain. Therefore, he also chased the remnants of the Red Army's Western Route Army particularly fiercely, and in Anxi, due to the wrong decision to attack the city, the remaining 850 people in the left detachment were pursued by The Majia Army's Liu Chengde Regiment.
At that time, Liu Chengde had been chasing more than 100 miles from Anxi City to the vicinity of Hongliu Garden. During this period of rapid marching, the Red Army also did not get a chance to rest and eat. Exhausted and thirsty, the Red Army soldiers fought and walked, more than 300 people died in the desert Gobi, more than 100 people were captured, and finally only about 400 people arrived in Xinjiang.
After Ma Bufang's so-called Battle of Hexi, he was rewarded for his merits, and Liu Chengde, as the main commander of the Majia Army who attacked the Red Army's Western Route Army, was naturally known for his outstanding military achievements, so he was promoted to chief of staff of major general of the 82nd Army (commander Ma Bufang), and also the chief of education of the Fifth Army and the Eighth Army Officer Training Corps (and regimental commander Ma Buqing).
Later, he was appointed director of the Qinghai Cotton Grain Administration Bureau and director of the Department of Education, and during the Liberation War, he was promoted to senior staff officer of Lieutenant General Ma Bufang of the Northwest Military and Political Chief's Office .D. Subsequently, when our people's liberation swept through the great southwest with the momentum of destruction and decay, and the Ma family army collapsed when it ascended, Liu Chengde saw that Ma Bufang's general trend was gone, so he surrendered to the People's Liberation Army in Xining, Qinghai, and later joined the plaster officer corps of the Qinghai Military Region to study.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Liu Chengde, as a meritorious person in the uprising, served as deputy secretary-general of Qinghai Province, was elected as a member of the Qinghai Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and was arrested and imprisoned for "counter-revolution" in October 1966, and died of illness in Xining Prison in Qinghai on February 18, 1974. Soon after, the Provincial High People's Court rehabilitated him. References for this article: Liu Chengde's memoir "My Experience in Blocking the Red Army in Hexi"