In a place called Chi'an Village, there stands a memorial hall of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army that is known as the "former residence of the hero" by posterity.
Walking into the memorial hall of the 129th Division, the first thing that catches the eye is the statue of the core leaders of the six 129th Division, one of whom is Cai Shufan, director of the Political Department of the 129th Division, who always stands here and looks ahead, making people feel that in the midst of thousands of troops and horses, strategizing, and winning a decisive victory thousands of miles away.
We know that among the six division-level cadres of the 129th Division, two were awarded marshals, one was awarded to generals, and two became founding fathers after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and only one Cai Shufan was slightly less famous than these five, and did not award military ranks.
Cai Shufan was born in 1905 to a poor peasant family in Gongjia Xiaoling, Caidian Town, Hanyang (present-day Caidian District), Hubei Province. In 1917, he transferred from a private school to the Caidian Town National Primary School, but eventually dropped out of school due to his family's poverty. In 1920, he was brought to Jiangxi by gaoshoulin miners, worked as a child laborer in the Anyuan coal mine, and was later elected as a representative of the Anyuan coal miners club, then joined the party organization, participated in underground work, was arrested and imprisoned, and after being rescued by the organization, went to Moscow in the Soviet Union to study.
After returning from studying in the Soviet Union, Cai Shufan transferred to Shanghai to the central revolutionary base area in the Gannan area of Jiangxi Province, where he successively served as propaganda director, political commissar of the Red 22nd Army, and political commissar of the 1st Division of the Red First Army. After much deliberation, he decided to saw off his injured arm. Hospital leaders and doctors found it difficult to treat conservatively, decided to respect his opinion, and he became a one-armed general.
Although he lost an arm, Cai Shufan's combat effectiveness on the battlefield was not affected at all, on October 28, 1933, the Red Ninth Army was established, Cai Shufan was appointed by his superiors as the political commissar of the Red Ninth Army, at this time, the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" operation in the Central Soviet Region was in full swing, he and the regimental commander Luo Binghui, often cooperated with the Red First and Red Three Main Forces, was a mobile unit, lean personnel, lightly armed, flexible, and had completed many amazing combat missions alone, such as the Guangchang Solid Defense Battle, The Jigongshan garrison counterattack battle, the two into the East to fight, the Jinhua Mountain defense battle, and so on, again and again brilliantly completed the combat tasks, the Red Ninth Army adopted the tactic of fighting sports warfare and leading the "bull's nose", won many victories, was highly praised by the superior leaders, and was praised as the glorious title of "strategic cavalry".
In early July 1934, on the eve of the Long March of the Red Army, the Red Seventh Army was named the "Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Anti-Japanese Advance Team In the North" and began to move eastward from the northwest region of Ninghua, Fujian Province, an important task of the Red Ninth Army was to cover the Red Seventh Army, Cai Shufan led his troops to move to Shicheng, through Ninghua and Qingliu to Yong'an, to take over the Red Seventh Army to surround the enemy in Yong'an, to cover the Red Seventh Army's smooth passage through the enemy's defense line, withdraw from the siege of Yong'an, advance to Youxi, occupy the important town of Zhanghu along the Minjiang River and launch an offensive along the river, In order to ensure that the Red Seventh Army continued to advance, the Red Seventh Army successfully crossed the Minjiang River, and in one fell swoop defeated the enemy from Fuzhou to the north smoothly, successfully completed the task given by the Central Military Commission to escort the Seventh Army out of the expedition, and returned to the Soviet area.
The Red Ninth Army led by Cai Shufan and regimental commander Luo Binghui returned to the Soviet area after successfully completing the escort task, and the troops had time to rest in the future, so they were ordered to throw themselves into the famous "Songmaoling Defense War", which is a big mountain in the southeast of Changting, which runs more than 40 kilometers from south to north and 15 kilometers wide from east to west. Therefore, at that time, in the minds of those who insisted on fighting positions, defending Songmaoling was to defend Tingzhou and defend Ruijin!
Cai Shufan commanded the Red Ninth Army and the Red Twenty-fourth Division to deploy heavy troops at the two points of Jinhua Mountain, and built a strong fortification bunker, which was condescending and waited in a strict position. In addition, careful arrangements have been made on several other peaks. Large and small strongholds form a firepower intersection. There were communication trenches dug between the main strongholds in the positions, which were connected to each other. Outer trenches were dug in front of the positions, and deer or bamboo nails were used as obstacles. The main position led to the front of the first line of high ground, and relatively simple fortifications were also built, as a position for the Advance of the Red Army or as a position of vigilance. This blockade battle dealt a fierce blow to the invading enemy and covered the long march of the main Red Army.
Subsequently, the Red Ninth Army was ordered to set out from Zhongwu Village (present-day Zhongfu Village) to Tingzhou and move west. In order to prevent the enemy from following after the Red Army was transferred, and to help the villagers do a good job of clearing the field, the Red Ninth Army distributed more than 300 guns and boxes of bullets to the Red Guard Model Company and the Young Pioneers in Zhongwu Village on the spot. At 3 p.m. on the same day, the Red Ninth Army divided into two routes and began a major strategic transfer. Since then, the Red Ninth Army, under the leadership of its commander Luo Binghui and political commissar Cai Shufan, has left the central revolutionary base area and embarked on a long 25,000-mile long march.
The Red Ninth Army embarked on the Long March, with the Red I Corps on the right side, following behind the Red I Corps, covering the central column. Fighting the Xiang River in blood, covering the safe crossing of the main Red Army, the Red Ninth Army suffered most of the casualties and was forced to reduce the original two divisions to 3 regiments. After galloping on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan, entering Umeng, taking Yungui, Occupying Xuancheng, attacking Huize, experiencing hardships, and assembling divisions, and then according to the decision of the superiors, the Red 9th Army was renamed the 32nd Army, fulfilling its sacred historical mission and making great achievements.
After the Red Army's Long March arrived in northern Shaanxi, Cai Shufan successively served as minister of internal affairs and political commissar of the 30th Army, when Edgar Snow, the author of "Journey to the West", interviewed Cai Shufan in northern Shaanxi and praised him as "a very interesting, very cute, and handsome young man with a clever mind, easy to be impulsive, good at rhetoric, and funny." ”
At the same time, in the book, it is said that Cai Shufan's biggest hobby is sports, he likes to play tennis very much, and he plays in his spare time, and the book has the following description: the court is full of stones, saving the emergency ball is very dangerous, but the ball is still very intense. Later, another reporter interviewed Cai Shufan and asked him what difficulties he had in life. Cai Shufan said wittily: "I will use my one-armed horseback, play tennis, cross the river, I can calmly write letters and hold chopsticks." However, losing the left arm, leaving the balance point slightly, and deflecting to the right will..."
"Continuing westward journey" wrote: I first met him on the tennis court, amazed at his way of playing with nets. He curled up in a jumping back-and-forth posture, and not a single ball had ever escaped his net shot. The ball will come at lightning speed and is landing where he knows you can't catch it.
Cai Shufan was a fierce general when he fought, becoming a senior general in the Red Army, the Eighth Route Army, and the People's Liberation Army, and he was also a master of horseback riding, swimming, tennis, basketball, etc. Perhaps it is precisely because of his unique talent in sports that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Cai Shufan left the army and transferred to local work as the deputy director of the sports committee, and the director was Mr. He.
Cai Shufan has a lot of achievements in the sports front, assisting Mr. Saga to preside over the daily work of the sports committee. In order to improve the level of competitive sports, holidays and Sundays are often used to visit athletes in training grounds and dormitories, talk to athletes, and solve their problems in training and life in a timely manner.
More importantly, competitive sports need good seedlings, so wherever Cai Shufan goes, he has to choose big athletes, for a while, he was obsessed with picking basketball players, sometimes he took the bus to find a tall man, walked to the sidewalk or the store, he did not buy something, but to see who was tall. At the same time, if you find a tall child, whether it is a man or a woman, you must follow it, and ask people's units, names, ages, and whether they love to play. He did cultivate a large number of talents for the sports industry in New China.
It is precisely because Cai Shufan loves sports for ten minutes, even in 1955, when the title was awarded, according to general logic, the military rank is a symbol of military status and honor, Cai Shufan on seniority, can not say not deep, on the merits, can not say not outstanding, awarded will be more than enough. But he was able to ignore fame and fortune, laugh at gains and losses, take the initiative to give up the title, and set a benchmark and an example. For the sports career he likes, why should he be a hero, and he is willing to serve the country for a long time and become a "general without title".
On October 17, 1958, three years after the all-army rank was awarded, Cai Shufan served as deputy head of the regiment on a friendly visit to a foreign country, and was killed in a plane crash at the age of 53. Later, there is a monument to the martyrs of cai Shufan's death to commemorate the great achievements of this senior general of the revolutionary war years and the founder of the new Chinese sports cause.