After a short rest in Astrakhan, Bao Qisan accepted a new task. On March 10, 1919, a rebellion broke out in Astrakhan, a joint rebellion by the local bourgeoisie, Cossacks, and subversive organizations of the White Army, which was quelled by the Chinese detachment within a few days. At the Astrakhan Pier, however, several Chinese fighters were killed in clashes with rebels several times their size. Among them, the warrior Liu Falie vowed not to surrender to the rebels and shot the last bullet into his heart...
At this time, the Chinese detachment was severely attrition. Although about thirty Chinese fishery workers and port stevedores were added, the problem was not fundamentally resolved. At Astrakhan, they were reorganized with another Chinese force into an independent Chinese company directly under the headquarters of the Thirty-third Division. On 1 May 1919, the company marched to the Front line on the Don River. After the liberation of the Don region, they moved to the Kuban.
The communist detachment of Astrakhan before the expedition
Around the summer of 1920, the Chinese Company was again expanded into the Chinese Battalion, becoming the Tenth Oriental International Battalion of the Caucasus Labor Army, with Bao Qisan as the battalion commander. Two years ago, Bao Qisan led the Chinese detachment to fight the White Army in Grozny for 100 days, and now they have returned to support the "oil city" that has returned to the hands of the Soviet regime. At that time, the resumption of oil production and transportation had to be organized immediately, but the five oil wells here had been burning since they were destroyed by the enemy at the end of 1917 and had been burning for two and a half years by 1920.
In order to complete the writing of "Comrade Chinese Soldiers", Novogorutsky and Dunayevsky paid a special visit to Ambarzumov, an old oil worker in Grozny, who is more than seventy years old. Nearly forty years later, the old man clearly remembers seeing a small detachment of the Chinese Red Army in the labor force of the oil quarry, and one of the commanders spoke Russian very well, very heroically, quickly, and with great brains. Together, they managed to extinguish the oilfield fires.
After completing its mission in the Grozny oil field in February 1921, the International Battalion returned to the Vladikavkaz, penetrated deep into the mountains, and cleared the remnants of Denikin and Wrangel's forces. Due to the arduous task and the lack of fighters in the International Battalion, Bao Qisan took a soldier from Grozny directly to Georgia, which had just been liberated from Menshevik rule, where Chinese workers carried out propaganda. After the call, more than one hundred and fifty Chinese workers joined the Red Army. In the spring of that year, Bao Qisan returned to the Vladikavkaz With his fighters and formed the Cheka First Chinese Independent Detachment in the newly formed North Caucasus MountainOus Soviet Socialist Autonomous Republic, which he once again served as its captain. Bao Qisan led this team to wage an unremitting struggle against the bandits in the mountains of the North Caucasus, making an important contribution to the consolidation of local Soviet power.
Oil painting: Red Army Cavalry in the Russian Civil War
The Soviet government of the Mountain Republic gave high praise to Bao Qisan and the Chinese detachment in the appraisal:
Although the detachment under the command of Bao Qisan was not guaranteed materials, far from the rear, and suffered from hunger and cold, it had no complaints and completed countless combat missions in the mountains of the North Caucasus. Whether it is the annihilation of scattered bandits or the fight against well-equipped white bandits, they are models of true internationalist fighters and loyal defenders of the rights of working people.
In early January 1922, the team received its last assignment on the southern front of the Russian Civil War to Rostov-sur-Don, the capital of the Rostov region. At that time, the White Army, anarchists and criminals of all stripes were unscrupulous and intimidated the citizens in droves. When night falls, the residents are terrified. One night, arrogant bandits pulled up banners between two buildings in the downtown square that read, "Morning is yours, evening belongs to us." At Bao's suggestion, martial law was imposed throughout the city, and Chinese detachments took turns patrolling. They were given the power to shoot at the attackers on the spot in the streets. About two months later, calm and order were restored in Rostov-on-Don.
The Russian civil war masters Yakil, Budyonny and Tukhachevsky
With the civil war basically over, Soviet Russia entered a period of peaceful labor and the restoration of the national economy. In March 1922, the Chinese detachment received an order to disband. Some of the soldiers hope to stay and participate in the construction, and some are ready to return home. Later, some returned to their homeland as they wished; others were demobilized and scattered in Vladikavkaz, Nalchik, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Baku, Kharkov, Vladivostok, Samarkand and other places. For example, Yang Xinxiang later remained in Vladikavkaz (the city was renamed Ordzhonikidze during the Soviet era) and retired in 1936 and lived in a nursing home in the city until his death on April 23, 1952. Song Chishan chose to live in Vladivostok, where he became a police officer and was eventually promoted to captain.
Military operations in Central Asia from September 1919 to 1922
Bao Qisan was again entrusted with the task of leading nine fighters to Samarkand, now in the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan. Over the next two years, he commanded a battalion of Muslim cavalry and fought dozens of battles against the Basmachi bandits, the enemy of the Soviet regime. In May 1923, he was recalled to Moscow. Before leaving, in recognition of his exploits, the Revolutionary Committee of the City of Samarkand presented him with a gold watch inscribed with the inscription "Tribute to Comrade Bao Qisan, a heroic defender of the Soviet power of the Workers' and Peasants' Union, who played a major role in the battle against the Basmaqui bandits - Presidium of the Revolutionary Committee of the City of Samarkand". For his outstanding achievements in Central Asia, Bao Qisan was awarded the "Order of the Red Banner".
Samarkand in the 1920s
Samarkand, a historic city in Central Asia. More than 70 years ago, Novogrutsky and Dunayevsky visited there. Providing them with clues is Bao Qisan's daughter in Russia. While in the Vladikavkaz, Bao married the Russian girl Yevgenia Barayeva, the sister of the Chinese battalion commissar Bogdan Barayev. The wife came to Samarkand with Bao Qisan and made her home there, having a lovely daughter. When Bao was recalled to Moscow, the mother and daughter remained in Samarkand. After the daughter got married, she moved with her mother to the outskirts of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation).
In Samarkand, in order to apply for a pension, Barayeva handed over all the documents on hand to the Samarkand Municipal Social Security Section, including letters of appointment, passes, awards and dispatch orders. The two writers followed this clue and found a file of information about Bao Qisan in the Social Security Section. As a result, many of the hero's experiences are finally logically connected.
Archives of documents about the activities of The Three Insay in Samarkand
Before leaving Central Asia, Bao Qisan's life history and combat experience were basically complete and clear. However, after he left Central Asia, the account of him came to an abrupt end. Since then, very different accounts have emerged, adding mystery to this legendary hero of the Russian Civil War.
The Russian social group "Memory" published the three biographies and photos of bao Qi
Theory one: The wife and daughter in Russia know nothing about what happened after 1923. They received the news that Bao Qisan returned to his homeland in 1924 and died in the revolutionary war that followed. Makoev, the author of the article "Red Army Commander Bao Qisan and His Fearless Troops", also said that Bao Qisan returned to China after the (Soviet) Civil War, led a unit of the Chinese Red Army, and finally died on the battlefield - and when and where it is impossible to verify, "Perhaps, the comrades of the Chinese People's Liberation Army can help us understand the fate of Bao Qisan after returning to China." Russia's North Ossetia newspaper said: "... It is only known that Koska (Bao Qisan) later spent time in China. ”
Theory 2: Between 2004 and 2005, Chinese media reported that Bao Qisan was Yang Zhuo, a former major general on the supervisory board of the Middle East Railway Company and later killed by the warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1924. At that time, Yang Zhuo's grandson Yang Gang published a book in 2005 entitled "Family Death - The Mystery of The Diplomatic Affairs of Feng Russia and the Yang Zhuo Incident in Harbin" based on historical materials, and believed that the third part of the package was Yang Zhuo. According to the book, in early 1927, the warlord Zhang Zuolin suddenly executed Yang Zhuo, a major general supervisor of the Middle East Railway Company and an adviser to his Soviet affairs before his death, on charges of "communicating with Russia." Yang Zhuo, a famous "Russian master" of China's three eastern provinces, was killed, and the shock was great. At that time, the official refused to give a specific explanation for this, and the "Yang Zhuo Incident" became a historical unsolved case. In 2005, Zhao Chengwen, a professor at the China Criminal Police Academy, used criminal physiognomy to identify historical photographs of the two men and convicted Yang Zhuo and Bao Qi of the same person. In the same year, the descendants of Bao Qishan and Yang Zhuo also got in touch and met in Riga, the capital of Latvia, in March 2008.
Bao Qisan and Yang Zhuo
Statement 3: In 2005, the Russian social group "Memory" and the Russian Presidential Archives jointly compiled and published a number of declassified archives, namely the "list of executions signed by members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of The Communist Party (Brazzaville)", of which "Пау-Ти-Сан" (Bao Qisan) is one of them. After the name, there are only a few simple lines of text:
Born in 1887 in China, Chinese nationality, member of the United Communist Party (Brazzaville). Translator of the Joint Commander School of Kiev. The residence is Room 20, 9 Sovetskaya Street, Moscow. He was arrested on 10 November 1925. On April 19, 1926, he was sentenced to death by the General Directorate of State Political Protection of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (GEBEU) for "counter-revolutionary terrorist activities". On April 23, 1926, he was shot and killed at Yuzkaya Hospital. Buried in Moscow. On 18 October 1991, he was rehabilitated in accordance with the Act of the Russian Federation on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression.
The main entrance of the 23rd Clinical Hospital in Moscow
In search of the "end" of Bao's life, I came to the Yuzkaya Hospital on the hills of Skovia in Moscow one afternoon in the early winter, now called the Twenty-third Clinical Hospital. From 1918 onwards, the hospital was owned by the "GEBEU". At that time, it not only treated the Cheka people, but also undertook the task of secretly executing prisoners. According to statistics, from 1921 to 1926, a total of 969 people were executed and buried here. Entering the courtyard, I saw a memorial stone to the "Political Persecutors" erected in 1999. The commemorative plaque is inscribed alphabetically with the names of one hundred and three victims, and Пау-Ти-Сан – Bao Qisan's name appears prominently in the eighteenth place in the second column.
The "Political Persecutors" memorial stone and plaque erected in 1999
Throughout the follow-up process, I became more and more inclined to judge that the so-called "verdict" was actually just a blind spot, and that Bao Qisan was actually secretly sent back to China for a mission. The North Ossetia newspaper said: "The material on This aspect of Kosca may still be marked as 'secret' and kept in the Federal Archives ... Most likely dispatched by Soviet intelligence. Moreover, if Bao Qisan was sentenced to death by the Soviet government for "counter-revolutionary terrorist activities" and was only "rehabilitated" in 1991, how could the two previous writers and journalists of "Comrade Chinese Fighters" and "Following in the Footsteps of Bao Qisan" have been so high-profile propaganda in the 1950s and 1960s? From the process of pursuing the "Mystery of the Chinese Legion of the Soviet Red Army", I have learned the rigor of the management of the archives of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union and Russia, and the richness of archival materials, and it is obvious that how can two people with official Soviet backgrounds know nothing about the fact that Bao Qisan was "executed"?! Of course, leaning toward this conclusion also reflects a kind of wish in my heart that the hero ends and should be on the battlefield.
As for The descendants of Bao Qisan in the Soviet Union, he was not implicated in his so-called "crime of counter-revolutionary terrorist activities". Bao Qisan and Evgenia's daughter Joegliano, with black hair, looks exactly like her father. She graduated from the Medical University and married Igor Sibiriakov, a naval sailor and later second-class captain, and had two daughters, Galina and Ella. In the 1950s, their family moved from Central Asia back to the Volga River, to Gorky...
It is gratifying that today's Russians have not forgotten Bao Qisan and his Chinese battalion. In the Vladikavkaz, where Bao Qisan and his comrades fought, many people go to the monument built in April 1960 every year to pay homage to the memorial; in 2018, the centenary of the Chinese battalion, the North Ossetian newspaper in the North Caucasus introduced the internationalist fighters from China to future generations in January and April with the titles of "Tiger from China" and "Pack Three Pipes"...
Text/Han Xianyang
Source of material / Han Xianyang
Editor-in-Charge/Lin Feng
Editors/Senri, Hagrid
Illustration/Thousand Miles
Co-ordinator/Souther
Source: Broken Circle