As we know, when the Central Red Army embarked on a twenty-five-thousand-mile long march from the southern Fujian area of Gannan and western Fujian, it was precisely because of the Red Army's fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" defeat in the Soviet zone, mainly because of the erroneous military line to implement the so-called "fortress-to-fortress" and "short assault" combat methods, resulting in heavy losses of the Red Army.
Of course, this is the environment of the entire base area, in fact, some areas have still achieved certain results, the most famous of which is that more than a month before the Long March, a battle was fought in Wenfang Village (now known as Wenfang Village) in Pengkou, Liancheng, Fujian Province, and the Red Army won a major victory, destroying more than 2,000 enemy troops, capturing 2,400 enemy troops, and capturing various guns and artillery, with a total of more than 1,800 guns and 440,000 rounds of ammunition. It can be said that the Battle of Wenfang was not only the only large-scale annihilation war in the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, but also a major battle to replenish the weapons and equipment of the Red Army.
At that time, a column of the enemy's Eastern Route Army, with a total of four divisions and nineteen regiments, was not only well-armed and equipped, but also very experienced in combat, and was an authentic concubine unit; they had no one in sight, despised the Red Army, thought that the speed of advance of the fortress as a battalion was too slow, and that it was necessary to make a rapid and urgent attack, and sometimes they could advance dozens of miles a day, without any regard for the strength of the Red Army. When the commanders and fighters of the Red Army learned of this situation, they decided to lure the enemy deeper, so as to carry out mobile warfare and use the advantage of terrain to annihilate the enemy. To this end, it was decided to ambush the enemy in the area of Wenfang, the only way for the enemy to attack the Central Soviet Area.
Wenfang Village, located in the southeast direction of Changting in western Fujian, only more than 20 miles away from Nanyang in Shanghang, about 60 miles to Changting Tufang, and 20 miles to Xinquan Town, the geographical location is important, the mountains are high and densely forested, and it is located in the remote area, which is convenient for concealment. There is a mountain in the village called Yuandongzi, standing on the top of the mountain can look around dozens of miles away, which is convenient for observation and transfer, as a contact point and a red village. The Red Army planned to ambush the enemy at Wenfang, but how could it lure the enemy to this place?
In fact, only a part of the Red Army's troops were evacuated at that time; during the period of assembly and standby, the Red Army paid great attention to concealment and secrecy, and adopted various strict measures to block the news; not only were sentries at large and small intersections, and no one was allowed to go in the direction of the enemy, but also those who came from the enemy's direction were detained.
In order to convince the enemy that the main force of the Red First Army has been so-called "fleeing by the wind", during this period the troops got up every day in the middle of the night, marched more than ten miles, and arrived at the place where the enemy was scheduled to be annihilated before dawn, and then entered the position and hid in the dense forest of the mountains, although the woods on the mountains were very wet and dark, and rarely saw the sun, in order to win the battle, the troops insisted on practicing under such difficult conditions, they were not allowed to light fires and cook during the day, and when they were hungry, they could only eat the cold rice balls they brought, and when they were thirsty, they drank the mountain spring water on the mountain. Until dusk and dark, the station was withdrawn, and the time was ten days and a half months.
At that time, the life of the Red Army was very difficult, because the Kuomintang army strictly sealed the base areas, most of the troops were short of salt and oil, sometimes they could not even eat green vegetables, let alone see the taste of meat, most of the time, every day, they could only boil the dried bamboo shoots and boil them, put a little oil and salt to eat, every day they had to go out early and return late, they could only sleep for a few hours a day, and they had to march for dozens of miles.
However, even though the Red Army persisted every day, the enemy was still not deceived, did not enter the ambush circle, and could not fight at all, and some grass-roots commanders had feelings of complaining, saying that they had never fought such a battle, and they were guilty of doing so, and even the leaders of the larger point could only tell everyone to be patient and not to be anxious! Believe that a short attack can win a battle! Keep it a secret and don't expose the target and so on.
As the saying goes, kung fu pays off. After a long time, when they saw that the Red Army did not move, the enemy began to take the bait, and they really mistakenly thought that the large troops of the Red First Army had withdrawn, and then, after sending reconnaissance units several reconnaissances, even including aircraft reconnaissance, they never found any trace of the large red army troops, and finally began to make large-scale dispatches.
At this time, despite the enemy's large-scale dispatch, after they entered the Wenfang territory, the commander looked at the mountains on both sides, and he was frightened by the ambush, he ordered the construction of fortifications to resist the red army's surprise attack, and ordered the large troops to be dispersed to prevent them from being piled together by the Red Army.
Of course, the so-called "magic is one foot high, the road is one foot high", the battle is to fight wits and courage, our Red Army commanders and fighters saw that the enemy's defensive mentality is very heavy, so they let the independent 24 disguised as local troops, and also began to build fortifications in the Wenfang boundary, posing as a "fortress to the fortress" posture, pretending to be stubborn resistance, so as to attract the enemy to attack, once engaged, the independent 24th Division was obviously in the inferior position, did not dare to "love the war", withdrew from the defensive area, and began to withdraw to the east, which made the enemy mistakenly think that it was repelled by its own military strength. He took advantage of the victory to pursue and continued to advance.
At this time, the enemy was overwhelmed by the victory, and naively thought that the large troops had all withdrawn, and naturally he was full of enthusiasm, bent on being able to eliminate all the local forces of the remaining Red Army, so that he could make a head-to-head contribution, so that the strength of a brigade immediately rushed to Wenfang, hoping to clear the remaining Red Army.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy army began to enter the ambush area where the Red Army was scheduled to annihilate the enemy, only to listen to the order of the red army commander, the charge horn sounded, the red second division attacked from the north mountain, the red first division attacked from the south mountain, and cut off the enemy's retreat back to Wenfang, the Red Army pressed down the mountain with the momentum of overwhelming the sea, the offensive of all roads was very fierce, and in less than an hour, the enemy retreated in its entirety, and all but one battalion of the brigade that entered the ambush circle of the Red Army was annihilated.
There is an idiom called the lesson of the former car, which means to overturn the front car, the back car ring, learn the lesson of the car in front of the overturn, the previous failure, can be used as a lesson in the future, to be vigilant against making the same mistake again. The commander of the enemy division, who had annihilated thousands of people by the Red Army, was very unconvinced, and did not believe in this evil, believing that the Red Army would definitely move quickly if it got this bargain, and that if it wanted to advance, it would have to pass through Wenfang, and bring a brigade of troops to retaliate, and as a result, the Red Army annihilated most of the enemy and broke the common sense of "victory is no return."
As soon as the enemy entered Wenfang, the Red Army attacked quickly, and the enemy panicked, because the number of the Red Army was not known, so it was more frightened, scattered and fled, and when the enemy's large troops came to the rescue, the Red Army soldiers and their captured booty withdrew in an orderly manner. In both battles of Wenfang, the Red Army won a huge victory with few casualties. For the Red Army, which was short of materials, the guns, ammunition and medical medicines captured this time were all sent in the snow, just as the commanders and fighters said, "After a year of hard fighting, this battle can be supplemented." "
After the great victory of the Red Army's Wenfang, Chen Guang, commander of the Red Second Division, and Liu Yalou, political commissar, who had made meritorious achievements in battle, commended Li Miaobao, commander of the Second Regiment of the Red First Division, and Liu Fake, political commissar of the regiment, for failing to resolutely carry out the regimental orders, for fear of being caught between the enemy on both sides, did not dare to command the troops to enter the position, and did not decisively insert themselves between the two enemies, causing a small part of the enemy army to escape, and announced the dismissal of the two of them. Li Miaobao, who had changed from regimental commander to a soldier of the Red Army, was so sad that he shed tears, and in the second Battle of Wenfang, Li Miaobao bravely took the lead in the pursuit and unfortunately died heroically.
Li Miaobao, a native of Jishui, Jiangxi. He joined the Red Army in 1930 and subsequently joined the Communist Party. He served as a squad leader, platoon leader and company commander of the Red 3rd Army, and a battalion commander and regimental commander of the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Division of the Red 1st Army. He participated in the successive anti-"encirclement and suppression" struggles in the Central Soviet Region. In early September 1934, he was dismissed from his post and died after a mistake in the command of the Wenfang battle, and in 1945 he was posthumously recognized as a revolutionary martyr.
The great victory in Wenfang was only the fifth partial victory of the Red Army against "encirclement and suppression" and did not fundamentally change the pattern of defeat, and more than a month later, the main force of the Central Red Army still began the arduous Long March.