In the arduous and extremely difficult environment of struggle during the revolutionary war years, the vast majority of the people were determined, but there were also a few whose motives were impure and wanted to retreat when they encountered difficulties. In accordance with the influence of the "left-leaning" ideology, the Red 25th Army suffered heavy losses in the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, and some officers and men were shaken in their thinking, and Zhou Xiyuan, commander of the 75th Division, was one of them.
The 25th Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army was a revolutionary armed force reorganized in November 1932 after the main force of the Red Fourth Front army withdrew from the Eyu-Anhui base area.
In October 1932, the Fourth Front Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army withdrew from the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region due to the frenzied "encirclement and suppression" of the Kuomintang army, leaving the first part of the 25th Army and the local armed forces to persist in the struggle in the revolutionary base areas on the Eyu-Anhui border. At that time, the remaining units were the Special Service Battalion of the Army, the 223rd and 224th Regiments of the 75th Division, the 3 regiments of the 27th Division, and the two newly formed regiments of the local Red Armed Forces, plus the guerrillas and independent regiments in the counties, as well as a large number of wounded and sick of the Red Army, with a total number of about 20,000 people.
A company flag of the Red 25th Army
In November, the Red 25th Army was reorganized again because of the heavy losses in several fierce battles with the enemy, at this time the commander was Wu Huanxian, the political commissar was Wang Pingzhang, and the two division commanders were Yao Jiafang and Xu Haidong, with a total number of about 7,000 people. In 1933, the policy of "winning the first victory in one and several provinces" pursued by the Provisional Central Bureau also affected such a small red army that was struggling to survive. The Eyu-Anhui Provincial Party Committee demanded that the Red 25th Army "carry out a large-scale counteroffensive against the enemy to retake the central city." And in the poor countryside and remote areas on the border between Hubei and Henan, where is the "central city"? The Eyu-Anhui Provincial Party Committee has selected several targets, including county towns and market towns such as Huang'an and Qiliping.
Seven Mile Ping today
Qiliping, a market town in northeastern Hubei about twenty kilometers from the county seat of Huang'an.
The attack on Qiliping was a disaster for the Red 25th Army.
It was the early spring when there was no food in their pockets, and the officers and men of the Red Army were very short of ammunition. Young Officers and Men of the Red Army launched round after round of charge in the face of the powerful Kuomintang army, and finally they were forced to give up because of their heavy sacrifices. After that, the Red 25th Army was caught in a difficult battle for 41 days, and the Kuomintang army took the opportunity to penetrate deep into the core of the Soviet zone and carried out large-scale destruction. With the remaining red area completely lost, on June 13, 1933, the Eyu-Anhui Provincial Party Committee finally issued an order to the Red 25th Army to withdraw from the battle.
After the Battle of Qiliping, the Red 25th Army, which suffered heavy losses, was reorganized, and after reorganization, the army had jurisdiction over the 73rd and 75th Divisions, with commander Wu Huanxian, political commissar Dai Jiying, deputy commander Xu Haidong, and the two division commanders were Wang Shaoqing and Zhou Xiyuan, with a total of about 6,000 troops.
On October 2, while passing through a road, the heavily depleted Red 25th Army was once again ambushed, and during the breakout, the troops were divided into two sections, with commander Wu Huanxian leading some officers and men to rush across the highway to the west, and some officers and men led by deputy commander Xu Haidong being blocked on the east side of the road. The Kuomintang troops encircled by various roads began a large-scale search of the mountains, and the losses of both parts of the Red Army were more than half.
When most of the officers and men of the 225th Regiment of the 75th Division finally broke out of the encirclement and reached Wuji Mountain, Zhou Xiyuan, the division commander who had been following the regiment, had the idea of surrendering to the enemy at Qiliping. After Zhou Xiyuan gathered the cadres of the battalion company, Li Shihuang, the political commissar of the 2nd Battalion, discovered Zhou Xiyuan's attempt, and he quickly escaped under the pretext of bringing his troops over. Back in the camp, Li Shihuang immediately made tense arrangements, and then came to Zhou Xi again with the battalion traffic squad and the fifth company. Zhou Xiyuan asked him why he had only come for so long, and Li Shihuang replied that the enemy had taken a detour in the firing of his guns, and before he could finish speaking, he pounced on Zhou Xiyuan and hugged him, and the officers and men of the Red Army who followed the political commissar immediately rushed up and tied their division commanders with leggings and straps. The officers and men carried Zhou Xiyuan with a thick wooden stick to Commander Wu Huanxian.
When they reached a pond, they found a mountain-searching enemy only thirty meters away. This was a very dangerous moment, only hesitated for a moment, at li Shihuang's suggestion, the commander Zhou Shizhong stabbed Zhou Xiyuan to death with a bayonet, and then they turned around and ran, all the way to the small village where Wu Huanxian was located. The officers and men of the 2nd Battalion reported the incident to the commander. Wu Huanxian said, "You guys did a good job! Li Shihuang, you should be the political commissar of the 225 regiment. ”
Li Shihuang, a native of Gushi, Henan. In October 1934, the Red 25th Army began the Long March, and Li Shihuang, as a left-behind cadre, was left in the base area to insist on fighting guerrillas. In May 1935, Li Shihuang, then chairman of the Soviet Government of Sanba Township, Jinzhai County, led some guerrillas to carry out military activities in Jinzhai, and after being discovered by the militia, Li Shihuang led his troops to fight fiercely with the enemy with the cooperation of the revolutionary masses in Jinzhai county, killing many enemy people. Eventually outnumbered, Li Shihuang was captured and later killed by the enemy.
Major General Zhou Shizhong
Zhou Shizhong, the commander of the Hand Blade Rebellion Division, later became the founding major general of the Republic.
Zhou Shizhong followed the Red 25th Army on the Long March, and after arriving in northern Shaanxi, Zhou Shizhong became a company instructor of the Red 73rd Division. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Zhou Shizhong served as a company instructor of the 687th Regiment of the Eighth Route Army, and in July 1938, he became the commander of the Eighth Route Army. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhou Shizhong successively served as the commander of the 73rd Regiment of the 9th Column of the Central China Field Army, the chief of staff of the 4th Division of the 2nd Column of the East China Field Army, and the political commissar of the 62nd Division of the 7th Corps of Sanye. In 1955, Zhou Shizhong was awarded the rank of major general and became the last commander of the Wuhan Military Region. On October 9, 1992, Zhou Shizhong died of illness in Beijing at the age of 74.