The "Anhui Southern Incident" was a serious incident of fratricide. At that time, the Japanese army was forcibly occupying our territory and killing our compatriots, the mountains and rivers of the Chinese nation were broken, and people were displaced. The domestic diehards did not think about the War of Resistance, but raised their butcher knives to the New Fourth Army of the War of Resistance, and thousands of soldiers of the New Fourth Army fell alive under the muzzle of their guns.
For a time, the mountains and rivers changed color, the sun and the moon were dark, and capitulationism also took advantage of the opportunity to stir up trouble, and the future of the War of Resistance was cast with a huge shadow. In order to fight back against the diehards, strike at the wave of surrender at home, and boost the confidence of the people of the whole country in the War of Resistance, the Communist Party resolutely rebuilt the New Fourth Army Headquarters and appointed Chen Yi as acting commander and Liu Shaoqi as political commissar. The rapid reconstruction of the New Fourth Army headquarters surprised the domestic diehards, who thought that a "rebel" order could erase the New Fourth Army, but they did not expect that the flag of the New Fourth Army was flying higher. Moreover, what they did not expect was that the New Fourth Army was even stronger, and the number of troops was far greater than before the incident, reaching 7 more divisions and nearly 100,000 people. The 7 divisions of the expanded New Fourth Army all had excellent fighting traditions, were very resolute in their will to resist the war, and established immortal merits in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and later in the War of Liberation. They were: 1. The First Division was formed by the 1st and 2nd detachments of the New Fourth Army, and the division commander Su Yu fought for a long time in the central Soviet Region and dealt heavy blows to the Japanese and puppet armies many times.
2. The Second Division
The predecessor was the 4th Detachment of the New Fourth Army, that is, the Gao Jingting Detachment. The division commander Zhang Yunyi fought for a long time in the east of Anhui, on the east and west sides of Jinpu Road, seriously threatening the Japanese transportation line in east China. 3. Huang Kecheng, the commander of the third division, was the main force of the 344th Brigade of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and part of the New Fourth Army. First active in the northeast of Anhui, and later quickly expanded to the surrounding areas. After the surrender of Japan, more than 30,000 people in the whole division became the main force advancing into the northeast.
4. The Fourth Division was also formed by the eighth route army and the New Fourth Army, and was active at the junction of Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. On the eve of Japan's surrender, the division grew to more than 30,000 people, but unfortunately the division commander Peng Xuefeng died prematurely, otherwise he would have entered the ranks of the generals of the republic. 5. Li Xiannian, commander of the Fifth Division, was formed by the remnants of the New Fourth Army in Henan and the guerrillas in Hubei and Henan, and fought in Henan, Hubei, and Anhui successively. Thousands of battles were fought against the Japanese and puppet armies, annihilating tens of thousands of enemies.
6. The Sixth Division was formed by the New Fourth Army south of the Yangtze River, and the division commander was Tan Zhenlin. Fighting in Jiangsu and Zhejiang for a long time, he once advanced to the vicinity of Shanghai and Nanjing, and was a sharp knife inserted into the center of Japanese and pseudo-rule. 7. The 7th Division was formed by the New Fourth Army and local guerrilla units on both sides of the Yangtze River in Anhui Province, and the division commander was Zhang Dingcheng. Based on the two banks of the Yangtze River in Anhui, the division vigorously developed westward, and once invaded the strategic area of Wuhu.
After the reconstruction, the New Fourth Army integrated the New Fourth Army, the Eighth Route Army and the guerrillas in Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Hubei, and became the main anti-Japanese force north of the Yangtze River and south of the Yellow River, and established outstanding military achievements in the follow-up War of Resistance. For example, Political Commissar Liu Shaoqi and Commander of the 5th Division Li Xiannian successively served as national leaders; Commander Chen Yi was awarded the rank of Marshal in 1955; Su Yu, commander of the 1st Division, Zhang Yunyi, commander of the 2nd Division, and Huang Kecheng, commander of the 3rd Division, were awarded the rank of General in 1955.