In 1934, after the main force of the Red Army left the Jiangxi Soviet Region to embark on the road of the Western Expedition, in order to persist in the military struggle in the Soviet Region, the main force of the 24th Division Field Army and the Gannan troops stayed where they were, as well as 12 independent regiments of the four military regions of Jiangxi and Fujian, with a total strength of less than 17,000 people.
The Red 24th Division, formed in April 1934, was formed late, but it was not a new force with no combat experience at all. The 70th Regiment, the main regiment of the division, was reorganized from the independent 1st Regiment directly under the former Former Army. Its predecessor was the 36th Division of the Red Twelfth Army, established in 1930, and is an experienced veteran unit. The remaining 71st and 72nd Regiments were also separated, adapted from the 64th Regiment of the former Red 22nd Division and the 1st Regiment directly under them, at least stronger than the local independent regiments.
The commander of the Red 24th Division was Zhou Jianping, the commander of the Red 10th Army, who was originally partnered with Fang Zhimin. Yang Ying, the commander of the Seventh Army, Li Mingrui, and Gong Chu, the chief of staff of the Red Fourth Army, fought side by side with Zeng and Zhu Mao, and it can be said that they are strong in command personnel. In September 1934, under the command of Zhou Jianpingren, the Red 24th Division participated in the Wenfang Victory commanded by Lin Biao, capturing more than 2,400 enemy troops.
After the main force of the Red Army retreated, the main line of the Kuomintang army did not actively pursue. On the contrary, it stopped and continued to brutally clean up Soviet areas. Originally only about 10,000 square kilometers, the Jiangxi Su District was divided into several small base areas. In the face of such a grim situation, Xiang Ying, a general stationed in the Soviet zone, insisted on fighting guerrilla warfare with the enemy to weaken the enemy's strength, regardless of the enemy's strength and weakness.
In less than a month of the main force of the Red Army moving westward, the Base Area of the Soviet Union, Ruijin, was almost breached by the enemy. In a difficult situation, Xiang Ying resolutely insisted on fighting the enemy and persuaded the wounded to replenish the combat effectiveness of the Red 24th Division. Zhou Jianping, then the commander of the Red 24th Division, decided to lead a small part of the team to fight an ambush, and Xiang Ying was satisfied.
Although the commander-in-chief of the Soviet zone, Chen Yi, was the commander-in-chief of the Western Front, he was now receiving treatment in the rear hospital because he was injured in the leg during the battle in laoyingpan, so he could not control Xiang Ying. Under the mobilization of Xiang Ying, the Red 24th Division restored the full strength of more than 5,000 people by replenishing the lightly wounded who had just been discharged from the hospital. For the wounded, now left in the rear hospital, without armed protection, they were easily slaughtered by the Kuomintang army raids.
At first, the enemy thought that the main force of the Red Army had been fully mobilized, so their operations in the Jiangxi Soviet area also became reckless, which gave the Red 24th Division a good opportunity. On November 22, 1934, kuomintang general Li Yannian captured Ruijin County and prepared to attack The City of Huichang, the last control of the Red Army. As a result, he encountered stubborn resistance from Zhou Jianping's 24th Army at Xiefangwan Tanggang, more than ten miles north of Huichang.
Xiefang Bay Tanggang terrain is superior, the right side of the mountain and the left side of the river, easy to defend and difficult to attack is an excellent ambush, but Zhou Jianping is likely to be affected by Wenfang's victory. He was eager to fight and underestimated the enemy. Before all the enemy troops could enter the ambush circle, he ordered his troops to attack. As a result, the battle only defeated the first detachment of the Nationalist army, which had just entered the ambush circle.
After this battle, the enemy army found that the main force of the Red Army was still there, and the size seemed to be only one division, so it resumed the previous gradual and steady combat strategy, planning to force the Red 24th Division to appear after the decisive battle. Although Zhou Jianping tried his best to avoid a decisive battle with the enemy, he saw that the space for the troops to move was getting smaller and smaller, and unless the situation opened up, there was no possibility of survival at all. At Xiang Ying's urging, Zhou Jianping agreed to find an opportunity to annihilate the enemy as soon as possible. Turn things around.
On January 12, 1935, the 1st Regiment of the 67th Division of the Kuomintang 18th Army drove to yangpi town on the border between Ningdu and Ruijin to build a bunker. Zhou Jianping learned of the information, and the Red 24th Division came to attack. Because the Eighteenth Army was a direct descendant of Chiang Kai-shek's army, its firepower was relatively strong and its soldiers were more stubborn. The Red 24th Division, armed with only a small number of light weapons, a large number of long guns, and large knives, did not make any progress after two days and one night of attack, but suffered heavy casualties. More than four hundred people eventually had to withdraw from the battle.
On January 28, 1935, after learning that the 2nd Division of the Guangdong Army had gone to Niuling in Ganxian County, the Red 24th Division, together with the independent 3rd and 11th Regiments, under the command of Zhou Jianping, prepared to annihilate them. On the afternoon of the same day, after the officers and men of the Red Army arrived in Niuling, they learned that the first battalion of the Guangdong Army had arrived at Niulingtang Village first, and Zhou Jianping ordered an immediate attack.
Considering that other cantonese troops might come to reinforcements, Zhou Jianping left a regiment on the side of Tangcun to Prepare for blockade on Niuling Avenue, and most of the troops were used to attack Tangcun. Logically speaking, the attack of a small battalion of the Guangdong Army by the 4 main battle regiments of our Red Army should have asked him not much, but Zhou Jianping ignored other factors: the Commanders and soldiers of the Red Army were very tired after the Long March, and most of them were slightly injured. I'm afraid they won't be able to quickly repel TangCun's enemies. However, a reserve of more than a thousand people in a regiment, once encountered a large number of enemy reinforcements, could not complete the interception task.
The same was true of the progress of the subsequent battles. The Cantonese military camp stationed in Tangcun has rich combat experience. They found that after being surrounded by the Red Army, they were not in a hurry to counterattack or break through, but to set up defensive positions, to establish positions. After the advance team of the Red 24th Division launched an offensive, some inexperienced Red Army soldiers charged and opened fire, but they were basically unable to hit any targets. The Guangdong army was calm, did not fire a single shot, and brought the Red Army into the front tens of meters. With only one order, all the light and heavy firepower was concentrated and opened fire at the same time.
Due to the superior weapons of the Cantonese army, the troops of the Red 24th Division were caught off guard, and they also disrupted the follow-up echelons that charged behind, and disrupted Zhou Jianping's original intention to fight by relying on the superiority of troops. When Zhou Jianping saw this scene, he hurriedly stomped his feet and hurriedly sent people to gather troops for the second attack.
Due to the large number of wounded and weak resistance, the enemy even rushed into the command post of the Red 24th Division at one point. Division commander Zhou Jianping was unfortunately shot and injured. Fortunately, Yang Ying, an experienced political commissar, organized a counterattack. Zhou Jianping saw that it was unfavorable to fight again, so he had to order a retreat. However, due to the dispersion of some troops, when the various units assembled the next day, he found that the Red 24th Division and the independent 3rd and 11th Regiments had lost a total of more than 1,000 people and more than 400 rifles.
The Battle of Niuling was the remnants of the Red Army in the Jiangxi Soviet Region. In the face of the increasingly sinister military situation, Xiang Ying finally agreed with Chen Yi's opinion and decided to adjust the original policy of concentrating the main force to fight mobile warfare to focus on dispersed guerrilla warfare. However, this change came too late. The central part of the Soviet zone was completely divided and occupied by the enemy army, and there was not much left.
In March 1935, Xiang Ying and Chen Yi divided the remaining troops into nine groups to cover the local leaders, break through in areas where the enemy was weak, and continue their activities. This is the nine-way breakthrough in the Jiangnan Soviet District, which is very famous in the history of guerrilla warfare.
After the breakthrough began, other troops, under the cover of the Red 24th Division, still suffered heavy casualties, but finally reached their intended destination and launched guerrilla warfare on the spot. Four companies of the 70th Regiment of the Red 24th Division, personally commanded by Yang Ying, covered the breakthrough for the wounded commanders Zhou Jianping and Chen Yixiangying, and died heroically in the battle with the enemy. After recovering from his wounds, the division commander Zhou Jianping temporarily returned to northern Shaanxi and died in 1938 on the front line of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in North China.