The Battle of Ganxi in October 1934 was arguably the most tragic battle in the history of the Red 6Th Army. The Red Army lost nearly 3,000 people in the service, and the division commander Long Yun and the regimental commander Tian Haiqing died heroically, which can be called the most serious military defeat suffered by the regimental commander Xiao Ke during the Red Army period.
First, the Red Sixth Army entered Qian
In 1934, with the increasingly severe situation of the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression campaign, the Red 6th Army of the Xianggan Soviet District in the western part of the Central Soviet Region finally received the order to break through to the west and meet with the Helong Division of the Red 3rd Army that was in the qiandong area. At that time, the leaders of the regiment, Ren Bishi and Xiao Ke, did not know that this operation was actually a way to explore the way for the Long March of the Central Red Army. In order to prepare for the breakthrough, the Red 6th Army expanded the 17th and 18th Divisions and the Red Army School to more than 9,700 people, but the 16th Division in the Xiang'e-Gansu District was destroyed in the "June-July Incident" and failed to participate in the breakout operation.
On August 7, under the guidance of the Independent 4th Regiment, the Red 6th Army officially embarked on the road of the Western Expedition. A few days later, the Hunan warlord He Jian learned of the Red Army's breakthrough and ordered Liu Jianxu, commander of the 28th Army, to send the 15th and 16th Divisions to pursue. Wang Dongyuan, commander of the 15th Division, because he had been eaten by the Red Army in the previous Battle of Shashi, did not dare to pursue it boldly, and maintained a one-day distance from the Red Army until he was "gifted out of the country".
The Red 6th Army left Hunan to reach the Xiangguiqian junction area, and the Guangxi warlords Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, fearing the entry of the Red Army, also sent Liao Lei, commander of the 7th Army, to lead six regiments of the 19th and 24th Divisions to drive them out. Seeing the enemy on three sides, Xiao Ke, in view of the weak combat effectiveness of the Qian army, led his troops directly into guizhou territory, and it is reasonable to say that the gui army had completed the task at this time, but Liao Lei was a good person who was very happy, and he was afraid that after the Red Army gained a foothold in Guizhou, he would influence the Gui army to extort the tolls of past opium merchants, and simply pursued into Guizhou.
At this time in Guizhou Province, just after two years of melee, although Wang Jialie, commander of the 25th Army, temporarily controlled most of the province, there were still several small warlords in the province, namely Jiang Zaizhen, Yu Guocai, and Hou Zhidan. Although Wang Jialie had the strength of fifteen regiments, he could only draw eight regiments of troops in order to guard against other warlords and the Red 3rd Army in Qiandong. Wang Jialie, anticipating that the Red Army would definitely pass through the town of Ganxi in Shiquan County in order to meet the Red 3rd Army in the north, ordered all the troops to assemble here, intending to cooperate with the pursuing Gui Army to annihilate the Red 6th Army in a small area on the right bank of the Wu River.
Second, the Ganxi Encounter
Due to the rapid flow of the Wu River, the tight defense of each ferry port, and the arrangement of the 6th Red Army of the Xiang, Gui, and Qian Warlords Federation at that time by the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, xiao Ke and others could only lead their troops to advance northeast along the right bank of the Wu River, and the target was Ganxi Town. At this time, after hundreds of kilometers of trekking and several encounters with the Xiang army and the Gui army, the Red 6Th Army had been reduced to more than 6,000 people, and the 54th Regiment was withdrawn due to the sacrifice of the regimental commander Zhao Xiong and the heavy casualties.
On the morning of October 7, 1934, the chief of staff of the regiment, General Li Da of the 55th, led the 49th and 51st regiments to ganxi town first, and began to arrange camps and make fires to cook. At this time, Zhou Renjie, the commander of the first battalion of the 51st Regiment and the 55th Lieutenant General, captured two plainclothes scouts of the Gui Army alive on the road outside the town, and after interrogation, it was learned that Liao Lei, commander of the 7th Army of the Gui Army, had just arrived here with the 70th and 71st Regiments. Zhou Renjie quickly led his troops to rush to the commanding heights of the nearby nameless highlands and collided with the 71st Regiment of the Gui Army, and the two sides immediately launched a fierce hand-to-hand combat.
In the town of Ganxi, the 49th Regiment heard the battle and joined the battle, forming a canine-toothed situation with the two regiments of the Gui Army: during the battle, the heavy machine guns of the three battalions of the 51st Regiment were taken by a sudden burst of Gui troops. In order to recapture the heavy machine guns, the three battalions organized several charges and suffered heavy casualties; the first part of the 49th Regiment went around to the rear of the Gui army at night and killed a number of remaining Gui military cadets. The heroic battle of the vanguard provided valuable time for the movement of the regimental headquarters and the other three regiments walking behind.
When the battle was fought until dusk, Chief of Staff Li Da, with more than 400 people from the regimental headquarters and machine gun companies of the two regiments, took the lead in breaking out, and then took the lead in finding He Long's Red 3rd Army, but his behavior of taking the lead in leaving the battlefield also made the veteran soldiers of the 49th and 51st Regiments complain about him slightly afterwards. The six infantry battalions of the 49th and 51st Regiments, which were in a divided state, also withdrew at night, after learning that the regimental headquarters had been transferred, and caught up with the large troops at noon the next day. Due to excessive attrition, the remnants of the 51st Regiment were merged into the 49th Regiment.
Third, return to Ganxi
At noon on 8 October, the Red Army soldiers had just finished their lunch, and the pursuing enemy was trailing behind, and in order to avoid the pursuing enemy, Shaw led the main force into the forest of a nearby ravine, and the 50th Regiment was responsible for taking cover. After two hours of fighting, because the road was cut off by the enemy, Guo Peng, the commander of the 50th Regiment and the 55th Lieutenant General, decisively withdrew from the position and drilled into the mountains. After that, the 50th Regiment insisted on moving north in the mountains, and with 40 silver dollars to invite a guide, it finally found He Long's Red 3rd Army.
The main force of the Red 6Th Army spent several days in the mountains, and it was very difficult to eat food and ammunition, coupled with the lack of water and soil, and there was a incident of accidentally eating tung oil, resulting in serious attrition of non-combat personnel. Ren Bishi, Xiao Ke, and others had called the Central Revolutionary Military Commission to request that they abandon their weights and break through in two ways, but they were again refused. On the 14th, Xiao Ke and his troops arrived at the Wu River again, and seeing that the river was turbulent and there were no boats to cross, they decided to risk taking Ganxi again.
In order to occupy Ganxi first, Xiao Ke sent a battalion of the 49th Regiment to quickly advance towards Ganxi, and just after arriving at Ganxi, the first battalion collided with the Pi Depei (also known as Pi Guangguang) department of the 14th Regiment of the Qian Army. He was a subordinate of Marshal Liu Bocheng during the Sichuan Army, and also participated in the Lushun Uprising in 1926, of course, Pi Depei would not be merciful to the Red Army. Taking advantage of the enemy's unstable foothold, the first battalion preemptively captured three hills to open a passage for the main force of the Red 6th Army to pass through Ganxi.
In order to ensure that the 18th Division, which was tasked with rear guard, could follow through Ganxi, Wang Zhen, the regimental political commissar and 55-year general, temporarily appointed Ye Changgeng, a major general in 55, as chief of staff of the 18th Division, and ordered him to urge the division commander Long Yun to quickly lead his troops to catch up. Wang Zhen's worries are not excessive, the division commander Long Yun is also a senior military cadre parachuted in the Central Soviet Region, but before he was mainly in charge of the Red Army school, the actual command ability was not strong. In the battle to defend Yongxin County, the capital of the Xianggan Soviet District, in early 1934, due to Long Yun's carelessness, Wang Dongyuan of the 15th Division of the Xiang Army attacked Qixiling from the trail and defeated the Red Army.
Fourth, the 52nd Regiment was truncated
After Ye Changgeng found Long Yun, the commander of the 18th Division, he agreed that Ye Changgeng would lead the 53rd Regiment to the front and take over the 49th Regiment's blocking position, while Long Yun and Tian Haiqing, commander of the 52nd Regiment, would walk behind and break off. Arriving at the town of Banqiao, 20 miles from Ganxi that night, the cooks in charge of going out to fight thatch scouted and the Qian army that had come to reinforcement had also arrived nearby, but Long Yun thought that there was no need to worry too much, and still ordered the troops to camp as planned, and discussed with Ye Changgeng and others to leave together at six o'clock tomorrow morning.
At six o'clock in the morning of the 16th, the gray haze covered the mountain road between Banqiao and Ganxi, Ye Changgeng led the 53rd Regiment to set off on time, and when it was about to reach a three-fork road junction in front of Ganxi Town, the scouts reported that the two regiments of the Daoqian Army were coming from both wings, and Ye Changgeng ordered the troops to speed up their pace and rush out of this intersection before the Qianjunhui and arrived at Ganxi Town.
However, Long Yun and the 52nd Regiment did not appear for a long time, and it turned out that due to the continuous march and extreme fatigue, Long Yun and the soldiers actually overslept and did not leave until eight o'clock. When the troops were assembled and Long Yun was just preparing for the training, several regiments of the Pursuing Qian Army immediately pounced on them, and the 52nd Regiment was caught off guard, and hundreds of Red Army soldiers were directly disarmed on the spot because they were not prepared for battle.
Tan Jiashu, acting chief of staff of the legion and general of the next 55 years, was also with Long Yun at this time, and he suggested that Long Yun throw away his luggage and charge with a bayonet to break through the siege, but Long Yun refused. Tan Jiashu had no choice but to rush out with the guard squad, and then he was followed by nearly a hundred people, including the commissioner of the 18th Division and the future 62-year-old major general Yu Guangwen. At this point, after two battles of Ganxi, the strength of the Red 6 Army that broke through the breakout had been sharply reduced to more than 3,000 people.
Fifth, Long Yun made a heroic sacrifice
Knowing that the 52nd Regiment had been truncated, Xiao Ke sent a company of the 49th Regiment to meet Long Yun, and this company found Long Yun on Baiyang Mountain near the town of Banqiao, but Long Yun said: "You go, let's take another road." The 52nd Regiment then retreated south, intending to take a detour to the mountains to catch up with the main force of the regiment. On the 18th, the 52nd Regiment was surrounded by Qian troops at The Sleepy Niu Mountain, and in the fierce battle, the commander of the 52nd Regiment, Tian Haiqing, was heroically sacrificed, and more than 100 light and seriously wounded people did not want to surrender, and they jumped off the cliff to die, only Long Yun broke out with more than 200 people left.
After Long Yun and others broke out, they were constantly blocked by the Qian army and the militia along the way, and the troops were getting smaller and smaller. On October 25, at the Dragon Neck Pass on the border between Shiquan and Cen Gong, Long Yun was unfortunately wounded and captured, and was escorted to Guiyang, Changsha, and Wuhan. In prison, Long Yun was brave and unyielding in the face of the enemy's torture and persuasion, and finally died in March 1936 at the age of 32 in the Kuomintang Wuhan "Reflection Institute" due to torture.
After the 52nd Regiment was truncated, the Red 6 Corps Defense Bureau also conducted an investigation into why Long Yun did not lead his troops to stand out, and concluded that Long Yun had serious individualism. Many of the red 6 army commanders and fighters who survived after liberation also held this view, believing that Long Yun was too conceited and disobeyed That Xiao Ke from the Central Soviet Region could command him. Zhang Yixiang, a former battalion commander of the 52nd Regiment and a lieutenant general in 55 years, recalled that Long Yun even scolded Xiao Ke at the meeting of cadres above the battalion level because he was dissatisfied with Xiao Ke's implementation of the big moving policy of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission.
Of course, in addition to Long Yun, the commander of the 52nd Regiment, Tian Haiqing, also had some dissatisfaction with Xiao Ke, when the 52nd Regiment was the most effective of the six regiments of the Red 6th Army, so it was often transferred forward by the regimental headquarters and was very tired. However, the author believes that these are not the reasons why the 52nd Regiment failed to keep up with the main force of the legion, mainly because Long Yun's personal command ability was insufficient, he hesitated to make decisions, and he was worried that the troops would lose too much if they forced a breakthrough, so they would choose to take another road and unfortunately fall into a heavy siege.
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