In September 1934, the Central Red Army formed the Red Eighth Army, then the commander of the Red 21st Division Zhou Kun was appointed as the commander of the regiment, in the face of the failure of the fifth anti-encirclement and suppression, the Task given to the Red Eighth Army by the Central Revolutionary Military Commission was to use movement defense to stop the advance of the 7th Column of the Enemy 6th Route Army advancing from Longgang to Gulonggang, and to buy time for the main force of the Central Red Army to prepare for a breakthrough.
The Red Eighth Army was established by Bogu, Li De and others in a critical period, because the combat effectiveness was not strong, in October, the Red Eighth Army accompanied the Long March, its main task was to be located in the right rear flank of the Daxing army column, covering the two columns of the Central Military Commission.
After the Battle of Xiangjiang, the Red Eighth Army suffered heavy losses, more than 80%, completely losing combat effectiveness.
After the Liping Conference, the Red Eighth Army was abolished and incorporated into the Red Fifth Army, and in the history of our army, the Red Eighth Army was the shortest regiment to be established and withdrawn, with only 3 months.
Although the Red Eighth Army was gone, Zhou Kun, who had been the commander of the army, also continued his revolutionary legend, and he was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Red First Army.
Zhou Kun was a native of Pingjiang, Hunan Province, born in 1902, on September 9, 1927, Zhou Kun participated in the Autumn Harvest Uprising led by Chairman Mao, and when the troops retreated, Chairman Mao saw Zhou Kun's backpack bulging and asked him what he was carrying.
When he learned that Zhou Kun's bag contained books, Chairman Mao was very happy, and often talked with him along the way, and the two had a feeling of seeing each other and hating each other, and when Sanwan was reorganized, Zhou Kun was appointed as a platoon leader, and as a flame of revolution, he has always followed Chairman Mao's footsteps.
During the initial period of the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Base Area, Zhou Kun followed Chairman Mao, and he successively served as the commander of the 7th Company, battalion commander, division commander of the 31st Regiment of the Red Fourth Army.
In 1930, Zhou Kun was appointed commander of the 34th Division of the 12th Army of the First Red Army, after which Zhou Kun also served as the commander of the remaining five divisions, and during the agrarian revolution, only Zhou Kun was able to serve as the commander of 6 Red Army divisions.
In the first to fourth anti-encirclement and suppression battles, Zhou Kun fought many victorious battles under the command of Chairman Mao, and in 1933, the Soviet Government of the Central Soviet District awarded Zhou Kun the Red Star Medal of the Second Class.
During the Long March, Zhou Kun successively served as the commander of the Eighth Red Army, the deputy chief of staff of the Red 1 Army, and the chief of staff of the Red Army.
After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1937, the Kuomintang and the Communists carried out the second cooperation, and according to the organization given by the Kuomintang, the ranks of our Red Army were reorganized into the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, and the three divisions of the Eighth Route Army were the 115th Division, the 120th Division, and the 129th Division.
Zhou Kun was appointed chief of staff of the 115th Division, and can be described as a senior cadre of our army.
The 115th Division was the most powerful division in the Eighth Route Army, and Zhou Kun was able to work in the 115th Division and became one of the five members of the Military and Political Committee of the 115th Division, which showed the importance that the central leadership attached to him.
But what is unexpected is that after half a year, everything has changed.
At the beginning of 1938, the Kuomintang held a national meeting of chiefs of staff at all levels above the division level, and the Eighth Route Army sent Ye Jianying, Peng Xuefeng, Zhou Kun, and Bian Zhangwu to Wuhan to attend the meeting.
At the meeting, Zhou Kun summed up the lessons learned from the 115th Division's entry into the Jin Dynasty and fought against Japan since the reorganization of the Red Army, and said about the Battle of Pingxingguan.
In February, Zhou Kun took a train back to Shanxi from Wuhan, and while in Linfen, he met Peng Dehuai, deputy commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, and Zuo Quan, chief of staff, and Zhou Kun reported to Peng Dehuai on the specific circumstances of the meeting.
At the same time, Zhou Kun also revealed some of his thoughts in his words, in Wuhan, Zhou Kun said that the Kuomintang officials, all of them were picked up by car, some of them also had aunts and wives, and the Eighth Route Army's office in Wuhan was not even willing to give more pocket money for hiring rickshaws.
Zhou Kun's remark immediately made Peng Dehuai furious, and he reprimanded Zhou Kun: "What you envy is our fundamental position on the issue, that is, the difference between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang, and the glory of being a communist, otherwise there would be no difference." ”
In this regard, Zhou Kun was still not convinced, and also retorted with General Manager Peng, who scolded him sharply again.
Before Linfen left, Zhou Kun took the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army from the Kuomintang for the month, which was 60,000 yuan.
Founding Lieutenant General Wang Bingzhang, who was then the chief of the operations section of the headquarters of the 115th Division, recalled that after Zhou Kun received the money, he did not return to the headquarters, but put the money in a satchel and handed it to his guards. ”
After Wang Bingzhang got the satchel, he opened it to see that it was 30,000 yuan of military pay, and there was a letter inside, which was written by Zhou Kun himself, who said that he had taken a total of 60,000 yuan of military pay, and he handed it to the guards for 30,000 yuan to bring back.
Seeing this, Wang Bingzhang was a little anxious, didn't Zhou Kun mean that he absconded with another 30,000 yuan?
Wang Bingzhang did not dare to delay, and immediately told the division commander Lin Biao, political commissar Luo Ronghuan and others about this matter, as soon as the matter came out, the soldiers and commanders and fighters of the 115th Division were in an uproar, and many people could not imagine why Zhou Kun wanted to do such a thing.
After Lin Biao learned of this, he often walked alone at night, and he really couldn't figure it out.
Zhou Kun's whereabouts are unknown, and after the founding of New China, the organization sent people to Zhou Kun's hometown to investigate, but there was no clue.
Zhou Kun, chief of staff of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, one of the 23 members of the Central Military Commission, disappeared like this, and no one knows where he went, and to this day, more than 80 years have passed and there is still no result.
We can imagine what rank Zhou Kun would have been awarded after the founding of the country if he had not left the ranks, and according to his experience during the agrarian revolution, he should have at least been a general, but unfortunately he left, and everything was gone.