The words written in the front -
In June 1946, the Kuomintang launched a full-scale civil war, and the Suwan Liberated Area became one of the main directions of the Kuomintang army's offensive. From July 13 to August 27, under the command of commander Su Yu and political commissar Tan Zhenlin, more than 30,000 people of the Central China Field Army launched seven consecutive battles, rose up to meet the attack of 120,000 people in the five integrated divisions of the Kuomintang, annihilated more than 5.3 enemy troops, and won the great victory of "seven battles and seven victories" in central Jiangsu.
The Battle of Shaobo was the sixth battle of the Seven Battles and Seven Victories of the Central Soviet Union, and was a heroic defensive battle jointly conducted by 4 regiments of the 10th Column of Huaye and the 2nd Military Sub-district of Central China and won victories.
Interestingly, after the Kuomintang troops returned from the Battle of Shaobo, a Shanghai magazine published a lengthy article titled "The Communist Female Mayor Defeats the Kuomintang General." For a time, Shanghai Beach "Luoyang Paper Expensive", the magazine out of stock. When Chiang Kai-shek learned of this, he burst out and scolded: "Mother skinny! ”
I. Female District Chief of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, nicknamed "Mu Guiying"
Yang Zutong, female, Hui, born in Yangzhou in 1915. He joined the Party in 1939. He successively served as an instructor of the "Songhu Anti-Japanese Self-Defense Force" and the director of the Cultural and Educational Department of the Southern Jiangsu Administration of the COMMUNIST Party of China.
In 1941, Yang Zutong returned to the Yangzhou area to participate in the anti-Japanese struggle, first leading the underground struggle of our party in Yangzhou City, and then exposing his identity to the anti-Japanese base area and serving as the political secretary of the Jiangdu County CPC Committee.
When Yang Zutong was the governor of Guodong District in Jiangdu County, he led correspondents and guides, 3 people and 3 short guns, and bravely went to the enemy-occupied areas to open up base areas. She once single-handedly broke into the market town where the puppet army was entrenched, held the waist of the puppet township chief who was playing for the tiger with a pistol, and escorted him out of the town; she also caught the puppet army that had entered the village to rob the people and personally executed him. Soon, this enemy-occupied area ruled by the Japanese puppet army was opened up into the Mingli Japanese puppet army occupation, in fact, the Communist Party said that it was a "sympathy area", and the local people gave her the title of "Mu Guiying".
(Yang Zutong Rong costume photo)
In August 1945, Japan announced its surrender. At this time, gaoyou, Shaobo and other towns along the Grand Canal still had a large number of Japanese troops and puppet troops stationed. These Japanese puppet armies, believing that they had strong troops and thick cities, refused to surrender, in a vain attempt to confront the New Fourth Army, which had come to be surrendered.
In December 1945, with the approval of the Party Central Committee, Su Yu, commander of the Central China Field Army, decided to launch the Gaoyou and Shaobo Campaigns to resolutely eliminate the Japanese army and puppet troops who refused to surrender.
(Su Yu commanded the battle in "Seven Battles and Seven Victories")
When Commander Su Yu held the first pre-war meeting, the team of the Shaobo District Government had not yet been assembled, and Yang Zutong, as the district governor, attended the meeting alone. When the task was arranged at the meeting, one of the commanders saw that the mayor of Shaobo District was actually a female comrade, and he could not help but shake his head and say: "This is war, a woman at first!" ”
Yang Zutong immediately pushed back when he heard this: "Woman at first? Kill the enemy on the battlefield! ”
Someone quietly told the commander about Yang Zutong's extraordinary combat experience, and the commander opened his mouth widely.
After the meeting, Yang Zutong, in accordance with the requirements of the former branch, paid close attention to the deployment of cadres at various posts in the Shaobo District Government, commanded the formation of migrant workers, stretcher teams, and the transportation of logistics materials, and fully supported the troops in combat.
At 7:00 p.m. on December 19, 1945, the Eighth Column of the Central China Field Army launched an attack on the town of Shaobo, and the Japanese puppet army shrank in the stronghold and desperately resisted. Yang Zutong led the team, braving the rain of bullets, to send ammunition to the front line and carry down the wounded in time. After two days of fierce fighting, more than 50 Japanese and 350 puppet troops were annihilated. Taking advantage of the darkness, the remnants of the Rikou sneaked out of their positions and fled towards the Fairy Temple, where they were completely wiped out by the new Fourth Army troops who had long been ambushed.
(Schematic diagram of the Battle of Reconquest of Shaobo)
The thousand-year-old town of Shaobo was liberated. In the early morning of December 20, Yang Zutong arranged for personnel to hang up the big sign of "Shaobo District Government", write a notice, and post it everywhere; on the other hand, he held a mass meeting to carry out propaganda work. In the evening, the cadres and personnel of Shaobo District equipped by the Jiangdu County CPC Committee arrived and officially carried out the work.
After the liberation of Shao Bo and Gaoyou, a large number of Japanese prisoners gathered in Gaoyou to wait for repatriation. The superior instructed the Shaobo District Party Committee and the District Government to be responsible for sending these prisoners passing through Shaobo to Yangzhou. At the time, it was difficult to accomplish this task. It is necessary to resolutely act in accordance with our army's policy of taking prisoners, and also not to expose our army's fortifications and positions in the Shaobo area.
After research, Yang Zutong and his colleagues worked out a plan for the repatriation of Japanese prisoners: First, publicize our army's preferential prisoner policy among the masses, and tell everyone to lay down their weapons and treat them as surrender. Second, key personnel were selected to escort the Japanese prisoners to ensure that there were no accidents on the way. In addition, the repatriation route does not take the route from Shaobo to the Fairy Temple, but instead takes a detour to Ding Gang and Brick Bridge, and passes through the Fairy Temple to Yangzhou City.
Because the Shaobo District Party Committee and the District Government had done a lot of meticulous work in advance, the entire work of repatriating prisoners was done very well, and it was praised by the leaders of the enemy industry department in Huaye.
Second, in the spring, the canal embankment should be repaired to defend the liberated areas
After the liberation of Gaoyou and Shaobo, a good situation was formed in which the canal was connected and the liberated areas of central Jiangsu were expanded. Because Shaobo Town is located at the crossroads of water and land transportation, it guards the throat of Yangzhou leading to Lianghuai, and is the southern gate of the Central Jiangsu Liberated Area. The Kuomintang was not willing to lose this strategic location, and Huang Botao's troops stationed in Yangzhou were looking at the tiger and waiting for an opportunity to make a fool of themselves.
On 13 April 1946, after the signing of the Kuomintang-Communist Armistice Agreement, the Kuomintang "Refugee Relief Agency" vainly attempted to break into the liberated areas of central Jiangsu and carry out espionage and sabotage activities in the name of transporting relief supplies. The Central China Military Region went head-to-head and decided to receive the other side in Shaobo Town and block it at the "South Gate" of the Liberated Areas.
According to the principle of reciprocal reception, Shaobo at that time was a district-level structure and was not sufficiently standardized. The Soviet Central Military Region then decided to upgrade Shaobo Town to Shaobo City, and appointed Gu Weiheng, then the head of Jiangdu County of the CPC, as secretary of the Shaobo Municipal CPC Committee and Yang Zutong as mayor.
In view of the fact that Shaobo was a new liberated area at that time, in order to consolidate the nascent political power and social order, the municipal party committee and the municipal government stepped up propaganda to expose the truth of the Kuomintang's vain attempt to provoke a civil war and undermine peace. At the same time, the masses were mobilized to carry out the struggle against hegemony, a number of reactionaries who committed the most heinous crimes were dealt with, and the "floating wealth" of the landlords was distributed to the poor people. The broad masses of the people are full of fighting spirit and actively participate in the activities of defending the Liberated Areas.
(Repair of the Levee of the Shaobo Section Canal)
According to the arrangements made by the superiors, on the basis of repairing the canal embankment in the spring, migrant workers were organized to strengthen the embankment to prevent the bombing and destruction of the Kuomintang aircraft. The slogan of "preparing the berm for war" was put forward, and the cadres and masses joined forces. This work is vast and the task is urgent, and it is necessary to take parts in sections and instruct all townships to complete it within a time limit.
At that time, Zhang Zhiqiang, secretary of the Jiangdu County CPC Committee, Yu Naizhang, commander of the second sub-district of Jiangsu Central China, and Qian Zhengying, who was sent by the government of the Suwan Border Region to inspect water conservancy (who served as minister of state water resources after the founding of the People's Republic of China), all came to the scene to direct the work.
Yang Zutong, the new mayor of Shaobo City, led migrant workers to work day and night, picking up lights and fighting night, for more than a dozen consecutive days and nights. Finally completing the task with quality and quantity, the Grand Canal town of Shaobo erected a strong and tall embankment.
Third, Shao Bo defended the war, 4 days and nights rushed to the front line
At dawn on August 23, 1946, Huang Botao, known as a fierce general of the Kuomintang, personally led the strength of eight regiments to attack Shao Bo along the canal line in three ways. All kinds of mountain artillery and light and heavy machine guns were fired fiercely, and air planes bombed them one after another; on the surface of Shaohu Lake, more than a dozen gunboats covered dozens of ships, and they landed in battalions and companies. At this point, the sixth battle of the seven battles and seven victories in the Soviet Union, the Shaobo Defense War, was officially launched.
The 10th Column of the Central China Field Army and the two regiments of the Second Army Sub-district, in accordance with the predetermined operational policy, took advantage of the narrow terrain characteristics of the front of the Shaobo water network area, adopted the tactics of each regiment taking turns to garrison, and stubbornly defended. The two sides repeatedly attacked, several positions were changed, and the competition was fierce.
(Schematic diagram of the Shaobo Defense Battle)
In the smoke of the gunfire, Yang Zutong organized a team of migrant workers to send ammunition to the front line and then carry the wounded down. In successive fierce battles, there were also many casualties among stretcher personnel.
Gu Weiheng, secretary of the municipal party committee, was busy mobilizing additional personnel from the four townships, and Yang Zutong took a guard to knock on the door of the town street, mobilizing some young men left behind in shops and hotels to help carry the stretcher.
After a brief discussion, gu Weiheng and Yang Zutong evacuated the old, weak, sick, and disabled members of the organs to the countryside.
Gu Weiheng considered that Yang Zutong was pregnant and persuaded her to take these people with her. Yang Zutong said firmly: "I am the mayor and must hold my position. She urged Gu Weiheng to quickly lead the personnel of the organ down, grasp the logistics supplement, and insist on being on the front line of the battle.
Yang Zutong, who was extremely tired of sending away the family members of the municipal organs and the elderly, weak, sick and disabled, walked to a corner of the city government that had been bombed, sat down on the ground, picked up the phone and contacted the headquarters to request a task. The head of the unit saw that she was thinly staffed on her side, and for safety reasons, he told her to go to the headquarters. Yang Zutong said that he vowed to stick to the position of the municipal government to the death.
(Tragic situation after the bombing of Chiang Kai-shek's planes)
Many of the houses in Shaobo Town were damaged by enemy planes, and the masses suffered heavy casualties. Yang Zutong and the guards went to the street to inspect, only to go to the street, facing a woman holding a child and running over, crying: "Mayor Yang quickly save my child!" Yang Zutong inspected the child's wound and saw that there was a sanitary medicine box on the side of the road, so he carried it over and opened it, and applied medicine and bandaged the child's wound.
In a collapsed house, Yang Zutong saw two old people with dark dusty faces, sitting in the corner, and when they walked forward, they were all killed by the bomb dropped by the plane. On the street, there are broken walls and dead and injured people everywhere. Over the years, Yang Zutong was born into death, and experienced countless life-and-death battles, but she had never seen ordinary people suffer such a tragic injury, and her chest burned with vengeful anger.
At this time, only a thousand meters away from the ancient town of Shaobo, the battle on the front line of Shaobo Lake was fierce and arduous. The heavily armed Kuomintang troops launched dozens of fierce attacks in 4 days and 4 nights in an attempt to capture Shaobo as soon as possible and open up the passage north of the Grand Canal. However, under the stubborn resistance of our army, they were finally repelled one by one.
The fierce fighting lasted until dusk on August 26, when our army's position remained untouched, killing and wounding more than 2,000 of Huang Botao's troops.
(Our Army's Blocking Position)
Huang Botao, commander of the enemy's reorganized Twenty-fifth Division, saw that the small town of Shaobo could not be attacked for a long time, and the casualties were so heavy, he could not help but be ashamed and angry, and prepared to launch a larger-scale attack.
However, when he learned that the Ninety-ninth Brigade of the Kuomintang Army, which was responsible for the roundabout encirclement of this battle, had been wiped out by our army, and that its flank and rear were seriously threatened, and that it would be fierce to fight again, he immediately ordered the withdrawal to Yangzhou.
The Battle of Shaobo came to a victorious end, and our People's Liberation Army eliminated more than 2,000 Kuomintang troops at the cost of more than a thousand casualties, and successfully defended the important town of Shaobo.
(The former site of our army headquarters in Shaobo Town)
After the battle, Yang Zutong immediately organized personnel to send condolences to the troops. Zhang Yuhui, political commissar of the Shaobo garrison, excitedly told her about the victory in the battle, but the exhausted Yang Zutong listened and listened, and actually sat down in a chair and fell asleep, until the cigarette in his hand burned his fingers and was burned awake. At this time, Yang Zutong, who was pregnant, had not closed his eyes for four days and four nights, and he was too tired.
The Shaobo Defense Battle was the sixth battle in the famous "Seven Wars and Seven Victories" in the history of the New Fourth Army, which threatened to shake the land of Shenzhou. At that time, a progressive magazine called "Observation" in Shanghai, a Kuomintang-ruled area, published a long article reporting on the battle, and the title of the article was striking: "The Kuomintang General Was Defeated by the Communist Female Mayor", which immediately caused a sensation.
(Yang Zutong, then mayor of Yangzhou)
In May 1949, Yang Zutong became the mayor of Yangzhou. Faced with the situation that the ancient city was in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt, she actively organized the masses to carry out production and self-help. During his tenure as mayor for more than 3 years, he made contributions to the transformation and construction of the ancient city and left a deep impression on the people of Yangzhou.
In October 1952, Yang Zutong was transferred to the newly established provincial city of Xinhailian (now Lianyungang) as mayor. Work in the province after transfer. He died on January 21, 1985, at the age of 70.