History has its own life, it is like a person, both easy-going and self-respecting. ——Yu Qiuyu
Marshal Xu Qianqian wrote in the book "Review of History": "Comrade Cai Shenxi is the main founder of the Red 15th Army and has made great contributions to the construction and development of the Red Army in Eyu and Anhui. He not only had the courage and temperament of a strategist, but also had the courage and courage and tenacity of the battles in successive battles, so he had a high prestige in the Red Fourth Front. ”
Cai Shenxi, a native of Liling County, Hunan Province, studied at the Guangzhou Daowu School in his early years and later transferred to the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy. During his time at the Whampoa Military Academy, he successively participated in the battles to quell the rebellion of the Guangzhou Merchant Group, the rebellion of the warlord Chen Jiongming, and the rebellion of the warlord Yang Ximin, and performed prominently, and was promoted to battalion commander and regiment commander.
In August 1927, Cai Shenxi participated in the Nanchang Uprising, serving as the chief of staff of the 24th Division, and participated in the battles of Huichang and Sanheba on the way south. After the defeat of the rebel army in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong, he moved to Guangzhou. In December of the same year, he participated in the Guangzhou Uprising, and then moved to various places, and in 1928 he became the secretary of the Military Commission of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.
During his tenure as secretary of the Military Commission of the Jiangxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, Cai Shenxi single-handedly went to Ji'an to oppose Luo Binghui,who was the commander of the Ji'an Jingwei Brigade (Luo Binghui later became one of the Thirty-Six Military Men of the Republic).
After that, Cai Shenxi went to Donggu and established the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Regiments of the Jiangxi Red Army on the basis of small local guerrilla forces, which were later merged with Luo Binghui's 5th Regiment to form the Red Sixth Army.
Soon, Cai Shenxi went to Yangxin, Hubei Province, commanded the fourth and fifth columns of the Red Eighth Army to cross the Yangtze River in the north, fought in more than twenty days to susong, take liucun, attack Guangji, Kecao river, and Zhanying Mountain, win five battles and five victories, and formed the Red Fifteenth Army within two months, creating the record of the shortest time in the history of the Red Army. Cai Shenxi served as military commander and Chen Qi served as political commissar. This year, Cai Shenxi was only 24 years old.
In October 1930, Chiang Kai-shek gathered 100,000 troops to prepare to launch the first "encirclement and suppression" of the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region.
Due to the conditions at that time and the failure to keep up with the intelligence work, the Red First Army of the Red Army, the main force in the Eyu-Anhui base area, was unaware of it, and had already left the base area as planned and rushed to Xinzhou, intending to annihilate the second mixed brigade of the Kuomintang army Guo Rudong stationed in the area in order to solve the problem of food and clothing for the troops to spend the winter.
The Red First Army's attack this time was successful, not only capturing a large number of winter clothes, but also replenishing a large number of weapons and equipment. The victorious Red First Army decided to take advantage of the victory to launch an offensive against the enemy, without the slightest awareness that the danger was approaching, and continued to fight in the western Anhui region, far from the base area.
He Chengjun, the commander-in-chief in charge of "encircling and suppressing" the Eyu-Anhui base area, chairman of the Kuomintang Hubei Provincial Government, and head of the Wuhan camp, learned that the main force of the Red Army had left the base area, and the troops in the Red Soviet Area were empty, and they were surprised and frantic, and quickly issued an order to attack the base area.
However, when the "white bandits" entered the Soviet zone, they were confronted by an unexpected Red Army. This Red Army was none other than the Red Fifteenth Army from Pu (Chun), Huang (Mei) and Guang (Ji). So, why did the Red Fifteenth Army suddenly appear in the Dabie Mountains thousands of miles away?
It turned out that although the Red Fifteenth Army was built rapidly, its innate deficiencies were also very obvious. They were faced with a great dilemma: first, there were only two regiments in the whole army of the Red Fifteenth Army, and there were only more than two thousand people under its jurisdiction; secondly, the equipment was extremely poor, seeing that the midwinter was approaching, the weather was cold, and most of the commanders and fighters of the Red Fifteenth Army were wearing single clothes and straw shoes; the most deadly thing was the shortage of guns and bullets, and the whole army had only about a thousand guns, and the average number of bullets per gun was only three rounds.
For this reason, all the commanders and fighters of the Red Fifteenth Army braved the severe winter cold and traveled thousands of miles to meet the Red First Army, hoping to get assistance in materials and equipment. The next thing, I don't know if it is to say that they came too coincidentally, or too coincidentally, after entering the Soviet area, not only the main force of the Red First Army has all gone out, but also plunged headlong into the encirclement of the heavy Kuomintang troops.
At that time, the enemy situation was: Attacking the enemy troops in the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Area, the regular Kuomintang army alone had seven divisions and another brigade, and then joined other reactionary forces with a total of 100,000 troops!
Zeng Zhongsheng, then secretary of the Eyu-Anhui Special Committee of the CPC, suddenly came to his own team at a critical juncture, which was nothing more than a divine soldier descending from heaven. Ecstatic, he came to the headquarters of the Red Fifteenth Army, explained the situation to Cai Shenxi, and asked the Red Fifteenth generals to defend the Soviet area together.
Cai Shenxi did not hesitate in the slightest, he firmly said to the warriors: "Qingshan is buried everywhere loyal bones, why should Ma Ge wrap the body back." We are soldiers of the Red Army, and it is only natural that we fight for the people and sacrifice ourselves for the revolution. Even if staying is death, my opinion is to stay resolutely. Besides, as long as we make up our minds, we can crush the enemy's attack, and we will not necessarily die! ”
Cai Shenxi's words made the whole army excited and unanimously vowed to fight the enemy to the end. The heavy task of smashing the enemy's first "encirclement and suppression" in the Eyu-Anhui Soviet region miraculously fell on Cai Shenxi's shoulders.
In late December 1930, the enemy's heavy troops broke into the central area of the base area and occupied the seat of the special committee, Huang'an Qiliping.
The Red Fifteenth Army had just gone through a long battle, and its troops were insufficient, its guns and ammunition were in short supply, and it was not yet in supply of food for a while. Overcoming many difficulties, the soldiers of the Red Army joined hands with Cai Shenxi and Zeng Zhongsheng to coordinate with the enemy by using the sound of east and west, encirclement points to attack the reinforcements, tunnel blasting, and drifting tactics.
While organizing a breakthrough and approaching western Anhui, where the Red First Army was located, the Red Fifteenth Army was blocked by a regiment of the Kuomintang army at the Futian River in northeastern Hubei.
According to the actual situation of the soldiers with guns and bullets, Cai Shenxi decisively ordered the "charge" trumpet to be blown, shouting: "Approaching the enemy is victory!" ”
With the high and agitated charge, the commanders and fighters fearlessly charged at the enemy's guns, some people were constantly shot and fell, and more people rushed forward and forward...
The enemy was frightened and frightened by the fearless soldiers of the Red Army. The Red Army fighters took the opportunity to break through several trenches and engage in white-knife warfare with the enemy, annihilating hundreds of the regiment in one fell swoop, capturing a large number of materials and ammunition, and solving the ammunition problem that had been plaguing the troops. And successfully broke through the encirclement and turned to the outside line.
In early January 1931, in the Changzhu Garden south of Shangcheng County, the Red Fifteenth Army finally met with their long-awaited big brother, the Red First Army. The two armies were moved to Changzhu Garden in the south of Shangcheng and merged into the Red Fourth Army, with Kuang Jixun as the commander, Xu as the former chief of staff, the former Red Fifteenth Army into the Red Tenth Division, and Cai Shenxi as the division commander; the former Red First Army into the Red Eleventh Division, and Xu Jishen as the division commander. There were more than 12,000 people in the whole army.
The Red Fourth Army then returned to its division, Yuwan, united with the masses in the base areas, and after more than a month of bitter fighting, forced the enemy to take a defensive position.
The Red Army immediately decided to switch to the counter-offensive. At this time, the Red Fourth Army already had four military wizards, Zeng Zhongsheng, Xu Xiangqian, Cai Shenxi, and Xu Jishen, who were rare in the world (all four of them were high-ranking huangpu students and thirty-six military experts of the Republic of Lenin), and they jointly formulated three methods of breaking the enemy, namely, encirclement point reinforcement, tunnel blasting, and drifting tactics, and handed them over to Cai Shenxi to carry out.
Polishing the corner tower, Cai Shenxi surrounded without fighting, and set up an ambush on the road leading to the enemy's rear, annihilating the four regiments that the enemy came to the rescue, greatly hitting the morale of the enemy defending the mojiao tower and forcing them to give up resistance.
In the new set, Cai Shenxi pretended to attack every day, but secretly dug a tunnel of 40 or 50 meters long in the north of the city, all the way to the bottom of the city wall, and then lit hundreds of pounds of high explosives, blowing up the city wall, and the Red Army attacked the city in one fell swoop.
Fighting shuangqiao town, Cai Shenxi took the form of mobile warfare, constantly attacking and harassing, and then capturing fighters, turning the mobile war into an annihilation war, eating six enemy regiments in one go!
The victory in Shuangqiao Town announced the final victory of the first anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign in the Eyu-Anhui base area.
Cai Shenxi, who led the troops to explore and practice new tactics, became one of the pioneers of the strategy and tactics of the Red Fourth Front.
In October 1931, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China sent Zhang Guotao to the base area to serve as the secretary of the Eyu-Anhui Central Branch Bureau and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, and held the power of the party, government and army. Zhang Guotao was arrogant and blind, but he had to obey the military talents of Cai Shenxi and Xu Xiangqian. Because they had to rely on these two men to command the battle, they maintained the respect they deserved.
Zhang Guotao said that Xu Xiangqian "has the conditions to be the leader of guerrilla warfare in the Soviet Union, his military views are realistic, his experience in guerrilla warfare is rich, he commands operations extremely responsibly, he is rigorous and humble to his subordinates, and he does not lose the demeanor of a general," saying that "Cai Shenxi is a talent with strategic insights... In terms of military command, it may not be as good as Xu Xiangqian, but in military opinion, it is often unique."
Under the genius of Cai Shenxi and the outstanding command of Xu Xiangqian, the Red Fourth Front fought four major battles from November 1931 to June 1932 in huang'an, shang (cheng) huang (chuan), Sujiabu and Huang (Chuan) Guang (shan), annihilating more than 60,000 enemy troops and annihilating 40 regiments of the formed Kuomintang regular troops.
This is an unprecedented brilliant achievement in the history of the Red Army's war.
The Eyu-Anhui base area and the Red Army developed rapidly, and the territory of the Soviet region reached more than 40,000 square kilometers, with a population of more than 3.5 million, and a revolutionary regime in 26 counties was established.
In May 1932, Chiang Kai-shek personally served as the commander-in-chief of the "suppression of bandits" in the three provinces of Eyu and Anhui, and mobilized 300,000 troops, including his concubine troops, to "encircle and suppress" the Red Army in Eyuwan.
Because Zhang Guotao insisted on going his own way, he first ignored the fatigue of the Red Army and demanded to "continue to attack", and then adopted passive and stubborn defense in the face of the enemy's large army attack, so that the Red Army was in a very passive position.
In August, zhang Guotao, after constantly tasting the bitter fruit of his own wrong decisions, held a meeting on the Swallow River in the Yanzi River north of Yingshan Mountain, and the Eyu-Anhui Central Branch. At the meeting, he accepted Cai Shenxi's "westward transfer" opinion.
It was decided that the red fourth front would divide into two routes and turn towards the Eyu side. In early October, the two armies met in Xinzhou and reached the area around Gaoqiao River and Hekou Town in Huang'an.
In order to prepare for the upcoming western expedition, the troops in Hekou Town were streamlined and adjusted, and Cai Shenxi was made the commander of the Red Twenty-fifth Army. However, no one expected that the town of Hekou would become the eternal place of heroes.
At that time, the enemy Hu Zongnan's First Division and Yu Jishi's Eighty-eighth Division were rounded up, and the troops were surrounded on three sides, and the situation was very critical. In order to cover the breakthrough and transfer of large troops, Cai Shenxi resolutely commanded the main force to move to the new position, while he led a small detachment to block the enemy. Seeing that the enemy had already pounced in front of him, the guards, in vain, forced him to retreat.
"Let it go!" Cai Shenxi roared angrily and broke free, saying firmly: "The team has not all withdrawn to safety, I can't go!" In the fierce battle, Cai Shenxi was shot in the abdomen by the enemy's submachine guns, but he still gritted his teeth and kept firing back, until he died heroically, sacrificing his life at the age of 26.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Cai Shenxi was included in the list of 36 military experts confirmed by the Central Military Commission twice, and he was also the youngest of the 36 military families to die.