During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the New Fourth Army also had "maritime armed forces" in addition to the army, and when this topic was mentioned, many people must have been surprised; at that time, our Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army were not very strong, so what was the "maritime armed forces" of the New Fourth Army?
Speaking of this, we have to mention two important figures, one is Tao Yong, a fierce general under Su Yu, and the other is the bandit Sun Erhu.
Sun Erhu is a native of Dongtai County, from a young age to understand things, due to the poor family, Sun Erhu from childhood with the neighbor big brother to "catch the sea", pick up some shellfish, fish to earn money to subsidize the family, day after day, year after year, Sun Erhu in a difficult environment, developed a strong and indomitable character.
At the age of 14, Sun Erhu's parents sent him to a fishing boat as an apprentice, here, studious he learned a lot of skills, such as he invented the four-door hook and cockroach method, greatly improving the efficiency of hook clams, at the age of 17, because he was really excellent, the owner of the ship decided to let him be the captain, in the whole Dongtai County, as the captain of the big talent, but 17 years old as the captain, only Sun Erhu alone.
Once out to sea, Sun Erhu and the crew encountered sea bandits, and in this way, he became a pirate in a vacuum.
The pirate leader saw that Sun Erhu was a talent, so he let him be his personal bodyguard, that is, at this time, Sun Erhu practiced a hard skill, and after the anti-Japanese war broke out in full swing, Sun Erhu followed the leader to defect to the Kuomintang Fourth Army Li Changjiang, and he was appointed as a company commander.
After the Anhui Incident in 1941, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China rebuilt the New Fourth Army, Su Yu was appointed as the commander of the First Division, and at the same time, he also served as the commander of the Soviet Central Military Region, in early 1942, Su Yu decided to establish a maritime armed force in order to better fight against the enemy.
Subsequently, he dispatched the first logistics department of the military region, the mountain artillery company, and the guard detachment to form a coastal defense brigade, and soon the coastal defense brigade merged with three guard companies to form the coastal defense regiment, so who would be the regimental commander? Su Yu selected Tao Yong.
Tao Yong was born in 1913 in Huoqiu County, Anhui Province, joined the guerrilla group at the age of 16, after that, in the Eyu-Anhui Soviet District, he successively served as the commander of the Red Army, the commander of the division and other positions, in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he was transferred to the deputy chief of staff of the first detachment of the New Fourth Army, and soon became the commander of the 4th Regiment of the Second Detachment.
In the Battle of Huangqiao in 1940, Tao Yong led his troops to hold the Yellow Bridge, facing an enemy several times larger than himself, Tao Yong was not afraid, he took off his shirt, rode on a war horse to charge forward, the soldiers were encouraged, they charged, Su Yu saw it, and murmured with tears: "A good desperate Sanlang"
After that, Tao Yong officially became one of the fierce generals under Su Yu.
After the Soviet Central Military Region decided to become a coastal defense regiment, Su Yu thought of Tao Yong and asked him to serve as the head of the coastal defense regiment, and the task that Su Yu gave to Tao Yong's coastal defense regiment was one, to open up the north-south traffic from central Jiangsu to eastern Zhejiang and Shandong. Second, mobilize coastal fishermen and salt people, form their own armed forces, and consolidate the coastal defense of the Central Soviet Military Region. Third, to fully protect the transfer, the logistics units of the military district at sea and a mountain artillery company.
If this task is to be accomplished, the first thing to do is to solve the problem of bandits along the coast.
At that time, there were three groups of bandits and pirates near the coast of the Central Soviet Military Region, one was the Sun Erhu Department, who occupied the first line of Port and He Jiazao, the other was the Luzhou Fang Department, which was entrenched in the Fengli area, and the other was the Yuan Guoxiang Department, which was active in the Doulong Port area.
Tao Yong got the intelligence of these three people and decided to start with Sun Erhu first, for the simple reason that during the War of Resistance, Sun Erhu had killed the Japanese, and some people said that the enemy of the enemy was a friend, so the New Fourth Army and he had a common enemy, the Japanese, then they should be called friends in a sense.
At the beginning of 1942, Sun Erhu took 6 young minions to the area east of Changsha Town in Rudong County to supply grain and grass, and the members of the "Fishing Association" sent by Tao Yong stabilized him.
Sun Erhu tried to escape, but he was subdued, and he had to surrender his weapons, and Tao Yong knew that Sun Erhu was not a complete miscreant, so he decided to take him in.
Sun Erhu was originally a Jianghu man, he proposed, it is okay to take in, but to go to the sea to negotiate with him, which seemed to be a very dangerous thing at the time, but Tao Yong insisted on going, and the next day he went to the meeting with a single knife, facing more than 100 murderous pirates, Tao Yong did not shy away from fighting.
After Sun Erhu saw Tao Yong, he was shocked, the boat had already set up a wine banquet, after Tao Yong came, Sun Erhu placed a large bowl of wine in front of him, he said: "Drink this bowl of wine, it shows that you can afford us, and the brothers will follow you from now on!" ”
Tao Yong immediately took the bowl and drank it with his head up, Sun Erhu did what he said, and the others handed over more than 50 guns and all the ships on the spot.
In this way, Sun Erhu became the first maritime armed force of the New Fourth Army, and after Sun Erhu became the New Fourth Army, he made important contributions to the organization many times, and he escorted the troops to transport grain many times.
Later, Sun Erhu also became the head of the Second Regiment of Coastal Defense of the Central Soviet Military Region, in 1943, the Japanese army wanted to compete with our army for Fengli, Tao Yong decided to withdraw from Fengli after consideration, but Sun Erhu took the initiative to ask for help.
Tao Yong supported him, and on the night of October 31, Sun Erhu cooperated with the special service battalion to seize Fengli, and when the Japanese army came to encircle and suppress, Sun Erhu took advantage of his familiar sea conditions and adopted a roundabout plan to turn the Japanese army on the sea around.
Our army surrounded the Japanese maritime forces on land, and the guard Chen Weigao rushed to the forefront and killed the famous Japanese killer Dong Tingfang with one shot.
After four days of fierce fighting, our army annihilated a total of 100 enemy personnel, captured more than a thousand people under the false regiment commander Ji Xiong, and also captured a large number of weapons and equipment.
In 1944, when the Soviet-Chinese Coastal Defense Column Headquarters was established and Sun Erhu was appointed deputy chief of staff, the Japanese "Asahi Shimbun" also published the following sentence: "From Lianyungang to Shanghai along the east Coast of China, there are wandering sailors of the New Fourth Army..."
After that, Sun Erhu participated in the Seven Victories of the Seven Battles of The Soviet Union and the Battle of Crossing the River.
In 1956, Sun Erhu died at the age of 48, and he was posthumously recognized as a revolutionary martyr.
In 1955, Tao Yong was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and later he became deputy commander of the navy, during which he devoted the rest of his life to the cause of naval construction in New China.