In Yan'an in the spring of 1937, Chairman Mao Zedong had a conversation with Cheng Zihua and Xu Haidong, leaders of the Red 15th Army. Referring to the Long March, which had just ended not long ago, Chairman Mao specifically mentioned the Red 25th Army, the predecessor of the Red 15th Army, in a bloody battle with the superior Kuomintang army in Dushu Town. In this battle, our army defeated the enemy's tens of thousands of infantry and cavalry in one fell swoop, and was able to successfully break into the southern Shaanxi region and completely get rid of the passive situation. Chairman Mao praised the Red 25th Army for winning more with less, and it was a classic battle comparable to the famous Battle of Kunyang and the Battle of Bowangpo. At the 2016 conference to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March, the Battle of Dushu Town was listed as one of the eight famous battles of the Long March, along with the bloody battles of the Xiang River, the Sidu Chishui, the Qiao crossing of the Jinsha River, the forced crossing of the Dadu River, the capture of the Luding Bridge, the capture of Baozuo, and the battle of Wumeng Mountain. So, what was this battle that few people knew in the past, but decided the life and death of the Red 25Th Army?
The Red 25th Army arrived in northern Shaanxi and joined the Red Army division in northern Shaanxi
At the end of 1933, the Kuomintang army mobilized more than 80 regiments of troops and carried out the fifth encirclement and suppression of the Eyu-Anhui base area. The main force of the Red 25th Army was forced to face the superior enemy alone when the main force of the Red Fourth Front entered the west into Sichuan and Shaanxi to open up a new base area.
Although our army won some victories after several bitter battles, under the influence of the erroneous left-leaning line that dominated the Party at that time, it was never able to get rid of passivity. The base areas became smaller and smaller, and the casualties of the troops were very large.
Ten times the enemy army chased and intercepted
Finally, on November 11, 1934, the Eyu-Anhui Provincial Party Committee decided after a meeting to leave a small number of troops to tie the enemy on the inner line, and the main force of the Red 25th Army crossed the Pinghan Line to the west and jumped to the rear of the enemy, where a new base area was opened. In order to be able to reverse the passive situation.
On November 16, the Red 25th Army left the base area and set out from He Jiachong in Luoshan County, Henan Province, to the tongbai mountains to the north. After forcible marching, the troops arrived in the Tongbai Mountains on November 19, but the enemy reacted quickly and quickly mobilized 10 times the superior strength of our army to encircle and intercept the Red 25th Army.
The Leaders of the Eyu-Anhui Provincial Party Committee and the Red 25th Army found that it was too close to Wuhan, the central city ruled by the enemy, and the enemy's strength was too strong, and it was difficult to open up a new base area here. After the discussion, everyone agreed to divert into the Funiu Mountains in western Henan.
Key leaders of the Red 25th Army, Xu Haidong (right) and Wu Huanxian (left)
However, if the troops go directly north to Funiu Mountain, the enemy who is chasing after them is bound to follow closely. Comrade Xu Haidong, deputy commander of the Red 25th Army, then personally led some of his troops to kill a Hui horse gun and crushed Liu Guitang's troops of the Kuomintang army that had been following our army.
Liu Guitang was originally a famous bandit leader during the Republic of China, and later was absorbed by the Kuomintang government, he was capricious, vicious, and had some habitual bandits who had accumulated years, and were relatively good at tracking and fighting in the mountains.
The Kuomintang army let Liu Guitang's troops follow the Red Army, and their main force was in the rear of Liu Guitang's troops, which was a posture of "mantis catching cicadas and yellow finches in the rear"; on the one hand, they wanted to borrow their mountain tracking experience to bite our army, and on the other hand, they also wanted to "borrow knives to kill people", so that the Red Army and Liu Guitang would lose both battles to reap the benefits.
When Liu Guitang led his troops to pursue our army, he did pay attention to the ambush circles that our army might set up, but the Red Army was unusual, and Xu Haidong led his troops to launch a direct onslaught on Liu Guitang's troops.
After cutting off the "tail" that was in hot pursuit, Xu Haidong pointed directly at Zaoyang, Hubei Province, and posed as a posture to attack the city, forcing the main force of the enemy army pursuing our army to quickly return to defense.
When the enemy was all drawn to the area around Zaoyang by our army's feint attack, our army suddenly fired a false shot, and with three days and three nights of forced marching, it threw off the main force of the enemy army that was chasing after the tail, and Funiu Mountain was already in sight!
Group photo of commanders and fighters of the Red 25th Army
But unfortunately, the enemy is not as stupid as we think. After the Red 25th Army turned north to Funiu Mountain and pursued pang Bingxun, commander of the 40th Army of the Northwest Army pursuing our army, pounced on the Tongbai Mountains, it was quickly and accurately judged that our army was likely to march west through Xianghe Pass and Dushu Town and Bao'an Zhai between Ye County and Fangcheng.
He immediately adjusted his deployment and ordered the 115th Brigade to quickly advance to the area around Dushu Town to block our army's road north to Funiu Mountain; at the same time, he ordered the cavalry regiment of the 40th Army stationed in YeXian county to immediately go south to guard the village and cooperate with the 115th Brigade to intercept our army; the 116th Brigade went north from Xinye and formed a three-sided encirclement of our army.
At the same time, Pang Bingxun also ordered the 5 detachments and the 5th Cavalry Division pursuing our army to quickly pursue in the direction of Funiu Mountain, in an attempt to completely annihilate our army under Funiu Mountain.
In the wind and snow, our army was ambushed
On November 25, the main force of the Red 25th Army, which had been forcibly marching continuously in the snow and wind, arrived at the village northwest of Xiangheguan and camped.
That night, the enemy's pursuers came in pursuit and attacked the direct subordinate units of the Rear Guard of the Red 25th Army and the 225th Regiment that were camped.
After delaying the enemy's attack, our army fought and retreated to join the main force of the army. Because the wind and snow were worse at night, the visibility was extremely poor, and the enemy did not pursue.
Enemy weapons captured by the Red Army
At dawn the next day, the wind and snow temporarily became smaller. The main force of the enemy, after dawn, once again attacked our rearguards. Therefore, the deputy commander Xu Haidong personally led the 223rd Regiment to block the enemy and cover the main force to quickly turn into Funiu Mountain.
Wu Huanxian, military political commissar, led the 224th Regiment as the vanguard of the whole army, and the commander Cheng Zihua led the 225th Regiment, the Pistol Regiment, and the direct subordinate units of the military headquarters to cover the Eyuwan Provincial Party Committee and the military department organs in the center of the marching team.
At about 13:00 p.m., the weather suddenly became harsh again, with wind and snow and visibility dropping rapidly. Wu Huanxian commanded the 224th Regiment to brave the wind and snow to approach Qiligang north of Dushu Town.
By this time, the Red Army had not eaten or even rested for hours. The thin uniforms of the commanders and fighters were soaked with rain and snow, and many people's straw shoes marched in the mud, and they did not know when they would disappear, so they could only march barefoot. The troops were hungry and cold, extremely tired.
The cold and hungry soldiers of the Red Army could only stubbornly walk in the direction of Funiu Mountain with a strong will. However, when it was less than 100 meters away from the Xu (Chang) South (Yang) Highway, suddenly there was a loud gunshot in front of it, and the shouts of killing were everywhere.
The Red Army soldiers who served as sharp soldiers were caught off guard by the dense bullets and fell into a pool of blood! The troops of the enemy's 115th Brigade and cavalry brigade, which had long been ambushed here, launched a fierce attack on our army!
The Northwest Army general Pang Bingxun
At that time, the entire Red 25th Army only had about 3,000 commanders and fighters, the average age was only 16 years old, and it had just gone through three or four consecutive days, and every day was a forced march of one or two hundred miles, and it was already a tired veteran of the division, plus the bad weather did not detect the ambushed enemy in advance.
On the other hand, pang Bingxun is a veteran general of the Northwest Army, this person is good at using troops, he has a good hand, most of his commanders are veterans of the battle front, the troops are also relatively good at war, quite well-equipped, it can be said that it is a rare and fierce enemy of our army.
The 115th Brigade that ambushed our army at Dushu Town this time had 2,460 men, 305 warhorses, nearly 2,000 long and short guns, 22 heavy machine guns, 12 mortars, plus the cavalry regiment of the 40th Army, with a total strength of more than 4,000 troops!
Moreover, the enemy arrived at 11:00 a.m., about 2 hours ahead of our army, in the area of Qiligang in Dushu Town.
At that time, the enemy used the terrain to build field fortifications, forming a front about 10 miles long from east to west, sealing the passage of our army into Funiu Mountain.
In addition, tens of thousands of enemy follow-up troops are constantly coming from all directions to encircle the red 25th army.
Therefore, the enemy who intercepted our army here has no worries at all; as soon as the war begins, they open fire with all their might, and they have the great posture of flattening our army in one fell swoop, in a vain attempt to win the first prize in this "suppression of the Communists"!
Northwest Army Knife Brigade
At this time, the 224th Regiment of the Red Army had been completely overwhelmed by the fierce fire of the enemy, and could not move on the open ground, and the 1st Battalion, which was walking in the front, suffered the greatest casualties.
When the surviving fighters lay down in the snow and prepared to return fire, they found that because the weather was too cold, the bolts of the machine rifles were frozen, and they could not be pulled open for a while, and the lid of the grenade was frozen and unscrewed. In addition, the fingers of many commanders and fighters were frozen in the cold, and there was no way to fight back.
As a result, our army was completely at a disadvantage, and as soon as the battle began, it was suppressed by the fierce fire of the enemy! Dozens of soldiers of our army tried to launch a white-knife charge against the enemy's position and cover the main force, but under the intensive fire of the enemy's light and heavy machine guns, they all died in less than half a minute, and the situation was extremely critical!
The commissar took the lead in launching a counter-charge
The roof leaked during the overnight rain, and at this critical juncture of life and death, Xue Pingjie, director of the military staff department who acted with the vanguard troops, was frightened and scattered. He actually shouted in the troops: "We are surrounded by the enemy!" The road can't go! Let's scatter and run for your lives! ”
The coward then dropped his weapon and fled. Seeing the senior commander fleeing, the will of some commanders and fighters was also shaken, and some people began to flee with them.
The enemy in front of him saw that there was an opportunity to take advantage of it, and immediately launched a charge, encircling from the left and right flanks of the 224th Regiment. The enemy's encirclement was very large, not only intending to encircle the 224th Regiment, but even trying to further absorb the main force of the Red 25th Army.
Ancient battlefield site of Dushu Town
At this time, Political Commissar Wu Huanxian rushed up from behind with 3 companies of 1 battalion of the 225th Regiment. Without a word, he rushed up and kicked Xue Pingjie, who had led the escape, to the ground, and then ordered the guards in a loud voice: "Tie up Xue Pingjie for me!" ”
Subsequently, he pulled out the large knife behind the correspondent's back and shouted: "No withdrawal!" Resolutely resist the enemy and never take a step back! Communists follow me! ”
After saying that, he took the lead and pounced on the dense enemy. Wu Huanxian's arrival greatly stabilized the morale of the 224th Regiment, and the commanders and fighters who had been overwhelmed before also followed Wu Political Commissar to launch a counterattack against the enemy.
At this time, the commander of the army, Cheng Zihua, also sent the 225th Regiment and the direct subordinate units of the army to come to reinforcements, and the Red Army counterattacked the enemy's 115th Brigade across the whole line, and launched a fierce white-knife battle with the enemy.
The Northwest Army has always been famous for its large knife team, which has made great achievements in the Northern Expedition, the Central Plains War and the Great Wall War. When they saw the Red Army swooping in, they also greeted them, and the two sides immediately fought in one place.
Under the leadership of Wu Huanxian, Liu Huaqing, then chief of the organization section of the Political Department of the Red 25 Army, also raised his gun and shouted: "Rush! "Rush up.
It was plain, with nothing hidden, just some harvested haystacks. While counterattacking the enemy, he was suddenly shot in the left leg and suddenly lost his balance and fell to the ground.
Liu Huaqing quickly sat up, he saw a bullet hit the ankle bone of his left leg, he did not care, and wanted to continue to charge, but only to stand up and fell again, which had to be helped down by the hygienist to bandage him.
The enemy had never seen such a death-defying army as the Red 25th Army, and their offensive was frustrated and their morale was much lower than before.
The counterattack spearheaded by Wu Huanxian bought a short time for the Red Army, allowing the follow-up troops to enter the battle. However, the enemy, relying on its superiority in strength and firepower, still rushed forward desperately under the command of its officers, and the momentum of the offensive increased unabated.
Liu
In order to save the complete overwhelm of our army, the cavalry regiment of the enemy 40th Army also entered the battle.
The enemy's cavalry, commanding from a nearby high slope, suddenly charged at the Red Army. Because the Red Army was mostly infantry, it was caught off guard when the enemy cavalry rushed over, and suffered a lot of casualties.
Fortunately, at this time, the sky gradually darkened, and the enemy's cavalry lost its impact in the soft snow after rushing down the high slope, and many horses' hooves were trapped in the mud and could not be pulled out, and could only spin around in place.
Wang Chenghan, deputy company commander of the 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 224th Regiment, shouted at the sight: "Comrades, first cut off the legs of the horse, and then kill the enemy!" ”
The Red Army soldiers immediately fell to the ground in this way to avoid the sabers of the enemy cavalry who were high above, and then took the opportunity to roll over the ground, approach the mounts of the enemy cavalry, first cut off the legs of the horses, and when the horses that were cut fell to the ground, the cavalry fell off the horse's back, and then rushed up to mend the knife.
Relying on this tactic, the enemy's cavalry was hacked to death by our army and many wounded, and the rest did not dare to fight, and some of them fled back to their own positions on the high slopes, and some fled into the wilderness.
But the enemy's cavalry was, after all, the elite of the northwest army, and a single shock defeat was not enough to completely crush the enemy. After stabilizing their positions slightly, these mighty cavalry dismounted and fought, wielding sabers and screaming and rushing toward our army.
In the fierce battle, wu huanxian, the political commissar who was a pioneer, was also injured in the leg, and he could not stand steadily and almost fell. The enemy saw him wearing a pistol, estimated that he was the commander, and immediately organized a group of elites, shouting and cursing to surround him.
The Red Army soldiers near Commissar Wu were all brave, rushing up one by one, engaging in a scuffle with the enemy and snatching Commissar Wu back.
At this point, both sides were already very tired, but the enemy's offensive was still fierce, one wave higher than the other. Although the 115th Brigade and the Cavalry Regiment no longer had the ambition of the beginning of the war to completely annihilate our army with their own strength.
However, the enemy still has the confidence to rely on its existing strength to drag the Red 25th Army to the death, so that our army cannot enter Funiu Mountain, and wait for our own follow-up troops to arrive and then surround and annihilate our army in one fell swoop. The 224th and 225th regiments of our army suffered heavy casualties in the battle, and the two sides formed a stalemate.
Oil paintings depicting the Red Army's charge against the enemy
At this time, Deputy Commander Xu Haidong, after repelling the enemy's pursuers, rushed up with the 223rd Regiment.
Instead of immediately ordering the impatient officers and men into battle, he took advantage of the deep twilight and fog to envelop the battlefield and ordered a haystack to be lit first, so that the commanders and fighters of the whole regiment would take turns to bake their weapons, and at the same time let the frozen fingers warm up a little, and at the same time recover their strength slightly.
When the troops were ready, he ordered an attack on the flank of the 115th Brigade. Since the 223rd Regiment had fought many victorious battles and captured a lot, there were many light machine guns in the troops. Xu Haidong ordered all the light machine guns to be concentrated and fired fiercely at the enemy in unison to cover the charge of the troops.
The 223rd Regiment suddenly appeared at about 15:00 p.m., caught the enemy by surprise, and finally suppressed the arrogant 115th Brigade and the Cavalry Regiment, forcing the enemy to turn to the defensive.
The Red Army immediately pounced on the road in multiple directions, and the enemy who was entrenched in the ditch on the side of the road saw the fierceness of the Red Army and retreated along the road to the east and west. The vanguard of our army took the opportunity to rush across the road and occupied a village at one point, and the enemy's defensive line began to falter under the onslaught of our army.
The Red Army launched an attack on the enemy
But after all, the enemy's superiority was too great, and after some of the Red Army troops rushed across the road, the enemy quickly gathered 1 battalion of infantry and a company of cavalry, supported by heavy and light machine guns and mortars, to attack the flank of our army.
Because our army was undermanned and the enemy's frontal firepower was too strong, the attack was frustrated. At the same time, the enemy constantly attacked from the flank of our army, and the Red 25th Army organized three charges, but all of them were repelled by the enemy.
By about 16:00 p.m., our army, under the fierce fire of the enemy, was forced back to the south of the road, and the enemy blocked the road again, and our army formed a confrontation with the enemy army by relying on several nearby villages.
By this time the sky had completely darkened, the windy and snowy weather had suddenly become a downpour, and the earth had become a complete quagmire, which greatly limited the enemy's mobility and gave the Red Army a rare breathing opportunity.
After a short rest and a simple dinner, the Red 25th Army did not wait for dawn, but mobilized the troops, requiring everyone to overcome all difficulties, rushing out of the enemy's encirclement overnight, and entering Funiu Mountain is victory!
Red 25th Army Dushu Town Battle Monument
Subsequently, under the cover of darkness of night and bad weather, our army relied on local compatriots to lead the way, secretly bypassed the enemy's defense line, and began to force along the fields in the farmland that had been harvested.
Many wounded and sick also demanded that they resolutely follow the troops, endure the pain of lack of medical treatment and medicine, and persist in breaking through. At that time, the troops wanted to leave Liu Huaqing, who had been shot in the leg, to recuperate. But Liu Huaqing insisted on following the troops.
At his repeated request, the leaders of the military political department finally decided to take Liu Huaqing with them. Comrade Cheng Tan took the initiative to give up his mount to Liu Huaqing. This time, Liu Huaqing was able to successfully break through with the troops.
Mao Zedong: It's like burning Bowangpo
That night, the Northwest Army did not wait for dawn to move, and the main 5th Cavalry Division of the 40th Army and the multi-way pursuit force also braved the rain to march southeast of dushu town from several directions. If the Red Army could not shake off the enemy and enter Funiu Mountain the next day, it would be surrounded by more than 20 regiments and tens of thousands of enemies!
However, the Red 25th Army finally triumphantly crossed the Xunan Highway from the enemy's cracks and successfully entered the Funiu Mountains in the early morning of November 27.
After dawn, the enemy found that the Red Army in the encirclement had long since disappeared! The angry and demoralized enemy immediately rode out and searched for the whereabouts of our army.
After discovering that the main force of the Red Army had crossed the road and entered the Area of Funiu Mountain, the main force of the Enemy 5th Cavalry Division, which arrived under the strict orders of Pang Bingxun, joined the 115th Brigade and the Cavalry Regiment of the 40th Army, and immediately pursued our army with light armor.
The enemy's movement was very fast, and the enemy's 5th Cavalry Division, the 115th Brigade, and the Cavalry Regiment pursued our army in two directions in an attempt to attack the Red 25th Army on both sides. By noon, the enemy's vanguard had overtaken the Red Army in a vain attempt to block our army along the river.
However, the Red 223rd Regiment, under the command of Xu Haidong, rushed to cross the Li River, captured the highlands east of the paper house, relied on favorable terrain to repel the attack of the enemy's 5th Cavalry Division, and controlled the main road into the mountain.
Han Xianchu, commander of the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the Red 225th Regiment, also received an order from Wu Huanxian, the political commissar, to lead his troops to quickly seize the siege of Wulipo and Gaolaoshan Mountain north of Shangma Village and control the commanding heights there.
Our army commanded to crush the pursuit of the enemy of the 115th Brigade and the cavalry regiment of the 40th Army with intensive firepower, and successfully covered the smooth crossing of the river by the 224th Regiment and the army headquarters, which suffered heavy casualties in yesterday's battle, and then the main force of the whole army continued to advance westward along Ye county and Fangcheng.
The Red 25th Army arrived in northern Shaanxi first, laying the foundation for the victory of the Long March
But the ghostly enemy refused to concede defeat and continued to cling to our army. At this time, the Red Army had already gone deep into the mountainous areas, and deputy commander Xu Haidong, after the whole army entered the deep mountains, happily pointed to the three mountains in front of him and said: "Comrades! Our reinforcements arrived, and there were three whole divisions! “
His words re-injected the spirit of the commanders and fighters who were already extremely tired, and our army repelled the pursuing enemy near the town of Guohe and the township of Silidian, and marched all the way west into the Funiu Mountains.
That night, the Red 25th Army camped in Xugou and Xiaoyaozui villages in The town of Guohe in Fangcheng County. Only then was it that most of the officers and men of the Red 25th Army were able to sleep peacefully after several days of fierce fighting.
The Battle of Dushu town was a battle that determined the survival of the Red 25th Army.
Our army of less than 3,000 men, after paying the price of more than one-tenth of the loss, broke through the combined attack of tens of thousands of elite infantry and horses of the Kuomintang army, and finally threw off the enemy's pursuit and entered the Funiu Mountains, laying the foundation for the victory of the Red 25th Army in the Long March.
This is what Chairman Mao Zedong later said in his conversation with Cheng Zihua and Xu Haidong that our army fought in Dushu Town with one to ten, threw off the enemy, and turned victory into southern Shaanxi.
Therefore, Chairman Mao also compared the Battle of Dushu Town with the two famous battles in ancient history in the nearby area, the Battle of Kunyang and the Battle of Bowangpo.
In this way, the Red 25th Army, completely isolated from the information of the Party Central Committee, fought alone for tens of thousands of miles, lasted more than 10 months, and on the way of the Long March, it used its own strength to open up the revolutionary base areas in Eyu and Shaanxi, and took the lead in reaching northern Shaanxi to meet the division of the Red Army in northern Shaanxi led by Comrades Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang. He made outstanding contributions to the greeting of the Party Central Committee and the Central Red Army, as well as to the final completion of the First, Second and Fourth Fronts!
Resources
"Blood Battle Alone Tree Town: A Vicious Battle of the Red 25th Army's Life and Death", Henan Daily, January 6, 2015
The Battle History of the Twenty-fifth Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, Pladong People's Liberation Army Publishing House
Memoirs of Liu Huaqing, People's Liberation Army Publishing House
Memoirs of Wang Chenghan, People's Liberation Army Publishing House