In the early years of the Republic of China, warlords were fighting among themselves, especially in Sichuan, which led to bandits running rampant everywhere and the people suffering unspeakably.
Lai Jinting was born in Jintang County, Sichuan province at the end of the Qing Dynasty, with eight brothers and sisters, and his life was not good. After the death of her father, her mother moved to Kangjiadu with several children and became a sharecropper. However, this Lai Jinting did not have the heart to cultivate the land at all, and when he was not old, he thought about going out to be a bandit.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the people, Sichuan was in chaos, and bandits were everywhere. For example, this Lai Jinting, it is very simple to want to be a bandit, his third brother Lai Xi is a small bandit. After following the third brother for a while, Lai Jinting went to his uncle Lai Kaitai, the local bandit leader. Usually, Lai Jinting is to herd cattle, and when his uncle goes out to rob, he will take him with him. After a while, Lai Jinting defected to his uncle and brother-in-law, and the bandit leader Peng Zhiqi...
At that time, it was normal for relatives and friends to be bandits. Some are "professional bandits", while others farm and become bandits in their spare time. Since Lai Jinting followed Peng Zhiqi, he has liked to rob the house and commit crimes. It wasn't long before he was promoted to small leader, divided into more than a dozen guns, and became the "helm of the shed."
Lai Jinting soon showed his "talent", led more than a dozen of his men around, canvassed and robbed, and quickly developed into a band of more than 200 bandits.
Others were bandits looking forward to being recruited and fed, but Lai Jinting was completely different.
In the early years of the Republic of China, the warlords were fighting each other, and they all wanted to recruit local bandits and expand their strength. Those bandits, large and small, also feel that looting everywhere is not a long-term solution, are willing to be recruited, some people are shooting bullets and paying soldiers, how good!
In 1922, the brigade commander of a brigade under Yang Sen successfully recruited Peng Zhiqi, and Lai Jinting naturally followed. Peng Zhiqi became the regimental commander, Lai Jinting became the battalion commander, and the team was stationed in Guanghan. Supposedly, this is a good thing, but Lai Jinting doesn't think so. He had already buried the good gun in his hand and left a way back.
A few months after being absorbed, Lai Jinting felt that the troops were too strict and not free. So, he handed over the position of battalion commander to his nephew and patted his own ass back to his hometown. Soon after, he gathered a group of men and horses and continued to work as bandits. Lai Jinting felt that it was so good to be a bandit, he ate and slept when he wanted to eat, and when he woke up, he pulled the team to rob, and no one cared. It didn't take long for his band of bandits to grow stronger.
Bandits like Lai Jinting are fierce in their hearts.
Sichuan bandits kidnapped tickets, the target is called "pulling fat pigs" for adults, and the target is called "holding children". In those days, bandits no matter where they were, they felt that it was safest to tie up tickets and get money the fastest. Normally, the targets of kidnapping tickets are slightly rich families, such as Lai Jinting, Sichuan bandits, after kidnapping people, they will find a hidden place to lock up, a few bowls of thin porridge every day, specially guarded.
Generally, the quotation is hundreds to thousands of oceans, and when the money is paid, the person will be taken away, and the person will never be released without paying the money. Some people were tortured to death, and families who wanted to bring the bodies back had to pay money. Some people do not give a penny, and most of the meat tickets will die, but if they are children, they are likely to be left behind and join the gang. Lai Jinting's adopted son, Lai Xingcheng, was a meat ticket that no one redeemed, and Lai Jinting saw that he was clever enough and adopted him.
Since they are bandits, they are indispensable to robbery. Lai Jinting led people to block roads and rob merchants, entered villages and villages to harm the common people, and sometimes even sneaked into towns to rob homes. For example, once Lai Jinting brought people to the town of Yunxiuchang, he asked all the bandits to put on military uniforms, go in bright and upright, and arrange the bandits at various intersections. The people who rushed to the scene did not know that they were bandits, and they were not too vigilant. After Lai Jinting's order, martial law was imposed at all intersections, and the people were rushed together to search them one by one, and the clothes and shoes were robbed, and the soot in the pipes in the smoke house was taken out and taken away. Usually grabbing grain, grabbing chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits, is even more unscrupulous.
Lai Jinting often did the murder and arson, and the local security team had limited strength and did not have the courage to go out to suppress the bandits. In this way, there are more and more bandits like Lai Jinting, and many ordinary people have also been coerced into joining the bandit gang, and some villages have bandits in every house.
Three-year-old children are seven-year-old bandits, and eighty-year-old men sit on the ground and divide the fat.
In 1925, the Sichuan warlord Yang Xiuchun decided to suppress bandits to show his strength and love for the people, mainly targeting the Jintang area where he was stationed. Zheng Er said, how easy was it to suppress bandits at that time? In addition to the bandits who are familiar with the terrain and hide around, there are many people who are "openly for the peasants and secretly bandits" and are tricky.
Therefore, Yang Xiuchun's suppression of bandits is actually a show of force to deter local bandits and people. Before the action, he also specially made up a song to sing around: "Three-year-old children are seven-year-old bandits, and eighty old men sit on the ground and divide the fat." "To put it this way, the Jintang area is full of bandits... In fact, this statement is not all right, nor is it all wrong. There are not many "professional bandits" like Lai Jinting. However, there are indeed many people who "connect bandits," and the matter of "sitting on the ground and dividing the fat" is also very common.
In short, Yang Xiuchun's suppression of bandits targeted Lai Jinting and other large bandits. But after all, the bandits are very familiar with the local area, and as soon as the officers and soldiers came, they hid in the mountains, and the officers and soldiers came out again to rob them, and from time to time they also ate some soldiers who had fallen behind, and seized a lot of guns and ammunition. Yang Xiuchun's team suffered a loss, and they could not catch the bandits, so they began to toss the people.
As long as they see "suspicious" people, they indiscriminately arrest and beat them, or they go into villages to "hunt down bandits" and take advantage of the opportunity to harm the people. At that time, they also came up with a "three-finish-four-light policy" - trees were cut down, bamboo was cut down, and jars and jars were smashed; big pigs and piglets were killed, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits were eaten, vegetables were ripped out, and yards were burned down. The purpose of this is said to be to "prevent the bandits from having a place to stay."
Yang Xiuchun was unable to suppress the bandits, and could only be appeased, and Lai Jinting was again recruited.
If you read more stories of bandits in the Republic of China, you will be accustomed to the routine of "incorporation", and the purpose of many bandits' development and growth is to be recruited and paid by officials. Yesterday they were still bandits, but today they have become a "security regiment", and the people have nothing to say.
Lai Jinting is still very satisfied with this compilation. He became the deputy commander of the "Joint Regiment" for maintaining public order, and chengxiang, Xiushui, Yaodu, Qingjiang, and other areas became his "defense areas." Luo Chunshan, another bandit leader who had a good relationship with Lai Jinting, ruled over the hilly areas such as Dragon King, Rixin, Yunxiu, and Fuhong, and was the nominal captain of the brigade, under the command of Lai Jinting. In fact, these two people claimed hegemony in their respective defense zones, collected taxes on their own, and collected them completely for their own use.
In this way, Lai Jinting began to develop brightly and uprightly, mobilizing 7,000 people and horses at the most powerful time, and there were more than 1,000 people in the team with him. At this time, Lai Jinting became the Emperor of Tu and became a small warlord who divided the side.
It was also at this time that the bandits had a conflict with each other and began to kill each other.
The captain of the brigade, Luo Chunshan, became a bandit in his 20s, and his heart was fierce, and he was the second bandit leader in Jintang after Lai Jinting. The two sides once fought with each other, and later they fought together, and they were born and died many times, becoming good brothers. Lai Jinting's nephew also specifically recognized Luo Chunshan as his father, and the relationship between the Lai and Luo families was closer.
"Blessed to share, there are difficulties to share" - between bandits, it is okay to share hardships, but it is not necessary to share blessings. After Lai Jinting and Luo Chunshan were incorporated, they each claimed to be kings and hegemons in their own spheres of influence, and after a long time, the contradictions came out.
Initially, it was Lai Jinting's small bandit leader who was caught robbing Luo Chunshan's territory, and Luo Chunshan directly killed him. Although Luo Chunshan was reasonable and well-founded in this matter, Lai Jinting always felt that he did not give himself face. Later, Luo Chunshan's men pretended to be the army and went out to rob, and accidentally dropped important physical evidence at the scene, and the garrison found that it was something that belonged to Lai Jinting's men, so they thought that Lai Jinting had arranged for someone to do it.
Lai Jinting felt that Luo Chunshan was deliberately marrying him, so he made up his mind to get rid of him.
In March 1929, Lai Jinting held a large swing to worship the gods in Kangjiadu and invited Luo Chunshan to come. Luo Chunshan originally believed in Buddhism, so he had no defenses, and only brought 15 of his henchmen with him. When they reached the riverside and prepared to get off the boat, Luo Chunshan's horse suddenly roared and was manic. The two henchmen looked at it and felt that it was not a good omen, so they advised Luo Chunshan not to go.
Luo Chunshan did not listen to the dissuasion and insisted on going, and the two confidants were helpless and did not follow them. After Luo Chunshan arrived at the place, Lai Jinting warmly received him, and that night, Lai Jinting's men took advantage of Luo Chunshan's lack of preparation and fired three shots in a row, but did not hit the key point. After that, they dragged Luo Chunshan to the courtyard courtyard and fired seven bullets, and Luo Chunshan died.
To kill Luo Chunshan, Lai Jinting said to the outside world that it was arranged by the garrison, and he himself was unwilling, and he also sent someone to send Luo Chunshan's body back, bringing incense wax paper money and other sacrifices to show that he was very moralistic. The Luo family didn't say anything on the surface, but in fact they were furious. In order to cut the grass and remove the roots, Lai Jinting quickly brought troops over to surround and suppress Luo Chunshan's men, but fortunately, the Luo family fought to the death so that they would not be completely destroyed.
After getting rid of his brother, Lai Jinting was more powerful and of course more arrogant.
The tree made a big move, and he, the earth overlord, soon became the focus of the bandits.
In March 1930, various warlords began to encircle and suppress Lai Jinting. Although Lai Jinting was familiar with the terrain and had many guns under his command, after all, his combat effectiveness was not very strong, and he could only resist the breakthrough and retreat slightly. As a result, Deng Xihou ordered the garrisons in western Sichuan to pursue and intercept, and Lai Jinting wanted to flee to Beichuan with his team, but was surrounded near the Red and White Field.
At that time, they were blocked next to a chain bridge, followed by a blockade in front of the pursuing soldiers, on the left was the steep wall of the mountain, and on the right was the abyss and rapid water. When the bandits saw that there was no way back, they immediately scattered and fled, some killed and some drowned. Lai Jinting broke out with only 7 of his cronies and hid in the mountains.
After a few days, they dared to come out quietly and ran all the way to the vicinity of the roasted turtle beach in the north of Mianzhu County. Several people were huddled on the side of the road to eat, when tuan Ding in the bunker next to them suddenly probed and asked, "What's the matter?" One of the bandits said indifferently, "Be human." When Tuan Ding heard this, he immediately fired a shot at the group, right in the middle of Lai Jinting's temple. This great bandit, who had been arrogant for many years, fell down without a word.
Lai Jinting is dead, and there are still many bandits in Sichuan. Stubble after stubble, how can not be finished. In fact, for the common people, the difference between bandits and officers and soldiers at that time was really not big, and no matter who came, it was a random robbery.
The common people made up a song and ballad, which is very illustrative: "Bandits are like combs, regiments are like grates, and officers and soldiers are like knives shaved." ”