In October 1942, in front of the headquarters of the Jinnan Military Region, a nervous-looking soldier suddenly came running, and he shouted loudly:
"Report to the commander, there is an urgent telegram from the sixth division!"
From his tone, the crowd could easily sense the importance of this urgent telegram. Chen Zaidao, then commander of the Jinnan Military Region, heard this movement and his heart clattered, and he suddenly had a bad premonition.
He hurried outside and took the telegram from the soldier's hand, and the next second, his face turned pale in an instant--his conjecture was fulfilled, and the telegram showed that Comrade Liu Zhijian, a cadre of our side, had recently been captured by the Japanese side, and the situation was in danger at this time.
Chen Zaidao understood the urgency of the matter, and he immediately wrote a report to Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, and asked the soldiers to quickly pass it into their hands.
The soldiers obeyed his instructions and traveled day and night, and it wasn't long before Liu and Deng saw the report. After the two chiefs read it, they frowned and issued a strict order:
Go all out to rescue Liu Zhijian, live to see people, die to see corpses!
So, what is the identity of the arrested Liu Zhijian? How was he arrested? Why did Chen Zaidao and Liu Deng attach so much importance to him? What happened after the crowd?
Previous experience
Born in 1912, Liu Zhijian is a native of Pingjiang County, Hunan Province, and his parents are just ordinary local farmers.
Pictured| Liu Zhijian
Unlike others, Liu Zhijian has had a courageous upward heart since he was a child, so when other villagers were still sad and sad about the oppression of the warlords, Liu Zhijian had already joined the revolutionary ranks.
In 1928, Liu Zhijian participated in the Pingjiang Rebellion, and because of his outstanding performance, he became an official Red Army in 1930 and served as a propagandist in the propaganda team of the army's political department. In 1931, Liu Zhijian was recommended by his superiors to join the Communist Party of China. In December of the same year, he was promoted to the post of Director of the Secretariat of the Political Department of the Third Red Army.
Liu Zhijian was also a rare intellectual, and in 1932, he founded the Red Third Army Fireline Drama Society and opened it
The Wire of Fire
。 In the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign planned by the Central Soviet Region, the enemy gathered the firepower of six divisions and launched an attack on our Gaohunai position. Under the concerted confrontation of everyone, our side successfully defended the position, and Liu Zhijian felt something about this, and wrote the song of "Battle of Gao Hu'an" with a stroke of his pen.
In 1937, Liu Zhijian was promoted by the Central Committee to the head of the Propaganda Department of the Political Department of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army by virtue of his outstanding military achievements in the previous war.
In October of the same year, the 129th Division arrived in Pingding County, Shanxi Province, and immediately annihilated a transport brigade of Japanese devils in the local village of Qiqi, harvesting a large amount of booty and dealing a fierce blow to the arrogance of Japanese devils.
During the battle, Liu Zhijian has been following the soldiers forward, publicizing and encouraging the people and improving the morale of the army. At the same time, he will also shuttle the militia and patriotic masses around Qiqi Village through the rain of bullets and bullets, and actively carry out field service work.
In November 1937, Liu Zhijian led the members of the working group to Jincheng to carry out the mission. Faced with the turbulent situation of that year, he decided to immediately carry out extensive propaganda and education, strengthen the determination of the broad masses to resist the war, and stabilize the current social order.
In order to achieve this goal, he also actively carried out activities to expand the anti-war force and collect donations, and after repeated mobilization, many young and middle-aged people were awakened to patriotism and began to enthusiastically sign up for the army. It is understood that in just over a month, more than 1,600 people came to the registration point.
Liu Zhijian understood that the central authorities were facing an extremely difficult situation, so his work group never applied for a penny from his superiors, and only relied on fundraising to solve the problem of food and accommodation for more than a thousand recruits. After the new recruits were recruited, a new corps was established and incorporated into the 386th Brigade. The commanders of the First and Second Divisions were very satisfied with his work and affirmed and praised their outstanding achievements.
In April 1938, the Central Military Commission instructed the 129th Division to go to the southern Hebei region to carry out guerrilla warfare in the plains. Although everyone understood the difficulty of the mission, they did not hesitate to accept the instruction in order to protect the people.
Not long after, Comrade Xu Xiangqian, then deputy commander of the division, and Liu Zhijian, deputy director of the Political Department, led the Ludong Column to the southern Hebei region to open up a new revolutionary base area and carry out guerrilla warfare on the plains.
In order to establish the prestige of the Eighth Route Army and make the people trust our side even more, Chen Zaidao, Xu Xiangqian, Song Renqian, Liu Zhijian, and others discussed first conquering WeiXian, which was occupied by the Japanese army, and then annihilating the feudal superstitious organization "Six Departures" controlled by reactionary landlords and unscrupulous traitors.
In June 1939, in order to strengthen the construction of our forces, the superior leaders decided to separate the Ji'nan Military Region from the EastWard Column, and from then on, Chen Zaidao served as the commander of the Eastward Column, and Liu Zhijian was the political commissar of the column.
In February 1940, our army decided to launch an offensive against the Kuomintang diehard Shi Yousan, of which Two comrades, Chen Zaidao and Liu Zhijian, were the commanders of the Left Wing and were responsible for the main offensive tasks of the anti-stubborn campaign.
Before the outbreak of the campaign, the leading cadres of the left wing brigade and above the company held an important meeting in Wei County, at which Liu Zhijian carried out combat mobilization work. The mobilization was so successful that the major commanders were enthusiastic, requested to go to war, and began to actively prepare for the war.
After the outbreak of the battle, the left wing team responsible for the main attack took the lead, bravely faced the enemy, stubbornly struggled, and the mighty momentum of the crowd made the enemy tremble with fear, after a month or so of fighting, more than 7,000 fighters of the three parts of the enemy army were annihilated by our side, and finally, the remnants of their troops were expelled from southern Hebei by our side.
The victory in this campaign against stubbornness dealt a serious blow to the Kuomintang reactionaries and diehards, enabling us to win the backbone and thus consolidating the situation in the base areas of southern Hebei.
After that, according to the war situation, the superiors decided to promote Chen Zaidao to commander of the Ji'nan Military Region, and Liu Zhijian was appointed director of the political department of the military region.
However, just when everyone thought that the situation in southern Hebei was very good, the Japanese side seemed to be beginning to realize the danger of our army in southern Hebei and began to send heavy troops."
siege
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Seriously wounded and captured
From January to September 1942, the Japanese puppet army encircled the southern Hebei region several times and repeatedly "cleared and suppressed", which put the situation in the southern Jinnan region into a dangerous situation.
The enemy's strongholds are lined with bunkers, and the highways have also set up multiple interception sections, and except for the third and fourth divisions that still maintain a small base area, the vast majority of the remaining sub-districts have become guerrilla base areas, and some have even become enemy war zones.
The First and Second Sub-districts were the political and military organs of our side, and due to the infestation of the enemy, they were once forced to withdraw from the theater. The main force of the Eighth Route Army was sharply reduced by more than 6,000 people, and most of the guerrillas in the counties had been dispersed. The team of more than 2,000 people in the second division is only more than 200 people at this time; the original 1,000 people in the first division are now only more than 200 people. These signs have plunged the fighters into decadence, and the thinking of the masses of the people is also very confused and pessimistic.
Under such a grim situation, how to persist in the guerrilla war in southern Hebei has become a key problem facing Song Renqian, political commissar of the military region, and commander.
In early October 1942, Song Renqian held an enlarged meeting of the district party committee in the area north of Qiu County, in which all the main leaders of the army participated.
At this meeting, Song Renqian analyzed the situation in the southern Hebei region, put forward favorable conditions for continuing the fighting, and asked the leading cadres to take the lead in persisting in the battle and firmly holding the position.
After the meeting, the regional party committee issued a "Resolution on Surviving the Difficult Situation This Winter and Next Spring." The resolution defines the tasks of the military and civilians in the southern Hebei region and declares:
The party and the Eighth Route Army will stand with the people of southern Hebei at all times, persist in fighting, hold firm positions, and go all out to tide over the predicament in front of them.
According to this resolution, the principal leaders of the party, government, and army in southern Hebei acted separately, went to various local party committees and sub-districts to spread the word, and made arrangements to implement this matter.
On October 15, Liu Zhijian, then director of the Political Department of the Ji'nan Military Region, and Zhang Ce, director of the organization department of the ji'nan military region, and other comrades arrived at the station of the sixth sub-district south of Zaoqiang. When the commander of the sub-district learned of the news, he immediately informed the heads of the counties to go to the village of Dashi, east of Engcha, for a meeting.
What everyone did not expect was that in the early morning of the 17th of this month, when the sky was still just dark, the Japanese devils surrounded the small village where Liu Zhijian lived temporarily.
After Liu Zhijian heard the news, he immediately ran out of the house and rode his horse to prepare for the breakthrough, but at this time it was too late, seeing that he was about to break out, a bullet suddenly hit his leg, Liu Zhijian was seriously injured and fell to the ground, and could no longer move.
Liu Zhijian understood very well what it meant for a warrior not to act on the battlefield, and he had a slight thought of not accepting defeat in his mind, but he finally calmed down. In order to prevent the Japanese devils from more information, he pulled out all the documents he was carrying, shredded them and stuffed them into his mouth, and did not dare to chew more, so he desperately swallowed them. After that, he buried a photograph of his wife, which he had been carrying, and a pocket watch, in the mound.
All this was dealt with for the time being, and the enemy surrounded it. In the face of the approaching enemy, Liu Zhijian smiled contemptuously, and then took out a pistol, aimed it at his temple, and fired a shot, but the heavens did not seem to want him to die, and the bullet in the gun suddenly jammed, and he couldn't shoot it.
When the enemy saw this scene, he first stayed still for a few seconds, and when he reacted, he immediately pounced on him, and Liu Zhijian was caught on the spot.
That night, Liu Zhijian was held in a house in the enemy camp, guarded by Japanese sentries outside the door. Liu Zhi recalled:
"I was so bad that the pain of the wound kept eroding my brain, I hadn't eaten a drop of water in a day or two, I hadn't eaten anything, I was thirsty and hungry, I couldn't sleep at all."
But the enemy did not pay attention to these things at all, and the more he thought about it in the room, the more angry he became, and he could not help but scold them, trying to provoke the enemy to go in and kill him.
But the Japanese sentries could not understand what he was saying, he was so tired that he was only playing the piano to the ox, and the enemy would only push him twice and roar at him twice when he was annoyed. The rest of the time, just stand still. In this way, Liu Zhijian worked hard for one night, but he could not get what he wanted.
Early the next morning, the Japanese devil's chief walked in with an interpreter and wanted to interrogate Liu Zhijian. The enemy asked, "What do you do?" ”
Liu Zhijian replied: "Fight the little devil! ”
The enemy asked, "Which unit do you belong to?" ”
Liu Zhijian snorted coldly: "Lao Tzu is the Eighth Route Army!" ”
Seeing that he did not seem to be very cooperative, the Japanese devil pulled out a "secret weapon" and fixed his eyes on it, it turned out to be the resume form of the cadres of the Jinan Military Region, Liu Zhijian glanced at it, and found that there was also his own resume inside.
Fortunately, Liu Zhijian was asked not to take photos casually, so that he could go to underground work at any time, and he did not expect that this order could have such benefits.
Although the Japanese devils suspected that Liu Zhijian was an important cadre, because there was no evidence, it was impossible to determine his specific identity. Just at this moment, the enemy brought in another comrade, named Zhao Dingxin, who was also a cadre of the Eighth Route Army who had been captured not long ago, and with his strong will, he had never revealed his identity.
Liu Zhijian and Zhao Dingxin met, only to see Liu Zhijian lying in the room unable to move, and when the Japanese devils did not pay attention to him, it was Zhao Dingxin who took good care of him and prepared food for him.
Seeing him come in, Liu Zhijian looked at him nervously and signaled not to say his real name and position. Zhao Dingxin read his eyes, and when the Japanese devils asked him, he left and right, but did not say the specific answer.
But he didn't say anything, and he couldn't escape the interrogation of the enemy, so Zhang Zhijian made up a false identity for himself, saying that he was a staff officer of the sub-district and a cadre of the company platoon of the Eighth Route Army.
Such a statement has indeed been a japanese ghost for a while, although they still have doubts about Liu Zhijian's identity, but they will not pay too much attention to him, Liu Zhijian has successfully survived to our rescue with this neglect.
Try to rescue
The director of the political department of the military region was captured by the enemy, which was not a small problem, and after determining the situation, the cadres of the sixth sub-district hurriedly commanded their subordinate soldiers to report the matter to the headquarters of the military region. Chen Zaidao, commander of the military region, attached great importance to this and immediately wrote a report and told two comrades, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping about the incident. After Liu Deng and deng heard the letter, they issued a strict order:
Pictured| Deng Xiaoping and Liu Bocheng
At that time, the local intelligence network of the Eighth Route Army was very well established, and every move of the enemy was under our control. Therefore, for the enemy camp, the Eighth Route Army can be said to know very well, not only know the configuration of their troops and firepower, but also know the specific location of Liu Zhijian's detention, and even understand that Liu Zhijian fooled the Japanese devils.
After learning about these facts, commander of the sixth division
Easy good products
He quickly began to formulate a rescue strategy, and finally, he came up with the most concise plan: mobilize firepower to attack the enemy stronghold and snatch back Liu Zhijian from it! However, when it came time to deploy the operation, Yi Liangpin found that there was a key problem with our side - our troops were insufficient, and forcing them to act according to this plan was likely to drag the situation into a more dangerous situation.
As the saying goes, no coincidence is not a book, and just when everyone was anxious about the shortage of troops, the Twentieth Regiment, the main force of the military region, was ordered to go south and happened to pass through this theater.
The two companies of the advance troops of the army, led by deputy commander Chu Daming, were the first to arrive here. The ultimate goal of the people at this time was to go to the rear organs and obtain the cotton clothes of the whole regiment of soldiers for the winter. After they arrived at the war zone, Yi Liangpin was overjoyed, and he immediately asked Chu Daming to postpone his plan to receive cotton clothes and first go with them to rescue Liu Zhijian.
Just at this time, our army received another reliable piece of information: the next day the Japanese devils will escort Liu Zhijian to Zaoqiang, and there are not too many enemies accompanying them, including more than 30 Japanese troops and dozens of puppet troops.
Picture | Yi Liangpin
Yi Liangpin heard the news and excitedly clapped the table and shouted:
God help me too! God help me too!
He resolutely abandoned the previous plan of strong attack and ordered Chu Daming, who had recently arrived in the war zone, to lead two companies of soldiers to ambush on both sides of the road around Nangongzhuang between the enemy camp and Encha, waiting for an opportunity to raid the enemy.
Chu Daming knew in his heart that raiding the enemy in southern Hebei was a very arduous task. First, the flat and open North China Plain, with no cover to use; second, because the enemy was also worried that our side would suddenly rush out, it was forbidden for the peasants to plant corn, sorghum and other high-pole crops within 500 meters on both sides of the road, so that the soldiers wanted to ambush, which became a very difficult problem; third, in the plain area, the enemy's actions would become more convenient, and if we could not quickly resolve the battle, it was likely to be besieged by the enemy's follow-up support forces.
Of course, our side is not without a little advantage, at the very least, the Japanese devils did not know that we had received the news that they were going to escort Liu Zhijian the next day, nor did they know that the Eighth Route Army would ambush in this area, so that we could completely catch them off guard.
On the morning of October 20, before dawn, the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, under the cover of night, unknowingly sneaked into the ambush site.
It was a sweet potato field, and most of the sweet potato fields around it had been dug up, but for some reason, the sweet potato field survived and was not dug at all. The long sweet potato vines in the field can hide the warriors' bodies, and with some camouflage skills, it is difficult for the enemy to find their horse's feet even if they look closely, which also provides a hiding place for the warriors.
Before the operation began, Chu Daming divided the work among the soldiers: the main responsibility of the fourth company was to rescue, while the sixth company was responsible for attacking the escorting enemy, cutting off the enemy's contact, and thus covering the fourth company to complete the rescue mission.
Hearing the division of labor, the commander of the fourth company immediately ordered ji Zhiming, the fourth squad leader, to lead the whole squad of soldiers to rescue Liu Zhijian, because Ji Zhiming had met with Liu Zhijian to facilitate the identification of people.
The sun gradually rose, and the unobstructed great plain was filled with fog, and people and animals were inseparable from each other a few inches away. At that time, it was already autumn, and the temperature difference between day and night in the North China Plain was extremely large, especially at dawn, the cold was compelling, and the clothes of the soldiers lying in the sweet potato field were soaked with fog, adding a little chill.
The thick fog gradually dissipated, and the warriors, who had been lying on their stomachs for two hours, remained motionless, and from beginning to end, they did not make a sound.
At 8 o'clock, the creep sent information: "The enemy is coming this way." Chu Daming immediately looked up, only to see that from the road to go, a group of people and horses was marching in their direction. At the front was a puppet soldier in a black uniform, followed by a large cart, and a man could be faintly seen lying on the car. At the end is a group of Japanese devils dressed in yellow field suits, holding three or eight large cap rifles, and wearing steel helmets and hats. They walked with great power, not knowing that their end was coming.
Figure | Chu Daming
The lurking warriors stared at them with bated breath, and when the enemy who was walking at the back also entered the ambush circle, the commander immediately gave the order that the machine guns of the sixth company be fired first, and the enemy was startled by this movement and hurried to flee to the ditch on the side of the road to take refuge.
But our side was bound to not let them go, and before long, the soldiers of the sixth company launched a fierce bombardment against the enemy, suppressing them with ferocious fire, so that they did not dare to look up.
At the same time, the soldiers of the fourth company immediately ran toward the big car, afraid of hurting Liu Zhijian, and the soldiers did not dare to shoot at will. And the puppet army also rarely did not return fire, but only shot into the sky with all its strength, which was for the Japanese devils to see.
It turned out that the Eighth Route Army had previously reached a secret agreement with these puppet troops, and as long as the puppet troops did not help the Japanese devils fight, the Eighth Route Army would not fight them.
Finally, under the firepower of the six companies and the secret release of water by the puppet troops, Ji Zhiming led the whole class of soldiers and quickly rushed to the side of the car, and several soldiers lifted the unconscious Liu Zhijian on the car, and Ji Zhiming picked him up and ran outside!
Seeing that the ultimate goal of this mission had been achieved, Chu Daming did not love the battle, and ordered the warriors to retreat immediately. In this way, when the enemy reinforcements arrived shortly after, they found that the Eighth Route Army had disappeared without a trace.
In addition to successfully rescuing Liu Zhijian, the soldiers also killed more than a dozen Japanese devils, and everyone was very satisfied with this.
The news of Liu Zhijian's successful rescue was quickly transmitted to the 129th Division headquarters, which quickly reported the matter to the Central Committee, and the leading comrades of the Central Committee were relieved. Afterwards, the leaders of the military region also gave special commendations to the comrades who participated in the rescue on this matter.
The Eighth Route Army, which was full of ghosts in Japan and had no disguises, had to rescue the core cadre Liu Zhijian, and as soon as this incident came out, it immediately caused a great sensation. The Japanese puppet army was frightened by our bravery, and the local people clapped their hands and applauded!
And among them, liu zhijian, the core figure, naturally attaches great importance to this matter, he is touched by the central leaders, soldiers, and the people's attention to themselves, even though many years have passed, but whenever he recalls this matter, he will still say with a moving face:
"Compared with countless martyrs, I am undoubtedly extremely lucky, I have successfully seen the victory of the revolution alive, and I am grateful to the party and the people for saving me!"