introduction
On January 8, 2005, Song Renqian, an outstanding proletarian revolutionary in China, an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China, and a great proletarian fighter, died in Beijing at the age of 96 due to ineffective rescue from illness, ending his long and brilliant life.
At the critical moment of his serious illness, he called his daughter Song Qin to his side and said to her:
"I think that the person I spent my life fighting for the revolution was the martyr Xiao Yongzhi. When I die, you will pay homage to him for me..."
Who is Xiao Yongzhi, and why can Song Ren be poor until he is old enough to remember it?
Picture | photo of Song Renqian
01 In the Battle of Shentouling, Deng Xiaoping praised it by name
Xiao Yongzhi was born in 1915 and is a native of Xiaojiawan, Ziyun District, Huang'an County, Hubei Province, in the hinterland of Dabie Mountain. In 1927, the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China launched a very famous jute uprising, and a vigorous revolutionary movement arose in the hinterland of Dabie Mountain.
Xiao Yongzhi, who had been exposed to revolutionary ideas since childhood, also joined the children's group
Together with his friends, he shouted slogans, wrote slogans, wrote letters, stood guard, and sentry, and the adults praised them as very capable "boy scouts".
In the spring of 1930, the Huang'an County Soviet Government was established. At the age of 15, Xiao Yongzhi became a correspondent in the county soviet. Later, he also joined the Eyu-Anhui Border Red First Army.
In January 1931, the Red First Army and the Red Fifteenth Army merged in Shangcheng to form the Fourth Army of the Red Army on the Eyu-Anhui Border.
Xiao Yongzhi served as the secretary of the Youth League Committee and propagandist of the Tenth Division of the Red Fourth Army.
In 1932, Xiao Yongzhi officially joined the Communist Party of China. At the same time, he also served as the chief of the propaganda section of the Tenth Division of the Eyu-Anhui Red Fourth Army. In the struggle in Dabie Mountain, Xiao Yongzhi bravely went forward, defended his family and defended the country, and experienced many tests of life and death.
Photo | Xiao Yongzhi
In June of the same year, Xiao Yongzhi led more than 20 fighters into battle. After more than a month of fierce fighting, the enemy who successfully annihilated a battalion of the Arrow Factory River was successfully annihilated,
Success has created a model example of winning more with less and making quick decisions.
In October of the same year, Xiao Yongzhi left the revolutionary base area of Eyu and Anhui, followed the Red Fourth Front army to the west, and was ordered to open up the revolutionary base area in Sichuan and Shaanxi. In the course of his battles, he fought bravely and successfully, and made many achievements in battle.
In the fourth anti-encirclement and suppression struggle, Xiao Yongzhi led more than a hundred commanders and fighters disguised as the main force, successfully pinned down the attack of one of the enemy's divisions, and covered the successful retreat of the Red Fourth Front, the Eyuwan Central Subbureau, and the main force of the Red Army of more than 20,000 people.
Because of his repeated achievements in the course of combat, his wit and bravery, he was praised many times by Wu Huanxian, the founder of Eyu Anhui Su.
In the summer of 1933, he was also appointed political commissar of a regiment of the 31st Division of the Red Fourth Front.
Figure | Wu Huanxian, a military commander and political commissar who was deeply loved by the generals of the Red Twenty-fifth Army
At the end of March 1935, the Red Fourth Front decided to withdraw from the Sichuan-Shaanxi region and begin the Long March. On the extremely difficult and tortuous Long March road, such as fierce battles at Baizhang Pass, forcibly crossing Jialing Pass, and climbing snow-capped mountains over meadows, Xiao Yongzhi led his soldiers to seize key passes and pass through the valley, and he also gradually grew into an excellent Commander of the Red Army.
In mid-November 1936, the last battle of the three main Red Army divisions began, the Battle of Mountain Castle.
In this battle, Xiao Yongzhi's unit began to be seriously reduced, and the casualties were relatively serious.
He then commanded the remaining troops to rely on the dangerous terrain to fight the enemy to the death. After some strict defense, he finally succeeded in repelling the enemy.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, Xiao Yongzhi served as the political commissar of the 772nd Regiment of the 386th Brigade of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, crossing the Beijing-Han Line, crossing the Taihang Mountains, and successfully coming to the southwest region of Lu to carry out fierce battles with the Japanese Kou.
March 16, 1938,
The 129th Division took the method of enticing the enemy troops in Lucheng to reinforce and pretend to attack Licheng, Shanxi, and finally achieved the goal of eliminating the Japanese army at Shentouling between Lucheng and Licheng.
The | warriors fighting
In the early morning of this day, after the battle to pretend to attack Licheng began, the Japanese troops stationed in Lucheng quickly began to reinforce Licheng. At 9:30, the Japanese troops who came to reinforce came to the 772nd Regiment and the shentouling ambush circle of the supplementary regimental position.
Soon, Xiao Yongzhi and the leaders of the supplementary regiment led the officers and men to attack the enemy from both sides of the road, cutting off the enemy's rear road.
In this battle of Shentou Ridge, a total of 1500 enemy people were killed and wounded. The 772nd Regiment and Xiao Yongzhi performed well in this battle.
It was also praised by deng xiaoping and Liu Bocheng, the commanders of the 129th Division.
In the autumn of 1939, the rain in north China was continuous, and the movement of the soldiers of the troops became extremely difficult. One night, the troops camped in a mountain village in Boar Ridge. Suddenly, the team was surrounded by Japanese troops.
Even in such a critical situation, Xiao Yongzhi still did not panic at all, unusually calm and calm. So he took some firecrackers and gunpowder from the village and put them in several gasoline barrels. After ignition, there was a crackling sound.
Soon, Xiao Yongzhi arranged dozens of fighters to pretend to break through the west of the village to attract the enemy's main force, and then concentrated all his firepower together to successfully break through the siege.
After the war, some soldiers and cadres praised Xiao Yongzhi for his courage and strategy, and for using soldiers like gods. But Xiao Yongzhi said:
"If you want to deal with the devil, you need to have more eyes." The so-called two strong forces meet, and the brave one wins. ”
After the troops successfully broke through, they successfully moved to guantao county. Xiao Yongzhi led his men to fight bravely against the Japanese Kou. Soon, they opened up an anti-Japanese base area behind enemy lines within a radius of 100 miles.
02 In the Battle of the Hundred Regiments, Xiao Yongzhi fought an undulating attack
In 1940, Xiao Yongzhi had been promoted to political commissar of the New Eighth Brigade of the 129th Division, and he was ordered to lead his troops to the southern Hebei region to fight against the Japanese invaders. He also participated in the Hundred Regiments War and the anti-"mopping-up" operations in the southern Hebei region.
In the summer of that year, the Party Central Committee made the strategy and decision to unite all forces and carry out a unified war of resistance. thereupon
Xiao Yongzhi was then ordered to lead his subordinates to the Third Sub-district of Ji'nan, where he was combined with the 772nd Division and the Advance Column of the Eighth Route Army to form the New Eighth Brigade of the 129th Division, with Xiao Yongzhi as the brigade's political commissar.
Picture | Chen Zaidao, Song Renqian and Li Jukui of the New Eighth Brigade
After the Reorganization of the Eighth Brigade, the composition became very complicated, and the cadres often had some contradictions and frictions. One day, the troops were stationed in a village, and the local melon farmers were very moved to see that the soldiers of the New Eighth Brigade never ate melons every time they passed through the melon fields.
He specially picked a watermelon with excellent quality and sent it to the troops to express his heart.
But the new Eighth Brigade soldiers a total of more than a hundred people, a watermelon is not enough points, how to be good. Therefore, Xiao Yongzhi pondered for a while and asked the guards to bring several warrior representatives to his subordinates.
He first brought a large, round watermelon to a soldier and smiled and said, "Please eat the melon." But the warrior just smiled and then handed the watermelon to another warrior.
Another soldier stood up and said, "Commissar, how can you eat this watermelon without cutting it?" Xiao Yongzhi heard the warrior say this, and then laughed: "You are right, the whole melon is really unpalatable, and it is easy to cut it." ”
While eating the cut watermelon, these warriors suddenly realized something and couldn't help but say:
"Political commissar, we have done a lot of things that are not conducive to unity in the past, and we must correct them in the future. We want to be close and united, united like a big family. ”
One morning in the autumn of the same year, the Troops of the Eighth Route Army of the Ji'nan Military Region were ordered to attack Feixiang, an important town in southern Hebei. Xiao Yongzhi decided to lead a battalion of troops to attack the enemy's reinforcements more than a dozen miles east of Handan.
After he and his warriors had dug a few deep trenches along the road, they hid in the nearby green tents, ready to charge at the enemy who came to reinforce.
Soon, the commanders and fighters saw the Japanese puppet army driving dozens of cars from west to east, so they quickly made preparations for battle. At this time, Xiao Yongzhi received an order
: The Eighth Route Army attacking Feixiang was blocked in its siege and was ready to withdraw from the battle at any time.
In this case, Xiao Yongzhi was facing a very powerful enemy, and he could completely lead his troops to retreat at any time according to the prior agreement. But Xiao Yongzhi resolutely changed his original plan and decided to follow a surprise battle.
He decided to direct the soldiers to set up their rifles and machine guns, wait for the enemy to get out of the car, and then start the raid. The Japanese car stopped where the road had been dug, and the enemy commander saw that the crops on both sides were unusually calm, and thought that the Eighth Route Army had run away, so he began to order the Japanese army to hold weapons and equipment, and the rest of the Japanese puppet army began to fill in the damaged road with tools.
Figure | Xiao Yongzhi's letter of appointment before his death
Immediately, Xiao Yongzhi commanded the soldiers to suddenly open fire. Suddenly, the firing of rifles and machine guns began to sound, and rows of bullets were fired towards the enemy group.
Faced with the surprise attack of the Eighth Route Army, the Japanese puppet army was unprepared. Soon, they lost fifty or sixty men, and cars parked on the highway caught fire.
Just as the enemy began to counterattack, Xiao Yongzhi had already commanded the fighters to cover in three ways and successfully withdrew from the battlefield.
03 The battle against Xinxian made the Japanese puppet army shudder
In 1941, Xiao Yongzhi came to the Party School of the Northern Bureau of Taihang Mountain to study. After finishing his studies in the autumn of the same year, he returned to Ji'nan. In 1942, after the merger of the military district and the main force,
Xiao Yongzhi then served as secretary of the Third Prefectural Committee of Jiluyu and political commissar of the Third Military Sub-district.
In the spring of 1943, the war of resistance against Japanese aggression throughout the country entered a completely new stage. In order to cooperate with the counteroffensive, the Party Committee of Southern Hebei ordered Xiao Yongzhi to lead some soldiers and cadres to the east of the Wei River and open up a base area.
Picture | part of Xiao Yongzhi's family letter
As soon as he was instructed to lead the troops to their destination, he immediately began to go deep into the countryside, to enter and leave the farmhouses, and to begin the construction of the base areas behind the enemy lines in a very tense manner.
In July, Xiao Yongzhi was appointed secretary of the Seventh Prefectural Committee of the Hebei Southern Military Region of the Communist Party of China and political commissar of the Seventh Military Subdistrict of the Hebei Southern Military Region of the Eighth Route Army. The puppet army stationed in Xinxian County has a lot of good people with guns, and they are doing evil everywhere, which is very rampant.
In the face of the enemy's frequent "sweeping," Xiao Yongzhi and the commander of the military region made an important decision:
Attack the enemy stronghold of Yandian in Xinxian County, in order to boost the morale of the army and the people.
He decided to first attack Yandian, which was closest to the base area, and then sent someone disguised to catch the market and came to Yandian to conduct reconnaissance. After obtaining the specific conditions of reconnaissance, Xiao Yongzhi successively set up assault groups, firepower groups, ladder groups, and bomb throwing groups according to the terrain around the stronghold.
Late one night, Xiao Yongzhi and Zhao Jianmin quietly came to Yandian with their team and suddenly began to attack the enemy inside the stronghold. Before the enemy's sentry could react in time, the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army began to fire, and a series of bullets shot directly at the fort.
At the same time, the soldiers of the bomb-throwing group threw rows and rows of grenades into the village, and the enemy was beaten to pieces. Immediately, the warriors of the ladder group lifted the ladder up and began to rush, putting the ladder on the wall of the village.
Subsequently, the warriors rushed into the village. At this time, the enemy was still in his dream. Before they could get up and put on their clothes, the Bayonet of the Eighth Route Army was already pressed against their chests, and they were forced to raise their hands and surrender. It didn't take long for them to successfully kill, wound, and take prisoner more than 60 enemy troops in two squads...
In the course of the operation, Xiao Yongzhi commanded the operation flexibly and decisively. He was not only a good commander, but also a wise leader.
The troops captured Yandian and captured a total of sixty or seventy puppet soldiers, including traitors who had committed many evil deeds.
Hearing the news, all the people were elated. The famous enlightened gentry of the time wrote to them and asked the Eighth Route Army to lead by example and shoot them. Many commanders and fighters in the army also believed that the villagers were indeed bullied by these puppet soldiers, and they also hated them deeply, and agreed to shoot them.
In response to these remarks, Xiao Yongzhi said:
"We can't kill people. Our party's policy is not to kill prisoners. If we kill them, it will be against policy. There are a total of 2,000 puppet troops in Xinxian County, and we will often fight with them in the future. If we kill them, they will resist stubbornly, our casualties will increase, and the war will be difficult to fight. ”
Pictured| warriors are advancing
Subsequently, Xiao Yongzhi also patiently explained our party's policy to these gentry and said: Before we did not kill prisoners during the Red Army period, but all those who handed in their guns were treated leniently, and those who were willing to stay were welcome, and those who chose to leave would be paid for the road.
In addition, Xiao Yongzhi also used personal experience and vivid examples to illustrate the benefits of this policy. The gentry considered the party's policy wise and far-reaching, and said that when they returned they would help the masses to persuade them.
More than ten days after they successfully captured Yandian, Xiao Yongzhi commanded his troops to attack the Iron Bell Temple.
Using the original tactics of attacking Yandian, he successfully eliminated a squadron of the puppet army and pulled out this stronghold on the Liaoxin Highway.
After taking the Iron Bell Temple, Xiao Yongzhi then instructed:
All the captives were released after education.
His move caused a big shock on the ground. Soon, the puppet army knew the Policy of the Eighth Route Army not to kill prisoners.
In the past, Liu Xianzhou, the pseudo-county magistrate of Xinxian County, used his connections as the leader of the Qinghong Gang to deceive and co-opt a group of people. In order to control and work the puppet army, he carried out reactionary propaganda that the Eighth Route Army would be skinned and buried alive prisoners.
The Eighth Route Army released prisoners twice, including some indignant puppet leaders, which made Liu Xianzhou's lies self-defeating, and the puppet army no longer believed his lies, and also disintegrated the fighting spirit of the puppet army, developed the work of the Eighth Route Army within the enemy and puppet army, and laid the foundation for the liberation of Xinxian in 1944.
With the victory of the two battles, it was largely a deterrent to the enemy.
Especially these Japanese puppet soldiers, every time they mention the Eighth Route Army, they can't help but be frightened.
04 Xiao Yongzhi's sacrifice became a regret in Song Renqian's heart
Because Xiao Yongzhi had been fighting everywhere for many years, he was plagued by illness. In the autumn of that year, the Japanese army concentrated its forces to carry out a "mobile sweep."
In order to crush the enemy's new round of attack, the Jinan Military Region decided to attack again and organized the Battle of Weidong.
At that time, Xiao Yongzhi's leg injury was relatively serious, and the organization decided to send him to the Taihang Mountains to recuperate and study. But he repeatedly insisted: He must finish this battle and then go.
Picture | a photo of Song Ren's poor old age
Song Renqiang advised Xiao Yongzhi: "The organization has decided that you have come to the party school to study, so you should still obey the decision." ”
However, seeing that Xiao Yongzhi was resolute, he could only agree to his request.
On September 22, Xiao Yongzhi led his troops down to Chen Guan's camp. Subsequently, the Guangyue Brigade of thousands of Japanese troops in Linqing and Liaocheng surrounded Chen Guanying in two ways.
In his free time during the battle, Xiao Yongzhi wrote a letter to his wife Wei Min with trembling hands:
...... It was four days without sleep, and after the night was always chicken chirping, you could still hear my moaning... A truly revolutionary fighter, if he does not have the noble spirit of sacrifice of going to the soup and dying without heeling, he cannot be a good fighter...
Between the lines, you can also see the iron bones and heroic pride in the heart of this iron warrior.
Picture | Xiao Yongzhi's family letter before his death
In October 1943, the base areas behind enemy lines showed a scene of a bumper harvest. At noon one day, Xiao Yongzhi led two comrades to start deploying measures to protect the autumn. On October 21, when Xiao Yongzhi led the troops of the Seventh Military Region to the southern part of Qingping County to besiege the Japanese puppet army stronghold, the Japanese troops of Qingping and Gao Tang attacked the Seventh Division located in Chenguanying.
In the process of breaking through, Xiao Yongzhi was accidentally shot and killed. At the time, he was only 28 years old.
And this family letter he wrote to his wife also became the last suicide note.
After the news of Xiao Yongzhi's heroic sacrifice spread, the party, government, military, and people in Southern Hebei mourned bitterly and could not help but be devastated. Zhao Jianmin, commander of the military sub-district, also sent a telegram to Song Renqian, political commissar of the Ji'nan Military Region, and Chen Zaidao, commander of the Ji'nan Military Region, reporting the news of the soldier's sacrifice, and also sent someone to bury Xiao Yongzhi's body in the south.
For Xiao Yongzhi's sacrifice, Liu Bocheng, commander of the 129th Division, and Political Commissar Deng Xiaoping also felt very sorry for his sacrifice. A comrade-in-arms who had fought with him for many years wrote a small poem "Mourning Yongzhi" with a stroke of his pen to express his mourning:
Thirteen autumns in the battlefield, iron hooves trampled all over the demigod state. A general who is brave and good at war, and his outstanding merits are still blackheads. Today, smiling is a male ghost, and there is also a wind under the Nine Springs.
Pictured| Xiao Yongzhi cemetery
And every time Song Renqian thought that he had approved Xiao Yongzhi to participate in this battle, he said bitterly:
"If I had given the next death order, maybe Xiao Yongzhi wouldn't have left."
In November 1944, in order to commemorate the martyr Xiao Yongzhi, who died heroically in battle, the Central Bureau of the Cpc Jiluyu divided some areas from Guan County in Shandong and Guantao in Hebei Province and set up Yongzhi County.
In August 1945, Guan County and Yongzhi County were merged and renamed Yongzhi County. At the end of 1945, Yongzhi County was renamed Guan County. In January 1946, the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Central Bureau decided to change Qingping County, where Xiao Yongzhi died, to Yongzhi County, which was not revoked until 1949.
Although Xiao Yongzhi left, Song Renqian could not forgive himself. Until his old age, he was immersed in regret and became a knot in his heart.
And Song Qin, the daughter of Song Renqian, also firmly remembered her father's last wish. Every time on the day of the Qingming Festival, she and her family would bring flowers to the Lubei Martyrs' Cemetery in Xinxian County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, to mourn in front of the largest tombstone in the cemetery.
Photo | Song Qin
In 2014, the Civil Affairs Bureau published the first list of heroes and anti-Japanese heroes, and Xiao Yongzhi was also among them. History has not forgotten him, and neither has people forgotten him.
In an interview with reporters, his descendants said:
"As the descendants of heroes, we will carry forward the fine traditions and inherit the legacy of the revolution." For example, the tradition of joining the army has always been well passed down in our family. ”