The history of the Western Route Army is the history of blood and fire, and in the journey of the Western Route Army, tens of thousands of soldiers have made heroic sacrifices and slept forever on the eve of the victory of the revolution. The revolutionary martyr I want to talk about today, he was one of the youngest Red Army division commanders and also the most valued subordinates of Marshal Xu Qianqian, but unfortunately he died heroically in the course of the Western Expedition. So, who is this division commander of the Western Route Army? What kind of life does he have?
This man's name was Xiong Houfa, he was born in a peasant family, from an early age he understood the hardships of life and was determined to overthrow the landlords and liberate the peasants. Xiong Houfa joined the Luoshan Red Guards at the age of 15, watching and fighting the enemy with the members, for the revolution, he left his hometown and bid farewell to his parents, two sisters and newlywed wife, and later his parents died of illness in hunger and cold, the eldest sister was sold to Henan by the reactionary vigilante group, the second sister became someone else's child bride, and even the wife remarried to others. In 1931, Xiong Houfa's unit was incorporated into the Red 13th Division, the division commander was Marshal Xu Qianqian, in 1934, he was already the commander of the 263rd Regiment of the 88th Division, and soon after he was promoted to deputy division commander, after the commander of the 88th Division, Cheng Shicai, was transferred to the military headquarters, Xiong Houfa took over as the commander of the 88th Division, and at this time he was only 20 years old, which can be described as young and promising.
In the anti-"six-way siege" operation, Xiong Houfa was ordered to seize Huangmuya, he led the main force of the 263rd regiment to withstand the heavy rain, arrived at the intended attack site on time, when the enemy had two brigades collapsed from the direction of The Wooden Gate, Xiong Houfa decided to intercept them, he ordered a fierce attack on the enemy, killing several enemy attacks in a row. An hour later, the battle ended, this battle, our army annihilated 14,000 enemy troops, captured a large number of weapons and equipment, after the war, Xiong Houfa was highly praised by Li Xiannian, Cheng Shicai and other military leaders. After the Red First, Second, and Fourth Fronts joined the division, the Red Fourth Front crossed the Yellow River in the west and fought in the Hexi Corridor. At that time, the Red 88th Division led by Xiong Houfa was an avant-garde division and was carrying out the most dangerous tasks.
After that, due to the deep penetration of the Western Route Army alone, the logistics supply could not be improved, and it was besieged by the Ma family army and suffered heavy losses. On January 23, 1937, the Western Route Army was all concentrated in the area of Nijiayingzi, preparing to meet a new round of the enemy's attack, the southwest direction was the enemy's key offensive direction, Li Xiannian handed over the heavy defensive responsibility to Xiong Houfa, the next day, the enemy gathered two brigades to launch a fierce attack on the position of the 88th Division, but under the stubborn resistance of Xiong Houfa and all the division's generals, several attacks were repelled by our army. The enemy could not take the position for a long time, and became angry and embarrassed, and sent four brigades of troops to attack fiercely, and Xiong Houfa commanded the whole division to hold out for another day, and finally had to carry out a breakthrough because it was outnumbered.
In the process of breaking through, Xiong Houfa was shot in the left arm and bled unceasingly, and the deputy commander Cheng Shicai asked him to go down to rest, but he said: "It doesn't matter, even if there is no left hand, I can still command!" "After saying that, I went on to fight. On March 11, Xiong Houfa followed the main force to Qilian Mountain, and due to the lack of medical treatment, the wound on his left arm continued to deteriorate, suppurate, and swollen as thick as the mouth of a bowl. Li Xiannian was very worried about Xiong Houfa's injury, and instead of thinking about himself, Xiong Houfa was worried that he would drag down the troops, saying: "Chief, I will add burdens to the troops, you leave me here!" Li Xiannian was reluctant to leave Xiong Houfa behind, but under Xiong Houfa's repeated insistence, he could only agree to his request.
Before parting, Li Xiannian left some money and salt for Xiong Houfa and asked, "What else do you have to say?" Xiong Houfa looked resolute and said, "Please leave me a letter of introduction from a party member." Li Xiannian couldn't help but be moved, so he wrote a letter of introduction and solemnly handed it to his hand. After Li Xiannian and Cheng Shicai led their troops to leave, Xiong Houfa led more than a hundred fighters to continue to fight, because there were too many enemies, Xiong Houfa and the soldiers were surrounded by the enemy, Xiong Houfa commanded the troops to fight bravely, helplessly outnumbered, and finally there were only a few fighters left around him, and Xiong Houfa was seriously wounded. The enemy sneered and asked Xiong Houfa to surrender, but Xiong Houfa scolded the enemy as a "scum" and "scum", and the brutal enemy became angry and brutally killed Xiong Houfa and the warriors, who were only 23 years old when they died.
The enemy chief Ma Bufang heard about Xiong Houfa's deeds and also called his troops the "Iron Army". It is worth mentioning that in his later years, every time Marshal Xu Qianqian mentioned Xiong Houfa, he would burst into tears and said: "Comrade Xiong Houfa is an excellent member of the Communist Party of China and an excellent general of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and his sacrifice is very heroic. In the Western Route Army, the Red 88th Division led by Xiong Houfa was also a heroic unit, and only three people survived in the end, one of whom was the division political commissar Zheng Weishan, who later became the founding lieutenant general.