On July 23, 1949, the 20th Division of the 7th Army of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Field Army was ordered by its superiors to go to the Longxian area to participate in the encirclement and annihilation of the 14th Cavalry Brigade under the Kuomintang warlord Ma Bufang.
This enemy was originally entrenched in the county seat of Longxian County, but was later beaten by the First Army of the First Field Army and fled all the way, and was blocked in an ancient town called Guguan.
The Sixty Regiment of the 20th Division advanced to the west of Guguan in accordance with the deployment of its superiors, preparing to cooperate with the brother troops in laying siege to the enemy.
However, since Guguan is an important commercial port in the surrounding area, there are a large number of merchants and ordinary people, and the enemy is mixed in, if our army launches a fierce attack on the town, it is very likely to hurt the innocent. Therefore, how to fight this battle made Zhang Xinhua, commander of the Twentieth Division, very embarrassed.
Under such circumstances, the commander could only let the troops temporarily surround the enemy, neither let them run away, but also could not rush to attack.
In order to find out the enemy's situation, Yan Tinghua, operational staff officer of the Sixty Regiment, took the initiative to ask the head of the division and the regiment for help, and took Huang Yide and Hu Xianrong, two reconnaissancers, to the vicinity of Guguan to understand the situation.
Yan Tinghua and the other three disguised themselves as small traders and planned to blend into the town, but the enemy had already blocked all the passages and allowed no one to enter or leave, so the plan of "fishing in muddy waters" could not be realized.
The three of them walked around the town all day and couldn't do anything, but Yan Tinghua didn't want to go home empty-handed, so the three of them discussed it and decided to spend the night in a farmhouse outside the town and come to reconnoiter the next day.
At night, the three of them lived in the homes of ordinary people and did not hear anything of value, which disappointed them.
Early the next morning, Yan Tinghua left the farmhouse with two scouts, ready to try his luck around the town again.
When the three of them walked to the side of a forest near the town, the scout Huang Yide suddenly covered his stomach and said that he was a little uncomfortable and wanted to untie his big hand.
Yan Tinghua said funny and angryly: "Just now in the people's homes, you didn't have anything to do, but this situation happened to you halfway through." Solve it in the woods! ”
Huang Yide hurriedly ran into the woods and found a secluded place to untie his hands.
It was the early morning of the middle of summer, the air was fresh, and many birds in the forest were chirping and jumping.
After Huang Yide finished untying his hands, his body suddenly became calm, and his mood became extremely comfortable, so he couldn't help but learn bird calls with those birds.
Huang Yide is a southerner, and his hometown has a lot of cuckoos flying and singing every year in late spring and early summer, so he will imitate the birds' calls since he was a child.
He pursed his lips and made a sound of "Cuckoo Cuckoo, Cuckoo Cuckoo..." and it was really imitated by Devi Miaoweishaw.
Unexpectedly, he had just learned two bird calls, and the same cry came from the bushes at the other end of the woods: "Cuckoo Cuckoo, Cuckoo Cuckoo..."
Huang Yide was shocked, it was the height of summer, and cuckoos generally did not chirp around during this period. Moreover, although this sound is also imitated very similarly, as long as you listen carefully, you will know that it is a sound made by a person.
Huang Yide hurriedly learned a few cuckoo calls, but he did not expect to make similar bird calls again, as if he was deliberately responding to himself.
What a strange thing! Who is singing to themselves and learning birds? It was definitely not Staff Officer Yan and Hu Xianrong, because the direction was wrong.
The more Huang Yide thought about it, the stranger it became, and while continuing to learn bird calling, he walked towards the place where the sound of harmony was emitted.
Then he saw a scene that surprised him very much, a head protruded from the bushes, saw Huang Yide alone, and was dressed as a civilian, the original nervous expression suddenly relaxed, and then asked: "Brigadier Ma called you to come?" ”
Huang Yide saw clearly at this time that the other party was a middle-aged man with a slender body and a sallow face, and the local villagers were dressed, but the clothes were obviously somewhat ill-fitting, and it seemed that they had also been disguised.
This inexplicable remark made Huang Yide listen to it for a while, and his brain spun quickly: What horse brigade commander? None of the brigades of our army had a commander with the surname Ma. Oh yes! This horse brigade commander must be Ma Chengxian, commander of the fourteenth brigade of the enemy cavalry!
He immediately realized that the person opposite was probably sent by the enemy to join the joint, and the secret code of the joint was most likely the two bird calls that he had inadvertently learned, which was really a mistake!
If that's the case, why not just count it? He immediately asked quietly, "What do you say?" ”
The other party looked at Huang Yide suspiciously and said, "I can't manage that much." Our brigade commander asked me to send a letter to your brigade commander, but the communists surrounded Guguan, and I couldn't get in, so I will give you this secret letter to convey to Brigadier Ma! ”
After saying that, the man took off his belt, took out a piece of cloth with a lot of words written on it, and handed it to Huang Yide.
Huang Yide was overjoyed in his heart, but on the surface he did not show a trace, but only said vaguely: "That hard work you have gone, I immediately handed over the secret letter to Brigadier Ma!" ”
The man turned around and was about to leave, but Huang Yide took advantage of his lack of preparation and suddenly rushed up and subdued him in one fell swoop.
At this time, Yan Tinghua and Hu Xianrong heard the noise and shouting here, and quickly ran over, but they were shocked to see Huang Yide carrying a stranger.
After interrogating this person, it was learned that the secret letter he was carrying was written by Ma Ying, commander of the Eighth Brigade of the Enemy Cavalry, to Ma Chengxian, commander of the Fourteenth Brigade of the Enemy Cavalry.
It turned out that Ma Chengxian had originally agreed to work with Ma Ying to deal with the People's Liberation Army, but he did not expect that before escaping into Guguan Town, Ma Chengxian's radio was damaged on the way. Ma Ying sent a letter to Ma Chengxian to hold out for another seven days, at which time he gathered more troops to come to reinforcements.
In the past, the liaison between the two horses used the way of learning bird calling as a joint code, but they did not expect that the person who delivered the letter this time was extremely unreliable, and huang Yide, who was disarmed in the woods, accidentally learned two bird calls, so he thought that he came to the joint, and he rushed to hand over the letter to Huang Yide without confirming his identity.
Yan Tinghua looked at the secret letter and was overjoyed: "Now that this is over, we will immediately return to the regimental headquarters, hand over the prisoners and the secret letter to the head of the division and regiment, and agree on a plan to break the enemy." ”
When the commander of the division learned of this, he praised Huang Yide's tact, and decided to put the plan in order, send someone to imitate the handwriting in the letter, and write another fake letter to Ma Chengxian, pretending that Ma Ying would reinforce Guguan at nine o'clock in the morning of the third day, and after Ma Chengxian met in the area of Sanqiaozi in the west of the town, he returned to Shilan Prefecture together.
This was because the division commander Zhang Xinhua had already studied the surrounding terrain and decided that Sanqiaozi had a narrow road and was an excellent place to ambush the enemy cavalry.
The messenger under Ma Ying had been tortured a lot in the past, and after the work of our military political workers, they agreed to surrender to our army and went to Guguan to give the fake letter to Ma Chengxian.
The rest of the events were unexpectedly smooth, and Ma Chengxian was convinced after seeing the letter, and sure enough, on the third day, he poured out of the nest and was ambushed by the Sixtieth Regiment of our army when passing through the Three Bridges.
After more than an hour of fierce fighting, the Sixty Regiment won a complete victory, defeated the 14th Brigade of the enemy cavalry in one fell swoop, killed and wounded more than 200 enemy people, and captured 206 people under the enemy's deputy brigade commander Ma Chengkui, and was personally commended by Mr. Peng.
It can be said that this is a very peculiar example in the history of our army: the scouts did not intend to learn birds, but they intercepted the enemy's secret letters by mistake, which opened up the situation at once and helped our army win a precious victory.
Reference historical materials: "Shaanxi Literature and History Materials" and "Records of the Conquest of the First Field Army" published by the Shaanxi Literature and History Materials Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference