In August 1935, hundreds of officers and men of the Ninety-first Division of the Thirty-first Army of the Red Fourth Front launched a third challenge to the meadow, and they had no choice but to cross the grass to victory.
Crossing the meadows is not an easy task, and the biggest problem is the extreme lack of food. You know, they were forced to cross the meadow for the third time after the defeat in the Battle of Ya'an, and they had no time to raise food.
After only two days of walking, the troops had no food to eat, and could only kill all the few war horses in the division and distribute them to everyone.
After the horse meat was eaten, the cadres and soldiers could only eat wild grass seeds, but the wild grass seeds were too difficult to digest, and when they ate them, they made people puffy and very weak, and they had to stop and gasp for breath after taking a few steps.
The troops struggled to hold on for nearly a month, still not coming out of the meadow.
At dusk on this day, the commander of the division ordered to camp in front of a small earthen slope and let everyone dig up some wild vegetables to eat.
The cadres and fighters all went out, but they only got a small amount of grass roots and ears, and each of them was given a small half bowl of vegetable soup, and this meal was even dealt with.
The temperature difference between day and night on the grass is large, and the temperature is very low after nightfall, so the people can only light a campfire to resist the cold, and they snuggle up to each other and fall asleep.
A cold wind blew through, the warrior Chen Dongming was frozen awake, he opened his eyes to look, trance to see that there were some vague shadows more than ten meters away, as if it were some animal.
He was startled, and quickly sat up to take a closer look, only to see that the animals were all yellow sheep, a total of 11.
After walking in the meadow for more than twenty days, this was the first time he saw a live yellow sheep, and Chen Dongming was ecstatic: This is a delicious food delivered to the door!
He polished his eyes and looked around, and found that the division commander Xu Shenji (lieutenant general in 1955) was sleeping next to him, so he quietly walked over, gently woke up the division commander, and told him about the discovery of the yellow sheep.
Xu Shenji almost laughed out loud when he heard it- this is really the road of heaven and earth!
He hurriedly said to Chen Dongming: "Wake everyone up quietly one by one and hunt the sheep together, but don't scare the yellow sheep away!" ”
Subsequently, Xu Shenji and chief of staff Li Jukui (admiral in 1955) decided that the division's direct subordinate units should carry out the task of catching sheep, and jointly formulated sheep-catching tactics: First, when hunting sheep, they were not allowed to shoot, and only weapons such as rifle butts, sticks, or bayonets could be used; second, they must seize all 11 yellow sheep, and their actions must be secretive, rapid, and decisive, and they must not scare them away; third, led by the commanders of various companies, they quietly laid out several scattered lines of troops on the periphery to surround and annihilate the yellow sheep.
At that time, there were more than 100 cadres and fighters in the direct subordinate team, and under the personal command of Xu Shenji and Li Jukui, they quietly surrounded the 11 yellow sheep on the third floor of the outer three layers.
Why is the vigilance of the yellow sheep so poor, and it is still unconscious when it is wrapped in "dumplings"?
You know, this is a grassland where very few humans appear, and these yellow sheep are 100% wild, lack experience in dealing with people, do not know how dangerous humans are, so they are not afraid of people.
Coupled with the fact that they faced a well-trained and disciplined Red Army, they could not do anything even if they wanted to escape.
It was not until the yellow sheep saw the hungry Red Army soldiers with dangling bayonets and other weapons that they woke up like a dream and tried to escape in panic.
However, it was too late, and all 11 yellow sheep became the spoils of the hungry soldiers of the Red Army's direct subordinates, and 4 of them were captured alive.
Li Jukui did not expect that the hunt would end so quickly. He walked happily to the yellow sheep and examined the booty.
At this moment, 2 of the 4 live sheep actually called out at the same time, and the sound sounded infinitely sad.
Li Jukui heard these two sounds
Sorrow
He stopped and looked at the two sheep carefully, and suddenly his heart was shocked.
One of them was a pregnant ewe, dragging a heavy belly, and it was obvious that she would soon give birth to a cub.
The other was an underage lamb, estimated to weigh less than 10 pounds, and seemed to mourn its recently dead parents, looking miserable.
Li Jukui pointed his finger at the two sheep and suddenly issued an order: "Let these two sheep go, no matter how hungry they are, they can't eat!" ”
The crowd was anxious: "Then how to do it?" Everyone is ready to eat a full meal, these sheep are not many, let go of two, not enough to divide! ”
"I understand that everyone is very hungry," Li Jukui said, "but everything has a spirit, and this ewe is about to give birth to a lamb, and if we kill it, it will be equivalent to killing two or even several lives." We can't kill them all!" ”
General Li Jukui, Lieutenant General Xu Shenji, and Major General Huang Liqing
Many cadres and fighters nodded their heads and said yes, but some people were still unwilling and muttered, "What about this little lamb?" ”
Huang Liqing (major general in 1955), director of the division's political department, interjected: "This little lamb is still smelly and smelly, and there are only a few pounds of meat on his body?" We have hundreds of people spreading down, and the little that each person gets is not enough to plug the gap between the teeth! ”
At this time, everyone stopped speaking, planning to drive away the two yellow sheep, one big and one small.
But to people's surprise, no matter how they drove, the two sheep refused to leave, seemingly unwilling to leave the partners who had been killed.
Some cadres and fighters sighed: "We killed their relatives and hurt their hearts!" ”
Subsequently, the warriors disposed of the other 9 yellow sheep one by one, the lamb was roasted with skins and eaten, and the sheep were boiled in water and bones.
Although there were no condiments, not even salt, the officers and men of the Red Army, who had been hungry for more than a month, could finally enjoy a good meal.
What is delicious to eat when you are hungry, let alone this incomparably delicious wild yellow lamb?
However, due to the fact that there are hundreds of people in the whole division and the mutton is limited, each person does not receive much meat and soup. Some people felt that this bit of mutton soup alone was not fun at all, and they started the idea of the two "pardoned" sheep.
This sign was discovered by Huang Liqing in time, and he immediately ordered that the two sheep, one big and one small, should not be killed, and the violators would be locked up, and two warriors were specially sent to keep an eye on it and not let anyone get close.
The two warriors decided to drive the two sheep deep into the meadow, but they tossed and turned for half a day without success.
The two had no choice but to watch by the two sheep for the night.
At dawn the next day, the troops were about to continue to advance, and when the two sheep guards and other large troops were far away, and no one could threaten the lives of the two sheep anymore, they ended the task of protecting the sheep and struggled to catch up with the large troops.