On October 7, 1935, the Long March was nearing its end, when the Red Army had already crossed the last hurdle in the Long March, and the rest of the road was a horse and a flat river, and all the soldiers were full of confidence in the future, but at this time, a report suddenly came.
Red army
The fact that 300 Red Army soldiers died bizarrely overnight also made Chairman Mao very angry, and this was the spark of revolution, but now it was folded here, so he immediately ordered the Ministry of Defense to conduct an in-depth investigation to find out who did it.
The Ministry of Defence, knowing that the stakes were high, rushed to the scene, but when they arrived, they found the soldiers lying on the ground with no expression on their faces, no signs of fighting nearby, and no other clues left at the scene that needed to be investigated.
Because he stayed in the same place for a long time to investigate the truth, the Nationalist army behind him had already pursued, and finally Chairman Mao had to bear the pain and order to leave, after which Chairman Mao never forgot to find the truth, but until the end, he could not know the result, until 54 years later, the real murderer surfaced.
How did these 300 great Red Army soldiers die? Why did it take more than half a century to discover? What kind of twists and turns have you experienced?
The final hurdle of the Long March
In October 1934, after the fifth anti-encirclement campaign, the Red Army had to move and began a miraculous Long March in military history.
However, at the beginning of the Long March, Li De and Bogu still held the supreme leadership of the Red Army, and due to the miscalculation and command of the situation, the Central Red Army suffered unprecedented heavy losses in the fierce Battle of the Xiang River, and the strength of the troops was reduced from 86,000 at the beginning of the Long March to more than 30,000.
Anti-encirclement and suppression
At the crucial moment, Chairman Mao stepped forward and put forward the strategic plan of abandoning the north and marching to the southwest instead.
Under the correct command of Chairman Mao, the Central Red Army crossed the Chishui River four times, escaped the pursuit of the Kuomintang army, and arrived in Gansu in early September 1935.
After arriving in Gansu, the Central Red Army was faced with two different choices: First, the overwhelming majority of commanders and fighters believed that our army should establish a base area on the border with the Soviet Union, so that when it encountered hardship, it could ask the Soviet Union for help.
Originally, this proposal had been approved, but at that time, the Red 25th Army, after a year of travel, successfully reached northern Shaanxi and merged with the local guerrillas to form the Red 15th Army, making the base area in northern Shaanxi more solid.
In this way, the Red Army had two choices, and finally after discussion, it was decided that the Red Army would march to northern Shaanxi and reach the Liupanshan area in early October.
Liupan Mountain geographical location is very special, is the junction of Ningxia, Gansu, Shaanxi, and the terrain is dangerous, strategic position is of great significance, since ancient times is a place where soldiers must fight, you can imagine how big the forces stationed here, but also the Red Army to go to northern Shaanxi must pass through.
At that time, there were many military factions stationed here, including the Central Army of the Nationalist Army, the Northeast Army, and the Majia Army, and these reactionary forces stationed a large number of troops near Liupan Mountain, which greatly hindered the advance of our army.
The Red Army crossed Liupan Mountain
But as long as this last hurdle was passed, the Red Army was like a dragon entering the sea and reaching northern Shaanxi unimpeded.
At this time, Chairman Mao's extraordinary command ability was once again brought into play, and he took advantage of the mutual suspicion between these units, used movement tactics to force the enemy to move, and then found the right time to command the troops to break through the enemy's weak blue stone mouth.
At that time, Qingshizui was behind the enemy's fortifications, guarded by the cavalry regiment of the Kuomintang army, and the enemy thought that it was impossible for our army to break through here, so the defense was naturally very slack.
In order to make a quick decision, Chairman Mao ordered a surprise attack at noon when the enemy was slack, and in less than an hour, the battle was over, and the main force of the Central Red Army followed and broke through from here.
After crossing Liupan Mountain, the morale of the Red Army soldiers was high, and Chairman Mao wrote "Qing Ping Le Liupan Mountain"
《Qing Ping Le》
In order to ensure the physical strength of the troops, the Central Red Army decided to rest at the foot of the mountain for a night, recover its strength, and then quickly march to northern Shaanxi.
But it was this night that made 300 Reds die.
Buried 300 martyrs
In the early morning of October 7, the Central Red Army broke through Qingshizui, but the average altitude of the local peaks was more than 1800 meters, the terrain was precipitous, and by the time the main force crossed the Qingyan, it was already evening.
After a day of fierce fighting, most of the Red Army soldiers were dehydrated, thirsty, tired, and in urgent need of enough water, they began to look for water near the foot of the mountain when they reached the foot of the mountain.
At this time, more than 300 Red Army soldiers came to a village in the nearby town of Gengwan, because the Red Army would not disturb the people
There were no revolutionary armies of our party here before, and the villagers, like the warlords of the past, closed their doors. The 300 Red Army soldiers were also stationed outside the village.
But the Red Army soldiers ran out of water, and the villagers did not dare to come out, so they sent people to the nearby mountains to get water, fortunately, they found the spring not far away, so the soldiers ran over and took a big gulp
The next morning, the army began to assemble, but at the time of the count, only the 300 or so soldiers had not arrived, so the chief ordered his correspondent to run over to check on the situation.
sacrifice
When he arrived, he found the soldiers naturally lying on the ground with guns in their hands, and he shouted as he walked to get them up, but soon found that something was wrong, because these Red Army soldiers were experienced in many battles and could not be alert at all, so he ran to the soldiers lying down.
Subconsciously putting his hand on his nose, he was shocked to find that the warrior had stopped breathing.
The correspondent, looking at the other soldiers as well, then examined the surrounding situation and found that there were no signs of fighting, not even suspicious places.
When Chairman Mao learned of this situation, he immediately became furious, and why did a good soldier die for no reason, check it out for me, and be sure to arrest the murderer and severely punish him.
At this time, Chairman Mao, in a very sad mood, said to the guards next to him: We are all from Jiangxi and have endured countless tests of blood and fire, and they are all seeds of revolution, but now they have sacrificed in vain.
The people in the security department were also very surprised when they learned about the situation, because they had not heard any gunshots the night before, and they were always on alert knowing that there were no spies nearby.
When the Security Corps arrived at the scene of the crime, they searched carefully and found that the soldiers' clothes were intact and showed no signs of struggle.
They initially concluded that someone had poisoned them, first ruling out the possibility that the Red Army soldiers were undercover enemy troops, because the remaining soldiers had come in together, a life-and-death relationship, and then they conducted a detailed investigation of the vicinity and found no suspicious traces.
Pursuers
At this time, the Kuomintang troops behind them were preparing to pursue, and in order to ensure the safety of the Central Red Army, Chairman Mao had to bear the pain and order more than 300 soldiers to be buried, and then immediately rushed to the road.
Because of the delay here, a group of enemy cavalry chased after it. Therefore, when Chairman Mao learned that this army was going deep alone, he immediately ordered that General Peng should lead a part of the Red Army to the nearest place to ambush them, eliminate them, and avenge the sacrifice of comrades.
Soon, Mr. Peng gathered his soldiers and said, "Comrades, these three hundred or so comrades cannot be sacrificed in vain, and the enemy must pay double the price!" Then they set out to ambush the pursuing enemy in the middle of the road.
After a night of fierce fighting, the advancing enemy troops were all annihilated, and the Central Red Army continued to advance rapidly, reaching northern Shaanxi a few days later, successfully ending the Long March.
Since then, Chairman Mao has commanded the army from Bao'an to Yan'an and from Xibaipo to Beiping to win victories one after another, successfully establishing a new homeland in this devastated land.
In the blink of an eye, more than ten years have passed, and although Chairman Mao has devoted himself to major national events, he has never forgotten the more than 300 Red Army soldiers who mysteriously sacrificed themselves at Liupan Mountain.
In fact, as early as Yan'an, Chairman Mao sent people to the Liupanshan area to cooperate with the leaders of the newly established revolutionary base areas in the area to investigate the cause of the soldiers' deaths.
Investigator
In the early days of the founding of New China, Chairman Mao specially entrusted Premier Zhou to investigate this matter, and at that time the relevant cadres believed that it was poisoned by Kuomintang agents, but after Premier Zhou checked it, he found that there was no clue.
In the days that followed, no matter how busy Chairman Mao was, he always paid close attention to the progress of this matter, and this lasted for decades, and finally did not wait for the result, and the case has become an unsolved case in Chairman Mao's mind.
The real culprit who surfaced
At the end of 1978, the central authorities formally formulated the great policy decision of reform and opening up.
However, in the western region, due to its inland location and relatively slow development, the lives of some mountainous people are still relatively poor, and in order to improve their quality of life, the state has formulated a series of poverty alleviation measures, including improving the quality of their water use.
In the autumn of 1989, the water supply regiment stationed in Ningxia of the Lanzhou Military Region was commanded by its superiors to conduct a water quality exploration survey in the Liupanshan area, the first of which was Gengwan Township.
Due to the barrier of the mountains, the people here live very hard, and Wang Xueyin and Wang Forest of the water supply group, under the leadership of the villagers, carried out a survey of the nearby springs with relevant instruments.
Mountain spring water
At that time, with the rapid development of the economy, the level of science and technology on the mainland was also significantly improved, because Wang Xueyin was an engineer in hydrogeology, and after they took samples and returned to testing,
It is found that spring water contains a large number of potassium ions, and people who take them for too long may cause mental health and even heart damage.
Upon learning of the results, they immediately returned to Gengwan Township and set about improving the water quality in the area.
But when they were chatting with the villagers, they overheard an old man in the village talking about the events of that year.
"I was playing nearby and saw a group of soldiers drinking water from the fountain with guns in their hands, and then another group of soldiers asked us about the drinking soldiers." The old man said.
Wang Xueyin, Wang Lin, and others knew from the history of the army that more than 300 soldiers fell here during the Long March, which was very similar to the old man's description, and hurried back to check the relevant information, and the result was the same as they thought.
At first they thought that the 300 warriors had died because of the potassium ions in the water, but if they thought about it, even if they were thirsty at that time, the water they drank was limited, and it was impossible for this reason that they came here again to check the water source.
Sure enough, when they took the sample, Wang Xueyin and his team noticed that the bubbles bubbled up from time to time and smelled like almonds, and they deduced that this was likely to be an oil distribution area, and waited until the test found that the bubbles contained a lot of cyanogen.
Steaming spring water
The reaction of cyanogen and potassium produces a highly toxic substance, which can cause serious damage to the central nervous system, causing the brain to slowly lose consciousness and eventually die quietly without any pain.
To confirm their suspicions, the two men spent the next few months scouring China's top laboratories for research, often taking spring samples in Gengwan Township.
After dozens of visits and experiments, Wang Xueyin confirmed that the more than 300 Red Army soldiers died after drinking these poisonous water sources.
It was not until 54 years later that the truth of the matter was finally revealed, and the revolutionary ancestors could finally rest in peace, in fact, the investigators of the Ministry of Security at that time also believed that the Red Army soldiers were poisoned and died.
But what Wang Xueyin didn't understand was why nothing had happened to the local villagers. After all, they also often drink water here, and then after a long investigation, three years later to confirm the truth, the original geology here is very stable, but every ten years will be active once, then these cyanogen will erupt, will make the water contain a strange smell, because the villagers here for a long time to live here, although do not understand the reason, but also know that such water can not drink, so they will be fine.
At that time, the Red Army soldiers were drinking water when the cyanide erupted, because they were too thirsty, so they ignored the smell of the spring water and finally died.
Red Army soldiers
They later reported the incident to the authorities, and also extracted potassium ions from the water and then converted them into potash fertilizers, increasing local food production and improving water quality.
Only by sacrificing more ambition, daring to teach the sun and the moon for a new day, Chairman Mao led the team step by step, there are many revolutionary martyrs fell on the road opened, perhaps many people do not have a specific concept, when the Long March is twenty-five thousand miles, what kind of hardships they face, they have to fight with the weather, with the terrain and environment, but also with the enemy, lack of weapons, lack of food, lack of medicine Every step will be people will fall, they have only comrades-in-arms around them and the spirit of not being afraid of suffering and sacrifice, it is precisely with them. Only then have they fought for today's prosperity, and while enjoying the remnants of the martyrs, they should also understand their deeds and carry forward their spirit.