On April 25, 1937, Premier Zhou decided to personally go deep into the dangerous situation and set off from Yan'an by car to Nanjing to discuss with Chiang Kai-shek on the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
After breakfast that day, Chairman Mao shook hands with Premier Zhou to say goodbye, and then stood on the slope of the earthen cave and watched Premier Zhou and his party gradually disappear. Unexpectedly, Premier Zhou's motorcade had just arrived at Laoshan Mountain, and suddenly there was a burst of gunfire on the ridge. Someone is ambushed here to assassinate Premier Zhou!
1. The Laoshan incident is extremely dangerous
In 1936, when the Xi'an Incident broke out, Chiang Kai-shek dispelled the practice of "foreign countries must first be safe inside" and began to cooperate with our party instead, and Premier Zhou went in and out of Chongqing many times in spite of his own dangers for the future of the Red Army, and it was precisely because of his efforts that the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party eased up a lot.
In 1937, Premier Zhou received an order from Chairman Mao to travel from Yan'an to Xi'an and then to Nanjing to discuss with Chiang Kai-shek on matters related to the reorganization of the Red Army.
For the personal safety of Premier Zhou and others, the central authorities specially arranged a reinforced platoon to escort them.
The original plan was to divide into three military trucks for escort, but when it came time to leave, Premier Zhou's administrative affairs at hand were not finished, and he was afraid that if it was too late, he decided to let the reinforcement platoon leave early and let two of the accompanying trucks take the lead.
The next day, Premier Zhou finished handling the government affairs at hand and got on the last truck to travel, leaving only fifteen or sixteen guards around him.
In order to be able to deal with emergencies, these entourage are the elite of the troops, and in order to arrive faster, the drivers chose a competitive mountain road.
This move is not to care about the safety of Premier Zhou, but in the situation at that time, the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China has entered the right track, and the route from Yan'an to Xi'an is basically safe, so everyone thinks that this trip has no scruples, and they have relaxed their vigilance, and no one thought that there is a huge danger in front of them that is quietly approaching.
After lunch at noon, the truck drove into the mountainous area, the terrain was rugged and potholed, and everyone shook their heads in the car, but there was some cradle smell.
Just as the warriors became groggy, a loud noise suddenly appeared, which immediately attracted everyone's attention.
When Chen Guoqiao, the guard platoon leader, heard the sound, he immediately became alert, and he began to look out and ask what it was. A small warrior said that it might be the sound of the shepherd's whip, Chen Guoqiao shook his head and said casually:
"No, this desolate mountain, uninhabited, there is no shepherd at all, how can there be the sound of a whip?"
Before he could finish speaking, countless bullets poured into the truck.
The driver of the car was not in danger, slammed on the accelerator, hoping to quickly pass through the mountainous area, and the front was the post, which could completely resist the enemy's attack.
However, before he could get far, the driver was shot in the left chest, and the truck lost control and crashed into the mountain wall.
When Premier Zhou, who was sitting on the co-pilot, saw that the situation was not right, he immediately jumped out of the car and shouted at the guards to get out of the car and find a place to hide.
The guard Chen Youcai accidentally got shot in the leg during the jump, and for a while the blood stained the entire pair of pants red, but he couldn't care about his pain, stumbled to Premier Zhou's side, and protected him behind him.
After a brief exchange of fire, the two sides entered the confrontation stage, premier Zhou found that the enemy was in the dark, and had geographical advantages, and our side was in the Ming, equipped with weapons that were not suitable for long battles, so he decided to arrange for manpower to break through from the primeval jungle in the east.
Just as we were about to break through, the enemy seemed to have discovered our intentions and rushed down the hill to charge.
Chen You, knowing that he had injured his leg and was not far from running, decided to stay and buy time for Premier Zhou to break through.
In order to confuse the enemy, Chen Youcai exchanged his military uniform with premier Zhou's dress, and with the help of terrain, successfully delayed the enemy's attack.
2. The guard died tragically, and the sinuses were full of doubts
The enemy rushed down the hillside to the foot of the mountain, and he saw Chen Youcai in a dress, and when he saw that he was dressed differently from other guards, the enemy thought that this was a high-ranking official, so he shot at Chen Youcai with all his brain.
Chen Youcai and several guards were ill-prepared, and the bullets quickly emptied and they fell into a pool of blood.
Seeing that all the Plasters had fallen to the ground and died, the enemy came up to conduct a body search and found Premier Zhou's business card on Li Youcai's body, but unfortunately he did not know the words, so he casually threw it aside.
Because of his remorse for Li Youcai's stubborn resistance, the enemy stabbed Chen Youcai's body more than 20 times, and only then did he leave proudly.
Photo: Chen Youcai
This fierce gun battle attracted the attention of the nearby Red Army, who quickly conveyed the news to Yan'an, and under the command of the regimental commander Huang Lin, quickly went to the scene of the incident for rescue.
Fortunately, Premier Zhou and four guards escaped from death, and met Huang Lin who was on departure, so they decided to join forces and go together to carry out the aftermath and rescue the wounded.
By the time they reached the spot, the enemy had disappeared, leaving only the remains of the ground. Premier Zhou saw that the soldiers were dead and wept silently, so he walked over to the dead Chen Youcai, tightly held his already cold hand, and said sadly:
"Comrade Talent died because of me, and I will never forget him in this life."
For the sake of the central government's joint plan, Premier Zhou did not have time to rest and feel sad, but hurried to Nanjing the next day, and the remains of the martyrs were buried in Yan'an.
Yan'an was very concerned about the assassination of Premier Zhou, because as Premier Zhou, his itinerary and route were kept secret throughout the whole process, how could others know? And if it is his own person who informs, then what is his motive?
To this end, the central government sent the chief of the security section, Shazqun, to investigate the case temporarily, and after some evidence collection, Thexequn made two assumptions:
The first may be a Japanese agent or a black hand under the Kuomintang reactionaries, with the aim of sabotaging negotiations and provoking bipartisan disputes.
But this assumption was quickly overturned, for the enemy did not take any important military secrets, which contained the lifeblood of our Party, and if they were made by military personnel, there was no reason not to take them.
Then there is only the second possibility, that is, to kill people for indiscriminate wealth, simply a group of bandits!
Pictured: Xie Ziqun
In order to confirm this statement, the Shetz group arranged a large number of scouts to visit the surrounding area of the incident site, and the effort paid off, and soon made a major breakthrough.
3. The water is out of the water, and the overall situation has been determined
On the day of the crime, a nearby villager said that he went up the mountain to cut firewood and heard the sound of gunfire, so he was curious and looked over, just witnessed the whole process of the gun battle, and recognized Li Qingwu, the leader of the bandits who had looted the village.
This information opened up new ideas for the Shez group, and it was determined that it was a group of bandits who had come to attack here.
In order to wipe out this gang of bandits, Xie Ziqun arranged for criminal investigator Zhang Pi to disguise himself, and lied to the outside world that the rangers scattered by the People's Liberation Army were scattered, and successfully blended into the bandits.
After the scout Zhang Pi entered the bandits' interior, due to his hard work and resentment, he was also exquisite in receiving people, and the bandit leader Li Qingwu quickly developed trust in him, and a lot of intelligence was also set out.
It turned out that this gang of bandits had existed for a long time, and Li Qingwu, as a well-known hooligan in the village, pulled more than two hundred people to the side of the disaster, because he was familiar with the terrain, so he had not been eliminated.
However, the life of the bandits was not so good, and in the face of the Kuomintang's recruitment, Li Qingwu successfully boarded the ship and became a special bandit of the Nationalist government.
In order to fulfill the orders issued by the Nationalist government and collect information on the Red Army more quickly, Li Qingwu also arranged a spy named Feng Changdou at the south gate of Yan'an.
Feng Changdou has been lurking in the parking lot in the city, he observed that there are large trucks parked here in the past few days, and there are guards guarding day and night, so he expects that there will be big people traveling, and told Li Qingwu the news.
After receiving the news, Li Qingwu immediately arranged for dozens of bandits to guard the only way for the car to travel, and once he found that a truck was passing, he shot and signaled, which led to the dangerous encounter of Premier Zhou.
The Shez group immediately handed over all the information to the central authorities and demanded that the bandits be eliminated immediately. After the central authorities learned the news, they quickly set up a squad to suppress bandits, with Wu Tailiang, director of the bureau, as the commander of the bandit suppression team.
Wu Tailiang first sent elite troops to surround and cut off the bandits' retreat routes from the south, and then greeted the surrounding counties in advance and jointly suppressed the bandits, and in less than a month, all the bandits were ambushed.
Li Qingwu and Feng Changdou were thrown into the barracks by five flowers, and the next morning, they were shot in front of the crowd.
Although the murderers were all punished as they deserved, the martyrs who died could not be revived again.
Years later, Premier Zhou returned to his hometown to pay homage to Chen Youcai and other martyrs, but was told that since Hu Zongnan's capture of Yan'an in 1947, the martyrs' cemeteries had been facing extensive destruction and could no longer find a place to bury their bones.
Premier Zhou was so sad that he remained bitter about the incident until his death in 1976.
While collecting the relics for Premier Zhou, the staff found a yellowed photograph of Premier Zhou with the surviving guards after the assassination.
On the back of the photo, there are eight big words written by his own hand - "Laoshan is in distress, only four people remain."
This shows the shadow of Premier Zhou's attention to this matter and his deep thoughts about the martyrs who have died.