In the late summer of 1934, just as the Central Red Army began to embark on the Long March, Mr. He was leading the Red Army all the way to the Miao and Tujia gathering places on the border between Sichuan and Guizhou, where a narrow foothold was opened, and the military headquarters was set up in a small village called the South Waist Boundary in Youyang County, Sichuan.
In the south waist boundary, He Long got a Kuomintang newspaper from the local primary school and saw this message in the newspaper:
"The Sixth Army of the Xiaoke Bandits in Jiangxi sneaked into Qiandong in an attempt to join the Helong Bandits." At this time, the Red Sixth Army led by Xiao Ke and Wang Zhen had already rushed out of the siege of Ganxi and was dividing into several groups and stubbornly approaching the direction where the Red Third Army was located.
This fortuitous news made General He feel sad and happy, and he immediately ordered the troops to leave in two directions to the direction of Guizhou to meet the Red Sixth Army that had been fighting all the way.
In Shuitianba Village, Yanhe County, Guizhou, about 100 people from the Independent Regiment of the Red Third Army led by He Bingyan came to The Front of Mr. He. Although none of the hundred people were well-dressed, General Manager He recognized at a glance the ragged, extremely emaciated Chief of Staff of the Red Sixth Army, Li Da, who was standing at the front.
In late October, the Red Sixth Army and the Red Second Army (renamed the Red Third Army in 1931) met in the deserted mountains at the junction of Guizhou, Hunan and Sichuan.
On October 26, the Red Second Army and the Red Sixth Army held a party in the southern waist, and the two legions combined had more than 8,000 people.
After the meeting, the Red Second and Sixth Red Armies asked the Central Military Commission for instructions to establish a unified command, but they were severely reprimanded by the Provisional Central Bureau, requiring them to accept the leadership of the Central Committee and the Central Military Commission separately. but
The two corps did not follow the instructions of the Central Bureau, but joined together, under the command of Comrade He Laozong and Comrade Ren Bishi; and restored the number of the Red Second Front.
The area where the Second Front was located was small and barren, unable to feed the Red Army of more than 8,000 people, so the first decision of the Red Second Front after restoring its number was:
Leave here and seek development in Xiangxi.
On November 7, 1935, the Red Second Front, which had been fighting all the way, successfully captured Yongshun County, where the troops received a rare rest and material replenishment. However, two days later, Chen Quzhen sent three brigades and a regiment with a total of more than 10,000 people to the county seat of Yongshun.
After consultation, the leaders of the two corps decided: Evacuate the county seat, first show weakness to the enemy, and after leading the pursuing enemy to a suitable location, fight a rapid ambush battle and severely damage the enemy. Then take the opportunity to go deep into the northwest of Hunan.
There is a river on the side of Yongshun County, and there is an ancient flower bridge on the river that is the main traffic route to the county seat. In order to slow down the enemy's pursuit and win the preparation time for the ambush, the Red Army decided to burn down this beautifully built flower bridge.
However, this bridge is the main road for the local people to survive, and in order not to arouse the local people's antipathy towards the Red Army, Guo Peng, the commander of the Fifty-first Regiment who carried out the task of burning the bridge, went to the supply department to collect a thousand oceans and send them to the home of the president of the county chamber of commerce. Guo Peng was surprised by this figure, but still carried out the order.
The eighty-four-year-old president of the Yongshun Chamber of Commerce was so frightened by this huge sum that he asked people to pick up the ocean to find Boss He, trembling and saying not to make such a big joke with an old man, since ancient times, I had never heard of any army paying for a war.
Mr. He told the president that this was not a joke, he had found someone to calculate, rebuild a more beautiful bridge, a thousand oceans are enough. He Long troubled the old man to organize craftsmen and supervise when he built the bridge afterwards. The president of the Chamber of Commerce was very touched and trembled to accept a thousand oceans.
Unexpectedly, when the bridge was burned, a group of people cried by the flower bridge, and these people all watched the bridge set up stalls to make a living, and burning the bridge was equivalent to cutting off their way of life. Wang Zhen, the political commissar of the regiment, criticized the Fifty-first Regiment and said that they had not thought it through. Ask them to borrow money and also compensate the people for their losses.
Fifty-one regiments went to the supply department to ask for money, and the supply department said that there was none. So the officers and men of the Fifty-first Regiment took out their pockets, and the soldiers took out all the continuance, and gathered enough two hundred pieces of ocean to distribute to the people by the bridge.
On November 16, two legions ambushed and severely damaged two brigades of the Xiang Army at Pingba, capturing more than 2,000 Xiang troops and capturing more than 2,000 guns!