Editor's note: In 2021, we pushed 6 consecutive articles of Mr. Cui Yongping's "My Western Route Army Complex", which had a good response among readers, especially among the descendants of the Western Route Army. From now on, our platform will continue to push the story of the Western Route Army written by Mr. Cui Yongping, and express our infinite admiration and deep remembrance of the heroes and martyrs of the Western Route Army by reproducing the scenes and stories of the bloody and rainy battle 86 years ago! At the same time, cherish today's beautiful life, carry forward and inherit the dedication of revolutionary predecessors!
The Story of the Western Route Army I Know (I)
--Chiang Kai-shek's long-term troops
Author Cui Yongping
In September 1935, the eastern and southern regions of Gansu suddenly became lively.
Early in the morning, a team wearing gray cloth shirts and octagonal hats mysteriously crossed the Tibetan settlement area of the Western Sichuan Plateau and suddenly appeared at the mouth of Lazigou, known as "natural danger". The newly organized Fourteenth Division of the Kuomintang was horrified when it discovered the enemy situation, and stubbornly resisted with the help of natural barriers and open bunkers. However, in the case of a frontal attack and a failed attack on the flank, these divine warriors sent a commando team composed of 15 fighters, only to see that these members were as light as swallows, flying over the wall, and suddenly climbed up the cliff cliffs of 100 meters high, detoured back to the side of the defenders of the pass, and suddenly launched an attack. The defenders suffered numerous casualties and lost their forts. The rest of the enemy soldiers panicked and fled. The Red Army thus opened the passage from southern Gansu to the west out of the plateau canyon.
Just over a year later, more and more Red Army troops entered Gansu from the western part of Sichuan and Shaanxi, one passing through Hanzhong to occupy Chengxian, Huixian, Liangdang, Kangxian and other places, and the other successively occupying Minxian, Lintao, Lintan, Wushan, and Zhangxian counties, and echoing with the Red Army that arrived in northern Shaanxi earlier, forming a new pattern spanning the eastern part of Longyuan and the entire northwest of Xiongzhi.
At this time, judging from the entire political pattern of China, it was basically Chiang Kai-shek who won the depth of the rear area of the entire Yangtze River Basin and the great southwest, and the situation was very good; while the Red Army was chased and beaten by the Nationalist army and hid everywhere, and the situation was not optimistic. This makes outsiders seem to be strong and weak, and the overall situation of victory or defeat has been decided. Moreover, at present, the main force of the Red Army and the Central Red Army have been divided into two, oppressed in the longnan mountains of Gansu and the desolate corners of northern Shaanxi, respectively, and are surrounded by ethnic minorities and local warlords in the northwest. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek was so full of ambition that he disregarded the Japanese aggressors' pressing efforts in northeast and north China and the strong appeals of the people of the whole country, and had arranged manpower and begun intensively to sort out the internal affairs of his new government, confirm diplomatic relations with neighboring countries, and consider how to "absorb" these remnants of the Red Army.
At this moment, Chiang Kai-shek suddenly received a secret report from the military command on the frequent contacts between the Northeast Army, the Northwest Army, and the Communist Party, which made his tense heart "cluck" again, and then he began to be more and more restless and restless. For several consecutive days, he swept away the "latest war reports" and "news of the day" sent by the guards officer, and he did not have the heart to read them. At this time, what he was most worried about was not the strong cries of the people in the northeast and north China who had been rising day by side for three days to unite to resist Japan, nor the state of wanting to move and fiercely confront the two powerful factions in guangdong, Chen Jitang and Guangxi Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, but was afraid that there would once again be an unfavorable situation in the northwest region of nominal resistance against Japan and actual anti-Chiang Kai-shek, and if that happened, his "Jiangshan" would become more and more restless.
With regard to the situation in the northwest, Chiang Kai-shek's judgment was that the Second and Fourth Fronts of the Red Army would inevitably meet the Central Red Army, which had arrived in northern Shaanxi earlier, and this was the result he least wanted to see. Therefore, he instructed the Ministry of National Defense to secretly formulate the sixth "suppression of the Communists" plan, which was roughly divided into three steps:
The first step was to launch the "Battle of Tongwei" in eastern Gansu. Because Tongwei is located in the east of Gansu, south of Tianshui, north of Huining, west of Tonglanzhou, the western strategic artery West (An) Lanzhou Highway through the county, the strategic position is very important. They planned to make full use of the favorable terrain of the area, blocking forward and chasing after each other, and dealing a fatal blow to the Second and Fourth Fronts of the Red Army passing through here.
The second step is to completely "wipe out" the Second and Fourth Fronts of the Red Army. Because this is the main force of the Red Army. Taking advantage of the fact that these two Red Army forces have suffered heavy losses and are not on a stable footing, with the strategic principle of fighting steadily and steadily and taking step by step as a battalion, we have concentrated hundreds of thousands of troops and coordinated with more than a hundred new fighters to eliminate this backbone force supporting the Red Army in one fell swoop, so as to eliminate future troubles.
The third step is to go all out to "suppress" the Red Army in northern Shaanxi. The Second and Fourth Fronts of the Red Army were wiped out, and the Red Army in northern Shaanxi became the "turtle in an urn" and could be captured by hand. At the same time, it can also be used to observe the movements of the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army, and if they disobey military orders or have different steps, they will seek opportunities to remove and investigate the generals and mobilize dismembered troops, so as to achieve the goal of "killing three birds with one stone."
According to this plan, Chiang Kai-shek plans to mobilize about 300,000 people from 260 regiments of Hu Zongnan, Zhu Shaoliang, Zhang Xueliang, and Yang Hucheng, as well as Liu Xiang, Sun Zhen, Ma Bufang, and Ma Hongkui, to complete this encirclement and suppression mission. In order to implement this strategic deployment, Chiang Kai-shek, after urgently handling the "two-Guangzhou incident," hurriedly returned to the northwest of Ge and urgently mobilized troops, determined to completely "suppress" the main forces of the Red Army while they had not yet converged in the northwest region.
The enemy began to move. Hu Zongnan's First Army began to assemble at Qingshui and Qin'an in Gansu, and Mao Bing's forces gathered at Wushan and Longxi; Wang Junbu gathered at Tianshui and Gangu; Wang Yizhebu intended to control Pingliang, Lund, and Jingning; Dong Yingbin moved to Guyuan; The Northeast Army's Yu Xuezhongbu also transferred two divisions from Lanzhou to Dingxi; Ma Bufang's department has also strengthened the defense against the entire Yellow River defense line. In addition, sun zhen of the Sichuan army also advanced northward from Mianyang and Bikou; the Kuomintang 25th, 49th, 51st, and 140th divisions, as well as the Third Army, the Northeast Army, the Northwest Army, and the Sichuan Army, also advanced to Chengxian, Fengxian, Luoyang, kangxian, and other places on the Shaanxi-Gansu border to encircle the Red Army's Second Front; the Ningxia Ma Hongkui Department and gansu Guyuan and the He Zhuguo and Ma Hongbin troops north of Gansu also advanced north and south to attack the main force of the Red Army west of the Qingshui River. A "sky net" for the complete annihilation of the Red Army has been laid out, and it is only waiting for the Red Army's contingent to throw itself into the net.
At this time, in the cave dwellings of northern Shaanxi, Chairman Mao Zedong of the Central Red Army was also thinking about strategies for dealing with the enemy. According to Mao Zedong's concept, soldiers will block and water will cover up, which is a natural law that has remained unchanged throughout the ages. The victory of the battle is the result of the commanders' planning, and the victory of the battle refers to the soldiers' one knife and one shot on the battlefield, the key depends on the adaptability of the battlefield commanders, as well as the soldiers' will to fight and combat belief.
At this critical moment, something unexpected happened: according to the report of the Red Fourth Front, the "Battle Plan of Tongzhuang Jinghui" formulated by them according to the instructions of the Central Committee was "accidentally" lost, and it was confirmed that it had fallen into the hands of the enemy, which seemed to make the Central Committee once again fall into the passive state of decisive battle. A few days later, just as Chiang Kai-shek was adjusting his combat arrangements and dispatching troops in accordance with the operational plan for intercepting the Red Army, the same copy of the "Nationalist Army Jinghui Campaign Plan" was also placed in Mao Zedong's cave —which was sent by Zhang Xueliang. Mao Zedong opened it, looked up at the sky, laughed, and said to himself: "Jiang Someone, Jiang Someone, this is called 'The Road of Heaven and Heaven'!" ”
Fighters are often in between the subtleties. The Red Army began to move, and from September 30 onwards, the Red Fourth Front first advanced from Lintan, Min County, Wushan, Zhangxian and other places into six columns to Tongwei, Zhuanglang, Huining, and Jingning.
On October 2, the headquarters of the Red Second Front also issued the "Basic Order of the Second Front", ordering the 6th Army to be the right column, the 2nd Army and the 32nd Army to be the left column, and quickly withdraw from the Chenghui Liangkang area and advance in the direction of Tongwei.
The Red Army stationed in Longdong marched north in response to the 2nd and 4th Fronts, with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the 2nd Division of the Red First Army as the left column, and moved south to move closer to the special detachment; With the 73rd Division of the 15th Army as the right column, it left Guo Chengyi in the west and occupied the county seat of Huining on October 3. Immediately after that, the vanguard of the Red Fourth Front successively occupied the county seat of Tongwei county and reached the Huining area to join the 75th Division of the Red 15th Army.
October 10 is destined to be a day to be famous. On this day, a news suddenly came out from the outside world: the three main forces of the First, Second, and Fourth Fronts of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, about 100,000 people, had triumphantly met in Huining County, Gansu. This inconspicuous news, which seemed inconspicuous to the common people, quickly spread to Beijing, Shanghai, and then to Nanjing, especially to the ears of Chairman Jiang of the National Government, like a thunderbolt, more powerful than a 100,000-yield bomb, more shocking, more uncomfortable. Because he knew that he had been carrying out the "suppression of the communists" for several years, he was almost daily informing the whole country and even the whole world of the situation of the war against bandits, and almost every time it was a good news and a great victory. The Red Army, on the other hand, hid in Tibet, collapsed into an army, and did not form a scattered army. And this suddenly came that there were 100,000 Red Army divisions, and this was not a slap in the face for the Nationalist army and a punch for Chairman Jiang?
Chiang Kai-shek saw that the main force of the Red Army had gathered to the east through Tongwei, and his pursuit and suppression troops were still far behind the plan of action, and he was very angry, and immediately ordered that the red army positions be launched from south to north at the same time with the strength of more than a dozen divisions, and immediately open the curtain on the "Battle of Tongwei." Immediately after that, he personally flew to Xi'an to take command, and forced the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army to participate in the battle together.
The enemy frantically pounced on the county seat of Huining County, the Red 5th Army attacked separately and stubbornly blocked the enemy, and the main forces of the Red Army were scattered and withdrawn from Jingyuan, Guyuan, Haiyuan and other places. The Red Army, which was besieged in Huining, slipped away from its fingers like sand in its hands. At this point, Chiang Kai-shek's meticulously organized plan for the "Battle of Tongwei" was once again frustrated, and the wishful thinking of trying to gather and annihilate the main force of the Red Army was once again shattered.
About author:Cui Yongping, a native of Gulang County, Gansu, is a member of the Communist Party of China, has a university degree and is a senior political engineer. He joined the bank in 1983 and has been engaged in personnel education and discipline inspection at the Jinchang Branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Provincial Branch for 37 years. He loves literature and has published nearly 100 articles in newspapers and magazines such as poetry, essays, and travelogues.