On September 13, 1990, a 90-year-old man dragged his family from Hong Kong to enter the country through the Luohu Port in Shenzhen. Finally, I took the train to Shaoguan, Guangdong.
At this time, in the Shaoguan Railway Station, reporters and scholars from all walks of life have been waiting here for a long time. After the old man got out of the car, they walked up one after another, shook hands to welcome, greeted each other, and then set up a feast at the hotel to show welcome.
But after the old man had finished eating in a hurry, he did not stop and went straight to Lechang County, Guangdong, which was the place where he was born and raised, and the hometown where he had been away for 40 years. "The bird flies back to its hometown, and the fox dies on the first hill", when a person reaches his old age, the last hope is that the leaves will return to the roots, and he can't wait for a moment.
Gong Chu
Journalists and scholars from all walks of life also followed. Just to get some precious historical materials from this old man. Who is this man? Why did he make such a splash?
He was also loyal to the country
The old man's name was Gong Chu. In 1900, Gong Chu was born into an ordinary family in Lechang, Guangdong. Since the Guangdong region was the base of Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries who first engaged in revolutionary work, in the late Qing Dynasty, armed uprisings often occurred in this area, which were deeply influenced by revolutionary ideas and became the cradle of China's modern revolution.
In the course of China's modern revolution, the Cantonese, who had been living in the south for thousands of years and were not valued, suddenly shined. It is from this source that Gong Chu is also a member of the revolutionary ideology.
Sun Yat-sen
As early as 1917, Gong Chu began to follow Dr. Sun Yat-sen and carry out the struggle to save the country, such as the National Protection Movement and the Law Protection Movement. You must know that at that time, Mr. Sun Yat-sen's life was not good, and he was going to be hunted down and killed by Yuan Shikai, Duan Qirui and others of the Beiyang government at every turn, and he was exiled overseas.
It was not easy for Gong Chu to remain inseparable at such a time and follow Dr. Sun Yat-sen in making a revolution. However, what many people did not expect was that Gong Chu later betrayed the revolution, what was going on? What did he go through?
In 1924, the nascent Soviet Union needed to find its own agent in China out of the need to spread the seeds of revolution and destroy the imperialist colonial system. Therefore, under their mediation, the new Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang achieved the first Kuomintang-Communist cooperation in 1924, and established the Whampoa Military Academy, trained officers, and prepared for the Northern Expedition.
In the process, Gong Chu, who originally belonged to the Kuomintang, was influenced by communist ideas. In 1925, he joined the Communist Party of China, which sent him to rural Guangdong to engage in the peasant movement.
In 1927, just when the Northern Expedition revolution was going well, Chiang Kai-shek, commander-in-chief of the Northern Expedition, suddenly betrayed the revolution and launched the 412 coup, and Gong Chu was persecuted for it. Later, the communist army led by Zhou Enlai, He Long, and Liu Bocheng prepared to launch an uprising in the nanchang area of today's Jiangxi Province, firing the first shots against the Kuomintang reactionaries.
At this time, Gong Chu also ran to Nanchang City and became the instructor of the rebel army. You must know that during the Nanchang Uprising, Zhu De, the head of the later founding marshals, was only a district police chief. If Gong Chu had not betrayed the revolution, the name of the leader of the Nanchang uprising would definitely have his name.
A promising elder
After the success of the Nanchang Uprising, at the end of 1927, Zhu De led the rebel army to northern Guangdong, and Gong Chu worked with Zhu De at this time.
Later, the Party Central Committee prepared to send him to the Changsha area to assist Mao Zedong in planning the Autumn Harvest Uprising, but on the way to Changsha, his troops were ambushed by the Kuomintang troops.
The troops were completely destroyed, and he himself absconded alone, and then ran to the Hong Kong area to take temporary refuge.
At that time, in the process of the Nanchang Uprising troops moving south to Guangdong, they were once pursued by the Kuomintang troops. Zhu De was left to lead a force of 3,000 men to fight for cover. After the defeat of the rebel forces, these 3,000 men became the only fire, and they moved to the four directions under the leadership of Zhu De, and finally only 800 people remained. After the reorganization, the Shonan Uprising was launched in the south of today's Hunan.
The rebel army was like a raging fire, occupying half of Hunan Province. After Gong Chu received the news in Hong Kong, he immediately put on makeup and secretly returned to Shonan.
Later, due to historical reasons, the rebel army had to break away from the base area and go to Jinggangshan, which was the most famous Jinggangshan Zhumaohui Division in the history of the Red Army, and it was also the prototype of the later people's army
Among the founding fathers, the old revolutions of the Jinggangshan period accounted for almost half. When the Jinggangshan Red Army was first founded, the core leaders were three people: Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Gong Chu, and even the later Marshal Chen Yi ranked below him. It can be seen that Gong Chu's status and prestige at that time were high!
In November 1928, the Pingjiang Uprising led by Peng Dehuai prepared to attack Changsha. The superiors were ready to send some comrades into Changsha City to carry out work first, as a response. So he chose Gong Chu, an old revolutionary with relevant experience, as if he had no connection with Changsha City in his life, and it was a familiar recipe and a familiar taste, and he encountered an ambush again, and then absconded again.
Peng Dehuai
Gong Chu first ran back to his hometown of Lechang, Guangdong, and then fled to Hong Kong to take refuge, temporarily working in progressive newspapers such as the Hong Kong Daily.
In May 1929, he received another notice from the party to work in the Baise region of western Guangxi. At this time, Zhang Yunyi and Deng Xiaoping were preparing to lead the Baise Uprising in this place. During this period, they worked together to form the later Red Seventh Army.
At this time, although Gong Chu temporarily left the leadership core of Jinggangshan, he entered the leadership core of another army. Zhang Yunyi was the later founding general, and Deng Xiaoping was one of the candidates for the later founding marshal.
At that time, Guangxi was the domain of Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi. Guangxi's army was one of the largest among the various warlords in the country at that time. Soon, the troops of the Baise Uprising suffered one setback after another. They began a great transfer, crossing the 100,000 mountains of Guangxi, through the Wuling Mountains of Lingnan, and finally to Jiangxi to meet the Central Red Army.
Li Zongren
This transfer has gone through many hardships and has been described in later history as a rehearsal of the Red Army's Long March. It spun around in a big circle and returned to the center again. After arriving in the central government, Gong Chu served as the chief of staff of the Red 12th Army and the commander of the 34th Division. Soon after, he was promoted to commander of the Red 7 Army.
It is too rigid and easy to bend, betraying the revolution
The twist of fate also began at this moment. In the early Days of the Communist Party of China, there were always two opinions on the line of the Chinese revolution: one was advocated by Mao Zedong as a representative, using the countryside as a base to surround the cities and seize power by force; the other was represented by the Central Committee of the Soviet Party, following the soviet experience of the Soviet Union.
At that time, the former was a minority, and the latter was the majority.
But the truth is often in the hands of a few, and later history has proven who is right and who is wrong. However, in the process of verifying the truth, it is inevitable that some people will be misunderstood, suppressed or even sacrificed.
At that time, the Central Committee of the Party in Shanghai saw that Mao Zedong and Zhu De were doing a good job in the revolutionary base areas in Jiangxi, so much so that they misestimated our strength. The Red Army was required to attack the big cities of Ganzhou and Nanchang in Jiangxi, and finally to meet In Wuhan and drink from the Yangtze River.
Jude
However, at that time, the Red Army was still in the stage of guerrilla warfare with backward equipment, and it was far from developing to the level of regular siege warfare later. This route has been resisted by many people.
Gong Chu's performance was very fierce, and he directly shook up with the Liusu faction. This is the fatal flaw in Gong Chu's personality, and it is also the reason for his later betrayal. Strong and proud, easy to fold, once wronged and misunderstood, it is easy to go to the opposite side.
Finally, in 1932, Gong Chu stepped down from the position of military commander and became the leader of the model regiment.
Fast forward to 1933, when the Communist Party of China was still a party branch of the Communist International. Many things must be subject to instructions from above, and the guidance sent by the Comintern thousands of miles away will allow us to eliminate all the landlords in the base areas.
At that time, when Chairman Mao was fighting for the land of the local tycoons, he had already made a stipulation: The landlords are also human beings and should also be treated equally, and we will only deprive them of surplus land and illegal gains, but we must distribute the land to them according to the treatment of the peasants and let them rely on themselves.
This practice of the Comintern was too fierce, so Gong Chu raised objections again, and eventually stepped down from the position of regimental commander and became a student of the research class of the Red Army University.
As we said earlier, gong Chu's personality is prone to extremes. Now that they have been suppressed again and again, the idea of betraying the revolution has emerged. It was precisely at this time that the Kuomintang launched the fifth encirclement and suppression campaign, 500,000 troops pressed the border, and the central revolutionary base area was in jeopardy under the wrong command of Bogu and Li De.
At the same time, the Kuomintang launched psychological warfare. As long as they are willing to surrender and make corrections, the high-ranking official Houlu has a lot. Gong Chu, who had taken a two-pronged approach, had already shaken the revolution severely.
In 1934, the Red Army prepared for the Long March, but left some people to fight guerrillas, and eventually Gong Chu was left behind. In his view, this is retaliation, the exclusion of dissidents, which became the last straw that crushed the camel.
So, late one night, he hid from his guards and secretly ran back to his hometown of Lechang. Then, after the introduction of his friends in the same village, he defected to the Guangdong warlords Yu Hanmou and Zhang Fakui at that time.
Zhang Fakui
At this time, the party did not know the news that he had defected, and Gong Chu also took advantage of this information asymmetry to play with the Guangdong warlords and pretended to fight several big victories. At that time, everyone was losing the battle, and he won the battle alone, and his reputation became famous at once.
At that time, there was a guerrilla group in northern Guangdong called the Beijiang Detachment, and the leader was called He Minxue, who knew Gong Chu, and when he heard that Gong Chu had won a great victory, he sent someone to contact Gong Chu, and Gong Chu turned the people back.
Then, Gong Chu sent out an invitation. The remaining guerrillas were invited to him to discuss important matters. At that time, the main force left behind was led by Chen Yi and Xiang Ying.
After the two of them received the invitation, Xiang Ying was ready to leave, but Chen Yi and Gong Chu had worked together and knew his character very well. This is a very proud man, how can the tone of the invitation be so humble? Now that we are in the trough of the revolution, people's hearts are unpredictable, so let's keep an eye on it.
Chen Yi
However, He Xuemin of the Beijiang Detachment did not find cattiness and still attended the meeting as scheduled. Gong Chuzuo and others did not wait for his old comrade-in-arms Chen Yi, who was worried that the night would be long and dreamy, so he directly launched a surprise attack and severely damaged the Beijiang detachment, which is known in history as the Beijiang Incident.
This is too much, and during the reign of the Liusu faction, many people were treated unfairly, such as Ye Ting, one of the founders of the Communist Army, and Tan Pingshan, one of the leaders of the Nanchang Uprising. After being treated unfairly, these people were also disheartened, but they only declared their secession from the Communist Party, did not join the Kuomintang, and did not slaughter their comrades. And you're the founder of the Red Army, and the impact is too bad.
After betraying the party and seeking glory, Gong Chu's career on the Side of the Kuomintang was not very good. Because of the branding of the Warlord of Guangdong, in the following ten years. He successively served as a member of the Guangdong Senate, the administrative commissioner of Beijiang in Guangdong, and the staff officer of the Guangzhou Xingying. The second half of his life is basically in Guangdong.
Ye Jianying
During the Liberation War, Gong Chu saw that the Kuomintang was gone, and actually ran back to his hometown of Lechang, and then surrendered to his former comrade-in-arms Ye Jianying. Ye Jianying saw that he had some friendship with the Guangdong warlords, so he asked him to persuade Xue Yue to surrender to Hainan Island, but Gong Chu did not go, but secretly ran to Hong Kong.
In the decades that followed, Gong Chu had been doing business in Hong Kong and had become a rich man.
After the reform and opening up, due to its long age, coupled with the inability of the whip to hunt down traitors. Moreover, most of these people have been over the flowers for many years, and the rich side has a strong willingness to return to the roots of the fallen leaves, and we are in a period of serious lack of capital in reform and opening up.
Thus, in the late 1980s, our Party announced that it would no longer hold accountable former Kuomintang officials. Let them come back to the roots, invest in construction, and do something good for the motherland.
However, Gong Chu's nature was particularly bad, and he himself was not sure. So he wrote a letter to his former comrade-in-arms Deng Xiaoping, saying: I am guilty, I only want to be able to fall leaves and return to the roots, please allow me to die in my hometown.
Deng Gong said that he would not hold him responsible and let him come back with confidence, and he embarked on the return journey.
Looking at this person's life, it is really lamentable. The so-called one lost foot into a thousand ancient hatreds, and then look back at the body that has been a hundred years, it is he who is said.