In June 1947, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping led the 120,000-strong People's Liberation Army of the Jinji and Luyu Provinces to forcibly break through the Yellow River Graben and leap thousands of miles into the Dabie Mountains, opening the prelude to the strategic offensive of the War of Liberation.
The Dabie Mountain base area was once the Eyuwan base area established by the Red Fourth Front Army and was an old revolutionary base. This place could directly threaten the Kuomintang's defense line on the Yangtze River and the security of Wuhan and Nanjing, so for Chiang Kai-shek, the presence of Liu Deng's army had become his henchman.
Among Liu Deng's army, many people were veterans of the Red Fourth Front Army and the Red 25 th Army, such as Chen Zaidao, Wang Jinshan, Fan Chaoli, Liu Huaqing, and others; they left the Eyu-Anhui Soviet District more than 10 years ago.
However, the good times did not last long, and as time passed, the excitement and enthusiasm of the comrades gradually disappeared, and unexpected hardships awaited them.
After our army entered Dabie Mountain, we thought that the masses in the old area would come out to welcome us and help us. Who knew that when our army arrived, the masses either hid or hidden, the guides could not be found, and food and shelter became a problem. Comrades are puzzled as to why the masses, who used to be close to our Yushui family, have become so indifferent.
A cadre of the first column once recalled:
"The people did not dare to approach us. From the first day, for a full month, wherever we went, where there was no one, the village lay quietly. Day and night marching and fighting can not find a guide, as long as there are two ordinary people together, they push each other away from not knowing the road. For the first time in ten years, we tried to fight oh what is the pain of the masses. What is this smell of us being caught between the Japanese and the Kuomintang in the empty room of the old base area? ”
For our army, the troops are fish, then the people are water, and fish are inseparable from water. Our army's food, clothing, wounded, reconnaissance, and other work all depend on the help of the masses. Without the help of the masses, our army will go hungry, blind and deaf. For our army, the support of the people is more deadly than the encirclement and suppression of the enemy.
Why did the people of Dabie Mountain hide from our army? Why is it so difficult for our army in the old revolutionary bases? The reason for this is to start with the massacre in the Soviet region of that year.
In the ten years from November 1927 to early 1938, the Eyu-Anhui Soviet region experienced five large-scale "encirclement and suppression" by the Kuomintang and two barbaric massacres. In addition to large-scale encirclement and massacres, they indiscriminately killed innocent people and washed Dabie Mountain with the vicious slogan "where there are people, there are bandits, and the people are exhausted."
Under the brutal massacre, young and middle-aged men are rare, and most of the village is full of old people and women, and many ordinary people hide in the mountains and bays. At the same time, the Kuomintang also established a strict armor protection system in the local area and practiced the White Terror. In order to erase the people's red memory, even the name of the Soviet District was changed, using the names of the Kuomintang generals Liu Zhi and Wei Lihuang who swept the Soviet District at that time, such as Xindian Ji was renamed Jingfu County (Liu Zhi's character), and Jinzhai was renamed Lihuang County.
In order to suppress the people, the Kuomintang regime established "Qingxiang Committees" and "Qingxiang Regiments" in various counties and townships in the Eyuwan region to consolidate their local rule. These "Qingxiang Committees" and "Qingxiang Regiments" were mainly composed of local gentry landlords who had suffered the impact of the forces of workers and peasants during the Great Revolution. According to popular parlance, it is the "homecoming group".
For the people's army and the revolutionary masses, this group of "homecoming regiments" has a bitter hatred. As locals, the hometown group is familiar with the local conditions and people's conditions, and they can identify the so-called "communist bandits" at will, and without interrogation or confession, they can execute Soviet soldiers and civilians at will based on the assumption that "you look like a bad person" without any evidence. It is precisely this kind of random killing that has caused the emergence of appalling "dead man's ditches", "no man's land" and "mass graves" in many places in the Eyu-Anhui Su District. Large-scale massacres left corpses everywhere in the Eyu-Anhui border region.
After repeated bloodbathing and political brainwashing, the people were killed by the reactionaries and did not dare to support the people's army anymore. It is feared that once the people's army is transferred again, they will encounter the most cruel reprisals from the enemy.
Therefore, in Dabie Mountain, Liu Deng's army entered the most dangerous period. Bai Chongxi, a warlord of the Gui family and minister of defense, personally stepped forward and established a number of blockades, encircling the Dabie mountain area.
The sinister and cunning Bai Chongxi knew very well that Liu Deng's army was good at ambush warfare, and if he sent a large army into the Dabie Mountain District, he was afraid that he would be ambushed. Therefore, he decided to make a breakthrough from within, that is, to use the "Qingxiang Committee" and the "Qingxiang Regiment" to organize landlords, township chiefs and revolutionary traitors into the so-called "small security team".
Although the small security team is a motley militia group, it is widely distributed, and its members are all locals, familiar with the terrain, and familiar with the whole set of guerrilla tactics of our army. They wore the same shabby clothes as the common people, hid among the masses, ate and lived in the village, and from the outside, it was not at all obvious that he was a "small security team". The PLA is in the light, and the "small security team" is in the dark, making people invincible.
When there are many people in the PLA, the small security team will hide from you, and when there are few people, they will come out to get you and catch our people, generally they will not survive, and the means are still very cruel.
Veteran soldier Yang Jinhua once recalled:
"On the march of Dabie Mountain, the soldiers are most afraid of falling behind. Dabie Mountain is a mountain road, with many curves and many plants and trees. If you fall two or three hundred meters behind, you may be caught and killed by the small security team. There was a fighter in our regiment who fell about 400 meters behind and was dragged into the woods by them. We only heard him scream, and by the time we got back, the man had been killed. ”
Not only that, but the small security team also extended its poisonous hand to the wounded of our army. According to the practice of our army, the wounded are generally sent to the homes of fellow villagers. However, as soon as the large troops of our army left, the small security teams lurking in the village would rush out, search for our wounded from house to house, and then kill them.
Therefore, soldiers generally have two fears, one is afraid of being injured and sick, and the other is afraid of falling behind. I would rather die in battle than be caught by the small security team, their methods are too cruel.
In addition to massacring our soldiers, the small security brigade also secretly threatened the masses, making them dare not cooperate with our army, serve as guides for our army, provide us with shelter, or provide us with food. Let our mass work not be carried out. Deng Xiaoping once told this story:
"There is a place to seize the leader of a small security team, and a mass public trial meeting will be held. The masses do not approve, fearing reprisals from the bandits. The opinion of the masses made our government issue an announcement and shoot him. But our comrades do not stop, believing that such a bandit leader should be tried in public order to let the masses take revenge. So he held a meeting of the masses and found people who complained. It took a lot of effort to find more than 20 people. After the congress, the bandit leader stared at the stage, and the crowd was scared. Finally urging two, an old man said, "You took my cow." An old lady said, "You killed my son". The others said nothing would come up. There is no complain about the bitterness that is ready to be sought, and no one dares to try him in public, and he can only be shot. That night, this old lady's whole family was killed..."
Therefore, the work of our army could not make progress at all, and in order to organize grassroots work, our army set up "poor people's groups". But soon after, many members of the "slum group" were pulled and killed by the small security team. Later, we did not dare to disclose the members of the "slum group".
Even once, even the chief Deng Xiaoping was almost in distress.
At that time, Deng Xiaoping was walking with the guards, and a shuttle of bullets suddenly came from the woods and flew over Deng Xiaoping's head, but fortunately, the guards were quick and fought back, which avoided this major accident. Thinking of the recent incidents of small security units sneaking up on our military and political personnel, Deng Xiaoping speculated that this must have been the work of small security units again.
Under the internal and external aggression of the Kuomintang, our work in the Dabie Mountain can be described as difficult. The newly established base area of Dabie Mountain was seriously damaged, and more than 30 towns that had been liberated fell into the hands of the enemy one after another, and the supply of grain and ammunition fell into a desperate situation. Some veterans of Erye recalled that the situation at that time was even more difficult than the Long March and the Western March.
The troops were able to raise less and less food, mostly dried fruits and dried vegetable leaves, and they could only raise money to eat one day at a time. The soldiers of the direct subordinate unit also did not eat a grain for five or six days, all eating leaves and drinking wild vegetable soup. Yesterday I starved two, today I starved two more. Deng Xiaoping, like a soldier, could not get enough for days. There is no oil and salt for half a month, and the big pot of rice is broken, and you can still insist, but if the "small pot of rice" is broken, you have to suffer a little more.
When he leaped thousands of miles into Dabie Mountain, Liu Deng's army still had 120,000 troops. However, after a fierce battle, Liu Deng's army has been reduced to more than 60,000 people. In order to facilitate the operation, our army buried dozens of artillery pieces on the spot. However, all this could not be hidden from the eyes of the small security team, and they quickly led the Kuomintang to dig up all the equipment. Losing heavy equipment, Liu Deng's army greatly damaged its ability to tackle tough positions.
Deng Xiaoping profoundly realized that in order to gain a foothold in Dabie Mountain, it was not enough to deal with the regular Kuomintang troops; it was necessary to control the grassroots level and eliminate all local bandits and bullies. Therefore, Deng Xiaoping ordered the Sixth Column to wipe out the bandits within a radius of several hundred miles as soon as possible.
According to the investigation, the bandits in Dabie Mountain are mainly concentrated in the mall and Macheng, while the prosperous Songbu is the bandits' lair. After our army entered the Dabie Mountains, many landlords, bandits and bullies fled to Songbu, and they brought with them a "small security team" of more than 2,400 people, which stirred up the surrounding area.
On December 3, 1947, Deng Xiaoping learned that the enemy 85th Division had moved west, leaving Songbu empty. So he immediately instructed the Sixth Column to occupy as soon as possible and destroy the local small security team. Du Yide, political commissar of the 6th Column, immediately ordered Xiao Yongyin to lead the 18th Brigade and the 49th Regiment of the 17th Brigade to Songbu, and repeatedly instructed:
"These small security teams are the most hateful, don't let one person be arrested, kill their prestige."
After Xiao Yongyin received the order, he immediately led the troops to march overnight and quietly wrapped Song Bu three layers inside and three layers outside. At that time, there were only low walls around Songbu, and it was quite easy to capture it. However, the night was dark and the wind was high, and it was easy for the bandits to take advantage of the chaos to escape, so Xiao Yongyin decided to wait until dawn before attacking.
As soon as the sky was dark, Xiao Yongyin launched an attack. Our army first bombarded the wall with artillery, and then the whole army entered. After a brief engagement, the defenders were vulnerable and quickly laid down their arms. Xiao Yongyin immediately counted the prisoners and corpses, and found that only more than 200 people had been eliminated, and more than 2,000 had disappeared.
As mentioned earlier, the small security team wears clothes similar to ordinary people, and it is difficult to recognize them when they say similar words. It is clear that this group of bandits is already hiding among the masses. Xiao Yongyin vowed to dig them out even if they dig three feet into the ground.
So Xiao Yongyin brought the three regiment commanders, laid out the map of the city, and ordered:
"Guard the city gates, no one is allowed to go out of the city, and men between the ages of 15 and 50 will be arrested when they see them, and they will all be detained."
Some people are worried: "Will this arrest the wrong person and violate the discipline of the masses?" ”
"If you are caught, I will bear it."
In this way, more than 10,000 adult male citizens of Songbu were taken out by the 18th Brigade, leaving only the elderly, women and children in the city. Subsequently, the political workers of the 18th Brigade went from house to house to register house numbers, the number of people in their homes, names, and ages; The men who were concentrated in the Eighteenth Brigade also registered one by one according to the same method.
At noon the next day, the population registration was completed, and the two rosters came out and looked at each other, and those who could match the number were taken away by the family; Those who are not on the number are naturally bandits. One count is exactly more than 2,000 people.
When the news reached Yeji, Deng Xiaoping laughed loudly and said, "Good Xiao Yongyin, good idea, suddenly served the nest of the bandits in Macheng."
At this moment, Xiao Yongyin's telegram came: "What should these bandits do? This question stumped Deng Xiaoping.
If they are ordinary Kuomintang soldiers, according to the regulations of our army, they will either be integrated into our army units, or they will be paid travel expenses and directly released. However, these bandits can neither be collected nor let go. Because they are all local bandit bullies, they do all evil, their nature is difficult to change, and once they are integrated into the army, they can do anything.
If they are released, it is equivalent to releasing the tiger back to the mountain, and the consequences will be endless. These people have a bitter hatred for our army and the revolutionary masses. If I let it go, I will inevitably fall into the grass again and become a bandit and an enemy of me. Moreover, they were cleared out, and they hated the people of Songbu to the bone, and they would definitely retaliate when they turned back, and the people would suffer.
After much consideration, Deng Xiaoping sent a message: "Kill the bandits above the platoon." ”
However, there are only more than 100 people in the small security team above the platoon, and killing them still cannot solve the problem. Deng Xiaoping finally decided to deal with special circumstances, he picked up a pen and drew a circle under the word "kill".
Songbu eliminated more than 2,000 small security teams, which was praised by Chief Liu Deng, who said in a telegram:
"On December 3, you took the initiative to completely annihilate the county magistrate and the security brigade of Macheng, the significance of which is no less than annihilating a brigade of the enemy, and you will be rewarded and credited once."
Li Desheng later recalled: "The destruction of the enemies in Songbu played a great role in turning the situation around, and some of them finally understood that the regular army of the Kuomintang was temporarily transferred to sweep away and could not stay for a long time. If you become an enemy of the Communist Party, which has established power there, sooner or later you will be eradicated. And the battle of Songbu played a role in killing a hundred people, it is better to leave a back road. ”
After the Battle of Songbu, the Kuomintang's grassroots forces in Dabie Mountain suffered a devastating blow. Many bandits and small security units who have done bad things have turned themselves in to the people's government one after another, expressing their willingness to make amends.
Xiao Yongyin also sighed later: "In the war environment, sometimes harsh measures must be taken, and we can't at least bring thousands of bandits to fight." ”
Just as the so-called thunderbolt means show the heart of the bodhisattva, the revolution is not an invitation to dinner, but a cruel struggle. Deng Xiaoping was extremely resolute and grasped the principle that in troubled times it is necessary to use heavy canons, thus making it possible to stop killing and make the reactionary forces surrender to the people.
After the small security team was hit hard, our army officially gained a foothold in Dabie Mountain. Deng Xiaoping personally went out and vigorously grasped the construction of the base areas, thus opening up a new situation in the Dabie Mountain base areas. Through the internal and external cooperation of Liu Deng, Chen Su, and Chen Xie's three-way army, 90 brigades of the enemy army were attracted to the Central Plains battlefield. For this reason, the Central Military Commission ordered Deng Xiaoping to lead the main forces out of Dabie Mountain, take unified command of the three armies on the southern front, and open up a large battlefield in the Central Plains.
Deng Xiaoping led the forward command post north to join Liu Bocheng. Crossing the Huai River, Deng Xiaoping looked affectionately at the Dabie Mountain behind him: "We are still the Dabie Mountain Corps. For a long time, he touched the crutch in his hand and said to the guard behind him: "No need for this, from now on, we will make great strides, and the Chinese revolution will advance in great strides." ”