Before and after the liberation of Huaxian County
Li Yingyu sorted out
On May 23, 1949, Huaxian County was peacefully liberated, thus ending the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang and giving Huaxian a new life.
1. Huaxian before liberation
Since October 1948, the Chinese People's Liberation War has successively won brilliant victories in the three major battles of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin, and most of the elite troops on which the Kuomintang started the civil war have been wiped out by us. At this time, the army under Chiang Kai-shek's control had become a frightened bird and basically lost its combat capability. Chiang Kai-shek himself has also become a zombie who has lost his soul and is in a situation of "helpless flowers falling". Shaanxi also defeated the Kuomintang First Army and the 65th Army in the Battle of Libei. In the Battle of Yongfeng, the 76th Army of the enemy was completely annihilated, bringing about a fundamental change in the revolutionary situation in the province.
In this new changed situation, on the one hand, the death throes of the Kuomintang authorities in Huaxian County in despair; On the one hand, our underground party is facing the dawn of revolution and carrying out preparations for the liberation of Huaxian County from all aspects. The struggle between the enemy and ourselves is extremely fierce.
The People's Government of Huaxian County in the last century is a chronicle of Huaxian County
Historically, in Huaxian before liberation, Chiang Kai-shek's First Army was entrenched for ten years. After 1948, it was the seat of the Kuomintang's Shaanxi Provincial Second Administrative Office. There are both special agents sent by the Political Department of the First Army of the Kuomintang from the Second Department of National Defense to the 246th Group, the 334th Group, the Special High Group, and the Central Unification Special Service Organization One Party Program (CC) sent by the Political Department of the Kuomintang's First Army; There are also reactionary congregations such as Italian Catholic priests who carry out counter-revolutionary activities in the cloak of religion, such as Baba Dao Mao and Consistent Province. They merged with the local party, government, military, police, and special authorities to exercise bloody fascist rule over the people of Huaxian County.
The Huaxian County Party Department is the core organ of the Kuomintang to rule Huaxian County. In October 1948, after the merger of the Kuomintang party and league, the organization of the Three Youth League was abolished and the county party department was reorganized, with Liu Sanqun as the secretary of the county party department. The county party department consists of four district party departments and sixteen branch departments, with 1,470 Kuomintang members (the number of party groups registered together).
The Huaxian County Government was the Kuomintang's organ of political power governing Huaxian County, with Li Zuotang as the county magistrate. The county government is divided into thirteen townships, ninety-one bao, and two thousand nine hundred and fifteen jia.
The Huaxian Senate, nominally an organ representing the will of the people, is actually an instrument for ruling the people, with Wang Zhongmou as its chairman. Wang Zhongmou and his people, Jing Xianpeng, director of the Kuomintang's Huaxian Agricultural Association, and others, were both local upper-class powerful figures, and colluded with the local tyrants and inferior gentry, running amok in the countryside, acting as a blessing with power, and the masses derogatorily called him "Jingwangmiao."
The fields of Huaxian during the Republic of China are from the history of Hua Prefecture
These leading figures not only control the real political and military power of Huaxian County, but also control the economic lifeline of Huaxian. They colluded with landlords, rich peasants, and profiteers to brutally oppress and exploit the people. They also possess a certain number of reactionary armed forces as a tool to suppress popular resistance.
At that time, in Huaxian County, which had a population of only 140,000, in addition to more than 300 officers and men of an independent brigade (with two squadrons under its jurisdiction) organized by the Second Administrative Office of Shaanxi Province, there were 2,100 officers and men in the local armed forces of Huaxian County. All townships and baoji below the county level have also set up state-owned militia organizations, with a total of about 800 personnel. There are also nine police stations under the police station, including the county capital, Xiguan, Chishui, Gaotang, Guapo, Lingnan, Shimeng, Ribang, and Xiamiao, and a police brigade (two squadrons under its jurisdiction), with about 300 people. They originally thought that with Chiang Kai-shek, Hu Zongnan, and Dong Zhao as their backers, and their own armed forces as their backing, they would be able to do whatever they wanted without fear, but with the collapse of the Chiang dynasty, the situation changed, and they also had a premonition that the end was coming. In the despair of the overall situation of failure, they are still unwilling to perish, carry out the final struggle, and try to survive and survive.
Zhang Yaxuan, commissioner of the Kuomintang's Shaanxi Provincial Second Administrative Commission, served as the magistrate of Huaxian County from January 1948 to February 1949, and in order to forcibly implement the "three networks" policy, they built more than 600 Minbao places in various traffic arteries, intersections, and checkpoint crossings throughout the county. In addition, according to the natural villages, men, women, and children were organized into the organizational system of "inventory", "communication" and "intelligence", and they were on duty day and night, called catching the "five ghosts": traitors (referring to Communist Party members), gambling ghosts, thieves, smoking ghosts, and Dao ghosts (consistent Dao, etc.); in essence, they mainly monitored the activities of the Communist Party and investigated and arrested Communist Party members. In the spring of 1949, at the Qinjiatan ferry port in Huaxian County, he arrested one of my underground traffic officers, and after being severely interrogated by the judicial department of the Huaxian County Police Department, he found a secret letter from the shoulder of his coat and sent to the responsible person of the underground party in Lintong, and then sent it to the provincial garrison headquarters, his whereabouts unknown.
In the name of implementing the "three networks" policy and catching the "five ghosts," many innocent people have also been harmed. Some local hooligans, military police, and township security personnel took advantage of the opportunity to extort money, embezzlement and bribery, causing everyone to be at risk and chickens and dogs uneasy. The crowd cursed: "The blind tower (referring to the bunker) was built at the intersection of the main road, and there were two dogs standing at the entrance of the tower, biting off this road and no one walked." If anyone else goes, unless the Red Army comes to beat the dogs."
In January 1949, on the eve of national liberation, Hu Zongnan, director of the Kuomintang's Xi'an Pacification Office, together with Dong Zhao, chairman of the province, held a training course for party and government personnel in Xi'an in order to consolidate their position in the northwest, strengthen their strength, and be loyal to the Chiang dynasty. The participants were party, government, and military leaders at and above the county level for a month, and within this scope they established a reactionary organization of resilience, the "Comrades Association for Hoeing Traitors and Saving the Country." Hu Zongnan personally spoke and called on all localities to set up corresponding organizations. In February of the same year, Li Zuotang took over Zhang Yaxuan's post as county magistrate and established the "Comrades Patriotic Salvation Association" in Huaxian County. Attending were high-ranking figures and township and town mayors, and secret oaths were taken. The specific task is: to use the Wei River as a defensive line to snipe the PLA's southward advance. Subsequently, each township also correspondingly recruited township security personnel, soldiers, bandits, and local tyrants and inferior gentry to form a subordinate organization - "brotherhood" in the name of worshiping the general. In this way, from province to county and from county to township, the top and bottom were combined and self-contained, and they used their respective powers and arms to wantonly carry out activities to undermine the underground party, committing extremely serious crimes.
(To be continued)
Original source: "Huaxian Cultural and Historical Materials" first series
Original author: Li Yingyu collated
Editor: Huazhou Literature and History Collection