Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (7)

The former site of the Southeast Bureau of the CPC Central Committee

Four

In 1939, Rao Shushi and Lu Xuan took the initiative to ask to return to China and participate in the domestic struggle to resist Japan and save the country, which was later approved. Rao Shushi returned home by boat directly from the United States, while Lu Xuan went to Canada to raise funds for the Bethune Aid China Medical Team and the Bethune International Peace Hospital. After arriving in Yan'an, Rao Shushi was appointed by the CPC Central Committee as deputy secretary of the Southeast Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in April 1940, assisting Xiang Ying, secretary of the Southeast Bureau, in charge of the party work in Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces and parts of Fujian, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong. In June, Rao Shushi accompanied Zhou Enlai to Chongqing, where he met with Zhou Enlai, Bogu, Ye Jianying, and others with Ye Ting, commander of the New Fourth Army who was in Chongqing at the time, and Yuan Guoping, director of the Political Department of the New Fourth Army, who had come to pick up Commander Ye Ting and return to the army headquarters at the order of Zhou Enlai. In his speech, Zhou Enlai once again announced that the direction of the development of the New Fourth was the area north of the Yangtze River, and asked the New Fourth Army to strive to move to southern Jiangsu. After the meeting, Zhou Enlai and Rao Shushi met with Yuan Guoping separately and conveyed the central decision: "It is determined that the Southeast Bureau still has Xiang Ying as secretary and Rao Shushi and Zeng Shan as deputy secretaries." In August, Rao Shushi and Ye Ting arrived in southern Anhui from Chongqing, and Rao Shushi lived in the DingjiaShannan Bureau under the pseudonyms of Liang Pu and Xiao Yao.

After Rao Shushi arrived at the Southeast Bureau, after more than a month of investigation and study, he found that the communication between the Southeast Bureau and the local party organizations in the subordinate provinces was difficult and the guidance was not smooth, so he first devoted himself to sorting out the party affairs work in fujian and Zhejiang. In mid-October, Rao Shushi summoned the secretary of the Fujian Provincial CPC Committee, the representatives of the Zhejiang Provincial CPC Committee, and the representatives of the Zhejiang Special Committees to a meeting in southern Anhui to discuss their work, and decided to establish a sub-bureau in the basic areas of Fujian and Zhejiang, while the southeast bureau moved east to southern Jiangsu. After the meeting, Rao Shushi, in the name of the Southeast Bureau, formally sent a telegram to the Party Central Committee on November 6, proposing to "(1) move the Southeast Bureau to southern Jiangsu; (2) establish sub-bureaus in the basic areas of Fujian and Zhejiang; (3) the Southeast Bureau directly commands southern Jiangsu, Jiangnan, western Zhejiang, and Suwanbian, and the sub-bureaus lead one of the fujian, Zhejiang, and southern Anhui provinces, and quickly establish a transportation network between southern Jiangsu and western Zhejiang, so as to maintain contact between the southeast bureau and the sub-bureaus through western Zhejiang, and to establish secret radio stations on the fujian-Zhejiang border." On the 14th of the same month, the Southeast Bureau also sent a telegram to the Party Central Committee, proposing to establish a southeast bureau or sub-bureau in the fujian-Zhejiang border to lead the local parties in fujian, Zhejiang, Gansu, and southern Anhui, with Rao Shushi going to Fujian and Zhejiang to preside over it, while Zeng Shan was responsible for the work of the party in southern Jiangsu. On the 17th, the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee sent a telegram to "agree to Xiao Yao's proposal to go to Fujian, Zhejiang, and Zengshan to southern Jiangsu." However, due to Chiang Kai-shek's second anti-communist upsurge, the plan could not be carried out. On December 14, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in a telegram to Ye Ting and Xiang Ying, changed the decision to agree to Rao Shushi's visit to Fujian, Zhejiang, and Gansu, proposing that "with regard to the Xiaoyao operation, it is decided whether the guerrilla zone in southern Jiangsu is convenient to guide the southeastern provinces, and if this is the case, it is advantageous to go with Zengshan to southern Jiangsu, and if it is not possible, it is necessary to go to Jiangbei." On the same day, Xiang Ying affirmed in a telegram to the CPC Central Committee: "After Xiao Yao came, he made every effort to make arrangements. These arrangements played a considerable role in Rao Shushi himself's later breakthrough from the Anhui Incident.

Rao Shushi also arranged a secret special committee in southern Anhui. At that time, the leading organ of the local party in southern Anhui was the CPC Anhui Special Committee, and Li Buxin, secretary, was directly under the leadership of the Southeast Bureau. The Anhui Southern Special Committee led the Huizhou Central County Committee and the county party committees of Jing County, Nanling, Fanchang, Tongling, Wuhu, Ningguo, Xuancheng, jingde and other counties, with a total of 12,000 party members, of which 1,700 were party members in Jing County and 1,000 were in Nanling, Tongling and Fanchang. In the white terror of the southern Anhui incident, nearly a thousand commanders and fighters of the New Fourth Army who were scattered made a safe breakthrough and arrived in jiangbei under the strategy of the local party along the river in southern Anhui, and the vast majority of local party organizations in southern Anhui were not destroyed by the Kuomintang, thanks to this careful arrangement.

Shortly before Rao Shushi arrived in southern Anhui, Mao Zedong, in his instructions to the Southeast Bureau on May 4, 1940, drafted for the CPC Central Committee, seriously criticized Xiang Ying's right-leaning mistakes in developing the armed forces, establishing an anti-Japanese regime, united front, and dealing with the Kuomintang's sudden events, and even mentioned the height of "repeating the mistakes of 1927." However, Xiang Ying repeatedly stressed the particularity of southern Anhui and was unwilling to convey and implement the cpc Central Committee's policy. Therefore, Rao Shushi and Xiang Ying argued very badly, and in Rao Shushi's words, "it took four or five hours." Later, Xiang Ying was wary of Rao Shushi at every turn, and was wary of him, not allowing him to speak in public, not allowing him to attend relevant meetings, and telling people around him that "he only returned from abroad after the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and he did not understand the situation in China." To this end, Rao Shushi had to reflect to the CPC Central Committee in a gentle tone that southern Anhui did not need himself, so that many situations did not know whether to make other arrangements for himself. The CPC Central Committee immediately called back to Xiang Ying, asking him to inform Rao Shushi of all the situation in southern Anhui, and at the same time instructed Rao Shushi to be added as a member of the New Fourth Army Branch of the Central Military Commission. In October, Rao Shushi was also a member of the branch of the New Fourth Army. However, Xiang Ying did not let Rao Shushi attend the meetings of the military branch at the beginning of Rao Shushi's appointment.

On the morning of December 28, the New Fourth Army Branch was held in the conference room of the Military Department to study how to implement the instructions of the Party Central Committee on the transfer of the New Fourth Army to the north. As a member of the military branch, Rao Shushi participated in such a meeting for the first time. Xiang Ying first introduced Rao Shushi and said that this was Comrade Liang Pu, the newly arrived deputy secretary of the Southeast Bureau. This surprised the participants, including Ye Ting, because Rao Shushi had been in Yunling for almost half a year, but not many people knew his true identity. At the meeting, Xiang Ying rejected the opinions of Ye Ting and others and decided to take the southern route to transfer. After the meeting, Rao Shushi urgently summoned the responsible persons of the local party organizations to arrange the work after the withdrawal of the New Fourth Army. After receiving the urgent notice, comrades Hu Ming, Hong Lin, and Liu Guisheng immediately rushed from Jingde to Dingjiashan, where the CPC Southeast Bureau and the Anhui Southern Special Committee are located. Rao Shushi and Li Buxin, secretary of the Anhui Special Committee, talked to Hu Ming and decided that Hu Ming and others would stay in southern Anhui to persist in the struggle, and Hu Ming gladly accepted this arduous task. Rao Shushi then made detailed arrangements for the work that remained and insisted, and announced the establishment of a secret special committee in southern Anhui with Huang Yaonan as its secretary, located in Xiuning County (a few months after the Anhui Incident, Huang Yaonan was transferred to Wuwei County in the Anhui River area, where the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army was stationed), with Hu Ming as a member of the special committee and secretary of the Jingjing Taizhong County CPC Committee; there were three county party committees under its jurisdiction: the Jingxian County Cpc Committee with Hong Lin as the secretary, the Taiping County CPC Committee with Liu Guisheng as the secretary, and the Secretary of the Jingde County CPC Committee with Hu Ming concurrently serving as the secretary. In addition, the cadres who left behind to persist in their work were Hong Qi and Ye Bizhen. Finally, Rao Shushi instructed that Li Buxin and other comrades would be transferred with the military headquarters because their identities were exposed, and the comrades you left behind should be mentally prepared; after the military headquarters left southern Anhui, the enemy would engage in white terror, and you should carry out your work independently and autonomously, and you should be prepared to be beaten for 3 months. After 3 months, we will send political traffic to contact you. Rao Shushi also arranged a small number of local armed forces to stay behind to cover the party's work.