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Text: Wang Qiushui
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introduction
On September 18, 1931, the ambitious Japanese army launched the "September 18 Incident", which plunged countless Chinese people into dire straits. In the face of Japan's wolf ambitions, Chiang Kai-shek adopted a policy of non-resistance in a mediocre manner, which made the Japanese army even more inflated, and directly threatened that "three months is enough to destroy China." ”
(Old photos of the Japanese invasion of China)
After Jilin Province and Liaoning Province fell to the Japanese army, Heilongjiang Province, where Ma Zhanshan was located, was in danger. All the Nationalist troops were ready to go, but only Ma Zhanshan insisted on resisting the enemy to the death and did not completely obey Chiang Kai-shek's military orders.
In 1932, in order to preserve the territorial integrity of the mainland, Ma Zhanshan took the initiative to negotiate with the Japanese army, "surrendered" to the Japanese army, and defrauded the Japanese army of military supplies worth 20 million yuan to resist the Japanese.
Ma Zhanshan's deeds are also a legendary past from the current point of view, and Ma Zhanshan has also become an indispensable figure when telling the heroes of the Anti-Japanese War.
(Monument to Ma Zhan Mountain)
1. The "bandit" general was born poor, and his ambition is not short
The reason why Ma Zhanshan is called a "bandit" general is because of his former career as a bandit, which can be seen from his name. is also a well-known military general, Ma Zhanshan's name is not as atmospheric as Zhou Zheng like Yang Hucheng and Zhang Xueliang, and there is a little more domineering "Zhanshan is king" in it.
But Ma's father and mother originally chose this name for their son not to let him be a "bandit" in the future to rob other people's mountains, Ma's father once explained to Ma Zhanshan, the word Zhanshan is to hope that he can occupy the mountains in everything in the future, and not worry about food and clothing.
(Ma Zhanshan)
This is also understandable, after all, Ma Zhanshan's family is far from having such good family conditions as Yang Hucheng and Zhang Xueliang, Ma Zhanshan's parents are farmers who fled to Fengtian, and the beauty that can be imagined is that their son will be able to eat and wear in the future.
So how did Ma Zhanshan grow into a "bandit" general step by step?
This starts with Ma Zhanshan's childhood experience, Ma Zhanshan's family is poor, and as the saying goes, "the children of poor families are in charge early". He has been a horse boy since he was seven or eight years old, raising horses for the family of Jiang Shun, the landlord of the same village, although Ma Zhanshan is young, but he is very careful and serious in doing things, and the horses are well taken care of by him.
(Old photos of the Qing Dynasty army)
However, due to Jiang Shun's negligence, the horse ran out of the horse pen in the middle of the night and failed to find it. Only Jiang Shun's family knew about the loss of the horse, so Jiang Shun detained this "cauldron" on Ma Zhanshan's body, Ma Zhanshan couldn't argue, Ma Zhanshan's parents bought another horse for Jiang Shun in order to prevent Jiang Shun from sending their son to prison.
How could Ma Zhanshan, who was young and vigorous, endure such a false accusation? So this incident became a fuse for him to embark on the road of green forests. He became a "bandit", which is where the title of "bandit" general comes from.
Although Ma Zhanshan had a career as a bandit, he never bullied the people, only grabbed some surplus grain from the landlords, and sometimes distributed the looted goods to the nearby villagers who could not afford to eat.
(Ma Zhanshan)
Soon after, the political situation took a sharp turn for the worse, coinciding with the Qing government's nationwide conscription, Ma Zhanshan thought of finding a way out in the troubled times, and took his brothers to sign up.
Ma Zhanshan's bravery on the battlefield was seen by Wu Junsheng, the commander of the Qing army, and Wu Junsheng later took Ma Zhanshan with him when he defected to the Feng army of the warlord Zhang Zuolin. Although Ma Zhanshan is only about one meter five or six tall, he is very brave and strong on the battlefield, which is also seen by the Zhang father and son, who are warlords.
(Photo of Oh Jun Sheng)
2. From the heroic backbone of the Qing army to the warriors who dared to face the blade of the Japanese army
When the "September 18 Incident" broke out, the whole province of Heilongjiang was in a critical moment of life and death, but Zhang Xueliang, the general of the Feng Army, strictly abided by Chiang Kai-shek's policy of "non-resistance" and allowed the Japanese army to burn, kill, abduct, and abuse women and children in the northeast. Lao Jiang and Zhang Xueliang can watch it, but Ma Zhanshan can't stand it.
Ma Zhanshan led his troops to resist the Japanese army bravely, but the total number of nationalists who resisted was too small, and it was not a way to go on like this.
(The Japanese army killed civilians indiscriminately)
Some people jumped out to advise Ma Zhanshan, who was still young and vigorous, not to make fearless sacrifices, because he could not fight the Japanese iron cavalry with his own strength, but Ma Zhanshan said in a righteous and solemn manner: "I am a general who stayed in Heilongjiang, and it is my duty to protect the people of Heilongjiang from being infringed upon by the Japanese, and I will not back down from anything!"
However, after sending several telegrams to the Nationalist Government asking for support to no avail, he was so disappointed that he no longer took pride in being the general of the Nationalist Army, and just when he was about to fall into a desperate collapse, he had a plan in mind.
3. Defrauding the Japanese side of tens of millions of military reserve funds
Ma Zhanshan took the initiative to lead the army to "surrender" to the Japanese army, and under normal circumstances, the Japanese side would conduct more scrutiny of the army that surrendered to the Japanese army to prevent defection. However, when they saw the team of less than 20,000 people led by Ma Zhanshan, the Japanese army couldn't help but relax, and even if they were put into the Japanese army, they couldn't set off an uproar.
Seeing that Ma Zhanshan had few people, the Japanese army also spontaneously funded him with a lot of military start-up funds and military equipment, according to statistics, these materials from the Japanese army were worth more than 20 million yuan after being converted into RMB.
(Some of the military supplies provided by the Japanese military)
It may be that the Japanese side saw too many Chinese who were as timid as rats and greedy for life and afraid of death in the "September 18 Incident", and naturally thought that under the rule of the National Government, there would be no real heroes. It's a pity that they have lost their eyes, Ma Zhanshan is not a rat who only pursues happiness, and he will not be at ease with his land being ruled by the Japanese government.
After earning enough benefits from the Japanese military, Ma Zhanshan was also "entrusted with important tasks" by the Japanese and appointed Ma Zhanshan as the governor of Heilongjiang Province.
(Photo of the former site of the State Council of the puppet Manchurian government)
After being forced to become the governor of Heilongjiang Province under the puppet Manchurian government established by the Japanese, he often used various excuses to shirk the unjust tasks assigned to him by the Japanese. When the Japanese brought him the terms of betrayal and asked him to sign them, he excused himself on the grounds that he was illiterate, and the Japanese could not do anything about him when they heard about it.
Two months later, Ma Zhanshan electrified in Heihe and re-established the anti-Japanese momentum, and its anti-Japanese armed forces once reached 60,000, inflicting a heavy blow on the Japanese puppet army.
(Ma Zhanshan's anti-Japanese propaganda)
During the critical period of the Japanese army's full-scale invasion of China, Ma Zhanshan used his ingenuity to play with a group of Japanese soldiers in applause, thanks to his fraudulent surrender, which bought time for the establishment of the anti-Japanese coalition army later.
Ma Zhanshan's feat of wit with the enemy is worthy of being praised and praised by us as future generations.
Resources:
Ma Zhanshan, Eight-year Anti-Japanese War in Northern Shaanxi, Yulin CPPCC, 2019-10-24
Qiming. "Ma Zhanshan, a famous anti-Japanese general." Century Bridge 04(2009):38-40.