Red Gun Society
From the winter of 1938 to the summer of 1939, the "Red Gun Society" spread from Jiangsu and Xuzhou to Yixian County, Shandong, seriously undermining the anti-Japanese movement.
The "Red Gun Society" was a feudal superstitious reactionary organization that was single-handedly supported and manipulated by the Japanese army, and its public slogan was "not to resist Japan, not to mess with Chiang, and to defend the homeland and the country." They took advantage of the feudal superstitions of the masses to recruit members everywhere. The procedure for joining the "Red Gun Society" is extremely simple, as long as you set up an offering table, burn a stove of incense, and kowtow a few times. As a result, the organization proliferated so quickly that sometimes as many as 100 members joined at a time.
Wang Yaping, the chief leader of the "Red Gun Society" in the canal area, is a young man in his 20s who has received rigorous training from the Japanese secret services. This man is cunning and insidious, and he is a complete national scum, because he has made meritorious contributions to the development of the "Red Gun Society" and is very appreciated by the Japanese army, which has further fueled his ambitions. After seizing territory in the south of the canal, he had to develop to the north of the canal, in a vain attempt to bring the entire canal area into his sphere of influence.
The Yixian County CPC Committee realized that in order to mobilize the masses in this area to rise up against Japan, it was first necessary to resolutely curb the development of the "Red Gun Society" and then eliminate it.
According to this decision, Ji Hua, secretary of the county party committee, personally came to the Yunbei area, which is close to Jiantouji, and stopped the activities of the "Red Gun Society" in Yunbei through various channels. At the same time, the "Red Gun Society" was also boycotted in some parts of the canal. This made Wang Yaping as anxious as an ant in a hot pot, doing everything possible to bribe traitors and spies, and vainly trying to open a gap in the north of the canal.
Under the lure of Wang Yaping, there was a hooligan surnamed Kong in Kengbu Village, north of the canal, who was not doing his job properly and was idle, so he agreed to bring Wang Yaping and others to Kengbu Village to develop the "Red Gun Society" members.
On the morning of June 23, 1939, Wang Yaping and more than 200 members of the "Red Gun Society" came to Kengbu Village led by Kong and forced the villagers to join the association. After hearing the news, the county party committee immediately sent Sun Bin with all his armed forces to stop it.
At 5 o'clock in the morning of June 24, Sun Binquan led more than 60 people to set off from Jiantouji to Wannian Gate. As soon as the team walked out of Haojialou, they found that more than 100 members of the "Red Gun Society" in the southwest direction went straight to the Wannian Gate. As soon as Sun Binquan saw that the situation was critical, he ordered the soldiers to run and rush to Liuzhuang in front.
As soon as they entered the village, the congregation also arrived. Sun Binquan ordered the team to immediately enter the battle. The "Red Gun Society" immediately became confused, retreated to a river embankment, and relied on the river embankment to return fire on Sun Binquan. Sun Binquan commanded more than 60 soldiers to quickly disperse, using the pigsty outside the village as a cover to launch an offensive.
At around 7 o'clock, Sun Binquan suddenly found that in the sorghum field north of Liuzhuang, there were many people rushing south. Sun Binquan asked Zhang Yuding to pay close attention to observation, and it turned out to be another group of "Red Gun Society" members, and there were quite a few of them. In the face of this sudden situation, Sun Binquan and Zhang Yuding were not afraid, and they swept out two shuttles with their machine guns, and the disciples fell in response.
When Sun Binquan happily looked back at Zhang Yuding, he suddenly found that there were more than a dozen disciples on the wheat field on both sides, bald and barebacked, with horizontal pike marks. Seeing this, Sun Binquan threw out three grenades, took advantage of the smoke of gunpowder, and shouted: "Yu Ding, come with me!" and ran to the southwest. He ran a few dozen steps, jumped over a low wall, and jumped into a courtyard with both turrets and walls. turned around, but Zhang Yuding was gone. Only later did I know that Zhang Yuding did not see the direction of Sun Binquan's retreat, ran towards Zhuangdong, and was unfortunately caught by the "Red Gun Society". After he was captured, he was unyielding and was beaten to death with an iron rod by the cruel Wang Yaping.
It was in this compound that Sun Binquan found more than a dozen fighters. They are Sun Chenghui, Wu Zhenquan, Yao Guiyin, Mo Guangyi, Hao Chuangong, Gong Ziming, He Zude, Wang Kejian, Sun Jingsheng, Sun Jinhai, Zheng Quanzhong, plus Sun Binquan himself, a total of 13 people. Sun Binquan's mood couldn't help but become heavy, 60 soldiers were now left with the 13 people in front of him, and the enemy situation was still serious.
He cheered up and said in a deep voice: "Comrades, do you remember the first song we sang when we participated in the revolution?" Everyone replied in unison: "Remember!" Sun Bin led the whole group to sing that song:
Go forward, don't stand back,
Life and death have come to an end.....
Everyone was moved by the tragic song. Sun Bin said passionately with tears in his eyes: "Of the more than 60 comrades, only 13 of us remain. Now is a matter of life and death, we have to do a big job, we would rather die as heroes than cowards!" After speaking, he assigned the task.
At about 10 o'clock, the "Red Gun Society" organized an attack. The congregations to the east and south wriggled forward like snails. As soon as he got up, he was pressed down by the firepower of Sun Binquan and their turret. The Followers switched to the west and north, and some ran under the wall and threw grenades into the courtyard. The fighters took the risk of picking up the grenade and throwing it out.
Just when the enemy was most nervous about throwing grenades, Sun Bin came to the kitchen against the north wall to see the enemy's situation. The comrades hurriedly helped him up and found that he had more than a dozen shrapnel wounds on his body, but Sun Bin ignored them all, gritted his teeth and commanded the battle.
After an hour of intense and fierce fighting, the gunfire faded. The comrades suddenly found that nearly 100 reinforcements had come out of Haojialou. The comrades were very happy, and Mo Guangyi took a ladder to climb the wall to shoot at the enemy, but unfortunately was shot by the enemy and died heroically on the spot. Later, it was learned that the reinforcements were peasant armed forces transferred by Comrade Ji Hua. However, due to being outnumbered, he could not repel the enemy, so he had to retreat to Haojialou again.
The gunfire ceased completely, and the temporary silence only added to the tense and mysterious atmosphere of the battle. It was only then that everyone realized that their stomachs were rumbling with hunger, so they ate some pancakes, drank a few sips of spring water, and rested on the spot.
At around two o'clock in the afternoon, Sun Bin was resting in the north room when he heard someone smashing the wall outside the wall. He hurriedly rolled over and got out of bed, and asked loudly, "Who is smashing the wall?" only to hear a woman's voice shouting, "Are you Uncle Chengcai?" Sun Binquan replied; The woman said, "The thieves are looking for a ladder to move the table, and are going to climb the wall from the west, so get ready." ”
Sun Binquan heard the voice of his neighbor Guo's sister-in-law, and he was very grateful. He immediately came to the courtyard and deployed his comrades to prepare for battle. After a while, more than 20 heads appeared on the west wall. The comrades' machine guns and rifles were fired at the same time, and the sneak attackers immediately retracted their heads and never dared to show them again.
The enemy, unable to break through the courtyard wall, climbed on the north roof again to demolish the house, and the comrades immediately fired with rifles. The enemy was driven away, but the roof was on fire, and the enemy outside thought it was an opportunity to take advantage of it, so they shouted loudly. Just as the flames were rising to the sky and shouting, suddenly a huge thunder and a downpour of rain fell from the sky. The rabble of the "Red Gun Society" let the rain pour and all ran away. The 12 people fought fiercely for a day, and when the rain passed, they successfully withdrew from Liuzhuang and returned to Haojialou.
Wang Yaping was attacked, and the thief's heart did not die, and he gathered 2,000 followers in a vain attempt to capture Jiantouji, the seat of the county party committee. Ji Hua and Sun Binquan, secretaries of the county party committee, quickly figured out the enemy's movements, and immediately notified the guerrillas from all walks of life to march to Jiantouji before 7 a.m. on the morning of the 26th, with a total of about 1,000 people, to defend each flank of Jiantouji.
Jiantouji is an earthen polder, and the wall is about more than one person high, which is easy to cover. There is a ditch outside the polder, and the ditch is not deep. At half past seven o'clock on the morning of the 26th, the members of the "Red Gun Society" began to attack southwest of Jiantouji. The bandit leader Liu led dozens of followers to rush into the trench, and our soldiers immediately opened fire, Liu was killed in the ditch, and the rest of the followers turned around and fled. Most of the members of the "Red Gun Society" were deceived, and as soon as they saw that our side was prepared and the head was killed, they had no intention of fighting. Only the twenty or thirty backbones led by Wang Yaping still resisted stubbornly. However, due to the leader's mistaken belief that Jia Wang's Japanese army was going to sweep Jiantouji on a large scale the next day, our team withdrew from Jiantouji.
After two battles between Liu Zhuang and Jiantouji, the arrogance of the "Red Gun Society" was defeated. Many of the relatives of the members advised the members to quit the Red Gun Society. Wang Yaping's conspiracy was a shameful failure.
But there are also many lessons for our side in the two battles. The first is to believe the mediation opinion of the intermediary that "neither side is stationed in the Jiantou set", and is deceived. The second is to believe in the enemy excessively. Originally, in Kengbu Village, Wang Yaping became a turtle in the urn, but due to the mediation of the "middleman", Wang Yaping was easily let go, and as a result, Sun Bin and the whole of them were attacked in Liuzhuang. Third, they lack combat experience and the speed of action is too slow. The battle of Liuzhuang lasted for a whole day, but the reinforcements did not arrive for a long time, and if it were not for a heavy rain, the consequences would be unimaginable. Ji Hua informed Sun Maoqi's team to support, but it took five hours to cross the river alone, delaying the fighter. Fourth, they were confused in their thinking, did not make an analysis, and believed rumors in a credulous manner, thus suffering undue losses. All this shows that our contingent must also conscientiously carry out rectification and strengthen the party's leadership and political and ideological work.
After a short rest, the troops returned to Jiantouji. In the name of Sun Binquan, commander and head of the Anti-Enemy Self-Defense Regiment of the Sixth District of Yixian County, and Ji Hua, political commissar of the Sixth District, our side issued a "proclamation" and a "letter to the masses" to explain the course of the two battles, expose Wang Yaping's traitor and spy, accuse him of the crime of massacring innocent people, and call on the villagers not to be deceived again and resolutely resist the activities of the "Red Gun Society." After the notice was posted on the street, the audience gathered. The "Letter to the People" was distributed to all villages, and it also had a great impact. Fathers persuaded their sons, wives persuaded their husbands, and brothers persuaded their brothers, and they all withdrew from the "Red Gun Society".
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Sun Binquan invited the progressives of various villages to a meeting in the name of the district office, mobilized them to help dissolve the "Red Gun Society" and invited them to dinner. On the day of the meeting, the large living room was full of people, and it was very lively, fully showing the joy of disbanding the "Red Gun Society." The upper-class figures of the village who were invited to the meeting all admired it from the bottom of their hearts. After taking their seats one by one, they drank and talked about it.
After the banquet, the guests were slowly drinking tea, and Sun Bin walked into the living room. Everyone stood up one after another and greeted Sun Binquan. Sun Binquan said: "Because my body is not well, I can't come to persuade you to drink, please forgive me." When the guests heard that Sun Binquan was still recovering from his injuries, they asked how his injuries were. Sun Binquan said: "Thanks to the concern of my relatives and friends, my injuries are nothing, but it is really sad to think of those relatives and friends who died tragically under the knife of the 'Red Gun Society'." Everyone bowed their heads and remained silent.
Proceeding from the overall situation, Sun Binquan took the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the salvation of the country as the main content, talked about the course of the two battles, talked about Wang Yaping's traitorous nature, the destructive role of the "Red Gun Society," and talked about the aims and tasks of the guerrillas. He pointed out in particular that the "Red Gun Society" is a traitor organization under the direct command of Japanese spies, and if it does not resist Japan and do not mess with Chiang, how can it defend the homeland and the country? These words were both serious and sincere, and those present were deeply moved.
This move was very effective, and most of the people who came to the meeting were influential figures from various villages, and as soon as they went back to publicize it, the reputation of the "Red Gun Society" plummeted. In less than a month, even the more than 20 backbones who followed Wang Yaping the most closely slipped away. Xie Shaotang, the No. 2 figure in the "Red Gun Society," led his team to join our guerrilla unit under the work of our party, and Wang Yaping became the commander of the light pole. Although the "Red Gun Society" in some places persisted for a while, it did not escape its destruction in the end.