20-1 Documentary of China's Great Suppression of Bandits - The Fall of the "Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou, and Sui Administration".

"You want to arrest Zhou Xieqin, I won't hide it from you, he and the people below him have all gone up to Yuju Mountain, and they are all in the Erxing Cave of Yuju Mountain!"

"We have grasped this situation, and the problem now is that Zhou Xieqin has a lot of eyes and ears in Xiushan, Yongsui, Chadong and other places, and some of them are the backbone of the bandits under Zhou Xieqin, these ears and eyes scattered in various places and the bandits hidden in various places under him are not cleared, and our work will not be carried out. Second, the situation on the mountain, especially in the Erxing Cave, is not familiar to us yet. The situation on the mountain and the situation in the Erxing Cave should be understood by a few people in the village, and then we will lead the way to the mountain. ”

“……”

"Village Chief Zhang, this work may still depend on your support, these few people who are familiar with the situation on the mountain and the Erxing Cave, I can only ask you to help our troops find it. ”

"The head of the army, I have always spoken with beans poured into the bamboo tube, straight to the point. Today, I also treat you as outsiders, and I tell you the truth, your Communist Party says that it is good for the common people and for the poor masses. Of course, I, Zhang Youchu, believe in you, and agree with your proposition, and I am willing to go with you from the bottom of my heart, but I am not really embarrassed when you fight Zhou Xieqin. There are some things that are difficult to say to you, and even if I bring you people, will they go or not? Zhou Xieqin, speaking of which, he has been a bandit in our area for decades, but if you say that he is not a bandit, he is indeed a bandit, and you say that he is a bandit, and he is indeed different from the bandits we have seen before. Zhou Xieqin's previous affairs, I won't talk much about him here.

In the second half of 1949, Chiang Kai-shek sent people to give him guns and ammunition, and named him "Director of the Sichuan-Hunan-Guizhou Sui Administration" and "Commander-in-Chief of the Sichuan-Hunan-Guizhou Loyal and Righteous National Salvation Army." He killed your Communist People's Liberation Army and fought with you, but Zhou Xieqin and the people below him had never heard of him killing a poor man, burning a man's house, or taking a piece of grass from someone else in Xiushan, Yongsui, and Chadong counties, within a radius of hundreds of miles. In the first month of last year, one of your grain conscription teams passed through our area from Luzhou, and was surrounded by Zhou Xieqin and his people, and later they all of you were caught and killed, more than 200 loads of rice, more than 200 loads! Zhou Xieqin and his men did not take a single grain, nor did they ask for a single grain, but they were all distributed to the poor in several nearby villages according to their homes in the White Tower. At that time, you don't know how many people in our area starved to death, and how precious every grain of food was to us. Those more than 200 loads of grain saved the lives of many of our families. People knelt on the ground while holding their pockets and kowtowed to Zhou Xieqin.

He led people to the township government and district government, attacked your county seat, and killed your people, but he never harmed the people in our places. He has kindness to the people of our country. There are still many people in our village who work under him. Now, your People's Liberation Army says that they are bandits and want to suppress them, I can understand your policy, but if I want to find someone to go up the mountain to lead you the way and arrest Zhou Xieqin, I am afraid that no one will want to go at that time. I'm all for you to tell you the truth. ”

After Zhang Youchu finished speaking, he spat on the palm of his hand, and his hands still kept concentrating on rubbing his straw rope. He is the village head of Junyan Village, District 2, Xiushan County, Sichuan Province, and the deputy director of the newly established village anti-bandit committee in Junyan Village.

Fang Qun, a middle-aged soldier known as the "head of the army", also looked intently at the two bundles of straw that were constantly shaking in Zhang Youchu's hands, he believed that what Zhang Youchu had just said was all the truth, and he understood that at that time, all over the country, in that unprecedented large-scale bandit riot, there were indeed some bandits who verbally shouted "protect food, protect the people, and protect their lives" Under the banner of the so-called saving the country and the people, in fact, it was precisely under such slogans and banners that they won the trust of such a large number of desperate poor masses for a while, and they had that kind of influence in the urban and rural areas of various places.

Fang Qun then said to Zhang Youchu at this time: "Zhou Xieqin's situation you just mentioned, if he is willing to pull all his people down the mountain, take the initiative to surrender to us, and reform himself to the people's government, we can deal with it leniently." ”

"You mean let's go up the mountain and persuade Zhou Xieqin, so that he and his men will all submit to the Communist Party and you!"

Zhang Youchu stopped rubbing the grass in his hand suddenly. The "head of the army" looked at him with both eyes.

"Yes, if Zhou Xieqin recognizes the overall situation now, wakes up suddenly, and takes the initiative to go down the mountain to confess his sins and repentance to the Communist Party and the people's government, it will not be too late. The policy of our Communist Party has always been to be lenient in confession and strict in resistance. Zhou Xieqin: If he insists on stubbornly resisting, we will not withdraw our troops until we wipe out these bandits. ”

Zhang Youchu thought for a moment and said, "I think I can try this method." When exactly are your troops going to go up to Yujuan Mountain? Before you officially go up to Yujuan Mountain to suppress you, I can find two people to go up the mountain first tonight to pass on your words to Zhou Xieqin, help you get over, and see if Zhou Xieqin and his men are willing to take this road. ”

Erxing Cave, located at the southwest end of Feijuan Mountain, the entrance of the cave is in the middle of the extremely steep stone wall that is dozens of zhang high up and down, and the top is more than ten zhang high from the top of the mountain. There was not a single grass growing on the smooth cliff, not a single vine, as if it had been cut from the top of the mountain, and there was not even a place for a butterfly to land. At the bottom of the entrance of the cave, there is a slightly slope of several zhang high flushing ditch, the ditch is also steep cliff rock, on the stone trough that has been washed by the mountains and rivers over the years, only the early years for the people who dig into the cave to dig medicinal herbs chiseled down two rows of feet into the pit. This is the only way to enter the Erxing Cave.

Above the Erxing Cave, there is a hole two or three zhang away, and the entrance of the hole is much smaller than the one below, but the smaller hole is the big hole below that sticks out from the inside, as if the person living below has opened a window on it. The only way to reach the upper hole is to go to the big hole below, and then go sideways along a treacherous hole in the big hole to get into the upper hole.

The two caves hang alone on the southwest cliff of Feijuan Mountain, which is dozens of zhang high, and it looks like two stars hanging in the sky from a distance. Locals call it Erxing Cave for this reason.

Zhou Xieqin is the largest bandit leader in Xiushan, Yongsui, and Chadong. In 1936, when He Longsuo led the Red Second Front Army to the north to resist Japan, passing by here, Zhou Zeng led a gang of bandits to attack the Red Army of the Long March, and personally killed the four-year-old son of Commander He Long, and now, more than 800 bandits under his command are all hiding in these two holes.

At 10 o'clock on the night of 28 October 1951, a regiment of the Southwest Military Region of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and brigades from six counties, including Xiushan, Yongsui, and Chadong, quietly surrounded Yujiaoshan. Lu Laizi, commander of a regiment of the Southwest Military Region, and Fang Qun, political commissar of the joint headquarters for the extermination of the Zhou Xieqin bandits in the Feijuan Mountain, ordered the concentration of all heavy firearms and occupied a firing position on the Erniang Peak, which is close to the south of the Feijuan Mountain, and prepared to block the large and small entrances of the Erxing Cave from the front with firepower; on the other hand, they organized the troops to prepare bamboo ladders, ropes, and short weapons that they had brought with them, and to ambush them in a small patch of miscellaneous trees between the Erniang Peak.

Since the anti-bandit troops entered Junyan Village, the headquarters has sent letters of persuasion to Zhou Xieqin three times in a row through Zhang Youchu, and in turn, Lu Laizi and Fang Qun have also received letters of advice from him three times, saying that the Kuomintang is wrong, and I say that the Kuomintang is; you want us to clearly understand the situation as soon as possible and make a decision as soon as possible, and I want you not to continue to resist to the end; you say that you are the people's army. The people's government represents everything of the people, and I say that I am the people's organization and are fighting for the survival of the people; you say that if you continue to resist stubbornly, there is only one way to die, and the People's Liberation Army will never withdraw its troops until it wins a complete victory...... Fang Qun said: "We can no longer have illusions about reactionaries like Zhou Xieqin, and we cannot expect him to become a Buddha on the ground. We must now follow the instructions of Commander He and Political Commissar Deng Xiaoping of the Central Committee and the Southwest Military Region, in a word, we must resolutely, mercilessly, and thoroughly exterminate them!"

Excerpt from "Documentary of China's Great Crackdown on Bandits"