On June 5, 1953, the county town of Huishui in Guizhou was holding a grand mass meeting of a thousand people, and the villagers from the four miles and eight townships were pouring in the direction of the venue. The people outside the cordon around the venue were crowded, and the crowds from all over the place who came to watch were crowded, and the venue was even more crowded and boiling. At this time, if there are unknown foreigners passing through this place, they will definitely mistakenly think that something earth-shattering has happened.
When the moderator standing at the rostrum announced the official start of the meeting, a group of heavily armed soldiers of our army escorted more than a dozen criminals with their heads bowed and shrugged to the open space in front of the rostrum.
These people were all bandit leaders who had committed many evil deeds and killed people like hemp, and one of them, a female bandit leader with a good face and an unusual temperament, just appeared and caused a boiling of onlookers, and the host of the venue had to shout "keep quiet" in succession, so that the atmosphere in the venue was slightly quieter.
This female bandit leader is the female bandit leader Cheng Lianzhen, who attracted the local people to rush to the venue, known as the "first beauty of the Yilin Mountain Country".
So how did Cheng Lianzhen embark on the road of banditry, and what crimes did she commit? What was her final outcome?
All this must start from Cheng Lianzhen's legendary experience.
In 1921, Cheng Lianzhen was born into a peasant family in Chaopeng Village, Guangshun Town, Changshun County, Guizhou Province. Cheng Lianzhen is a native of the Buyi ethnic group and the youngest child in the family. According to local customs, the youngest girl in the family is called "Sister Cheng", so her nickname is Called Sister Cheng.
Cheng Lianzhen is a beautiful billet when she is young, and when she grows up, she becomes more and more iconic, with a tall and graceful body, delicate and white skin, and a beautiful face, and is a famous local beauty. Guizhou is known as "Yilin Mountain Country", and Cheng Lianzhen is also known as "the first beauty of Yilin Mountain Country" by local people.
As the saying goes, "red face is bad water", beautiful appearance not only did not bring good luck to Cheng Lianzhen, but also brought countless disasters to her family. When Cheng Lianzhen was sixteen or seventeen years old, the people who came to the door with gifts almost broke the threshold of her home, and the local fierce bandit leader Wang Haichen also sent people to propose to her, and said harshly: "If we dare to give it to others, then don't blame our brothers for turning their faces and not recognizing people!" ”
The bandit's harsh words frightened Cheng Lianzhen's family, the fierce bandits could do anything bad, in case they annoyed them, they were afraid that it would really bring disaster to the family. So Cheng Lianzhen's parents hurriedly sent their daughter to a relative in the county town to hide, and announced to the outside world that her daughter had escaped overnight.
Cheng Lianzhen did not like the life of hiding in Tibet and was not used to living in the county town. Her relatives bitterly advised her to quickly find an honest and reliable man to marry, so that she completely cut off the bandits' thoughts. But Cheng Lianzhen, who has a very high vision, does not want to marry in a hurry, but wants to find a talented, handsome and dashing prince to spend the rest of his life with. Although there were many powerful and famous people in the crowd who came to her door to ask for relatives, none of them could get into her eyes.
As the saying goes, "there is a heart to plant flowers and flowers, no heart to plant willows into the cute", just when Cheng Lianzhen was distressed about not finding the right person to make her happy, an unexpected encounter let a man into her life. This person's name is Chen Zhengming, handsome and elegant, extraordinary temperament, family has thousands of acres of good land, is a famous local landlord.
Male and female appearance, pearls and pearls, Cheng Lianzhen soon married Chen Zhengming and lived in the Chen family compound. Only then did she know that Chen Zhengming had a wife early in the morning, and that she was the second aunt of the Chen family, and she was annoyed by this.
However, Chen Zhengming really loved her very much, and even did not hesitate to arrange for his original partner to live elsewhere, and also handed over all the financial power of the family to her. Cheng Lianzhen finally understood her husband's heart, and since then the husband and wife have loved each other as before. Don't look at Cheng Lianzhen's age, but her skills are not small, she quickly arranged a housework properly, so she was born in the second room but was called "Chen Dajie" by the locals.
That time was the most beautiful time in Cheng Lianzhen's life, and she and her husband were inseparable from each other. Chen Zhengming taught her to ride a horse and shoot a gun, and often took her out to hunt. Soon, Cheng Lianzhen found out that she was pregnant, so she immersed herself in the joy of becoming a mother.
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and soon after giving birth to her daughter, her husband Chen Zhengming suddenly fell ill and soon died, and Cheng Lianzhen, who had just become a mother, became a widow in an instant. However, before she could recover from the pain of widowhood, the Chen clan members set their sights on the huge inheritance left by Chen Zhengming, and they even gathered bandits to threaten: if they did not hand over the money, they would be killed in the Chen family compound!
Not willing to show weakness, Cheng Lianzhen endured great grief and led the family members to resist. In the face of the menacing enemy, she commanded the dings to concentrate their firepower, give a head-on attack to the fierce bandits, and then armed with two guns, personally went into battle, killing the bandits again and again. The bandits, who could not take the slightest advantage, had to choose to retreat, and Cheng Lianzhen kept the property left by her husband.
Since then, the name of "Two Guns Girl" Cheng Lianzhen, like her beauty, has spread throughout the nearby ten miles and eight townships.
Although she repelled the attack of the Chen clan, Cheng Lianzhen clearly realized that if she wanted to keep the property left by her husband, it was not enough to rely on herself as a weak woman, and she must find a strong patron as a blessing. So she found Luo Shaoquan, the former commander of the Kuomintang 89th Army Battalion, who had already fallen into the grass, to cooperate, and both sides took what they needed.
In order to obtain the Chen family's huge family property, Luo Shaoquan encouraged his younger brother Luo Shaofan to pursue Cheng Lianzhen. In order to be able to preserve the Chen family's family property, Cheng Lianzhen, who was originally reluctant to be a bandit, finally agreed to marry Luo Shaofan and became one of the bandit leaders who plagued the local area. This gang of bandits beat up homes and robbed houses, fished and fleshed the people, burned and looted, and did all kinds of evil, causing great harm to the production and life of the local people.
On November 15, 1949, Guiyang was successfully liberated, Changshun County and Huishui County were also liberated one after another, and the people who suffered from banditry finally ushered in a new life. However, after the main force left, the bandits hiding deep in the mountains became active again.
On March 21, 1950, bandit leaders Dong Quanhe, Luo Shaoquan and others gathered thousands of bandits and attacked the county seat of Huishui. Although the number of PLA troops stationed in the county town at that time was small, how could a group of rabble-rousers shake the PLA positions that had experienced hundreds of battles, and after several battles, the bandits were defeated and fled.
At that time, Luo Shaoquan and Cheng Lianzhen led more than 3,000 bandits to attack the north gate of the county, and the result was that they were repelled by the People's Liberation Army without suspense. However, it was after this battle that Cheng Lianzhen's reputation became louder and louder. Originally, Cheng Lianzhen was not willing to attack the county town at all and confront the People's Liberation Army head-on, but her opinion was not taken seriously at all, so she had to reluctantly go into battle. In the battle against the county town, she led her men to pretend and did not exert force, so her team was the least casualty of several bandits.
After the news spread, the scattered bandits came to join Cheng Lianzhen, who was "well-commanded", and the team quickly grew. At this time, Cheng Lianzhen was an out-and-out female demon, who harmed the masses of the people, killed peasant association cadres, robbed grain warehouses, and committed unforgivable and numerous crimes.
With the rapid advance of the bandit troops, the bandits hiding in the deep mountains and old forests were destroyed, the bandit leader Luo Shaoquan was killed, and the remaining bandits collapsed and fled. Disguised as a farmer, Luo Shaofan tried to sneak into Guiyang quietly, only to be captured by the local public security officers, but Cheng Lianzhen seemed to have evaporated in the human world, and did not look for any trace of her for a long time.
In February 1953, the escape team received a tip-off: an old farmer surnamed Wei in Yonghe Village, Mazhi Township, Longli County, Guizhou Province, married a middle-aged beautiful woman with outstanding temperament and handsome appearance, and the villagers felt that this person was probably cheng Lianzhen, the first female bandit who had escaped for many years. After learning of the situation, the pursuit team immediately sent people to Longli County for verification, and finally captured Cheng Lianzhen, who was disguised as an ordinary peasant woman.
After Cheng Lianzhen was arrested, she was escorted to Guiyang, and the question of how to deal with her was also put on the agenda. Logically, as the female bandit leader who "kills like a hemp", there should be no doubt that she should be shot. But as a minority woman, Cheng Lianzhen has quite a position in the hearts of the clan, if she is shot, will there be ethnic contradictions because of this?
To this end, the provincial military region held a special meeting to study and discuss how to deal with Cheng Lianzhen's issue. Considering Cheng Lianzhen's extensive influence in the local area, the provincial military district reported the relevant situation to the southwest military region. In late March 1953, General Li Da, then chief of staff of the Southwest Military Region, reported on the matter when he was received by Chairman Mao.
After listening to this, Chairman Mao resolutely instructed: "Do not kill! It was not easy to produce a female bandit leader, or a minority, it would be a pity to kill! Then, the chairman said in a witty tone: "In ancient times, Zhuge Liang dared to use seven tackles and seven columns against Meng Yu, so why don't we dare to come up with eight tackles and eight columns?" In short, you can't kill it in one fell swoop! ”
Chairman Mao
From Chairman Mao's words, Li Da understood the need to deal with Cheng Lianzhen's problem. Soon after, a thousand-person meeting was held in Huishui County, Guizhou, and Cheng Lianzhen and other bandit leaders were escorted to the scene of the conference, so there was a scene at the beginning of this article.
After Cheng Lianzhen was arrested, she knew that her sins were serious and she was mentally prepared for death. When she heard the presiding officer of the conference announce the decision to "release her in public," she was simply unbelievable, and after hearing that this was a direct instruction from Chairman Mao, two lines of tears could not help but burst out of her eyes, and Cheng Lianzhen was sincerely grateful to Chairman Mao for his grace of not killing.
In order to repay Chairman Mao's kindness, Cheng Lianzhen took the initiative to apply to participate in the county's anti-hegemonic work. She traveled around to find the families of the bandits who had not yet surrendered themselves, and told them about their experiences and the lenient policies of the Communist Party.
She also went into the deep mountains and old forests several times, drilled into the caves where the bandits gathered, and persuaded the bandits to surrender themselves, and under her influence, 22 bandits came out of the mountains in just over a month and surrendered to the local government.
Of course, not all bandits can change from evil to good and surrender themselves. As for the stubborn bandits who committed many evil deeds, Cheng Lianzhen personally led his troops into the mountains to search and suppress them after many times without success, and swept them all away.
Cheng Lianzhen
Soon after, the bandits who had been active in The Huishui and Changshun areas for a long time were thoroughly eliminated, and the work of cleaning up the bandits achieved great results, and Cheng Lianzhen made important contributions to them. In 1957, the local government arranged for Cheng Lianzhen to enter the city as a worker, and through hard work, she lived an ordinary life of self-sufficiency.
In July 1960, Cheng Lianzhen was elected as the first member of the Huishui County CPPCC Committee. On October 21, 1998, Cheng Lianzhen died of illness at the age of 77.
Beauty is not a sin, kindness is the background, the times forced her on a wrong path, fortunately she was reborn in New China.