Re-taking the Long March Road - Continued 24
Ruijin is the first red capital city in the history of the Communist Party of China! It contains a large number of historical memories of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. For this reason, when I re-walked the Long March, I stayed in this red ancient capital for a few more days. When he learned that the Red Tenth Army was wiped out due to a mistake in decision-making, Su Yu was the only one who resolutely disobeyed the order and brought out 800 officers and soldiers to avoid disaster, he couldn't help but be full of curiosity and awe about this god of war!
Recently, I consulted some relevant historical materials in the Capital Library, and then sorted out and briefly described this historical story that was not much told in the history of mainstream propaganda in the past, in order to show my respect for Su Yu, the god of war!
The Red Tenth Army survived for an extremely short time, from its establishment to the disappearance of its establishment, it was only more than two months. In early July 1934, on the orders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Central Military Commission of the Central Revolution, Xun Huaizhou left the Central Soviet Region with the Red Seventh Army Corps and marched eastward in the name of the "Anti-Japanese Advance Team", planning to arrive in southern Anhui in a month and a half. The openly assigned task was to "propagate anti-Japanese propaganda and support southern Anhui," but the actual strategic purpose was to "threaten the hinterland of the Kuomintang ruled by this action and attract and mobilize a part of the enemy to 'encircle and suppress' the central Soviet area." After leaving the Central Soviet Region, the Red Seventh Army Corps successively fought in central Fujian, eastern Fujian, northern Fujian, western Zhejiang, Zhejiang-Anhui border, and Anhui-Jiangxi border, and arrived in the Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi (i.e., northeastern Jiangxi) Soviet region in late October, and joined up with the local Red Tenth Army. At the beginning of November, in accordance with the order of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, the Red Seventh Army Corps, together with the Red Tenth Army and local red armed forces, was reorganized and established the Red Tenth Army Corps. The original Red Seventh Army was reorganized into the 19th Division of the Red Tenth Army, the Red Tenth Army was the 20th Division, and the local Red Armed Forces were organized into the 21st Division, with a total strength of about 6,000 people. The principal cadres of the corps were also readjusted accordingly: Liu Chouxi, former commander of the Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi Military Regions, was appointed commander of the 10 th Red Army Corps; Le Shaohua, former political commissar of the 7th Red Army Corps, was appointed political commissar of the 10 th Red Army Corps; Xun Huaizhou, former commander of the 7th Red Army Corps, was demoted to commander of the 19 th Division; Fang Zhimin, chairman of the Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi Soviets, concurrently served as commander of the Military Region; and Su Yu was transferred from the former chief of staff of the 7th Red Army Corps to the chief of staff of the Military Region.
Ruijin Yeping - the former site of the Soviet government
After the establishment of the Red Tenth Army, according to the division of tasks, Xun Huaizhou took his 19th Division and broke through first. Just as the 19th Division was fighting vigorously on the Fujian-Zhejiang border, the Red Tenth Army received an order from Xiang Ying, the central responsible person of the Soviet area left behind, demanding that the Red Tenth Army "concentrate its main forces and resolutely strive to destroy the enemy in the movement in order to create the Anhui-Zhejiang border Soviet area", and at the same time demanded the establishment of a military and political committee composed of Fang Zhimin, Liu Chouxi, Le Shaohua, Nie Hongjun, etc., with Fang Zhimin as the chairman and acting with the regiment. It was in this change that Su Yu returned to the corps and served as the corps' chief of staff.
After the Red Tenth Army was ordered to switch to battle, it fought a big battle at Tanjiaqiao, but it ended in defeat due to lack of strength, and lost a brave general - Xun Huaizhou.
After the defeat in the battle of Tanjiaqiao, the pursuit of the enemy became even more frenzied. The enemy's 49th Division, the 1st Supplementary Brigade, the 21st Brigade, and some local troops, totaling about 20 regiments, swarmed in. In order to get rid of the enemy's encirclement, pursuit, and interception, the Red Tenth Army Corps moved back and forth for more than a month in more than 10 counties, including Jingxian, Taiping (now Xianyuan), Qingyang, Shidai (now Guangyang), Qianxian, Xiuning, Qimen, Tunxi, Shexian, Jixi, Wuyuan, and Kaihua in southern Anhui and Anhui, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi. Although more than 10 battles were fought, the situation became more and more dangerous due to the huge disparity between the forces of the enemy and us.
In light of the actual situation and in light of the lessons learned, some comrades have proposed an appropriate division of troops in order to be flexible and mobile. However, because the corps leaders did not have clear instructions from their superiors, they were very worried about the division of troops, so they vetoed these suggestions and decided that the whole corps would continue to move southward and return to the Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi Soviet regions through the (Kaihua) Wu (Yuan) De (Xing) Soviet District.
Huawu Desu District is a peripheral small Soviet area in the north of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Jiangxi Soviet Districts, with a circumference of about 50 kilometers. On January 12, 1935, the Red Tenth Army marched to the vicinity of Yanglin (belonging to Kaihua County, Zhejiang) on the northeastern edge of Huawu Desu District. Su Yu and Fang Zhimin acted with the vanguard.
The so-called vanguard unit is not the main combat unit, but is composed of personnel of the corps organs, wounded and sick (including Le Shaohua and Liu Ying), logistics personnel, mortar companies, and heavy machine gun companies, with a total of about 800 people. Su Yu did not stop when he led this vanguard force through Yanglin, but directly crossed a hill, entered the Huawu Desu District, and marched all the way to Gangtou, which was close to the Great Soviet District of Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi, before stopping to rest for a while. After the corps commander Liu Chouxi led the main force of the corps to Yanglin, he camped in the local area for fear of the fatigue of the troops, and continued to advance on the afternoon of the next day (13th). At this time, the Fifth Regiment of the enemy's Zhejiang Security Second Column marched rapidly overnight, rapidly advancing 35 kilometers, surpassing the main force of the Red Tenth Army Corps, and first rushed to Wangban and Xujia Village on the eastern edge of the Huawu Desu District, occupying the position of blocking the advance of the Red Tenth Army Corps, and forcing the main force of the Red Tenth Army to enter Xujia Village and engage in a fierce battle with the enemy. In the face of the interception, the Red Tenth Army had no choice but to meet the cover with a part of its troops, while the large army turned through Nanhua Mountain and Wangshan Village and entered the Huawu Desu District, delaying the transfer of the main force of the Red Tenth Army Corps. The battle lasted for a day before the main force broke through the blockade and entered the Huawu Desu area on the 15th.
On the 16th, in the face of the critical enemy situation, Su Yu, who was in the vanguard, proposed that the troops should not stay for a long time and that they must be transferred as soon as possible. Fang Zhimin, chairman of the Military and Political Committee, agreed, and decided to inform Liu Chouxi to immediately take the troops into action, and to pass through the blockade line of the enemy's Longshou section overnight and enter the Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Soviet regions. At 6 o'clock in the afternoon, when Su Yu's vanguard was about to set off, Liu Chouxi, who was the commander of the Red Tenth Army, sent someone to give an order: Although the troops had arrived, the personnel were tired and could not leave that night. In the face of this order, Su Yu categorically refused: The situation is urgent, there must be no delay, and the enemy blockade line must be passed through this evening. Fang Zhimin agreed with Su Yu's judgment, but he was worried that Liu Chouxi would hesitate to make a decision, so he decided to stay and wait for the main force to come over and act together. In desperation, Su Yu had no choice but to disobey Liu Chouxi's order and immediately set off with the vanguard to advance.
Ruijin - the former site of the Second Soviet Union
Practice has proved that Su Yu's judgment is correct. At this time, although the enemy army had established a blockade line between the Huawu Desu District and the Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi Soviet Regions, its strength was not strong enough. When Su Yu led the vanguard through the blockade line, he was spotted by the enemy guarding the pillbox on the hill and opened fire to block it. Su Yu did not love fighting, and only sent two combat squads to feint against the defending enemy on both sides to attract the attention of the enemy army. The enemy troops in the bunker knew that their troops were insufficient, and they did not dare to come out to meet them, which created an opportunity for Su Yu's breakthrough troops. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Su Yu and his vanguard troops quickened their pace, quickly passed through the enemy's blockade line in the first half of the night, and safely arrived at the areas of Xiaoping and Huangshitian (both belonging to Dexing County) in Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Soviet Regions, so that these 800 officers and men were saved from disaster.
And the main force of the Red Tenth Army under the command of Liu Chouxi was not so lucky. On the evening of the 16th, when Liu Chouxi led the main force of the corps to the port, he only considered the exhaustion of the troops and ignored the severity of the surrounding enemy situation, but insisted on ordering to camp on the spot. That night, a snowfall made the mountains vast and added a tragic color to the doom of the Red Tenth Army. The next day, when the officers and men of the Red Tenth Army woke up, the enemy troops on the blockade line had already surrounded them, and the enemy troops on both sides began to approach quietly, and the tragic breakthrough battle was forced to start when they woke up. Relying on the enemy, which was several times the strength of the Red Army, it launched a fierce attack on the main force of the Red Tenth Army. At first, if the main force of the corps resolutely broke through on the spot, it was very promising to break out of the encirclement (it turned out later that there were not many enemy troops blocking at that time), but as soon as the corps leaders saw that there were enemy interceptions, they turned back with their troops and changed the direction of the breakthrough. And when it was intercepted by the enemy again, it changed the direction of the breakthrough again, and as a result, the breakthrough time was delayed again and again, wasting the opportunity to break through. A few days later, the main force of the enemy army gradually surrounded and began to divide and encircle the Red Tenth Army. In the face of this situation, Liu Chouxi, as the commander of the corps, was at a loss, misjudged that he had fallen into the enemy's heavy encirclement, and even announced the instructions of having the ability to find his own direction to break through the encirclement, causing the troops to fall into chaos. In the end, except for a small number of officers and men who firmly broke through the direction of the encirclement and broke out of the encirclement, the main officers and men of the Red Tenth Army Corps located in the mountains southeast of Huaiyu Mountain and the Lengshuikeng, Yufeng, and Mashan areas in the north were all surrounded by the enemy. Although the Red officers and men continued to fight bloody battles and fight the enemy, they were gradually divided and scattered by the enemy due to the disparity in troops, and the Red officers and men fell in pieces. In desperation, more than 80 officers and soldiers, including Fang Zhimin and Liu Chouxi, took advantage of the night to hide in the depths of the mountains and forests. However, the mountains and forests where the Red officers and soldiers were hiding were already surrounded by enemy regiments, and as soon as daylight came, the enemy troops began to search and gradually reduce the encirclement. In the end, Fang Zhimin, Liu Chouxi and other Red officers and soldiers were arrested one by one (explanation attached). Soon, after persuading him to surrender to no avail, the enemy killed Fang Zhimin, Liu Chouxi, Hu Tiantao and other Red Army generals in Nanchang.
Only Su Yu resolutely disobeyed the order, and the 800 officers and men he brought out survived, and in the years that followed, he formed an "advance division" and was active in the anti-Japanese battlefield.
It can be seen that at critical moments, wisdom and decisiveness are excellent qualities that a commander must have!
2024.02.01
Note: As for the location of Fang Zhimin's arrest, there are different historical sources. In the same historical series, in the recollections of Long Yue (then the confidential secretary of the Political Security Bureau of the Red Seventh Army), Fang Zhimin was arrested due to the defection of the guard squad leader while waiting for the main army. Because they are all reminiscences after the fact, they are for reference only!