@秦楚刊号
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Lu Shutian
In the Central Plains Breakthrough Northwest Hubei Historical Exhibition Hall, we were deeply impressed by the touching story of Lu Shutian, the first tax director of Northwest Hubei and the "Old Eighth Road," who raised grain and raised funds and collected taxes under difficult conditions to consolidate the base areas and support the troops in combat, and successfully transferred to the liberated areas.
On June 26, 1946, a full-scale civil war broke out, and the first shot of the Liberation War was fired in Xuanhuadian, Dawu, Hubei. The main force of the South Route Army of the Central Plains Military Region, with a total of 24,000 people, broke through to the Shiyan area under the leadership of Wang Shusheng. At the end of August of the same year, the Northwest Hubei Military Region, the Party Committee, and the Administration were established in Shiyan Maota Donggou to lead the establishment of the Northwest Hubei Base Area.
The mountainous area of northwest Hubei is located in the south of the Qinling Mountains, the mountains are sparsely populated, the climate is cold, the masses live a difficult life, and when they encounter a drought year, eating is a problem. In order to strengthen the building of local political power, Wang Shusheng and Liu Zijiu (deputy political commissar of the Military Region) instructed that a taxation organ be quickly set up, and that Lu Shutian, chief of the Column Management Section of the Commander of the Military Region, be transferred to the post of director of supply and director of the Taxation Bureau of the Third Army Division, and that the taxation organ be set up in Donggou of the Maota River, and that a "logistics squad" should be set up, and party and government cadres at the county and district levels of the former Jianghan Military Region should cooperate with their work.
29-year-old Lu Shutian, who joined the Jin-Henan border guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army in 1938, is an old Eighth Route with rich experience in logistics, relying on the experience of establishing rear anti-Japanese bases in Taihang Mountain and western Henan, and is qualified to serve as the first tax director in northwest Hubei Province.
This "logistics squad" is composed of an armed tax guard squad, and staff officers Zhao Shurun and Xue Accountant are also assigned to assist in the work of the mountainous areas of northwestern Hubei Province, which are rich in natural products; Maota Donggou is located in the throat of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Hubei, and is the only place for mountain goods to enter and leave Laohekou, Xiangfan, and Wuhan. The troops were strictly disciplined in the Wudang Mountain area, the trade was fair, and the tax burden was reasonable, and they were very popular with the local people.
This combat tax detachment of more than 10 people began to collect taxes, trade mountain goods, purchase military supplies, set up quilt workshops, and prepare winter clothes for the troops in Shiyan Town, Huanglongtan, Berlin, Guanshan, Liuliping, Junzhou, Bailang, and Shilianshan Passes. Raise materials and food in Tongshugou, Sanchagou, Kejiaya, Donggou Loess Ping, Xigou Xianggongling Huaguo Shiyan Ditch, and Huanglong Caishen Ditch.
In addition to buying cloth in the market and entrusting tailors to sew them, the tax detachment also distributed cloth and cotton to the company so that the soldiers could sew the cotton clothes themselves. Cui Yunshan, Wang Jiesan, Zhou Chenghai and other people in Donggou Village often picked cotton and cloth for the tax team. In the arduous and harsh environment of struggle, the tax detachment forged a friendship with the local people.
In order to cooperate with the mobile operation of the main force, the tax bureau relied on the people of Donggou and took on the important task of resettling the wounded. On one occasion, Wang Liang, deputy political commissar of the Third Army Division, handed over to Lu Shutian Zhang Qinglu (an old comrade from Yan'an), a wounded cadre from the Second Brigade's Supply Department, who arranged for him to recuperate in a reliable people's home and get some grain to send to the people's homes to prevent the people from being overburdened.
On another occasion, the masses told Lu Shutian that there were many wounded and sick soldiers of the New Fourth Army in the caves of the 12th Company ravine, and there were no cotton clothes and food. He immediately led people to inspect it, and when he went down to the bottom of the ditch, he saw three comrades-in-arms from Hebei in the Third Brigade and the Seventh Regiment in tattered clothes, one with colors, and two with illness, using a broken pot to cook budding rice and sweet potatoes to satisfy hunger. These three comrades-in-arms finally recovered from their injuries with the help of the tax squad and caught up with the large army.
In January 1947, the main force of the Third Army Division of the Northwest Hubei Military Region (3rd Brigade and 7th Regiment) fought hard under the leadership of the regiment commander Que Ziqing and suffered heavy casualties, but the troops continued to fight after moving to Nanzhang in Xiangyang. Donggou Village has also reached the most dangerous and tense time. The Kuomintang heavily guarded the main transportation routes, organized a carpet search and arrest of each household and mountain and depression by the Qingxiang Regiment, and announced that the Communists would be rewarded with 20 oceans, and the Qingxiang Regiment sometimes disguised itself as the New Fourth Army to capture the lost personnel.
In the middle of winter, the weather is getting colder and the situation is becoming more and more severe. Lu Shutian divided the tax squad into two, Xue Accountant protected the grain, and he himself contacted the troops with staff officer Zhao Shurun and guard Liu Quanbao. Later, the three of them were quickly dispersed and lost contact.
One morning, Lu Shutian came out of Donggou Village to look for his comrades-in-arms, and saw five or six plainclothes soldiers of the Qingxiang Regiment on the top of the mountain. Thinly dressed and hungry, Lu Shutian squatted for two days on a snowy day, evading the enemy's search.
On the morning of the third day, Lu Shutian, who had not eaten for two days, crawled to the edge of the village, saw the raw sweet potatoes in the field and ate them, and soon an old man recognized him and brought him ripe sweet potatoes, saying that no one had ever been able to come down from this cliff.
The old man also said that during the day, the national army constantly came to look for the New Fourth Army, and you can't stay here for a long time. So he found a child to lead the way for Lu Shutian, the two were a distance away from each other, and when they met the Kuomintang soldiers, the child coughed, and Lu Shutian quickly hid. In this way, Lu Shutian came all the way to Cui Yunshan's house, Cui Yunshan took a quilt from home and hid Lu Shutian in the leopard hole on the cliff, and brought him food every day.
In the cave, Lu Shutian waited for three comrades, Zhao Shurun, Zhang Jielu, and Su Xing. They analyzed the situation in Donggou and held that the enemy was heavily guarding the main road, that small units disguised themselves as the New Fourth Army were searching for scattered personnel, that the local party organizations had not been completely established, and that although there were quite a few people sympathizing with the New Fourth Army, it was still very difficult for them to stay in the long-term struggle. Therefore, he resolutely decided to set up a party group headed by Lu Shutian and return to the liberated areas of North China.
Lu Xiantian found Cui Yunshan, hoping that he could send the tax team out of the encirclement. Cui Yunshan agreed without hesitation. In the middle of a snowy night, Cui Yunshan took them on a mountain road of more than 60 miles, came to Wang Jiesan's house before dawn, and hid in the haystack at his house until dawn.
Wang Jie's three families lived in Kejiayazi (now Shiyan Wudang Mountain Tourism Economic Development Zone), and once purchased winter clothes for the New Fourth Army, and his ideological consciousness was high. Wang Jie went to the Shiyan Township Office to get four passes for Lu Shutian and others, and disguised the four as vendors from Henan to sell straw shoes. In this way, Lu Shutian and the four of them successfully arrived at Qingshan Port in Junxian County (now Danjiangkou City), took the Hanjiang River ferry, and safely arrived at the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Liberated Areas in February 1947.