Written by Yuan Guoxiang
Masson is an old chief I have known for a long time, has had more contact, and knows more deeply. When he marched into Xinjiang in 1949, he was the chief of staff of the Fourth Division. In the winter of 1950, he served as deputy chief of staff of the Second Army and Kashgar Military Region; in early 1953, he was appointed chief of staff of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region; and in the autumn of 1955, he left Kashgar and went to Beijing to participate in the compilation of the history of the Second Front of the Red Army. During those years, we lived together and were impressed.
He is a good assistant to the head of southern Xinjiang
After the liberation of Xinjiang, everything was left to be rebuilt. While launching a large-scale production campaign, the troops should also reorganize and train and guard the border defenses, and they should also build up the party and the government and do a good job in local work. At a time when the work of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region was extremely busy, Chief of Staff He Shenggui went to Nanjing to study, the original General Staff Office was abolished, and Division Chief Shen Yukun was transferred, and the burden of the work of the headquarters was entirely on Deputy Chief of Staff Ma Sen. I remember that at that time, Ma Sen was full of energy and enthusiasm, and his speech was well organized; he not only managed the reorganization and transfer of the troops, the production of the troops (the headquarters set up a new production section), and the public order and border defense preparations, but also often accompanied the head of the military region to go out in order to make suggestions and decide on issues. The photo attached here was taken by me in the autumn of 1951 when Commander Guo Peng and Deputy Political Commissar Zuo Qi went to the construction site of the Kashgar Teaching Corps to inspect the construction of a flour mill. In the photo, the person who squats down to inspect the quality of construction is Deputy Chief of Staff Masson. They decided on the spot to provide tents, straw mats, and other warm facilities for the teaching group, so that they could also pour cement in the winter, ensure the quality of the project, and strive to complete the main project of the four-story building by the end of the year. In fact, after the hard work of the trainees of the teaching group, a good foundation was laid in the first year, and the decoration and installation of the machine in the second year went smoothly. In August 1952, when the assembly line of the first flour mill in southern Xinjiang produced bags of "August 1" flour, the military and civilians gathered to celebrate. Since then, Kashgar has had a modern industry, and the people of all ethnic groups have begun to put an end to the history of draft and soil flour.
In 1953, when the number of the Second Army was revoked, Ma Sen, chief of staff of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region, as the main assistant to the head of the military region, went deep into the troops, worked diligently, and wholeheartedly did a good job in the construction of the troops. He personally intervened in every detail, and he was directly involved in many major actions. I remember that in order to open up the Sino-Soviet passage and receive assistance from the Soviet Union, he personally went to the Simhana outpost on the Pamir Plateau to reconnoitre, regardless of the high mountains and dangerous roads, and then sent troops to repair the Kangsu Bridge, creating conditions for the Sino-Soviet Nonferrous Metals Company to open mines and build factories. But that old road is very far away, and it is difficult to rebuild. Then, braving the severe cold and lack of oxygen, he rode a horse to survey the Turgate frontier, and assisted the relevant departments in selecting the route, thus making up his mind to build this relatively close road. Under the supervision and inspection of Chief of Staff Ma Sen, the soldiers braved the wind and snow and the severe cold, overcame many difficulties, opened a road on a cliff, built a bridge in the middle of a glacier, fought hard for two years, and built nearly 200 kilometers of the Tuka Highway. In order to develop the economy of southern Xinjiang, the first international passage was built, and then China's Tuoyun Customs and Border Inspection Station were established, which soon welcomed a large number of oil, department stores and other materials in short supply in southern Xinjiang, and also transported mineral products and livestock products from the mainland to the Soviet Union. This foreign trade highway and the Tuoyun port have become increasingly prosperous and have played a significant role over the years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, border trade developed faster, and at the repeated request of the Kyrgyz Republic, the mainland opened the Shimkhana trade route. Together with the masses of all nationalities, China's border defense units have made greater contributions to building the motherland's border defense and to prospering the border economy.
Good staff officer of Jinsui Military Region
Ma Sen, formerly known as Ma Sheng and Ma Dengsheng, was born in Xiaoyi, Shanxi Province in 1919. Since childhood, he has loved to read, and when he was in normal school, he participated in the patriotic student movement. When the Anti-Japanese War broke out, he devoted himself to the Eighth Route Army led by the Communist Party with a bitter hatred for the Japanese invaders, first going to the cadre school of the 115th Division, and then going to Yan'an to enter the "Kang Da" study, and joined the Communist Party of China in May 1938. In the autumn of the same year, he studied intelligence investigation work for four months, and after graduating with excellent grades, he was assigned to the headquarters of the 120th Division as a reconnaissance staff officer. On the battlefield of resistance against Japan in North China, he gave full play to his talents, disregarded his personal safety, went behind enemy lines to reconnoiter many times, provided reliable information, and played a certain role in helping our army fight the anti-sweeping war and participate in the Battle of 100 Regiments. For this reason, he was praised by Master He Long.
At the beginning of 1940, the 120th Division returned to the northwest of Shanxi Province and established the Northwest Shanxi Military Region headed by He Long and Guan Xiangying, and cooperated with the Suiyuan Daqingshan Cavalry Detachment and the Yanbei Detachment led by Xu Guoxian to establish the Jinsui Revolutionary Base Area. In 1941, in order to resist the attack of the Yue Kou on our northern Shaanxi and to counter the anti-communist upsurge of the Kuomintang, Ma Sen once led a military investigation team to the eastern part of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Region, surveyed the battlefield, drew maps, and investigated the roads, villages, population, production and other important details of the soldiers. It not only provided a reliable reference for guarding the river defense and repelling the Japanese army's repeated attacks at that time, but also played a major role in the later liberation war. Because, in 1947, Chiang Kai-shek attacked Yan'an, and the second column crossed the Yellow River west to participate in the war, and a series of battles were fought in this area. The map of the Kuomintang captured by our army was very inaccurate, and when we took out the map of the soldiers that Ma Sen had mimeographed on hemp paper that year, everything was clear at a glance. This has played a great role in helping commanders make up their minds and fight one battle after another. No wonder the old comrades of the Fourth Brigade of the Independent Brigade exclaimed: "Masson was really prescient!"
In October 1942, he was expanded to be the deputy chief of the reconnaissance section of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningjin-Sui Military Region Headquarters, and received an urgent and confidential mission. Let him lead a reconnaissance team to Jinzhong to pick up a comrade in Hufu who came from the New Fourth Army. When he arrived at the Seventh Regiment of the Fourth Division and met with Political Commissar Yang Xiushan, neither of them knew who Hu Fu was. However, their superiors demanded that they ensure absolute safety when covering the leader's passage through the Japanese pseudo-blockade line. With the cooperation of a multi-battalion unit, they first went to the side of the Xiaofen Highway in Shangxian Village, Jiaocheng and waited, but no one came until the evening. After telegram inquiry, it turned out that the Japanese invaders had swept up on a large scale in the Taiyue Liberated Area, and Hufu did not come. More than a month later, Ma Sen brought He Long and other military commanders to carry out the original task with Yang Xiushan. On the way to the designated place, they led their troops to encounter the enemy situation twice, and they could have destroyed the enemy, but they did not fight, and they could not afford to lose a big loss because of a small one. Ma Sen led a reconnaissance team to Shangxian Village to reconnoiter first, and found that the enemy had appeared there. When he came back to discuss with Yang Xiushan, he asked the troops of the 8th Division to attack the Japanese strongholds in Dongshe, Wenshui and other places, and sent the 7th Regiment to wait in Xima Village. The Nachi Military Region was in a hurry, but because the enemy had been disrupted, they were still picking up people at the same place. Early the next morning, when they were looking on the main road of Shangxian Village, they saw a liaison officer appear in front of them, and then greeted Comrade Liu Shaoqi, who had been in the shade of the enemy-occupied area for several days. Yang Xiushan greeted the chief dressed as a merchant on a horse, and Comrade Shaoqi immediately dismounted and shook hands with him. When Yang saw that Shaoqi was dressed in thin clothes and could not resist the cold wind, he took off his coat and sent it to the chief, and Shaoqi said, "What should you do?" "I'm young!" But Shaoqi didn't wear it and put it on horseback. They talked as they walked, and when Ma Sen saw that Shaoqi was shivering with cold, he also took off his coat and draped it over the chief. This time, Shaoqi did not refuse, he put on his coat and said with a smile, "I asked for two coats at once!" He also shook hands with Ma Sen and other comrades, which made everyone feel very cordial. In this way, they greeted Comrade Liu Shaoqi back through the blockade. Ma Sen and his reconnaissance team also escorted Comrade Shaoqi to the Jinsui Military Region all the time. And from there, he sent Liu Shaoqi back to Yan'an safely.
Good command in the field army
The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was won, and the areas under the jurisdiction of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningjin-Sui Military Region were connected into a large area. In order to deal with Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary civil war, our army had to build strong regular troops. On November 8, 1945, the inaugural meeting of the Fourth Independent Brigade was held in Nanma Village, Fenyang, Shanxi Province. He Long appointed Dun Xingyun, deputy commander of the 8th Division, as the brigade commander, Yang Xiushan, commander of the 4th Division, as the political commissar, the leading organ of the 4th Division was changed to the organ of the 4th Independent Brigade, the former chief of staff Gu Zhibiao and the deputy chief of staff Ma Sen remained unchanged, and He Hui, deputy director of the Political Department of the 358th Brigade, was transferred to the post of director of the Political Department. This is a regular unit that was fought in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and has grown from a guerrilla force to three infantry regiments and an artillery battalion. As soon as the 4th Independent Brigade was formed, it waged a fierce struggle between the Japanese puppet army, Yan Xishan, and Chiang Kai-shek's triangle. The Japanese army threatened with force and negotiated peace, forced them to disarm and allowed them to retreat, so that the Japanese soldiers, who were unwilling to fight again, withdrew from many strongholds. For the puppet army or the puppet army that has just defected to the Kuomintang, those who can fight for surrender will give them a way out, and those who are stubborn will be solved by surprise attacks. It is still necessary to save some face for Yan Xishan and agree that he has the right to receive Japan, but the territory in our guerrilla zone must be recognized as a liberated area. The intent of Chiang Kai-shek's army must be counterattacked, and he must not be allowed to reach out everywhere to seize territory. At this point, our army and the Yan army reached a tacit agreement to urge the Japanese army to withdraw as soon as possible, so as not to benefit the fishermen. In this way, while expanding the liberated areas, the 4th Independent Brigade even went south to open up the Ninth Division in the areas of Fenxi, Daning, and Puxian. On the one hand, he did mass work, recruited and expanded the army, collected weapons, and constantly enriched himself. For example, when the main force of the Fourth Brigade was ordered to go north to fight Xin County, Ma Sen and others led a small number of troops in southwest Shanxi to do mass work, recruiting more than 500 recruits to supplement the troops. Then the troops conquered Yonghe, and conquered Shixian and Zhongyang, especially when Wenshui and Xiaoyi were opened, Ma Sen was very excited, because his hometown was back in the hands of the people, and there was a girl they had seen enthusiastically supporting the front--- heroine Liu Hulan.
In the spring of 1947, the second column, which was formed by the 4th Brigade and the 359th Brigade, crossed the Yellow River to the west and participated in the battle to defend Chairman Mao, the Party Central Committee, and the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo Border Region. From the three battles and three victories in Qinghuatou, Yangmahe, and Panlong Town, to the battle of Heshui, Xiahuan County, sweeping the three sides, and the battle of attacking Yulin, Ma Sen was an active member of the leadership team of the Fourth Brigade. Because he was familiar with the situation in northern Shaanxi, the battle plan he proposed was often adopted by the chiefs. On August 20, when the 36th Division was annihilated in Shajiadian, Ma Sen, who was in the line of fire and commanded the battle, was wounded in the face. When he was sent to Hedong to recuperate from his wounds, it happened that the second column crossed the Yellow River again and cooperated with the eighth column to fight Yuncheng. Regardless of his injuries, he returned to the army to participate in the battle to liberate southwest Jin. A photo here is a true portrayal of him observing the enemy situation with a telescope on the front line of Yuncheng.
At the beginning of 1948, the second column forcibly crossed the Yellow River and participated in the Battle of Wazijie, winning the "Yichuan Victory" of destroying 30,000 enemies. Then the Battle of Huanglongshan was launched, Shibao and Baishui were captured, and Hancheng and Heyang were liberated, but when attacking Chengcheng County, Ma Sen was wounded again. But the wound was on his finger, and he endured the pain and still stuck to his combat post. In mid-April, our army carried out the Xifu Campaign, broke through all the way, and quickly attacked Baoji. When the brigade commander and political commissar went into the city to meet with the head of the first column, Mason sent a message to ask them to come back immediately. Because Hu Zongnan and Ma Jiajun wanted to flank our army, the troops retreated immediately after taking enough weapons, ammunition and food there. Fortunately, the second column acted quickly, resolutely withstood the strong enemy on both sides, opened a gap, and covered the withdrawal of the Xiye Command and various columns from the dangerous situation, for which it was commended by Commander Peng Dehuai. Prior to this, Ma Sen was also ordered by the column to take three brigades of cavalry reconnaissance companies to the north of Qianxian to reconnoiter and open roads. On the way to Linping Town, they encountered a Tuweizi, and Ma Sen ordered everyone to change into captured Kuomintang military uniforms and swagger into the town, which was guarded by more than 100 people. He said to the security captain: "We are the cavalry search battalion of the 82nd Division (Ma Jiajun), you gather your people, I will give a lecture!" When the people who had just put on their military uniforms and were armed with a mess of guns assembled. Ma Sen gave an order: "Don't move! We are the People's Liberation Army." The security captain and his subordinates were dumbfounded, and when they saw that there were soldiers with guns on all sides, they had to obediently hand over their guns. After educating them, Masson let the captured civilians go. Thus the task of guiding the advance of the whole column was also accomplished.
In August 1948, Masson was promoted to chief of staff of the 4th Independent Brigade. In the battle of Huti Mountain that had just begun, he showed his outstanding talent. He assisted the brigade commander in surveying the terrain, deploying tasks, organizing coordination, and especially playing the role of artillery, engineers, and demolition groups, so that the offensive of the four brigade units was relatively smooth. The commanders and fighters of the 11th Regiment braved the bombardment of enemy planes and the roar of artillery, and were the first to attack the mountain. Du Lihai, deputy platoon commander of the fourth company, led the assault team to break through the group's fortifications, and despite being wounded in the leg, he first planted the red flag in the big temple. The squad leader, Peng Qingyun, climbed up to the temple, grabbed the enemy's machine gun, and fired at the fleeing enemy despite the burns on his hands. After the war, the second warrior was rated as a special combat hero, and the 11th regiment was awarded the award flag of "The First Meritorious Service of Huti Mountain".
After the Second Column laid down Huti Mountain, it proposed to "destroy the 36th Division and capture Zhong Song alive!" The slogan, chasing and fighting straight down to Wangzhuang Town. When the 359th Brigade attacked the division in Yangjiawa, division commander Zhong Song absconded alone (he had already escaped once in Shajiadian), and deputy division commander Zhu Xia led his team to flee south, and it was inevitable that he would be annihilated again. When the leaders of the Fourth Brigade were preparing to attack Wangzhuang Town, they unexpectedly broke through to the enemy and disrupted our troops. It was dark, people were scurrying, gunfire was everywhere, the Don Nebula Brigade was wounded in the leg, and Masson's guards were also seriously injured. But the short Chief of Staff of the Horse, who was tall, immediately carried the tall and sturdy Brigade Commander Dun and moved to the bottom of the field. The brigade commander's guards also rushed to help, and they were safely sent to a civilian's home for rescue. From then on, Brigade Commander Don went to the rear hospital to recuperate, and Yang Xiushan served as the brigade commander and political commissar.
In the spring of 1949, the Second Column was reorganized into the Second Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and the Fourth Independent Brigade was reorganized into the only Fourth Division of the whole army. Masson remained chief of staff, and he worked day and night to assist the chief in directing the battle. The Fourth Division once swept across both sides of the Jing River, attacked Baoji again, counterattacked the Majia cavalry, and won the Battle of Fumei. Then he set out from Baoji, went straight down to Gannan, liberated Qinghai, crossed the Qilian Mountains in the wind and snow, seized the Hexi Corridor, and assumed the heavy responsibility of the avant-garde until he marched into Xinjiang. That year, the battle became bigger and bigger, the road went farther and farther, the situation became more and more complicated, and Masson's level of planning became more and more improved. When the troops of the Fourth Division planted the five-star red flag on the Pamir Plateau, assumed the important task of guarding the motherland's borders, and launched large-scale production and transportation to help the people of all nationalities live a prosperous and happy life, it can be said that they made great contributions to the fight against New China.
He is a good writer for compiling military history
After Masson left southern Xinjiang in the fifties, we had very little contact. I know that after he returned from his advanced studies at the Nanjing Military Academy, he became the deputy chief of staff of the Xinjiang Military Region. In 1975, he was appointed Chief of Staff, and in 1982, he was appointed Deputy Commander of the Urumqi Military Region. He has participated in many struggles on the Sino-Indian border front and the construction of the China-Pakistan Karakoram Highway, for which he has also visited Pakistan abroad. However, his main energy was also spent on the Sino-Soviet border front, and he spent a lot of energy on opposing Soviet hegemonism and handling border disputes.
In 1985, Deng Xiaoping, chairman of the Central Military Commission, announced the disarmament of one million, and the Southern Xinjiang Military Region was abolished. When I, the political commissar of the Ali Army sub-district, went to the Urumqi Military Region for a meeting, Deputy Commander Ma Sen talked to me and said that the Ali border troops should be reduced by half and that the defense should be changed from changing the defense to not changing the defense. I said that Ali is cold and lacks oxygen, and not changing the guard is not conducive to the body of cadres and soldiers, nor is it conducive to the training of cadres. Besides, a soldier who guards the border for three years and goes down the mountain may turn into a fool. Deputy Commander Ma immediately criticized me, saying that the Mohe River in Heilongjiang was the coldest, and he did not change his guards. I said they had plenty of oxygen. The chief got angry and said that the matter was decided, and you should carry it out. I said, it's okay to execute. Because there are also advantages to not changing guards, we can reduce the hassle of changing guards every year. In this way, we resolutely implemented the decision of the military region and smoothly reduced the number of troops. But what I didn't expect was that the Urumqi Military Region and the Lanzhou Military Region were merged, and Deputy Commander Ma Sen also resigned and rested due to the large annual order.
In 1993, I also retired to Urumqi. When I entered the No. 4 Cadre Retreat, I learned that the old chief Masson was also here, and I was very happy to meet and talk. He is full of red face and good health, and often says: "I want to play tennis until I am 80 years old, and I will play billiards until I am 90 years old!" Later, he moved to live in an air force cadre rest house opposite Beijing's Heilongtan Park, and I consulted him many times for assisting the Southern Xinjiang Military Region in collecting historical materials and preparing for the establishment of a military history museum. I found that he has a very good memory, collects a lot of information, and answers questions in a well-founded and well-organized manner. In particular, he is forward-thinking, good at learning, and even uses a computer to work. This is the first of the hundreds of surviving veteran chiefs I have interviewed. He typed and wrote on a microcomputer, and he could also copy photographs and make tables. When we asked him for the data of the Liberation War period, he actually pulled up dozens of pages from the microcomputer about the situation of the Fourth Division's participation in all the battles, and not only the time, place, enemy situation, our situation, and the course of the battle were accurate, but also the number of casualties of our troops, how many enemies were captured and destroyed, and how many weapons and ammunition were captured. This really made us admire it very much, and it also helped the old army to complete the task of preparing for the construction of the military history museum.
In recent years, Comrade Ma Sen has been to Urumqi twice. He was invited by the Xinjiang Military Region to provide historical materials or participate in the review meeting, and he also collected photos to prepare his own memoirs. When I visited him at the guest house, I noticed that he was struggling to walk and his hearing had deteriorated. But his mind is still agile and his body is still healthy. "I can't play tennis anymore, but I still swim," he says. In fact, Masson, who is in his 80s, has not put down the pen in his hand. As far as I know, he has become an expert in military history among the veteran cadres and a well-known chief writer in compiling military history works. Because he cooperated with Yang Xiushan, he wrote "Long Wind and Ten Thousand Miles," which reflected the combat history of the Fourth Division, and as an editorial board member and consultant, he participated in the review and revision of "The History of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression of the 359th Brigade" and "The War History of the Second Army." At present, he is actively participating in the compilation and review of the "History of the Xinjiang Military Region," which will be published soon.
The publication of "The War History of the Second Front Army of the Red Army" in 1993 reminded me of the old Red Army Yang Xiushan, Jin Zhongfan, and Zhu Jiasheng, who had participated in this work at the earliest, and also remembered the old Eighth Road Ma Sen and Li Shaoqun (former director of the Office of the Southern Xinjiang Military Region Command), because there were the results of their fortunate work for several years. In 1994 and 1997, in the first page of the "History of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningjin-Sui Joint Defense Army of the 120th Division", Huo Ran saw that Ma Sen's name was in the editorial board with Wang Zhen and Xi Zhongxun as directors, and he also saw that the director of the compilation office was Ma Sen. I can weigh the weight of this book, because in the fifties Ma Sen was transferred to Beijing to participate in the investigation and compilation of the military history of the Red Second Front, including the war history of the 120th Division and later units. I estimate that Mason, who enlisted in the army in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, was in charge of the investigation of this historical material that he was familiar with, and wrote a considerable part of it. This history book, originally initiated by He Long, took command, and organized the compilation, was seriously interfered with by the Lin Biao Group, and was suppressed for 30 years before it was re-supplemented, revised, and officially published. Naturally, this is full of a lot of hard work and hard work of Masson, the director of the writing office.
Recently, I called the old chief Masson to ask for a picture of him on the border line, but he was admitted to the 301 hospital. I called the hospital room, and he couldn't hear me clearly, but he spoke very loudly. After a message from a civil servant, he said that many of his photos had been taken away by the Party History Office of the Xinjiang Military Region, and asked me to go to them to find them. He also repeatedly instructed me to take an active part in the work of compiling military history in the military region and to play a little role as a member of our predecessors. I thanked him for his care and told him that I had provided a lot of photos and information.
Finally, I wish him a speedy recovery and a long and healthy life!