Schematic diagram of the Bandits of Hongze Lake in May 1941
Hongze Lake in northern Jiangsu is the final destination of the Huai River. It is a vast and vast 20 00 square kilometers, composed of three major lakes and bays of Chengzi Lake Bay, Lihe Lake Bay and Huaihe Lake Bay, shaped like a swan with outstretched wings, the Sui Dynasty was formerly known as Broken Axe Pond, and was the fourth largest freshwater lake in China. In 616 AD, when the Sui Emperor descended to Jiangnan, there was a great drought and it was extremely difficult to travel. When the dragon boat taken by the Sui Emperor passed through this lake, it suddenly rained heavily, the water rose and the boat traveled smoothly. The Sui Emperor was overjoyed, thinking that Hong Fuqi was heavenly and blessed, so he called this lake Hongzepu. Later, in the Tang Dynasty, this lake was called Hongze Lake. Hongze Lake "Nissan Doujin", full of fish, shrimp, crabs and wild ducks, lotus roots, reeds make the lake full of wild ruggedness.
Great river and mountain! However, when the Japanese army occupied Xuyi County on the lake in 1938, the people in and around Hongze Lake fell into the water, and the water bandits made the life of the people in the lake area worse.
May 2011 marks the 70th anniversary of the victory of the New Fourth Army led by General Zhang Aiping at Hongze Lake. On the 19th, Fan Xueshu, president of the Huai'an New Fourth Army Historical Research Association and deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Municipal People's Congress, and members of the City and County New Fourth Army Historical Research Association came to Hongze Lake, boarded a boat and re-embarked on the road of General Zhang Aiping's suppression of bandits, and talked about the brilliant achievements of General Zhang Aiping and the New Fourth Army.
Lake bandits
One of the lake bandits is called Gao Zhujiu, formerly known as Gao Weiting. He was a native of Xiaozhangzui, Yingshan Village, Longji Town, Sihong County, who first served as a small leader in the local Anqing Gang, and then widely collected disciples and disciples, and was famous in the area of Chengzi Lake, one of the components of Hongze Lake.
In July 1939, Peng Xuefeng, commander of the Sixth Detachment of the New Fourth Army, sent Zhang Aiping and Liu Yuzhu from the Yuwan Soviet Border Region to northeastern Anhui, and Zhang Aiping, in the name of senior staff officer of the Wuhan Eighth Route Army Office, met with Sheng Zijin, commissioner of the Kuomintang Sixth Administrative Region (also commander of the Fifth Guerrilla Group of the Kuomintang Fifth Theater and the county magistrate of Sixian County), and reached a joint anti-Japanese agreement. At the beginning of August, with the consent of Sheng Zijin, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army office in northeast Anhui were established, with Zhang Aiping as the director and Liu Yuzhu as the deputy director. The Kuomintang Anhui Provincial Government will certainly eliminate Sheng Zijin's cooperation with the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in northeast Anhui to resist Japan as if it were a fish in the throat. In January 1940, Ma Xinting, commander of the 14th Guerrilla Column of the Kuomintang Gui clan, replaced Sheng Zijin. At the beginning of February, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army's office in northeast Anhui decided to "aid Sheng (Zijin) to beat horses (Xinting)". Under the unified command of Zhang Aiping, Hu Bingyun of the Eighth Route Army, Tian Wenyang's brigade, and the Northeast Anhui Army of the New Fourth Army won the Battle of Dabaiwei. During this battle, Sheng Zijin was timidly wanted by the Kuomintang authorities and unwilling to continue the road of unity and resistance with the Communists, so on the night of February 29, he crossed the Huai River from Guanzhen south and left northeastern Anhui. Sheng Zijin's departure created a vacuum of local power, so Gao Zhujiu was able to sit on the throne. He called himself the "Ninth Route Army", set up checkpoints with dozens of steel plate paddles (wooden boats with steel plates erected in front of them), exploited the passing ships, constantly harassed the people on the lakeside, and openly made enemies of the anti-Japanese regime in the lake area. On March 20, 1940, Gao Zhujiu joined forces with the recalcitrant bandit Wei Yousan to attack the anti-Japanese democratic regime in the eighth district of the Communist Party of China, posing a threat to China's anti-Japanese democratic regime. At this time, Gaozhu Jiu already had more than 20 steel plate paddles and more than 50 ships of various types, and the main force was the duck gun team of more than 200 people led by Wang Daming.
The second of the lake bandits is Chen Peihua's department. In 1937, he served as the head of the Hongze Lake Marine Police Brigade in Jiangsu Province of the Kuomintang, and later changed to the captain of the first brigade of the Marine Police Corps, with more than 300 people and more than 30 steel plate strokes.
The third of the lake bandits is the three departments of Old Wei. Old Wei San was a native of Xiaozhu Zhuang, Suining Shaji, Jiangsu Province, whose real name was Wei Qifu, and was the third oldest among his brothers, and his enemy was called Old Wei San. He was originally born as a poor child, and he made his fortune after defecting to the Hongze Lake water gang. It is famous for more than 10 massacres, including the massacre of more than 280 people in The Slaughter Village of Liu Dadezhuang in Sihong SunYuan in November 1926, and the massacre of more than 1,000 people in the Village of Ten Jiadun in Gaozuo Shijiadun in Guanning County the following year. He had more than a hundred guns under his command and was stationed in Hongze Jiangba.
In addition, there are small groups of water bandits such as Liu Wulianzi, Chen Zijin, Li Chengwu, and Chen Xiao blind zi scattered in and around Hongze Lake.
Prepare for banditry
Hongze Lake is the heart of the anti-Japanese base area in huaibei, and the stubborn bandits who are entrenched on the lake, armed with hundreds of boats and thousands of armed forces, collude with the Kuomintang diehard army, lean on the lake and swing the reed beach, often disturb the township governments in the border areas, rob the masses of property, and rob merchant ships to disrupt social order. In order to consolidate and expand the anti-Japanese base area (Huaibei base area) behind enemy lines in the east of Jinpu Road and open up the connection between Huaibei and Huainan and Northern Jiangsu, in April 1941, Zhang Aiping, the Ninth Brigade of the Third Division of the New Fourth Army, marched from northeast Anhui to the Hongze Lake area and launched a campaign to suppress bandits on the lake.
Preliminary preparations for suppressing bandits: First, the whole army learns to swim. Many of the soldiers in the army were northerners, and their legs cramped when they went into the water. But with the enthusiastic help of the villagers, in just 10 days, the soldiers learned to swim. The second is to master the skills of boating. Mainly to learn to paddle. If the oar breaks in battle, use a shovel. Each boat also mobilizes a young fisherman to paddle a double oar. The masses enthusiastically supported the Communist Party's decision to suppress bandits and actively demanded to join the war. A 15-year-old girl also came to register, but the leaders of the unit did not agree. She was not reconciled, and every day during the training of the troops, she came to perform boating and swimming. Seeing that she was skilled, watery, and resolute, the leader of the unit finally agreed to her participation in the battle. The third is to transform ships. The inner walls of the wooden boats are made of adobe, so that the bullets cannot penetrate, and the shell of the ship is broken and cannot enter the water. The bow of the ship was covered with sandbags. At the same time, ambulances were also set up to prepare for the rescue of the wounded and those who fell into the water. The combat companies were also equipped with small clippers with sandbags at the bow. The fourth is to increase equipment. According to the equipment of the water bandits' steel plate scratchers, the New Fourth Army was equipped with anti-aircraft machine guns and mortars capable of penetrating steel plates. This equipment enhanced the confidence of the soldiers to win the battle, and they excitedly named the large ships loaded with heavy machine guns "destroyers" and the large ships equipped with mortars "gunboats".
The bandits begin
The soldiers were training, and Zhang Aiping and other commanders were studying the battle plan. At that time, the situation was that the south bank of Hongze Lake was Xuyi County, which was a Japanese stronghold; laozi Mountain at the mouth of the Huai River, also had a Japanese stronghold. The rest were Japanese-controlled slots. The water bandit Gao Zhujiu and other small groups of water bandits are in the lake (or live in the lake boat), and Chen Peihua's troops are stationed on the shore of Huangma, but they can escape into the lake at any time.
The deployment of the New Fourth Army is to take the first step in clearing the enemy's land strongholds in the "empty" area. Complete the Great Siege to the Water Bandits. In the second step, the third battalion of the 25th Regiment of the Ninth Brigade of the Third Division of the New Fourth Army and the brigade guard company cut in from Huaitou in the west of the lake and attacked the village in the lake where the water bandits were in the east. The troops directly under the second battalion and the regiment attacked south from the high mouth on the west bank of Chengzi Lake and attacked the water bandits. A battalion of the 25th Regiment attacked Huang Wharf (in present-day Siyang County, Suqian City) and attacked Chen Peihua's troops. The Second Division of the New Fourth Army dispatched the Fifth Brigade to cooperate and used the strength of a regiment to hold the line of JiangBa and Gaoliangjian in hudong to prevent the water bandits from escaping ashore. The Twenty-ninth Regiment of the Tenth Brigade of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army was on guard at the front line of Chengzi Lake in the west of the lake, and the local armed forces were on guard in the direction of Guan Town outside Xuyi County. Before the war, the suppression of bandits headquarters also did two tasks: First, it sent people to do the work of Wang Daming, the captain of the Gaozhu Nine Duck Gun Team, and made him an internal response of the New Fourth Army. The second is to release the wind: the New Fourth Army is a dry duck from Shandong, and only hits the water bandits on the shore. As soon as the wind was released, Gao Zhujiu was paralyzed a lot.
After everything was ready, at dawn on May 4, the main battle against the bandits began.
The third battalion of the 25th Regiment of the Ninth Brigade of the New Fourth Army and the guard company were launched from the mouth of the Laobei River in Linhuai. Other units also entered positions on the shore. As soon as the 3rd Battalion and the Guard Company of the 25th Regiment entered the mouth of Hongze Lake, they encountered more than 10 steel plate rowers and more than 30 other boats of Gaozhu Jiushika. The anti-aircraft machine guns of the New Fourth Army opened fire mercilessly, piercing the steel plates on the wooden boats of the water bandits, and the water bandits were horrified and scattered everywhere. Zhang Aiping ordered the various units to pursue. The 2nd Battalion of the 25th Regiment and the troops directly under the Regiment, led by Li Haoran, the regimental political commissar, approached Gaozhu Jiushuizhai and met Wang Daming's duck gun team. The ducklings opened fire, but with empty guns. Then, when the New Fourth Army approached, the Duck Gun Team turned its gun and opened fire on Gao Zhujiu. Gao Zhujiu knew that the general trend had gone, and took a boat to break through to the south. He fled ashore and entered the county seat of Xuyi and defected to the Japanese army.
At 12:00 noon on the same day, Gaobu and other water bandits were compressed on the southeast lake surface of Chengzi Lake, and most of them were annihilated; one was annihilated by the Twenty-ninth Regiment of the Tenth Brigade after landing. The twenty-fifth regiment and one battalion also achieved results after a bitter battle. They besieged Chen Peihua for a day and a night, and the next morning, Chen Beitou took a boat to break through in the direction of Gaoliangjian, Laozi Mountain, and Xuyi. Our army pursued it closely and pursued it to the vicinity of Laozi Mountain, where the Japanese army opened fire to cover Chen Bu, and one of our main ships was overturned by the big waves and had to withdraw. As a result, a small number of Bandits of the Chen Clan were able to escape, but most of the bandits surrendered to the New Fourth Army in Gaoliangjian, and Chen Peihua was also captured alive by our army.
After the victory of this battle, Hongze Lake became the inner lake of the anti-Japanese base area.
Hearing the news, Zhang Aiping composed a poem:
Hongze water monster chaos water sky, strive to lift the dragon spring to pound the dragon pond.
The red flag is full of courage, and the white sails are flying in the clouds.
SaiJiang poured the sea to slash the demons, and the long wind and waves swept away the enemy stubbornly.
The sky is red, and the fishing song fills the lake with fish and boats.
General Zhang Aiping
End
The suppression of bandits at Hongze Lake was the first large-scale army water operation in the history of our army's warfare, and this battle left a deep impression on Chairman Mao Zedong. On April 23, 1949, when the Chinese People's Liberation Army occupied Nanjing, Chairman Mao Zedong personally summoned Zhang Aiping, asked him to form the Navy of the East China Military Region, and appointed him as the first commander of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy.
The water bandit Gao Zhujiu escaped with his life that day and entered Xuyi County as a Japanese running dog. In June 1946, the Kuomintang launched a full-scale civil war, and Gao Zhujiu was already a commissioner of the Kuomintang Xuyi County Investigation and Statistics Office, and at this time he was more active in opposing communism. He sat on Laozi Mountain on the edge of Hongze Lake and instigated the gangs on the lake to oppose the Communist Party. On the night of July 18, 1947, Hu Guanren and others of the Huaihe District Armed Workers Of the New Fourth Army infiltrated Gao Zhujiu's residence at Laozi Mountain and killed him.
In the battle against the bandits, old Wei Sanbu encountered the Tenth Brigade of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army at Chengzi Lake, and Old Wei San escaped by diving. He fled to the Kuomintang Wang Guangxia as a regimental commander. In the spring of 1943, Han Deqin, deputy commander of the Kuomintang Lusu Theater and chairman of Jiangsu Province, led his troops to raid the Lirenji and ChengDaokou areas of the Anti-Japanese Base Area in Huaibei of the New Fourth Army, and marched to shanzitou and Shengwei in the southwest of Siyang County. At about 8:00 p.m. on March 17, the Ninth Brigade of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army (Brigade Commander Wei Guoqing), with the cooperation of the Second and Third Divisions, launched the Battle of Shanzitou, and after 15 hours of fierce fighting, killed more than 100 people, including Li Zhonghuan, commander of the Kuomintang Independent Sixth Brigade, Wang Guangxia, commander of the Third Provincial Security Column, and more than 1,000 officers and men under Han Deloitte and chief of staff Lü Hanjin. Old Wei San escaped alone in the melee. In the early morning of March 18, Old Wei San was captured at QiuZhaizhuang (in present-day Xudun Village, Tuyuan Township, Siyang County, Suqian City), about 20 miles away from Shantou Village. Finally, Lü Ji, the garrison of the Ninth Brigade of the Fourth Division of the New Fourth Army, was shot.