Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (9)

On January 18, 1941, Zhou Enlai published an inscription in Xinhua Daily exposing the Kuomintang diehards for creating the Anhui Incident.

On the 12th, Mao Zedong, in the name of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, telephoned Ye Ting and Rao Shushi and announced the central decision: "First, the Central Committee has decided that all military and political actions shall be under the overall responsibility of Ye Junchang and Rao Shushi, and all actions will be decided by Ye Junshi. Comrade Xiang Ying went north with the army. Ii. The Central Committee announces this decision to the cadres of the armed forces. On the same day, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Wang Jiaxiang jointly sent a telegram to Liu Shaoqi, that is, Ye Ting and Rao Shushi, suggesting that the New Fourth Army in southern Anhui should designate targets and break through into several detachments to break out and advance east or north in batches, without limiting time, in order to preserve strength and achieve the principle of achieving the task. At the same time, he pointed out that "it is impossible to negotiate in Chongqing", instructing them that "we should pay attention to negotiations with the leaders of the encircling troops". In addition, Mao, Zhu, and Zhou stressed again in another telegram to Ye, Rao, and Xiang: "Everything in the army is decided by Xiyi, supplemented by Xiao Yao (referring to Rao Shushi - editor's note), and the whole army should obey Xiyi's orders." Chongqing is negotiating, but don't rely on hope, everything depends on yourself. On the night of the 12th, Ye Ting and Rao Shushi commanded the remaining troops surrounded by the Stone Well Pit to disperse and break through. Ye Ting, Rao Shushi, etc. are one road, and Xiang Ying, Yuan Guoping, Zhou Zikun, etc. are one road. The various units scattered and broke through, and the overall goal was one of southern Jiangsu and the other was wuwei in northern Jiangsu.

After Ye Ting, Rao Shushi, and others rushed out of the Stone Well Pit, they turned over the tip of the fire cloud overnight, and arrived at the West Pit at dawn on the 13th, where they were again surrounded by kuomintang troops. On the 14th, the situation was already very critical. In accordance with the spirit of the instruction of the PARTY Central Committee on the 12th that "we should pay attention to negotiations with the chiefs of the encircling troops," Rao Shushi proposed to Ye Ting that he go down the mountain to negotiate with gu Zhutong of the Kuomintang authorities, and asked Gu Zhutong to give way to the troops to pass and go to northern Jiangsu to resist Japan. Ye Ting replied: "Under such circumstances, there are no conditions at all for negotiating with him. I am adamantly not going. It has been ten years since I left the Party after the defeat of the Great Revolution, and this is a bitter lesson. I remember it deeply! Rao Shushi repeatedly urged him to go, saying, "It's not you who are going to go, it's the party that you go to." I should report to the Party Central Committee. At Rao Shushi's insistence, Ye Ting had no choice but to say, "If the party decides to send me, I will obey." After that, he took Ye Qinhe, Ye Yuqing and several other retinues down the mountain, and immediately detained them for the recalcitrant army. Soon, the Stone Well Pit and other places were occupied by the enemy. The recalcitrant army went to arrest and kill the personnel of our New Fourth Army. Later, Xiang Ying and Zhou Zikun moved to a stone cave called the Bee Cave in the great ravine to hide and killed the traitor Liu Houzong.

After the troops were scattered, Rao Shushi continued to hide on the mountain, and on the 16th, the soldiers of the 52nd Division of the Kuomintang Army who searched the mountain found out and arrested, and later escaped from danger. Subsequently, after passing through Taiping County, he arrived at Tunxi in southern Anhui Province, and soon found the party's secret contact point. Wang Si, a traffic officer at the underground traffic station, arranged for a hidden place in the home of Jiang Mang, an underground party member in Yangyuan, and contacted the Southern Bureau. On February 12, Zhou Enlai telephoned the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee and informed him that "Comrade Rao Shushi (Xiao Yao) has escaped from danger" and that "he will not go to Jinhua or northern Jiangsu or Chongqing in the near future, and decide according to the situation." Soon, at the end of the lunar calendar, when the Spring Festival was approaching, Rao Shushi was covered by the underground party in southern Anhui to take a car from Tunxi to Lanxi, Zhejiang, and then to Shanghai through the arrangements of the Zhejiang underground party. When Rao Shushi passed through Tunxi, Lanxi, Jinhua, and other places along the way, according to the situation at that time, he "independently and autonomously arranged the work of the party organizations in various localities, and correctly estimated that after the anhui incident, the Kuomintang would use forced means to attack the party headquarters of our southeast bureau, and at the same time, during the Anhui revolution, there were bound to be defectors who leaked our party's secrets." If there had not been such an arrangement, there would have been some losses at that time. Because after the leading organs of the New Fourth Army and the Southeast Bureau were dispersed, the entire South China Party lost its leadership center, comrade Rao Shushi's action had a great effect." Chen Yi, acting commander of the New Fourth Army, spoke at the meeting of senior cadres of the Central China Bureau on May 17, 1941, fully affirmed Rao Shushi's above-mentioned work.

After arriving in Shanghai, Rao Shushi reported to the CPC Central Committee on March 8 on the breakthrough situation on January 12, Ye Ting's background on going down the mountain, and his own experience in "sending guards down the mountain late at night on the 16th of Zi Milling (16) to bribe a company commander successfully, and Xiao (17) was entrusted with plainclothes passes on behalf of him in the morning of the day, and finally left the tiger's mouth after many obstacles along the way." Subsequently, Rao Shushi was escorted by the Shanghai underground party to the Soviet-Central Base Area, where he worked for more than half a month before arriving at the Headquarters of the New Fourth Army in Yancheng in April. Later, all the cadres who broke through from the Anhui Southern Incident at that time were censored within the party, but Rao Shushi concealed some details in the March 8 telegram. The fact is that Rao Shushi was captured on January 16 by a platoon leader of the Kuomintang search unit. He called himself an American overseas Chinese, returned to Japan to resist Japan, and served as a military quartermaster for the New Fourth Army for only a few months. At the Kuomintang Company Headquarters, he bribed the Kuomintang Company Commander with money and stayed for one night, and that night the company commander simmered the old hen and invited him to eat, and the next day the platoon leader accompanied him to Maolin to open the road, because the township chief was out, he stayed in Maolin for another night. On the third day, after driving to the road, the platoon commander sent out the cordon. In 1955, the public security department investigated the matter and found Ye Zhengshun, a former Kuomintang company commander who had been bribed by Rao Shushi, in port town, Ningguo County, Anhui Province, denying that Rao Shushi "had the problem of defecting or betraying comrades after his arrest," but also pointing out that he "concealed and deceived the party in some specific circumstances of his escape from danger." In 1955, when Rao Shushi explained his history, he also admitted that he had "deliberately lied for fear of arousing suspicion by the party that he was delaying along the way out of danger."

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Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (1)

Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (2)

Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (3)

Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (4)

Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (5)

Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (6)

Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (7)

Former Commanders of the New Fourth Army - Political Commissar Rao Shushi (8)