The appointment of generals in the army is of great importance. It is related not only to the combat ability of the army, but also to the organization's command and leadership of the army. When the New Fourth Army was first established, it faced a very important question: Who would be the commander of the New Fourth Army?
After several discussions, the well-known General Ye Ting shouldered the position of the first commander of the much-anticipated New Fourth Army. Both Chairman Mao and Chiang Kai-shek agreed that General Ye Ting would be the commander of the army for a reason.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > First, Ye Ting, a famous general of the Northern Expedition</h1>
If he had not encountered any changes, successfully returned to Yan'an, accompanied the party and the people on the final road of struggle, and witnessed the birth of new China, General Ye Ting would certainly have been able to create more brilliant achievements. But sometimes, people are always unable to compete with fate.
Ye Ting was born in 1896 to a peasant family in Huiyang County, Guangdong Province. At the age of twenty-two, he graduated from the Baoding Army Officer School. The following year, he joined the Kuomintang and joined Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary ranks. Because of his excellent military command and combat ability, Ye Ting was quickly appreciated and valued by his superiors.
1924 was a very important year in Chinese history. It is also a very important year in Ye Ting's life. During the period of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the Kuomintang put forward the policy of "uniting with Russia, uniting with the Communist Party, and supporting peasants and workers." Ye Ting was selected by the Guangzhou government to study in Moscow in the Soviet Union as a young Kuomintang officer.
This learning experience changed the direction of Ye Ting's life. In Moscow, General Ye Ting profoundly experienced the advanced nature of communism. He also decided to become a communist fighter. So on December 1, 1924, Ye Ting officially broke away from the Kuomintang and joined the Communist Party.
In 1925, Ye Ting, who had returned from the Soviet Union, began to participate in revolutionary work as a party member. During the Northern Expedition, Ye Ting served as the commander of the Independent Regiment of the 4th Army of the National Revolutionary Army. Ye Ting led the independent regimental commander to drive straight forward, beating the warlord Wu Peifu, who was stationed in Wuchang, and fleeing in all directions.
Because of its heroic record, this independent regiment is also known as the "Ye Ting Independent Regiment". General Ye Ting, on the other hand, was known as the "Famous General of the Northern Expedition". The position was promoted from regimental commander of the Independent Regiment to division commander of the army.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="47" > second, form the new fourth army</h1>
In 1927, after Chiang Kai-shek and other reactionaries launched a coup d'état, in order to smash the conspiracy of the reactionaries, Ye Ting, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and others led the Nanchang Uprising in Jiangxi. The first shots were fired against the reactionary insurgency of the Kuomintang.
The spark of a spark can ignite the plains. After the victory of the Nanchang Uprising, the Party organization decided to take advantage of the victory to pursue and launch the Guangzhou Uprising. However, because of the existence of a powerful enemy, the Guangzhou uprising ended in failure. More than 5,000 rebels and the masses were brutally killed.
Seeing such a bitter lesson, the organization decided to convene a meeting to sum up the lessons of the failure of the Guangzhou uprising. When Ye Ting went to Moscow to report to the Comintern, some members of the Comintern who did not know the actual situation very well attributed the reasons for the failure of the Guangzhou uprising to Ye Ting. Faced with unreasonable accusations and blows, Ye Ting ran to Germany in a fit of rage.
From 1927 to 1937, Ye Ting, who was in exile in Germany, never again had contact with the party organization. In this decade of leaving the party, although it no longer has the status of a party member. However, Ye Ting was always concerned about the revolutionary cause at home and the development of the Party organization.
After the Xi'an Incident, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to agree to the idea of "stopping the civil war and unanimously resisting Japan." After the outbreak of the "Lugou Bridge Incident" in 1937, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party officially issued a statement to form an anti-Japanese national united front.
According to the agreement signed between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the Red Army, which had gone through a 25,000-mile long march and triumphantly reached the First, Second, and Fourth Fronts of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in northern Shaanxi, as well as the Red Army units in the northwest region, was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, with Zhu De as the commander-in-chief.
The Red Army troops, which did not participate in the Long March and remained in the eight southern provinces to carry out guerrilla warfare with the Kuomintang army, were reorganized into the New Fourth Army. At that time, the eight southern provinces were the sphere of influence of Chiang Kai-shek's government. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to collect these guerrilla detachments into his own units. In order to achieve this goal, he must choose someone who can be trusted by him to lead this new Fourth Army.
At first, Chiang Kai-shek wanted Chen Cheng and Zhang Fakui from the Kuomintang to become military commanders. However, these two people themselves are not willing, and Yan'an will not be willing. In the end, he chose Ye Ting, who had been out of the party for ten years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="48" > commander of the Third and New Fourth Armies</h1>
Chiang Kai-shek chose to make Ye Ting the commander of the New Fourth Army because he believed that Ye Ting had been ostracized and attacked by the Communist International in his early years and had not been in contact with the Party organization for ten years. Therefore, he will certainly turn to the Kuomintang, not to the Communist Party.
At that time, after Chairman Mao learned of Chiang Kai-shek's thoughts, he also had the usual doubts about Ye Ting: Whether Ye Ting, who had been out of the party for ten years, would still turn to the party and whether he would still obey the party's command. In order to solve his worries, Chairman Mao took the initiative to invite Ye Ting to Yan'an to talk.
Chairman Mao first asked Zhou Enlai to learn about Ye Ting's situation. After hearing Premier Zhou's feedback, Chairman Mao's worries were put aside for the most part. Later, when the chairman saw Ye Ting, he directly asked him: "Comrade Ye Ting, would you like to restore your party membership?" ”
General Ye Ting's answer made Chairman Mao put aside the other half's worries. Ye Ting looked at the chairman and said, "I dream of restoring my party membership and returning to the party's side." However, in the current situation, if I do not restore my party membership for the time being and participate in the War of Resistance Revolution as a non-party personage, it will be more conducive to dealing with all parties! ”
After listening to Ye Ting's words, Chairman Mao praised him with great satisfaction: "Comrade Ye Ting's good intentions will always be remembered by the party and the people. Therefore, in January 1938, Ye Ting officially became the commander of the New Fourth Army. He led the New Fourth Army and established anti-Japanese base areas in central China. He made a great contribution to the War of Resistance Against Japan.
However, in January 1941, the Kuomintang reactionaries sent troops to surround the headquarters of the New Fourth Army, creating the Anhui Incident that shocked China and foreign countries. After leading the New Fourth Army through eight days and eight nights of fighting, Ye Ting was unfortunately taken prisoner by the reactionaries and imprisoned for five years.
After the unremitting efforts of the party organization, on March 4, 1946, Ye Ting was finally released. On April 8, 1946, Ye Ting flew from Chongqing to Yan'an. He was about to see the dawn of victory, but the clarity gave him a fatal blow: the plane crashed. A generation of famous generals, General Ye Ting, died in this air disaster.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="49" >4</h1>
After the news of General Ye Ting's death came out, the whole country was shocked. Chairman Mao personally wrote a eulogy for him: To die for the people, although it is still glorious to die. He highly summarized and praised the contributions made by General Ye Ting throughout his life. If General Ye Ting had successfully arrived in Yan'an, he would certainly have made a great contribution to the War of Liberation.