On November 19, 1940, after the victory of the Hundred Regiments, the Kuomintang imposed a military encirclement and economic blockade on the border areas, so with the increasing intensity of the War of Resistance, the difficulties faced by Yan'an became more and more difficult. Chairman Mao once said helplessly and angrily that the military and people in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region have encountered serious economic difficulties, lack of food, clothing, and warmth, and an extreme shortage of daily necessities. Everyone has a personal feeling. So at that point, did you starve to death or disband, or did you do it yourself?
Soon after Chairman Mao said that he would do it himself, Liu Shaoqi and the railway guerrillas arrived in Yan'an with 10,000 taels of gold. It not only solved the urgent need for economic difficulties in the Yan'an base area at a crucial moment, but also changed the difficult situation of our party in the War of Resistance.
Where did the 10,000 taels of gold come from? In order to successfully send this batch of gold to Yan'an, what kind of methods did Liu Shaoqi and the railway guerrillas adopt?
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > embark on the revolutionary road</h1>
On November 24, 1898, Liu Shaoqi was born in Tanzichong, Ningxiang County, Hunan Province, because he was the youngest in the family, so his parents gave him a breast name "Jiuman". When he was a teenager, he studied very hard in a private school, and reading made him more knowledgeable. Slowly, he gradually developed a great ambition to save the country in his heart, and then he always had his original intention, persevered, and went forward without hesitation.
In 1913, Comrade Liu Shaoqi was admitted to the best local school, Yutan School, with the first place in the school, and Teacher Mei became his first revolutionary enlightenment teacher. After Teacher Mei was arrested for participating in patriotic acts, Liu Shaoqi also organized students to protest together, and was almost expelled.
Later, during a parade, Liu Shaoqi was imprisoned at the Changsha Governor's Office. For the first time in his life, Liu Shaoqi was not yet eighteen years old.
In May 1917, still studying at Ningxiang Middle School, Liu Shaoqi, who was less than 18 years old, chose to throw pen from Rong, applied for the Hunan Gongwu Hall with someone else's name, and was admitted with the first result in the school. From then on, he began his short military life with a gun, and also laid the foundation for him to participate in and lead the revolutionary armed struggle in the future.
In 1919, the May Fourth Movement swept the country, and Liu Shaoqi, who was studying at the private Yucai Middle School in Hunan, was infected by this stormy patriotic movement, and before he could participate in the graduation ceremony, he led a group of classmates and pulled the parade from Changsha to Beijing and threw himself into the rolling torrent of the patriotic movement.
Since then, the name Liu Shaoqi has been closely linked to the revolutionary, liberation, and construction causes of the Chinese people. After the May Fourth Movement, Liu Shaoqi applied for three universities in Beijing, but all of them failed to enroll because of incorrect majors or long academic systems. Later, he entered the preparatory class for studying in France at Baoding Yude Middle School in Hebei Province for nearly a year, but finally he had to give up the plan to stay in France and return to his hometown because he could not raise the cost of studying in France.
In October 1920, through the introduction of He Shuheng and the introduction of He Minfan, Liu Shaoqi joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League in Changsha and was recommended to study in the preparatory class of the Shanghai Overseas Chinese Society. In May 1921, Liu Shaoqi, Ren Bishi, Xiao Jinguang and more than a dozen other young students went to Moscow to study at the Oriental University.
During this period of study in the Soviet Union, Liu Shaoqi established the goal of fighting for communist ideals and dedicating himself to the workers' movement and youth movement, and in the winter of 1921 he became a member of the Communist Party of China, one of the earliest party members to develop after the founding of the Communist Party.
In the spring of 1922, according to the arrangements of the Central Committee, Liu Shaoqi led his Russian students back to Shanghai, and was subsequently assigned to work in the Secretariat of the Chinese Labor Union, concurrently serving as a teacher at the Shanghai Civilian Girls' School. In July of the same year, he was received by Chen Duxiu, secretary of the Central Bureau, and was appointed as a member of the Xiang District Committee.
Soon after, at No. 22 Qingshuitang on the outskirts of Changsha, Liu Shaoqi met Mao Zedong for the first time. Subsequently, he was sent to Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, to lead the workers' movement, and thus embarked on a stormy journey of thorny professional revolutionaries without hesitation.
In the nearly three years here, Liu Shaoqi has made many achievements in his work, such as establishing an Anyuan workers' night school and cultural cram school, leading a miners' strike and achieving a comprehensive victory. In the strike struggle, Liu Shaoqi always stepped forward and walked at the forefront of the workers' parade.
In the spring of 1925, Liu Shaoqi was ordered to come to Guangzhou to prepare for the Second National Labor Conference, form the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, and was elected as the vice chairman and secretary general of the ACFTU at the meeting, and then he also participated in leading the May Thirtieth Movement and other activities.
In July 1927, Liu Shaoqi went to Lushan to recuperate. In October, he left Lushan and took a boat through jiujiang to the Shanghai central authorities. In the following years, Liu Shaoqi has been working in the central government, participating in the work of leading the development of the economy and expanding red grain in the Central Soviet Region.
During the Long March, Liu Shaoqi, together with many soldiers, also participated in the battles of sidu Chishui, the capture of Luding Bridge, and the qiao crossing of the Jinsha River, and attended the Zunyi Conference, at which he expressed his ideas, resolutely supported Mao Zedong's correct ideas, and assisted Mao Zedong in saving the party, the Red Army, and the Chinese revolution at a critical moment in history.
In June 1935, Liu Shaoqi was appointed as the director of the Central Grain Preparation Committee and served as the grain and grass officer of the whole army, solving the most realistic problem of the Red Army's difficulty in eating during the Long March. Military food is related to the life and death of the long march soldiers, and Liu Shaoqi tried every means to raise grain, just like a "life-saving bodhisattva" and a "fire extinguisher."
In January 1936, Liu Shaoqi embarked on the road of anti-Japanese resistance in the north, opening up a new situation in the anti-Japanese struggle in North China. After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Liu Shaoqi continued to preside over the work of the Northern Bureau as a representative of the Central Committee, and the party's proposal of the anti-Japanese national united front won the support of the people of all nationalities and all camps.
In 1938, within a year and a half of Liu Shaoqi's arrival in the Central Plains, he pulled up tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of local armed forces, and began to march toward northern Jiangsu. These achievements and attacks are enough to show Liu Shaoqi's outstanding military command ability.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="78" > and railroad guerrillas</h1>
In 1942, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression entered its most difficult years, and Mao Zedong once described: "We once reached the point where we had almost no clothes to wear, no paper, no oil, no shoes and socks, and no quilts in winter. ”
In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, half of the Yan'an Border Region's economic resources were aided by the Communist International and donated by patriots at home and abroad. However, as the war became more protracted, the Kuomintang began to pay less and less in August 1937. In the middle and late stages of the war, the Kuomintang, out of jealousy of the Eighth Route Army and in order to prevent the eighth route army from developing and growing, began to impose an economic blockade on the Communist Party, which made it more difficult to fund military and political affairs. In particular, it is difficult to purchase ammunition, medical supplies and deal with foreign affairs.
During that period, silver dollars and banknotes were one price per day, and only gold had the most stable purchasing power. However, at that time, the gold and foreign exchange stocks of the Party Central Committee were extremely scarce, so Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and others were very concerned about this.
In November 1939, the Shandong sub-bureau asked the central government to send financial and economic cadres to work in Shandong, and at the beginning, the central government proposed That Li Fuchun, Qiu Huizuo and Deng Jie to go to Shandong to raise funds. Mao Zedong then stressed to Li Fuchun: "If you get tickets to Yan'an, you can't buy anything, so it's better to get more currency." When Mao Zedong said "currency," he meant gold.
Subsequently, local guerrillas played a large role in the task of transporting gold. In 1940 alone, Su Jiguang sent 20,000 taels of gold to Lunan District three times, and Zhou Enlai and Zhu Dezong sighed and told the leaders of the Lunan District Committee that in the future, su Jiguang and other three comrades would have the opportunity to meet in Yan'an together. However, due to the frequent fighting, it has not been able to achieve this wish.
During this period, Liu Shaoqi also sent 10,000 taels of gold to Yan'an, escorted by railway guerrillas. Along the way to the escort, many lesser-known stories also occurred.
In 1942, Liu Shaoqi inspected Shandong, and after staying in the Shandong base area for nearly four months, in late July, he embarked on a journey to Yan'an. When he left, he also took with him more than 10,000 taels of gold sent to Yan'an by the Shandong branch. At that time, the Lunan Military Region entrusted the task of escorting Liu Shaoqi across the Jinpu Railway to the Lunan Railway Guerrillas.
According to the traffic situation and the enemy situation along the way, in order to reduce the target, Liu Shaoqi only took a few staff members and a dozen people from the guard squad forward. When Li Yu recalled the situation at that time, he once said:
At that time, the journey from Binhai to Luxi was hundreds of miles, passing through layers of enemy blockade lines, especially the Jinpu Railway, and everyone was worried about Liu Shaoqi's safety. At that time, the sub-bureau developed two plans, one was to send the main force to a battalion escort, and the other was to be escorted by a small unit of the Lunan Railway Guerrilla In disguise. Most comrades advocated the first plan, to ask Comrade Liu Shaoqi, but Comrade Liu Shaoqi resolutely agreed to be sent by the 'railway guerrillas'. So, as an ordinary warrior, he stood in the ranks of warriors and set off. ”
This was the first time that the guerrillas had carried out an escort mission, and everyone was nervous. At first, they did not know who the cadres they were going to escort this time were, but they did not know that liu Shaoqi was included until the next morning, and that the place he was going through here was also the seat of the Party Central Committee, Yan'an.
Upon hearing this, the members of the team boiled over, and everyone discussed: "How good it would be to meet this chief who is respected and loved by the soldiers and the people!" But they took into account that Liu Shaoqi had trekked nearly a hundred miles the night before, had not slept all night, and had to cross the railway that night, and should have let him have a good rest during the day, so everyone did not bother him.
But in fact, Liu Shaoqi understood everyone's thoughts, so he decided to meet the team members first. The guerrillas were very happy to know that, and that afternoon the guerrilla leaders and the dozen or so members in charge of the escort arrived at his residence together. Liu Shaoqi smiled and shook hands with everyone, and then while beckoning the team leaders to sit down, while asking their names and living conditions, the atmosphere in the room suddenly became relaxed and active.
After listening to the activities, the guerrilla leaders first reported the activities to Liu Shaoqi, and after listening, Liu Shaoqi first praised their achievements in the struggle, and also pointed out some of the points where they had not done enough. Liu Shaoqi has been engaged in secret work for a long time, so he has rich experience in how to mobilize and rely on the masses and do a good job in mass work. After some of his conversations, the hearts of the guerrillas were even more boiling.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="79" > the tough way to transport gold</h1>
The next night, taking advantage of the darkness, the guerrilla escorts, along with a group of more than two dozen passing cadres, quietly left the camp and prepared to cross the railway line as planned. Three or four hundred meters away from the railway, an enemy patrol car drove up from the direction of Lincheng. The glare of the searchlights on the car swept in and out, and a light machine gun was also shooting suddenly.
Everyone quickly hid along the sand river to avoid being discovered by the enemy. At this time, Liu Shaoqi also calmly comforted everyone. Then the patrol car stopped not far ahead, found nothing and drove away, and calm returned on both sides of the railway. The guerrillas seized the opportunity and escorted Liu Shaoqi all the way through the culvert through the railway. Then, they avoided the avenue, walked to the path, and advanced directly towards the edge of Weishan Lake. Everyone walked for seven or eight miles in a row, until they did not find the enemy situation again.
It was a hot summer, Liu Shaoqi walked all night, did not eat or drink, and his clothes were soaked with sweat and clinging to his body. Just when everyone was dry-mouthed, just passing by a large watermelon field, a few small guards saw it and ran directly to buy a few thirst-quenching, but they couldn't find a person who sold melons.
In the end, they picked two ripe watermelons by themselves, but after Liu Shaoqi saw it, he immediately said to them solemnly: "How do you do this?" This is absolutely impermissible. Hurry up and send it back, where it was picked from, where it was sent. Hearing the chief say this, the guards did not dare to eat any more, so they had to put the watermelon back into the ground.
Under the leadership of Liu Shaoqi, everyone continued to hurry again. Under such circumstances, the guerrillas spent more than ten unforgettable days with Liu Shaoqi on the lake.
When the group reached Weishan Lake, the liaison station traffic officer reported that the strength of several nearby enemy strongholds had increased. Therefore, the guerrilla leaders considered Liu Shaoqi's safety and decided to spend the night on a boat in Weishan Lake and then go to the west of the lake after dark.
On the evening of the third day, when the guerrillas were preparing to escort Liu Shaoqi off the ship and continue to advance, they encountered a sudden change in the enemy situation, and after receiving instructions from their superiors not to pass for the time being, the guerrillas spent more than ten unforgettable days with Liu Shaoqi on the lake.
In these days in Weishan Lake, the life of the group is extremely difficult, and sometimes everyone can't eat a few meals. Liu Shaoqi, like the guerrillas, ate wild lotus flakes to fill his hunger. Once, the guerrillas cooked small rice for Liu Shaoqi, but he refused to eat it alone, insisting that the members of the group eat with him. At night, there were not so many people in the cabin, so the guerrillas slept on the deck and let Liu Shaoqi sleep in the cabin.
During the days of living together on the lake, Liu Shaoqi repeatedly gave work instructions to the comrades of the guerrillas, and his teachings brought great help to the work of the railway guerrillas. During Liu Shaoqi's stay on the island of Weishan Lake, he also received the Weihu Brigade and the responsible persons of the Peitengbian County CPC Committee.
After the enemy situation eased slightly, Liu Shaoqi and the others said goodbye to the guerrillas and immediately continued to advance. After they made contact with the cavalry company sent by the Huxi Military Subdistrict in Feng County, they were escorted by the cavalry company through the Huxi District. In mid-August, Liu Shaoqi left the Huxi area, transferred from Lunan to Taihang, and finally arrived in Yan'an on December 30, 1942.
When Chairman Mao saw this ten thousand taels of gold, the whole person was excited, and even more gave a very high evaluation to the CPC Jiaodong Party Committee and the railway guerrillas. At that time, these funds also solved the problems of material shortage and economic and financial order chaos in the Yan'an area in a timely manner.
In 1943, Zhu Rui, the secretary of the Shandong branch, also brought gold when he went to Yan'an to attend the Seventh National Congress. In September of that year, Zhu Rui prepared to go to Yan'an to attend the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China. On the 24th, when Zhu Rui and the others left, they also took on the task of transporting gold. They set off from Yishui, Shandong, and traveled through the red channel towards Weishan Lake. Zhu Rui rode in the middle on a black mule, escorted by more than a dozen members of the Lunan Railway Guerrillas. They each took two guns and walked in front and behind the line.
A group of people rested in seclusion during the day and marched at night. After several days of day and night travel, Zhu Rui and his party finally arrived at the tea shed in the base point village of the railway guerrillas in the east of the Jinpu Railway.
When crossing the railway, the guerrillas each took a long wooden plank and spread it on the guard ditches on both sides of the railway, and Zhu Rui and others stepped on the wooden boards to cross the blockade ditch, and the mules followed close behind and successfully crossed the railway line. Subsequently, the group marched for more than ten miles and came to Jiang Ji Village on the shore of Weishan Lake to rest.
That night, Zhu Rui asked his entourage to go to his hometown to borrow needles and threads, and because he was worried that the gold would be lost on the road, he directly sewed it all on his clothes.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="80" > send charcoal in the snow in a dangerous situation</h1>
From July 1942 to the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yi, Zhu Rui, Xiao Hua, Chen Guang, and hundreds of other leading cadres, as well as hundreds of other cadres, safely passed through the enemy's blockade line on both sides of Jinpu Road and along Weishan Lake, all because of the successive escorts of railway guerrillas, which ensured the smoothness of this red line of communication.
But the guerrillas did not know at the time that some of the senior chiefs and their guards they were escorting were carrying a large amount of gold sent to Yan'an. It's a secret job, with very few people knowing and very few making decisions.
In order to continuously send gold to Yan'an, two transportation lines were specially opened in the Bohai Sea Corridor and the Coastal Corridor in the northern part of the Jiaodong Peninsula, and each transportation task was extremely confidential, which troop escorted, who was responsible, which route to take, were all top secret, and the soldiers were only responsible for implementation, and they knew nothing about other specific contents.
Regardless of the route, the transport team must not only avoid the enemy's pursuit, but also be vigilant against the encirclement and interception of the Kuomintang troops.
Because the economic work of the Shandong base area has been done relatively well, coupled with the production of gold in Jiaodong and other places, the Shandong base area has made many contributions to the central and fraternal base areas. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Shandong base area handed over a total of about 100,000 taels of gold, most of which was carried by comrades sent to Yan'an to study.
Of the 100,000 taels of gold transported, some were intercepted from the enemy's transport. Local guerrillas ambushed enemy convoys of gold and seized the gold by force. At that time, there were many guard posts in the enemy's stronghold, and it was difficult to intercept and transport gold vehicles, but the military and people of Jiaodong were always united and cooperated closely. From 1939 to 1944, more than 30 enemy vehicles were intercepted, and a large amount of materials and ores, gold concentrates, military supplies, production and other materials were captured by the enemy, which not only raised a large amount of gold, but also hindered the plunder of the enemy.
Some were secretly acquired, and during the War of Resistance, some private merchants also snapped up gold in large quantities. In this regard, Jiaodong organized a special underground acquisition station to compete with the enemy army and private merchants for gold through various forms. At that time, the gold acquisition work was extremely risky and must be kept in absolute secrecy, even to parents, wives and children.
In the form of using underground buying stations to buy gold from the masses, the amount of gold raised for the party during the War of Resistance was also very impressive. In 1942, the underground acquisition station acquired gold 3188 taels.
In December 1945, the "Railway Guerrilla" was ordered to Tengxian County to be reorganized, and at this point, the Lunan Railway Guerrilla Group also completed its historical mission, and the name was immediately revoked. The "railway guerrilla" took 5 years from its creation to its abolition.
In the past five years, the guerrillas have provided a large amount of combat readiness materials to the main forces, and have successively sent more than a dozen companies of troops to the main forces, making important contributions to the construction of the troops and the victory of the War of Resistance.
1942 was an extremely difficult year for the Party to resist the war behind enemy lines in North China, and the original communication lines between the various base areas were facing a huge test, but Liu Shaoqi and others respected and trusted the plans of the local traffic officers and actively cooperated with their crossing plans, so that they could make correct arrangements according to the changes in the actual enemy situation without interference.
On January 1, 1943, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee held a cadre evening party in the Central Auditorium to celebrate the New Year and welcome Liu Shaoqi back to Yan'an from central China. In the days that followed, Liu Shaoqi's leadership ability and outstanding achievements in both literature and martial arts were highly appreciated by Comrade Mao Zedong and unanimously recognized by senior cadres in the party, and he gradually became Chairman Mao's first right-hand man.
Whether on the road of saving the country and the people, or in creating the workers' armed forces, leading the workers' movement, participating in the Long March of the Red Army, leading the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army to chase the Central Plains, creating the base areas in North China and Central China, or assisting Mao Zedong in commanding the nationwide War of Resistance and the War of Liberation in Yan'an, Liu Shaoqi did not change his original intention and bravely forged ahead no matter what difficulties he encountered.
Similarly, in addition to Liu Shaoqi, there were many revolutionaries of the older generation like him in that period, all of whom were struggling to build a new China.
In the most difficult period of Yan'an, in the face of the enemy's strict blockade, the importance of secret traffic work is self-evident, and it can be said that "the traffic work in the enemy area is an important battlefield against blockade and occupation." ”