In November 1936, more than 20,000 people of the Red Fourth Front crossed the Yellow River in the west and formed the Western Route Army. In the battle in the Hexi Corridor of Gansu Province, although they suffered a bitter defeat under the siege of Ma Bufang, Ma Buqing, and more than 100,000 Kuomintang warlord troops, the bravery and tenacity of the vast number of Red Army commanders and fighters, and the strong fighting spirit of their predecessors and successors, were all singable and tearful.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" >, Yongchang Battle, surrounded by a group of women anti-Japanese pioneers, crossed the desert overnight to escape the enemy's pursuit</h1>
The Women's Anti-Japanese Pioneer Regiment in the Western Route Army was established in October 1936 when the Red Army met the Ninghui Division. On the basis of the Women's Independent Regiment of the Red Fourth Front, it was composed of more than 1,300 female fighters, and the whole regiment was divided into 3 battalions and 9 companies, with Wang Quanyuan as the regimental commander and Wu Fulian as the political commissar.
After crossing the Yellow River on a sheepskin raft, they fought in a mountain in Gansu, Tumen and other places, cooperated with the main Red Army, repelled the attack of the Hui warlord Ma Buqing and other cavalry, and captured 30 camels of the enemy, providing convenience for transporting the wounded and making meritorious achievements.
Later, the Women's Anti-Japanese Pioneer Regiment marched west with the main force of the Western Route Army and reached the areas of Yongchang, Shandan, and Liangzhou. This is the bee waist of the Hexi Corridor, bordered by the snow-capped Qilian Mountains to the south, the desolate desert to the north, and a narrow strip of land with poor land and sparse population in the middle.
The cavalry of the enemy Ma Bufang and Ma Buqing continued to frantically pursue and block the Red Army, and the women's anti-Japanese vanguard regiment and the Red Thirty Army, together, launched a bloody battle with the enemy. One day, in a cottage near Yongchang, the women's anti-Japanese vanguard regiment was surrounded by Ma Buqing's troops.
In the afternoon, the fighting became more and more intense. The regimental commander Wang Quanyuan saw that the enemy had the superior strength of a brigade and the Red Army had little ammunition, so he decided to break through as soon as possible and meet the general headquarters of the Western Route Army. So she decisively ordered He Fuxiang, commander of the third battalion, to lead the Ninth Company to take on the task of feinting and covering the breakthrough, and asked them to use fierce firepower to launch an attack on the enemy at the East Gate, creating the illusion that the Red Army was going to break through from the East Gate, attracting the enemy to defend the East Gate with heavy troops, and she herself led the whole regiment of commanders and fighters to break out from the West Gate.
At about 6 p.m., the breakout battle began. The commanders and fighters of the Ninth Company opened fierce fire on the enemy at the East Gate, and the guns, grenades, and shouts converged into one piece, and bluffed toward the East Gate. The enemy was deceived and was busy sending reinforcements to the East Gate.
Regiment commander Wang Quanyuan swung his gun at the West Gate and loudly ordered, "Comrades rush!" Nearly a thousand women's vanguard soldiers poured out of the west gate of the village like a flood that broke the embankment. Wang Quanyuan led the team through a desert area nearly 10 miles long overnight, and finally got rid of the enemy's pursuit and caught up with his troops. Later, after He Fuxiang and others completed the cover mission, they also returned to the team.
The advancing troupe of the Western Route Army also fought an encounter with the enemy near Yongchang. One day in early December 1936, female instructor Liao Chimi was ordered to lead more than 30 soldiers of the troupe to perform at Twenty Mile Fort in Yongchang County to comfort the Red Ninth Army that broke through from Gulang.
Unexpectedly, when he walked to Gaojiabao, he encountered the Majia cavalry who had sneaked up on the headquarters of the Red Ninth Army. In order to cover the headquarters of the Red Ninth Army, Liao Chimi, Wang Dingguo, and others were not afraid of danger, and with a sense of composure, they quickly seized a 3-story earth fence next to the road and opened fire on the enemy. The enemy thought that he had encountered the headquarters of the Red Ninth Army, and immediately wrapped it up. Liao Chimi, Wang Dingguo and other troupe fighters, with more than 10 guns, withstood the enemy's repeated attacks.
Most of the members of the Forward Troupe were young girls, the youngest of whom was only eleven or twelve years old. But they are heroic warriors who have been tested by the revolutionary war and tempered by the life of the Long March, and they are all witty, brave, firm, and composed, stubbornly resisting the enemy so that the enemy does not dare to approach. The enemy could not understand their unreality, and sent aircraft to reconnoiter one moment and bombarded them with artillery.
The battle was fought from morning to dark in the afternoon, and although the troupe fighters repelled many charges by enemy cavalry, their bullets were also finished, and many of the fighters died. A large number of enemies howled and approached the earthen wall, dug up the fence, and rushed in. They were forced to pick up bayonets and sabers and continue hand-to-hand combat with strong enemies. As a result, most of the warriors died heroically and some were captured.
The instructor, Liao Chimi, once used a horse gun to fight the enemy and killed and wounded several enemies. When the horse bandits saw her fighting bravely, they tripped her up with a rope and tied her up. She denounced the enemy's crimes of sabotaging the anti-Japanese resistance and massacring the people. Finally, she chanted the slogan "Long live the Communist Party" and heroically sacrificed herself under the sabre of the enemy at the age of 21.
Female warriors Wang Dingguo, Dang Wenxiu, Chen Su'e, etc., killed and wounded the enemy with bayonets, but unfortunately were captured. More than 10 of their female warriors were successively sent to Wuwei, Xining, Zhangye and other places. In the autumn of 1937, they were finally rescued by the party and returned to the team.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="52" > second, Linze Bloody Battle, female warriors and male warriors together, stood at the forefront, many female warriors died heroically</h1>
The main force of the Western Route Army braved the wind and snow to fight in the severe cold, and continued to advance west along the Hexi Corridor, successively occupying Linze, Gaotai and other places. The Kuomintang Hui warlord Ma Bufang gathered heavy troops and continued to launch a fierce attack on the Red Army.
In January 1937, after the enemy captured Gaotai and killed Dong Zhentang, commander of the Fifth Red Army, and most of the commanders and fighters of the army, he launched a siege on the headquarters of the Western Route Army and the main force of the Red Army in the Linze area. Hundreds of female soldiers and a guard company directly under the headquarters of the Western Route Army fought a bloody battle with the enemy in Linze City to defend the headquarters.
The commander-in-chief of the defensive city was Zheng Yizhai, director of the General Supply Department of the Western Route Army, who asked everyone to "make up their minds and resolutely defeat the enemy at the cost of the last drop of blood." He ordered the female cadre Tao Wanrong (Su Feng) to organize hundreds of female fighters from various units in the city to participate in the battle of defending the city.
All the female warriors, along with the male warriors, stood at the forefront of the defense of the city. When the enemy outside the city saw that there were female soldiers defending the city, they sang a vulgar minor tune and insulted the female Red Army. A female warrior angrily demanded to fight the enemy.
She said boldly: "Don't look at us as female comrades, don't say that he only has five 'horses' ('five horses' refers to the Hui warlords Ma Bufang, Ma Buqing, Ma Hongbin, Ma Hongkui, and Ma Lin), and if there are a few more horses, we can cut off their 'horses'." During the battle to hold Rinzawa Castle, the female warriors were responsible for carrying bricks, stones, clay pots, wooden sticks, and everything that could strike the enemy to the city walls as defensive weapons. Although many female fighters swollen their shoulders, sprained their waists, and even fell to the ground tired, none of them cried bitterly, and none of them left their posts.
One morning, the enemy outside the city launched a fierce attack, and the artillery shells blew open several gaps in the city wall, and the enemy rushed from the gap to the head of the city. The defenders of the city fought back heroically, firing fiercely at the enemy with platoon guns and grenades;
Female warriors without weapons smashed bricks and stones at the enemy, so that the enemy did not dare to look up. The Red Army soldiers in front fell, and the Red Army soldiers in the back immediately rushed up; The bricks and stones were gone, and the female warriors lifted the bricks and stones up again. After a day of fierce fighting, the Red Army soldiers repelled many enemy attacks.
At night, the wind whistles and drips into ice. The soldiers of the Red Army did not rest, some male soldiers continued to closely monitor the movements of the enemy, and the rest of the soldiers, together with the female soldiers, continued to transport bricks, stones, crock pots, etc. to the head of the city, filled the bags filled with dirt on the openings at the head of the city, poured water, and re-frozen the gaps.
The next day, the enemy continued its onslaught. The soldiers of the Red Army stubbornly persevered, fought bloodily, and fought fiercely, and there were heavy casualties on both sides. With heavy artillery fire, the enemy blasted open many gaps in the city wall. The enemy swarmed up from the gaps, using ropes and ladders to climb desperately to the head of the city. They also screamed shamelessly, "Brethren, rush! Come on! Go into the city and reward each person with a communist wife! ”
The soldiers of the Red Army were furious and fought desperately against the enemy. They used bayonets and large knives to slash the enemies who climbed to the head of the city, and some able-bodied female warriors lifted large stones above their heads and smashed them fiercely at the enemies who climbed the city walls; Some female warriors grabbed the enemy's ladder at the head of the city and shouted , " Lift!" The ladder was lifted, and the enemies on the ladder fell one after another, wounded and dead.
The enemies who climbed the city in other places were also killed by the Red Army, and the corpses were everywhere. The enemy's attacks were shattered again and again, and he had to retreat in a panic. A wounded female soldier, despite her own illness, comforted Qin Jiwei, chief of the fourth bureau of the Western Route Army Headquarters, who was seriously injured, and said: "Section chief, you can rest assured. Don't look at us as lesbians, with us, the enemy will not want to climb into the city. ”
After 3 days and nights of fierce fighting in Linze City, the unit directly under the General Headquarters of the Western Route Army decided to break through according to the instructions of the headquarters to "seek opportunities to break through." Some of the fighters of a company of the Women's Anti-Japanese Vanguard Remained in the city as cover. They attracted the enemy's main force, fought and retreated, and finally retreated to the Xiguan Tower, and insisted on resisting for two days and nights, killing and injuring many enemies.
The horse bandit army piled up firewood and burned the Xiguan Building. The female warriors of Xiguanlou were heroic and unyielding in the thick smoke and fire, and they stubbornly persevered, and many female warriors died heroically. The headquarters breakthrough troops, led by Zheng Yizhai, the head of the General Supply Department, rushed out from the north city gate, and many female fighters, because of their weakness, could not cross the large trenches outside the city, were unfortunately captured and killed. The breakthrough troops encountered enemy ambushes on the way, and the soldiers engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, and finally broke through a bloody road, rushed to the Ni family camp, and met with the general headquarters and the Thirty Army.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="53" > third, the women's group turned to Qilian Mountain and fought a deadly battle with the enemy</h1>
After a bloody battle in Gaotai, Linze and other places, the Western Route Army suffered a lot of casualties and greatly damaged its vitality. On January 23, 1937, the remaining 10,000 people of the Western Route Army were all concentrated in Nijiayingzi in Zhangye County. The enemy Ma Bufang and Ma Buqing mobilized more than 70,000 cavalry, infantry, and reactionary militia groups to surround the Ni family's sub-regiments. Therefore, in this Gobi village at the foot of qilian mountain, another fierce battle was launched.
At this time, there were only five or six hundred women's anti-Japanese vanguards, who guarded the fence during the day, dug trenches, rescued the wounded from the line of fire, and delivered ammunition and food to the troops; At night, trees are cut down to repair fortifications, and simple stretchers are made of sticks and ropes.
The Western Route Army held firm in Nijiayingzi for nearly a month, defeated dozens of large-scale enemy attacks, and killed and wounded more than 10,000 enemy soldiers, but it also suffered heavy casualties and had to break through to the east on February 21, 1937.
Five days later, the Western Route Army won a victory in an annihilation battle in the area of Xidong Fort and Longshou Fort, and returned to the Ni family camp. The enemy repeatedly besieged the Ni family camp with heavy troops, and the Western Route Army was forced to break through again and enter the Qilian Mountains to the south. The enemy's cavalry chased after the enemy, the Red Army chased the enemy along the way, and many female fighters sacrificed their young lives in the battle.
In March 1937, the Western Route Army advanced to the vicinity of the stone nest in the Qilian Mountains. The Women's Anti-Japanese Vanguard Regiment and a main force covered the general headquarters and seized the Pear Garden Pass to prevent the enemy from pursuing.
After observing the terrain of Liyuankou, regimental commander Wang Quanyuan and others decided to build a fortification with wood and stones in the middle of the flat land of the pocket-shaped valley, preparing to stubbornly block the enemy, cooperate with the main force, and buy time for the general headquarters to transfer.
At that time, the whole regiment had less than 10 rounds of ammunition per person, and there were very few grenades. When Wang Quanyuan and Wu Fulian inspected the deployment of troops in each battalion, on the one hand, they encouraged everyone to fight heroically, and on the other hand, they repeatedly told everyone to save ammunition, and they must wait for the enemy to approach before they could shoot, and strive to destroy an enemy with one bullet.
One afternoon, two enemy cavalry regiments entered the outskirts of Liyuankou. When they found that the Red Army in front of them was a female soldier, they jumped off their horses together and slowly approached Yamaguchi with their guns in an attempt to capture the female soldiers alive.
When the enemy walked twenty or thirty meters away from the position of the women's anti-Japanese vanguard regiment, Wang Quanyuan immediately ordered the shouting," "Fight!" She raised a shot and knocked down an enemy who was walking in the front; A platoon of guns of a company of the first echelon swept past, and the enemy fell down a large piece in response. The enemy, with their superior strength, charged at the Red Army again and again, and the female soldiers fell in a pool of blood on the positions one after another.
After an hour of fierce fighting, most of the female warriors were killed, the survivors' bullets were also exhausted, and the ferocious enemy approached the position step by step, Wang Quanyuan decisively ordered the fighters to quickly retreat to the mountain, and led a small number of fighters to cover behind. However, because they were outnumbered, the women's anti-Japanese vanguard regiment was finally scattered by the enemy.
On March 4, 1937, the Military and Political Committee of the Western Route Army held an emergency meeting of cadres at and above the division level at the head of Shiwo Mountain. In light of the critical situation at that time, the meeting decided to disperse the operation, and divided the existing Red Army personnel into 3 detachments and scattered deep into the mountainous areas to fight guerrillas.
Li Xiannian, Cheng Shicai, and others led more than 1,000 people from the remnants of the Red Thirty Army to form a detachment, and moved south from Shiwo to go deep into the Qilian Mountains to carry out guerrilla warfare. Wang Shusheng, Zhu Liangcai, and others led the Red Ninth Army and the remnants of the Red Fifth Army as a detachment to fight a guerrilla attack along the northern foothills of the Qilian Mountains.
Zhang Rong led more than 1,000 people, including the 15th Regiment of the Red Army, into a detachment and scattered to carry out guerrilla activities. The headquarters of the Western Route Army also decided to gather the remaining more than 300 female fighters together, reorganize the women's independent regiment, appoint Tao Wanrong as the regimental commander and Zhao Mingying as the deputy regimental commander, and lead the female fighters on the mountain to break through, contain the enemy, and cover the movements of the main forces.
That night, hundreds of female warriors broke through along a dangerous road behind Shiwo Mountain, where the enemy's defense was weak. The slope was steep in the dark, and many female warriors unfortunately fell off the cliff. Regiment commander Tao Wanrong ordered everyone to untie the straps, connect them into ropes, and tie them to the tree poles on the edge of the cliff, and one by one the female warriors pulled the ropes down the mountain, but many exhausted female fighters still unfortunately fell into the valley or fell off the line.
Their actions did attract a part of the enemy's forces, and the horse bandit cavalry surrounded them. When the enemy approached, all the female warriors participated in the battle, those with knives and guns, those without knives and guns were smashed with stones, and even some female warriors bit with their teeth and grabbed and kicked with their hands, and some female warriors grabbed the enemy and rolled off the cliff and died together. Heroic and tenacious, singing and weeping.
Wu Fulian, political commissar of the Women's Independence League, led some female fighters to hold on to a hill and fought many fierce battles with the enemy. Due to the lack of support from the lone army, after the bullets were exhausted, many female fighters died heroically, and Wu Fulian was also captured, and unfortunately martyred.
Other female fighters of the Women's Independent Regiment broke through the enemy's encirclement and moved to the Qilian Mountains, which had been covered with snow all year round. The desolate Qilian Mountains are full of ice peaks and snow ridges, deep ditches and old forests, and female warriors brave the cold of minus 20 to 30 degrees, stepping on the ice and snow, enduring the torture of hunger and Russia, crossing the mountains and mountains, and wandering among the Qilian Mountains.
Some of the female warriors led by Tao Wanrong returned to The Quanwei of Qilian Mountain Pass, and encountered the enemy's cavalry in the area of Kanglong Temple. The female warriors decided to retreat to the nearby primeval forest, but the enemy cavalry quickly caught up and the team was scattered. Finally, dozens of female warriors, led by Tao Wanrong, entered the deep mountains and dense forests.
At night, however, the temperature in the primeval forest drops to around minus 40 degrees. The women warriors, whose clothes were broken, were hungry and could not withstand the cold and hunger, and some of the female warriors fell, and the rest decided to light a campfire to keep out the cold. Unexpectedly, the fireworks attracted the pursuing enemy, Tao Wanrong and other stubborn resistance, and finally was captured by the enemy. The Women's Independent Regiment, which had fought for thousands of miles and made outstanding achievements, finally ended her tragic and magnificent journey.