In May 1960, Montgomery, a world famous player in World War II, visited China. When cordially received by Mao Zedong, he said: "The three major battles of Liaoshen, Huaihai and Pingjin commanded by Your Excellency can be compared with any great battle in the world. But Mao Zedong, with his characteristic humor, smiled and shook his head, saying: "Four crossings of red water is the proud stroke of my life!" ”
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So why did Mao Say That? How about his genius military prowess repeatedly during the Red Army period, especially before and after the Zunyi Conference?
Bookish and bookish
After the failure of the Fifth Anti-Encirclement and Suppression Campaign of the Red Army, Li De, regardless of the disparity in strength between the enemy and ourselves, still stubbornly led the Central Red Army to join forces with the 2nd and 6th Armies of He Long in western Hunan Province. Although the head of the central government is Bogu, but Li De insisted, Bogu completely accepted the order, at that time Bogu was only 24 years old, compared with the intern who had just graduated without any work experience, he also had no experience in commanding the war, because Wang Ming wanted to serve in the Communist International, in order to facilitate remote control, he entrusted the young Bogu to be in charge of the central work, and although Li De was a graduate of Frunze in the Soviet Union, in his own work experience, he only commanded the biggest battle and was only at the regiment level.
Just when Bogu was anxious for not understanding military command, Li De, who had his own aura, came to make Bogu excited, so Li De took charge of the command of the Red Army as a military adviser. But Li De commanded the operation like to do standard "map work" in front of the map, and the scale of these maps is 1:100,000, and more seriously, most of the maps he uses are general maps, not standard actual survey maps, the mountains marked on the map, but the results are rivers, so Li De also put the troops where even the machine gun mounts are, where to build a bunker are marked on the map, and then issued to the combat troops for execution. In order to join the Red Army in western Hunan as soon as possible, 300 kilometers away, Bogu and Li De had already forgotten the bitter lessons of the Xiangjiang Campaign and ordered their troops to speed up the march, but where did they know that Chiang Kai-shek and his senior staff had already figured out Li De's intentions for the march.
Turn the tide of the tide in the fall, help the building will fall
In fact, Chiang Kai-shek had already sent He Jian, chairman of Hunan Province, to ambush the 100,000-strong army on the only road for the Red Army, and Chen Cheng's 8 divisions of the Central Army were waiting for work, as well as 6 brigades of the Sichuan Army, ready to be thrown into the encirclement of the Red Army. At this time, the Red Army was only more than 30,000 people, and the Kuomintang army had 400,000 people. The ratio of strength to 1:13, when the Red Army arrived in Tongdao County, it was already very close to the enemy's encirclement, and Bogu and Li De did not realize that the real crisis was coming, but still insisted on meeting with the Red 2 and 6 Armies, in order to save the crisis, Mao Zedong, who had long lost his military power, attended the meeting as chairman of the Provisional Government of the Chinese Soviet.
Because Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, and Zhu De had all experienced the victory of Mao Zedong's command of the anti-encirclement and suppression campaign. Therefore, at this critical juncture, Zhou Enlai and others wanted to listen to Mao Zedong's views. On December 12, 1934, in gongcheng academy in Tongdao County, the cold wind was blowing through the bones and the atmosphere was quiet. The Central Military Commission has provisionally decided to convene an emergency meeting here. Participants included Bogu, Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, Mao Zedong, Wang Jiaxiang and Li De. The meeting, chaired by Zhou Enlai, focused on the direction of the Red Army's strategic shift.
Passage Transfer Meeting
At the meeting, Mao Zedong tried his best to persuade Bogu and other major leaders to abandon their original plan to join the Red Second and Sixth Armies and instead advance to Guizhou, where the enemy's strength was weak. After Mao Zedong repeatedly persuaded Zhang Wentian, Wang Jiaxiang, Zhou Enlai, and most other people to agree with Mao Zedong's correct propositions. On the basis of the opinions of the majority of the people, the meeting adopted Mao Zedong's proposal to get rid of strong enemies and move west into Guizhou. Reed withdrew early because his opinion was rejected. This is the famous "passage to the army" in history. If Mao Zedong had not been heeded, the Red Army and even the history of the Chinese revolution might have had to be rewritten. Mao was able to foresee the crisis in advance and was able to pull the Red Army back before it fell into crisis.
summary
At the beginning, not many people agreed with him, because everyone did not see the arrival of the real crisis, so there was no strong feeling, and Mao Zedong, in addition to having rich experience in war, could also grasp the most essential laws of war, not only understanding himself, but also knowing the opponent's intentions and cards. The best place was in western Hunan Province, so he expected that Chiang Kai-shek would definitely arrange a heavy ambush on the way to meet the 2nd and 6th Armies of He Longhong in western Hunan province and wait for the arrival of the Red Army.
In a memoir titled Chronicle of China, written by Li De many years later, there is a record: "After thousands of Red Army soldiers gave their lives, Mao Zedong finally got the opportunity to express his views, which shows that a subtle change is taking place at the top of the Communist Party." For Mao, this was the first time since 1932 that he had attended a high-level meeting. ”
The significance of the passage to the army is as Liu Bocheng pointed out in his book "Review of the Long March": "At that time, if chairman Mao had not resolutely advocated changing the policy, the future of the remaining 30,000 Red Army would only be destroyed. ”