Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai were in Yan'an in 1938.
Two bands of bandits, one bright and one dark
After the peaceful settlement of the Xi'an Incident, the anti-Japanese united front was initially formed, and in January 1937, the Party Central Committee moved from Bao'an to Yan'an. At that time, seventy or eighty miles south of Yan'an City, there was a political bandit, initially formed by the Kuomintang Yichuan County Party Department, and later defected to the Kuomintang Ganquan County Party Department. They loot materials, maim the people, spy on military intelligence, spread rumors, sabotage the united front, and are extremely harmful to society.
At the beginning of April, the Northwest Protection Bureau (later renamed the Border District Security Department) held a meeting and decided to set up the Southern Front Bandit Suppression Headquarters, appointing Wu Tailiang, director of the Yan'an County Security Bureau, as commander, Jia Tengyun as political commissar, and leading members as Su Baoquan and Han Xiangji, who had served as secretaries of the county party committee and deputy secretaries of the county party committee. The meeting made it clear that Jia Tengyun was responsible for the work of winning over the bandits; The suppression of bandits was drawn by the Guanzhong Security Bureau with a platoon, the Northwest Security Bureau with a platoon and a squad, and the Yan'an County Security Bureau with a guard squad.
Soon, after assembling at XiaolaoShan, the team crossed the avenue beam and Gaofang Mountain, crossed NanniWan, and came to Jinbin Bay, which is often infested with bandits, which is densely forested and sparsely populated. The headquarters actively carried out its work and quickly found out the situation of the bandits: the two groups were clearly distinguished, the local habitual bandits were clear, and the leaders were Li Qingwu and Wang Zhongyang, the great uncles of the Brotherhood; The dark one is the vigilante group, more than 80 people, living in Yunyan Town, which is more than 20 miles away from Linzhen, and the regiment is always a big inferior gentleman ji on the street of Linzhen to prolong his life. These two forces colluded with each other to commit misdeeds, and it was the Kuomintang Ganquan County Party Department that directly manipulated them, and the diehard forces in the Kuomintang Shaanxi Provincial Party Department in the background. They are mostly locals, familiar with the terrain, have many relatives and friends, are well informed, and have good weapons. On the basis of these circumstances, the Southern Front Bandit Command called for an increase in strength. Soon, an independent regiment of more than 200 people marched into Linzhen under the leadership of regimental commander Bai Shoukang and political commissar Li Taiyuan.
Seeing that our strength was growing, Li Qingwu's bandits secretly instigated the vigilante groups to defect to them. After receiving the information, Wu Tailiang and others wrote a letter to report the situation to the party committee of the border region and put forward a request to crack down on the bandits as soon as possible. Soon after, I received a reply, in which I instructed that we should maintain the united front and "not fight, but try our best to fight."
The commissar was plotted against
According to the instructions of the Party Committee of the Border Region, our side began negotiations with the bandits in the Madong River. Our representative is Political Commissar Jia Tengyun. Jia worked as a bandit, then mixed into the revolution, and became the political commissar of the temporary Red Fifth Regiment during the Red Army's crusade. When the bandits spied on Jia's experience, they became intimate with him. Under the co-optation and corrosion of the bandits, Jia Tengyun eventually colluded with him and jointly plotted to assassinate Wu Tailiang and lead the team to defect to the Kuomintang. In order to paralyze Wu, every time Jia came back from negotiations, he had to say some good things about the bandits, preaching that the possibility of successful negotiations was very high. But the masses reported that banditry was still frequent, which alerted Wu.
At the same time, Jia Tengyun found four people in the guard squad to secretly do the work of rebellion. One day, after Jia returned from Madongchuan, he told Wu Tailiang that it would be almost the same to talk again tomorrow. In fact, he had made an appointment with the bandits: The next night, as soon as he and Wu Tailiang passed there, they would fire their guns and signal that the bandits who were ambushed on the opposite mountain would rush down the mountain to meet them. This night he worked as the head of the guard squad, Li Tianjie, an old Red Army soldier who had come from the Long March, and was furious when he heard that he was going to defect, but he cleverly and superficially agreed. When Jia was about 4 a.m. before he was ready to move, he ran to Wu Tailiang in time to report the news. Wu immediately decided to wake up the guard squad, and after the deployment, Jia Tengyun, who had brought people, was successfully arrested. Because the bandits did not hear the gunshots, they did not dare to act that night.
The next day, Wu Tailiang sent Jia Tengyun back to Yan'an, wrote a detailed report to the party committee of the border area, and proposed to surround the bandits and order them to be surrendered, and if they did not hand over, they would be eliminated. However, the leaders at higher levels were worried about affecting the united front and replied: "Continue to grasp the situation."
Zhou Enlai's ambush caused the border area to shake
The bandits' plots and tricks were foiled one after another, but they still struggled to the death, actively expanded their strength to more than 200 people, moved west to both sides of the Ganquan Laoshan Highway, and collected the hooligans to spy on military intelligence. Wu Tailiang wrote a letter to the party committee of the border region on this new situation, proposing that passing vehicles and cadres should be vigilant against bandit attacks. The party committee of the border region wrote back to warn it to heighten its vigilance, but not to give up the possibility of winning the battle easily.
At this time, the bandit's agent Jiang Haifu was hidden at the mouth of the West River and the Anjia Temple, and Feng Changdou had entered Yan'an and covertly observed the traffic near the parking lot under the Phoenix Mountain. Feng found that a large truck was parked there and guarded day and night, and when he heard that the Communist Party was going to send someone to Nanjing to negotiate with Old Chiang Kai-shek about the reorganization of the Red Army, he reported it to the bandit leader Li Qingwu. Judging that the Communist leaders were on a trip recently, Lee decided to ambush the bandits on the hills east of the Laoshan Highway.
On the morning of 25 April, Vice Chairman Zhou Enlai and his party set off from Yan'an in that truck, sitting in the cab with their entourage in the trunk, including Zhang Yunyi, deputy chief of the general staff of the Central Military Commission, Kong Shiquan, head of the General Staff Office, Chen Youcai, deputy officer of Vice Chairman Zhou, Wu Tao, a reporter, and a guard platoon led by platoon leader Chen Guoqiao. When the car marched into the densely forested Laoshan Mountain, it was suddenly shot by the bandits, the driver was shot and killed, Zhou Enlai jumped out of the cab alertly to direct the battle, Zhang Yunyi immediately ordered Chen Youcai to cover Zhou Enlai's transfer, and ordered Chen Guoqiao to shoot at Dongshan. Chen Youcai was injured in the leg and could not move, so he returned fire in the car. Zhang Yunyi covered Zhou Enlai's move west. Outnumbered, Chen Youcai and 11 guards all died heroically. The bandits rushed down the hill and searched for Zhou Enlai's business card in Chen's jacket pocket, thinking that he was Zhou Enlai, and after stabbing him several times, they withdrew.
The next day, the Party Committee of the Border Region held an emergency meeting and decided to send elite troops to encircle and cut off the bandits' retreat route from the south; The surrounding counties jointly suppressed and launched mass reports and exposés, and at the same time appointed Wu Tailiang as the commander-in-chief of the bandits.
In less than a month, Wu Tailiang led his troops to suppress this band of bandits, and Ji Yanshou, Li Qingwu, Feng Changdou, Jiang Haifu and others were summarily executed after public trial.
——Excerpted from The Collection of Party History, No. 2, 2019
Author: Hui Jinyi
Edit: Jin Jiuchao