The Paper's reporter Yue Huairang
In October 1937, Xu took a photo of the former deputy commander of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army in southeastern Jin.
November 8, 2021 is the 120th anniversary of the birth of Marshal Xu Qianqian.
The Surging News reporter learned from the Eighth Route Army Research Association that Lieutenant General Xu Xiaoyan, the eldest son of Marshal Xu Qianqian and deputy director of the Science and Technology Committee of the former General Armament Department of the People's Liberation Army, recently wrote an article entitled "Bright Sword, Light, Cold, Wu Kou, And Courage, Prancing Horse Conquest of Jinjilu," recalling his father's combat experience in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Public information shows that after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Xu Xiangqian attended the enlarged meeting of the Politburo convened by the CPC Central Committee in Luochuan and was elected as a member of the CPC Central Committee Revolutionary Military Commission. After the meeting, he went to Taiyuan with Zhou Enlai to negotiate with Yan Xishan and carry out the work of the anti-Japanese national united front. In August 1937, Xu was appointed deputy commander of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and participated in the command of the battles of Guangyang, Shentouling, xiangtangpu and other battles and the anti-"Nine Road Siege" in southeastern Jin.
In April 1938, Xu Xiangqian led the 129th Division and the 115th Division into the south of Hebei Province. At the same time, it is proposed to rely on the masses to establish "mountains of people" and carry out guerrilla warfare in the plains areas; at the same time, it puts forward specific tactical requirements and implementation plans, actively organizes and mobilizes the masses, expands the anti-Japanese armed forces under the leadership of the Communist Party, establishes a united front and an anti-Japanese democratic regime, adopts correct policies, integrates and transforms all kinds of old-style armed forces, opposes the armed friction provoked by the diehard Kuomintang faction, and creates the anti-Japanese base area in southern Hebei.
From January 1939, Xu Xiangqian participated in organizing and directing the spring anti-"sweep" in southern Hebei. In June of the same year, he was transferred to Shandong, where he was appointed commander of the 1st Column of the Eighth Route Army, commanding the troops of the Eighth Route Army in Shandong, northern Jiangsu, and northern Anhui, waging anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare, and repeatedly thwarting the "sweeping" of the Japanese puppet army; at the same time, adhering to the principle of independence and self-determination in the united front, actively establishing an anti-Japanese democratic regime, generally organizing various mass anti-Japanese salvation groups, and carrying out a reasonable, beneficial, and restrained struggle against the Kuomintang diehards.
Xu Xiangqian returned to Yan'an at the end of 1940. In 1942, he was appointed deputy commander of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Jinsui United Defense Army, and later president of the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. In June 1945, he was elected as a member of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
The following is the full text of General Xu Xiaoyan's article:
November 8th of this year is the 120th anniversary of the birth of his father Xu Xiangqian, also known as "Shuangjiazi" in the folk. On this quiet night, I looked at the battle diary left by my father more than 70 years ago, and the scene of my father fighting on the front line of the anti-Japanese war appeared in my mind again.
Prancing Horse too line
Only one and a half months after the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance, from August 22 to 25, 1937, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held an enlarged meeting of the Politburo in Luochuan, Shaanxi. Father sat on a bench at the back of the room, with a table in front of him. He listened attentively to and savored Mao Zedong's reports on military issues, relations with the Kuomintang, and the Party's basic tasks during the War of Resistance Against Japan. The meeting clearly pointed out the Party's operational policy, that is, guerrilla warfare that is basically independent and autonomous, but does not relax the mobile warfare under favorable conditions. At this meeting, my father was elected as a member of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China. On the day of the Luochuan Conference, Ye Jianying, a representative of the CPC attending the Nanjing National Defense Conference, sent a telegram, and through the repeated efforts of Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and other CPC deputies, an agreement was finally reached with the Nanjing Government to reorganize the Red Army into the "Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army," with Zhu De as the commander-in-chief and Peng Dehuai as the deputy commander-in-chief, and the 115th, 120th, and 129th Divisions. Accordingly, Mao Zedong issued an order in the name of the newly established Revolutionary Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee, announcing that the Red Army would be renamed the "Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army", with Liu Bocheng, commander of the 129th Division, and Xu Xiangqian, deputy division commander.
After the Luochuan Conference, the General Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army led the 115th And 120th Divisions to the Shanxi Battlefield first, while the 129th Division stayed behind to defend the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia base area. As the main forces of the Eighth Route Army advanced toward Shanxi, they needed to negotiate with Yan Xishan, commander-in-chief of the Second Theater, to negotiate a series of thorny issues such as the route of advance, the area of activity, the principles of operation, command relations, and logistical support. On the evening of August 29, Mao Zedong said to his father at his residence in Fengjia Village: "You are a native of Shanxi, and you are a fellow villager with Yan Xishan, so you and Comrade Enlai should go to Taiyuan and do the work of Yan Xishan." My father, the deputy commander of the 129th Division, who had not yet had time to take up his post in the army, received an important mission and took the lead in rushing to the front line of the War of Resistance. First, he and Jude took an American Jemsey truck and braved the rain to rush the road. After arriving at the headquarters of He Long and Xiao Ke of the 120th Division in Zhuangli Town, Yao County, after meeting Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen, they crossed the Wei River and took a train to Xi'an. Jiang Dingwen, chairman of the Kuomintang Shaanxi Provincial Government, had already arranged a special train for the eighth route army generals to Shanxi. On the night of September 5, my father, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Nie Rongzhen, Xiao Ke, Cheng Zihua, and the Kuomintang general Zhang Zhizhong, went to Shanxi in the same car. On September 7, Dad accompanied Zhou Enlai, Peng Dehuai, and Peng Xuefeng in a car from the Eighth Route Army Office in Jin, and under the guidance of Liang Huazhi's pilot car, they rode all the way to the Lingkou Camp of Yanxi Mountain, west of Yanmen Pass. Yan Xishan took off his civilian clothes and changed into a military uniform, and said to his father with a smile on his face: "Fellow villagers, welcome!" ”
Under the leadership of Zhou Enlai, his father seized on Yan Xishan's psychology of welcoming and fearing both the Eighth Route Army, and argued on the basis of reason, and finally Yan Xishan had to accept the legitimate suggestions and demands put forward by the Eighth Route Army. His father also cooperated with Zhou Enlai to carry out extensive united front work in Taiyuan. He participated in helping Yan Xishan to formulate the battle plan of the Second Theater, dredged up the relationship between Yan and Fu Zuoyi, commander of the Seventh Army, and delivered anti-Japanese speeches to Yan Xishan's army, government, organs and schools. Dad also used our party's policy and line to influence Zhao Daiwen, the principal of his study at Taiyuan Normal School and chairman of the Shanxi Provincial Government, to absorb our party's experience in mobilizing the masses, organizing the masses, and arming the masses, and to use his concurrent position as deputy director of the Shanxi Provincial General Mobilization Implementation Committee to set up some "people's self-defense armed forces" organizations. Soon after, my father returned to his hometown in Wutai to visit his parents, and he seized this opportunity to do united front work, met with some senior officers of the Yan Army one after another, talked about the principles of resisting Japan and the experience of leading troops, and was invited to hold talks and lectures for lower-ranking officers of friendly armies to analyze the situation, introduce the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare, talk about the necessity of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists, and build confidence in the War of Resistance. In view of the phenomenon of corrupt discipline in friendly forces, we will focus on how to strengthen political work and how to love, unite, and rely on the people. Undoubtedly, these united front work has played a great role in promoting the strategic development of the Eighth Route Army in Shanxi.
Anti-Japanese six-way siege. After the fall of Taiyuan, the 129th Division went to southeastern Jin, preparing to persist in guerrilla warfare for a long time, dispersing its troops and going to the masses to propagate anti-Japanese propaganda. On December 22, the Japanese army, relying on its superiority in weapons and equipment, launched a "six-way siege" against the 129th Division. His father entrusted the teaching leadership of the Jinjiyu Military and Political School to others, and concentrated all his strength on the battle of commanding the anti-Six-Way Siege together with Liu Bocheng. The Japanese deliberately exposed their flanks in the attack, lured us to attack, wrapped one around, and then suddenly pounced on the outer flank with its main force, this tactic really worked at first, the Japanese thought they had succeeded, and the offensive became more and more fierce. On the 24th, my father personally went to the front line, with the regular army and the guerrillas cooperating, the internal line of operations and the outside line of operations, avoiding the enemy's strong points, attacking weaknesses, avoiding the enemy's front, hitting the enemy's wing, sneaking up on the tired enemy, ambushing the enemy in motion, seeking local annihilation of the enemy, and accumulating small victories into big victories. Under the command of Liu Bocheng and him, a unit of the Eighth Route Army first bluffed with a small force to lure the enemy's main force and "stick" the enemy to the inside line, and then quickly and covertly circled behind the enemy's ass with the main force and attacked his back. The Japanese army was hit by this blow, and the aircraft cannon suddenly lost its place of use, and it was difficult to take care of each other, and more than 400 people were annihilated at once. In the other five directions, the Japanese army did not get any advantage, so they had to lose in the direction of the original attack.
Ringing hall pavement ambush battle. In March 1938, the Japanese army invading southern Jinnan and western Jin attempted to cross the Yellow River from jinnan and expelled the 115th and 129th divisions of the Eighth Route Army from western Jinxi and southeastern Jin, in order to consolidate the occupied areas of southern Jinnan, stabilize the rear, wait for the opportunity to break through the natural dangers of the Yellow River, and realize their predetermined attempt to meet the Japanese army on Jinpu Road to join Longhai Road, take Wuhan in the south, and seize Xi'an in the west. To this end, the Japanese continued to attack the crossings of the Yellow River. On the Chang (Zhi) Avenue in Handan (郸) and on the road from Changzhi to Linfen, convoys of large and small Japanese troops, under fully armed vigilance, carried wounded soldiers and combat materials day and night. In order to sabotage the strategic plan of the Japanese army and delay its action, the father and Liu Bocheng decided to give the enemy a more severe blow. Liu Bocheng received a notice to go to the headquarters to attend the meeting of the generals of the Eastern Route Army, and put the battle under the command of his father. After careful study, my father and the brigade commanders Chen Geng and Chen Xilian selected Xiangtangpu as the battlefield for ambushing the Japanese transport team in several sections of the highway from Licheng to Xiangxian county, because the road near Xiangtangpu was along the river, the southern slope of the road was small, and the north slope of the road went down to the riverbed, which was convenient for ambush operations. Before the war, my father made careful arrangements, such as the time of entering the position, secrecy and air defense, communication and liaison, and even the preparation of the relevant departments of the organs to clean up the battlefield, collect booty, and shelter and treat the wounded. On the evening of the 31st, the regiments began to march towards Xiangtangpu and entered the ambush area before dawn the next day as required. After dawn, the ambush troops reported that there were enemy cavalry moving toward our flank on the southeastern highlands of Changning. Brigade Commander Chen Geng suspected that the enemy had discovered our army's attempt to set up an ambush, so he took the plan into account, encircled the rear road, and asked whether to withdraw from the position. In the face of this unexpected situation, Dad instructed Chen Geng not to change the original plan, and quickly sent two of the most effective staff officers around him to go out to Dongyang Pass and Su Jiajiao to spy on the truth, and the so-called "enemy cavalry" turned out to be a few donkeys driven by the common people, and everyone admired his father's calmness under unexpected circumstances. At 8:30 a.m., more than 180 Japanese vehicles formed a 2-kilometer long snake array from Licheng through Dongyang Pass to xiangtangpu road, and at about 9 o'clock, the Japanese army completely entered the pocket of our ambush. At the order of his father, the light and heavy firearms of the Eighth Route Army opened fire at the same time, and the explosions and shouts of killing shook the earth, and after two hours of fierce fighting, more than 400 enemy people were killed and wounded, and more than 180 cars were destroyed. The news of the victory reached the headquarters of the Eastern Route Army in the Second Theater, and Zhu Dehuai, commander-in-chief, and Peng Dehuai, deputy commander-in-chief, immediately invited the Kuomintang generals attending the meeting to visit Xiangtangpu. Master Liu Bocheng praised: "Moving forward is still the courage of the year, calm and decisive!" ”
Ji'nan Plain creates "human mountains"
In April 1938, according to the instructions of the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong to carry out guerrilla warfare on the plains, the main force of the 129th Division was ordered by the headquarters to quickly carry out a strategy from the Taihang Mountains to the southern Hebei and northern Henan plains and along the railway line. On April 23, the main force of the division, with Pinghan Road as the dividing line, was organized into two columns on the left and right, of which the left column was the main one, and the 769th Regiment, the 689th Regiment of the 115th Division, and the 5th Detachment of Zeng Guohua led by his father advanced to the south of Hebei. On May 7, the left column entered Nangong, the political and economic center of southern Hebei. At that time, the Nangong area had Zhao Yunxiang's Second Road of the Nationalist Army in the north, Liu Lihui in the east, and japanese puppet troops in the south. Father first pointed the spearhead of the attack at the Japanese puppet army to the south. On the 10th, the Eighth Route Army attacked Wei County, and the Japanese puppet army stationed in Wei County, Linqing and other places abandoned the city and fled. On the basis of in-depth study of the practice of building the plain base areas, my father put forward the idea of "creating 'people's mountains' in the plain area" and wrote an article entitled "Carrying Out Guerrilla Warfare in Hebei", which was published in the weekly magazine "Masses" on May 21, 1938, enriching Chairman Mao's theory of anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare. To create a "mountain of people" is to build southern Hebei into a consolidated base area. In addition to resisting the Japanese puppet army, cracking down on reactionary organizations, transforming or incorporating miscellaneous troops, and opposing the Kuomintang diehards have become the three major tasks in building base areas.
The Sixth Departure Association is a feudal Guild Daomen organization entrenched in the Nangong area, claiming to be 50,000 people, except for a few backbone elements, the vast majority of whom are fooled peasants. This organization, controlled by reactionary landlords and traitors, once attacked the troops of the Eighth Route Army by force and brutally killed the cadres and fighters of the Eighth Route Army. Father discussed and studied with Comrades Chen Zaidao, Song Renqian, Liu Zhijian, and other comrades, put forward the principle of "three points of military and seven points of politics," and decided to adopt effective measures such as arming propaganda with the main forces, dividing and disintegrating their organizations, winning over the masses, and resolutely suppressing reactionary leaders. The Eighth Route Army first detained Li Yaoting, the leader of the Sixth Departure Committee and a traitor, and invited some of the leaders to come to the Nangong for negotiations. However, some of the leaders of the Sixth Detachment in the southeastern area of Nangong actually entangled more than 10,000 people and took the initiative to launch an attack on the Eighth Route Army, threatening to take down Nangong City and drive the Eighth Route Army back to the Taihang Mountains, and their arrogance was very arrogant. In order to reduce the casualties of the other side and strive to awaken the deceived masses, my father decided to adopt the common defensive tactics of the ancient battlefield in the West, one company or one battalion for a square team, and when the six departures will rush in, aim at the size of their attack and shoot them, repel them, and never pursue them. After several rounds of competition, the six members of the society broke up. On May 17, the local government of the Communist Party and the eighth route army held a meeting of 10,000 people to announce the ban on the Sixth Departure Organization. Subsequently, a number of task forces were formed to carry out political propaganda in various villages and towns, mobilized members to hand over the so-called legal clothes and amulets, held a sentencing meeting, and executed Li Yaoting, Gao Dakui, and other leaders of the Taoist association. Under the powerful political offensive of our army, in the face of facts, many deceived members have awakened, and many have signed up to join the Anti-Japanese Self-Defense Force. In just over two months, the six detachments of more than 50,000 people will be completely destroyed, and the anti-Japanese base areas in nangong, Jixian, Zaoqiang, and Hengshui areas will also be connected.
After the "July 7 Incident", the "crowds" of heroes in the Southern Hebei Plain began to rise. Some local forces have raised the banner of the War of Resistance, and various miscellaneous armed forces have spread throughout the villages, townships, and towns in more than 30 cities and counties in southern Hebei. According to the instruction of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that the miscellaneous armed forces in southern Hebei must be transformed or reorganized so as not to be used by the Japanese and others, my father decided to adopt the policy of dividing and integrating all kinds of anti-Japanese armed forces, and adopting the policy of attaching equal importance to military strikes and political disintegration to the puppet army. In late May 1938, the main force led by his father eliminated more than 1,000 people in the "Imperial Allied Army" of the traitors Zhang Pingqing and Feng Wuqiao in one fell swoop near Linqing, and then fought continuously to eliminate more than 1,000 people from the han traitors Li Dianqing and Li Shoulan. Under the powerful offensive of our army, the puppet army in southern Hebei abandoned the secret and threw themselves into the light, and the entire company and battalion defected as many as 3,000 people anyway. With regard to the miscellaneous armed forces, my father, on the basis of its characteristics of "mixed political objectives, mixed organizational components, and mixed internal and external relations," gave a guarantee to the armed forces that were willing to resist Japan together with the Eighth Route Army and voluntarily participated in the common war of resistance, and made a guarantee that they would not be treated equally, would not surrender their guns, would not be reorganized, and would help them make progress. These principles have caused a great shock within the variegated armed forces in the southern Hebei region and accelerated the progress of the reorganization work. For example, Duan Haizhou, commander of the "Young Anti-Japanese Volunteer Regiment," led more than 6,000 people to accept the reorganization of the Eighth Route Army; the "Anti-Japanese Self-Defense Army" with more than 3,000 people also took the initiative to accept the reorganization. While my father reorganized and transformed the variegated armed forces, he resolutely attacked the diehards in it. The "Loyal National Salvation Army" led by Yang Yukun of Zaoqiang County, opposed the Eighth Route Army, secretly communicated with the Japanese Kou, and after his father grasped a large number of his criminal facts, he led the 769 regiment to attack together with Liu Zhijian, captured Yang and sent him to the Taihang Mountains and incorporated the troops in the city. After arduous work, in more than two months, dozens of miscellaneous armed forces of various sizes in more than 20 counties in Nangong Fangyuan successively joined the ranks of the Eighth Route Army, and the troops expanded to 18,500 people.
Chiang Kai-shek called the Communists' establishment of anti-Japanese guerrilla base areas "Ming Xiu Zhan Dao and Secret Chen Cang"; he secretly ordered Yan Xishan to create friction in Shanxi and sabotage the anti-Japanese regime, and sent Lu Zhonglin as the "chairman of the Hebei Provincial Government" to bring a group of hardcore anti-communist elements to the base areas to compete for the political power established by the Communist Party at all levels. My father held that the struggle between "friction" and anti-"friction" has a direct bearing on the building of political power in the base areas and on the construction of the "mountains of people" in the plains, and it is necessary to confront Chiang Kai-shek tit-for-tat and never back down. When Lu Zhonglin first arrived in Hebei, in accordance with the principle of the CPC Central Committee "demanding that Lu maintain the status quo for everything, recognize fait accomplis, not harm the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in North China, and advance the military administration in accordance with the established policy," dad held a grand welcome meeting in the Nangong Palace attended by people and masses from all walks of life in Hebei and Lu provinces. As soon as the General Assembly is over, small meetings are held to negotiate. It was immediately proposed in public that the provincial government should formally appoint the elected chairman of the provincial government, the leader of the special bureau, and the county chiefs of various counties, and Lu Zhonglin had no choice but to approve. The establishment of the Office of the Administrative Director of Ji'nan marks the formal formation of the anti-Japanese base area in southern Hebei. However, Lu Zhonglin openly and covertly snared anti-communist fish soldiers and shrimp generals, used a combination of money bribery and counter-revolutionary lobbying to compete with the Communist Party for miscellaneous arms, and also reached an agreement with Shen Honglie, an anti-communist expert in Shandong, on "Hebei-Lu joint defense." Father tit-for-tat, adopted the principle of "you do yours, I do mine", extensively mobilized the masses, supported the work of the commissioners, county chiefs, and district chiefs of the special districts of the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army, and supported them in exercising their functions and powers as usual. Lu Zhonglin saw that he was not an opponent, and finally became infamous and escaped from Ji'nan.
In order to counter the "great sweep" of the Japanese Kou, in October 1938, in view of the situation in which the enemy was bound to open up the Pinghan Line and consolidate both sides of the Pinghan Line after occupying Wuhan, my father asked the troops to raise a large amount of grain, clothing, and money as soon as possible to make material preparations, and to slow down the enemy's attack by digging more road ditches, setting up roadblocks, destroying roads, and emptying the wilderness, not to die in the county towns and villages, and to rely on the vast countryside to disperse guerrilla attacks, and if they do not fight, they will win, and if they attack day and night, they will leave when they fight. In mid-November, the Japanese army began to implement the operational policy of "first controlling the plains, then attacking the mountains", and began the first "sweep" of the Ji'nan Plain. The Japanese army concentrated more than 3,700 people and dispatched in four ways to encircle nangong county in the center of the Ji'nan base area. Dad first commanded the troops to cover the transfer of cadres from the special office and the county and district organs, and the main force was reduced to pieces, transferred to the countryside to carry out guerrilla warfare on the plains with the enemy, and personally led the command to fight in the junction areas of Nangong, Weixian and Qinghe. The anti-"sweeping" struggle that lasted for 16 days, the military and the people cooperated in 28 battles, annihilating more than 600 enemy personnel, forcing the enemy to finally retreat to their old nests. After a period of respite, the Japanese army began a larger "sweep" of Ji'nan on January 7, 1939. The Japanese army concentrated more than 30,000 people, dispatched from the east and west lines of Pinghan and Jinpu in 11 routes, adopted the tactics of steady and steady fighting, step by step as a battalion, and encircled the central area of southern Hebei in an attempt to wipe out the Eighth Route Army in the areas of Ji county, Nangong, and Wei county and control the plain area. His father, together with Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, who were in the Nangong Palace at this time, jointly studied and put forward the operational policy of "first collapsing and then cleaning up," that is, taking the initiative to give up some major county towns and strongholds, putting the enemy in, dragging the enemy around in circles on the Great Plains, dragging the enemy almost to the point of retreat, and then turning to the counter-offensive and cleaning up the situation step by step. They dispersed the main forces to various guerrilla areas, combined with local armed forces, and carried out guerrilla warfare flexibly and flexibly, seeking opportunities to annihilate the enemy. When the main force of the enemy occupied nangong, Jixian, Zaoqiang and other county towns, the Eighth Route Army immediately moved to the enemy's flank, blew up the enemy's train, and broke the enemy's bridge. The enemy then carried out "shuttle" "sweeps" in Nangong, Julu, Weixian, Guangzong, and other places, repeatedly pulling over and pulling over. In this regard, the main force of the Eighth Route Army took the initiative to transfer to northern Henan, and left many guerrilla groups in the central area of southern Hebei, firing a shot to change places, and skillfully fighting with the enemy. After more than 400 large and small battles, the Eighth Route Army annihilated more than 5,000 Japanese puppet troops, enabling the base areas of the Southern Hebei Plain to develop and grow in the course of anti-"sweeping."
Smoke Qilu
After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression entered the stage of stalemate, major changes took place in the national situation. The Japanese invading army basically stopped attacking on the frontal battlefield, mainly carried out political inducements against the Kuomintang, supplemented by military offensives, transferred most of its troops to the battlefield behind enemy lines, and pointed the spearhead of the attack at the anti-Japanese base areas under the leadership of the Communist Party. Although the pro-AMERICAN and British faction represented by Chiang Kai-shek continued to resist Japan, it showed great waveringness and pursued a policy of passive resistance to Japan and active anti-communism, while the friction between the Kuomintang diehards and the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army became more and more open. In Shandong, Chiang Kai-shek sent Yu Xuezhong as commander of the Sulu Theater, and Shen Honglie as deputy commander and chairman of the Shandong provincial government, leading more than 100,000 regular troops and local armed forces to compete with the Eighth Route Army. In December 1938, after more than a year of arduous struggle, the local anti-Japanese forces in Shandong developed greatly and established the Shandong Column of the Eighth Route Army; in the same month, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army entered Shandong. At that time, there were three communist armed forces in Qilu, namely the Shandong Column, the Eastward Anti-Japanese Advance Column, and the Suluyu Anti-Japanese Detachment, with a total strength of 70,000 troops. In order to strengthen the party's centralized and unified leadership over the anti-Japanese armed forces in Shandong, the CPC Central Committee, in accordance with the proposal of the Northern Bureau, made a decision by the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army: Xu Xiangqian, Zhu Rui, and others were transferred to shandong to lead the anti-Japanese resistance. On June 7, 1939, my father gazed at the "Renshan Mountain" of the plain that he had personally raised, waved goodbye to Ji'nan, met Zhu Rui from Shanxi at Guantao, and led more than 100 outstanding military commanders and political cadres selected from the Headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, the Field Political Department, and the Kang Da Yi Branch School to march towards qilu. On August 1, with the approval of the central authorities, the first column of the Eighth Route Army was formally formed, with Xu as the former commander and Zhu Rui as the political commissar, and unified command of the eighth route army units in Shandong and northern Jiangsu. In order to facilitate the struggle against the enemy and establish an anti-Japanese national united front, on August 10 and 18, my father and Zhu Rui twice published inauguration telegrams in Shandong's "Mass Daily," which had a tremendous impact in the military, political, public opinion, and nongovernmental circles.
Stepping onto the land of Qilu, my father immediately felt that the Eighth Route Army was unstable here, and without political power and base areas, Shandong could only be regarded as a guerrilla zone. Dad always stressed that the revolution should have its own world, in Eyuwan has its own world, in Sichuan and Shaanxi has its own world, in Ji'nan also engaged in a piece of its own world, the so-called own world, in his words is "the party's world, the people's world." At that time, because Wang Ming's right-leaning capitulationist ideas once affected the development of the anti-Japanese base areas in Shandong, "everything went through the united front," and the Kuomintang government did not give the Eighth Route Army grain, socks, and ammunition, and the troops "asked for food for flowers." Wherever they went, wherever they went, they ate and did not eat, and tens of thousands of troops dressed, ate, and treated their wounds and illnesses. When he first arrived in Shandong, his father immediately realized the urgency of establishing political power, so he first sought out Yu Xuezhong, commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Lusu Theater. Yu Xuezhong not only secretly and resolutely supported Zhang Xueliang in launching the "Xi'an Incident", was deeply dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek's imprisonment of Zhang Xueliang, and was also dissatisfied with the Communist Party, and also led troops to fight the Red Army. In the ten years of civil war, Dad and Yu Xuezhong fought many battles, once you and I were opponents of life and death, at the moment of national peril, the two enemies met in the narrow road of the Yimeng Mountains, for the sake of the anti-Japanese national righteousness, the two met like old friends, both were full of smiles. When his father came to visit, Yu Xuezhong respected him very much, but when his father proposed to establish a "political regime", Yu Xuezhong did not agree. His father argued that Yu Xuezhong had no choice but to agree to the Eighth Route Army's establishment of political power. Dad focused on fighting for unity for Xuezhong, while he adopted an isolation and crackdown on the anti-communist diehard Shen Honglie. In the second half of 1939, the Kuomintang diehards took advantage of the anti-Japanese sentiment of the masses and did not hesitate to expand their power in various places. On the one hand, the Eighth Route Army and the democratic regime mobilized the masses to actively sign up for the army; on the other hand, they paid attention to winning and absorbing the miscellaneous armed forces willing to resist the war, and "tug-of-war" with the Kuomintang in terms of manpower, and by the first half of 1940, the Shandong column had soared from 25,000 to 51,000. At the same time, the intrusion of the diehards is resolutely cracked down. In late August 1939, he personally deployed the Shandong Column in the anti-stubborn campaign in the Luzhongzi River Valley. In a few days of continuous fighting, the Eighth Route Army took Zichuan and other places, eliminated one part of Qin Qirong's recalcitrant army, reorganized one, and surrendered more than 2,000 guns, which dealt a blow to the arrogance of the diehards. This flexible method of struggle effectively promoted the building of the anti-Japanese regime, and by the end of 1940, the county power had grown to more than 90, with an administrative director's office, 14 special offices, and more than 250 district powers. Yu Xuezhong and his generals exclaimed, "Xu Qiangqiang of the Communist Party is strong! ”
In view of the situation of the struggle in which the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression had entered a stalemate stage, the party Central Committee and Mao Zedong promptly put forward a strategic instruction for consolidating the base areas in North China and focusing on developing guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines in the five provinces of Lusu, Anhui, Henan, and Hubei; in view of the characteristics of Shandong, which has a large number of guns and a relatively large development potential, they demanded that Shandong regard the development of the armed forces as the center of all work, and strive to develop the regular troops and backbone guerrilla units of the Eighth Route Army to 150,000 guns and more than 1 million local armed forces within 1940, so as to advance toward central China in a timely manner. To achieve this goal, my father, Zhu Rui, Luo Ronghuan and others did a lot of work. They have improved the quality of the troops through political work, party building, organizational discipline, and so on; they have intensified the education and training of the troops through such means as running schools from top to bottom and by selecting and sending them to school for further study; they have adopted the method of mutual exchanges between cadres and combat backbones to promote mutual learning and common improvement of the two main forces in Shandong, so that this unit has realized the "regularization of the main army corps, the basicization of local armed forces, the organization of guerrillas, the universalization of self-defense regiments, the absolutization of party leadership, the tenacity of combat effectiveness, the activeness of action, and the hardship of life." The grand goal of "strictening discipline" not only fulfilled the strategic tasks entrusted by the Party Central Committee, but also laid the guarantee for victory in smashing the "new sweep" of the Japanese Kou. The so-called "new sweep", according to Dad's summary, is to strengthen the regime of traitors, using traitors and spies to sabotage, and so on. In view of these characteristics, my father commanded the troops to adopt flexible and diverse tactical means such as guerrilla warfare, sabotage warfare, sparrow warfare and ambush warfare, and dealt a fierce blow to the enemy and won victories again and again. These victories have demonstrated the tenacious will of the military and people of Shandong to fight, and have also promoted the development and growth of the troops.
In early June 1940, at the Qingtuo Temple command post between Linyi and Menglianggu, his father received a telegram from the Central Committee asking him to return to Yan'an to prepare for the Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of China. He quickly explained his work to Comrades Zhu Rui and Li Yu, and embarked on a combat journey back to Yan'an with more than 50 people, returning to Yan'an after a difficult journey of half a year. Shandong has always been a place where soldiers and families must fight, and Shandong's problems have always been complicated. The enemy has a japanese, a pseudo-, and a stubborn force, and our side has three parallel troops with very different sources, and it is by no means easy to twist several units into a rope and defeat the Japanese, the pseudo-japanese, and the stubborn. Later, when Zhu Rui returned to the Yan'an Party School, he once quipped: "When I first arrived in Shandong, I felt that the situation in Shandong was like a basket of eggs, and I didn't bother to bring it up." After working for a while, I felt that I could not lift it with my hands and needed to be picked with a flat shoulder. Later, it was difficult to pick and choose, and I had to use my back, and finally I felt that my back was also difficult, so I went here to study. This shows the difficulty of his father and Zhu Rui working and fighting in Shandong at that time. From June 1939 to June 1940, his father worked and lived in Shandong for a whole year, fighting all over the land of Qilu, contributing his full strength to the cause of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in Shandong, and after returning to Yan'an, he still paid attention to the situation on the anti-Japanese front in Shandong.
In the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Chinese Communists, with their weak strength, firm faith, and great spirit of sacrifice, led the people to compose magnificent poems of the War of Resistance in the battlefield behind enemy lines, and became the mainstay of the anti-Japanese army and people. Today, those of us who have not gone through that war, reading the blood-stained war records left by our fathers and reliving the course of our ancestors' battles for national independence and liberation, can truly perceive what are the "outstanding descendants of the Chinese nation," what is the "backbone of the Chinese nation," and what is "the future and hope of the Chinese nation."
Editor-in-Charge: Jiang Chenrui