Author: Cadillo
In October 1935, the Shaanxi-Gansu detachment of the Red Army successfully arrived at wuqi town in northern Shaanxi and met with the red 15th army under the command of Xu Haidong and others. When the chairman and General Manager Peng went to the red 15 corps station to offer condolences, Xu Haidong proposed to the chairman in person that the red 25 army has been active outside for a long time, many rules and regulations are not perfect, and they do not understand various things that occur within the army.
After deliberation by the superiors, a number of cadres, including Zhou Shidi, Song Shilun, Wang Shoudao, Chen Qihan, Feng Wenbin, Zhang Chunqing, Huang Zhen, Tang Tianji, Yang Qiquan, Zhou Biquan, Wu Xiuquan, and Bi Shiti, were successively dispatched to the Red 15th Army. Among them, Zhou Shidi and Song Shilun were the first to arrive in the army, the former serving as the chief of staff of the regiment, and the latter serving as the chief of the regimental operations section. Song Shilun graduated from the fifth phase of the Whampoa Military Academy and has rich experience in military staff business.
When Song Shi took the turn to report to the Red 15 Corps Department, Guo Shushen, director of the Political Department of the Corps, and Zhang Chiming, secretary of the Corps Department, both ran to greet him, but they saw that he was alone, riding a small donkey, carrying a tattered small suitcase, wearing old clothes full of patches, which made both of them can't help but laugh. Guo Shushen quipped, "Chief Song, when you take office as a new official, how can you dress more worn than the local people?" ”
Fortunately, Xu Haidong, the commander of the regiment, had already ordered that all cadres transferred from the First Army should be provided with a set of quilts in a timely manner. These new uniforms are all uniforms recently seized by the Red 15th Army from the Northeast Army, pure khaki material, made of Western-made machines, removed from the various logos of the Northeast Army, and added the red collar badge to become the new uniforms of the Red Army. After Song Shilun put it on, it looked mighty and neat, and he also quipped: "The Red 15Th Legion is very rich, and now I can find a blessed place." ”
[General Song Shilun in the 1961 National Day (second from the right)]
Of course, Song Shilun's so-called "happiness" was just a joke, and he quickly threw himself into the intense work of the Legion Headquarters. The Red 25th Army (the main force of the Red 15th Army) was separated from the superiors for a long time before the mobile operation, and except for a few people such as Guo Shushen, most of the people in the unit were peasant children who did not know a few words, so the organs of the department, government, and rear were not sound, and the work efficiency was also low.
To this end, Xu Haidong specially summoned Zhou Shidi, Song Shilun, and the heads of various departments of the corps to a meeting to discuss how to strengthen the regularization of the troops. At the suggestion of Song Shilun, Xu Haidong agreed to set up five departments of combat, reconnaissance, communications, confidentiality, and management and a radio station team at the corps headquarters, and the specific matters were under the responsibility of Song Shilun. Taking the construction of the headquarters of the Red Army as a reference, Song Shilun completed the selection of cadres of various sections and the improvement of rules and regulations in a short period of time, and was praised by Xu Haidong.
As the chief of the operations section, Song Shilun's work is obviously more arduous than others. In order to cultivate qualified combat staff officers, he carefully selected several soldiers from the Red 15 Corps who had a little culture, loved to learn, and knew a little about military affairs, and together with Deputy Section Chief Zhang Chiming, he fought and taught them to learn staff business and cultural knowledge. For the situation where the young soldiers were not literate, song Shilun strictly required them to read five words a day, which had a very positive effect on the growth of these young staff officers.
[Lieutenant General Zhang Chiming ,right), former deputy chief of the Operations Section of the Red 15th Army]
Not long after the Red 1st and 15th Armies met the division, niu Yuanfeng of the 109th Division of the Northeast Army followed, and the superiors decided to annihilate them in the town of Zhiluo, and how should the Red 15th Army, as a unit attacking from the south, deploy its troops? In the past, when fighting on the move in Eyu and Anhui, Xu Haidong personally led several regimental commanders and regimental political commissars to inspect the terrain and then dictate operational orders; because of their position in the front, they were easily attacked by the enemy's sharp soldiers, so at this time, these dangerous and tedious tasks had all been entrusted to the operations section.
Song Shilun and Zhang Chiming, together with several staff officers, repeatedly surveyed the terrain of the scene in Zhiluo Town before the arrival of the Northeast Army, and proposed a battle plan to attack the enemy's possible garrison at Nanshan in Zhiluo Town from two directions with the strength of two regiments, and to block the road to the east with the strength of one regiment. Xu Haidong was very satisfied with the battle plan proposed by Song Shilun and praised it happily: "Your plan is good, and it is very much in line with my wishes." Since I have the help of Chief Song, I have saved a lot of time and energy in command! ”
After the battle began, the regiments of the Red 15th Army solved the battle cleanly and neatly in accordance with the battle plan formulated by Song Shilun, annihilated most of the 627th Regiment of the 109th Division of the Northeast Army trapped in Nanshan and broke into the town of Zhiluo, and the enemy division commander Niu Yuanfeng fled with more than 500 remnants of troops into the ruins of Tuweizi outside the town of Zhiluo. At this time, it was close to dark, and Song Shilun arrived near Tuweizi with his combat staff officers, and urgently formulated the subsequent battle plan according to the enemy's garrison and the encirclement of the Red Army.
【Xu Haidong, Commander of the Red 15th Army】
Not long after, Mao, Zhou, Peng, and other commanders arrived at the forward command post of the 78th Division of the Red 15th Army to understand the battle situation, and Song Shilun submitted to Xu Haidong and the superior commanders two operational plans he had drawn up, namely, organizing troops to carry out a strong attack at night, but this would cause certain casualties; and encircling but not trapping, so that the enemy could use the dark night to break through and then pursue and annihilate, but this might allow the enemy division commander Niu Yuanfeng to escape through the net.
After listening to Xu Haidong's operational report and reviewing Song Shilun's battle plan, the chairman even praised them for their good fighting and meticulous work, and suggested that a second plan be chosen. Sure enough, in the middle of the night, Niu Yuanfeng sneaked out with his subordinates to break out of the siege, but the things that worried Song Shilun also happened, due to the negligence of the Red 78 Division that was monitoring, when Niu Yuanfeng ran for a while, and when the Red Army sent cavalry to pursue, this group of deserters had already scattered in pairs, and the enemy division commander Niu Yuanfeng was too fat and simply committed suicide.
After the victory in the Battle of Zhiluo, just as the other comrades-in-arms were happily celebrating the victory, the staff officers of the Operations Section led by Song Shilun engaged in intense post-war summary work: counting casualties and captured figures, writing campaign summary reports and lessons learned, arranging troop rest and training... The operational staff made painstaking efforts before and after the war, but few people saw it. Song Shilun, the chief of the operations section, was also a hero in the Battle of Zhiluo Town of the Red 15th Army.
[General Song Shilun (second from the left) who still participated in military academic work in his later years]
Of course, the talent and dedication of Song Shilun were well known to The Regiment Commander Xu Haidong and the superior chiefs. In April 1936, during the Red Army's eastern expedition to Shanxi, Song Shilun was ordered to lead two battalions of the Red 15th Army to form an independent combat detachment, which alone carried out the task of containing the enemy and once blocked seven times the strength of the Yan army. The chairman was very satisfied with Song Shilun's ability to independently command the troops, and transferred him to the nearest red 30 army commander, responsible for covering the red army's main force retreating west to the Yellow River, and Song Shilun also completed this important task entrusted by his superiors very well.
Leaving Song Shilun as the chief of the operations section, Xu Haidong immediately felt that the combat command was not very convenient, and many things had to be done personally to be assured. Although Xu Haidong proposed to his superiors several times that he wanted Song Shi to reincarnate the Red 15Th Army, Song Shilun had already changed to the commander of the Red 28 Army at this time, fighting bandits in the Yanchi and Dingbian areas, and he did not return to the Red 15th Army in the end.
Until 40 years later, in an activity in which Guo Shushen organized some old comrades to write articles recalling life in Yan'an, Guo and Song Shilun met, and Song Shilun's speech was once again recognized by Guo Shushen, who praised that Song Shilun always maintained the excellent style and valuable quality of the Red 15 Army.
Song Shilun, president of the Academy of Military Sciences
【Deeply cultivate the history of war, carry forward positive energy, welcome to submit, private messages will be restored】