In April 1942, Zhu Fan Village, the branch of the Communist Party of China in Shandong Province, welcomed a "distinguished guest", who was inconspicuous, thin and tall, wearing only a gray old Zhongshan suit and a pair of simple black coarse cloth shoes, and under the careful escort of a group of guards, he stayed in the old Mansion of the Wang family in a low profile.
He called himself Hu Fu, a political commissar of the Communist Party of China, and came here on the orders of the leadership.
He did not have high requirements for the residence, and he lived in the room on the right side of the main hall of the house, using two door panels as a bed, wrapping and changing clothes as pillows. The main hall is used as a reception and dining room, and the house on the left is inhabited by guards who protect him.
Hu Fu stayed in Shandong for several months, during which he was always busy with intense work. He successively talked with different local leaders, went deep into the people's localities to investigate the real life of the masses, and patiently listened to the opinions of various departments and ordinary people, held an enlarged meeting, and thoroughly solved the problems hidden inside Shandong.
More than a month later, the guards escorted Hu Fu back to Yan'an, only to hear his "true identity" in the mouths of others, and it turned out that he was Liu Shaoqi, who had secretly received a secret order from Chairman Mao to go to Shandong to turn the tide.
So, why did Chairman Mao send Liu Shaoqi to Shandong? What did Liu Shaoqi do in Shandong? The answer began in 1937.
In that year, the "7.7" incident that shocked China broke out, the Japanese began an all-out war of aggression against China, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party joined hands to resist foreign enemies, and the Central Plains fell into a war.
Just when everyone's enthusiasm for resisting Japan was high, an unbelievable news came out: officials of the Shandong Provincial Government and the Military Department fled without a fight in the face of the Japanese attack, making the whole of Shandong almost fall.
At this critical juncture, the CCP organizations that had been destroyed several times stepped forward and held high the banner of anti-Japanese resistance to confront the enemy. In 1938, the Ccp leadership sent the main force of the 115th Division to Shandong to fight jointly with the original Shandong Column.
However, no one expected that it was precisely the addition of the 115th Division that would bring about negative changes in the situation in Shandong and almost bring serious consequences.
The commander of the 115th Division, Lin Biao, was recuperating in the Soviet Union due to illness, and at that time, the political commissar Luo Ronghuan and the acting division commander Chen Guang were in charge of the work of the 115th Division. They obeyed the instructions of the Party Central Committee and issued an order to the masses in Shandong to "reduce rents and reduce burdens."
However, Zhu Rui, the leader of the Shandong sub-bureau, did not agree, feeling that these cadres had originally borrowed to live in the landlord's house and then implemented policies such as rent reduction, which was too unconscionable.
The two sides of the disagreement each wrote an opinion and sent it to Yan'an, hoping that the central leadership would come forward to resolve the matter. The leader really cared about this matter, and issued a timely order to let Xu Xiangqian, the deputy commander of the 129th Division, go to Shandong to deal with the problem.
Xu Xiangqian rushed to Shandong without stopping, and before he could catch his breath, he immediately gathered all the leaders and integrated the 115th Division and local troops to form the "First Column of Shandong".
The results of the integration were not ideal, even if the leaders of the 115th Division were now in the same team as the leaders of the local troops, but they were still "independent" and "empty" the gathering place in a short period of time. Xu Xiangqian had no choice but to urgently separate the two again and restore everything to its original state.
In 1940, the central government transferred Xu Xiangqian, the problems of the Shandong authorities still existed, and it was difficult to carry out the anti-Japanese national salvation movement.
In the same year, in order to consolidate the "rear" strategy and strengthen the "sweeping" of the base areas in China, Shandong bore the brunt of it, and in 1941 alone, it experienced 29 large-scale "sweeps." Therefore, eliminating the contradictions between the local troops in Shandong and the 115th Division has become a difficult problem that the CHINESE Communists attach great importance to.
Of course, this kind of problem has nothing to do with personal contradictions, but differences arising from different understandings of the Party's ideology, line, principles, and policies; in general, as long as the thinking of the two sides is unified and the understanding of both sides is raised, the problem can be solved and they can be re-twisted into a hard "rope" that effectively strikes at the enemy.
At the beginning of March 1942, Liu Shaoqi, who assumed the pseudonym Hu Fu, was basically completed in central China, and the central government sent a telegram to inform Shandong of the problem. Liu Shaoqi attached great importance to this matter, and after arranging the work at hand, he immediately left for Shandong.
What he did not know was that Chairman Mao, who was far away in Yan'an, was very concerned about his safety, and three days after he set off, Chairman Mao, who did not know his itinerary, sent him a telegram instructing him:
"Shandong has not yet returned a call, please ask him directly for details, and be sure to ensure that there is no danger on the road before leaving."
On the way to Shandong, Liu Shaoqi thought about how to solve the problems there while not forgetting to carefully examine the situation along the road. Whenever he passed a place, he would go out and talk to the local people regardless of fatigue and safety.
The most common question he asked was: What is the population of the village? How much land are there for the landlord and the peasant, and how much is the rent and grain of the landlord's family calculated? When the common man answered truthfully, he had a number in his heart.
After many in-depth visits, Liu Shaoqi slowly summed up some experiences: The situation in various places is not much different, the role of the peasant rescue association is not obvious, the sweetness of rent reduction and interest reduction has not yet been tasted by the people, and some ordinary people do not believe in the "charity" of the landlords, which will reduce the grain and interest of the peasants.
He told his entourage: "It seems that the peasant masses have a strong desire for rent reduction and interest reduction, and our movement is completely in line with the hopes of the people." ”
22 days later, Liu Shaoqi arrived in Zhufan Village, a revolutionary base in Shandong, and stayed in the old residence of the Wang family. He did not care about the living environment, only casually folded a few pieces of change of clothes as a pillow, and then let the guards dismantle the door panels to form a simple bed, simply clean up, and immediately put into intense work.
Liu Shaoqi summoned Zhu Rui, the secretary of the Shandong branch, and talked with him for 3 days. Chen Guang, the acting commander of the 115th Division, and Luo Ronghuan, the political commissar, were called and talked for 1 day and 1 night.
Then he spoke with Li Yu of the Shandong column for a day, took the initiative to listen to the suggestions of the leaders of various departments, flipped through the Shandong party periodicals and party newspapers, and, as always, went deep among the masses, constantly visited and investigated, and gained a deeper understanding and comprehensive solution to the difficult problems in the Shandong base areas.
More than half a month later, Liu Shaoqi held an enlarged meeting of the Shandong branch bureau to exchange views with Zhu Rui and others, openly and openly discuss views to sum up, and reached a preliminary consensus on several key principle issues.
In order to promote the development and progress of the comprehensive work, Liu Shaoqi fully mobilized the masses of the people and made a report on the mass movement, clearly pointing out that rent and interest reduction must be regarded as the center of Shandong's work, and all work must be done around it.
He attended meetings during the day, read materials at night, and often stayed up until the early hours of the morning to rest, causing a great load on his body, his face became very bad, and he had to cough after saying a few words.
The guard was worried about him, but he smiled and shook his head and said, "It's okay, it's just a little bit on fire, in a few days it will be fine." ”
With the efforts of Liu Shaoqi, a turnaround in Shandong's work soon appeared. At the beginning of May, the Shandong Branch Bureau solemnly decided that it would conscientiously implement the rent reduction and interest reduction campaign and mobilize the people to actively participate.
Through the active cooperation of many parties, the masses of the people have a breather, more truly feel the connection between the party organization and the revolution with them, greatly stimulate the enthusiasm for the War of Resistance, and slowly transform the villages where the base areas are located into solid fortresses.
In early June, Chairman Mao called Liu Shaoqi again, asking him to be stationed in Shandong on behalf of the central authorities and make overall plans. On July 9, Chairman Mao sent a third telegram to Liu Shaoqi, pointing out the importance of shandong at present.
This telegram is the legendary top-secret telegram that Chairman Mao specifically instructed and does not need to be mentioned to anyone for the time being, and the content can be divided into two main parts:
First, the CCP's current policy is still to improve the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, emphasizing post-war cooperation in nation-building and entering socialism through a democratic republic. After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, when the Japanese army withdrew, the New Fourth Army and the troops south of the Yellow River needed to be concentrated in north China or the three eastern provinces to achieve the conditions for the continued cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists. This matter should not be told to anyone for the time being, but it must be remembered that Shandong is the hub for the transfer of troops. Second, there must be dynamic estimates of the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek, and in order to prevent them from taking advantage of the opportunity to target the New Fourth Army and cut off the road to the north, the Chinese Communists' grasp of Shandong and all the troops in Shandong is also the most important thing.
At the end of the telegram, Chairman Mao said that Liu Shaoqi was solely responsible for the Task of Shandong, and that his safety was the most important thing during the execution of the mission, and that he must make a decision after considering the situation, and that the Central Committee would give him the power to command the overall situation in Shandong and Central China after he had decided.
It can be said that this telegram not only gave Liu Shaoqi great encouragement and confidence, but also showed the far-sightedness belonging to Chairman Mao, through the darkness in front of him, broke through the fog and saw the situation that might occur after dawn and the countermeasures, made effective new strategic thinking on the future of the New Fourth Army, and sublimated the Shandong issue into a deeper problem concerning the future of the New Fourth Army and the CPC.
In late July, Shandong's work was gradually on the right track, and liu Shaoqi, after asking the central authorities, re-set off for Yan'an. According to the actual needs, he reduced the original 100-person regiment to 18 people, dressed as ordinary people, and escorted all the way by plainclothes guards.
They passed through Shuhe, Linyi, Tengxian and other places, and took a short rest southwest of Zaozhuang to prepare to cross the Jinpu Railway. Unexpectedly, about 300 meters in front of the railway, a Japanese patrol car suddenly came from Lincheng.
It stopped near the hiding place of Liu Shaoqi and his party for a while, fired machine guns indiscriminately for a while, and then drove towards the sand ditch. When the road returned to calm, Liu Shaoqi and others hurriedly trotted along the small river to the culvert, crossed the railway to leave the Gansha River, and followed the path to the vicinity of Weishan Lake.
Because the Japanese army was "sweeping" at that time, the group could only wait for more than a week in a small boat in the center of the lake, and after the enemy situation eased, Fang contacted the Fengxian cavalry and escorted them through hexi to reach Luxi District.
It was a belt of sandy land, the people's lives were difficult, and the local responsible persons lacked ways to improve the environment and were estranged from the people.
After Liu Shaoqi learned of this, he decided to suspend the trip despite the danger, called all the local responsible persons to the residence, and gave them advice.
With his help, the local people tried their best to mobilize the masses to plant fruits and vegetables, share happiness and hardship with them, and solve the problem here.
After that, Liu Shaoqi left Shandong and returned to Yan'an safely in December of that year against the cold wind.