In 1934, after the Red Army was forced to start the Long March, various warlords began to pursue and intercept, causing considerable losses to the Red Army, and even more, they even chased the Red Army for tens of thousands of miles, which was very stubborn.
This stubborn reactionary was Zhou Hunyuan, commander of the 36th Army.
A native of Jinxi County, Jiangxi Province, Zhou Hunyuan graduated from the eighth term of the Baoding Military Academy, participated in the Northern Expedition, and was promoted to commander of the 36th Army in 1933.
As a Cantonese general, he was able to be absorbed into the yanshi troops by lao Jiang, which had a lot to do with Zhou Hunyuan's spare efforts in the process of encircling and suppressing the Red Army.
At the end of 1934, the Central Army, led by Zhou Hunyuan and Xue Yue, the Gui Army led by Bai Chongxi and Liao Lei, and the Xiang Army under Liu Jianxu, totaling more than 400,000 troops, attacked the Red Army in a large-scale manner in an attempt to wipe it out in Xiaoshui and the Xiangjiang area.
Judging from the situation at that time, the situation of the Red Army can be described as very dangerous, the weapons and equipment and the number of soldiers are at an absolute disadvantage, and more importantly, the aggressive general Zhou Hunyuan is still in front of him!
According to Old Chiang Kai-shek's wishful thinking, under the siege of the three armies, the Red Army will certainly look for the main force of Xianggui as a breakthrough point, so that it can not only deplete the effective forces of the Xiang Army, the Gui Army, and the Red Army, but also take the opportunity to enter Guangxi to arrange people and horses, which can be described as killing three birds with one stone.
However, Bai Chongxi and Liu Jianxu were not stupid, and the loss of money would naturally not be done, in order to preserve their strength, Bai Chongxi deliberately exposed a gap in the Xiang River, while Liu Jianxu shrunk his troops to Hunan territory. In this way, if Zhou Hunyuan could fight again, it would be difficult to support alone, and although the Red Army paid a huge price after the bloody battle on the Xiang River, it finally jumped out of the encirclement circle and saved the fire of the revolution.
Watching the Red Army break out from under his own eyes, Zhou Hunyuan naturally couldn't swallow this breath, so he bit the Red Army and chased it all the way.
On the side of the Red Army, although the Zunyi Conference determined the correct revolutionary policy and leading body, the subsequent defeat in the Tucheng campaign pushed the Red Army into a dangerous situation. In order to confuse the enemy, the Red Army began to cross the Chishui River four times on January 29, 1935, the famous "Four Crossings of Chishui".
After crossing the Red River for the second time, the Red Army turned the Kuomintang army's Wu Qiwei troops around, captured more than 2,000 enemy troops, and won the first major victory since the Long March. However, after the Red Army took advantage of the victory to pursue and launched a surprise attack on Zhou Hun Yuan's troops, instead of taking advantage, it suffered heavy losses at LubanChang, and had to turn to Moutai Ferry and cross Chishui in the west for the third time.
In other words, the third westward crossing of Chishui was not actually the original intention of the Red Army, but only to temporarily avoid Zhou Hunyuan's helpless move.
On March 21, 1935, after luring the enemy westward, the Red Army quickly turned back to the northeast and crossed the Chishui River four times that night. However, unfortunately, the original intention of the Red Army to kill a Hui horse gun to raid Zhou Hun yuanbu was not achieved, and both sides chose to retreat and rectify after a fierce battle. After that, the Red Army killed Guiyang and finally jumped out of the encirclement circle of the Kuomintang army.
However, people have two sides, and Zhou Hunyuan, who committed numerous crimes in the encirclement and suppression of the Red Army, also reflected the bloodiness of Chinese soldiers after the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and deserved respect.
In 1937, Zhou Hunyuan was transferred to the commander of the Chongqing Garrison Headquarters, at that time, Chiang Kai-shek already had the intention of using Chongqing as an escort capital, so Zhou Hunyuan could be transferred to the commander of the Chongqing Garrison Headquarters, which also showed that the old Chiang Kai-shek had a great deal for him.
But unfortunately, Zhou Hunyuan could not wait for his ambitions to develop in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and suddenly died of illness on January 12, 1938, at the age of 43.
For this incident, Zhou Hunyuan was also very sorry before his death, leaving a will saying: "Yu has been in the army for more than twenty years, committed to revolution, and has exhausted his heart, causing cerebral hemorrhage, and he has no physiology for himself. At the last moment of the survival of this nation, Bu Ke continued to follow the commission with my robe to repay the party-state, and the guilt was deep. I hope that everyone will obey Deputy Commander Yao and strive hard to achieve the goal of rejuvenating our country and nation. There is an old father on the remaining, not enough to raise, holding a grudge against the ancients, hoping that the remaining brothers will respect filial piety. Yu's wife is weak, her children are young, and she also hopes that Yu's brothers will be good at raising them. ”
After Chiang Kai-shek heard the news of Zhou Hunyuan's death, he was also very sad, posthumously promoted him to the rank of general of the army, and personally inscribed a tombstone for him.