The Long March of the Red Army can be regarded as a miracle in the history of human warfare, and the arduousness of the Long March is unimaginable to those of us who were born in peacetime, and in this process, there have been hundreds of encounters of different sizes.
Among these battles, if you have to pick out the one that takes the longest time and the most costly, then it must be the Battle of the Xiangjiang River. There is such a saying in the local folk: three years do not drink the water of the Xiang River, ten years do not eat the fish of the Xiang River, what happened to the Xiang River in that year, will let the people have such a sigh?
At the turning point of the revolution, the road ahead is full of crises
In the course of the Long March, the tests faced by the officers and men of our army are unimaginable; on the one hand, the problem of grain supply, on the other hand, the encirclement, pursuit, and interception of the Kuomintang, and these external factors have all affected the pace of our army's Long March to a certain extent. In the course of the Long March, there were also very serious decision-making mistakes within our army due to the wrong decisions of Bogu and others.
Prior to this, Chiang Kai-shek had realized that we might carry out a large-scale transfer, so he sent more than a dozen elite divisions with full personnel to encircle and suppress the Red Army in an all-round way, in an attempt to eliminate all the living forces of our army.
Under these circumstances, the situation facing the Red Army is becoming more and more severe, and as we watch the enemy approaching step by step, leaving us less and less space, we have to have a head-on conflict with the enemy, and the place where the conflict takes place is in the Xiang River valley.
Before the war, no one had imagined that it would be a fierce battle. In order to protect the living forces of our army as much as possible, many soldiers are ready to die, and in this campaign, our army has launched three large-scale blockade battles.
In order to break through the Kuomintang blockade, I arranged a large number of soldiers to go forward and cut off, and their main purpose was to cover the main force to complete the large-scale transfer and avoid being caught up by the main Kuomintang army. In these three large-scale blockade battles, the Xinxu Blockade Battle was the most severe one.
In order to protect the retreat of the main force of our army, the Hongwu Division, which had safely crossed the Xiangjiang River, decided to return to the rear of the troops and delay the pace of the Kuomintang army, but what they did not expect was that the fierceness of this battle was far more serious than expected, the entire division died more than 2,000 people, the commander of the 14th Regiment also died in this battle, and by the end of the battle, the entire division could produce less than a few hundred people. But they managed to block the pursuit of the Nationalist army.
Only successful wars are allowed
This battle was crucial to the entire Long March of the Red Army, and it is no exaggeration to say that this war for us is only allowed to win and not to lose, because once the crossing of the river fails, it means that all the previous strategic transfers of the Red Army are in vain.
Although we have drawn up a detailed battle plan and used small troops to cover the retreat of large troops, the military equipment of the Kuomintang is far above that of our army, and even if our army fights and retreats, there will still be a lot of casualties in the end.
Before crossing the river, the total number of the Red Army in the Long March was 64,000 people, and after the Battle of the River Crossing, the total number of Red Army members participating in the Long March was reduced by half, to less than 30,000 people, such a tragic loss, which is very rare in the Long March, and every number is the living life of heroic soldiers.
It is no exaggeration to say that this was the most tragic battle ever fought by the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. It was also an unprecedented test for the Red Army. Although we paid a bitter price in this battle, the final result also proved that our choice was correct, the arduous and extraordinary period of the Long March provided a good foundation for the subsequent development of our party, and after the Battle of the Xiangjiang River, our party lost a lot of living strength, but from another aspect, this also made our party grow a lot.
With the experience of this Long March, our Party has also become more rigorous in its subsequent decision-making, and after the completion of the personnel changes at the decision-making level, our military actions in various fields have also become more in line with the actual situation at that time.
It can be said that the Battle of the Xiangjiang River made the Red Army reborn from the fire, after which the Red Army became more mature and was able to formulate revolutionary policies more scientifically.
epilogue
Since the 1980s, the Guangxi government has carried out all-round protection of the site of the Xiangjiang Campaign, and regarded the site of the Xiangjiang Campaign as an important cultural site to inherit the red spirit and remember the history of the red.
In the local area, the saying that they did not drink the water of the Xiang River for three years and did not eat the fish of the Xiang River for ten years, and the people commemorated those dead soldiers in this way, and it was their bravery and fearlessness that bought our beautiful life, and our Red Army soldiers smashed the cages and conspiracies of the Kuomintang with their firm will as steel, and it was their perseverance and heroism that illuminated the way forward for the subsequent revolution.
For our Party and the Red Army, the Battle of the Xiangjiang River was a bitter price, but objectively speaking, this defeat also made our Party realize the importance of correct leadership and scientific policy decision-making, and this is also the fundamental reason why our Party can be invincible in the revolutionary process that follows.