In 1932, the thief's heart did not die
Chiang Kai-shek
With 300,000 troops gathered, the fourth "encirclement and suppression" campaign was launched against our Soviet region.
The enemy's offensive was too fierce, and our side was invincible, so we could only temporarily abandon the Soviet zone and move to the rest of the zone.
When the army came to Shaanxi, the central leaders learned from the newspapers that the Sichuan warlords had begun internal strife again. The defense of northern Sichuan is very empty at this stage, and it is a good opportunity to "steal the family". Moreover, the geographical conditions here are good, the products are abundant, and it is a good place to establish a base area.
After some analysis and discussion, Xu Xiangqian and Chen Changhao immediately led the troops and rushed to northern Sichuan.
To the surprise of the warriors, the enemy here seems to be "particularly friendly", always collapsing at the touch and running away as soon as it is hit. In this way, it did not take long for our army to occupy most of the three counties of Tongjiang, Nanjiang, and Bazhong and set up a new revolutionary base area.
When Chiang Kai-shek received the relevant news, he was furious, and he immediately instructed the Sichuan warlords to stop fighting and "unanimously go to the outside world."
At his request, soon a Sichuan warlord stepped forward and led a team of 60,000 people to launch a "three-sided siege" against us.
The warlord seemed to be very "powerful", and under his leadership, the troops were "like a bamboo", and in just a few months, they had conquered three county towns. When Chiang Kai-shek received the good news from the front, he was immersed in the spring breeze.
Until one day, Chiang Kai-shek received a telegram from the front, which he opened with excitement and saw that it not only wrote how many communist troops had been "killed" by the front and how much land had been recovered, but also wrote: In a recent battle, the crowd killed a Red Army general.
The Sichuan army originally thought that Chiang Kai-shek would once again commend them for their "outstanding achievements" this time, but he did not expect that when Chiang Kai-shek saw the name of the general, instead of being happy, he was furious. He even sent a message to the front line asking the people to thoroughly investigate whether the general really existed, who killed him, and where the place of death was.
Receiving this order, the Sichuan army was a little confused, but in order to reassure the above, the crowd honestly began to investigate the matter thoroughly.
Why, then, did Chiang Kai-shek react so much when he saw the name of the Red Army general? Is this news from the front line true?
To understand these problems, our eyes must also focus on the battlefield.
Successes are frequently reported and awarded
On January 27, 1933, in order to eliminate our forces, Chiang Kai-shek would then be the commander of the Twenty-ninth Army of the National Revolutionary Army
Tian Songyao
He was appointed as the inspector of the "suppression of bandits" in the Sichuan-Shaanxi Border Region, and distributed 200,000 military expenses and 1 million rounds of ammunition, allowing him to take 60,000 generals on the expedition.
To be able to get such a heavy use by Chiang Kai-shek, Tian Songyao was naturally extremely happy. In the early days, he had formed a bond with Chiang Kai-shek for opposing Chiang Kai-shek's establishment of power in Nanjing, and even though he had been flattering Chiang Kai-shek later, he could not return his favor, and in this case, this appointment was enough to prove that he still had some position in Chiang Kai-shek's heart.
However, he was happy to be happy, and when he really wanted to go to the battlefield, Tian Songyao still had a little drumming in his heart. After all, the strength of his troops is very strong, he is still very clear, and the Red Army is notoriously strong... However, at this moment, he could not manage so much, Chiang Kai-shek had a hard time reusing him once, if he did not make some contributions, the situation in the future would probably be bad.
In order to boost the morale of the soldiers, he swore to the crowd at the pre-war mobilization meeting: "The Red Army has only just entered Sichuan, and its foundation is not yet stable, as long as we are brave and united enough, we will certainly be able to wipe them out." ”
These words really had a great effect, these wine bags and rice bags who usually only know how to play around with money seem to have forgotten their true ability, and they should respond to the "charge!" under the stage. charge! ”
So, is the truth really as they expected?
First of all, we can be sure that the soldiers of the Red Army have only recently entered Sichuan, and the revolutionary base areas here are still actively building and consolidating, but they have missed a key factor, that is, our Party has a very good mass base, and this is the biggest gap between the armies of the two sides.
Long before the Red Army came here, Tian Songyao had a resounding title in the local area, "Sitting Tiger".
Of course, the people called him that not because of how powerful he was, but because he was greedy enough to be as vicious as a man-eating tiger.
Especially in terms of tax collection, the chief who understands some sustainable development theories knows how to collect slowly, while Tian Songyao seems to be eager to collect the people at once. When collecting the grain tax, he also had to collect additional regimental defense fees and tuition fees. In 1926, he also called on local farmers in the east to grow opium, and set up a non-smoking anti-smoking bureau to take charge of the matter.
These things made the people hate him to the bone, not to mention support, that is, Tian Songyao went out without guards one day, and he might be attacked by a large number of people. Although the Red Army has only just arrived here, with the policy of working hard for the welfare of the people and not taking the masses for a needle and a line, our side immediately won the love of the local people, and in just a few months, it has grown to more than fifteen thousand people.
In this case, tian Songyao really wants to overcome our side, it must be a very difficult task, however, the real situation does not seem to be what everyone imagined.
After the two armies were put into the battlefield, although the Sichuan army paid many costs, it really "beat" the Red Army and retreated. Not only were the other elite Kuomintang units that had been defeated at the hands of the Red Army somewhat incredible, but even Tian Songyao, who fought against the Red Army on the battlefield, felt a little inexplicable. When did he become so powerful?
In fact, the reason why Tian Songyao was so victorious was just that
Xu Xiangqian
The battle strategy of "shrinking the position" and "resisting the enemy step by step" is nothing more than that. In simple terms, this tactical point is to disperse the troops, set up more solid defensive lines, so that each line of defense can seriously injure the enemy, and then slowly retreat backwards, blunt knife cutting meat effect. When the enemy's supply lines became longer and longer and their forces became weaker and weaker, we took the opportunity to counterattack and destroy them in one fell swoop.
Therefore, when Tian Songyao arrived in the northern Sichuan region, the Red Fourth Front immediately pretended to be invincible, quickly retreated, and at the same time, little by little, threw the three county towns that had just arrived to the enemy.
We knew that this was a strategy of the Red Army, but Tian Songyao did not know it, at first he would doubt whether this was a conspiracy of our side, but as more and more successful reports followed, he immediately dropped this suspicion and began to be arrogant.
He felt that he was probably famous, and as soon as the tiger's body shook, the Red Army fled in fright, and for a time, his tail was about to fly into the sky.
After Chiang Kai-shek learned of this situation, he also felt that he did not look at the wrong person, he was really wise and divine, and his eyes were poisonous! With just a little finger, such a "xiao general" was selected. With a moment of happiness, he directly promoted Tian Songyao to the position of chief inspector of bandits in Sichuan.
After receiving Chiang Kai-shek's letter of appointment, Tian Songyao was so excited that he could not speak for a while, and he felt that this "thousand-mile horse" had finally shown its true strength, won the appreciation of "Bo Le", and could soar to the sky from then on.
"Eliminate" senior Red Army generals
Before that, Tian Songyao was always jokingly called "winter melon" because of his short stature. Such nicknames are more, Tian Songyao has become somewhat introverted and restrained, and he is not very good at expressing himself on weekdays. Such a person, in the eyes of ordinary people, may be called a "tiger", but in the eyes of the really powerful people, it is just a "sick cat", not worth mentioning.
This time, Tian Songyao directly became the chief inspector of the Sichuan region appointed by Chiang Kai-shek himself, which is an incredible high position, as long as he does not do too much out of the ordinary in the future, he will definitely soar in the future!
In an instant, Tian Songyao's mentality directly took a one-hundred-and-eight-degree turn, and he, who was once "obscure," became more and more "inflated," and in all the documents issued and the various reports that would be reported to Chiang Kai-shek, he must add the title of "Sichuan Bandit General Inspector" and "Commander of the Army" in front of his name.
Just as the poor and rich are eager to let the whole world know how powerful they are, Tian Songyao's behavior is also showing off to everyone."
You see, I am no longer the weak and weak me I was before, I am now a great official!
”
Moreover, in order to make Chiang Kai-shek pay more attention to him, Tian Songyao thought about it for a moment and came up with the strategy of "one county and one newspaper." That is to say, Tian Songyao took the counties of Mingming Bazhong, Nanjiang, and Tongjiang at one time, but in order to exaggerate his own achievements, he had to report to Chiang Kai-shek three times.
As a result, Chiang Kai-shek was able to see the telegram saying how Tian Songyao commanded the troops to fight heroically and beat the "communist bandits" to the ground.
Chiang Kai-shek has always been hostile to our side, and when he saw these "good news," his heart naturally blossomed with joy. As soon as he was happy, he often sent words of encouragement to Tian Songyao, saying that he was his beloved general, heroic and extraordinary, and so on. He also said that he would let Tian Songyao sum up a set of his own combat experience and report it to him, so that other senior Kuomintang generals could observe and study.
In such a boastful manner, this Tian Songyao became more and more overwhelmed, but just when he was immersed in his own "glory" and could not protect himself, one thing pushed him to the bottom.
Tian Songyao had a division commander named Tian Songyao
Wang Mingzhang
Under the command of Tian Songyao, he launched an offensive against Tongjiang County, the three counties of Bazhong.
After Wang Mingzhang led his army to the county seat of Tongjiang County, the Red Army had already retreated according to Xu's strategy. As a result, Wang Mingzhang easily occupied the entire Tongjiang County.
Then, he sent a telegram telling Tian Songyao:
"In order to win the hearts and minds of the people, the 'communist bandits' in Tongjiang County changed the names of all the streets here. They did not use the name of the ordinary East Street and West Street, but in the name of the sacrificial Red Army generals, just like there is a street here, called 'YunDaiying Street'. ”
Immediately after, Wang Mingzhang continued to say to Tian Songyao: "We can also follow the example of the Red Army and use this means... For example, this Yundaiying Street, we can replace it with a street named after our generals who died in battle. ”
When Tian Songyao saw this telegram, he felt that it was reasonable, and clapped his hands: "Alas, this is indeed feasible!" ”
He left the matter to a military division, and here was the problem. Tian Songyao himself was not very smart, and his military division seemed to be even worse than him, and when he saw the telegram with the words "Yun Daiying", he felt that he had seen it somewhere, and at this moment, he thought of a ghost idea.
The military commander took the telegram, ran to Tian Songyao, and said to him: "This Yun Daiying, I seem to have heard his name somewhere, and he must be a high-ranking official of the Communist Party." Now according to the telegram sent by Commander Wang, this person must have been killed by us, but this is a great achievement for us, and we should quickly tell this news to Chairman Jiang and ask for credit to the military commander! ”
When Tian Songyao heard this, he immediately raised his eyebrows in joy: "Oh, I thought Yun Daiying was just a small leader, it turned out that he was so important, he quickly reported this matter, asked me for credit, and wanted to ask for credit heavily." ”
Thus, in the telegram reported to Chiang Kai-shek, Tian Songyao's troop staff wrote that under their brave charge, yun Daiying, an important leader of the Red Army, had been eliminated in Tongjiang County.
Chiang Kai-shek was furious
It didn't take long for this telegram to be transmitted to Chiang Kai-shek, and when old Chiang saw the telegram, he directly stuck in place, or the secretary slapped him, and he woke up like a dream, and when he touched his head, it was full of beads of sweat.
Why would the name Yun Daiying scare Chiang Kai-shek into this form?
It turned out that as early as 1930, Yun Daiying had already been arrested and imprisoned by the Kuomintang, but because Yun Daiying would hide, everyone never knew that the person they arrested called "Wang Zuolin" was yun Daiying, a big figure of the Communist Party, who only sentenced him to five years in prison for various false charges.
Yun Daiying
Unfortunately, however, just as our Party was in operation and was about to rescue him from prison, the traitor Gu Shunzhang betrayed the revolution and revealed to Chiang Kai-shek the true identity of "Wang Zuolin."
Yun Daiying had previously written articles scolding Chiang Kai-shek for being traitorous and autocratic, and often came forward to call on the people to unite and overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and the reactionary government. Therefore, after Chiang Kai-shek understood that Yun Daiying did not accept the rebellion, he immediately sent someone to execute him.
What Chiang Kai-shek did not expect was that in April 1931, even in the face of a group of Kuomintang executioners, Yun Daiying heroically and fearlessly delivered a speech saying that Chiang Kai-shek followed Yuan Shikai's old path and flattered imperialism, and that he would certainly suffer the consequences of his own in the future.
Such a fighter, Chiang Kai-shek wants to forget it is difficult.
It was also for this reason that Chiang Kai-shek was so shocked when he saw that Tian Songyao's people had "killed" Yun Daiying once again in Sichuan.
He also understood that it was very likely that Tian Songyao was deceiving him, but looking at this report transmitted by Tian Songyao, it explained the course of events vividly, and it did not look like a fake thing at all.
In order to find out the truth, Chiang Kai-shek sent back a telegram instructing Tian Songyao to carefully re-describe yun Daiying's experience, and also asked him to say exactly where Yun Daiying was, at what point in time, who was killed, what he looked like, what characteristics he had on his body, and a series of things.
After Tian Songyao saw this telegram, he felt very inexplicable, but in order to reassure his superiors, he still went to check it carefully.
He first sent a message to Wang Mingzhang, the "source" of the matter, and asked him to explain the course of the matter. When Wang Mingzhang received the news, he was also a little puzzled:
“
I just saw that there was a street named after the general of the Red Army on this side, and I didn't know who killed Yun Daiying!
When Tian Songyao heard this, he was furious: "Check, hurry up and check, even if it is done by a small soldier, you must find out for me." ”
Wang Mingzhang immediately took action, and sent this order to all regimental and battalion headquarters, asking them to carefully investigate who killed Yun Daiying.
But after everyone looked around, no one stood up and took the credit. This is also very normal, after all, the superior is so excited, and everyone knows that this is a big thing, in this case, which one who does not want to die dares to jump out and lie?
After a long time like this, Tian Songyao realized that it turned out that Yun Daiying was not killed by them!
Yun Daiying (oil on canvas)
But at this time, Chiang Kai-shek's second telegram also came, and it seemed that this matter could not be fooled. Tian Songyao could only cheekily tell Chiang Kai-shek about this matter as it was.
As soon as Chiang Kai-shek heard what had happened, he immediately became furious, how can he joke about major events in the army? This time I found out, when I didn't realize my mistake before, how many things did you Tian Songyao hide and how much did you brag about your "achievements"?
If Tian Songyao could really defeat the Red Army and win that battle, Chiang Kai-shek might have exposed this matter. But we all know that his ability to conquer the three counties of Bazhong is only a plan of the Red Army, and has nothing to do with Tian Songyao's own ability.
When the time was ripe, the Red Fourth Front immediately launched a counterattack. In May 1933, our army won a complete victory, 24,000 enemies were annihilated by our side, Tian Songyao's troops were damaged by more than one-third, and even his beloved general Wang Mingzhang was defeated by our side head-on.
In addition, the three counties of Tongjiang, Nanjiang, and Bazhong, which were previously occupied by Tian Songyao, have returned to our embrace; in addition, the Red Fourth Front has also opened up new revolutionary base areas in Cangxi, Guangyuan, and other areas, and the entire land area of the Sichuan-Shaanxi base area has been expanded to 30,000 square kilometers, and the residential population has exceeded 2 million.
In order to curb the speed of our development, Chiang Kai-shek once again gathered his forces and launched a "six-way encirclement and suppression" campaign against the revolutionary base areas in Sichuan and Shaanxi.
In this battle, Tian Songyao, who had already been disliked by Chiang Kai-shek, fell from the position of general inspector of the Sichuan bandit suppression and was only appointed as the commander-in-chief of the second road of the Sichuan "suppression general".
Moreover, unlike other commanders-in-chief, Tian Songyao, the commander, had no formal power at all, and the entire battle plan was entirely formulated by Chiang Kai-shek, who could only act according to orders, and was not even as good as a regimental commander.
It is precisely for this reason that Tian Songyao is completely a soft persimmon in front of the Red Army, and the Red Army can ravage as much as it wants. Although Wang Mingzhang is a capable person, he can't stand the "pig teammate" who has been dragging himself in the rear, and after several battles in a row, he has not been able to get effective cooperation, and the general can only reluctantly withdraw from the battlefield.
If Wang Mingzhang had been in other units at this time, it is possible that he would have won chiang kai-shek's appreciation for his outstanding performance on the battlefield, but under Tian Songyao's command, he would not have been able to get this opportunity at all, and when he had meritorious service, Tian Songyao would have taken away the credit, and after Tian Songyao had done something wrong, he would have to be criticized together with Tian Songyao.
In March 1935, the Red Fourth Front, in coordination with the Central Red Army, first cleared the enemy east of the Jialing River, and the whole army entered the east bank of the Jialing River, at this time, the 29th Army of Tian Songyao was stationed in Cangxi on the west bank of the Jialing River
Deng Xihou
28th Army.
Tian Songyao has now lost Chiang Kai-shek's trust, and if Cangxi is also conquered by the Red Army, he, as a commander, will probably come to an end.
Tian Songyao did not want to face that kind of desperate situation, so before the Red Army arrived here, he dragged all the tools that could be used to cross the river to the west bank, and built a large number of fortifications on the shore. However, even if he had tried so hard, he still could not stop the Red Army's offensive.
Upon arrival, the Red Fourth Front quickly built more than 70 wooden boats and three bamboo bridges, and then attacked the West Bank under the cover of nightfall.
In just one night, the soldiers had successfully crossed the Jialing River and knocked the enemy on the other side of the river into a trickle.
When this news reached Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Kai-shek was immediately furious, believing that the reason why the Red Army had developed to this point so rapidly was entirely the fault of Tian Songyao.
In April 1935, Chiang Kai-shek issued an order to remove Tian Songyao from his post and investigate, and the 29th Army of the Sichuan Army he brought out was also incorporated into the 41st Army of the National Revolutionary Army, and since then, he has completely lost the power he is proud of.
However, Tian Songyao still had an advantage, that is, he knew how to judge the hour and size up the situation, and in 1949, when the Kuomintang was defeated and ready to flee to Taiwan to recuperate, Tian Songyao returned the plane ticket sent by Gu Zhutong and stayed on the mainland.
On December 9 of the same year, he followed Deng Xihou and Pan Wenhua to telegraph the whole country and declare an uprising.
In 1950, Tian Songyao was appointed by our side as a counselor of the Southwest Military Government Committee.