During the period of the agrarian revolutionary war, the Kuomintang reactionaries launched a brutal encirclement and suppression operation against the newly established Workers' and Peasants' Red Army in various base areas in the north and south of the Yangtze River. Relying on its flexible tactics and tenacious will to fight, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army successfully broke through the first four encirclements and suppressions of the Kuomintang.
However, in the course of the fifth "anti-encirclement and suppression" campaign, due to the improper command of the communist leaders Bogu and Li De at the time, the Red Army lost in repeated battles, the base area gradually shrank, and the situation fell into a very critical point.
In order to preserve the strength of the Red Army and avoid a head-on decisive battle with the well-equipped Kuomintang army, the Party Central Committee decided to implement a large-scale strategic transfer, which is the famous 25,000-mile long march of the Red Army in history.
The arduous long march
After the failure of the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, the main force of the Central Red Army launched a great action of strategically shifting from the revolutionary base areas on the Yangtze River to the revolutionary base areas in Shaanxi and Gansu.
In the course of the Long March, the Red Army troops crossed the snow-capped mountains, walked through the vast meadows, broke through the blockade line of the Kuomintang one after another, and repelled the enemy's attacks again and again.
When there was no food, the warriors dug up wild vegetables and filled the grass roots; without cold clothing, they stripped off the hides of animals for warmth; without weapons and ammunition, the warriors fought the enemy with large knives.
It was under such extremely difficult conditions that the Long March troops did not rob the local people of a grain of rice or a single thread, and even distributed the money and grain obtained from the landlords to the poor families who could not eat, and truly won the heartfelt support of the broad masses of the working people.
In this way, after experiencing all kinds of difficulties and dangers, many Red Army units successfully met their divisions in the revolutionary base areas of Shaanxi and Gansu and won a great victory in the Long March.
Among them, countless revolutionary heroes have emerged, some of whom have shown great wisdom and scheming, escaped from the repeated pursuits of the Kuomintang, and some have not feared sacrifice and sacrificed their precious lives to cover their comrades-in-arms, and Li Zuopeng is one of them.
He joined the Red Army at a young age
Li Zuopeng was born in 1914 in a poor peasant family in Jiangxi Province, although his parents were farmers for a living, they attached great importance to Li Zuopeng's education, hoping that his son could get rid of the difficult farming life and get ahead.
But in school, Li Zuopeng was very naughty, wandering around with a group of friends all day, and had no idea of seriously studying, and his parents saw that their son was hanging like this, so he had to drop out of school and return home.
After dropping out of school, Li Zuopeng had to follow his parents to work in the fields in order to make a living, but he was not satisfied with facing the loess all day long and living a boring life day after day, just when the Red Army passed through Li Zuopeng's hometown, his parents encouraged him to join the army, which was also a way out.
Li Zuopeng looked at this well-disciplined and morale-filled revolutionary contingent with great admiration, and soon made up his mind to join the army.
He was only 16 years old.
Only a half-grown child.
After joining the Red Army, the heavy training every day made the young Li Zuopeng suffer a lot, and he lost a circle in just a few months, but since he had taken this step, there was no need to regret it, and Li Zuopeng gritted his teeth and persevered.
The arduous training successfully trained Li Zuopeng into a hard-working, brave warrior, and his flashy personality became calm.
Soon, Li Zuopeng's talent in telegraph operations was revealed, and he was transferred to the confidential office of the Central Military Commission as a telegraph interpreter, and had the opportunity to have direct contact with the central leaders of the Red Army. At this moment, the Long March of the Red Army began.
Cleverly broke the telegram to save the troops
On the long march, Li Zuopeng always followed the organizational organs closely and did not call a single bitter, and at the same time, he also served as an important task of contacting friendly troops and deciphering enemy intelligence.
In order to know the enemy's encirclement plan and to control the enemy's planes first, the Central Military Commission set up a deciphering squad to be responsible for deciphering the intercepted Kuomintang telegrams, and Li Zuopeng was selected as one of them.
During a breakout,
Li Zuopeng successfully deciphered the enemy's telegram code from a telegram
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From this, we obtained important information on the Kuomintang's combat deployment.
According to this information, the leaders of the Red Army immediately adjusted their deployment, broke through the weak links in the encirclement, and finally successfully broke through, and the battle plan carefully arranged by the Kuomintang was put into the water.
It was during this operation that Li Zuopeng, who had made great contributions, was appreciated by the leaders of the Central Military Commission, and after the successful conclusion of the Long March, Li Zuopeng was promoted by Lin Shuai, the head of the long march at the time, to the head of the reconnaissance section.
Since then, Li Zuopeng has made meritorious contributions to many battles, and after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Li Zuopeng was already the chief of staff of the Shandong Column of the Eighth Route Army and grew into a commander of the army alone.
During an attack by the Japanese army, Li Zuopeng led the soldiers to stubbornly resist and repelled several Japanese charges, and the Japanese troops who had suffered defeat became angry and ashamed, and they released poison gas bombs at our army's positions, and a large number of Red Army soldiers were poisoned and died.
Li Zuopeng was also blinded by poison gas in his right eye, but he did not flinch, covering his wounded eyes and leading the remaining troops to fight to the death, and finally let the Japanese army return in vain.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general
In the later War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, Li Zuopeng fought bravely and repeatedly made miraculous achievements.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in the 1955 award ceremony, Li Zuopeng was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, becoming one of the founding generals of the People's Republic of China.
In one recollection, Li Zuopeng was still very proud of the deciphering operation in the Long March, and he confessed to the people around him.
If it were not for his own deciphering the Kuomintang's coded telegram at a critical moment and learning of the enemy's battle plan, it would have been difficult for the Red Army to successfully break through in that war.
brief summary:
The Long March of the Red Army was a great strategic action in the history of our army, and in the case of the defeat of the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, the leaders of our army immediately made a decision, and with this great strategic transfer, they effectively preserved the fighting strength of the army and broke the plan of the Kuomintang army to try to wipe out our army in one go.
In the course of the Long March, the mistakes of Bogu and others were also corrected by the organization, and Chairman Mao's leadership position was thus established; from then on, the troops of our army gradually developed and grew under the leadership of Chairman Mao and won great victories again and again.