During the Long March, all the main forces of the Red Army were severely damaged and their troops were damaged, but there was not only no loss in one unit, but also greatly enhanced in strength and weapons and equipment, and its combat effectiveness was also very strong, and this unit was the Red 25th Army. As the saying goes, the train runs fast, all rely on the headband, the reason why the Red 25 Army has such a big record is because they have a good leader, that is, Xu Haidong.
Xu Haidong was born in 1900 in Huangpi County, near Hankou, and his ancestors once had fields, but due to natural and man-made disasters and harsh taxes, he was already destitute in his generation. Xu Haidong's father and his five older brothers worked in a kiln and were barely able to make ends meet.
Xu Haidong's father and brother had high hopes for him, so they all pooled money for him to go to school, and among Xu Haidong's classmates, almost all of them were the children of landlords or businessmen, and the children of these rich families often made fun of and bullied Xu Haidong. After four years of schooling, Xu Haidong was not willing to be bullied by his classmates and teachers, ran to work in a kiln factory, and later in order to make money, Xu Haidong joined the warlord's army, in the warlord's army, Xu Haidong had to be beaten every day, and he was in pain. In 1925, Xu Haidong heard that the National Revolution in the south was raging, so he ran to Guangzhou and joined General Zhang Fakui's Fourth Army, and also participated in the Northern Expedition and joined the Communist Party of China.
In 1927, Xu Haidong served
The Thirty-fourth Regiment of the Fourth Army served as acting platoon commander. After the April 12 incident, the two parties broke up completely, Xu Haidong returned to his hometown, organized the local workers and peasants, and set up a 17-member self-defense force to fight against the Kuomintang reactionaries. After that, Xu Haidong served as a battalion commander, regimental commander, division commander and other positions in the Red Army.
In 1932, when the main force of the Red Fourth Front was withdrawn from the Eyu-Anhui Soviet Region, Xu Haidong was ordered to lead the Red 25th Army to stay behind, reorganize the scattered guerrillas, and continue to fight against the Kuomintang army. What no one expected was that the Red 25th Army, a lone army left in the rear, achieved major victories one after another, breaking the many encirclements and suppressions of the Kuomintang army.
The Kuomintang army could not catch Xu Haidong, so they wantonly arrested his family, Xu Haidong's 27 close relatives and 39 distant relatives, a total of 66 people were all killed by the Kuomintang reactionaries, the Xu family survived only Xu Haidong and his three brothers who joined the Red Army, and later his three brothers, two of whom also died in battle. Xu Haidong's wife and other female dependents of the Xu family were sold to merchants, officials as concubines, or to brothels.
Later, when the American journalist Edgar Snow interviewed Xu Haidong, Xu Haidong told him: "This is not unusual, many Red Army commanders have such encounters in their homes, but my family has suffered the most." Chiang Kai-shek gave the order that if I occupied my hometown, I would kill the Xu family. ”
The successive killings of his family not only did not make Xu Haidong flinch, but made him stronger. On November 16, 1934, Cheng Zihua came to the Red 25th Army and conveyed the instructions of the central authorities, asking the main force of the Red 25th Army to make a strategic shift and establish a new base area. The leading body of the Red 25 Army was also reorganized, with Wu Huanxian still serving as the political commissar of the Red 25 Army, Cheng Zihua as the commander of the Red 25 Army, and Xu Haidong as the deputy commander. Later, after Wu Huanxian's death, Cheng Zihua served as political commissar and Xu Haidong served as military commander.
At that time, there were only more than 2,900 people in the Red 25th Army, and the average age of this unit was less than 20 years old, except for Xu Haidong, 34, Cheng Zihua, 29, and Wu Huanxian, who was 27, who were slightly older, most of the remaining regimental and battalion cadres were in their early 20s, and the cadres at the platoon level were only seventeen or eighteen years old, and there were almost no children over the age of 18 among the soldiers, and even some children over the age of twelve or thirteen. And it was such a unit, led by Xu Haidong into a tiger and wolf division, and walked out of 97 republican generals, including General Han Xianchu and General Liu Zhen.
As soon as Xu Haidong's leadership left the Eyu-Anhui base area, Chiang Kai-shek dispatched 38 regiments of troops to encircle and intercept them, hoping to annihilate them all. Xu Haidong, Wu Huanxian, and Cheng Zihua first walked in the front of the troops with machine guns and large knives on their backs, opening the way for the main force of the Red 25th Army. The first strategic transfer destination of the Red 25th Army was the Funiu Mountains in western Henan, but here they were intercepted by the Kuomintang army, and Xu Haidong and Wu Huanxian led their troops and enemies to defeat the enemy at Dushu Town and continued to move north.
On December 8, after a strenuous march, Xu Haidong finally led his troops to the southeastern region of Shaanxi Province and began to open up new bases here, and the number of the Red 25th Army increased to more than 3,700. The development and growth of the Red 25th Army in the base area of Eyu and Shaanxi made Chiang Kai-shek feel uneasy and immediately mobilized a large army to encircle and suppress.
In July 1935, it was coordinated
As the Central Red Army moved north, Xu Haidong led the Red Army's 25th Army north out of Qinling, directly threatening xi'an, the political center of the northwest, prompting the Kuomintang 51st Army to urgently change its operational plan, no longer transferred to Tianshui, but instead defending Xi'an. At the end of July, the 25th Army of the Red Army received news that the Kuomintang army would send heavy troops to the northern Sichuan region to prepare to intercept the central Red Army moving north. The Red 25th Army quickly moved north, cooperated with the Red 26th Army in northern Shaanxi, consolidated the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia base area, contained and destroyed the enemy, and welcomed the northward advance of the Central Red Army and the Red Fourth Front.
On August 1, the Red 25th Army eliminated four Companies of the Kuomintang in the Shaanxi-Gansu border area and captured alive one of Hu Zongnan's major generals. From the mouth of this major general senator, he learned that Hu Zongnan's main force had all been transferred to northern Sichuan, preparing to intercept the Central Red Army, while the Tianshui left in the rear was in a state of emptiness, and Xu Haidong understood that this was a good fighter.
Xu Haidong led the Red 25th Army to advance toward Tianshui, successively conquering Tianshui Beiguan, Qin'an, Jingning and other county towns, capturing a large number of military supplies, like a sharp knife inserted into the enemy's rear. Chiang Kai-shek issued five orders in a row, dispatched troops, and surrounded and intercepted the Red 25th Army. The military operations of the Red 25th Army disrupted Chiang Kai-shek's military deployment and responded to the plan of the Central Red Army to move north.
On September 15, 1935, the Red 25th Army arrived in northern Shaanxi and joined the Division of the Red Army in Northern Shaanxi, and the Red 25th Army and the Red Army in Northern Shaanxi were merged into the Red Fifteenth Army, with Xu Haidong as the commander of the regiment, Cheng Zihua as the political commissar, and Liu Zhidan as the deputy commander and chief of staff, with a total of more than 7,000 people in the whole army.
When the Red 25th Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, the number was more than 3,400, but the weapons and equipment were surprisingly good, with a total of 243 light machine guns, each company equipped with nine light machine guns, and the soldiers were equipped with brand new horse rifles, bullets and grenades. In addition, the Red 25th Army was equipped with a pistol regiment, each with a heavy machine gun company.
At the time of the 80,000-strong Long March of the Central Red Army, the Red Army, there were only 294 light machine guns. After the Central Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, Xu Haidong immediately ordered each company to draw the best three light machine guns and give them to the Central Red Army. In December 1935, when the Central Red Army was short of food and clothing, Yang Zhicheng, director of the General Logistics Department of the Central Military Commission, took a note approved by Chairman Mao and asked Xu Haidong to borrow 2,500 yuan from the Red 15th Army. Xu Haidong immediately called the director of the supply department of the Red 15 Army and asked him how much money he had left, and the minister of supply said that there were still 7,000 yuan, and Xu Haidong immediately ordered: "Leave 2,000 yuan, and the remaining 5,000 yuan will all be handed over to the central government." Xu Haidong also transferred a batch of weapons, supplies, and newly recruited soldiers to the Red First Army.
But unfortunately, due to the long-term conquest of the battlefield, Xu Haidong's body was greatly damaged, in 1940, Xu Haidong fell ill in the anhui eastern battlefield, and in the following decades, he stayed in the rear to recuperate, and never commanded the troops again. In 1955, when the founding general conferred the medal, when Xu Haidong learned that he had been awarded the rank of general, he asked to reduce his rank, or not to evaluate the rank, but Chairman Mao refused his request, not only granted him the rank of general, but also ranked second among the generals, second only to Su Yu, in front of Zhang Yunyi, Chen Geng, Huang Kecheng and other generals.