Zhang Guotao's separatist acts
On September 9, 1935, Zhang Guotao, vice chairman of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, general political commissar of the Red Army, and member of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee, led the Left Route Army to Aba and arrived at Aba, ignoring the resolute opposition of Zhu De, chairman of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, commander-in-chief of the Red Army, and member of the Political Bureau of the Party Central Committee, and Liu Bocheng, chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, and disobeying the decision and instructions of the Party Central Committee on all the armies of the two fronts to go north. It is an attempt to endanger the Party Central Committee and the First Army by force.
Ye Jianying, who was then the chief of staff of the Red Army's former enemy general headquarters, learned of this secret telegram and immediately reported it to Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, and Bogu immediately rushed from Yalong to the military headquarters of the Third Army in Lower Brazil, and held an emergency meeting of the Politburo with Zhou Enlai, Wang Jiaxiang, and Peng Dehuai, who were living there to recuperate.
The participants unanimously agreed that if we continue to wait in place for Zhang Guotao to lead the Left Route Army to the north, it is not only impossible, but will also incur serious consequences, and we should quickly get out of the danger zone.
At the meeting, it was decided that the Party Central Committee would lead the Third Army in the early morning of the next day to join up with the Central Military Commission column and the First Army, which had already arrived at the Russian border, and then march north to Gansu and Shaanxi in accordance with the decision of the Maoergai Conference.
This was the historic Brazil Conference.
Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai disclosed some information about Zhang Guotao's attempt to split the party and the Red Army in an attempt to endanger the leading comrades of the Party Central Committee before and after Lin Biao's defection in 1971.
After the smashing of the Jiang Qing counter-revolutionary clique in 1976, the Party Central Committee and the proletarian revolutionaries of the older generation have publicly published proclamations and reminiscences, expounding and conclusively expounding and conclusive conclusions about Zhang Guotao's secret telegram and Ye Jianying's exploits.
In order to let people understand the truth of the "secret wire incident" and clarify the true face of history, as a witness to this incident, I would like to talk about what I have seen and heard.
How the "Cipher Incident" happened
After the battle of the Baoza, the enemy's follow-up troops no longer dared to act rashly, and our army had very favorable conditions for moving north. However, until this time, the Left Route Army led by Zhu De, Zhang Guotao, and Liu Bocheng was still in the Aba area.
On September 1, Mao Zedong, Xu Xiangqian, and Chen Changhao jointly sent a telegram to Zhang Guotao, suggesting that the Left Route Army quickly leave Banyou and move closer to the Right Route Army. However, Zhang Guotao ignored the opposition of Zhu De and Liu Bocheng, and insisted on holding his troops under the pretext that the Gequ River could not be crossed eastward due to the rising water (in fact, Zhu De sent people to test that it could be crossed), and forced the Fifth Army, which had advanced eastward to Mowa, to return to Aba.
On September 3, Zhang Guotao sent a telegram to the Party Central Committee, not only refusing to advance north to Banyou, but also putting forward the idea that "the Right Route Army would take advantage of the victory to counterattack the Songpan enemy" to move south.
On the 5th, he also telegraphed the follow-up troops of the Left Route Army that were still in Songgang, Dangba, Zhuokeji and other places to stop going north and raise food on the spot and stand by. By this time, Chen Changhao, one of the leaders of the former Red Fourth Front Army, had changed his attitude and agreed with Zhang Guotao's proposal to go south. Xu Xiangqian also felt embarrassed.
In order to persuade and educate Chen Changhao, win over Zhang Guotao, and mobilize the Left Route Army to quickly move north, Mao Zedong, Zhang Wentian, and Bogu (Zhou Enlai and Wang Jiaxiang were living at the military headquarters of the Red Army in Lower Brazil due to illness) who were living in the Yalong near Panzhou Village at that time went to the address of the general headquarters of Panzhou Village for several days from September 4 to 8 for a meeting. The meeting was held in the big house where Xu Xiangqian, Chen Changhao, and Ye Jianying lived. Due to Chen Changhao's arrogant attitude, the atmosphere was very tense, and quarrels were heard in the house from time to time.
On 8 September, under the repeated persuasion of Mao Zedong and other central leading comrades, Chen Changhao was forced to agree to send a joint telegram to Zhang Guotao and others in the names of Zhou Enlai, Zhang Wentian, Bogu, Mao Zedong, Xu Xiangqian, Chen Changhao, and Wang Jiaxiang, proposing that "if the Left Route Army moves south, the future will be extremely unfavorable." ”
Unexpectedly, Zhang Guotao first sent a telegram to Zhan Caifang, commander of the Red 31st Army of the Red Fourth Front Army stationed in Malkang on the 8th: "Order the Military Commission column to ...... Transferred to Malcom to standby, if he does not listen, he will be detained and electrocuted. ”
At the same time, at 22 o'clock that night, he ordered Xu Xiangqian and Chen Changhao to suspend their advance towards Roda and prepare to go south.
On 9 September, in his capacity as director of the General Political Department and political commissar of the former enemy of the Red Army, Chen Changhao summoned senior cadres of the Right Route Army to a meeting at the general headquarters of the former enemy in Panzhou Village to convey Zhang Guotao's order and mobilize him to the south.
On the same day, I went to the confidential room to read the telegram, and it happened that Chen Maosheng, the head of the confidential group, had just begun to translate a telegram sent from the General Headquarters of the Left Route Army. After the telegram was translated, Chen Maosheng and I were both taken aback.
It turned out that this was a secret telegram from Zhang Guotao to Chen Changhao.
The main elements of the message are:
× day was reported. After long-term consideration, the time is not ripe for the northward expansion, and it is most appropriate to establish a base area on the Sichuan-Kang border. When the revolution came, it would develop in the northeast direction, hoping to persuade Mao, Zhou, and Zhang to abandon Mao's plan and turn back to the south with the Right Route Army. If they do not heed the advice, their movements should be monitored, and if they persist in the northward advance, they should be subjected to an intra-party struggle to resolve it once and for all.
Chen Maosheng and I knew that the situation was very urgent, and decided to hand over the secret message to Chief of Staff Ye Jianying first. I immediately went to the conference room, invited Chief of Staff Ye out, and handed him the telegram in person. Chief of Staff Ye stood outside and read the telegram, put the telegram in his pocket, and then waved his hand and said, "Go back!" Appears unusually alert and calm.
At this moment, Chief of Staff Ye Jianying left the conference room under the pretext of leaving the conference room and personally went to Mao Zedong's residence in Yalong, about 3 miles away from Panzhou Village, and presented the secret telegram to Mao Zedong.
After Mao Zedong read the telegram, he asked Ye Jianying to bring the original telegram back to Chen Changhao, and he rushed to the military headquarters of the Red Army in Brazil with Zhang Wentian and Bogu from Yalong, which is the situation of convening the Brazilian conference described at the beginning of this chapter.
At the same time, Ye Jianying continued to participate in the cadre meeting after returning to Panzhou Village, and handed over the secret message to Chen Changhao. After Chen Changhao read Zhang Guotao's secret telegram, he immediately instructed the troops of the Red Fourth Army stationed in Jiaji and Qinduo to monitor and guard the Party Central Committee and the Red Third Army.
That night, Chief of Staff Ye Jianying called me and Chen Maosheng together and told us: "Don't talk about this telegram to anyone. ”
Then, he went about his business as usual, as if nothing had happened. When it was quiet at night, Chief of Staff Ye Jianying came to the Operations Section and saw that there was no one else in the room, so he asked me quietly: "Lu Jixi, do you have a map of Gansu and Shaanxi provinces?"
I immediately reported to him: "After the battle of Baoza, I collected a complete map of Gansu Province in the 30th Army, which is now stored in the Operations Section. The map of Shaanxi Province does not. ”
Chief of Staff Ye Jianying said: "You give me this map of Gansu Province." ”
I then took the map out of the file box and handed it to him.
In the middle of the night that day, Chief of Staff Ye Jianying, at great risk, took advantage of the fact that people were sleeping soundly and quietly, quietly got up, and in the name of raising food, led a part of the team directly under the Central Military Commission to the junction of the branch road leading to Yalong by the Lower Brazil River.
Mao Zedong was very happy to see that Ye Jianying and Yang Shangkun had brought out the teams directly under the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, especially Zeng Xisheng's second bureau and the map of Gansu Province. Therefore, he immediately found on the map the path of advancing from Asiran and Zhuozang to the Russian border to join the First Army, and decided not to take the road of Jiaji, Chinduo, and Qiuji Temple, so as to avoid accidents with the troops of the Red Fourth Army stationed there.
In the early morning of 10 September, the CPC Central Committee led the Red Army and the units directly under the Central Military Commission to the north, and issued a "Letter to Comrades of the Central Committee for the Implementation of the Northward Policy," pointing out that the southward policy "has no way out for the Red Army, and the southward movement is a dead end." He called on the whole army to "resolutely support the strategic policy of the central authorities, quickly move north, and create a new Soviet region in Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Gansu."
On the same day, the Party Central Committee sent a telegram to Zhang Guotao, pointing out: "Reading Xu Chen's telegram order to transfer the Right Route Army to the south, the Central Committee considers it completely inappropriate. The Central Committee now earnestly points out that the only way out is to go north, and to the south, the enemy's situation, terrain, population, and supplies are extremely unfavorable to us, and this will plunge the Red Army into an unprecedentedly difficult environment. The central authorities believe that the policy of going north should never be changed, and that the left route army should move north as soon as possible. ”
At the same time, he called Xu and Chen of the Right Route Army: "In order to lose no time in realizing their strategic plan. The central authorities have ordered the main forces of the First Army to advance towards Roda and Lajie. The 4th and 30th armies are under your command and should advance behind the 1st and 3rd armies at the end of the day. ”
On September 11, the Party Central Committee sent another telegram to Zhang Guotao on the way north: "General Political Commissar Zhang is instructed to immediately order the Left Route Army to march towards Banyou and Brazil, and there must be no mistakes. ”
Sights and hearings at the former enemy's general headquarters
On the morning of 10 September, not long after the Party Central Committee led the Red Third Army and the troops directly under the Central Military Commission from Xiabasi and Yalong, I suddenly saw He Wei, then president of the Red Army University, rushing on a stretcher (wounded in the battle of Maogong) and reporting to Chen Changhao in a panic that the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao had led their troops to the north.
He also held in his hand an order signed by Zhou Enlai, vice chairman of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, to send the Red Army University north. After Chen Changhao learned of this news, he immediately called the military and political chiefs who had sent cavalry to the Red Fourth and 30th Armies to meet with the enemy's general headquarters to discuss countermeasures.
I don't know about the meeting, but I know two things after the meeting:
First, Xu Xiangqian resolutely did not agree to send troops to pursue the Party Central Committee and the Red Third Army, so the troops of the Red Fourth Army, which had already been on guard in Jiaji and Qinduo, remained in place.
Second, Chen Changhao sent Li Te, deputy chief of staff, to lead a team of cavalry to chase after him and "persuade" the party Central Committee.
Lee's catch up with the rearguard of the Red Army and see Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai, Salisbury has a description in "The Long March: An Unheard Story", in which he says that most of the details come from an interview with General Yang Shangkun on April 8, 1984.
Salisbury writes:
"Mao decided to speak to the delegation sent by the Four Fronts and the people left behind by the Four Fronts .......
Mao said to them, if you want to go south, please do it; If you want to go north, please do so. Then he invited sixty or seventy cadres of the Fourth Front Army to meet him, including ...... Li Te.
Mao told the cadres that there was no way out when they went south. He said that as for those who are not willing to go north with the party Central Committee, they can wait. We can be the vanguard, one step ahead. ''Let's go first, open up new bases, complete our mission, and we welcome you to join our team, and I'm sure you will come in a year's time.'' ’
(Author's note: Mao is right, almost a day is not bad.) )
As soon as Mao finished speaking, Li Teh jumped up and loudly accused Mao of 'escapism' ......".
Peng Dehuai also wrote in "Peng Dehuai's Self-Statement":
"Chairman Mao and I walked in the back of the tenth regiment, that is, the Yang Yong regiment. … …
Chairman Mao said some very touching things to Li Te, and also advised me not to make trouble with him. Chen Changhao sent me a letter asking me to stop going north. Chairman Mao said that he would give him a receipt, and there would be a period later.
Hearing that Chen Changhao was going to send troops to pursue us, Xu Xiangqian said: How can this be reasonable, how can there be a reason for the Red Army to fight the Red Army!
This sentence played a decisive role, and Chen Future pursued. ”
Due to the urgency of the situation on the evening of 9 July, I and Bi Zhanyun, chief of the reconnaissance section of the General Headquarters, Lai Guangxun, chief of the Map Section, Chen Maosheng, head of the translation and telecommunications team, and other comrades of the former First Front Army, did not receive any news or notice that Chief of Staff Ye was going to lead the troops directly under the Central Military Commission to the north, so we remained in the former enemy's general headquarters to work.
On the morning of the 10th, when Chen Changhao held a meeting of cadres, he asked me to take out this map of Gansu Province and give it to him.
I reported to him in person: This complete map of Gansu was placed in a document box, and someone took it because the file box was not locked. Chen Changhao asked again and again, and I answered calmly.
Afterwards, Chen Changhao and Li Teh were still skeptical of me, but because they didn't find any flaws, I was fortunate to be spared.
But this incident has actually affected his trust and use of me, which is a story for another time.
By the way:
On February 1, 1988, Xu Xiangqian said in "A Conversation on the History of Military Surveying and Mapping":
"Before leaving Sichuan, we bought a map of 1/300,000 from Zhao Shoushan through Comrade Yan Yuyao, printed on Daolin paper, bundled by bundle, and filled with a full box. On the Long March, when the 1st and 3rd Army Corps went north, Comrade Ye Jianying took this map with them. ”
This statement does not correspond to historical facts. At that time, there was no map of 1/300,000, according to Comrade Huang Youfeng, who was Chairman Mao's confidential secretary at the time, recalled:
In the early morning of August and September 1935, Comrade Xiao Xiangrong, secretary general of the CPC Central Committee, suddenly woke us up and immediately told the other comrades around the chairman that we should immediately prepare our bags and be ready to set off at any time.
Later, I learned from Xiao that it was Zhang Guotao who was engaged in the conspiracy, and handed me a map of 1/100,000 of the Gannan area, and according to him, Comrade Lu Liping handed it over to Chief of Staff Ye, who then handed it over to him as chairman and a telegram.
The map was handed over to me for the Chairman's safekeeping. I don't know the ins and outs of the telegram, and I don't know the contents, but Xiao handed it over to the chairman directly and dealt with it himself.
Finally, I would like to give an account of the distribution of the various units of our Right Route Army before and after the occurrence of the "secret cable incident."
Since the end of the battle of Baoza, except for the Red Third Army as the rearguard unit stationed in the area of Yalong and Lower Brazil with the Party Central Committee, the forward Red First Army gradually moved north and arrived at Gaojilin (Russian border) in Diebe County, Gansu.
The Red Fourth and 30th armies were stationed in the triangle between Jiaji, Qinduo, Qiuji, Xiabaoza, and Dajie Monastery along the Pasir River to the Baoza River.
The Red 30th Army went south to guard the southern part of Huzong in Songpan, and on the bridge head of the Baozuo River, there was a poetic and eye-catching slogan written "Thousands of rivers have water, thousands of rivers and moons, thousands of miles of clouds and thousands of miles of sky".
The Red Fourth Army was in Jiaji and Qiuji Temple. To the north, you can follow the avenue to the Russian border, so the party Central Committee led the Red Army and the troops directly under the Central Military Commission to the north to be on alert.
At the same time, as you can see from the map, it is 17 li long from Jiaji and Chinduo to Nga Lane, and 26 li to Asirong, which are two parallel roads to the north. At that time, the regiment of the Red Fourth Army stationed in Jiaji for alert had set up a wired telephone with the general headquarters of Panzhou Village, but there was no telephone contact with the Red Army of Lower Brazil, which was 16 miles away, and could not exchange information.
Therefore, it is said that there are people in front of you who do not know the truth. Call for instructions: The Central Red Army is gone. Still wary of us, do you want to fight or not?
It is impossible to look at it from this sketch. (See Figure 4 on the next page)
