It turned out that the successive victories of the Red Fourth Army in western Fujian once again shook the Kuomintang reactionaries. In June, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the troops stationed in Jiangxi, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces to carry out the first "meeting and suppression" of the western Fujian Soviet region. Jin Handing, commander of the 12th Division of the Jiangxi Kuomintang Army, was the commander-in-chief of the "Hui Suppression Army." Its deployment was as follows: The 12th Division and the 7th Division of the Jiangxi Kuomintang Army, with a total of 4 regiments as the main force, attacked from Changting to Xinquan and Gutian; The provisional 1st Division of Zhang Zhen of the Fujian Kuomintang Army attacked from Zhangzhou to Longyan; The 1st Brigade of the 7th Brigade of the Guangdong Kuomintang Army advanced from Tai Po and Songkou to Yongding.
On July 29, Zhu De and Chen Yi rushed to Jiaoyang from Liancheng Xinquan and convened an emergency meeting of the front committee with Mao Zedong to discuss countermeasures against the enemy. After discussion, the meeting decided to concentrate the main force of the Red Fourth Army to attack central Fujian and attack the Kuomintang army on the outer front. The fourth column remained in western Fujian to persist in the struggle. (In early June 1929, the local revolutionary armed forces in Changting, Yongding, Longyan, and Shanghang counties in western Fujian were promoted to the fourth column.) Column Commander Fu Baicui, Political Commissar Li Renyu, and Chief of Staff Luo Ruiqing. ）
The meeting also decided to send Chen Yi to Shanghai to report to the CPC Central Committee on the work of the CPC Central Committee in accordance with the opinion put forward in the CPC Central Committee's "April letter" that "I hope the former CPC Central Committee will send a capable comrade to leave there for the time being, come to the CPC Central Committee to report on all issues, and then return to work with you." Zhu De, the former secretary of the CPC Central Committee, was to be deputized.
After the meeting, Mao Zedong, who fell ill, was transferred from Jiaoyang to Sujiapo, and later went to Jinfeng Mountain in Yongding County to recuperate.
Chen Yi went to Xiamen via Shanghang and Longyan, and then transferred from Xiamen to Hong Kong to Shanghai.
Zhu De was ready to lead the main force of the Red Fourth Army to attack Fujian.
On August 2, the second and third columns of the Red Fourth Army were concentrated in Baisha as originally planned. The first column led by Lin Biao stayed in western Fujian and fought with the Kuomintang army together with the fourth column.
Zhu De judged that among the Kuomintang troops on the three routes, Zhang Zhen's troops in Fujian were relatively weak and were relatively sure of fighting, so he prepared to fight this way. On 4 August, Zhu De commanded the second and third columns of the Red Fourth Army to capture Ningyang County in one fell swoop; On 7 August, they marched south along Sungai and routed the defending enemy all the way, and the next day they entered Zhangping and eliminated the local militia and a battalion of Zhang Zhen. The Red Fourth Army, which had been working with the masses in Zhangping for a week, left Zhangping in mid-August and began to jump to the outer line and attack Fujian.
Fujian is the territory of Lu Xingbang, an indigenous warlord in Fujian. Lu Xingbang relied on more than a dozen regiments and tens of thousands of horses and horses to guard various county towns in central Fujian and fought against Yang Shuzhuang, chairman of the Kuomintang Fujian Provincial Government. Zhu De analyzed the situation and decided not to engage Lu Xingbang's troops for the time being, but to send a messenger to his headquarters, saying that he would "take the border through the road." However, Lu Xingbang was cunning and cunning, fearing that the Red Army would "secretly cross Chencang", and did not agree under the pretext that "the countryside is remote and barren". On August 20, Zhu De led the second and third columns to besiege Buke, the county seat of Datian, and transferred to the area of Yongchun and Fuding.
At this time, the situation in central and western Fujian was unfavorable to the Red Army, and in addition to the high temperature in the middle of summer, the number of sick people increased sharply, and the special committee of the Communist Party of China in western Fujian also wrote a letter to the front committee of the Red Fourth Army, requesting that "the Fourth Army be transferred back to western Fujian and work in the Zhangping area." As a result, Zhu De led his troops to suddenly return to Zhangping on August 28, and the next day they completely annihilated a regiment of Zhang Zhen's division in Xinanwei, capturing more than 200 enemies and seizing a large number of guns and ammunition. Taking advantage of the victory, the Red Army captured Zhangping City again on 30 August, winning the victory of annihilating one enemy regiment and capturing more than 100 enemies. The Red Army occupied Zhangping again, and the Kuomintang defenders stationed in Longyan were terrified and abandoned the city and fled. On September 6, the Red Fourth Army reoccupied Longyan. In this way, Zhang Zhen's department, the weakest Fujian army in the "Hui Suppression" of the three provinces, has been defeated.
During the period when Zhu De led the second and third columns to fight on the outer front, the first and fourth columns on the inner line, with the close cooperation of the masses in western Fujian, effectively contained and dealt a blow to the enemy who was "able to suppress." During the more than a month that the three regiments of Chen Weiyuan's Guangdong enemy occupied Yongding Hulei, they did not dare to search the mountains under the attack of the first column and local revolutionary forces, and many people were killed and wounded. The fourth column also continued to guerrilla attacks and harassment the Kuomintang army, so that the Jinhan Ding Division of the Jiangxi Army always shrank in Changting and Liancheng, and did not dare to move forward.
In early September, Zhu De led the second and third columns to Baisha in Shanghang and joined the first and fourth columns. Due to the defeat of Zhang Zhen's division of the Fujian army, the Guangdong and Jiangxi armies had no intention of fighting, and they also withdrew to their own provinces. Chiang Kai-shek's first "meeting and suppression" of the revolutionary base areas in western Fujian went bankrupt.
After the four columns of the Red Fourth Army converged, they prepared to attack Shanghangcheng.
Shanghang is an important town in western Fujian and has always been a battleground for soldiers. The Tingjiang River goes around the city, the city wall is surrounded by water on three sides, the city wall built of bricks and stones is more than three zhang high, it is easy to defend and difficult to attack, it is known as "Iron Shanghang". There is a local folk song: "Iron hits Hangzhou, solid as gold." There is no retreat in the east, no battlefield in the west, there are rivers in the south, and ponds in the north. Tell your children and grandchildren, don't fight Hangzhou!" Entrenched in Shanghang at this time was the Second Mixed Brigade of the Kuomintang Fujian Provincial Defense Army. The brigade commander was Lu Xinming, who was defeated by the Red Army in the battle of Changlingzhai in 1928. After the defeat, he fled here, gathered the remnants of the defeated army, and appointed himself as the brigade commander, becoming a famous "soil emperor" along the Tingjiang River.
On the night of September 20, Zhu De led more than 10,000 members of the Red Fourth Army and local revolutionary armed forces to secretly cross the river from the shallow upper reaches of the Ting River. The next night, the siege began. The first column attacked the west gate, the second and third columns attacked the north gate, the fourth column attacked the east gate with the cooperation of the Red Guards, and the other part of the Red Guards feinted to attack the south gate. The four city gates were attacked at the same time, and Lu Xinming couldn't tell the real from the fake, so he had to be like a headless fly, bumping around. When the artillery fire of the first column led the main force of the defenders to the west, the second and third columns immediately intensified their offensive at the north gate. Zhu De commanded the battle from a small high ground outside the north gate. The Red Army soldiers set up a ladder and climbed into the city. Lu Xinming realized the plan and sent troops to reinforce the north gate, but the north gate had been breached, and Red Army soldiers and Red Guards flocked into the city. Zhu De also entered Shanghang with the army. In this battle, except for Lu Xinming who escaped from the south gate with more than a dozen personal guards, all the defenders in the city were captured by the Red Army.
The Red Fourth Army conquered Shanghang, which won a rare opportunity for the Red Army to rest and recuperate. The Red Fourth Army also grew to 7,000 people, and each column grew from two to three detachments.
At this time, Zhu De was both a military commander and a former secretary of the party committee, and he had to take care of both military and political work, so he was really too busy. In addition, the controversy within the Red Fourth Army was not really resolved, all kinds of non-proletarian ideas were not fundamentally overcome, and the work of the Party and the political work of the army were weakened. Zhu De was deeply worried about this and wanted to focus on rectification and strengthening construction so as to facilitate work and fighting.
In late September, Zhu De presided over the Eighth Party Congress of the Red Fourth Army at the Taizhong Temple in Shanghang. Because the leadership of the former party committee was not sound (Mao Zedong was recuperating from illness, Chen Yi went to Shanghai to report), and because they did not make the necessary preparations, and because they rejected the "top-down patriarchal system" and practiced "democracy from below," thinking that the proletariat should practice the most thorough "democracy," the meeting was held for three days and was very unsuccessful.
Later, Xiong Shouqi, acting secretary of the Military Commission of the Fourth Army of the Red Army, said in his report to the CPC Central Committee: Because of the practice of the so-called 'bottom-up democratic system,' it is necessary to debate for half a day at a meeting. He even "discussed for two days the question of the power of party deputies in the laws and regulations of the Red Army, but it was still impossible to resolve it, but in the end it was decided to ask the Central Committee for instructions." The Fourth Army of the Communist Party of China "held three days of disorganization at the Eighth Congress of the Red Army, and there was no result." "This is the phenomenon of the extreme democratization tendency of the steering organs at all levels before the Ninth Congress." Facts have proven that by weakening the party's leadership over the armed forces and practicing extreme democracy, even a strong army like the Fourth Army of the Red Army will turn into a "rabble" without unified will and iron discipline.
Before the Eighth National Congress of the Red Fourth Army Party began, the former committee had sent a letter to Mao Zedong, inviting him to attend the congress. During the meeting, many deputies also realized from practice the preciousness of the political principles upheld by Mao Zedong and that the work of the Fourth Army of the Red Army was indeed inseparable from Mao Zedong, so they strongly demanded that Mao Zedong be invited back to the front committee to preside over the work. Zhu De also said happily: "I agree to invite Lao Mao back." Everyone says that the Red Army is vermilion. Zhu can't leave Mao, and Zhu can't survive the winter without Mao. So, everyone jointly wrote a letter to Mao Zedong, urging him to return to the former committee.
After Mao Zedong received the letter, he replied with a letter, which said:
I have carefully inspected things and strictly supervised the work in my life, which is the thorn in the eyes of Chen Yiism. Chen Yi asked me to be a "four-sided beauty to please me", but I couldn't do it; If the rights and wrongs within the party of the Red Fourth Army are not resolved, I can't come back casually; Besides, if I am not in good health, I will not attend the meeting.
The reply letter was sent to Shanghang, where the former party committee considered Mao Zedong's attitude "problematic" and gave him a "warning" within the party, and asked him to come immediately. Mao Zedong had to take a stretcher to Shanghang. But by the time he arrived, the meeting had already ended. Everyone saw that Mao Zedong was indeed very ill and let him continue to recuperate.
After that, Zhu De found the best residence in Shanghang for Mao Zedong - Shanghang Linjiang Building, so that he could recuperate with peace of mind. After the careful treatment of the famous local doctor Wu Xiushan and the careful care of He Zizhen, Mao Zedong's condition improved significantly.
Linjiang Building is located on the bank of the Ting River. It was Chongyang, the sky was high and the clouds were light, and the golden cinnamon was fragrant. Mao Zedong couldn't help but feel emotional, and wrote a poem:
Life is easy to grow old and hard to grow old,
Years and years of Chongyang.
Now and Chongyang,
Battlefield yellow flowers are extraordinarily fragrant.
The annual autumn wind is strong,
It's not like spring.
Better than spring,
The sky is frosty.
In late October, Mao Zedong withdrew from Shanghang County with the organs of the Fujian Special Committee of the Communist Party of China and transferred to Sujiapo to continue recuperation. On the way to Sujiapo, Mao Zedong said to Zeng Zhi: It seems that I have a big life, and I have finally passed this "ghost gate".
However, the Kuomintang reactionaries spread rumors that Mao Zedong had entered the "ghost gate" and died of tuberculosis. On March 20, 1930, an obituary of more than 1,000 words was published in the Comintern's bulletin, the International News Bulletin:
According to Chinese sources: Comrade Mao Zedong, the founder of the Communist Party of China, the founder of the Chinese guerrillas, and one of the founders of the Chinese Red Army, died on the front line in Fujian due to a long-term tuberculosis. This is a great loss to the Communist Party of China, the Chinese Red Army and the Chinese revolutionary cause. Comrade Mao Zedong was the political leader known as the Vermilion Red Army. He fully implemented the resolutions of the Sixth Congress of the Communist International and the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of China within the scope of his leadership. As a Bolshevik in the international community and a staunch fighter of the Communist Party of China, Comrade Mao Zedong fulfilled his historical mission.
Although this "obituary" is bizarre, it reveals a fact that cannot be ignored: Mao Zedong, as one of the founders and leaders of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, held a decisive position in the Chinese revolution and the Communist Party of China! This was recognized not only domestically, but also by the Comintern.