On the night of August 16, 1931, the sky was cloudless and starry, and in order to highlight the enemy's encirclement, the main force of the Central Red Army embarked on the road to the west. Intelligence shows that there is a gap of more than 20 miles between the enemy's two columns, which has not yet been closed. Whether it succeeds or fails depends on whether the large army can pass through this narrow gap without being detected by the enemy.
The 20-mile gap that had not yet been closed was located in the Jianling Brain Mountain, and the troops quietly sneaked into the back of the Jianling Brain, and there was still a path at the beginning, walking and walking, but the road was gone, and they could only climb vines and attach to them, or cut tree stumps and bush roots, and re-open a mountain road from the deserted jungle grass. Zhu De, Mao Zedong, and Ye Jianying, chief of the General Staff, walked at the front of the team all night, and once they found that the front was really unpassable, they took a compass and worked with the scouts to find another route.
It was destined to be another extraordinary and magical night. On both flanks of the Red Army, less than 10 miles away were enemy troops. As the troops marched, there were constant silent orders from the advancing ranks, and one could see the flashlights flickering on the hill not far away, and hear the sound of the enemy's blind fire while conducting fire reconnaissance with heavy machine guns.
After dawn, the mountains were covered with clouds and mist, and the enemy could not detect the ground with planes, so the troops took the opportunity to rush forward, and when they looked back, they saw that the main peak of Jianlingnao had been left far behind.
In this way, the Red Army jumped out of the enemy's encirclement for the second time and entered the Fengbian and Baishi lines in the territory of Xingguo to rest and recuperate.
After all, the scope of the old base area was small, and after the main force of the Red Army broke through and arrived in Xingguo, Chiang Kai-shek soon learned of their whereabouts, so he telegraphed Zhao Guantao and other troops, saying that the Red Army had "fled westward from Junbu." It stands to reason that Chiang Kai-shek should have asked He Yingqin to reorganize the siege, but he was already interested in this, and the conflict between Ningbo and Guangdong was becoming increasingly intensified, and the Cantonese side threatened to go north, and Chiang Kai-shek, already fearing the Red Army's combat effectiveness, was worried that once he fought the Red Army, his strength would be further damaged, and he would not be able to withstand the attack of the Cantonese side.
Taking advantage of the fact that Chiang Kai-shek was contained within the Kuomintang and that the "encirclement and suppression" troops had begun to work without making any efforts, the Red Army won a precious half-month rest and recuperation, and the physical strength and combat capability of the troops were restored to their best condition.
From the end of August 1931, the dispute between Ningbo and Guangdong became more intense, and in early September, taking advantage of the fact that Chiang Kai-shek's main force was trapped in Jiangxi, the Guangdong army entered Hunan in a big way. Chiang Kai-shek urgently needed to transfer troops from Jiangxi to Hunan to prevent the blockade of the Cantonese army, so he had to order He Yingqin to deploy a retreat on all fronts.
Wang Chen's team quickly captured this information through radio reconnaissance, and Zhu De and Mao Zedong immediately ordered the Red Army to switch to a counterattack and pursue the enemy by separate routes.
Although the enemy's "encirclement and suppression" troops are all ordered to retreat, those ace elite troops are still "hard bones" that are difficult to gnaw. On September 7, the Red Army of the Middle Route intercepted Cai Tingkai's division retreating north at Xingguo Xingwei. Cai Division is the top unit in the southern miscellaneous army, it is known as the "iron army" that will not let the opponent pick up even a bullet shell on the battlefield, and it is well equipped and has strong firepower, when the Red Army charges, their light and heavy machine guns are like splashing water and hitting the head and face, which makes the battle extremely hard and tragic, and the Red Army has to pay a great price for casualties every time it takes a step forward.
The next day, the fighting continued. After the war, the Red Army counted more than 3,000 casualties and prisoners, two division commanders were killed, and Teng Daiyuan, chief of staff of the 3rd Red Army Corps, was also wounded. Such losses were not insignificant for the Central Red Army, whose strength was very limited at that time, and it could not quickly solve the opponent's problems, so weapons and ammunition were not captured, only consumed, and the Red Army had always relied on "fighting to feed the war," and such a battle was also extremely uneconomical. Mao Zedong later pointed out that a battle like Xingwei "is not lawful, it has always been regarded as a lost business, and our classic must be captured."