During the Agrarian Revolution, among all the Red Army troops participating in the Long March, the first to reach northern Shaanxi was not the Central Red Army, but the Red 25th Army of the former Red Fourth Front Army. The Red 25th Army embarked on the Long March in November 1934, and in September 1935, they arrived in northern Shaanxi. After arriving in northern Shaanxi, the Red 25th Army was reorganized into the Red 15th Army Corps, which quickly threw itself into the construction and consolidation of the base areas in northern Shaanxi, creating conditions for the Central Red Army to settle in northern Shaanxi.
The person we want to talk about today served as the commander of the Red 25th Army, and he participated in and led the Long March of the Red 25th Army, and made important contributions to the smooth arrival of the Red 25th Army in northern Shaanxi. So, what is the story of Wu Huanxian?
Wu Huanxian was born in 1907 in Xinxian County, Xinyang City, Henan Province, in a landlord family and received a good education from an early age. In 1923, Wu Huan was admitted to Macheng Sericulture School, and it was also during his study in this school that he came into contact with Marxism, and after a period of understanding, Wu Huanxian became interested in Marxism, and began to actively participate in various anti-imperialist and anti-feudal patriotic movements, propagating the revolutionary ideas of our party among his classmates, and guiding his classmates to progress and light.
In 1924, Wu Huanxian joined the Communist Youth League at the Macheng Sericulture School, and in 1925, he joined our party and became an honorable party member. After joining the party, Wu Huan first returned to his hometown to organize a peasant association, actively established a peasant army, and threw himself into the wave of the Great Revolution. It is worth mentioning that Wu Huanxian is a particularly ambitious person, and he also left a story of "breaking the family revolution".
In the autumn of 1926, Wu Huanxian summoned several tenants to his home, propagated the revolutionary ideas of our party to them, and burned down their land lease contracts and debt IOUs. Wu Huanxian also told the tenants that whoever planted their family's land in the future would own the land and would never collect rent from customers. This incident caused a great sensation in the local area, and the story of Wu Huanxian's "breaking the family revolution" has also been circulating in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area.
After the defeat of the Great Revolution, Wu Huanxian insisted on carrying out armed struggle in the Huangju area and the southern part of Guangshan, and in May 1928, he participated in the creation of the first base area in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui border area: Chaishan Fort. After that, Wu Huanxian was mainly engaged in local work, cooperated with the Red Army in carrying out guerrilla struggles, and made important contributions to the construction of Hubei, Henan, and Anhui base areas.
In 1931, after the establishment of the Red Fourth Front Army, Wu Huanxian served as the political commissar of the 73rd Division of the Red 25th Army, and he also led his troops to participate in the anti-"encirclement and suppression" in the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area. In October 1932, the Red Fourth Front Army left the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area, while Wu Huanxian continued to stay in the base area and led the military struggle of the guerrilla forces in northeastern Hubei Province. In November, Wu Huan first rebuilt the Red 25th Army, and in just a few days, he organized the military headquarters, two divisions, and two special service battalions, and the Red 25th Army was also expanded to 7,000 people.
After the establishment of the Red 25th Army, Wu Huanxian served as the first commander, and he continued to stick to the base area and fight wits and courage against the Kuomintang reactionaries. In 1934, after the Red 25th Army and the Red 28th Army were merged into the new Red 25th Army, Wu Huan first assumed the post of political commissar, after which he led his troops to fight in northeast Hubei and northwest Anhui, making important contributions to the development and growth of the Red 25th Army.
In November 1934, Wu Huanxian, the new army commander Cheng Zihua, and the deputy army commander Xu Haidong led the Red 25th Army to embark on the Long March. During the Long March, the Red 25th Army performed very well, and repeatedly smashed the enemy's heavy forces for "encirclement and suppression". In July 1935, Wu Huanxian led his troops north out of the Qinling Mountains and approached Xi'an.
However, after learning the news that the Central Red Army had joined forces with the Red Fourth Front Army and continued to move north, Wu Huanxian resolutely changed his battle plan, and he marched west to Gansu to meet the Central Red Army, effectively cooperating with the Central Red Army to move north. Unfortunately, on August 21, 1935, when the Red 25th Army crossed the Weihe River in the south near Sipo Village, Jingchuan, Gansu, it was suddenly attacked by the Kuomintang troops, and Wu Huanxian died heroically at the age of 28.