Volume 1 Red Star Shining Over China Chapter 55 Wujing Feidu (2)

  Almost at the same time as the Red Ninth Army crossed the Wujiang River, the vanguard of the Red Second Division, the Fourth Regiment, arrived at the Jiangjiehe ferry.

  Historically, the Red Fourth Regiment arrived at the Jiangjie River ferry on December 31. When they arrived at the ferry, the Guizhou army had already burned down the ferry boats. After conducting firepower reconnaissance against the enemy, they organized troops to attempt a crossing twice on January 1. The second time was an attempt to cross using bamboo rafts, but eight Red Army soldiers' bamboo rafts were destroyed and fell into the Wu River, with only one battalion's third company commander Mao Zhenhua and five other brave warriors successfully crossing the Wu River. On January 2, the Red Fourth Regiment used bamboo rafts for a large-scale forced crossing. At a critical moment, Mao Zhenhua and the five other soldiers jumped out from their hiding place to attack the enemy, while artilleryman Zhao Zhangcheng directed the artillery to destroy the enemy's fortifications and hit the enemy's attacking formation. After the Red Army crossed the river and landed on the shore, the enemy dispersed. The Red Fourth Regiment set up two floating bridges, and the Second Division and Central Column crossed the river from there.

  Things are much better now than they were historically, fierce battles are impossible, the enemy guarding the crossing had only one platoon and was captured while sleeping, and the ferry was also found.

  Commander Geng Biao and Political Commissar Yang Chengwu immediately arranged for the vanguard troops to quickly cross the river, take control of key points, and cover the main force's crossing.

  Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De rushed to the scene and called Liu Bocheng, Chen Guang and Liu Yalou together to personally deploy combat tasks. After the 4th Regiment crossed the river, they quickly established contact with the 5th Army Corps. After the main force of the 2nd Division crossed the river, the 4th Regiment took the lead, followed by the 2nd Division and the 13th Regiment of the 5th Army Corps, coordinating with the 34th Regiment of the 5th Army Corps to launch a three-pronged attack on Zunyi. Liu Bocheng was in charge of commanding the vanguard, with the goal of driving the enemy out of Zunyi and annihilating them outside the city without breaking or destroying Zunyi. Afterwards, troops would be arranged to rush to Wushan Pass to ensure the safety of Zunyi.

  Liu Bocheng proposed that the Red Fourth Regiment take the lead, but it was too tired. He suggested using the Sixth Regiment as the vanguard to rush to Zunyi.

  Mao Zedong laughed and said: "That's the commander-in-chief's business, we don't interfere." Then he went to rest on one side with Zhou Enlai and Zhu De.

  Liu Bocheng immediately adjusted the task of the troops, and the 4th Regiment organized a crossing of the river, first sending the 6th Regiment over. The engineer battalion quickly built a pontoon bridge to ensure that the main force and the Military Commission's column could cross the river.

  After accepting the task, Yang Chengwu found that there were too few ferries and the speed of crossing the river was slow. On the one hand, he organized engineers to build a pontoon bridge, and on the other hand, he organized soldiers to cut down bamboo and made more than 100 bamboo rafts. As a result, the speed of crossing the river increased greatly, and the Sixth Regiment quickly crossed the river and climbed over the ten-mile-long slope along the Wujiang River, and stepped onto the highway leading to Zunyi.

  On the 21st, in the early morning, the Red Second Division's engineer battalion finally set up two pontoon bridges on the 60-meter-wide surface of the Wu River. The main force of the division quickly crossed the river. After crossing the river, they merged with the 13th Division of the Fifth Army Corps coming from the direction of Jinjiekou and rushed towards Zunyi.

  Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De waited until the Cadre Team and Central Column had crossed the pontoon bridge before crossing the river with their guards.

  Looking at the Wujing River under his feet, Old Zhu sighed: "I thought of several ways to force a crossing of the Wujing River. I didn't expect none of them to be useful."

  Zhou Enlai also said: "Yes. Unexpectedly, the treacherous Wujiang River was crossed by us like this. It seems that Zunyi is in sight."

  "Come on, comrades. Thinking of going to Zunyi City to eat Guizhou North flavor dishes. We must speed up our journey. If we go late, Hou Zhen might have taken over the wine tower." - Mao Zedong

  A group of people laughed and climbed up the mountain slope.

  The commander of the Guizhou Army, Wan Shiwei, never dreamed that he and his troops would become the first target of the Red Army's attack on northern Guizhou.

  Wan Shiying Medal. Guizhou Tongren Miao people. He is the wife of Wang Jiale's nephew. His unit belongs to the first division of Qian Jun under He Zhihong.

  Here is the translation:

  In history, Wan Shiwei's unit abandoned their position and fled when the Red First Army broke through Wujing during the Battle of Huilongchang. They were later defeated by the Red Ninth Army in Meitan County. However, Wan Shiwei himself had some military background and was relatively lucky. After Wang Jialie stepped down, Chiang Kai-shek reorganized the Guizhou army, merging He Zhihong's unit into the 103rd Division, with Wan Shiwei as commander of the 618th Regiment.

  In his later military career, Wan Shiwei did two things that would go down in history: one was during the War of Resistance against Japan. Wan Shiwei's 618th Regiment participated in the Battle of Nanjing and was the last Nationalist unit to withdraw from Nanjing. During the Shanghai-Hangzhou campaign, Wan Shiwei led the 618th Regiment in a fierce battle against the Japanese at Jiangyin Fortress, inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy.

  After being ordered to retreat to Nanjing, they joined the Battle of Nanjing and continued fighting after Tang Shengzhi fled. After withdrawing from Nanjing, they collected remnants of the 103rd Division and maintained their combat effectiveness.

  The second was during the Chinese Civil War in December 1949, when Wan Shiwei, then deputy commander of the Yunnan-Guizhou-Guangxi Border Region and commander of the Anlong Command Post, led his unit to defect and join the People's Liberation Army.

  Wan Shiying's division was supposed to retreat back to Guiyang with the main force, but as He Zhihong, a member of Wang Jiaxiang's faction, knew that if all troops retreated, the entire northern Guizhou would fall into Hou Zongliang's sphere of influence, making it difficult to return. Therefore, he deliberately left Wan Shiying's division stationed in Meitan to contain Hou Zongliang and took four regiments back to Guiyang himself.

  Wan Shi Jiao, who was guarding the Mei River, felt more and more that the situation in front of him was strange. Since the main force of the Red Bandits wanted to occupy Guiyang, why did they still have to divide their troops to occupy Huangping and Shibing? Was it just to hold back our main force from reinforcing Guiyang? Or should he be more cautious? Thinking again, if the main force returned to rescue Guiyang, he would be isolated in northern Guizhou. If the Red Bandits had any plans for northern Guizhou, relying on his own regiment alone would not be enough. Forget it, when you are under someone's roof, you cannot but lower your head. He might as well contact Hou Zidang and remind him to carry out Chairman Wang's orders and strengthen the Wujiang defense line.

  Unexpectedly, Hou Zizhen was connected to this matter, and he readily agreed to dispatch Wan Shi's troops to defend the Jinjiang River mouth, preventing the Red Bandits from crossing the river.

  Hou Zidao, holding a chicken feather as a command arrow, dared to direct himself. In a fit of rage, he slammed the phone down. After calming down and thinking carefully, it's still better to send a regiment to Xinkou. After all, that place is a key point for river defense. Even if the Red Bandits don't come, it will leave a way out for himself in case he needs to retreat to the south bank of the Wujiang River.

  Meitan County is more than 100 miles away from Jingkou, but it's all mountain roads. Fortunately, the soldiers of Wan Shiying's battalion are all from Guizhou and can adapt. A regiment rushed forward, starting from early morning to evening, and finally arrived in Ao Creek Town on the evening of the 20th. Looking at the distance, there were only more than 30 miles left to Wujing River, and the officers and soldiers were really too tired. Many brothers' nicotine addiction also recurred, and the regiment commander had no choice but to order a campsite.

  As soon as the troops heard about camping, they were overjoyed. After all, this is the border of Mei Tan, their own territory, and Ao Xi Town is a big town connecting Mei Tan and Yu Qing highways, where there are tobacco and sisters. The officers and soldiers had a clear understanding in their hearts. As a result, those on duty to stand guard were smoking, those who were addicted to smoking were indulging, those who liked to drink gathered together to make merry, and those who liked the sisters naturally reached into their pockets for some silver dollars and swaggered away with their heads held high.

  That night, the soldiers of the Manchurian 8th Division in this camp basically had a wild party in Ao Creek Town.

  Just as the sky was getting light, two gunshots suddenly rang out from the south of the town. The enemy camp commander thought it was a sentry misfiring and didn't pay attention to it, and continued sleeping with his arms around the waist of the cellar sister.

  Things didn't go well afterwards. The gunfire became more intense and had already reached the town. The enemy camp commander was shocked, damn it, could it be that the Red Bandits had really come? Was he so unlucky to encounter the Red Bandits as soon as he went out? Could the treacherous Black River not stop the Red Bandits, did they fly over?

  Soon, the Red Bandits seemed to have arrived at the doorstep. The sound of gunfire and people's voices filled the entire town. The enemy camp leader could no longer hesitate. With a push, he opened the door and rushed out of the room, leaving behind the frightened Yuguan sister who was trembling with fear. In an instant, he put on his clothes, grabbed his pistol, and dashed into the courtyard!

  Through the door crack, oh my god, the Red Bandits have really come, it seems like there are over a thousand of them. On the roads in the middle of the town and in front of every household gate, brothers were lying dead or wounded on the ground, kneeling with their hands up in surrender. It's all over, our whole regiment is done for, I'd better think of a way to escape and report back to the commander.

  The enemy commander suddenly appeared in the backyard, climbed over the wall and entered the forest behind, escaping quickly.

  The town of Ao Creek was occupied by the 34th Division of the Red Fifth Army Corps.

  After the 34th Division crossed the river, one battalion was left to guard the crossing point, and the troops rested for several hours before starting their search along the main road towards Zunyi. After marching over 30 miles of mountain roads, they arrived at Aoxi Town just before dawn. The original plan was to find a guide in town and then head west to Zunyi. Unexpectedly, they encountered Guizhou army sentries on the south side of town; one of them only had time to fire a single shot before being killed. Seeing this, the vanguard regiment commander Han Wei thought, "Ah, there are enemies here." He immediately ordered one battalion to go around to the north end of town to cut off the enemy's retreat route and led two battalions in a charge forward. The result was that they easily annihilated an entire enemy battalion. The only regret was not capturing the enemy battalion commander.

  When the main force arrived, the sky had already brightened. Su Daqing, the team leader of the 101st Regiment, looked at Han Wei with envy. He said that Old Han was lucky and finally made a good start after crossing the Xiangjiang River, wiping out an entire battalion in one go.

  Han Wei looked at Su Daqing and said, "No big deal, compared to Liu Yimin's record, it's not even worth mentioning. This Guizhou army is too easy to beat, when can we take on the Central Army for a real challenge?"

  Chen Shuxiang looked at Han Wei and Su Daqing, saying: "Don't dawdle, the battle has just ended, we need to quickly clean up the battlefield and catch up with the main force. The Su team will become the vanguard of the entire division, find a guide, and immediately advance towards Zunyi."

  Han Wei's face lit up, and just as he was about to argue with his teacher, Su Daqing bowed to the teacher and said "thank you, teacher" before running off in high spirits.

  Han Wei was at a loss and had to order the troops to clean up the battlefield and post propaganda slogans. After finishing their work, they led the troops in pursuit of the main force.

  When we received a telegram from the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, the 1st Division and the 15th Division of the First Army Corps had just occupied Kaiyang.

  As soon as the Central Revolutionary Military Commission ordered to turn immediately towards Wujiang, Lin Biao and Nie Rongzhen immediately realized that the Wujing defense line was open to the Red Army. The opportunity was not to be missed, and there was no time to arrange for troops to rest or count the spoils of war. Immediately, they ordered the First Red Regiment to set out at once, with the target being Chashan Guan Ferry, while the main force rested briefly before setting out.

  The Red First Regiment has always been the vanguard, occupying Jianhe, attacking Huangping, advancing to Jiuzhou, and capturing Kaiyang. Not to mention fighting, just marching had made the troops extremely tired. After occupying Kaiyang, Yang Dezhi and Li Lin thought they could let the troops rest for half a day, but the order to seize the Wujing Tea Mountain Pass came down. Fortunately, they had been winning battles recently, the soldiers were well-fed, their physical strength was guaranteed, and the distance from Kaiyang County to Chashan Pass was not too far, over 100 miles. So Yang Dezhi and Li Lin did not dare to delay, after gathering the troops, they immediately marched out of Kaiyang County towards Chashan Pass.

  The Red Third Army Corps occupied Fuquan after the Guizhou army withdrew in a hurry, and due to their hasty retreat, they did not have time to destroy anything, so the spoils of war were great, and the cadres and soldiers were all overjoyed.

  Several army corps commanders were discussing how to distribute the captured materials when a telegram from the Central Revolutionary Military Commission arrived. Peng Dehuai burst out laughing as soon as he saw it, and several people asked him what was so funny. Peng said: "That turtle egg Wang Jialie thought we were going to attack Guiyang, and in his haste to defend Guiyang, he forgot about Wujing. Now the Wujing line is empty, and the Central Revolutionary Military Commission has ordered us to quickly cross the Wujiang River northward."

  A few people looked at the telegram and saw that it didn't say "Wu Jiang is empty", did they have another mysterious plan?

  Peng Dehuai said: "Don't hesitate, notify the troops to set off immediately. The Fifth Division will send a regiment as the vanguard, the main force will follow, and the action must be swift, cannot drag the whole army's legs."

  Yang Shangkun said: "What about the captured materials?"

  Peng Dehuai said: "Soldiers value speed, throw away what can be thrown away, and bring only what is absolutely necessary. Once we reach northern Guizhou, we can replenish our supplies again!"

  Thus, the three legions quickly withdrew from Fuchuan and advanced towards Kaiyang.

  Many years later, a reporter came to Fuquan for an interview. When asked about the situation of the Red Army's Long March in Fuquan, an old man said with a trembling voice: "I was only 16 years old at that time and was carrying grain packages in a grain store. I remember it very clearly. When the Red Army arrived, Wang Jialie's troops had already withdrawn. As soon as the Red Army entered the city, they began to post slogans, red and green, and posted many of them. For some reason, the Red Army suddenly withdrew, leaving in a hurry, even abandoning the grain they had seized. This caused chaos in Fuquan, with every household taking bags to Wang Jialie's granary to load grain. That winter, there were basically no deaths from starvation in Fuquan, all thanks to the blessings of the Red Army!

  Just as the Red Army was flying over the Wujiang River, Hu Lao Hu, the commander of the cavalry regiment of the Central Guard Division, was escorting two companies of the logistics battalion to Huangping in a hurry.

  After receiving the task at noon on the 20th, Hu Lao Hu and Cao Shengli, the head of the logistics battalion, had a simple discussion and decided to lead the cavalry company as the vanguard, with Bao Wen, the instructor of the cavalry battalion, leading the second cavalry company as the second echelon. Cao Shengli commanded two companies of the logistics battalion to follow up, and the third cavalry company served as the rear guard. The troops rested for an hour every 50 miles, letting the horses rest their hooves, and the soldiers ate some dry rations before continuing their march.

  After leaving Liping, the journey was smooth and uneventful. The logistics camp had already implemented horse-drawn transportation, so supplies no longer needed to be carried on human backs, and taking care of the mules was sufficient. As a result, the marching speed wasn't slow either. By 12:00 noon on the 21st, they had already crossed the Jianhe River and arrived at Gedong Town. According to the local guide found in Jianhe, the distance to Huangping County was less than 140 li. Hu Lao Hu ordered the troops to rest for an hour, eat something, and take a short nap.

  After resting, the troops set off again. They had walked for over 30 miles when a group of about ten villagers appeared on the road ahead. Hu Lao Hu didn't take a close look and rode past them. Another ten miles later, they saw several more villagers resting by the side of the road. This time Hu Lao Hu was on his guard. It was wartime now, so why were there people on the main road? And why had they encountered two groups in such a short distance, both consisting of robust men?

  Looks like I need to be more careful.