Chapter 57: The Red Eighth Legion
In the various Soviet areas, the revolutionary masses in Dabie Mountains suffered the most severe damage from the bandit gangs and the still-bandits, with a loss of over 10 million people even by the most conservative estimates. The severity of this disaster is even more extreme than that of the Central Soviet Area in terms of population ratio. Some of the KMT bandits' inhumane atrocities are comparable to those of the Japanese devils later on. However, the revolutionary masses here never stopped resisting, which was not only related to the strong folk customs of Dabie Mountains but also because there existed a regular Red Army unit - the 28th Red Army...
In history, the 28th Army was a very special force. In its three years of existence, it did not have an army commander and was controlled by its political commissar, Gao Jingting. Although he is not well-known in later generations, Hu Weidong still has some understanding of this controversial figure who made outstanding contributions to the Red Army's history but also committed great mistakes. Gao Jingting had excellent abilities in military command and base construction, and was a clean and self-disciplined person. However, his suspicious nature and influence from the left-leaning line led him to carry out large-scale purges within the army, causing the deaths of many good comrades. As the situation became more critical, Gao Jingting's suspicions grew, and his methods became increasingly simple and brutal, resulting in huge losses for the army and its base.
For the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, Hu Weidong had always been somewhat opposed to it, but Gao Jingting and Zhang Guotao were different in that they used this as an opportunity to seize power for themselves. This was mainly due to the influence of left-leaning ideology, combined with his own personality defects. Moreover, Gao Jingting was truly a rare talent, and in chaotic times, only talent can be relied upon. In order to deal with the Japanese devils, Hu Weidong really couldn't bear to see Gao Jingting repeat the mistakes of history. Furthermore, Hu Weidong had arrived quite early, and at this time, Gao Jingting's mistakes were not yet severe, so Hu Weidong wanted to help him even more, lest he harm others and himself in the future.
But Hu Weidong's "meddling" almost caused a fire between the two armies, because during the period of left-leaning thought, "route error" was an extremely serious problem. Once involved, it would be lightly detained or heavily sentenced to death, and even implicated in a large area. Gao Jingtang had a high reputation in the Red 28th Army, and when he saw him in trouble, his subordinates, regardless of the huge difference in strength between the two armies, spontaneously picked up their guns and wanted to rescue him. Fortunately, Gao Jingtang, who was loyal to the party, immediately spoke out to stop them. Otherwise, if the conflict had broken out, the consequences would have been unthinkable. This also taught Hu Weidong a lesson, and he became much more cautious when handling such problems in the future.
Although Gao Jingting showed strong party spirit and confirmed through telegram that Hu Weidong's words were not in vain, the Central Committee had indeed changed its ideological line, and Hu Weidong repeatedly emphasized that his rectification was only for "punishing the past and warning the future, treating the disease to save people." The goal was to prevent the tragedy of the past from happening again, rather than to turn over old accounts for a settlement. However, Gao Jingting had always attached great importance to the distinction between superior and inferior (a bit like the style of Soviet military leaders), and he couldn't bear to openly self-criticize in front of his subordinates. Fortunately, at this time, Liu Ying, who had previously reflected on her past "leftist" mistakes during the rectification campaign and was reappointed, moved Gao Jingting with her personal experience and sincere words: "Comrade Gao, suppose you were wrongly accused and didn't even have a chance to defend yourself before being shot by your own people. How would you feel?"
Gao Jingting slowly closed his eyes, speechless. He recalled the time he had executed the entire cooking class due to poisoning, wondering if these people were really all accomplices? This was clearly impossible, and he realized he had been too impulsive. For a moment, Gao Jingting fell into unprecedented regret. His suspicious and impulsive tendencies had been pointed out before, but as the highest leader of the 28th Army, would he listen to criticism from subordinates? The result was one mistake after another...
"That year, the Fourth Route Army was forced to leave Dabie Mountain largely because the expansion of the rectification campaign severely damaged its own vitality. I hope you can stand up and acknowledge past mistakes, and use this as a warning to later generations not to make similar errors." Hu Weidong said earnestly to Gao Jingtang.
"I understand," Gao Jingting let out a long sigh and resolutely ordered the entire army to assemble, listening to his self-criticism...
Gao Jingting initially thought that his subordinates would despise and look down on him, but to his surprise, as they listened, some people started applauding, and many had tears in their eyes. They did not blame Gao Jingting because those who had gone through the difficult days with him knew that it was extremely hard to avoid mistakenly killing a good person while eliminating traitors and spies in an environment where sacrifice could happen at any moment. The left-leaning line had advocated for "ruthless struggle and merciless blows," so it was inevitable that the campaign would expand beyond its original scope. Gao Jingting's mistake was not intentional, and if he hadn't been there, the Dabie Mountains might have already been completely occupied by the White Army, and the over 1,000 soldiers of the Red 28th Army might have all died. Therefore, Gao Jingting's act of publicly self-criticizing without regard for his own face actually further increased his prestige in the army...
After Gao Jingting finished speaking, Hu Weidong took the opportunity to briefly explain the root cause of the frequent loss of control in the suppression of counter-revolutionaries and announced that from now on, like the Red Fifteenth Army, the Red Twenty-eighth Army would set up three major institutions including a military court, in order to minimize the occurrence of wrongful convictions. The audience below immediately erupted into even more enthusiastic applause.
On the other hand, after learning that the 15th Red Army had crossed the Yangtze River and joined forces with the 28th Red Army, the Central Revolutionary Military Commission decided to establish the 8th Red Army Corps, with Hu Weidong as the corps commander, Mao Zedong as the political commissar, and under its jurisdiction were the 15th and 28th Armies. The 15th Army was led by Su Yu as the army commander and Dai Yuxian as the political commissar, while Gao Jingting was transferred from being the political commissar of the 28th Army to become its army commander, with his original position taken over by Zhang Dingcheng, who was known for being cautious. Additionally, the Fujian-Guangdong-Zhejiang-Guangxi-Anhui-Jiangsu region temporarily remained under Hu Weidong's remote control at his request, mainly in order to retain the technical experts and pilots who were still there; if they were to be transferred out, it would not be easy for them to return later, and their expertise might be wasted due to the new leadership being inexperienced.
After becoming the commander of the legion, Hu Weidong on the one hand pulled out more than 5,000 cadres and old soldiers from the Red Fifteenth Army to fill up the current strength of the Red Twenty-Eighth Army, which was not even a main force division. On the other hand, after consulting with Gao Jingtang's opinions and suggestions, he reused some talents in the Red Twenty-Eighth Army. For example, Fang Yongle, the original political commissar of the 82nd Division (the only division of the Red Twenty-Eighth Army...), who was only twenty years old at that time, was appointed by Hu Weidong as the chief of staff and commander of the special operations regiment, while his original position was taken over by Liu Ying. Mao Zedong, who had become a first-level leader of the legion, had to give up his idea of leading troops in battle; Xu Chengji, the original commander and political commissar of the Red Twenty-Eighth Army's pistol regiment, was proficient in special tactics without any training, Hu Weidong let him take over as the commander of the special operations battalion after receiving a month of special operations training, replacing Long Feibao who could not fully grasp the special tactics. Long Feibao then became the commander of the newly established legion headquarters guard regiment; Lin Weixian, who had been the commander of the 82nd Division but was demoted to battalion commander due to Gao Jingtang's left-leaning mistakes, was reinstated to his original position as the commander of the 82nd Division...
