Chapter 64: Bandit Trouble

  But anyway, Xue Yue at least took some land and weakened the Red Army's strength. Gu Zhutong was much stronger than the ratio of the army attacking Dabie Mountain. Due to He Yingqin's fear of Wuhan being ambushed, he left behind a large army of one million, and Gu Zhutong could command less than two million troops. Coincidentally, they encountered Gao Jingtian, China's and even the world's first-rate guerrilla warfare master. With the support of the Dabie Mountain masses who hated the Nationalist Party to the bone, Gu Zhutong's army was in a difficult situation. After several months, not only did they fail to eliminate the 28th Red Army, but they also suffered over 10,000 casualties under the repeated attacks of the 28th Red Army and the Dabie Mountain militia guerrilla team. The 28th Red Army gradually understood Hu Weidong's advanced platoon tactics and became more familiar with the use of "advanced" weapons and equipment. Their ability to attack fortifications and fight in the wild made rapid progress. When Gu Zhutong first entered Dabie Mountain, the 28th Red Army could only annihilate Nationalist small units at the regimental level, and attacking fortifications relied on sneak attacks. By early 1936, Gu Zhutong had received three reports of the complete annihilation of Nationalist troops at the brigade level, and the 28th Red Army began to counterattack, concentrating its main forces to attack towns and counties in the Nationalist-controlled areas, often with success. He Yingqin heard the news and hastily summoned Gu Zhutong back, fearing chaos in the rear. Unexpectedly, Gao Jingtian gathered all of his more than 30,000 regular Red Army troops and 100,000 militia guerrilla teams to launch an unprecedented fierce attack on the retreating Nationalist army. The Red Army Air Force's 36 aircraft also participated in combat for the first time since joining the Red Army. Although they only dropped some mortar shells from high altitude to scare people, the Nationalist officers and soldiers were shocked, and even Gu Zhutong's well-disciplined troops could not hold back, fleeing along with the defeated soldiers...

  Up to now, the first counter-encirclement campaign after the reconstruction of the Dabie Mountains Soviet Area achieved an unprecedented victory. The 28th Army killed, wounded and captured more than 70,000 enemy troops, and successfully converted a large number of Nationalist prisoners of war with the support of the Military Commission's cadres. The strength of the 28th Army quickly surged to over 50,000 men, and two new supplementary brigades were established in addition to the original military department and the 82nd Division, greatly increasing its strength. He Yingqin and Gu Zhutong were both frightened, and due to the changes in the domestic situation after this, the Dabie Mountains Soviet Area, which had been plagued by war, finally won a rare period of rest and recovery, gradually regaining its vitality...

  On the other hand, Hu Weidong's side was having a harder time, not because of the National Army's attack, but because of the bandits. During the Republic of China era, banditry was rampant, and Henan was one of the most severely affected areas. Before the War of Resistance against Japan, there were over 400,000 bandits in Henan, with 100,000 of them in western Henan alone. These were all professional bandits; if you include those who were farmers by day and bandits by night during times of famine, the number would be astronomical. Moreover, Henan's bandits were not only numerous but also skilled in guerrilla warfare due to their long history. In the past, whether it was warlord troops, Central Army, or the Fourth Red Army, they had all suffered heavy losses at the hands of Henan's bandits and were unable to gain a foothold here. Hu Weidong had never learned how to suppress bandits, and his subordinates lacked talent in this area, so he was immediately left bewildered...

  If it were a positive battle, except for the very few fierce bandits, even if twenty people fought one, they would not be the opponent of the well-equipped and well-trained Red Fifteenth Army soldiers who had experienced war tests. However, those bandits usually didn't fight hard with you in peacetime. When the Red Army came to suppress them, they either hid in the deep mountains and circled around or temporarily hibernated and became farmers again. The former was easier to deal with, after all, the Red Army was also excellent at walking mountain roads, and after capturing the Gongxian Arsenal, a special mountain unit was established. The latter was much more troublesome, as there were too many bandits in Henan, almost every household in rural areas had relatives or friends who were bandits, and due to "Jianghu righteousness", it was generally considered shameful for civilians to inform on the authorities, and farmers were afraid of revenge from the bandits. As a result, very few people would come forward to report or expose them. The Red Fifteenth Army, which had always had an intelligence advantage, became deaf and blind for the first time. Moreover, those bandits never launched attacks on regular Red Army units, they only targeted lone Red Army soldiers and Soviet government workers, and brutally retaliated against local people who helped the Red Army. In just September 1935 alone, 1273 party members, cadres, and Red Army soldiers were killed, and civilian casualties exceeded 5,000, but this also thoroughly enraged Hu Weidong...

  Although it is impossible to implement the "Three-Alls Policy" like the Nationalist Party and Japan, strengthening control is still possible. Hu Weidong used military control and militia construction to simultaneously treat symptoms and work hard to do a good job in mass work and develop agricultural production in each county to address the root cause. Considering that the Red Army's forces were insufficient (to ensure the complete elimination of bandits, the garrison troops would need to be several times or even ten times larger than the number of bandits), Hu Weidong decided to temporarily control only the towns and transportation lines in the newly captured counties, so as not to sacrifice too many administrative personnel. At the same time, he mobilized a large army to start from Gong County and eliminate banditry county by county, that is, to transform the Red Army into propaganda teams and work teams to replace administrative personnel and government officials working in the countryside. Bandits who took action would undoubtedly be courting death, while those who did not take action would have no place to hide once the militia system was completed in each county. Furthermore, under the enormous psychological pressure of being with a superior enemy day and night, hidden bandits either escaped to neighboring counties or were caught, among whom a considerable number of people were intimidated by the Red Army's pressure or moved by their protection of the people, and voluntarily surrendered and confessed their crimes.

  For the sentencing of bandits, Hu Weidong took two basic guidelines: "Only punish the ringleaders and do not ask about those who followed under duress." and "Leniency for those who confess, severity for those who resist." At the same time, he specially stipulated that "those who rape women will be killed, those who kill old people, women and children will not be pardoned (that is to say, even if they surrender, they will still be killed)". The reason was that while stealing for survival might be forgivable, once someone had crossed the line into evil, it would be too difficult to reform them into good people. It would be simpler to just kill them off. Although this increased the resistance during the elimination of bandits, it successfully prevented the resurgence of banditry and gradually restored peace in western Henan, which had once become a den of thieves.

  Despite this, the Western Henan Bandit Suppression Campaign took half a year to complete, and sporadic banditry continued until the eve of the War of Resistance against Japan. During this period, the Red Army lost 5,746 soldiers, 7,291 government officials were killed, including over 8,000 party members, and civilian casualties exceeded 20,000, with losses even greater than those suffered in previous battles against Nationalist forces. However, it was also during this period that the Red Fifteenth Army's frequent dispersal into small units to conduct guerrilla warfare allowed them to quickly adapt to mobile warfare at the start of the War of Resistance. The eradication of banditry in Henan, which had plagued the province for over half a century since the fall of the Qing dynasty, also silenced those who had previously criticized the Communist Party as being "only able to destroy, not construct", and won the support of the majority of the population, laying a solid foundation for the Soviet government's efforts to concentrate its forces on restoring and developing production.