Chapter 18 (3) Leaving the front line

At this time, Zhou Enlai's military command on the front line had actually been replaced by Li De.He can't participate in all major military decisions, and only undertakes some technical organizational work.It was at this time that the secret negotiations with Jiang Jun's 19th Route Army presided over by him made significant progress. What kind of army is the Jiang Jun's 19th Route Army stationed in Fujian? During the January 28 Anti-Japanese War in 1932, it was this army led by Cai Tingkai and Jiang Guangnai who bravely resisted the Japanese invading army in Shanghai.At the beginning of the Shanghai Anti-Japanese War, Shiozawa, the commander of the Japanese 1st Fleet, arrogantly declared that Shanghai could be occupied within 4 hours.

On the night of January 28, 6,000 Japanese marines attacked Zhabei in separate routes, and the 19th Route Army split up to fight.With the strong support of people from all walks of life and the general public, the 19th Route Army successively repelled the Japanese army, which had obviously superior equipment, and caused heavy damage.The Japanese army suffered a disastrous defeat in the first battle. The Japanese consuls in Shanghai pretended to seek peace and delayed their tactics. They entrusted the British and American consuls to mediate and demanded a three-day truce.In fact, the army was densely packed, increasing to tens of thousands of troops within three days, and launched a fierce attack on the 19th Route Army on February 2.

On the 7th, the Japanese army was defeated again. Commander Shiozawa was dismissed and Nomura succeeded him.The Japanese army fought and lost again, and the commander was replaced by Ueda, and after three defeats, Shirakawa was replaced.The Japanese army continued to increase its troops, and soon reached 100,000 horses.The 19th Route Army and the 5th Route Army, which later joined the war, had a total of less than 40,000 people, and their weapons and equipment were even worse than the Japanese army.However, with the support of the broad masses of the people, direct participation in the war, and cooperation and assistance, the Japanese army was forced to remain in the narrow coastal zone until the 29th, unable to move forward.

However, when the Japanese army was heavily reinforced and the situation was extremely critical, Chiang Kai-shek publicly stated that the 19th Route Army's resistance against Japan "those who acted freely without the order of the Military and Political Department, although out of patriotism, must be punished for disobedience"; The army has 3 divisions and a total of 16 regiments, and there is no need for reinforcements."The Japanese army understood Jiang's suggestion, and immediately increased their troops in large numbers, extending the front from Zhabei through Wusong to the bank of the Yangtze River, resulting in weak troops on the long defense line of the 19th Route Army and 5th Route Army. The 19th Route Army was forced to retreat from Shanghai, and the Japanese occupied Songhu.

On May 5, Chiang signed the "Songhu Agreement" with Japan. Chiang first punished the 19th Route Army that "violated orders" against Japan, and then dismembered him. He transferred three divisions under his command to Wuhan, Anhui and Nanjing respectively. .However, with the support of all parties, the officers and soldiers of the 19th Route Army fought hard according to reason and refused to obey the order of division and dismemberment.Jiang had no choice but to order the army to be transferred to Fujian to "suppress the Communist Party." After being ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to move to Fujian to participate in the "encirclement and suppression" of the Central Soviet Area, the generals of the 19th Route Army hated the civil war and demanded resistance to Japan.They were very interested in the CCP's proposition that it would sign an armistice agreement with any armed forces in the country under three conditions and jointly resist Japan.These three conditions are: (1) Immediately stop attacking the Soviet area; (2) Immediately guarantee the democratic rights of the people (freedom of assembly, association, speech, strike, press, etc.); (3) Immediately arm the people and create an armed volunteer army to defend China and fight for China's independence, unity and territorial integrity.

Inspired by the CCP's anti-Japanese proposition, Cai Tingkai and Jiang Guangnai secretly sent representative Wu Ming to the front line of Yanping to contact the Red Army in August 1933.This Wu Ming, formerly known as Chen Gongpei, was with Zhou Enlai when he traveled to France in the early 1920s. Fujian, which is controlled by the 19th Route Army, borders the Central Soviet Area. If the Red Army is allied with this department, it will not only immediately eliminate the threat from the east, but also fully deal with the main force of Chiang’s army assembled on the northern front. own fighting strength.

Zhou Enlai attached great importance to this matter. On September 22, he called Xiang Ying, Peng Dehuai, etc., and suggested that Yuan Guoping, director of the political department of the 3rd Red Army, be sent to the Xiqin area of ​​Fujian Province to have an interview with Wu Ming in order to further understand the true intentions of the 19th Route Army.After negotiations, Peng Dehuai handed Wu Ming a letter back, welcoming the cooperation request put forward by the 19th Route Army.Since then, the two sides have entered a state of truce. At the beginning of October, Xu Minghong, secretary-general of the 19th Route Army, accompanied by Wu Ming, arrived in Ruijin in secret.After further negotiations, on the 26th Pan Hannian represented the Red Army and Xu Minghong represented the 19th Route Army and signed the "Preliminary Agreement on Anti-Japanese and Anti-Chiang": the two sides immediately stopped military operations, delineated temporary military boundaries, lifted the economic blockade of the Soviet area, released Political prisoners held in Fujian, etc.

On November 20 of this year, under the leadership of Cai Tingkai, Jiang Guangnai, and Chen Mingshu, the 19th Route Army united with some anti-Chiang forces such as Li Jishen in the Kuomintang, launched the Fujian Incident, and established the "People's Revolutionary Government of the People's Republic of China" against Japan and against Chiang. ", the various armies were renamed the "People's Revolutionary Army", announced the abolition of the Kuomintang flag, and replaced it with a new national flag with a yellow five-pointed star embedded in blue on the top and red on the bottom.Chiang Kai-shek was very panicked by this, and hastily mobilized the main force of the "encirclement and suppression" Red Army to besiege the 19th Route Army, which became his top priority.

Based on this situation, Zhou Enlai called Bogu, Xiang Ying, Li De, etc. on the fourth day after the Fujian Incident, pointing out that Chiang Kai-shek is currently delaying the attack on the Central Soviet Area, mobilizing troops to move eastward from Zhejiang to Fujian, and suppress the Fujian revolutionary government.He urged an early decision on whether the 3rd and 5th Red Army Corps would participate in flanking the Chiang Kai-shek army advancing in the direction of Zhongxian, Chonggao, and Guixi. At the same time, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De also called Liu Chouxi, commander of the 10th Red Army, and Xun Huaizhou, commander of the 7th Red Army, pointing out that the 19th Route Army in Fujian had declared anti-Chiang, and that Chiang Kai-shek had drawn troops to the borders of Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Fujian, and demanded that Northeast Jiangxi and Northeast Jiangxi be united against Chiang Kai-shek. The Northern Fujian Red Army seized this opportunity: (1) Extensively develop guerrilla warfare in the above-mentioned areas, intercept the enemy's communication and transportation, and disrupt its rear; (2) Concentrate the main force of the Red 7th Army to prepare to intercept or tail the enemy's action troops at any time, with the intention of eliminating the enemy's strength , Avoid confronting and storming the fort head-on.

However, starting from a leftist point of view, the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of China held a completely distrustful attitude towards the Fujian Revolutionary Government and the 19th Route Army and refused to provide support. On November 25, the Central Revolutionary Military Commission issued an operational order for the Red Front Army, emphasizing that "we should not spend big losses to fight the new First Route Army of the Northeast enemy, but let the 19th Route Army fight the enemy for us."In this way, Zhou Enlai's original plan to support the Fujian Incident and the military operations of the 19th Route Army was put on hold.Not only that, but the Red Flag Weekly, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, published an editorial that did not regard the Fujian revolutionary government as an anti-Japanese ally, but falsely accused that "the 'people's government' organized by the 19th Route Army, Chen Mingshu and Li Jishen in Fujian was also under reactionary rule. A new kind of deception".

On December 5, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Letter to the People of the Nation for the Fujian Incident", criticizing that after the establishment of the Fujian People's Revolutionary Government, "there was no real action against the imperialists, warlords, bureaucrats and landlords", therefore, "it will not be the same as any What is the difference between the counter-revolutionary government of the Kuomintang".It asserts that "there is no middle way, and all elements who want to find a third way out between the revolution and the counter-revolution will inevitably suffer a brutal defeat and become an auxiliary tool for the counter-revolution to attack the revolution." After the Fujian Incident, Chiang Kai-shek, who was commanding Fuzhou, was extremely nervous because he was extremely afraid of the Red Army joining forces with the 19th Route Army.Once this happens, not only his fifth "encirclement and suppression" plan for the Central Soviet Area will come to naught, but the Red Army will even become passive and active. With the help of the 19th Route Army, it will be even more powerful and quickly counterattack in an all-round way.Every day, he went to Yan Daogang, the director of his attendant room, to ask if there was any information about the contact between the Red Army and the 19th Route Army. Later, he did not find such a situation that worried him, and he couldn't help expressing a feeling of luck among misfortunes. In order to suppress the 19th Route Army, Chiang Kai-shek hastily drew 9 divisions from the North Route Army that "encircled and suppressed" the Central Soviet Area, and formed the "Fujian Army" with other troops. defensive.As a result, most of the troops originally invested in the "encirclement and suppression" of the Central Soviet Area were transferred to suppress the 19th Route Army. At the same time, the 87th and 88th Divisions that defended Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou were also drawn into the "Army into Fujian". It was very empty, and even the defense of Nanjing was maintained by some military police, police and some local teams.This is an excellent opportunity for the Red Army to crush Chiang Kai-shek's fifth "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the Central Committee. Front-line military leaders such as Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and Peng Dehuai actively suggested to the Central Bureau that the Red Army take the opportunity to attack northeast Jiangxi in order to break the "encirclement and suppression" of Jiang's army.Li De, Bo Gu, Xiang Ying and others ignored their suggestions.According to Bogu and Li De's combat policy, the Red 3rd Army fought fiercely with 12 regiments of the Jiang Army in Tuancun, east of Lichuan City, on December 2.Due to the division of troops of the Red 1st Army, it was only a battle of defeat, and most of Jiang's army was able to escape. On the 13th, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De called the Central Revolutionary Military Commission, arguing that if the 1st and 3rd Red Corps fought together in the Tuancun battle, the results would not be like this.It is proposed that the current Red Army Assault Corps is divided into operations, and that general cadres and even wartime will apply new technologies without understanding and proficiency. The main force of the third, fifth, and ninth armies, and even a part of the main force of the seventh army, fought decisive battles with the enemy's main force at Dongshan and Deshengguan. Otherwise, our assault corps fought separately...often unable to achieve high-level victories, and paid a high price , which is of particular importance at present.”We should strive to "concentrate all our efforts to inflict greater damage on the enemy" and "make the Northeast temporarily calm, so that we can shift our strategy." On the 13th and 14th, the Central Revolutionary Military Commission repeatedly replied, disagreeing with Zhou Enlai and Zhu De's proposal, and issued a secret order to rearrange the first and third armies and four independent regiments of the Red Army's main force into the Western Army. Moved to the Yongfeng area to fight against the Tax Police Corps, formed the Eastern Army with the 5th and 7th Army Corps and some local troops, and stayed in Jianning, Taining, Lichuan, Guangze, and Jinxi to carry out guerrilla warfare; with the 9th Army Corps And two independent regiments were organized into the Central Army to contain Jiang's army and support the Eastern Army and Western Army in combat.In this way, the main force of the Red Army attacked the fortress line built by Jiang's army, instead of going east to cooperate with the 19th Route Army.Xiang Ying also changed the combat order four times within 24 hours, causing confusion in the command of the troops and making it impossible for Zhou Enlai and Zhu De to work on the front line. "This is a blind command!" Zhou Enlai said in disgust to Bogu and Xiang Ying's telegram. "I can't figure it out. Why are they always afraid that we will pull troops to cooperate with the 19th Route Army? After Lao Jiang wiped out the 19th Route Army, he can immediately concentrate his forces to attack us. They don't even want to think about this. Woolen cloth?" Zhu De, who has experienced many battles, couldn't figure it out either. He shook his head and said, "Since they don't believe in the 19th Route Army, they naturally won't agree to our plan to cooperate with the 19th Route Army. They just want to see the joke that the 19th Route Army was wiped out by Lao Jiang. Who would have thought that this matter would also bring us trouble." Zhou Enlai said: "They can only issue orders to us on the map, but they lack understanding of the specific situation ahead, and force us to obey them absolutely. How can we fight a good war? Now we are asked to attack Lao Jiang's bunker line, Doesn't that mean sending you to death!" Zhu De said: "Enlai, you can't tell them this, be careful to label you a rightist!" Zhou Enlai said: "This time I can't bear it any longer. If they continue to direct like this, they must mess up. This is war, not a joke!" In this way, Zhou Enlai called Bogu and Xiang Ying on December 16, criticizing the repeated changes in the orders issued by the Central Revolutionary Military Commission to the front, which caused confusion in the command of the troops, and pointed out indignantly that "the orders have been changed repeatedly in the past two days, and the final deployment still returns to the Our first secret order is the same as when we deployed it. This will indeed affect the credit of subordinates. Please consider it carefully." Again, we request "give us full authority to deploy and order within a considerable range, so as not to cause mistakes and lose the opportunity." "Otherwise, please also use the camera. Send us a telegram to deal with it. It is related to the responsibility of the war situation, so I have to reiterate the previous request." Zhou Enlai's telegram obviously annoyed Bogu, Li De, Xiang Ying and others. Therefore, in the name of unifying the front and rear command, Li De put forward a proposal and approved by the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of China, and decided to merge the front Red Army headquarters into the rear. The Revolutionary Military Commission transferred Zhou Enlai and Zhu De back to Ruijin.From then on, Li De, Bo Gu, Xiang Ying and others began to directly command the armies and independent divisions and regiments in the Central Soviet Area to fight in the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" war.