Chapter 20 20. The Abacus of the "King of Yunnan"

In April 1935, in the bright spring, the Central Red Army entered Yunnan.Compared with Guizhou, where "the sky is not sunny for three days and the land is flat for three feet", the weather in Yunnan is much better, and the mountain roads are much gentler.The wheat in the fields is waiting to be harvested, and the colorful poppies are extremely bright and swaying in the wind.After the Red Army climbed to the top of the mountain, they didn't go down the mountain, but a plain. The terrain gradually became higher and higher. The towns were often surrounded by tens of miles and hundreds of miles of plains. The locals called it "Bazi", and Kunming City was located in Bazi. In the early 1930s, this was a quiet city, with sycamores planted on several avenues in the center of the city. Because it was within the sphere of influence of France, it had a touch of romantic exoticism.

The Kuomintang Central Army commanded by Xue Yue has been tracking the Red Army into Yunnan.Chiang Kai-shek once told Xue Yue that when he arrived in Yunnan, he must act steadily and take precautions carefully, and not to be fooled by Mao Zedong again.Indeed, both of them were embarrassed and devastated by Mao Zedong's fighting method of surreptitiousness and stealth, so they had to carefully guard against being fooled again. Yunnan is located in the southwest and is controlled by local warlords. The power of the Nanjing Central Committee is still difficult to match.Long Yun, chairman of the provincial government, was nicknamed the "King of Yunnan". Since the Red Army and the Central Army entered his territory one after the other, he had trouble sleeping and eating, and his mood was depressed.

When the Red Army was wandering around in Guizhou, it approached the border of Yunnan several times, which caused Long Yun to feel nervous. Long Yun did not quite believe that the Red Army would enter Yunnan, and his staff members were divided into two factions over the route the Red Army would march.One faction held the same view as him, believing that the Red Army would not come to a barren mountainous area like Yunnan, and that only Sichuan, which is rich in resources, could survive for the Red Army; another faction believed that the river in Sichuan was wide and Chiang Kai-shek could easily mobilize troops to encircle it, and that the traffic in Yunnan was far inferior to that in Sichuan. The basin is convenient, and the Red Army is likely to cross the Jinsha River on the Sichuan-Yunnan border to find a way out.Subsequent facts have proved that the latter judgment on the transfer route of the Red Army is accurate.In any case, Long Yun was unwilling to enter the Red Army or any of the Central Army's troops.He took some measures on his own initiative. When Guiyang was in an emergency, he accepted Chiang Kai-shek's order (even though he was relatively independent politically, the King of Yunnan still had to follow Nanjing's winks) and dispatched the elite Sun Du troops of the Yunnan Army to rescue; In more than a month, more than 30 blockhouses were built near Kunming City.

The Red Army still entered Yunnan, and one of the troops reached Yanglin in the northeast of Kunming at the end of April, only a hundred miles away from Kunming.Soon, Long Yun received another report that the Red Army had appeared at Dabanqiao, which is only more than 10 kilometers away from Kunming.The news from these two places all said that the Red Army was going to attack Kunming City and capture Long Yun alive.In fact, the Red Army did not want to occupy Kunming, but just wanted Long Yun to transfer more troops to defend Kunming and relieve the pressure on the main force to go to the Jinsha River.Lin Biao carried out the mission of this feint attack. He is good at confusing the enemy and is a person with considerable military talent among the generals of the Red Army.Mao Zedong asked him to bring 6 regiments of about 10,000 troops to complete this mission.

In normal times, Long Yun would definitely not be so anxious and nervous. His army is known as "iron feet", and it is a team that is quite capable of fighting.But this time is different. Several main brigades led by Sun Du are still on their way back to help Kunming (the Yunnan army was teased by the Red Army, and ran back and forth between Kunming and Guiyang for nothing), and the city has added guard battalions, There are only about 500 people in the gendarmerie, recruits and some sporadic troops, almost an empty city.If the Red Army really came to attack, it would definitely take over the old nest of the King of Yunnan.Kunming became the same as Guiyang, with people panicking. Foreigners living in the city escaped to Hanoi, Vietnam by taking the train of Yunnan-Vietnam Railway in the heavy rain.But Lin Biao only feinted near Kunming, and then headed northwest.

Long Yun made a false alarm and escaped the "robbery" of the Red Army, but what followed was the very difficult Central Army.Guizhou Wang Jialie has learned from the past, and Long Yun does not want to draw fire, but he is not Wang Jialie after all, and Yunnan is not Guizhou.Long Yun is very shrewd and has a deep foundation in Yunnan. It is not so easy for Chiang Kai-shek to deal with him and seize his territory. One day in early May, Long Yun sent a telegram to Xue Yue, who had just arrived in Kunming and was stationed outside the city, stipulating that no one could enter the city except his procurement staff with their certificates.Xue Yue was so angry that he said a lot of bad things about Long Yun in the telegram to Chiang Kai-shek: Long Yun and Zhu De were classmates in the Yunnan Lecture Hall and had a personal relationship; Luo Binghui, the commander of the Ninth Army, had been in contact with them before, so there might be a tacit understanding; Long Yun's attitude towards the Central Army was arrogant and rude, and so on.Not long after, Xue Yue received an invitation from Long Yun inviting him to a banquet the next morning and a passionate private letter.Of course, Long Yun had planned a long time ago. He invited Xue Yue himself, not the entire Central Army led by him. The Central Army could never enter Kunming City.The next day, Xue Yue only brought

The adjutant and the soldier each met Long Yun. The cunning Yunnan king had already thought of an excuse.He falsely claimed that because Yunnan is located in a frontier, most of the local militia had never seen the Kuomintang Central Army, and believed that the Red Army was just a group of ragged bumpkins wandering around. At the end of April, several Red Army troops put on the grass-green Kuomintang military uniforms they had seized and ostentatiously pretended to be the Central Army. Delicious and delicious. ——Long Yun told Xue Yue that he was afraid that the Red Army's old tactics would repeat itself, and that it would be best for the Central Army not to enter Kunming City.The most important thing is that they are afraid that if they enter the city, they will delay the itinerary of the Central Army, and they will not be able to chase the Red Army, but will miss a major event.Another point is that the Red Army robbed a batch of supplies and a box of military maps of Yunnan in the local area to condolences to the Central Army. Among them were several maps of Kunming. wonderful.

Interestingly, the intercepted batch of supplies did help the Red Army a lot.The Red Army also obtained this batch of supplies by accident. On the 28th, the Red Army column advanced toward Malong, east of Kunming, with Zhou Enlai leading the column.They saw several large trucks coming from the direction of Kunming, driving all the way to the front of the team.Zhou Enlai ordered the troops to surround them, and they stopped the car.At the beginning, the commander said to the Red Army: "Which part are you from? We have an urgent mission, don't be joking!" Only later did I realize that I had met the Red Army.The convoy was sent by Long Yun to deliver a map of Yunnan to Xue Yue.There were also foodstuffs in the car, including Xuanwei ham from Yunnan, and medicines, especially Yunnan Baiyao, which was specially used to treat bruises, which was very precious, as well as Pu'er tea, all of which became trophies of the Red Army.

Maps are more useful to the Red Army than anything else.At that time, the Red Army only had a simple map of Yunnan, and the location and route were not accurate. They could not find out the location of the Jinsha River ferry that the Red Army urgently needed to know.Relying on local guides, you can only understand the route within two or three days of the itinerary, and you have to take a lot of detours.The seized color map was drawn in great detail, with 9 ferry crossings marked, and the number of boats at the ferry crossings also marked. Some ferry crossings had one boat, while others had three boats.Using these maps, Mao Zedong made a detailed plan to rush across the Jinsha River.Later, when talking about this matter, the commanders and fighters of the Red Army said that the omen is really good. During the Three Kingdoms period, when Liu Bei entered Sichuan, Zhang Song offered a map; we passed through Yunnan and entered Sichuan, and Long Yun sent us the map.This batch of maps delivered to the door solved the urgent need of the Red Army. However, they were not used to attack Kunming, but to cross the river.

Although Xue Yue knew that it was Long Yun's excuse, it was difficult to raise objections.At that time, Long Yun had another idea, that is, the Central Army in Yunnan Province must advance along the route he proposed. If they go the wrong way and cause "misunderstandings", the Yunnan Army will not be held responsible.The Central Army led by Xue Yue suffered from "misunderstandings" on the territory of the Gui Army, and Chiang Kai-shek asked him not to act rashly, so he had to agree to Long Yun's request. ——Long Yun didn't want Nanjing to intervene in Yunnan under the pretext of suppressing bandits. Neither the Red Army nor the Central Army could be messed with.

Xue Yue suspected that there was a tacit understanding between Long Yun and Luo Binghui, and Long Yun had indeed sent someone to meet with Luo Binghui to persuade the Red Army to cross the river from the Qiaojia area and not go deep into Yunnan.According to Chiang Kai-shek's request, Long Yun sent troops to pursue the Red Army, but only chased tens of miles a day, keeping a distance that would not cause a frontal conflict with the Red Army.Chiang Kai-shek asked him to deploy defenses along the Jinsha River from Qiaojia to the Yuanmou area, but he only asked the counties to assist dozens of military officers sent by the Yunnan-Guizhou Appeasement Office to block several ferry crossings and destroy and hide ships along the river.Long Yun is a master of acting, and he did enough superficial skills to show Chiang Kai-shek and Xue Yue. What is even more surprising is that Long Yun quickly won the favor of Xue Yue. As a result of Xue Yue's banquet, he became a brother with the King of Yunnan.When they became sworn brothers, it was the time when the Red Army rushed to cross the Jinsha River.