Chapter 43 43. Zhang Guotao hit a wall when he went south

At the same time that the Red Front Army was victorious, Zhang Guotao was leading the Red Fourth Front Army southward on a dead end. After the Zhuomudiao meeting, Zhang Guotao stepped up to formulate a combat plan for going south. The 80,000 commanders and fighters of the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army were not acclimatized to the water and soil in Tibetan areas and snow-capped mountains and grasslands, and went south with hunger and full meals.In order to boost morale, Zhang Guotao put forward a tempting slogan: "Go to Chengdu to eat rice." On October 8, 1935, Xu Shiyou led the Fourth Red Army to the bank of the Dajinchuan River, and found that the forced crossing was difficult to succeed.At night, Xu Shiyou ordered eight rafts to be lowered from the upper reaches of the river, with a group of neatly dressed scarecrows placed on them.The enemy on the other side really caught the trick, and focused all their attention and firepower on the scarecrow.Then, Xu Shiyou ordered the Red Army soldiers to board seven small wooden boats not far away.The Red Army who smuggled across the river quickly knocked the enemy dizzy, abandoned their armor and fled.The Fourth Red Army took advantage of the victory to attack, successively captured Suijing and Danba. On October 15th, the Ninth Red Army defeated the Yang Sen Department in Lianghekou, marched 500 miles in a row, and captured Fubian.On a dark and stormy night, the 27th Division of the Ninth Army arrived in Dawei Town like a magic soldier.When the Red Army soldiers entered the street, the enemy was still fast asleep.Gao Dezhou, the brigade commander of the enemy's fourth brigade, woke up from his dream when he heard the gunshots. He fled without putting on his clothes.Immediately afterwards, Li Xiannian led the Thirty Army to capture Maogong. In 12 days, the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army defeated 6 brigades of the Sichuan Army, defeated the Sichuan Army, and won the victory in the Battle of Suidan and Chongmao.

After winning the first battle, Zhang Guotao was full of elation, and his mentality of winning by luck was even worse. On October 20, 1934, Zhang Guotao happily issued the "Tianlu Mingyaqiong Battle Plan" in the name of "Chairman of the Military Commission". On October 27, the 88th Division of the 20th Army of the Red Fourth Front crossed Jiajin Mountain, condescendingly attacking a regiment of the Yang Sen Department of the Sichuan Army stationed at the foot of the mountain.The Sichuan army ran along the defile as if they had lost their souls, and more than 200 people were squeezed into the abyss and lost their lives. On November 1, Wang Shusheng led his troops to occupy Baoxing County, and then advanced to Lushan City.At the same time, Xu Shiyou recruited herbal farmers as guides, led the Fourth Red Army to cut through the thorns and thorns with big swords, and opened a road. It took only one day and one night to cross Jiajin Mountain and arrived at Zishi Pass on November 8.The terrain of Zishiguan is dangerous, there is only a small road in the mountain, it is easy to defend but difficult to attack.Yuan Guorui's brigade of Liu Wenhui's garrison never dreamed that the Red Army would climb up the cliff.Under the internal and external attack of the Red Army, the enemy abandoned the pass and fled to the outside of Tianquan City. However, the guard Guo Xunqi of the Liu Xiang Department refused to open the gate. Fight the Red Army". On the 9th, the Red Army attacked Tianquan County with night attack tactics, and the enemy division commander Guo Xunqi fled by jumping over the wall. On the 12th, the Red Army captured Lushan County again.

In just over 10 days, the Fourth Army of the Red Army was as strong as a broken bamboo. It even wiped out more than 5,000 enemies in the three counties of Kebaoxing, Tianquan, and Lushan, and controlled a large area east of the Dadu River, south of Maogong, west of Qionglai Mountain, and north of the Qingyi River. , resulting in a situation that went straight down to the Western Sichuan Plain and threatened Chengdu, which shocked Chiang Kai-shek and the Sichuan warlords. In this regard, Zhang Guotao was overjoyed and ecstatic.In the name of the Central Committee, he sent the following telegram to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in northern Shaanxi:

This victory opened the door to western Sichuan, laid the foundation for the establishment of the victory of the Chuankang Soviet Area, proved the nonsense that the south was unfavorable, and achieved a strategic victory to cooperate with the development of the Red Army in the Soviet Area along the Yangtze River. This is the victory of the offensive line.I hope that you will resolutely destroy the enemy in the current area and immediately consolidate and expand the Soviet area and the Red Army.and call for details. Zhang Guotao had been dazzled by the victory, and he did not expect that his southward policy and actions were dragging the Red Fourth Front Army into a dangerous situation.

At this time, Zhu De reminded Zhang Guotao and the generals of the Red Fourth Front Army: The troops have already fought through the dangerous passes of the western Sichuan plateau, and the combat will change from mountain warfare and narrow road warfare to flat ground warfare and urban warfare, and from mobile warfare to positional warfare and fortress warfare. Air defense must be especially strengthened. . The terrain has changed, and the style of play must also change. Zhu De proposed to conduct serious research on how to organize anti-aircraft shooting and air defense concealment, but Zhang Guotao and others disagreed.

Chiang Kai-shek was very annoyed by the successive defeats of the Sichuan army. On the one hand, he asked Xue Yue to lead the "Central Army" to "advance and suppress", and on the other hand, he strictly ordered Gu Zhutong, the director of the Chongqing camp, and He Guoguang, the chief of staff, to come to the front to command together with Liu Xiang.At this time, Liu Xiang was like a frightened bird, fearing that the western Sichuan plain would be lost, Chengdu would be hard to protect, and his old nest would be over.He urgently appealed to all the warlords in Sichuan: abandon the previous suspicions and fight the Red Army together.At the same time, Wang Zanxu, Tang Shizun, and Fan Shaozeng, the main force of the army, were urgently dispatched to Mingshan and its northeast Jiamenguan, Taihechang, and Shibeigang areas to intercept and block the Red Army.When his subordinate Fan Shaozeng led his troops to Qionglai County, Liu Xiang specially greeted him in the suburbs, and hosted a banquet in the grass pavilion to welcome Fan Shaozeng and others, with the attitude of a corporal of courtesy.At this time, Liu Xiang tried to buy and win over all the forces that could be mobilized.For a while, Liu Xiang collected many reactionary forces and incorporated them into his "special volunteer team".

On November 13, the Red Fourth Front Army concentrated 15 regiments and launched a fierce attack on Zhujiachang and Taihechang, defeating the two enemy regiments and throwing away their helmets and armor. On the 16th, the Red Army took Qionglai and Baizhang, an important town on the Mingshan Road, and the Western Sichuan Plain, which was rich in soil, food and food, was close to the Red Army. On the 19th, the Sichuan Army concentrated a superior force of 200,000 troops from 80 regiments to counterattack the Red Army with only 15 regiments in the Baizhang area.The enemy attacked the Red Army from the east, north, and south, and the decisive battle at Baizhang Pass kicked off.

Baizhang, also known as Baizhang Pass, is located on the road between Mingshan and Qionglai, and it is the only place that Ya'an leads to Chengdu.The terrain in this area is open, except for the Guduan Mountain near Baizhang Pass, which is a small hill on the Hengduan Highway, there is no danger to defend.Such terrain is suitable for large corps operations, but it is extremely unfavorable to the Red Army, which is good at guerrilla warfare and mountain battles. In the past, the Sichuan Army always aimed to preserve its strength, and was usually driven away by the Red Army. However, in the battle of Baizhangguan, the Sichuan Army rushed towards the Red Army like a wolf.The reason for this is that the Sichuan Army has realized that the Red Army is forcing them to die. Once the Red Army enters the Western Sichuan Plain, none of them will have a good life.Therefore, the Sichuan Army vowed to fight the Red Army to the death at Baizhang.Liu Xiang issued an order to the officers and soldiers of the Sichuan Army in the name of the commander-in-chief: Anyone who retreats before the battle, fears the enemy, or lies about the military situation, and who fails to fight will be punished before the army; the commander-in-chief has the right to shoot the division commander, and the division commander has the right to shoot the brigade commander The brigade commander has the right to shoot the regimental commander, the regiment commander has the right to shoot the battalion commander, the battalion commander has the right to shoot the company commander, the company commander has the right to shoot the platoon leader, and the platoon leader has the right to shoot the soldiers.The Sichuan army is specially equipped with a supervising team, and anyone who escapes is found to be shot or killed.

On the 19th, as soon as the Battle of Baizhangguan started, the enemy concentrated powerful artillery fire and violently bombarded the Red Army positions.The battle line from Heizhu Pass to Baizhang Pass for more than ten miles was filled with gunpowder smoke, and the sound of explosions, guns and shouts of killing could be heard endlessly, making both the enemy and us red-eyed.The enemy's planes bombed in turn, and the heavy bombs bombarded the Red Army positions one after another.The enemy tried to use two brigades to occupy Baizhang through the rice fields, while the Red Army occupying the bunkers fired violently with dozens of machine guns. Entire battalions and companies of enemy troops were killed in the rice fields, with corpses strewn all over the field.However, the Sichuan Army's follow-up troops continued to reinforce and did not weaken the offensive at all.

The commanders and fighters of the Red Army became more and more courageous as they fought. There was a squad in the Red Eighty-eighth Division, and there were only 3 soldiers left.However, these three fighters stood firm in the woods like nails, clung to their positions, and fought the enemy one by one. Xie Jun, head of the 31st Regiment of the Sichuan Army, is like a gambler who has lost his eyes, ready to make a final desperate fight.He ordered baskets of white silver coins to be carried to the front line, and organized a death squad with a reward of 20 yuan per person.Even so, by 3 p.m., the Sichuan army was repulsed by the heroic Red Army. However, at this moment, the enemy planes suddenly flew over the sky like wasps and bombarded the Red Army indiscriminately.The Red Army soldiers had to scatter and hide in all directions, and many people were injured or killed by the bombing.Enemy reinforcements followed.The enemy took the opportunity to counterattack, and the Red Army was forced to retreat into Baizhang Town to fight the enemy.At a critical juncture, Chen Xilian, commander of the 10th Division of the Fourth Red Army, led his troops to reinforce and killed Wang Tingzhang, the leader of the death squad of the Sichuan Army who was a bandit.Seeing that the situation was not good, the Sichuan Army retreated towards Zhendong one after another.Xie Jun, the commander of the Sichuan Army, stood at the head of the East Bridge holding a big knife to block it, but he couldn't stop the Sichuan Army from retreating.Desperate, he simply lay down on the ground and yelled: "Live and die with the battlefield, and those who retreat will be killed without mercy!" At this moment, reinforcements from the Sichuan Army came again, and a fierce tug-of-war with the Red Army started in the town, forming a a confrontational situation.Xie Jun fought for a whole day, and the whole regiment suffered more than half of the casualties, which was very embarrassing.

In the early morning of the 20th, a distraught Xie Jun ordered to set fires everywhere and burn down the houses in Baizhang Town.The wind helped the fire, and it burned fiercely.When the Red Army and the residents of the town fought the fire, the Sichuan army used machine guns to shoot and kill innocent people indiscriminately.At dawn, the east of the town was reduced to ashes, and the houses in the west of the town were saved only because of the hard work of the Red Army.Xu Xiangqian personally came to Baizhang Town to command.The Red Army soldiers braved the smoke and fire to fight the enemy.The paddy fields, hills, and deep ditches in Baizhang Town and its vicinity have all become battlefields where the enemy and the enemy fight. In late November, the Kuomintang Central Army led by Xue Yue pressed from the south again.In view of the disparity in the strength of the enemy and ourselves, a long-term confrontation is not good for the Red Army, so the Fourth Red Army had to abandon its original plan and withdraw from the Baizhang area.Under the heavy oppression of the enemy and the blockade of the fortress, it was impossible for the Red Fourth Front Army to go south or attack east. The decisive battle at Baizhang Pass was the most tragic battle fought by the Red Fourth Front Army since it went south.As Xu Xiangqian said: The Battle of Baizhang was an unprecedented fierce battle. After fighting for 7 days and 7 nights, our army killed more than 15,000 enemies and nearly 10,000 casualties.Both the enemy and the enemy fought to the point of exhaustion.Its tragic degree was second only to the Xiangjiang Battle during the Long March. The decisive battle at Baizhang Pass was also a turning point for Zhang Guotao to go south from victory to failure.As a result, the Red Fourth Front Army fell into the predicament of being passively beaten, and was forced to retreat to Tianquan, Lushan, and Baoxing areas.This area is not rich in products and sparsely populated, and the Red Army's soldiers and equipment have encountered serious difficulties.In the winter of this year, there was a rare heavy snowfall in ten years. For the Red Fourth Front Army, it was tantamount to making matters worse.By the end of the year, the Red Army had dropped sharply from more than 80,000 people in September to more than 40,000 people, a loss of nearly half. At the beginning of 1936, the Fourth Red Army was forced to cross the snow-capped mountains and move to the Daofu, Luhuo, and Ganzi areas, and entered the sparsely populated Tibetan areas. The failure of going south this time made more and more commanders and fighters of the Red Fourth Front Army realize that the policy of going south was wrong.Zhang Guotao also had to admit: "Our plan to go south is obviously fruitless." Mao Zedong's serious warning in September 1935-"Going south is a dead end" was confirmed at this time.