Chapter 7 The "Entrance Ceremony" of the Central Red Army

In November 1935, the northern Shaanxi plateau was already covered with snow and cold. Most of the soldiers who came from the Long March still had thin clothes and straw sandals covering their feet. After Xu Haidong found out, he took out 5,000 yuan out of the 7,000 yuan he had left and gave it to the Central Red Army.Xu Haidong's timely delivery of charcoal not only solved the material problem of winter clothes for the soldiers of the Central Red Army, but also made them feel the warmth and sincere welcome of "home". With the lesson of meeting with Zhang Guozhen and then splitting, Mao Zedong urged everyone all the way to unite with the comrades of the 15th Army Corps, especially the senior cadres, and don't say anything that is not conducive to unity.

Mao Zedong's words sounded a wake-up call to the young and vigorous Moscow faction. Finally, after the Central Red Army and the Northern Shaanxi Red Army joined forces, they were co-edited, united, and worked together in one go. The first and third armies of the former Central Red Army were jointly compiled and called the Red First Army.The original Liu Zhidan's Red 27th Army and Xu Haidong's Red 26th Army were jointly compiled, called the Red 15th Army.The First Army and the Fifteenth Army are collectively called the Red Front Army.Peng Dehuai served as commander and Mao Zedong served as political commissar.Under the unified command of the Northwest Revolutionary Military Commission with Mao Zedong as the chairman and Zhou Enlai and Peng Dehuai as the vice-chairmen, the whole army acted and fought in a unified way.

According to the historical data provided by Li De, after the two armies were combined, the actual strength of the Northern Shaanxi Red Army was about 160,000 to 190,000.Among them, there are about 5,000 to 6,000 people in the First Red Army, about 7,000 to 8,000 people in the Fifteenth Army, and 4,000 to 300 people from the local troops and independent troops in northern Shaanxi. As for the Kuomintang "encircling Shaanxi" troops, Li De recorded 200,000 troops.Among them, 10 to 12 infantry divisions and two cavalry divisions of the Northeast Army, with nearly 100,000 people, blocked the southern part of the Soviet area.Their positions extended northward to the vicinity of their bases including Yan'an, and westward to southern Gansu.The Xuanchuan area in the east was guarded by two divisions of Yang Hucheng's 17th Route Army, and the other two divisions were guarding the Yellow River ferry in Suide.The 86th Division under the command of Hu Zongnan used the fortified Yulin City as a stronghold to guard the north; in addition, there were 4 to 5 divisions under Hu Zongnan in Gansu as a reserve force.In addition, there are 3 to 4 infantry divisions of the "Three Horses" and a cavalry regiment of unknown strength, with a total of about 50,000 people.Their territory stretches from Ningxia through Gansu to Qinghai.

The meeting of the Central Red Army and the northern Shaanxi Red Army caused great panic in Chiang Kai-shek, and he lamented: "I have worked hard for six years, but I have not achieved all my achievements; the sky is not dead, and it is beyond the reach of human beings." He said verbally that "the sky will never perish", but Chiang Kai-shek was really unwilling, and he still wanted to fight against the sky. Under his threat, the Northeast Army immediately organized five divisions to push towards the northern Shaanxi base in an attempt to encircle the Red Army between the Hulu River and the Luo River while the Central Red Army's foothold was not stable.

Mao Zedong looked at the 1/300,000th old map hanging on the wall, circled it, and he wanted to personally command the Red 15th Army and the Red 1st Army to fight a beautiful battle, as a tribute to the Central Red Army. The "entrance ceremony" for the northern Shaanxi base area. Soon, Mao Zedong focused on the two leading troops of the Northeast Army, the 109th Division and the 106th Division, and chose Zhiluo Town as the place to devour them. Zhiluo Town is a small market town with less than a hundred households. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides and a river on one side. The terrain is very favorable for me to lay an ambush here.

Mao Zedong remembered the story of Zhonglin Chong's beating the instructor Hong with a stick.Lin Chong first gave way to Jiaotou Hong for a few moves, and when he saw the flaw, he knocked Jiaotou Hong to the ground with just one stick. In the battle of Zhiluo Town, Mao Zedong wanted to learn from Lin Chong. In view of the fact that the Red Army in northern Shaanxi failed to teach the enemy a punitive lesson in the previous three campaigns against encirclement and suppression, Mao Zedong repeatedly explained: "This campaign is about annihilation, not defeat." At dawn on November 21, 1935, the battle began.Lin Biao has long been proficient in using Mao Zedong's strategies and tactics, so he performed very well in the battle of Zhiluo Town.The result of the battle: a regiment of the 109th Division and the 106th Division were wiped out, and Niu Yuanfeng, the commander of the 109th Division, was also killed.Captured 5,300 enemies and seized a large amount of ammunition and guns.

Zhang Xueliang was hit by this, and he ignored Chairman Jiang's repeated reprimands, and withdrew his troops and returned to their nests.From then on, I no longer dare to underestimate the Red Army. Regarding the significance of the battle of Zhiluo Town, Mao Zedong made an authoritative speech: "To the task of the Party Central Committee to place the national revolutionary base camp in the northwest, a foundation stone laying ceremony was held."