Chapter 10 "All Quiet on the Western Front"

The establishment of the anti-Japanese national united front of the whole nation and the promotion of the great unity of the national anti-Japanese forces are the starting point and fundamental point of the spirit of the Wayaobao Conference. But Mao Zedong was also a pragmatist.At that time, he was in the northwest, and his first consideration was the safety of the Red Army and the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area.In order to get the Red Army out of the situation of "besieged on all sides", he decided to focus on the establishment of the anti-Japanese national united front first on the surrounding areas of the Shaanxi-Gansu base area and realize the Northwest Great Unity.

Shaanxi in 1935-1936 was basically controlled by three forces: the Red Army of the Communist Party, the Northeast Army of Zhang Xueliang, and the Northwest Army of Yang Hucheng.To realize the Northwest Great Unity is to build the "Trinity" under the premise of joint anti-Japanese war. In addition to the well-known great adviser Mao Zedong, there are two people who deserve a special mention of the meritorious officials who contributed to the Great Northwest Alliance. They are Gao Fuyuan and Wang Feng who opened up the communication channel between the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng.

Gao Fuyuan was the head of the 619th Regiment of the Northeast Army who was captured by the Red Army in the Battle of Yulin Bridge on October 22, 1935.He once served as the battalion commander of Zhang Xueliang's guard battalion and was one of Zhang Xueliang's cronies.After being captured, he was prepared to die. It was Li Kenong's meticulous work that transformed him. Li Kenong, head of the Organization Department of the Political Department of the Red Army at the time, was an "old red agent" with rich experience in struggle in our party. After the Wayaobao meeting, Mao Zedong gave him a special task to hold a "study class for officers".

This is a special study class.It gathered 120 mid- and lower-level officers of the Northeast Army captured in the three battles of Laoshan, Yulinqiao, and Zhiluo Town to study and do transformation work.The local people call it the "White Army Officer Company". On the day when the "study class" opened, Li Kenong made careful arrangements.The auditorium is surrounded by plastered slogans such as "The Chinese will not fight the Chinese", "The Northeast Army will not fight the Red Army", "Stop the civil war, keep your guns open", "The Northeast Army's way out is to fight against Japan, fight back to your hometown" and other eye-catching and emotional slogans.The chorus of male and female soldiers of the Red Army is also carefully selected.The title of the song is "Go Back Home".There are more than a dozen male and female soldiers of the Red Army who participated in the singing.The singing is tragic and loud.The singing brought everyone's thoughts to the banks of the Songhua River, which was being ravaged by the Japanese invaders. The singing hurt the humiliated hearts of those officers of the Northeast Army who lost their hometowns because of Chiang Kai-shek's policy of non-resistance.They were sung with their heads down, and they were sung with tears... After careful observation, Li Kenong chose Gao Fuyuan at a glance.In the following time, Li Kenong focused on transforming his thoughts.He preached the party's policies to him, took him to visit many places, and gave him better food and living conditions than the Red Army.Of course, Li Kenong would not ignore the Northeast Army's unique nostalgia for hometown. He proposed to the captives a suggestion that the Red Army and the Northeast Army jointly resist the national enemy and fight back to their hometown in the Northeast.With national hatred and the influence of the Red Army, Gao Fuyuan's consciousness improved step by step.

From being depressed, silent, and even resistant, to regretting myself and willing to cooperate with the Communist Party.One day, he finally said frankly to Li Kenong: "For the future of the Northeast Army, to resist Japan and save the country, I voluntarily go back to do the work of Deputy Commander Zhang and others." After Gao Fuyuan was sent back to the Northeast Army by the Red Army, he cried bitterly to Zhang Xueliang and used the national justice he had just heard from the Red Army to persuade Zhang Xueliang. Zhang Xueliang and Japan had a sworn feud against his father, and he blamed Chiang Kai-shek for "non-resistance" during the "September 18th" incident. On the one hand, especially after learning from Gao Fuyuan that the Communist Party really had the sincerity to fight against Japan with him, he finally made up his mind to join forces with the Communist Party to fight against Japan.

After Zhang Xueliang made the decision to unite with the Communist Party to fight against Japan, he immediately sent Gao Fuyuan back to the Red Army station and asked the Red Army to send an official representative to negotiate with the Northeast Army.When Gao Fuyuan returned to Wayaobao with Zhang Xueliang's opinion, Mao Zedong personally received the "captive" special envoy and thanked him for doing a great deed for the country and the nation. Wang Feng was in charge of the work of the CCP's underground organization in the Northwest Army, so he has a better understanding of the situation in the Northwest Army. After Liu Zhidan's case was resolved, Wang Feng and Liu Zhidan were released at the same time.When Mao Zedong heard about Wang Feng's situation, he named him and asked him to go to Xi'an to work for Yang Hucheng.After the Wayaobao meeting, Mao Zedong talked to him many times and worked with him on how to win Yang Hucheng into the anti-Japanese national united front.One day, Mao Zedong called Wang Feng to his office and solemnly handed him a letter he had written in his own hand, asking him to take the letter to Xi'an to find Yang Hucheng.Mao Zedong said to Wang Feng: The 17th Route Army is a faction of local strength, not a direct line of Chiang Kai-shek. We were squeezed out and attacked by Chiang Kai-shek. It is possible for us to win him into the anti-Japanese national united front.However, although General Yang Hucheng is good, there are bad people around him and Kuomintang spies. When negotiating with him, we must pay attention to two issues: one is not to break up, but to talk about peace; Talk less about the unpleasant things in the past, look more at the progress and less at the backward.

In December, Wang Feng arrived in Xi'an and handed over to Yang Hucheng a personal letter written by Mao Zedong.Since then, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Northwest Army have entered the stage of discussing and cooperating to resist Japan. The relationship between Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng was not friendly before the Anti-Communist Anti-Japanese War. During this period, there were not only the territorial dispute between the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army in Shaanxi, but also the reasons for Chiang Kai-shek's instigation.But when they stopped the military to suppress the Communist Party and embarked on the road of uniting the Communist Party to resist Japan, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China lost no time in shuttling between the two and did a lot of work to promote their unity.Thanks to the efforts of the Communist Party, they settled their suspicions and shook hands.

Beginning in the first half of 1936, hostilities between the Red Army, the Northeast Army, and the Northwest Army have actually ceased.Although there were constant gunshots at times, they were actually some "fake battles" and "empty guns" fought by Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng and the Red Army in response to Chiang Kai-shek's "encirclement and suppression" order.Even at the end of May 1936, when the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China withdrew from Wayaobao and moved to Baoan, it was all directed to let Zhang Xueliang explain the results of "suppressing bandits" to Chiang Kai-shek. On January 13, 1937, the reason why the Red Army was able to march into Yan'an was also the reason why Zhang Xueliang took the initiative to move the defense after negotiation.

Soon, the strange landscape of "All Quiet on the Western Front" was sniffed out by Chiang Kai-shek's spies. On October 22, 1936, Chiang Kai-shek flew to Xi'an in a hurry, and personally announced to Zhang and Yang his plan to continue to "suppress the Communist Party". Zhang and Yang made up their minds not to suppress the Communist Party, but Chiang Kai-shek was unwilling to listen to his subordinates.Finally, the Xi'an Incident was triggered. The launch of the Xi'an Incident, including all actions to capture Chiang, although the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was not aware of it beforehand, but after the incident, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China participated in a lot and thought a lot.In particular, Mao Zedong, from a long-term perspective, saw the relationship between the situation in the Northwest and the situation in China's revolution: there is only a great alliance in the Northwest, and there is no great alliance in the whole country. The Great Northwest Alliance must be temporary and unstable. More importantly, Without the great unity of the whole nation, there will be no basic conditions for realizing the whole nation's war of resistance and striving for victory.It was based on this understanding that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made every effort to resolve the Xi'an Incident peacefully.

On December 24, 1936, after being under house arrest by Zhang Xueliang, Yang Hucheng and others for 12 days, Chiang Kai-shek finally agreed to the six conditions proposed by the "Trinity" in Xi'an and regained his freedom. After Chiang Kai-shek returned to Nanjing, although he perfidiously imprisoned Zhang Xueliang, he still fulfilled his promise to stop the military suppression of the Communist Party and jointly resist Japan.Just as Mao Zedong said in a telegram to Ren Bishi on March 6, 1937, "The smooth and peaceful settlement of the Xi'an Incident has become a new stage in the cessation of civil war throughout the country, unified resistance to Japan and peaceful reunification, and unity to resist aggression. It has also led to national unification. With the actual establishment of the front, the national war of resistance began a transitional period.”

So far, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has preliminarily realized the goal of promoting the great unity of the whole country through the Northwest Great Unity.