Chapter 39 The base area experienced another bloody storm

The Red Army brigade rushed into southern Hunan, not only losing the 29th Red Regiment, but also almost losing the Jinggangshan base. In mid-July, when the enemies from the Hunan and Jiangxi provinces gathered heavy troops to carry out a "suppression" campaign against the Jinggangshan base area, the main force of the Red Army suddenly left the anti-"suppression" battlefield and went to southern Hunan.Only the 31st and 32nd regiments of the Red Army were left to deal with 11 enemy regiments in Jinggangshan.Mao Zedong led the army and civilians in the base area to resist the enemy's invasion with guerrilla warfare.

Fortunately, due to internal strife among the Jiangxi enemies, the troops of the 6 regiments withdrew from the base area, and the remaining 5 regiments also retreated to Yongxin City. At this time, if our Red Army brigade "does not go to southern Hunan, defeats the enemy, and extends the separatist regime to Ji'an, Anfu, Pingxiang, and connects Liuyang and Pingjiang, it is entirely possible." However, the Jinggangshan base lost an excellent opportunity for development. Not only that, the Jinggangshan base has experienced another bloody storm. This is known as the "August failure".

The main force of the Red Army expedition to southern Hunan and the news of its defeat in Chenzhou greatly encouraged the Jiangxi enemy. The units of the Jiangxi Army that had already withdrawn from the base area made a comeback in early August.This time, they already knew that there were not many main Red Army in the base area, so they launched a fierce offensive against the base area recklessly. The Thirty-one Red Regiment had to retreat into the Xiaojiang Mountain area of ​​Yongxin to persist in the struggle. The Red Thirty-two Regiment and local armed forces in various counties were also forced to go deep into the mountains and old forests to fight guerrillas.

The county towns and plain areas on the border have all fallen to the enemy; the scope of the base area is shrinking day by day. The border was suddenly plunged into white terror. Burning and killing is the usual method used by the enemy to treat soldiers and civilians in base areas, and this time is no exception.The Kuomintang army in Hunan entered Ninggang from Ling County and burned all the way, burning down more than 80 houses in Mu Village and Shangzhai area; the Jiangxi enemy entered the base area and even burned houses everywhere. One house was burned down; Xiyuan Village, an ancient city with more than 30 families, was burned to the ground, and more than 130 people in the village were killed, and more than 40 people were killed... The tragedy of Ninggang can be seen almost everywhere in the border counties.

Long Jingquan, a local tyrant and bully in Yongxin and the captain of the security team, led a large group of troops. After entering the base area, they walked almost all the way, burning and killing all the way. It became a sea of ​​flames, and 48 houses and 11 ancestral halls were burned down in one place by the pond alone, and many people who were too late to move were also killed. When the Kuomintang army invaded the base area, some local tyrants and evil gentry who had fled to other places returned to their hometown one after another, and launched a crazy counter-offensive against the people in the base area.These rich people who had been deprived of their land and property by the revolution had deep-seated hatred for the Communist Party and the revolutionary masses in the base areas, so their revenge was particularly vicious. Relying on the reactionary armed forces, they not only took back the land allocated to the peasants , and murdered and set fire recklessly, so that the border towns and villages were shrouded in white terror.

Those who hate the border party organizations and the revolutionary masses are those "rebellious" rich peasant elements and party opportunists. These people are not revolutionaries in the first place. On the side of the local tyrants and evil gentry, even led the white army to burn and kill. In August at the border, there was smoke and devastation everywhere. The lessons of the "August failure" are painful.Du Xiujing, an "important figure" who tried to encourage the main force of the Red Army to leave the base area and go to southern Hunan, regretted his actions half a century later. The cause of the "August failure" of the Jinggangshan struggle caused the loss of half of the young Red Army, the loss of border power, and countless people were killed and houses burned. It almost destroyed the foundation of the Chinese revolution. Its mistakes were very serious. Seriously! Today, half a century later, amidst the victorious songs of the People's Revolutionary War, recalling the "August failure" and its sequence, I am still deeply guilty and can't sleep or eat!"