Chapter 54 Guerrilla Warfare "Sixteen Characters"

The sixteen-character guerrilla tactics of "the enemy advances and we retreat, the enemy is stationed and we harass, the enemy is tired, we fight, and the enemy retreats and we pursue" was proposed by Mao Zedong on the basis of summarizing the struggle experience of the Red Army of Workers and Peasants and the people in the base areas during the Jinggangshan period. It became a well-known strategic and tactical theory for the Red Army of Workers and Peasants to defeat the enemy. Mao Zedong was a literati, but the revolutionary situation forced him to become a general. When Mao Zedong suffered a blow in Jinggang Mountains, was "expelled from the party" and had to become a teacher, he said with great emotion: "Military affairs are unknown. I am not a warrior. A literati can only use a pen, not a gun." A scholar failed to rebel for three years, and being a teacher is a bit mysterious."

However, Mao Zedong was good at "learning to swim from swimming".When he was in Jinggangshan, his most precious "family property" were two bamboo book baskets.Wherever he went, he always asked the guards to carry these two book baskets.He reads two books most often, one is "Communist Manifesto" and the other is "Sun Tzu's Art of War". In May 1928, the Red Army captured Gaolong, the hometown of Hunan warlord Tan Yankai. Mao Zedong got a copy, which he loved so much that it became a "textbook" for his self-study military. On the eve of the Autumn Harvest Uprising, Mao Zedong, like other comrades in the party, hoped for a quick national victory.After the Autumn Harvest Uprising suffered setbacks, especially when the troops led by the Autumn Harvest Uprising moved to the border of Hunan and Jiangxi and were often attacked and harassed by powerful enemies, Mao Zedong finally recognized the real situation from the harsh reality, that is, "the enemy is strong and we are weak, and the enemy is many and we are few."Therefore, he had to put the basic point of strategy on how to "win more with less, and win the stronger with the weak".

After going to Jinggangshan, Mao Zedong made friends with the king of the mountain, and often talked with Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo under the shade of trees and at the stone table to discuss the past and the present, and exchange ideas. Mao Zedong kept thinking about this question: Why are these mountain kings so weak, but they can exist for so many years?How can we gain a firm foothold on Jinggangshan?During the conversation with Wang Zuo, Wang Zuo told him the story of an old bandit on Jinggang Mountain—his master "Zhu Deaf". Zhu Deaf's original name was Zhu Kongyang, a Cantonese. In 1920, he served as a company commander in the Hunan warlord army. Dissatisfied with his boss's deduction of military pay, he brought more than 20 brothers to Jinggang Mountain to work as a green forest.Because he specialized in fighting the rich and helping the poor, caring for the brothers in the green forest, the team grew bigger and bigger, and the "official army" went up the mountain many times to suppress. Army" was thrown away.

Zhu Deaf often boasted in front of his subordinates: "A blind man can't beat a deaf man, and a man who knows how to fight can't beat me." He warned his subordinates: "You don't need to know how to fight, just know how to fight with others." Enemies just circle around." After hearing this, Mao Zedong suddenly realized and was deeply inspired. In October 1927, the Ninghan War broke out, and the warlords of various factions went to war, and the Jinggangshan border guarded the enemy's emptiness. Mao Zedong decided to expand the territory and attack Chaling.Under the command of Chen Hao, Wan Xixian and others, the troops quickly occupied Chaling City.

More than 40 days later, more than 2,000 Hunan warlords attacked.The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army immediately took up the stance of fighting a tough battle with the enemy.Some people saw that the enemy was coming fiercely, and the enemy was strong and we were weak, so they advocated retreating.But it was opposed by the majority: "We are a revolutionary army of workers and peasants, what we want is the spirit of fearlessness. We are afraid when we see such a small number of enemies. How can we defeat so many reactionaries in the country? Revolutionaries must always go forward bravely!"

The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army fought fiercely with the enemy, resulting in heavy losses, and finally had to retreat to the mountains. Mao Zedong realized from this incident: Zhu Deafzi's method must be understood by the entire army.So he gathered all the troops and gave them a military lesson on the lawn of Long City. He said: "The tactics of warfare are impermanent. We must be good at the situation of the enemy and ourselves. Under the principle of destroying the enemy and preserving ourselves, we should discard the old tactics and make a tactical change. Now that the enemy is strong and we are weak, we can no longer use the old tactics. Fat, you can’t eat a fat man with one bite. Once upon a time, there was an old bandit on Jinggang Mountain, who had dealt with officers and soldiers for decades, and summed up a piece of combat experience: don’t know how to fight, as long as you know how to fight in circles. Circles are a good experience. Today I will share this The experience handed down from Jinggangshan can be changed into two words: You must know how to fight and circle. The purpose of circle is to avoid the reality and to destroy the enemy, so that the base area will be continuously consolidated and expanded. When a strong enemy comes, first lead him to circle , when its weakness is exposed, it must be caught accurately, hit hard, hit cleanly, and it must be handed over to get the gun and catch the person."

Next, he made a further development based on the "walking is the best policy" in "Sun Tzu's Art of War": "Fight if you win, leave if you can't win, come if you make money, and don't do anything if you lose money. This is our tactic." Mao Zedong's summary was both vivid and vivid, and was quickly accepted by his subordinates. However, "fight if you win, and leave if you don't win" only stipulates the tactics of "fight" and "walk". After all, "fighting" is the main thing, and "walking" is for "fighting".How to fight?What kind of enemy to choose to "fight"?

At the beginning of 1928, the enemy captured Ningkang.Mao Zedong used the tactics of "dividing the troops to mobilize the masses and concentrating to deal with the enemy". He organized riot teams and red guards to harass the enemies in Xincheng day and night, scaring the enemies day and night and making them sleepless.Later, Mao Zedong led the main force back to Ninggang from Suichuan and conquered Xincheng in one fell swoop.Mao Zedong called the Battle of Xincheng "the enemy's presence and our harassment". At the same time, the Wan'an County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China led the masses to riot. In the battle, they used the strategy of "clearing the walls and clearing the field. The army was helpless.

In this way, in mid-January 1928, when the Front Enemy Committee held a joint meeting of the Suichuan and Wan'an County Party Committees in Wuhua Academy, Suichuan County, Jiangxi, Mao Zedong summed up the previous experience of the party leading the Red Army in fighting and the Wan'an riots, and for the first time proposed the "guerrilla warfare" Twelve-character tactics": "When the enemy comes, we will go; when the enemy is stationed, we will harass; when the enemy retreats, we will pursue."This is the earliest blueprint of the sixteen-character formula.It initially established the basic principles of the Red Army's guerrilla tactics.

Before joining forces with Mao Zedong, Zhu De was also studying guerrilla tactics.He learned a lesson from the several battles of the troops after the Nanchang Uprising. When the enemy is big and we are small, the enemy is strong and we are weak, and the enemy is attacking us, we must not fight head-on with a strong enemy.At the same time, he also studied how to change from fighting big battles to new tactics for fighting small battles.The great victory in Pingshi is a typical example of winning more with less.When he was training troops in Liputou, he wrote two textbooks, "Infantry Exercise Code" and "Army Service", which described guerrilla tactics.In this way, when Mao Zedong and Zhu De joined forces, the two often studied guerrilla tactics together.

With the deepening and expansion of guerrilla warfare, the guerrilla tactics of the Red Army have also been continuously enriched and developed.These rich and specific guerrilla tactics effectively guided the guerrilla warfare at that time. At this time, the main force of the Red Army on the Hunan-Jiangxi border had only 4 regiments, while the enemy often had 7 to 8 regiments, sometimes up to 18 regiments.The enemy was outnumbered, and the Red Army relied on the flexible use of guerrilla tactics to defeat the enemy time and time again.In the battle of Wudoujiang in early May, the Red Army adopted the combat policy of superior force and wiped out the enemy all the way, and wiped out most of the enemy; Injuring Yang Ruxuan, the commander of the enemy army, made the enemy dare not divide their troops, and had to send a group of people to guard. It was during the second "suppression" of the Kuomintang army's Jinggangshan base area that Mao Zedong and Zhu De summarized the combat experience of the Red Army as "when the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy is stationed, we harass; when the enemy is tired, we attack; Sixteen Characters of Guerrilla Warfare. One day in early May, Mao Zedong presided over an enlarged meeting of the former committee. At the meeting, he cited ancient and modern Chinese and foreign war examples, and made a strategic report. Let everyone analyze and study the sixteen-character tactic, "The enemy retreats and we pursue".Zhu De also expressed detailed opinions on issues related to guerrilla tactics.After some heated discussions, the basic principles of strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare of the Red Army's Sixteen Character Jue were formed in this way.After the meeting, Wan Xi, the party representative of the 29th Regiment, first conveyed the "Sixteen-Character Formula" to the grassroots cadres of the 29th Regiment stationed in Yongxin Lime Bridge, and explained it sentence by sentence. Under the guidance of this military principle, in mid-May and mid-June, the Fourth Red Army repelled the two "suppressions" of the Kuomintang army on the Jinggangshan revolutionary base.The victory at Longyuankou is the best example of using the sixteen-character formula. On April 5, 1929, in the "Letter from the Jinggangshan Front Committee to the Central Committee" drafted by Mao Zedong, the "Sixteen-Character Formula" was reported to the Central Committee in written form for the first time. The letter said: We have gained from the struggle for three years. The tactics used are really different from the tactics used in ancient and modern China and abroad.With our tactics, the mass struggle is becoming more and more extensive day by day, and any powerful enemy is beyond our reach. Our tactics are guerrilla tactics. Generally speaking, we divide our forces to mobilize the masses, concentrate them to deal with the enemy, and "the enemy advances." We retreat, the enemy is stationed and we harass, the enemy is tired and we attack, the enemy retreats and we pursue", "the separatist regime in a fixed area uses a wave-like advancing policy, the strong enemy follows and chases, and a circle-fighting policy is used", "very short Time is a very good way to mobilize a large crowd. This tactic is like netting. It must be opened at any time, and it must be closed at any time. Open it to win the masses and close it to deal with the enemy. This tactic has been used for three years. ". This set of guerrilla tactics summed up by Mao Zedong became the basic principle guiding the Red Army's guerrilla warfare.Mao Zedong called these sixteen-character tactics "the basic principles of guerrilla warfare with a simple nature adapted to the situation at the time."The subsequent strategy and tactics of the People's Army were developed from it. Mao Zedong, who "learned the unknown about military affairs", not only "learned swimming while swimming", but also created his theory of guerrilla warfare, becoming a generation of military masters. A few years later, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, a famous "guerrilla warfare expert" appeared, and he was Guevara of Cuba.He admired Mao Zedong's "Sixteen-Character Jue" for guerrilla warfare, regarded it as a classic of guerrilla warfare, and taught it to Cuban guerrillas repeatedly.