Chapter 6 nothing more than three

Zhou Enlai's office was chosen at No. 25 Xiafei Road in the French Concession.There were three armed uprisings by workers in Shanghai. The first time was in October 1926.Zhou Enlai was still in Guangdong at that time and did not participate. The second time was in February 1927. Zhou Enlai did not participate in the leadership of the uprising and was temporarily sent to direct the actions in the southern district.When we got there, we didn't see the masses, only a few persons in charge.The entire uprising quickly failed, and no action was taken in Nanshi District. At the moment (March 1927) active preparations are being made for a third armed uprising.

The preparations for the start of this uprising were closely linked with the cessation of the second uprising, with no gap in between. On the evening of February 23, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Shanghai District Committee held a joint meeting and made a decision. On the one hand, stop today’s riots and the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions will issue an order to resume work; at the same time, they also decided to expand armed organizations and prepare for new riots. The first two uprisings were led by the Shanghai District Committee, under the command of Luo Yinong, Secretary of the District Committee, and Zhao Shiyan, Organization Director of the District Committee.

At this joint meeting, it was decided to set up a special committee to guide the work, consisting of eight people: Chen Duxiu, Luo Yinong, Zhao Shiyan, He Songlin (namely Wang Shouhua), Yin Kuan, Peng Shuzhi, Zhou Enlai, and Xiao Zizhang; , Yan Changyi, Zhao Shiyan and Zhong Rumei are composed of 5 people.This military committee is also the military committee of the Shanghai District Committee, with Zhou Enlai as the secretary, and Zhou Enlai was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the armed uprising.In this way, he assumed responsibility for the military leadership of this workers' armed uprising.

After studying Zhou Enlai’s early revolutionary activities, the British sinologist James MacDonald believed that “Zhou played two roles better than others, one is to be a consultant before the policy is decided, and the other is to be the executor after the policy is decided. And both are playing the role of 'public servants'".At that time, Zhou Enlai's meticulous working method was stupidly called "women's work" by some "big men", but they didn't know that women were sometimes more powerful than men. Zhou Enlai spun like a hot wheel.In view of the lessons learned from the failure of the previous two uprisings, he believes that the problem lies in the lack of preparation and the lack of decisiveness of the party leaders in the incident.So this time, he grasped two points from the very beginning: one is careful preparation before the uprising;

So the mood of those involved a few days before the uprising—like a time bomb in their arms, the ticking countdown can be heard clearly, and the heart is jumping.There are only three things, if it fails again, I am afraid that the history of workers' armed uprising will be gone.History is the history of winners, but history is also written with failures. After the establishment of the special committee and the military committee on the night of the 23rd, Zhou Enlai attended the meeting of secretaries of various districts in Shanghai in the morning to learn more about the force deployment of the workers' pickets in each district, and to study the stronghold and force distribution of the enemy's military and police; The military commissioners held meetings and deliberated in batches.That night, at the special committee meeting, he gave a report on military work, emphasizing that there were three forces to rely on for the uprising: first, the picket team, with a target of 5,000 people, and organized 3,000 people first; 300 people, the target is 500 people; 3. The special team, he talked more and more in detail, and suddenly stopped at a critical point.The listeners also realized that the young Secretary of the Military Commission had something important to say, so they all moved their chairs closer; the lookout at the window also nervously inspected the surroundings again.Zhou Enlai did mention the secret department: "We must strengthen the work of the enemy army. Under my direct command, set up a naval committee to instigate rebellion and contact me once a day. In addition to buying new guns, it is intelligence work. Now, the Northern Expeditionary Army is Pushing into Shanghai along the two directions of Nanjing and Hangzhou. Therefore, the intelligence work is divided into three routes: first, write letters to Hangzhou; second, send people to Songjiang and Longhua between Shanghai and Hangzhou, and third, to Nanjing and Wuxi. conduct.The target of the instigation was the head of the warlord's troops stationed in Shanghai.This work requires the cooperation of the KMT.

The Kuomintang also agreed to send special commissioners to do the work of surrendering Li Baozhang and Bi Shucheng.Bi Shucheng, commander of the Fifth Route and Eighth Army of the Zhilu Allied Army and commander of the Bohai Fleet, had various conflicts with Li Baozhang of the Shanghai Army.Bi replaced Li in the garrison, and Li went to see Bi, but Bi avoided seeing him, but word came out that Li was required to give up the Wusong Fort, but Li refused, so Bi ordered a part of the army to go to Wusong without authorization, forcing Li Baozhang to transfer the army to Jiangbei. Li is unwilling, but can't.In the stalemate between the two sides, it is a good opportunity to instigate rebellion.As soon as the Kuomintang commissioner told Li Baozhang, Li thought about it for a while, and then agreed. He just put forward a condition. After the matter was completed, he would be appointed as the commander of the 18th Army of the National Revolutionary Army.The Kuomintang agrees to this condition.Bi Shucheng also agreed to surrender, but there were more conditions: give him the territory from Shanghai and Wuxi to Songjiang; temporarily gray surrender without flying the Kuomintang flag; and other titles.Obviously the conditions are relatively high, and the KMT did not agree.Yang Shuzhuang, the commander of the Navy stationed in Shanghai, after doing work, led some naval ships to officially announce on March 12 that they would break away from the Beiyang warlords and join the National Revolutionary Army.Zhou Enlai was very happy about this, and immediately wrote to the naval officers and soldiers in the name of the Military Commission, urging them to support Yangshuzhuang.Zhou Enlai told his colleagues in the Military Commission that this is called "borrowing arrows from straw boats" and it is Zhuge Liang's coup.The rebels sent by the Communist Party mainly work among the soldiers inside the warlords.Some soldiers promised: When you launch an uprising, we can sabotage or destroy machines for internal response.

Zhou Enlai transferred back some communist graduates from the Whampoa Military Academy to help train the pickets. At that time, the warlords and capitalists in Shanghai had guard groups, guns, and ammunition.The military commissioned pickets who did not disclose their identities to participate. Some people who were sent couldn't figure it out, and worker Ren Qixiang was one of them.He asked: "Are we joining the defense regiment? Are we going to defend the capitalists?" Zhou Enlai smiled and asked, "What are we missing now?" "Of course it's guns and ammunition."

"The security regiment has guns and uniforms. If we go in, can't we have guns? We can also use its legal status to conduct military training. Isn't this borrowing arrows from grass boats?" Zhou Enlai must have been thinking about it these days. Turning around, the new "Three Kingdoms" should be the Communist Party, the Kuomintang and the warlords. After Zhou Enlai's reminder, not only Ren Qixiang was enlightened, more than 40 workers turned around and immediately joined the security regiment. It is much more convenient to transport guns and ammunition.At the same time, the leftists of the Kuomintang are also active in the defense regiment. Once there is action, they can mobilize troops to serve the uprising.