The name Li Yu may be relatively unfamiliar to many people. On Hainan Island, Feng Baiju became famous for leading the Red Army for 23 years without falling the Red Flag, so he was much more famous than Li Yu. However, as the founder of the Shandong Column, Li Yu's strength and historical contribution were equally extraordinary. However, these two outstanding generals missed out on their ranks because of "localism". Only Li Yu can be called the founder of the anti-Japanese base in Shandong. During the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Li Yu was the foundation of the Shandong Column and the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and cadres from Yan'an and Taihang Mountain, Guo Hongtao, Zhang Jingwu, Zhu Rui, Chen Guang, **Chen Guang, ** and others were all based on Li Yu to integrate the Shandong Column and the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army. Without Li Yu's contribution, the Shandong base area would not have been so powerful. During the Anti-Japanese War, Li Yu served as the political commissar of the Shandong Column (in cooperation with Zhang Jingwu), the director of the Shandong Wartime Work Implementation Committee (equivalent to the provincial governor), the deputy political commissar of the Shandong Military Region (concurrently the commander and political commissar*** Deputy Secretary of the Shandong Branch (Secretary *** and during the liberation period, Li Yu served as the deputy political commissar of the Shanye and East China Military Region (concurrently serving as the commander and political commissar **) and the deputy secretary of the sub-bureau (secretary Rao political commissar).
Whether it was during the Anti-Japanese War or the early days of liberation, Li Yu had enough qualifications to be awarded the rank of general. However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Li Yu not only left the army, but was also demoted from the secretary general of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee at the provincial and ministerial level to the director of the Labor and Wage Division of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee. The reason for this huge gap was precisely the opposition to "localism" and "mountainism" in the second half of 1947. Why is it said that Li Yu is the "lamplighter" of the Shandong revolution and the founder of the base area?In September 1955, Shandong, as a region with a large number of five field armies, did not have a founding general, and its highest military rank was only three founding lieutenant generals: Kong Qingde in Qufu, Shandong, Liu Xingyuan in Junan, Shandong, and Sun Jixian in Cao County, Shandong. This figure forms a stark contrast to the many founding generals in Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and other places. Hubei has 3 marshals, 6 generals, and 19 generals, including Xiao Ke and **;Hunan has 2 generals, Lin Shuai and Xu Wang, as well as 14 generals, including Han Xianchu and Chen Zaidao;Sichuan (including Chongqing) has 4 marshals and ** generals, as well as 3 generals including Zhang Aiping, Fu Zhong and Chen Bojun.
Shanxi, Guangdong, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Anhui, Fujian, Guangxi, Liaoning, Henan, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia and other places have surpassed Shandong, and all of these places have founding generals. Why is it that in Shandong, where there are many famous generals, there are only a handful of generals during the Red Army period?The revolutionary organizations in Shandong faced a grim situation for a long time, mainly because Shandong was deeply ruled by warlords such as Wu Peifu and Zhang Zongchang at that time, and revolutionary pioneers such as Wang Jianmei and Deng Enming were severely suppressed by the White Terror. In 1936, the Northern Bureau sent Li Yu to Shandong to rebuild the Provincial Party Committee, and he successively made great achievements in the struggles in Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Zhinan and Hebei, Shandong, and Henan. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Li Yu promptly led the launch of the top ten anti-Japanese armed uprisings in Shandong, including the famous uprisings of Tianfu Mountain, Culai Mountain and Heitie Mountain, forming the Shandong guerrilla of the Eighth Route Army.
Detachments of the third, fourth, and fifth ranks. In December 1938, the Shandong Column was established in Yishui, with Zhang Jingwu as the commander-in-chief, Li Yu as the political commissar, and Wang Bin as the chief of staff. Xiao Hua's detachment was only 8,000 people, and the total strength of the Eighth Route Army was only 150,000.
In many times of army reorganization, the Shandong Column successively transported more than 30,000 people to the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, more than 10,000 people to support the New Fourth Army, and the 115th Division also supported more than 2,000 military and political cadres of the Shandong Column. In July 1940, Li Yu was elected as the chief leader of the Shandong War Trade Union, ahead of Chen Guang and others. In 1943, Shandong implemented unification, Zhu Rui and Chen Guang were transferred back to Yan'an, and Li Yu was appointed deputy political commissar of the Shandong Military Region. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Xiao Hua seized the northeast, and was transferred to the commander and political commissar of the Shandong Military Region and the Shandong Field Army, Li Yu served as the deputy political commissar of the mountain, and the chief of staff was the later founding general Song Shilun. Judging from the experience of the Anti-Japanese War and the early days of liberation, Li Yu's status can be comparable to that of the founding general. In December 1938, the first part of the Shandong Column went to Yimeng Mountain from Qinghe District. It is worth noting that "localism" and "mountainism" became the key factors in the turning point of Li Yu's fate. During the Anti-Japanese War and the Liberation Period, Li Yu's partners included both the founding lieutenant general and the founding marshal. Li Yu himself was even strong enough to win the rank of general, but in the second half of 1947 he suffered a sharp reduction in his position, due to the influence of "localism" and "mountainism".
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Shandong Branch was renamed the East China Bureau, with Rao Political Commissar of the New Fourth Army as the secretary and Li Yu as the deputy secretary. Political Commissar Rao was busy with military deployment work, and frequently traveled back and forth between Beiping, Yan'an, and Northeast China, while Shandong's land reform and rent and interest reduction campaigns were presided over by Deputy Secretary Li Yu. In view of the special situation in Shandong, such as the fact that the Kong family occupies thousands of acres, Li Yu adopted appropriate policies to take care of it. In the second half of 1946, the per capita land of peasants in the liberated areas of Shandong increased by nearly half a mu, reaching 215 acres, basically achieved the goal of "the cultivator has his own land", and laid a solid foundation for the active support of the peasants in the war of liberation. However, in January 1947, Commissar Rao, together with Kang Sheng from Yan'an, severely criticized Li Yu's "kulak line" in land reform. After the enlarged meeting at Shouta Temple, the criticism of Li Yu escalated to "localism" and "mountainism", mainly on the basis that Li Yu regarded the Lailai Mountain Uprising as Shandong's Army Day. At the Zhucheng Jiaodong ** Conference in early 1948, the hat of "sectarianism" was once again fastened on Li Yu's head. Why did Li Yu's position decline sharply after the founding of the People's Republic of China?
In the final analysis, it is still because of the influence of "localism", "mountainism" and "sectarianism". At the end of 1948, Li Yu was dismissed from all other positions except for the front work. In order not to affect the work of supporting the Huaihai Campaign, and in order not to affect the morale of the troops, Li Yu chose to take into account the overall situation, endure humiliation, and gave up the opportunity to lodge an appeal. In February 1952, Li Yu was suddenly demoted from the position of secretary general of the municipal party committee to the director of the labor and wage department, and his position was sharply reduced. In the second year, Li Yu was transferred to the Central Finance Commission and served as the deputy minister of the First Ministry of Machinery Industry, the Ministry of Agricultural Machinery and the Ministry of Eighth Machinery. Although Zhang Jingwu, the commander-in-chief of the Shandong Column, only had the rank of lieutenant general, and Li Yu missed the opportunity to pass by the founding general when he was conferred the title for the first time, the arrival of Li Yu brought earth-shaking changes to Shandong. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the liberation period, Shandong became the most important source of troops for our army, and many middle- and grass-roots cadres grew up to become a new generation of our army during the period of going south and resisting US aggression and aiding Korea. After the reinstatement of the military rank system in 1988, a quarter of the generals emerged in Shandong. At the same time, local cadres such as Fang Fang, Feng Baiju and others who were affected by "localism" were also affected.
Fang Fang was the main leader of the western Fujian Soviet region, and during the War of Liberation, he developed 80,000 troops in southern China and established a large base area. However, under the influence of "localism", "bureaucracy" and "decentralization", Fang Fang was demoted six times, which also affected the *** who presided over Guangzhou, Guangdong, similar to Fang Fang, General Feng Baiju also missed his military rank due to the influence of "localism", although he held on to Hainan for 23 years, but was eventually transferred to a remote county as deputy county magistrate. These historical figures, including Li Yu and Feng Baiju, missed out on their ranks for the same reason, leaving regrets.