After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the Red Army cadres who studied in Yan'an asked to go to the anti-Japanese battlefield. At a small-scale meeting, 22-year-old Wu Ruilin heard the chairman say: "The cadres of the four front armies are all good comrades and are trusted, and the cadres of the three front armies are treated equally." These words encouraged Wu Ruilin, who was born in the Red Fourth Front Army. Dong Biwu's list actually included Wu Ruilin, and he directly designated him to lead the team to the Soviet Union. This arrangement means that the life trajectory of these cadres will be turned upside down.
The plan could not catch up with the change, and when the team arrived in Lanzhou, they learned that the road to the Soviet Union had been cut off and had to turn back. The Eighth Route Army had just established an anti-Japanese base in Shandong, and it urgently needed to send additional cadres to support it. Wu Ruilin did not hesitate to sign up, and was quickly approved, and set off with Qian Jun, Zhou Chiping and others in March 1938, and arrived at the Shandong base two months later after a rush of trucks and trains. Initially, the organization planned to let Wu Ruilin work as a teacher at the cadre school, but he thought that he was more suitable to pick up a gun and go behind enemy lines to open up a base area, and begged the organization to let him carry out this task in order to fulfill his value.
After organizational consideration, he was finally appointed political commissar of the Sixth Brigade of the Fourth Detachment of the Shandong Column of the Eighth Route Army, whose tasks included reorganizing the troops, developing the organization, and expanding the base areas. At the beginning of 1938, the Sixth Brigade was established, and its main activities were in the Yishui area. At the beginning, there were six or seven hundred people, but due to the lack of experience of cadres in leading the team, coupled with the fact that the problem of supply has not been solved, a large number of soldiers have left the team, and only more than 200 people remain. In order to prevent further personnel loss, Wu Ruilin became the spiritual pillar of the cadres of the Sixth Brigade as soon as he arrived in Yishui, and they all said that they lacked experience and needed political commissar Wu to come up with ideas.
The top priority was to solve the problem of food, so Wu Ruilin personally visited the local intellectuals, conveyed the determination of the Eighth Route Army to unite in the war of resistance, and asked for their support. Soon, he received 200 catties of steamed buns and 30 catties of pickles as assistance, and first solved the urgent problem of survival. After a month of rectification, the Sixth Brigade was expanded into five companies, with a total number of nearly 1,000 people, and was equipped.
Five or six hundred guns, the size of the team began to take shape. The Second Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Detachment of the Shandong People's Anti-Japanese Guerrilla of the Eighth Route Army developed rapidly, and Wu Ruilin continued to serve as political commissar, and the anti-Japanese armed forces in the Yishui area were able to grow rapidly.
However, the arrival of summer brought about a drastic change in the tide of the war, with Chiang's army and recalcitrant enemies pouring into the area, bandits rising again, and the struggle becoming extremely complicated. Wu Ruilin ignited the combat morale of the second detachment at this juncture. The first fire is to win Gao Shuxun, and the Eighth Route Army is concentrating on studying. The second fire was to scare Yao Jingchuan away, and they planned to open up a base area south of Ju County, where the 13th Cavalry Brigade of Chiang's army was stationed. Newspapers in the Japanese-occupied zone of Qingdao reported on the strength of the brigade. Wu Ruilin went to the 13th Brigade station, intending to persuade the brigade to cooperate with the Eighth Route Army.
Although the brigade commander Yao Jingchuan was ostensibly cold to the Eighth Route Army, he eventually had to work with the Eighth Route Army in the face of the threat of the Japanese attack on southeastern Lu. Yao Jingchuan lacked courage and courage to be hostile to Japan, so he hurriedly evacuated under the pretext that the cavalry was vulnerable to exposure. His cowardly actions weakened the anti-Japanese forces, which was undoubtedly a great regret. However, the unit has always been undisciplined and accustomed to plundering all directions, and this westward retreat has saved the region from a major disaster, which can also be described as a good thing. The third thing is to eliminate Liu Guitang.
Liu Guitang is a well-known bandit in Shandong, who ganged up with seven people and ranked seventh, plus his dark complexion, known as "Liu Heiqi", and also known as the "Demon King of the Mixed World", with more than 10,000 people at its peak. During the Great War in the Central Plains, Liu successively surrendered to He Yingqin, Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, Zhang Xueliang and other warlords, and became famous for excavating Han Fuyu's ancestral grave. Later, he first surrendered to the Japanese and became a traitor, and then betrayed and defected to Jiang Jun as a division commander, which was capricious. The common people were deeply disgusted by the looting behavior of the Liu bandits, and they called for the eradication of the Liu bandits. The Second Detachment of the Eighth Route Army was determined to exterminate Liu Guitang.
This was the first time that the Eighth Route Army had fought in southeastern Shandong, and since it had attacked, it would completely annihilate the enemy, and no one would be allowed to escape. Liu bandits occupied Houtong Village, with a Tuweizi in the north and south, with a total of more than 100 bandits and more than 100 captive women. The second detachment mobilized four companies, plus two light machine-gun crews, and surrounded the two earthen weizi with an absolute superiority of forces. After three hours of fierce fighting, none of the bandits were spared, and the Eighth Route Army captured 100 grenades and 5,000 yuan in the ocean. When the masses learned that the bandits' nest had been cleared, they were all overjoyed, and they praised the Eighth Route Army as a great savior, and their enthusiasm for joining the army rose again.
Another unexpected joy of Hou Tong's battle was that he learned of the plan of the Japanese puppet attack on Lunan, which made the Eighth Route Army more aware of the situation of all forces. At the subsequent celebration meeting, people from all walks of life were full of passion, and they had money to contribute, and they had to make strong contributions, and they had guns to shoot, and the anti-Japanese situation in southeastern Shandong was very good. The Eighth Route Army captured a large number of **.