In November 1938, the 4th detachment of the New Fourth Army received a piece of information: Someone in the advance regiment of the New Fourth Army was preparing to surrender!The commander of the detachment, Gao Jingting, immediately ordered Zhou Junming, the commander of the old 8th Regiment: Be sure to let them be captured. Zhou Junming set a trap and invited the cadres of the New Fourth Army Advance Regiment to come to the banquet. At the same time, Zhao Fengzao, the inspector of the Fifth Administrative Region of Anhui and an expert on friction, learned the news, and a smug smile appeared on his face: "Gao Jingting, you have been fooled. Sure enough, a month later, General Gao Jingting, the leader of the 4th detachment, was in a predicament. Gao Jingting, a native of Xinxian County, Henan, joined the Red Army in 1928 and later became the political commissar of the division. After the Red Army's Long March, he rebuilt the Red 28th Army, stayed in Dabie Mountain to carry out armed struggle under difficult conditions, withstood the encirclement and suppression of hundreds of thousands of Chiang's army, and strengthened the ranks. When the New Fourth Army was founded, there were four detachments and more than 10,000 people, and his detachment accounted for nearly 5,000 people. How could such a wise and brave general fall for the enemy's counter-plot?In fact, Gao Jingting is not all to blame, the political commissar of the old 8th regiment also has a certain responsibility.
You may be surprised that this advance regiment of the New Fourth Army actually came from the Northeast Army. Zhang Xueliang was the hero of the Xi'an Incident, and was detained by Jiang after the incident was resolved, after which the Northeast Army was reorganized into a new army, and some even defected to the enemy. What is less known is that some of them joined the New Fourth Army. After the Xi'an Incident, the 67th Army of the Northeast Army, which had 3 divisions, was reduced to 2 divisions) and went to Anhui. After the outbreak of the Battle of Songhu, the 67th Army rushed to the front line, and the result was disastrous. In the battle, the army commander Wu Keren was killed, the 107th Division was annihilated, and the 108th Division was also more than half. Since 1938, the numbers of the 67th Army and the 107th Division have been abolished, and the rest have been merged into the 108th Division. The other part was redeployed to the 57th Army. The 57th Army was also a part of the Northeast Army, which participated in the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Nanjing, and the divisions under its jurisdiction also suffered heavy losses. The commander of the 111th Division was named Chang Enduo, and he had a brigade commander named Wan Yi, who later served as the commander of the division, and joined the Eighth Route Army in 1944 and became the founding lieutenant general, but this is a later story.
Wan Yi, the commander of the army, is Miao Zhengliu. In fact, the 67th Army was not fully integrated into the 57th Army, and some changes occurred before it was incorporated into the 57th Army. Early 1938. When Liu Chong learned the news that he was about to be incorporated into the 57th Army, a wave of dissatisfaction surged in his heart. He said to his comrades-in-arms: "It seems that Lao Chiang is determined to destroy the descendants of our young generals, and we cannot be at his mercy." ”。Everyone asked, "Brother Liu, what do you think we should do?"Liu Chong pondered for a moment and then said, "I think we should defect to the New Fourth Army." ”。After hearing this, everyone agreed, because Zhang Xueliang and we already have a friendship, and we will not be bullied when we arrive in the New Fourth Army. Liu Chong was secretly happy in his heart, so he immediately went to the Wuhan office of the Eighth Route with his good brothers, Major Adjutant Wei Yuzhou, and battalion commander Dong Dongqiao, and put forward a request to join the New Fourth Army. Upon learning that they would be incorporated into the New Fourth Army, Liu Chong and his brothers rejoiced and celebrated their new life. However, they did not expect that the road ahead would be full of bumps.
In view of the deep friendship of this team, Zhou suggested that they should not be dismantled, and that they should be given the nickname of "Northeast Exile Anti-Japanese Advance Team". Dong Dongqiao was appointed commander (who is also a member of our organization), Wei Yuzhou was appointed deputy commander, and Liu Chong was appointed director of the Political Department. The armband of the advance team is a soldier with a firearm and the inscription "Advance to the White Mountain and Black Water". This number highlighted the three messages of "Northeast", "Exile" and "Anti-Japanese". After joining the New Fourth Army, the advance team came to the area of Chao County and Quanjiao County and actively launched a struggle against the enemy. The Northeast Army, which was experienced, well-equipped, and brave in a hundred battles, defeated the Japanese army in Quanjiao County and had to withdraw from the county. The local people cheered for them, and local youths actively joined them. The team grew rapidly, from a few hundred to 1,500 people. At this time, the morale of the advance team was high, the results were remarkable, and their prestige in central and eastern Anhui was greatly enhanced. As everyone knows, the "tree is a big move" and the growth of the advancing column has aroused both the hatred of the Japanese army and the uneasiness.
Zhao Fengzao, the inspector of Anhui's Fifth Administrative Region and known as the "friction expert," mobilized the armed forces of the seven surrounding counties in an attempt to eliminate the anti-Japanese forces. However, the advancing column was not only able to defeat the Japanese army, but the surrounding security regiments were not their opponents at all. After months of fighting, Zhao Fengzao ......In September 1938, the 8th Regiment of the 4th Column of the New Fourth Army arrived in Feidong County and joined the Advance Column at Shitang Bridge, and then decided to reorganize the Advance Column into the "Advance Regiment" to achieve unified command and action. This move made the advancing column more difficult to eliminate. Faced with this situation, Zhao Fengzao was not reconciled, and once again played a discordant strategy, bribed an intelligence station commander of the New Fourth Army, and sent a false information to the person in charge of the fourth column - claiming that the advance regiment wanted to join the 57th Army. Unexpectedly, the intelligence was believed to be true by Gao Jingting, the head of the fourth column. This was due to the fact that there were also contradictions between the Advance Regiment and the 8th Regiment. The problem of funding for the column became more and more prominent, and even the military uniforms for the winter could not be solved.
During the period of the Red Army, the funds mainly came from fighting local tyrants and cooperating to resist Japan, but Chiang Kai-shek demanded that our army should not fight local tyrants, and the military expenses and supplies of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army should be settled by the authorities. However, Chiang's army did not recognize the expanded Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army and refused to provide military funds. As a result, the advance regiment could only seek funding from the old Eighth Regiment because they were under its leadership. However, the Eighth Regiment's own funds were also unsustainable, unable to meet the requirements of the column, and could only provide limited military expenses. After the contradiction arose, Zhou Junming, the commander of the Eighth Regiment, the column believed that their military expenses were withheld by the Eighth Regiment, and jointly reported it to the detachment. Subsequently, the head of the advance regiment proposed to join forces with the Eighth Regiment to annex Liu Ziqing's troops, but was refused. The person in charge of the advance regiment was extremely dissatisfied and returned to Chaoxian alone. Subsequently, Wen Yugui, commander of the second battalion of the advance regiment, made a request to restore the organization's identity, but was refused. As a native of Northeast China, Wen Yugui joined the organization in his early years and later dissociated. Now, he has made a request to the instructor Zhou Liren to restore his identity in the organization.
Wen Yugui was a figure who actively participated in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and even held military power, and his situation was very special, so it caused a series of disputes. Zhou Liren was in trouble and reported the matter to Gao Zhirong, director of the political department. Gao Zhirong felt that it was difficult to deal with it, and it was inappropriate to agree or refuse. So, they reported to their leaders and made a suggestion: if they couldn't agree, they should not immediately reveal their hole cards, but adopt a tactful attitude, saying that this matter is critical and important, and they need to consult Yan'an before making a decision. However, the political commissar bluntly stated: "A traitor can't restore the identity of the organization, let him die of this heart." Hearing the reply from his superiors, Wen Yugui's heart was half cold, and he felt that although he worked hard in the revolution, he could not rejoin the organization, which made him feel quite frustrated. Therefore, he began to cause trouble, spread rumors, and create contradictions within the advance regiment, which led to tensions between the two units. At the same time, Gao Jingting of the Northeast Army believed that the rumors that the advance regiment might defect to the enemy were not nonsense and decided to take action.
As a result, the advance regiment received a telegram from the leader of the detachment, saying that "the advance regiment is colluding with the Miao Huiliu Department of the Northeast Army, which has just arrived in Anhui, and measures must be taken." The regiment commander also complained about the column itself, so he set up a Hongmen banquet and invited the main person in charge of the advancing regiment to go. In November 1938, Liu Chong, the political commissar of the advance regiment, Wei Yuzhou, Gao Zhirong, Zhang Kaifan and others went to the banquet site. Wen Yugui felt that something was wrong and went to stop it, but was ridiculed by Wei Yuzhou. He reminded: "You can't hurt people, you can't have the heart to guard against people, and you'd better bring more guards when you go." Wei Yuzhou replied: "We just went to have dinner with our comrades, so we don't need to be so careful." Liu Chong and Wei Yuzhou attended the banquet unprepared. When the political commissar of the 8th regiment saw them sitting down, he slammed the wine glass in his hand with all his might. The guards who were lurking around immediately rushed forward, and the pistols had already been snatched away. Subsequently, the advance regiment was forced to disarm. Wen Yugui saw that Liu Chong and the others did not come back, thinking that they had encountered an "accident". So he took the opportunity to incite the dead party to surrender with guns. Liu Ziqing, who rebelled before.
Afterwards, after an investigation by the military headquarters of the New Fourth Army, no evidence was found that the advance regiment defected to the Miao Expedition Department, and only then did it know that it had fallen into the discord plan of the recalcitrant army. In his later years, General Zhao Qimin recalled that the improper handling of the Northeast Exile Advance Column was a "big mistake" of the Eighth Regiment after it arrived in eastern Anhui. If the forces of the Advance Regiment and the Eighth Regiment are concentrated and then rectified, the development of the anti-Japanese armed forces and the establishment of the base area in eastern Anhui will be of positive significance. However, it is regrettable that half a year after the head of the advance regiment was disarmed, Gao Jingting, the commander of the 4th detachment, was also disarmed on a similar ground in June 1939, and he was not as lucky as Wei Yuzhou and was killed by mistake on the spot. The statue of Gao Jingting is still there today.