Nianzhuang Town, Pizhou, Jiangsu, on the north side of Provincial Highway 323, there is a memorial hall, and its pines and cypresses are solemn.
Inside the museum stands a general, dressed in a military uniform, holding a telescope, with a resolute gaze and staring into the distance.
This general is to commemorate the commander and political commissar of the Red 14th Army who was born in this land, General Li Chaoshi.
Li Chaoshi, whose real name is Li Zhen, was born in 1906 in an ordinary peasant family in Caizhuang Village. His youth was in the dark period of semi-feudal and semi-colonial, with warlords fighting and foreign insults, and people's livelihood was difficult.
These tragic images deeply touched his heart and laid the foundation for his ambition to pursue knowledge and save his country.
So, he joined the party.
After returning from his studies, Li Chaoshi was sent back to his hometown by the organization to carry out revolutionary work.
He mobilized and organized the masses, established grassroots organizations, and served as secretary of the special branch of Donghai County and secretary of the county party committee. The troops he led won the battle and gave impetus to the development of guerrilla warfare.
In the spring of 1930, according to the instructions of **, the guerrillas led by him were reorganized into the 14th Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and became the army commander and political commissar.
In the battle of attacking Laohuzhuang in the southwest of Rugao, the army commander He Kun unfortunately died, and Li Chaoshi took over as the army commander and political commissar.
Under his leadership, the Red 14th Army used guerrilla tactics to repel the Kuomintang army's "advance and suppression" many times and won a series of victories.
However, the base area of the Red 14th Army was extremely close to the centers of Kuomintang rule such as Nanjing and Shanghai. Under the encirclement and suppression of the enemy, the Red 14th Army finally collapsed.
In order to protect the revolutionary forces, Li Chaoshi was ordered to serve as an inspector of the provincial party committee. However, while inspecting work, he was targeted by spies, and he got out of the car ahead of schedule, but he was still stopped in Zhenjiang.
After Ye Chuling, chairman of Jiangsu Province, learned that Li Chaoshi, the commander of the Red 14th Army, had been captured, he was overjoyed and personally persuaded him to surrender.
However, Li Chaoshi resolutely refused and did not give in in the face of death. In the end, Ye Chuling ordered Li Chaoshi to be killed in Gushan, north of Zhenjiang.
Ye Chuling, a poet-turned-bureaucrat from the Southern Society, used various means to deal with the Red 14th Army during his tenure as chairman of Jiangsu Province.
While his political performance was mediocre, he won the approval of Chiang Kai-shek for encircling and suppressing the Red Army, and was promoted to the position of member of the Standing Committee and Secretary General of the National Executive Committee.
He died in February 1946 at the age of 59.