Introduction
This article is excerpted from the sixth volume of "Nanchang Literary and Historical Materials", written by Shen Luzhao.
Body
In January 1949, Comrade Zhao Jianping, secretary of the Chengxiyu Working Committee of the Communist Party of China, convened a meeting of the Working Committee attended by Zhu Fan and I in light of the victorious situation of the rapid development of the Liberation War. Zhao Jianping originally led the military engineering team in the division of labor, and later changed to lead the work in the Xibei region in a unified manner; I was originally the deputy director of the Organization Department of the Working Committee, leading the underground party, and later changed to lead the armed labor team, the A party and the underground party in Shazhou County (including Chengdong and Yuxi); Comrade Zhu Fan is still working in Wujiang Tongli.
On February 5, 1949, Comrade He Luo, the captain of the Wugong team in Shazhou County (including Chengdong and Yuxi, the same below), came to Wuxi and accompanied me to Shazhou. Both of us were wearing robes, I held a cloth umbrella in one hand, a net bag in the other, walked to the ocean bridge and boarded the steamer, to the north shore, walked to the sandbank, soon entered the sandbar realm, was walking along the south bank of a river to the west, looked up, found that not far from the front of a bridge on the opposite riverbank, there were more than 40 policemen with loaded guns, approaching, the two of us looked at each other and nodded, and said yes, I put the cloth umbrella on the net bag on my left shoulder, my right hand reached into the pocket, and held the loaded pistol, When we were both ready for battle, we swaggered forward as if nothing had happened, and crossed shoulders with the police, who did not even ask a question, and thus relied on our composure and resourcefulness to overcome the danger bravely.
Comrade He Luo took me to Dongcun, seven miles west of Yangshe, and arranged for me to live in Wang Asi's house, and introduced Comrade Zhou Shengfu of the underground party branch of Dongcun to me to be responsible for communication and liaison work.
1. Make all preparations to welcome the army across the river.
I convened a meeting attended by He Luo, the head of the armed forces industry, and Zhao Yue, the special commissioner of the underground party, Cheng Guocui and Yang Minqi, the leaders of the military industry, to study how to make all preparations to welcome the army across the river, and to make specific arrangements for various specific tasks.
Later, Comrade Shi Mingfang was transferred to be responsible for the communication liaison with the Chengxiyu Working Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Xicheng Armed Forces Working Committee, as well as Comrade Chen Yuantong (Tongjing), who was responsible for collecting intelligence on the Kuomintang garrison along the Yangtze River, as well as Zhu Linguan, a security officer, Wang Biao, a traffic officer, and other comrades
1) In the war, it is necessary to know oneself and know the other in order to survive a hundred battles, so it is first necessary to understand and grasp the distribution of the Kuomintang reactionaries' forces along the river, equipment, fortifications, transfers, and changes, and so onGather intelligence。One day I went to the riverside with my comrades to inspect the enemy's fortifications, and the enemy dug a round pit more than one person deep along the river, cut down all the trees planted by the people nearby, sawed them into a section one person high, and lined them up in the round pit side by side, and the enemy stood in the pit with ** in hand.
b).Carry out liaison work with the enemy forces along the river in order to win, divide, and disintegrate the enemy forces. First, according to the distribution of the Kuomintang troops, local underground party members adopted the method of approaching and chatting with the enemy's regiments, battalions, companies, and platoon commanders. Second, in accordance with the instructions of his superiors, Comrade He Luo entered the Huangshan Fort three times to carry out liaison work with regiment commander Tang Binglin, asking him to control the fort and not to open artillery to block the attack when our army crossed the river, and that the 29 th Army would carry out this work under the direct leadership of the 29 th Army in the future.
c).Do a good job of preparing food, guides, stretchers, etc. when the army crosses the river. After the army crossed the river, it first had to solve the problem of food before it could bravely advance and pursue the enemy. I sent someone to do the work of winning contact with Director Chen of the Kuomintang Houcheng Grain Depot, explaining the situation and pointing out the way out, and the only way out was to take refuge in the people, make meritorious service and atone for his crimes, protect the grain depot, and provide it to the People's Liberation Army for food. In order to prepare for the liberation, 70 quintals of grain were transported from the grain depot in advance and stored at Xiazhuang Bridge for emergency use.
We also propagandized and mobilized the masses, organized groups of guides, stretchers, and mobilized.
Twenty or thirty people went to northern Jiangsu for training to meet the needs of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in crossing the river at any time.
iv).Vigorously carry out propaganda work and liaison work against puppet townships, security chiefs, and puppet self-defense forces. In the form of printing and distributing leaflets and writing propaganda letters, it is advisable to spread the victorious situation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) about to cross the Yangtze River, pointing out that the only way out is for them to take refuge in the people's meritorious service and atone for their crimes; for example, the underground party of Yang Wei sent propaganda materials to Wang Huairen (Wang Keqiang), commander of the 182nd Division of the 21st Army of the Kuomintang in Yang Wei, hanging them in his clothes bag on the wall, shocking the enemy's courage.
We have carried out propaganda and liaison work with the puppet self-defense forces in various townships and towns, and demanded that they refrain from firing guns or running away, take good care of their guns and ammunition, hand them over at a moment's notice, and not miss a single shot, and maintain social order and protect factories, warehouses, shops, and so on.
2. The darkness before dawn, the brutal struggle on the eve of liberation.
On April 9, 1949, I held a meeting with Zhou Shengfu, Shi Mingfang, Chen Yuantong, Zhu Linguan, Wang Biao, Shao Xiaofei, Chen Xilin, and Li Ming, a traffic officer from the Xicheng Armed Forces Working Committee, to study the progress of preparations for welcoming the army across the river.
In the afternoon, Comrade Zhou Shengfu told me that there was a puppet head of Chonghua Township, Zhao Binghua, who asked to talk to me. I talked to him about the good situation of the Liberation War, the defeat of the Kuomintang was a foregone conclusion, and pointed out that the only way out was to abandon the secret and surrender to the Ming meritorious service, and he did not leave until 12 o'clock.
The closer they got to victory, the more brutal the struggle became, and the Kuomintang reactionaries tried in vain to eliminate the leading organs and personnel of the Chengxiyu Working Committee of the Communist Party of China along the river. Wang Huairen, commander of the 182nd Division of the 21st Army of the Kuomintang reactionaries stationed in Yangshe, after receiving information on our activities in Dongcun, pulled a wire from 7 li to Dongcun, sent troops to surround 17 villages including Dongcun, forming an encirclement on a 30-mile road, and set up two machine guns in the broad bean field in front of Wang Asi's house in Dongcun.
When I slept until dawn, I suddenly heard a 38 gunshot, I thought that the Self-Defense Forces did not have 38 guns, maybe the Kuomintang army was coming, so I immediately called everyone up, went out of the back door and crossed the bamboo fence to the west, and when I looked up, there were enemy sentry posts standing on the shore of the field in front of me, and I immediately divided the 9 people into three groups and broke through from this gap to the southwest. Zhou Shengfu and Zhu Linguan and I stayed overnight at Zhou Shengfu's niece's house in Huashu, and on April 11 the enemy withdrew and we returned to Dongcun.
The enemy tried in vain to annihilate our armed engineering team before the PLA crossed the river, and set up a trap and trick of false surrender. After Comrade He Luo reported to me, he thought about it repeatedly, and had a premonition that there might be fraud, so he decided not to go, and the next day, the local underground party members were arrested by the enemy. Due to our high vigilance and seeing through the enemy's tricks, the enemy's plot failed.
3. Take advantage of the victory to collect the arms of the Self-Defense Forces and the defeated Kuomintang army.
In the early morning of April 21, 1949, when the artillery rumbled into the sky and millions of soldiers crossed the river, Comrade He Luo and I discussed and decided to immediately ask all armed groups to collect the armed forces of the self-defense forces in various townships and towns, and a total of more than 900 rifles and 2 machine guns were collected in one day, and a military contingent of more than 200 people was established. In particular, the seven-member military engineering team in the Higashimura area set out in the morning to collect the guns of the Self-Defense Forces, and by the time they returned in the evening, a military team with complete guns and two machine guns had been formed. After the liberation, the Jiangyin County Brigade was established on the basis of the Wugong Brigade.
On the same day, I immediately led several comrades from Houcheng to the riverside to join the PLA, and I introduced myself with infinite joy, and the PLA commander warmly shook hands with me and praised us for our outstanding completion of the combat mission of crossing the river in cooperation with the army.
On 22 April, information was received that there was a Navy Captain Xu of the Ninth Security Brigade of the Kuomintang Nanjing Garrison Command in Donglai Town, with more than 80 people, 5 motorboats, 5 light machine guns, 2 heavy machine guns, more than 100 rifles and 17 short guns, and each heavy machine gun had 40 boxes of ammunition.
I immediately discussed with Comrade He Luo and decided to send Comrade Yu Jinglu to lead the team, with Comrade Ye Ganqing as the instructor, to lead more than 70 members of the armed engineering team in the Dongcun area to Donglai Town to collect the armed forces of the defeated Kuomintang troops mainly on the political offensive.
Comrade Yu Jinglu led the military engineering team to Donglai Town quickly, ambushed nearby, and sent Comrade Zhu Linguan with a platoon to persuade the surrender to collect the enemy's armed forces. Comrade Zhu Linguan replied: "It is Yu Jinglu under the leadership of He Luo, the captain of the martial arts team of Shazhou County. Yu immediately went to talk to him, explained the situation, pointed out the way out, and persuaded him to lead the team to surrender and disarm, make meritorious service and atone for his crimes, and he could be released and go home, but Captain Xu still refused to surrender. At that time, an analysis was carried out, and it was estimated that because the enemy did not understand the situation and did not trust our military engineering team, they invited Zhang Xinshi, a famous local doctor, and Ji Fusheng's mother-in-law to come forward to do work for them, explaining that the military engineering team led by Yu Jinglu was a subordinate of Comrade He Luo, the head of the Shazhou County martial arts team under the leadership of the Chengxiyu Working Committee of the Communist Party of China, and was reliable and trustworthy. Captain Xu agreed to surrender and disarm, but put forward two conditions: first, he could not surrender in Donglai Town, it would be too embarrassing, and he could go to Fuquan Town to disarm; 2. Make a suit of civilian clothes for everyone. We said yes. Captain Xu drove the troops to Fuquan Town, where we entertained them for a meal, made a suit of civilian clothes for each of them, and then they handed over the motorboats, guns, and ammunition to us, and went back to their hometowns.
On April 23, we entered Jiangyin City by motorboat and were warmly welcomed by the local people, who celebrated the liberation of Jiangyin and the great victory of crossing the river.
Material**: The sixth series of the Southern Changwen and Historical Materials.