In 1932, the strength of the Northeast Anti-Japanese Volunteer Army reached its peak
At that time, there were four main forces: Ma Zhanshan, Feng Zhanhai, Li Du, and Su Bingwen.
After the successive defeats of the four main forces against Japan, there were two major directions of retreat.
Feng Zhanhai's Volunteers withdrew from the three eastern provinces to Rehe. This volunteer army has been fighting the war, and in 1937, it joined the all-out war of resistance with the name of the 91st Division of the 53rd Army.
Ma Zhanshan, Su Bingwen, Li Du, Wang Delin and other volunteers were unable to support them alone. Crossing the border into the Soviet Union.
According to records, Su Bingwen and Ma Zhanshanbu Volunteers retreated into the Soviet Union by four trains from Hailar, "the first train is the military and political chief and his family, and the second train is the people.
The third and fourth trains were servicemen and arrived in Domsk, Siberia".
On December 4, 1932, more than 4,000 people from the remnants of Su Bingwen's Volunteer Army, businessmen, dependents, railway employees, special and road police, retreated from Manchuria into the Soviet Union.
Ma Zhanshan was deeply afraid that the Soviet Union would not be allowed to enter the country, so he changed his name to Fang Xiuran and listed him as a senator of the General Headquarters of the Volunteer Army of the Su Bingwen Ministry as a cover.
At the end of 1932, the Japanese army attacked the Yongyi Army in Jilin Province on a large scale, and the soldiers of the 10th Division attacked Suifenhe, Xiachengzi and Mishan in three ways.
Li Dubu's volunteer army withdrew from Mishan and moved into Hulin. On January 6, he withdrew from the territory of the Soviet Union, and the rest was taken into custody by Wang Delin's department.
Japanese cavalry attacked Dongning. On January 10, Wang Delin ran out of ammunition and retreated to the border of the Soviet Union. Li Du and Wang Delin retreated to the city of Cross in the Soviet Union."
It is necessary to say in advance that the volunteers who withdrew to the USSR returned home in two ways:
1. Anti-Japanese officers and soldiers (including some of the families of the soldiers) returned to China via Xinjiang in batches;
2. Patriotic civilians who return home by boat via Vladivostok".
Ma Zhanshan, Su Bingwen, Li Du, Wang Delin, Zhang Dian.
9. Xie Ke, Kong Xianrong, Wang Erzhan, Jin Kuibi, Wu Delin, Gao Junling and other major generals and their entourage were escorted to the Polish border by the Soviet Union in April 1933 and returned to China by a detour from Europe.
The generals were also going to return home by ship via Vladivostok, but the Soviets were worried that the Japanese would hijack the ships, so they let them go through Europe.
Personnel in the armed forces who did not have military status (officials and students accompanying the army) and the families of some officers and soldiers returned to China from Vladivostok on the steamship "Unharmed" in accordance with the Sino-Soviet agreement.
In order to be safe at sea and to prevent being attacked by the Japanese army, the ship "Harmless" flew the Chilean flag.
When Ma Zhanshan, Su Bingwen, Li Du and other famous generals of the Anti-Japanese War arrived in Shanghai, they were warmly welcomed by all walks of life.
General Ma Zhanshan's speech at the welcome seat in Shanghai has the following content:
"The three eastern provinces are the northeast of our country, with Haixiang Mountain, and the momentum is strong.
In terms of agriculture, the land is fertile and the products are abundant, especially soybeans as the bulk of exports;
In the case of mining, there are almost everything that has been mined, investigated, and not mined;
In the words of the forest, it is used as fuel, and the source is endless;
In terms of transportation, the water and land travel smoothly in Eurasia, and the South Manchurian Road is **, but it is an ear in the northeast.
If the words are complete, you can win!
Japan is still able to dominate the three eastern provinces with only three islands, and invades and occupies the three eastern provinces in order to achieve the goal of the mainland policy
The expansion of its strength is not a hundred times greater than today!
It is the difficulty of not recovering the lost land for one day, that is, adding a layer of difficulty
Besides, where the extreme ambition goes, will there be even more unbearable speakers?
……It seems that such major problems cannot be solved by empty words, nor can they be achieved by empty words. Not now. I will regret the future, and there is no way forward."
Most of the officers and men of the volunteers went to Xinjiang in formation, but many of their families arrived in Tianjin with the ship "No Harm." What makes people sigh is that the family will be separated from each other from now on, and it will be difficult to meet again.
The volunteers who arrived in Xinjiang have played a huge role in the construction of Xinjiang by using their knowledge, technology and enthusiasm.
During the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in order to receive assistance from the Soviet Union, the "Northwest International Passage" was urgently repaired in Xinjiang. The contributions made by the officers and men of the volunteers in the construction and maintenance of roads are in the annals of history.
By the time the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was won in 1945, it was reported at the time that most of the volunteers who remained in Xinjiang had found stable jobs."
In the past ten years, the veterans of the Volunteer Army have missed the Northeast very much. Until a year after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.
In September 1946, Lao Chiang began to register the veterans of the Volunteer Army in various places, and it took another eight months for the veterans of the Volunteer Army to embark on the road back to their hometown.
The volunteers' journey back to their hometowns was long and arduous, they traveled by car and on foot, from Dihua all the way to Hami - Jiuquan - Lanzhou - Xianyang, and then took a train - Xi'an - Kaifeng - Luoyang - Xuzhou - along the Jinpu railway line to Nanjing, and then transferred - to Shanghai.
After crossing most of China, the veterans of the Volunteer Army took a steamer in Shanghai, crossed the long East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, and the Bohai Sea, and arrived at Yingkou in the northeast, and finally landed on the land of the northeast again.
Five groups of volunteer veterans returned to Northeast China from Xinjiang (865, 1608, 280, 1238, and 509 respectively).
The fifth group of veterans of the Returning Volunteers arrived in Northeast China on September 19, 1947, and 16 years have passed since the September 18 incident.
In the first batch, there were more than a dozen veterans who had reached the age of old. Among them, one veteran was 75 years old at the time of the "918" incident, and he was 91 years old at this time.
What is embarrassing is that when the sixth group of returning veterans arrived in Xianyang, the Liberation War was won.
Hu Zongnan had no intention of paying attention to their return to their hometowns, so he directly "dispatched" these veterans on the spot. The veterans were abandoned in Shaanxi.
Veterans who returned to the Northeast, almost abandoned.
At that time, ** said, "They are not unmotivated people, they want to be reclaimed, and it is said that the staff is full and cannot accommodate ......."To be employed, there is no opportunity".
Some veterans of the Volunteer Army were forced to go to the coal mine to carry coal. Among them, Dong Shijin, who has already become the grain commissioner of southern Xinjiang and has the rank of major general, has returned to the northeast. However, he applied for a job, but he was pushed back and forth, and so far he was found, and he also turned to the life of the coal."
A dignified major general is still like this, and the misery of those ordinary veterans is chilling.
This unfair treatment has added a sad color to the tragic history of the struggle of the volunteers. This is the indifference of Nanjing, which was busy going to the northeast to "loot" after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, to the volunteers who took the lead in the war of resistance with great hardship.