Wang Sanzhu, the bandit leader of northern Henan:years of debut,years of perdition
On May 6, 1949, Anyang, the core city of northern Henan, was victoriously liberated. In order to completely eliminate the remnants of the enemy, the besieging army then launched a large-scale manhunt and arrest operation throughout the city.
In Anyang, a place known as the seven alleys of four passes, five gates, nine mansions, eighteen lanes, and seventy-two alleys, there are all kinds of characters hidden. Deputy platoon commander Shen Yuechang and two soldiers found a pair of young men and women in a sandwich wall.
The man claimed to be a medicine merchant with the surname Li, while the woman kept crying and didn't say anything. There are many dragons and snakes in Anyang City, and there are many bandits, among which there are more than 100 of the most famous, most of whom are middle-aged.
However, the two young men and women were only about 20 years old, which made Shen Yuechang have some doubts about their identity. However, at this moment, a fellow who was watching quietly came to Shen Yuechang's side and whispered: "The person you want to let go of is Wang Sanzhu, the biggest bandit leader in northern Henan. ”
It turned out that Wang Sanzhu was a native of Nanyue Village, Huaxian County, and was born in a landlord family in 1926. His father, Wang Taigong, was the local joint security director and a well-known bandit leader, and later defected to the Japanese, and his power expanded dramatically, with more than 2,000 people, divided into four brigades.
At the age of 15, Wang Sanzhu was admitted to the Infantry Department of the Luoyang Military Academy, but his father hoped that he could inherit his father's business, so he dropped out of school and went home to help with daily chores before he graduated.
However, Wang Taigong was a loyal lackey of the Japanese, and he colluded with other puppet army leaders to frantically ** anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians, and was called "Wang Butcher" by the local people. New copywriting: In Anyang, a place with four passes, five gates, nine mansions, eighteen lanes and seventy-two alleys, there are all kinds of characters hidden.
Deputy platoon commander Shen Yuechang and two soldiers found a pair of young men and women in a sandwich wall. The man claimed to be a medicine merchant with the surname Li, while the woman kept crying and didn't say anything.
However, there are many dragons and snakes in Anyang City, and there are many bandits, among which there are more than 100 of the most famous, most of whom are middle-aged. However, the two young men and women were only about 20 years old, which made Shen Yuechang have some doubts about their identity.
However, at this moment, a fellow who was watching quietly came to Shen Yuechang's side and whispered: "The person you want to let go of is Wang Sanzhu, the biggest bandit leader in northern Henan. ”
It turned out that Wang Sanzhu was a native of Nanyue Village, Huaxian County, and was born in a landlord family in 1926. His father, Wang Taigong, was the local joint security director and a well-known bandit leader, and later defected to the Japanese, and his power expanded dramatically, with more than 2,000 people, divided into four brigades.
At the age of 15, Wang Sanzhu was admitted to the Infantry Department of the Luoyang Military Academy, but his father hoped that he could inherit his father's business, so he dropped out of school and went home to help with daily chores before he graduated.
However, Wang Taigong was a loyal lackey of the Japanese, and he colluded with other puppet army leaders to frantically ** anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians, and was called "Wang Butcher" by the local people. Shen Yuechang and his soldiers were deeply shocked by this discovery, and they decided that Wang Sanzhu and his accomplices must be brought to justice and justice for the innocent people who were killed.
On December 25, 1944, a certain unit of the Eighth Route Army successfully encircled and killed Wang Taigong, the 18-year-old boy Wang Sanzhu led the remnants of the bandits to escape by luck and fled to the area of Qingzhuang and Shagangqiao, and began to actively recruit rebels and collect rout bandits.
In just over a month, Wang Sanzhu's bandits reached nearly 2,000 people, and he proclaimed himself the commander under the banner of his traitorous father. However, at this time, the Japanese army was already at the end of the road, and no longer provided him with food and ammunition supplies, Wang Sanzhu lost his economy, and directly became a bandit, and began to only do some sneaky things, and then became more and more bold, and began to blatantly rob nearby villages.
Hundreds of villages at the junction of Changyuan, Fengqiu, and Yanjin counties have all been sacked by Wang Sanzhu's bandits. The common people were deeply affected by it, and they hated Wang San to the core. After Japan's surrender, Wang Sanzhu's backer was gone, and just when he was in a panic, Liu Zhi, director of the Kuomintang Zhengzhou Pacification Office, threw an olive branch to him, and Wang Sanzhu became the commander of the fourth column of the Kuomintang security guard, and his headquarters was located in Niutun Town, Huaxian County.
With the talisman of the security commander, Wang Sanzhu was even more rampant, and several hardcore traitors who used to work hard for the Japanese, including Wu Lantian, Wang Shulin, Zhao Fujiu and others, all brought guns and were taken under Wang Sanzhu's command, with a total strength of more than 3,000 people, becoming the most powerful bandit in northern Henan.
And the bandit leader Wang Sanzhu was not yet 20 years old at the time, and he became the local "soil emperor" at a young age. The first thing he did was to correct his traitor father Wang Taigong.
Wang Sanzhu found a few down-and-out literati to compile a book, and described Wang Taigong, who was a tiger fighter, as an invincible anti-Japanese hero, and Liu Zhi, known as the "escaped general", also wrote a preface for this book.
Wang Sanzhu is convinced that "a lie repeated a thousand times is the truth", but ordinary people know what kind of goods Wang Taigong is, so none of the books that Wang Sanzhu worked so hard to compile could be sold.
Wang Sanzhu is also good at sealing officials and making wishes, he has five "deputy commanders", seven "county magistrates", more than a dozen "security commanders", and countless other types of **, Wang Sanzhu has a total of more than 3,000 people, and there are more than 4,000 letters of appointment that can be signed by him.
In June 1946, Liu Zhi gathered six divisions in an attempt to invade the liberated areas of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan. At this time, Wang Sanzhu volunteered and took the initiative to ask Ying to be the "urgent vanguard" of the attack on the liberated areas.
Liu Zhi was overjoyed by this, and appointed Wang Sanzhu as the leader of the "Advance Column of the Zhengzhou Appeasement Office in Northern Henan." Liu Zhi is a well-known "lucky general" in the Kuomintang army, and Wang Sanzhu, as Liu Zhi's proud protégé, seems to have a lot of "blessings".
However, Wang Sanzhu's more than 3,000 rabble took the initiative to attack the liberated areas without Liu Zhi's command, which was undoubtedly self-defeating. Before Wang Sanzhu invaded the liberated areas, he heard that Liu Zhi suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Dingtao, and then Liu Zhi was dismissed by Chiang Kai-shek, and the post of director of the Zhengzhou Pacification Office fell to the head of another Kuomintang ** Gu Zhutong.
In order to curry favor with his new boss, Wang Sanzhu began to organize a group to return to his hometown, secretly infiltrating the liberated areas to collect intelligence, and assassinating local cadres and progressive masses. In mid-September 1946, Gu Zhutong gathered 15 divisions and attacked the liberated areas of Hebei, Shandong, and Henan in three ways.
Wang Sanzhu accompanied the Kuomintang army into the liberated areas. At this time, the main force of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Liberated Area had been transferred, and Wang Sanzhu took the opportunity to command the bandits in the post department, taking advantage of the conditions of being familiar with both people and land, and successively attacked the county brigades of our army's Weinan County (abolished) and Binhe County (abolished), and the captain Pei Mengzhou died heroically.
More than 100 wounded and progressive masses of our army fell into the hands of Wang Sanzhu. Wang Sanzhu was extremely cruel to the methods of the ** personnel, burying them alive, cutting off their heads, cutting off their limbs with a guillotine, and nailing the wounded to ...... treeDo whatever it takes.
Later, Wang Sanzhu ordered even more frenziedly: all suspicious persons will be shot on the spot, and there is no need to report for approval. In just 100 days, more than 800 wounded and local cadres were killed in Huaxian, Puyang, and Changyuan, and countless innocent people were killed.
On November 15, 1946, our army's Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army launched the Huaxian Campaign, and in just one week, it annihilated more than 12,000 enemy troops. The local people wrote to our army one after another, asking our army to send troops to eliminate Wang Sanzhu's bandits.
After Wang Sanzhu heard the news, he hurriedly dispersed and concealed the bandits in order to avoid being wiped out by our army. In the battle to suppress the bandits, more than 600 people of the Fifth Brigade of Wang Sanzhu's headquarters were completely annihilated.
Wang Shulin, the captain of the Fifth Brigade, and more than a dozen other bandit leaders did many evils, and the people were extremely angry, and at the active demand of the local people, Wang Shulin and other bandit leaders were suppressed on the spot.
Wang Shulin and Wang Taigong are sworn brothers, and Wang Taigong is Wang Sanzhu's dog-headed military advisor. After Wang Sanzhu learned that Wang Shulin was shot, he was heartbroken and vowed in public to avenge Wang Shulin.
On December 29, Liu Fenglin and Yao Yongqi, soldiers of the Huaxian Independent Regiment, unfortunately fell into the hands of Wang Sanzhu. The two would rather die than give in, and exposed Wang Taigong and Wang Shulin in public as traitors, and they committed numerous crimes as traitors during the anti-Japanese period.
Wang Sanzhu was annoyed and ashamed, and rushed up with more than a dozen cronies and bandits, blurring the flesh and blood of Liu Fenglin and Yao Yongqi with an iron fork. Two heroes died heroically. At the beginning of 1947, the main force of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army forcibly crossed the Yellow River and advanced thousands of miles into the Dabie Mountain.
Wang Sanzhu took the opportunity to occupy the entire territory of Huaxian County, as well as parts of Puyang, Qixian, Changyuan, Yanjin, and Fengqiu counties. Within his sphere of influence, Wang Sanzhu implemented a strict armor protection system, dividing the whole territory into four "anti-suppression zones," each of which had four armor protection teams.
All the ** in the area are the cronies appointed by Wang Sanzhu.
Wang Sanzhu was nominally the commander of the Kuomintang army, but in fact he was a bandit separatist force. In the spring of 1947, he collected a group of stragglers, exiled landlords, ruffians, hooligans, and habitual bandits in the Xiaodianji, Wangtun, and Sanwangzhuang areas in the east of Xinxiang, and his troops reached eight regiments and six security regiments.
Chiang Kai-shek appreciated him very much and appointed him "Commander-in-Chief of the Suppression of Bandits in Northern Henan", "Deputy Director of the Twelfth Appeasement Zone" and "No. 1 in Henan."
3. Commander of the 4th District Garrison, and conferred the rank of Lieutenant General in the Army.
At that time, Wang Sanzhu had just turned 21 years old and was the youngest lieutenant general in the Kuomintang army. Chiang Kai-shek once praised him to his face as "a young talent with a bright future." It's a pity that this young "lieutenant general" was not happy for a few days, and he suffered a blow to the head.
The Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region launched a strategic campaign in northern Henan, destroying more than 40,000 enemies and liberating 9 county seats. Wang Sanzhu's bandits were forced to evacuate their nests and fled to the Mengying area of Xinxiang.
* After the victory of the war, the main forces of our army withdrew from northern Henan, leaving only four regiments of the Fourth Army Division in northern Henan, controlling parts of Huaxian, Puyang, Gaopingji and Niushitun.
Wang Sanzhu's bandits had eight regiments and six county security regiments, with a total strength of more than 30,000 troops. Compared with our army, Wang Sanzhu had a clear advantage in terms of troops, so he became extremely arrogant.
In mid-April, the first regiment of the Yuanyang detachment of our army, which was carrying out its tasks in the areas of Qijie, Dabinji, and Shumen, was attacked by another cavalry battalion of the three regiments of Wang Sanzhu and the bandits.
Our officers and men were not afraid of danger and engaged in fierce battles with the enemy, but in the end they suffered very huge losses because they were outnumbered. Wang Sanzhu and the bandits lost two whole regiments in this battle.
The outstanding combat effectiveness of the People's Liberation Army cast a heavy psychological shadow on Wang Sanzhu, and he no longer dared to confront the main force of our army, but adopted the tactic of "grabbing a handful and leaving".
Usually Wang Sanzhu would gather four infantry regiments and a cavalry company to go out at the same time to attack those local troops far from the main force. In October 1947, more than 100 people from three platoons of our army's Yanjin County Armed Forces were attacked by Wang Sanzhu bandits in Wang Sipo Village, Baidao Township, Yanjin County.
After a fierce battle, the warriors broke out of the encirclement, but because the bandits had cavalry, they pursued the soldiers who broke through for 15 miles.
Original copy: In desperation, the Wugong team left a platoon to cover the retreat of their comrades. In the end, the platoon ran out of ammunition, and 28 fighters were captured. Wang Sanzhu used methods such as digging hearts, beheadings, and burying them alive to kill all 28 soldiers.
Platoon commander Yuan Kezhu would rather die than give in, and scolded Wang Sanzhu. In the end, the bandits cut off their tongues and nailed to death on the gate of Changxingji Xizhai to show the public. More than a month later, in the middle of the night, the Huaxian Martial Arts Brigade was attacked by a surprise attack, resulting in the capture of 107 fighters.
On the wheat field in Mingdian Village, Huaxian County, more than 100 soldiers were beheaded in public according to the length of time they had been enlisted. Wang Sanzhu's sneak attack tactic of avoiding reality and making up for fiction caused heavy losses to the local troops of our army, and the villagers also called these bandits "ghost kings" with trepidation.
The bandits under Wang Sanzhu became more and more rampant, and our army had to adopt defensive tactics due to insufficient troops, and the main force strengthened its ties with the local troops.
Wang Sanzhu was worried that the nest would be lost, so he had to give up the action and return to the army to protect the nest. In the following months, Wang Sanzhu's bandits were exhausted and never managed to inflict heavy losses on the local troops of our army.
In June 1948, after the liberation of Kaifeng, the battlefield situation changed, and our army had begun to grasp the initiative on the battlefield. Zhang Gonggan, commander of the division of the Fourth Army of our army, led two regiments and another battalion to return to Yanjin after performing combat missions in Yuanyang.
During the march, he received information that Wang Sanzhu had a group of bandits and camped in the area of Pingling and Tongcun at night. Commander Zhang immediately decided to set out overnight to eliminate this gang of bandits.
Our army surrounded the enemy overnight and launched an attack at dawn, but we did not expect that the bandits camping here had 4 regiments. Our army did not have any advantage in terms of strength, and due to the continuous fighting, ammunition was relatively scarce, so the fierce battle until noon still failed to break through the enemy's defensive position.
In desperation, Commander Zhang could only order: the attacking troops withdrew from the battle. The besieged enemy escaped by chance, and did not dare to fight, so he left his baggage and fled in a hurry.
Our troops immediately launched a pursuit, capturing many prisoners. From the confessions of these prisoners, we learned that after the liberation of Kaifeng, the communication line between Zhengzhou and Xinxiang was also cut off by the People's Liberation Army, and more than 30,000 people from 14 regiments under Wang Sanzhu's headquarters were huddled in an area of several tens of kilometers, and there was a serious shortage of food supplies.
Last night, it was Wang Sanzhu who sent a force to grab grain against the People's Liberation Army. Our army is improvised to crack down on those bandits who go out to grab food, and we ensure that they will not return.
In just a few days, Wang Sanzhu's two regiments were completely annihilated, and he never dared to act rashly again.
Wang Sanzhu was a lieutenant general in the Kuomintang army, but he was meticulous and calculated the gains and losses like a small businessman. He wanted to get food, but he didn't want his men to risk it. So, he prepared a generous gift and some compliments and gave them to Li Zhenqing, commander of the 40th Army of the Kuomintang Army.
Li Zhenqing was greedy for small profits, accepted the gift, and came forward to support Wang Sanzhu. Li Zhenqing led four regiments to attack the liberated area of Huaxian County, and Wang Sanzhu also sent three regiments to cooperate with the operation.
However, the 42nd Brigade of the Fourth Army Division of the People's Liberation Army gave a strong blockade, and Wang Sanzhu was frightened and began to retreat without informing Li Zhenqing. As a result, as soon as he retreated, he was surrounded by a PLA contingent and found himself in a difficult situation.
The PLA's purpose is obvious, that is, to intercept the enemy's rear road and carry out the tactic of "closing the door and beating the dog." Wang Sanzhu suffered heavy losses, leaving less than 2,000 people and had to retreat to his lair.
Our army then recovered the two county towns of Fengqiu and Yangwu, and only a few strongholds remained in Wang Sanzhu's territory. After two months of recovery, Wang Sanzhu suffered a great injury. But before he could make a move, the PLA launched an offensive, liberating the cities of Huojia, Xiuwu, Wushe, Yuanwu, Yangwu, Jixian and Jiaozuo, and successfully took control of the Yellow River Bridge, trapping the enemy in the Xinxiang area.
The enemy trapped in the lonely city is demoralized, and there is a shortage of food and ***, so they can only rely on airdrops. However, the internal struggle of the Kuomintang army also made the airdrop of supplies a focus of contradictions.
The resentment between Wang Sanzhu and Li Zhenqing deepened day by day, and even a conflict broke out. In February 1949, the Huaihai Campaign and the Pingjin Campaign ended successfully, and the Kuomintang army in northern Henan had nowhere to go.
The only way out was to take a flight south from Xinxiang Airport. However, while they were hesitating, the 14th column of our army captured the Xinxiang airfield and cut off their escape route.
Li Zhenqing ordered Wang Sanzhu to recapture the airport no matter what, otherwise it would be dealt with by military law. Although Wang Sanzhu was reluctant in his heart, he was still forced to attack the airport. However, the resistance of the main forces of the PLA was impossible for them to break through, and after a day and a night of fierce fighting, Wang Sanzhu's bandit troops were crushed.
With no way out, Wang Sanzhu could only return to Xinxiang City and beg Li Zhenqing to open the city gate so as not to be completely wiped out by the People's Liberation Army. However, no matter how Wang Sanzhu pleaded, Li Zhenqing was unmoved, and resolutely did not let Wang Sanzhu and his remnants enter the city.
Wang Sanzhu is a lieutenant general commander-in-chief in the eyes of the Kuomintang army, but his inner world is not satisfactory. Last year, he led more than 30,000 people to Xinxiang, and now there are less than 4,000 people left around him.
Wang Sanzhu decided to enter Taihang Mountain to be a bandit, but he cunningly used the tactic of "striking the east and attacking the west" to lead people to the east, leading the main force of our army to set up a net. Then he made a false shot, turned around and went west, and drilled into the Taihang Mountain.
Wang Sanzhu burned and looted the bandits, and did all kinds of evil, and more than 1,000 local cadres and innocent people were brutally murdered. After Wang Sanzhu fled back to Huaxian County, he continued to commit crimes, causing more than 160 people and a large amount of material losses.
He finally fled to Anyang City, with five or six hundred remnants of the defeated general, and was chased by the main force of our army with nowhere to escape.
The city of Anyang was impregnable, and the Kuomintang army praised the city's solid defense. Our Central China Field Army attacked Anyang three times, but all of them were unsuccessful. Therefore, the remnants of the defeated soldiers and bandit leaders fled into Anyang, which was regarded as the last safe haven.
In mid-April 1949, the 42nd Army of our Fourth Field Army was sent to Anyang. Although the 42nd Army had not been formed for a long time, its strong combat effectiveness surprised the bandits in Anyang City.
The 42nd Army did not rush to storm the city, but patiently and meticulously cleared the permanent fortifications on the outskirts of the city. In the deafening sound of heavy artillery, the bunkers were blown into the air.
By May 4, the fortifications outside Anyang had been cleared. At dawn on May 5, the People's Liberation Army launched a general attack on Anyang. Using heavy artillery bombardment and manual blasting, our troops managed to blow open several gaps in the city wall, and then our soldiers rushed into the city through these gaps.
Wang Sanzhu was still fighting the trapped beasts, ordering all the city gates to be opened, preparing to break through the city gates. However, as soon as the bandits left the city gate, they were blown up by the dense artillery fire of our army, and the city gate was full of corpses.
The bandits were terrified and took refuge in what they thought was safe. After Wang Sanzhu ordered the city gate to be opened, he did not leave immediately, but assumed the pseudonym Li Jialin and hid in a wall on the west side of Qiaojiaxiang Road with the help of his concubine.
When Shen Yuechang, the deputy platoon commander of our army, and two soldiers searched for the remnants of the enemy, they found a house with a large exterior but a small indoor area.
Sure enough, behind a closet, they found the door to the wall. A young man and woman were found from the wall. The woman kept crying, and the man calmly claimed that his name was Li Jialin, a medicine merchant, and that he was hiding in the wall to avoid the bandits, not knowing that the People's Liberation Army had entered the city.
Shen Yuechang felt that the other party had no flaws, and because of his youth, he planned to release them. Fortunately, someone reminded him, and he realized that the young man opposite was Wang Sanzhu, the biggest bandit leader in northern Henan.
Prior to this, Shen Yuechang had always believed that Wang Sanzhu was a middle-aged man. On May 25, 1949, the Xinxiang Military Management Committee held a public judgment meeting at Pingyuan Stadium.
More than 30,000 people spontaneously came to the scene, tearfully accusing Wang Sanzhu of his crimes, and strongly demanding that the bandit suppression forces put Wang Sanzhu to death.
After the conference, the criminal Wang Sanzhu was executed on the spot for his criminal behavior, and paid the price for his criminal behavior.