On September 16, 1948, when the Battle of Jinan began, Wang Yaowu, who was then the chairman of the Kuomintang Shandong Province, met Su Yu, the acting commander and acting political commissar of the East China Field Army, who had repeatedly defeated the Kuomintang army's "advance and suppression" and "encirclement and suppression" tactics.
Su Yu led the main force of the East China Field Army to fight Wang Yaowu fiercely for eight days, and finally conquered the well-fortified city of Jinan on September 24, completely annihilating about 100,000 defenders. Wang Yaowu took advantage of the chaos to escape, but soon after, he was captured alive by our army at Zhangjian Bridge in Mihe, Shouguang County.
The moment he was captured alive, Wang Yaowu's mind flashed back to the scene from 14 years ago, when he was a prisoner.
Among the personnel captured by Wang Yaowu, there was a Red Army division commander who would rather die than give in, and he deeply shocked Wang Yaowu, and he still remembers it more than ten years later. So, who is this Red Army division commander who was captured by Wang Yaowu 14 years ago?
What kind of story do they have? The commander of the Red Army division who was captured by Wang Yaowu was named Hu Tiantao, and he was captured in 1935. Unfortunately, due to the early time of his sacrifice, he did not leave **, and the army has relatively few records of his profile information.
It was only years later that the truth of his situation gradually became known. Hu Tiantao's original name was Hu Lianggui, whose name is Xiuyu, and he was born in 1901 in an ordinary peasant family in Xishui County, Hubei Province.
18-year-old Hu Tiantao was admitted to the county middle school with excellent results, and then he went to Hubei Fazheng College for further study. At the moment of the rise of the agricultural movement in his hometown, he devoted himself to it with passion and contributed his strength to the reform of his hometown.
In 1927, he came to Wuhan in the spring breeze of the revolution and joined the 7th Army Cadet Corps of the National Revolutionary Army and began his military career. In the ranks of the Communist Party of China, Hu Tiantao accumulated rich combat experience and contributed his strength to the revolutionary cause.
In November 1934, Hu Tiantao's Red Seventh Army and the Red Tenth Army joined forces to form the Red Tenth Army. The corps consisted of Fang Zhimin as the chairman of the military and political committee, Le Shaohua as the political commissar, Su Yu as the chief of staff, Xun Huaizhou as the commander of the 19th Division, Liu Chouxi as the commander of the corps and the commander of the 20th Division, and Hu Tiantao as the commander of the 21st Division.
In the early days of its establishment, the Red Tenth Army received a clear division of labor from the ** Military Commission, and the 19th Division was responsible for organizing the troops to fight the enemy in the new Soviet area on the border of Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi, and develop the new Soviet area; The 20th Division carried out activities to attack, encircle and suppress the enemy in the old Soviet area, and undertook the important task of protecting the Soviet area; The 21st Division led by Hu Tiantao fought together with the 20th Division in the Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Soviet regions.
The Supplementary First Brigade, the Red Tenth Army and the Red Seventh Army led by Wang Yaowu met the Red 19th Division and the Red 21st Division at Tanjiaqiao in southern Anhui and launched a fierce battle, which was the famous Battle of Tanjiaqiao.
The commander of the Red 19th Division, Xun Huaizhou, died heroically in this battle, while Hu Tiantao successfully broke through and joined up with the large army. On January 10, 1935, the Red Tenth Army Corps was in trouble in southern Anhui, and the ** Military Region ordered the Red Tenth Army Corps to be transferred to the Soviet area in northeastern Jiangxi.
When Liu Chouxi led the troops forward, he was informed by the enemy in advance and rushed to the front line to attack, and Liu Chouxi was forced to change the route of the march. However, on January 16, the main force of the Red Tenth Army was surrounded by the enemy in Huaiyushan, although they made many breakthroughs, but they were unsuccessful, and finally under the siege of the enemy, most of the officers and men of the Red Tenth Army died heroically, and Liu Chouxi, Hu Xiantao and other senior generals were also wounded and captured.
In order to avoid the enemy, Su Yu led more than 800 vanguard troops to detour through the ridge barren trail and continue southward, and finally successfully escaped and arrived at Gangtou in the Great Soviet District of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Jiangxi.
Wang Yaowu remembers that Hu Tiantao wore only a few thin shirts, tattered pants and straw sandals on a cold winter day, and only carried an old bag of dry food.
When Wang Yaowu first met Hu Tiantao, he was incredulous that he was dressed in simple clothes that were not even as good as soldiers. After Hu Tiantao was captured, Wang Yaowu was personally responsible for the interrogation, and the direct communication between the two made Wang Yaowu have a deeper understanding of the Red Army division commander who had fought against him many times, and found that he was even more tenacious than expected.
In the interrogation room, Hu Tiantao sat at the interrogation table, facing the predicament and death, he was calm and composed, unhurried. Wang Yaowu noticed his every movement, and was attracted by his simple appearance as a division commander of the Red Army.
So, Wang Yaowu tried to ** Hu Tiantao with his treatment in the Kuomintang, but Hu Tiantao didn't even look at him, and these substances had no effect on Hu Tiantao.
During the interrogation of the captives, Wang Yaowu found that Hu Tiantao was an existence that shocked him. He tried to persuade Hu Tiantao to join the camp of the Kuomintang, and used Chiang Kai-shek as a bait, saying: "Chiang Kai-shek has a very high opinion of you, and he once said to you: 'Hu Tiantao, you are the best Communist Party member I have ever met, I trust you, I admire you.
As long as you are willing to join the Kuomintang, I guarantee that you will be treated better. However, Hu Tiantao's answer surprised Wang Yaowu. He said firmly: "I have no expectations for the Kuomintang, I only hope to be able to contribute to the cause of China's liberation."
If Chiang Kai-shek really had such an assessment of me, then he was a hypocritical politician. ”
Hu Tiantao scoffed at Wang Yaowu's rhetoric, and years of belief in the Communist Party convinced him that only through revolution and the defeat of imperialism, feudalism and warlordism could the country be reborn and move towards a bright future.
He made no secret of his sarcasm about the collusion between the Kuomintang and imperialism, which had a strong military strength at the time of national crisis, but did not actively resist Japan, but provoked a civil war at home, and Chiang Kai-shek even invited imperialist officers to serve as advisers, secretly colluding to push the people of the whole country into misery.
Hu Tiantao was deeply angry about this, and his dissatisfaction with the Kuomintang was overflowing.
Hu Tiantao's dislike of the Kuomintang could not be changed, and Wang Yaowu reluctantly turned to inquire about Fang Zhimin's whereabouts. But Hu Tiantao always replied with the word "I don't know", and Wang Yaowu couldn't get him to speak despite all means, including lynching.
In the end, Hu Tiantao was escorted to Yu Jishi to deal with, but he always remained silent, and no matter who he was interrogated, he only answered with the word "I don't know". His firm belief and undaunted momentum made him always in an advantageous position in interrogation.
Although he was eventually killed by the Kuomintang, his will and determination deeply influenced Wang Yaowu. Liu Chouxi and Fang Zhimin were also tortured and coerced, but they always adhered to their communist beliefs and did not waver.
In the early hours of August 6, the Kuomintang brutalized the Red Army generals, who were taken to the execution ground, where they showed their firm faith in the party by chanting the slogan "Long live the Communist Party of China" in the face of death.
This battle inflicted heavy losses on the Red Tenth Army, the loss of many capable officers, and the heavy blow to the party. However, Su Yu remembered this incident and believed that he would one day be able to catch Wang Yaowu and not let his comrades die in vain.
Wang Yaowu was reused by Chiang Kai-shek because of his military exploits and was promoted to the commander of the 51st Division. In 1946, he was sent back to Shandong to serve as the commander of the Second Pacification Zone.
After the victory of the Lunan Campaign, Su Yu served as the deputy commander and deputy political commissar of the East China Field Army. In 1947, Wang Yaowu and Su Yu met on the battlefield in Shandong.
In February, the East China Field Army launched the Laiwu Campaign under the leadership of ** and Su Yu.
From left: Ye Fei, Ding Qiusheng, Wei Guoqing, Tang Liang, Su Yu, Chen Shiyu, Meng Lianggu Battle, Su Yu skillfully set a trap to induce Li Xianzhou to give up Linyi, Wang Yaowu noticed the strangeness and ordered a retreat.
However, Chen Cheng ordered to hold on to Jiaoji Road, and Li Xianzhou's troops were eventually annihilated. In the Battle of Menglianggu, the East China Field Army won a complete victory, Zhang Lingfu was killed, and Wang Yaowu felt the strength of our army after the defeat, and flew to Nanjing to ask Chiang Kai-shek to give up Jinan and defend the second line, but it was not adopted.
A year later, Wang Yaowu's hunch came true.
In May 1948, Su Yu was appointed acting commander and acting political commissar of the East China Field Army. He regarded the management of the East China Field Army as his duty and attached great importance to the Jinan Campaign.
His goal was not only to win the battle, but also to capture Wang Yaowu alive. After fierce fighting, the East China Field Army annihilated a total of 10 Kuomintang troopsMore than 40,000 people, and Wang Yaowu already felt that the general trend had gone at the beginning of the battle, and he led four of his men to patrol the position, but escaped halfway.
He disguised himself as a peasant, wore pre-prepared clothes, and fled to Qingdao. After learning that Wang Yaowu had escaped, Su Yu ordered to intensify the pursuit. Wang Yaowu, under the pseudonym Qiao Shen, rented a big car and pretended to be a patient to hide his identity.
When he was interrogated and investigated on the road, he lied that he had been injured in the Battle of Jinan and was going to Qingdao for medical treatment, and finally successfully escaped from Jinan.
After fleeing Jinan, Wang Yaowu suddenly felt an urgent need to urinate when passing by the Zhangjian Bridge in Mihe, Shouguang County, so he ran down the bridge to go to the toilet. However, when he returned, the PLA public security soldiers guarding the bridge noticed that his behavior was suspicious and stopped him for questioning.
Although Wang Yaojun looked like a patient, after examination by the medical staff, he was in good physical condition and had no problems. Eventually, the interrogators found the white towel he had been wearing on top of his head, which had left traces of the military hat he often wore on the military.
Under constant interrogation, Wang Yaowu could no longer support it, and realized that he could no longer hide his identity, so he confessed: "I am Wang Yaowu." After learning that Wang Yaowu was captured alive, Su Yu felt relieved.
Fourteen years later, he finally captured Wang Yaowu and gave an explanation to his comrades-in-arms who had died heroically. Countless soldiers like Hu Tiantao have used their lives to prove to the world the common ideals and beliefs they adhere to.
Driven by faith, our army has won countless battles and campaigns, and these victories have finally achieved our common goal - the victory of the Chinese revolution and the victory of the Communist Party of China.