The first breakouts
At dawn on June 26, 1946, the Kuomintang army launched a large-scale siege of the Central Plains Liberated Area with more than 300,000 points and 4 routes, targeting Xuanhuadian. On the evening of the same day, the troops of the Central Plains Military Region broke through the encirclement by separate routes in accordance with the strategic transfer plan approved by the Chinese Communist Party.
At this point, the Third Civil Revolutionary War, that is, the War of Liberation, which started with the breakthrough of the Central Plains, kicked off.
After the Central Plains Breakout Campaign began, some county and district cadres and armed forces in Jingshan were ordered to quickly rush to Liulindian in Suixian County to assemble, and were respectively incorporated into the guard regiment and cadre brigade of the Jianghan Military Region, and broke through with the main force of the Jianghan Military Region.
More than 20 people, including Zhang Xianhao, Qu Cao, Tang Youzhang, Xu Dongsheng, and Zhang Dingyi, were incorporated into the cadre brigade, and Zhang Xianhao served as the deputy captain of the cadre brigade. The guard regiment of the Jianghan Military Region was also formed by the Jianghan county brigades, and there were many commanders and fighters in the armed forces of the former Jingbei, Jing'an, Jingzhong, and Tianjingqian counties.
This was the first batch of cadres and armed forces from Jingshan to participate in the breakout. After the troops were assembled, Li Renlin, deputy political commissar of the Jianghan Military Region, announced the list of cadres at the regimental and battalion levels of the guard regiment, talked about the significance of this strategic shift, and then led his troops to set out from Liulindian, pass through Zhongxiang to Yicheng, and cross the Xianghe River in all the flowing ditches on the bank of the Xianghe River.
At the same time, more than 6,000 people from organs directly under the Jianghan Military Region and the main force, under the leadership of Luo Houfu, commander of the Jianghan Military Region, and Wen Minsheng, political commissar, set out from Anlu Sangshudian, Jingshan Dashantou, Yingcheng Yangjiahe, and other places, and advanced to the Xianghe River. On 6 July, after crossing the Xianghe River, the troops of the Jianghan Military Region held a meeting of leading cadres at Puheyuan, at which it was decided to advance to the northwest of Hubei and establish guerrilla base areas in the Sichuan, Hubei, and Shaanxi border regions.
After the meeting, the troops marched to Wudang Mountain on the north and south wings, and conquered Yicheng, Nanzhang, Baokang, Zhushan and other counties all the way. After conquering the county seat of Zhushan, all the cadres in Jingshan were ordered to stay behind and open up a base area on the spot. In the deep mountains and dense forests of northwestern Hubei Province, they began an extremely arduous guerrilla struggle.
Containment in situ
After some cadres and armed forces in various parts of Jingshan broke through with the main force, the local armed forces that held on to the spot immediately launched guerrilla warfare. The Jianghan Central County Committee of the Communist Party of China led the Jianghan detachment to advance from Anlu Sangshudian to the Shibanhe and Bazimen areas, and carried out mountain guerrilla warfare under the cover of the mountains at the southern foot of Dahong Mountain. The local armed forces that had been deployed in various localities to hold on to the mountains also went up the mountain as planned. At the end of June, the Kuomintang dispatched a large number of troops to carry out a "clean-up" on the front line of Shibanhe and Dingjiachong.
More than 30 people from the Shibanhe District Squadron led by Chen Weixiang, who insisted on fighting in this area, encountered the Kuomintang army and were dispersed by the Kuomintang army. Later, the dispersed personnel gathered and joined the Yingcheng pistol team led by Fan Zuokai and the Jingbei County brigade led by Li Youwei in Yangjiawan. At night, the garrison was attacked by the Kuomintang army again. This armed force fought fiercely with the Kuomintang army, but in the end, due to the outnumbered enemy, most of the personnel of the squadron in the Shibanhe District were killed, part of the pistol team was separated, and the rest were transferred to Wangjialouzi.
The Kuomintang army was outflanked in four directions, and the troops moved to the vicinity of the source where the enemy's headquarters was located, and the enemy's forces in this area were relatively empty, and this armed force finally jumped out of the encirclement of the enemy army.
More than 50 cadres and armed men from Caowu District and Township led by Zheng Xiande and others were surrounded by the enemy in five routes at Yangjiachong. With the advantage of being familiar with the terrain, they broke out of the encirclement. In the northwest area of Jingbei County, Cao Baoguo led a squadron of more than 30 people to persist in the struggle. This small force of armed forces circled with the regular Kuomintang army to confuse and contain the enemy. The squadron had two successive encounters with the Kuomintang 75th Division at Huashichong and Zhangguan, with one person killed and more than 10 captured.
In the Jing'an area, the Kuomintang reorganized the 75th Division and advanced to Xundian, and the Jing'an County Party Committee and its armed forces stationed there were forced to move to the area of Maocaoren and Didian on the border between Jingshan and Anlu.
Five armed companies of Jing'an County went around in circles with the enemy's regular army and operated in an area within a radius of 100 miles from Jing'an. The troops marched to Xiaosu at night, in present-day East and Ming West, and fought with the enemy's regular army in Tangtangshu, Huaishudian, Dingjiachong and other places. Under the terrible situation of the disparity between the strength of the enemy and us, the Jing'an armed forces still painted slogans and held meetings in the villages, exposing the treacherous behavior of the Kuomintang, calling on the masses to rise up to resist food, donations, and Ding, and promptly suppressed more than 10 Kuomintang township security personnel.
In Nanshan, Zhang Zhaohua, head of Dongqiao Township of the Kuomintang, cooperated with the Kuomintang regular army to occupy the Luojiaqiao area of Jingzhong. The squadron in the Wuyanling District led by Jin Duo and Wei Baoxiang, who persisted in the struggle in Nanshan, launched guerrilla attacks with the enemy, successively striking at Zhang, Wujiachong, Peijiachong and other places, and then moved to Beishan in Jingshan. At the beginning of August, more than 300 Kuomintang local armed forces attacked the Huangtupo where the Jingzhong County Brigade was stationed in three directions, and the two companies of the Jingzhong County Brigade fought back, killing and wounding more than 30 enemies, capturing alive more than 10 people below the deputy brigade commander, and capturing 3 light machine guns, thus winning the counterattack. The county brigade moved to Long Beach overnight.
In the Central Plains Breakout Campaign, a series of battles were waged by the persistent troops in various parts of Jingshan, which dealt a blow to the Kuomintang forces and confused and contained a large number of Kuomintang regular troops and security forces in the Dahong Mountains, thereby reducing the pressure on the breakthrough troops and effectively cooperating with the main force of the Central Plains to break through the siege victoriously.
The second batch of breakouts and disguise transfers
At the beginning of August 1946, the Kuomintang army began to focus on "encircling and suppressing" the Communist armed forces in the Dahong Mountains. The Jianghan District Party Committee issued a telegram order to the Jianghan Central County Party Committee on the second batch of breakthroughs. After receiving the telegram order, the Jianghan Central County Party Committee immediately convened a meeting and decided to take immediate action, demanding that the cadres and troops of all counties assemble within three days and prepare to cross the Xianghe River to the west. Except for a small number of local cadres and crack armed forces to persist in the struggle in the same places, local cadres and detachments in all counties should be transferred to the areas of Jingmen, Dangyang, Yuan'an, Nanzhang, and Yicheng west of the Xianghe River to carry out guerrilla warfare and establish base areas.
In order to persist in the struggle in central Hubei and the Dahongshan area, it was decided that Peng Youde and more than 20 other people would stay in the area of Beihongshan in Beijing to persist in the struggle; Rao Yuqing and others led the armed forces of Jingzhong County to insist on holding on to Nanshan in Jingzhong; More than 20 people, including Rao Mintai, stayed in the Yun (Meng) Xiao (Gan) area to persist in the struggle; Yang Sentang and more than 20 other people stayed in Yingcheng to persist in the struggle; Dong Chaozhang and more than 10 other people stayed in the Dashantou area to persist in the struggle; Yang Zhusan was responsible for the work of the underground party in the area of Anying in central Hubei and Beijing. Zhou Kairuo, Deng Lunkai, Cheng Shaokang, Wu Xianze, Liu Youjun, Jin Duo, Wei Baoxiang, Wu Kechao, Liu Jinkai, and a large number of Jingshan cadres and their local armed forces were transferred to northwest Hubei with the Jianghan Central County Party Committee and the Jianghan Detachment. This is the second group of cadres and local armed forces who were ordered to break through the siege and transfer to northwestern Hubei Province.
On August 6, the Jianghan Central County Party Committee and the Jianghan Detachment crossed the Xianghe River west by two routes. One way, Yang Hongxian led the first brigade to cross the Xianghe River from the south of Jingshan Duobao Bay, and advanced in the direction of Dangyang and Yuan'an; One route was led by Huang Minwei and Sun Zonglin.
2. The cadres of the 3rd Brigade and the organs crossed the Xiang River from the north of Duobao Bay and advanced towards the Beishan of Jingmen. The local cadres and armed forces of Beijing, An, Ying, and Sui led by Wu Tiancheng did not arrive at the assembly site on time and became their own way. In Dingjiachong, Wu Tiancheng reorganized more than 400 local cadres and armed forces from Beijing, An, Ying, and Sui into four companies and one cadre brigade. As soon as the troops were lightly armed on the road, they discovered the pursuit of the Kuomintang army, and that night, this armed force quickly moved in the direction of the Xianghe River.
On 10 August, the troops arrived at Jiulichong on the border between Jingshan and Zhongxiang, where they met a squadron of Jingzhong and five soldiers of the Jianghan Military Region who had failed to cross the Xianghe River because of blocking the enemy. Subsequently, the troops rushed to Sunjiatai overnight, crossed the Xiang River, and got rid of the enemy who was chasing after them. The troops continued to advance westward, and at Chongyangping, Nanzhang County, they joined up with the Jianghan detachment and a large number of cadres from Jingshan, who had been transferred here in advance. This great transfer, before and after only 7 days, starting from Jingshan, passing through Zhongxiang, Jingmen, Dangyang, Yuan'an, Nanzhang and other places, breaking through the enemy's blockade and encirclement, traveling more than 250 kilometers, finally arrived at the destination. They will open up new guerrilla bases here.
At the same time as the armed breakout and transfer, a group of principal leaders of the former Xiangbei Prefectural Committee and County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China in Jingshan were also ordered to transfer in disguise through various channels. With the help of the progressive gentry Yang Mingqing, Xie Wei took the Beijing (Shan) Soap (City) Highway out of Jingshan, safely transferred to Wuhan, established a secret contact point in Wuhan, and got in touch with Zhang Zhiyi of the Shanghai Bureau of the Communist Party of China. This liaison point in Wuhan succeeded in transferring a group of comrades northward.
Wang Jiaji, through his father Wang Dongming's teaching in Wuhan, covered the transfer of a group of cadres from northern Beijing. Yan Shuduan and Cheng Chaoming took Wuhan and safely transferred north. Jing'an cadres Chen Linchuan, Xiao Jiaying, Wu Bin and others scattered and hid through various social connections. Wang Fenglan (female), the former instructor of the Jingzhong Quilt Factory, was dispatched by the Xiangbei Prefectural Committee to set up a primary school in Luojiadun in Wuhan with Hu Shaoqu and others before breaking through. With the cooperation of the local underground party and using the school as a cover, they successfully transferred dozens of cadres from the Xiangbei Prefectural Party Committee and Jingzhong County, including Li Shouxian, Li Jinxi, Yang Xiuchun, Zhou Meichen, Liu Zhendong, Wei Zhanhua, and Yu Jing, to the liberated areas of North China and Northeast China.
So far, the liberated areas in Jingshan have successfully completed the task of breaking through and transferring the encirclement.