Author: wenboling source: wenboling fireworks world (id: wenboling2020)
03
In early 1937, Ye Ting ended his exile and moved back to a small foreign house near Jing’an Temple in Shanghai with his family.
At this time, shortly after the “Xi’an Incident” broke out, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were conducting fierce negotiations, focusing on the reorganization of the Red Army in various regions under the banner of united resistance against Japan.
The Red Army from the long march to the North was directly led by the Central Committee, and Chiang Kai Shek could not intervene. What was debated was nothing more than the establishment and logistical supplies. However, the Red Army in the south is beyond the reach of the central government. To survive, it needs to make concessions to Chiang Kai Shek.
The so-called concession actually means that the selection of military leaders must be approved by both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party at the same time.
In order to be recognized by Chiang Kai Shek, this person cannot be a Communist Party, but must also have ties with the Kuomintang. To get the consent of the Central Committee, this person cannot be a Kuomintang, but must also have ties with the Communist Party.
Such a candidate is too difficult to decide. All parties have their own considerations.
In August, 1937, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Ye Jianying went to Nanjing to discuss the reorganization of the Eighth Route Army. During this period, Zhou Enlai went to Shanghai specifically to meet Ye Ting.
They had deep cooperation ten years ago, and there was nothing to say, so Zhou Enlai gave Ye Ting advice:
“After the reorganization of the Red Army in Northern Shaanxi is completed, the reorganization of the guerrillas in the eight southern provinces will also be put on the agenda. I hope you will come forward to preside over this army. As for how to do it, you can put forward opinions with Chen Cheng and Zhang Fakui to win their sympathy, and then Chen Cheng will come forward to win the consent of Chiang Kai Shek.”
Ye Ting is an old comrade in arms of Chen Cheng and an old subordinate of Zhang Fakui. We can talk to them.
Ye Ting was very moved by Zhou Enlai’s idea, thinking that this was Zhou Enlai’s trust in himself and the trust of the central government, so Ye Ting immediately found Chen Cheng and volunteered to be the military chief of the eight provincial guerrillas.
Chen Cheng felt that he had a good relationship with Ye Ting. Ye Ting came forward to lead the southern Red Army. It was convenient for him to command in the future, so he agreed to recommend it to Chiang Kai Shek.
When the matter was reported to Chiang Kai Shek, Chiang Kai Shek also agreed. He felt that Ye Ting had separated from the Communist Party, not from there, but also from the old Kuomintang. In time, he could assimilate and disintegrate the southern Red Army through Ye Ting.
So on September 28, without the consent of the Central Committee, Chiang Kai Shek issued the “notice on Ye Ting and others’ Appointment”:
“Upon the approval of the chairman, Ye Ting is hereby appointed as the commander of the New Fourth Army of the army…”
The Central Committee originally disagreed with Chiang Kai Shek’s sudden appointment.
You Ye Ting left the party for nearly ten years. How about the ideological trends during this period? You haven’t learned and investigated. You don’t know whether you have defected or defected to the Kuomintang. Now Chiang Kai Shek suddenly appointed you Ye Ting as the commander of the New Fourth Army. What does it mean? Are there any private transactions between you?
This series of questions gradually floated in Mao Zedong’s mind.
So on October 1st, 1937, he sent a telegram to Zhang Yunyi and others, raising some questions of principle, the most important of which was:
“Ye Ting needs to come to Yan’an. After fully agreeing with the political and military principles of the Central Committee, he can go to the border of Fujian and Vietnam to command Zhang Dingcheng’s department and expand his troops on this basis.”
Half a month later, Mao Zedong sent a telegram to Bogu and Ye Jianying:
“Whether Ye Ting is willing to restore his party membership or be completely guided by the party without the interference of the Kuomintang, and whether he is willing to come to Yan’an and the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army for a contact? If the above item can be done, it is possible to reorganize the southern guerrillas through Ye ting.”
Because of such concerns, ye Tingyi arrived in Yan’an on November 3 and reported to the Central Committee and Mao Zedong, saying that he had made mistakes before, and would follow the path instructed by the party in the future and adhere to the war of resistance to the end under the leadership of the Party Central Committee.
At this point, Ye Ting’s appointment as commander of the New Fourth Army was settled.
In the final analysis, both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party do not fully trust Ye Ting. He took up the post of commander as a united front figure.
Then why did Zhou encourage Ye Ting to fight for the commander, but Mao didn’t fully trust him?
From the perspective of conspiracy theory, political commissar Xiang Ying is an international backbone of the labor movement, and Ye Ting is a famous Northern Expedition general during the great revolution. If the two of them jointly take charge of the New Fourth Army, then this mu of land is still international and has a say in the party.
This proposal just met the needs of Chiang Kai Shek, so Ye Ting became the commander of the New Fourth Army appointed first and then admitted.
I think the above historical data and speculation are the main reason why Ye Ting can be the commander of the New Fourth Army, and also the main reason why Ye Ting can become popular after leaving the party for ten years.
It can be said that Ye Ting, the commander of the New Fourth Army during the Anti Japanese War, was a person acceptable to all parties after the KMT Communist game and the inner-party game.
It is precisely because ye Ting is a united front figure and does not have his own troops in the New Fourth Army that Xiang Ying, deputy commander of the New Fourth Army, Secretary of the southeast branch and Secretary of the New Fourth Army branch of the Central Military Commission, can take Ye Ting at will.
Every time the Central Committee sent a telegram, Xiang Ying was unwilling to show Ye Ting the telegram, and Ye Ting was not allowed to attend the military branch meeting. Ye Ting was excluded from the decision-making level in both military and political aspects.
In addition, Ye Ting’s style also has problems.
He liked to ride horses when he visited the army, and he brought adjutants, staff officers, and others. He was surrounded by a large group. He didn’t know which Kuomintang officer he thought was coming. Ye Ting also keeps a Cantonese chef who often cooks a large table of Hakka dishes for Ye Ting’s treat.
In the early days of the founding of the New Fourth Army, logistics was extremely difficult. The commander did not take the lead in frugality, but even opened a small stove to eat a big meal. How could those officers and soldiers from the old Red Army like such a commander?
So after breaking up with Xiang Ying, Ye Ting lost his morale again. As a result, Ye Ting’s New Fourth Army commander had no real name, position or power, and did very depressed.
The fundamental reason why Ye Ting became a cadre of the Communist Party but did not have the style of the Communist Party was that he missed the process of transforming the old army in the early stage of the Red Army, which led to Ye Ting having a firm belief in communism, but he did not transform himself spiritually, nor was he transformed by the Central Committee.
All this comes from leaving the party.
Therefore, Ye Ting’s separation from the party is not only a stain on his resume, but also a retrogression in politics and military affairs, so that his former comrades have been sublimated day by day. He is still the same as in 1927.
Such Ye Ting, who met Xiang Ying with great selfishness, obviously could not cooperate to control the army, and failed to live up to the high expectations of the international school. It was really a trick of fate.
Then came the southern Anhui Incident.
Xiang Ying was killed by a traitor, Ye Ting went down the mountain to negotiate and was detained. Since then, he has been imprisoned for five years, and the New Fourth Army has also been rebuilt, starting a new era of the New Fourth Army of Rao Shushi, Chen Yi and Su Yu. So far, the New Fourth Army is no longer a united front force, and there is also an opportunity to seize military power in the party.
From this perspective, the southern Anhui Incident was a tragedy, but it also had a positive effect. Ye Ting’s imprisonment was also valuable.
As for why the headquarters of the New Fourth Army did not move northward, we said it in “the death of Xiang Ying”, so I won’t go into detail here.
Xiang Ying, Zhou Enlai, Ye Ting
04
From 1941 to 1946, Ye Ting was imprisoned for five years, which was a tragedy for Ye Ting, but according to the principles of dialectics, five years’ imprisonment was the distillation of Ye Ting’s life.
There are three reasons.
Ye Ting had not been transformed by the Red Army before. Although he had a heart of serving the country and a firm belief, he always had a bourgeois style of doing things.
This kind of style, unless there is a person with great perseverance and ambition, can be cleaned up by self revolution. If it is not such a person, it needs a cruel external environment, constantly let him withstand tests and sharpen, and finally refine into steel.
Mao Zhuzhou and others are the first kind, and Ye Ting belongs to the second kind.
After Ye Ting was imprisoned, Gu Zhutong, Chen Cheng, and Chiang Kai Shek took turns to persuade him to demote. One by one, they promised him that as long as he was “anyway”, he would be the deputy commander or commander of the war zone. They even asked Ye Ting whether he needed a woman. As long as they nodded, they immediately arranged for him.
Ye Ting rejected all these temptations.
If he wanted to be a high-ranking official, he would not have participated in the revolution at the beginning. Later, he was also disappointed in the future of the revolution, not in the revolutionary ideal.
Now in prison, his life has fallen to the bottom. In the dark cell, Ye Ting must have thought about the revolution and reflected and summarized his various behaviors.
Being an official and being in prison, revolution and war, joining and leaving the party, extravagance and simplicity may be the problems he thinks about.
46 years of experience passed through his mind. Maybe at some point, Ye Ting had a complete epiphany. He picked up his pen and wrote the famous prison song on the cell wall of the garbage hole:
The door for people to enter and exit is locked, and the hole for dogs to climb is open. A voice cries loudly. Climb out and give you freedom. I long for freedom, but I also know how human body can climb out of the hole of a dog.
I am looking forward to that day, when the underground fire surges and burns this living coffin with me, I should get eternal life in the fire and blood.
In my opinion, “prison song” is not a high song of Ye Ting’s righteousness Ling ran, but a summary of Ye Ting’s reflection on the past and completion of spiritual sublimation.
Ye Ting finished his long march in his cell.
This is the first.
Ye Ting had the experience of leaving the party. Because of this, the Central Committee could not completely trust him. Other people would also look at him with colored glasses. Ye Ting also felt inferior to others.
This has been proved by the struggle in the early days of the founding of the New Fourth Army.
But after five years of imprisonment, Ye Ting has never bowed to the Kuomintang. Does that not prove that Ye Ting left the party and did not associate with the Kuomintang, and is still inclined to revolution?
It can be said that Ye Ting saved the mistake of leaving the party and dispelled the doubts of the Central Committee and comrades with the five years of imprisonment without bowing his head.
This is the second one.
Ye Ting was imprisoned as the commander of the New Fourth Army, and the New Fourth Army was adapted from the Communist Party. In this case, Ye Ting became the victim of friction provoked by the Kuomintang and the representative of the Communist Party against the Kuomintang.
Therefore, after Ye Ting was imprisoned, whether to release Ye Ting is the focus of debate in every Kuomintang Communist negotiation.
At this stage, Ye Ting is not a fleshy Ye Ting, but a symbol of actively resisting Japan, opposing civil war and striving for national independence.
This is the third reason for Ye Ting’s life sublimation.
Not everyone can leave traces in the long history. But Ye Ting obviously did it. The significance of his imprisonment can be compared with the Nanchang Uprising.
It can be said that if he had not been imprisoned, Ye Ting’s historical position would certainly not be as high as it is now.
05
After the victory of the Anti Japanese War, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai went to Chongqing to negotiate with Chiang Kai Shek about post-war reconstruction. One of their demands was to release Ye Ting and other imprisoned Democrats.
Chiang Kai Shek felt the pressure of the whole country. If he continued to imprison Ye Ting and other Democrats, the negotiations would not continue, and he would also bear the burden of moral public opinion.
So on March 4th, 1946, Ye Ting was released.
The next day, Ye Ting, who was fully enlightened, wrote a letter to the Central Committee requesting to rejoin the Communist Party of China:
“I was released from prison last night, and I am determined to implement my long-term wish to join the great Communist Party of China and contribute everything to the liberation of the Chinese people under your leadership. I request the Central Committee to examine whether my history is qualified, and please reply.”
Mao Zedong received Ye Ting’s letter, without any hesitation, and immediately decided to accept Ye Ting as a party member. In his reply, he said:
“Glad to hear that you have been released from prison, and everyone is jubilant. You have fought for the cause of China’s national liberation and people’s Liberation for more than 20 years, and have experienced all kinds of serious tests. All China has known your infinite loyalty to the nation and the people.”
All over China are familiar with the jubilation and trials These words are a compliment to Ye Ting’s five years of imprisonment.
Unfortunately, Ye Ting, together with Wang Ruofei, Bogu and Deng FA, flew back to Yan’an on April 8. When flying to Heicha mountain in Xingxian County, Shanxi Province, they encountered heavy fog. The plane crashed into the mountain and burned down, and no one on board was spared.
Ye Ting’s untimely death, like Xiang Yu’s suicide in Wujiang, left infinite room for future generations to imagine.
People imagine what would happen if Xiang Yu crossed the Wujiang River, and they are also debating whether Ye Ting could be awarded the rank of Marshal without his early death.
I think it is difficult for Ye Ting to confer the rank of Marshal.
In addition to their seniority, the top ten marshals awarded in 55 were either in charge during the war of liberation, he long and Xu Xiangqian, who represented a certain front army, or president Zhu, who dispatched the whole country, and finally joined the Military Commission after the founding of the people’s Republic of China.
When ye tinggang got out of prison in 46, the New Fourth Army had been under the command of Chen Yi. He certainly couldn’t go back, and there was no place for him in other places, so it must be out of the question to be in charge.
As for representing a certain army, he long represented the Nanchang Uprising, Chen Yi represented the New Fourth Army, and Ye Ting had nothing to represent.
It’s too embarrassing to participate in the conferment of titles as such, not to mention Ye Ting’s resume of 18 years since he left the party.
Therefore, if there is no air crash, Ye Ting probably can rely on the credit of creating the army to become a head or deputy state-level position that is not in the power center and safely mix until retirement.
Therefore, people must not be impulsive. As long as they don’t get off the card table, there will always be a day of turnover.
Once you get off the card table, everything stops.
But then again, in the long river of history, as long as you talk about the people’s army, Ye Ting can’t get around the mountains. Mao Zedong said that the war history of the people’s army should start from you.
It’s almost enough to be a person.