Author: wenbolingsource: the fireworks world of wenboling (ID: wenboling2020)
Boling said:
Suppressing bandits and land reform are two sharp swords to liberate Northeast China.
01
As for the northeast, I have written the death of Zhang zuolin and the rise and decline of the northeast, which also talked about the origin of bandits in the northeast.
In short, in the Qing Dynasty, the Northeast was vast and sparsely populated. With the penetration of Japan and Russia into the northeast, and the population explosion in the pass, the Qing government relaxed population control and allowed Han people in the pass to migrate to the northeast.
However, after the Han people entered the northeast, the management of the Qing government could not keep up. During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom uprising, the Eight Banners stationed in the Northeast entered the customs to counter the rebellion, which created a vacuum of local military and political power.
The Han people who broke through Guandong established armed forces, filling the power vacuum left by the Qing government.
These Han Chinese armed forces are either bandits who occupy the mountain as the king or insurance teams who protect the village.
However, the boundary between the bandits and the insurance team is very blurred. Maybe today the bandits accepted recruitment and became the insurance team. Tomorrow they miss the wild days of looting and return to the mountains again.
Anyway, earth
Bandits and insurance teams are civilian armed forces, without the ideals and beliefs of the regular army. Everything is based on the principle of interests, and it depends on which side gives the highest price.
As the civil armed forces in Northeast China have become a raging fire, it is impossible to completely eliminate them with the organizational level of the old society. We can only use the means of appeasement to achieve the goal of peace.
In the early years of the Republic of China, Zhang zuolin, who was born in the insurance team, became the king of the northeast. He felt that he and the bandits were a loving family, so he recruited the bandits on a large scale to expand his army. After the “September 18 Incident”, the rule of the zhangjias in Northeast China collapsed, and those stragglers and bandits returned to the mountains and forests, looting their homes everywhere.
When it was most rampant, there were nearly 10000 bandits in the northeast, with 1.8 million guns.
Faced with the vast ocean of bandit war, the Japanese who invaded Northeast China had no choice but to continue to recruit, so a large number of bandits became puppet troops and traitors.
By the time Japan surrendered after its defeat in 1945, these bandits, puppet troops and traitors were left alone and reactivated. They also received a lot of Japanese equipment and were very strong.
According to the statistics of the Northeast Bureau, there are more than 250000 bandits in the northeast, including the remnants of the Japanese Kwantung Army. There are 154 counties in the northeast, and bandits account for more than 100. Among them, 100000 bandits and most bandits occupy the county seat, which are concentrated in the northern Manchuria area close to the Soviet Union.
Because when Japan ruled Northeast China, the influence of the Kwantung Army could not extend to northern Manchuria, and the Soviet army could not control the Far East when fighting in Europe.
The northern Manchuria region, which is composed of Heilongjiang, Mudanjiang, Hejiang and Songjiang, has become a bandit paradise.
People in Northeast China say, “those with money are afraid of being tied up, those with girls are afraid of being robbed, those who walk are afraid of being robbed, and those who go out are afraid of being robbed”. They live on tenterhooks every day. But the bandits sang: “when I was a beard, I didn’t worry. I entered the concession and lived in a high-rise building. I ate big dishes, lived in a brothel, and spent money like a river. I wore a gun at the back of my waist. It was so free.”
At this time, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China began to fight for the northeast. Bandits, as an important armed force in the northeast, became the United Front target of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China. They were ready to recruit bandits like Zhang zuolin and Japan.
The difference is that the Kuomintang is purely recruiting bandits, and our party is ready to transform bandits into the people’s army after recruiting them.
However, at that time, our party did not have a mass base in Northeast China, and the Kuomintang belonged to the “orthodox” central government. Many bandits had the idea of “joining the Eighth Route Army first and then the central government”, that is, joining the Eighth Route Army First, then fighting back on the battlefield, giving the national army a name, or putting on the clothes of the Eighth Route Army and directly throwing themselves into the national army.
No matter what they do, bandits gain extra points in the national army.
Lin Biao said very clearly in his report:
“The people said that both the Eighth Route Army and the central army were for the people, and that they should not fight well with each other. They also believed that the Kuomintang was the central government, and that the old armed personnel of the old regime all came to the Kuomintang one after another. The old armed forces incorporated by our army defected to the enemy as soon as they approached.”
Against this background, various commissioners and directors of the Kuomintang, with their certificates of appointment, issued leaflets to the bandit leaders in the northeast, appointing 33 commanders in chief and Deputy commanders in chief, 32 military commanders and 158 division commanders. The military ranks are also senior military ranks such as lieutenant general and general.
After receiving the Zuoshan sculpture adapted by our army, Xie Wendong became the commander of the lieutenant general detachment of the national army. Xie Wendong spent a month in our army and also became the commander of the general group army of the national army.
By the end of 1945, in the northern Manchurian provinces of Hejiang, Songjiang and Mudanjiang alone, the number of rebels caused by bandits entering our army had reached 33700, and 154 cadres of our army had been maimed. Some bandits even rushed into organs and units during the day to shoot and kill.
Therefore, during the war of liberation, the armed bandits who had originally robbed their homes and homes had been transformed into political bandits of the Communist Party of China.
It is imperative to suppress bandits.
And suppressing bandits is no longer a local public security issue in the past, but a political issue related to the war of liberation.
02
There are three stages in suppressing bandits in Northeast China.
The first stage began in December 1945. As we entered the Northeast half of the year, we found that it was impractical to recruit bandits, and the bandits were unwilling to accept our army’s recruitment and transformation, so we made up our minds to eliminate the bandits.
The Northeast Bureau issued the “instructions on the current situation and deployment in Northeast China”:
“The reactionary bandits scattered in various places not only create a great obstacle to mobilizing the masses in the base areas, but also serve as a powerful special force for stubborn enemies. We must use every means to quickly eliminate them so as to isolate the stubborn army.”
Because bandits have many guns and large territory, the task of suppressing bandits in this period is actually similar to that of the regular army. Our army needs to win the battle openly and completely destroy the bandits.
So the Northeast Bureau transferred the 359th brigade, which was capable of fighting and fighting, from southern Manchuria to northern Manchuria as the main force to suppress bandits.
Brigadier Liu zhuanlian commanded the troops to attack cities and seize land, destroy camps and pull out villages in half a year with concentration versus concentration, main force versus main force, and artillery versus artillery. He fought 212 times with other brother forces, captured 80000 bandits, seized 20000 long and short guns, 618 machine guns, 52 artillery, and recovered 118 towns.
Our army didn’t have many weapons when it first left the pass, and some troops even ran out of the pass empty handed, which led to a big loss in the early stage when it competed with the national army for the northeast.
Now that we have eliminated bandits, we have not only replenished our troops, but also added machine guns and artillery. Thanks to Lin Biao’s reticence, I’m afraid if I were Chen Geng, I would have to call:
“Liu zhuanlian, I congratulate you on making a fortune.”
After this stage of operation, our army basically restored control over northern Manchuria and all major transportation routes.
However, with the initial victory in suppressing bandits, the main force of our army encountered major setbacks.
In May 1946, the Siping campaign failed, and our army retreated to North Manchuria.
Those bandits who were defeated felt that the victory or defeat of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China had been decided, instantly felt that “I’m OK again”, reactivated and attacked our army, and soon occupied Tongjiang, Dong’an, Yilan and other counties. The wife of Yilan county Party secretary was raped by bandits, which was very sad.
In addition, some unswerving cadres of our army also wavered. Just when Lin Biao led the army to withdraw northward, the deputy chief of the operations section of the headquarters absconded with confidential documents and defected to the enemy through the collusion of bandits in Northeast China.
Against this background, those scattered bandits clamored to join the national army in Harbin.
As for our army retreating to northern Manchuria, the base area and the territory of the bandits basically coincide, so if we want to base ourselves on the northeast, we must base ourselves on northern Manchuria, and if we want to base ourselves on northern Manchuria, we must completely eliminate the bandits. The extermination we are talking about here is not to break up as before, but to clean up and leave none behind.
So from June 1946, the second stage of bandit suppression began in Northeast China.
Because the remaining bandit leaders in northern Manchuria are all concentrated in Hejiang Province, the focus of the second stage of bandit suppression is to eliminate the “four flagpoles” – Xie Wendong, Li Huatang, Zhang Yuxin, sun Rongjiu, Jiang Pengfei and Zuoshan Diao in Hejiang province.
In July 1946, the Northeast bureau held a meeting in Harbin and passed the resolution on the situation and tasks drafted by Chen Yun, ordering all localities to transfer one-third of the troops and three-fifth of the cadres to form a working group, go to the countryside to mobilize the masses and suppress bandits.
In terms of military affairs, Lin Biao sent he Jinnian to be commander of Hejiang military region, and the former commander Fang Qiang to be political commissar. He mobilized 20000 troops to suppress bandits.
He Jinnian was an expert in suppressing bandits in Northern Shaanxi. He once divided large forces into small ones. Once he found bandits, he blocked them in different ways and surrounded them. He launched dozens of battles in a year to completely eliminate the bandits in Northern Shaanxi.
Now he Jinnian is transferred to Hejiang province. It can be said that good steel is used on the blade and old masters are used to deal with old drivers.
After receiving the order, he Jinnian personally led the cavalry to cross the Mudanjiang River from Yilan County. After checking the terrain, and based on Xie Wendong’s information, he figured out that Xie Wendong had nowhere to go and would definitely flee to a primeval forest on the West Bank of the Mudanjiang River.
So he Jinnian sent small teams to the villages 200 miles west of the Mudanjiang River. The only exit in the north, the Chen family Liangzi, was also blocked. The main force was Chen Bing in the south, and only the virgin forest in the West was opened, waiting for Xie Wendong.
Of course, the virgin forest in the west can’t be sealed if you want to.
Sure enough, he Jinnian’s expectation was not met. Xie Wendong fled from place to place, and finally went from the primeval forest in the west to the circle he Jinnian had arranged.
After discovering that Xie Wendong had entered the trap, he Jinnian led his troops into the mountain to chase Xie Wendong.
In this way, Xie Wendong ran away and chased after him. Every time Xie Wendong thought there was an exit, he Jinnian beat him back by the team he had arranged in advance. The bandits in Xie Wendong ran for two months without food or drink. In December, they finally couldn’t carry it and surrendered to he Jinnian every so often.
After the meeting, the bandits threw their guns at each other and said, “give me a bowl of rice to eat. After eating, I’ll kill you.” the soldiers of our army thought, how can there be rice? There are some sorghum buns, and they like to eat them.
The bandits are not particular about it either. They snatch the frozen buns and eat them. Everyone can eat seven or eight, and they can’t choke.
Our soldiers also laughed. Bandits are nothing. People are iron and rice is steel. Bandits are hungry even if they don’t eat a meal.
In this way, the bandits in Xie Wendong’s East were basically scattered. In the end, Xie Wendong was left with only six people, including his son, groom and other non combatants.
Desperate, Xie Wendong went to a dilapidated temple to burn incense and worship the gods. He was found by a deputy company commander of our army. He rushed in with a gun and shouted:
“Are you Lao Xie? No, I’m here to catch you.”
Xie Wendong, a bandit who roamed the northeast, was arrested and shot in a public trial on December 17.
Using this routine of “tracking, encircling, calling for surrender and joint attack”, he Jinnian’s command troops successively arrested Li Huatang, Zhang Yuxin, sun Rongjiu and other bandit leaders, and pulled out the four flagpoles of Hejiang province at one stroke.
The funniest thing is that Jiang Pengfei, who arrived in Harbin in August 1946, was an internal contact of the bandits with our army. When the hotel announced that it was going to seize Harbin, he was caught by our army’s men who broke into the hotel. He was like a foolish peasant who claimed the throne in the 1980s. Before he left the village, he was arrested by the dispatch office.
“Taking tiger mountain by wisdom” is also a matter of this stage, but it is not as mysterious as the film. When the mountain carving was captured in Mudanjiang Province, there were only 25 people around it, and six rifles and 640 bullets were seized. That’s all.
In the summer of 1947, after a year of fighting against bandits, more than 31000 bandits were killed and wounded, and more than 48400 people were captured. The bandits in northern Manchuria were basically eliminated by our army.
The second stage of suppressing bandits in Northeast China has also ended.
The third stage was from the summer of 1947 to 1949. The main task was to eliminate a few remaining bandits in northern Manchuria and bandits in southern Manchuria. The scale of the battle was not large.
Xie Wendong
03
The military is the continuation of politics, and the political foundation is the economy. During the war of liberation, the economic issue was, in the final analysis, the land issue.
What is the relationship between land and suppressing bandits in Northeast China?
Of course, it has a lot to do with it.
At that time, the Northeast bureau investigated 369 bandit leaders, and found that 105 were landlords, 159 were very close to landlords, and only 105 were poor bandit leaders.
It can also be seen from the results of this survey that landlords in Northeast China generally have relations with bandits.
These people basically have guns in their homes. If they want to listen to the government, they will put away their guns and become landlords exploiting the farmers. If they don’t want to listen to the government, they will take guns to the mountains and become bandits. The farmers in their hometown still have to farm for them.
To exterminate the bandits, we must carry out land reform and eliminate the landlords at the same time, so as to eliminate the soil for the survival of the bandits.
The speed of suppressing bandits in the northeast is so fast. In addition to he Jinnian and other forces fighting bandits, what is more important is that the Northeast has carried out large-scale land reform and dug out the roots of bandits.
As early as May 4, 1946, the central government issued the “instructions on land issues”, deciding to change the land policy during the war of resistance against Japan, from reducing rent and interest to confiscating the land of landlords and distributing it relatively evenly to farmers.
In July, the Northeast Bureau mobilized 12000 party members and cadres, calling on them to go out of the city, take off their shoes, change into peasant clothes, and form a task force to launch land reform in the countryside.
But like bandits, the peasants in Northeast China do not believe in our party.
They feel that the national army is strong and strong, and tubalu may not be able to fight. Now they follow the working team to overthrow the landlords and divide the land. In the future, if tubalu loses on the battlefield, the landlords will not come back and kill us?
Some farmers said that in a disaster year, the landlord still gave us a mouthful of food, and the working team encouraged us to divide the landlord’s land. Isn’t that heartless?
If the peasants can’t mobilize, they can’t defeat the landlords. If they can’t defeat the landlords, they can’t suppress the bandits. If they can’t suppress the bandits, they can’t gain a foothold in northern Manchuria. Next, they will lose their struggle for Northeast China.
It can be said that mobilizing the peasants is the foundation of all undertakings.
The task force tossed and turned for a long time without hesitation. After thinking about it, it decided to mobilize the peasants to complain first, that is, the peasants and landlords gathered together to talk about what kind of hardship there was and how it was caused.
What else can we say? As long as the peasants dare to say so, they will always talk about the landlords.
A farmer in Xiuyan County said, “why am I suffering? It’s because I can’t earn money working for the landlord’s family.”. Why do I work for the landlord’s family? It’s because when I was nine years old, the landlord’s family increased the rent of the land. My father sold his children and daughters to repay the rent of the land. If it wasn’t enough, I let him go to the landlord’s house to herd cattle to top the rent.
Speaking of this, the farmer suddenly realized that he pointed at the landlord and scolded him: “dog day, I’ve been suffering for half my life. It turns out that you’re the one who caused it. Knock down the landlord laocai.”
Therefore, after the complaint campaign, the farmers were mobilized and began to overthrow the landlords and redistribute land. By the end of 1946, the northeast had allocated 3.2 million hectares of land to 4.2 million farmers, with an average of 8 mu per person.
However, this wave of land redistribution is not complete. It only distributes the land of the notorious big landlords. There are still many landlords whose land has not moved, which is equivalent to the first stage of military suppression of bandits. Therefore, the Northeast bureau calls it “sandwiched rice.”
The landlords yelled at you. You poor people dare to share my land. When the national army comes back, you will die.
Then, as the suppression of bandits entered the second stage, the land reform in Northeast China also entered the second stage, focusing on attacking the whole landlord class and thoroughly cooking the “sandwiched rice”.
The battlefield of suppressing bandits is the stage for he Jinnian, and the land reform is the stage for Zhang Wentian, Secretary of the Hejiang provincial Party committee, and Wang Heshou, Secretary of the Heilongjiang prefectural Party committee.
Each of them has a contact point at the grass-roots level in the county and village, often goes down to investigate the land situation in person, and guides the work team and farmers in land distribution.
For example, Zhang Wentian’s contact point is Huachuan County. After several visits and investigations, he found that more than 80 villages in Huachuan County have “sandwiched rice”, accounting for 43% of the villages in the county. Moreover, the president of the farmers’ Association in Longshan Village is actually a bandit. The landlord Hong Xiliang handed over all the poor fields, and all the good fields were left by him.
Since the problem was found, Zhang Wentian and the Secretary of the county Party committee worked on the spot and cooked the “sandwiched rice”.
Other places followed the same path. Through more than half a year’s efforts, from November 1946 to June 1947, the land problem in the Northeast was basically solved, 5.03 million hectares of land were allocated to 6.3 million farmers, and 130000 self-defense forces and 210000 militia were established in northern Manchuria.
In terms of time, the success of land reform and the success of bandit suppression are basically synchronous. It can be said that without the success of land reform, there will be no success of bandit suppression, and without the suppression of bandits, there will be no land reform.
These two things complement each other.
The suppression of bandits can be regarded as a complete success only after the third stage. Similarly, the land reform also has to go through the final finishing stage before the landlord class can be completely overthrown.
Although the farmers have turned over to a certain extent, their family wealth is too thin, and they can not improve their lives even if they are allocated land. Moreover, the landlords have a solid accumulation and have the first mover advantage of the rural economy. They can soon buy land to become landlords and re exploit the farmers.
The farmers roast, “if you turn over and turn over, you still can’t run away from others. They have a lot of golden monkeys. They have been big families for two or three years. What do the farmers have?”
The landowner who was deprived of his land said, “you can’t be rich, nor can I be poor. If I hang my plough under the eaves, I can eat it for several years.”
Incomplete revolution means complete non revolution, and failure to complete the transfer of wealth is not common prosperity.
Therefore, the third stage of land reform in Northeast China was to dig up floating wealth.
However, there is also a need to pay attention to the excavation of floating wealth, which can not be applied across the board. The Northeast Bureau stipulates that the objects of digging floating wealth are large and medium-sized landlords, traitors and bullies. It is not allowed to dig the cellars of rich peasants and small landlords indiscriminately, and the interests of the middle peasants are absolutely not allowed to be infringed upon.
From July to November 1946, the floating wealth dug up in northern Manchuria was several times more than the value of land. Songjiang Province alone dug up more than 10 billion yuan of floating wealth, and Nenjiang province dug up more than 100000 hectares of land in addition to the similar floating wealth.
Farmers and members of the task force said that in the past, we turned over half paralyzed, but this time we have turned over well.
After six months of digging up floating wealth, the land reform in northern Manchuria was basically successful, and the southern Manchuria had to wait until the Liaoshen campaign was over.
At about the same time, the third stage of suppressing bandits in northern Manchuria ended, and the Liao Shen campaign ended and began to suppress bandits in southern Manchuria.
In the same words, to thoroughly suppress bandits, we must thoroughly reform the land.
04
The success of bandit suppression and land reform has enabled our army to have a truly solid base in northern Manchuria and a foothold in Northeast China. Then it entered the stage of strategic counter offensive, and the four field army fought all the way to Hainan Island.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the suppression of bandits and land reform are the guarantee of the invincibility of the four fields.
We now look back at history and know that new China has done many unprecedented great undertakings, but in fact, before the founding of new China, there were omens for this great undertaking.
Hundreds of thousands of bandits have been entrenched in the northeast for more than a hundred years. They have experienced the rule of the Qing Dynasty, the northern ocean, Japan and the Kuomintang. Cixi, Yuan Shikai, Zhang zuolin, the Kwantung Army and Chiang Kai Shek can’t do anything about them. As a result, our party and our army cleaned them up in less than three years.
The exploitation of peasants by landlords has been a great undertaking of our party and our army in redistributing land in just a few years since ancient times.
This is the victory of the organization and the people, because the success of every great cause can not be separated from the basic condition of “mobilizing the people”.
Therefore, historical experience has proved that giving sufficient benefits to the people will certainly win the support of the people. In the face of the torrent of people’s war, any difficulty will be a medal for the organization and the people.
reference material:
The public interest lies in the people and the benefit lies in the whole country
Manchurian tiger: full record of the Northeast war in the four fields Li Yueji and Gao Yueze
Research on Chen Yun’s thought of suppressing bandits in Northeast China during the war of liberation Li Yunbo
The struggle against bandits in Northeast China during the war of Liberation (Li Yan)
Compilation of bandit suppression in Northeast China during the war of Liberation
The struggle against bandits in the Northeast revolutionary base during the war of liberation Zhu Jianhua Zhao Yinglan
Zhang Wentian and Yu Haitao of Hejiang land reform
May 4th directive and land reform in Northeast China (Zhang Zhanbin)
Rural mobilization by the Communist Party of China in land reform: a case study of Xiuyan Manchu Autonomous County in Liaoning Province Ma Aijie
Economic basis of decisive victory: a summary of industrial and agricultural production development in the northeast liberated area in 1948
The second battlefield competing with the Kuomintang in the Northeast: the cultural history of the Northeast bandit suppression country