The Yizhang Uprising: Before and After
Release time:
2020-02-29
During the entire struggle of the Great Revolution from 1925 to 1927, the Party and the working and peasant masses in Yizhang County engaged in intense armed struggles against the landlord armed forces, militia, and security teams. Even before the March 1926 incident in Hunan, there had been continuous battles between over a thousand armed peasants and the security team led by Kuang Jingming (with nearly a hundred peasant deaths), as well as significant bloodshed events where the security team, with the assistance of the bandit Hu Fengzhang, attacked the city, killing Communist leader Li Zuomin and others.
After the March 1926 incident, the counter-revolutionary atmosphere in Hunan became rampant. Although the revolution suffered some setbacks, the Party and the people continued to fight. We executed four traitors, including Huang Fangtao, in front of the graves of the victims, including Li Zuomin and Yan Bingren (who was also the chairman of the Peasant Association). With the help of the Party organization of the National Revolutionary Army's Independent Third Division Third Regiment, which had come from Guangdong, we surrounded and confiscated the reactionary armed forces at the salt card, obtaining more than thirty rifles to equip the county's peasant association's spear team. At the same time, to launch a campaign among the masses to denounce the reactionaries Kuang Jingming and Deng Zhenbang for their brutal killings of revolutionary peasants, we established a committee of the victims' families composed of workers, peasants, soldiers, students, and merchants, with the help of the manpower and financial resources of the Third Regiment, to carry out a widespread propaganda campaign throughout the county and to denounce the reactionaries nationwide; using this incident to expose the atrocities of the reactionaries, comfort the deceased and their families, and inspire the fighting spirit of revolutionary masses such as workers, peasants, and students. However, due to the increasingly rampant counter-revolutionary forces, we ultimately had to go underground.
In January 1928, comrades Zhu De, Chen Yi, Wang Erzhuo, and others led the workers and peasants' revolutionary army from the Nanchang Uprising to the Renhua and Lechang areas on the border of Hunan and Guangdong. The Hunan South Special Committee and the Yizhang County Committee received the notification, sending comrades Hu Shaohai and Hu Shijian to secretly make contact while notifying party members from various places to quickly gather in Yizhang City to discuss welcoming the Red Army into the city and arranging the Hunan South uprising.
At that time, I had already joined the Communist Party and was the principal of a primary school in Qishi Town, about eighty miles south of Yizhang City. The school was on winter break, and I was feeling bored at home when I suddenly received a notification and immediately rushed to Yizhang City overnight. Upon entering the city, I heard that it was filled with soldiers dressed like the reactionary army, with no insignia; the military flags were rolled up; and the puppet county magistrate and local gentry had sent people to welcome them. I also heard that after the army settled in, their discipline was good, their attitude was friendly, and the common people were sending them food and vegetables. I was puzzled and cautiously bypassed the sentries of the stationed army, finally finding the county committee secretary. He quietly told me that the stationed army was the "August 1st" uprising army led by Zhu De, Chen Yi, and others, who had entered the city under the name of Hu Shaohai. Hu Shijian from the Hunan South Special Committee and more than ten comrades, including Gao Jingshan, Yang Zida, and Mao Kewen from the Yizhang County Committee, were also mixed in and entered the city together. I was relieved. We quickly produced flags and slogans for the uprising and urgently ordered the peasant association to secretly arm themselves in the countryside and rush into the city to cooperate.
The next morning, Comrade Hu Shaohai, under the name of the local gentry, summoned more than twenty puppet county magistrates and landlords in power for a meeting, claiming to discuss resisting the "Communist Army" coming from Guangdong. Just as the meeting began, Comrades Zhu De and Chen Yi suddenly appeared at the venue, announcing on the spot: "We are the Chinese Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army, and Yizhang City has been liberated." This shocking announcement left those who had dreamed of plotting murder in a state of shock, pale and speechless. When they saw the workers and peasants revolutionary army soldiers outside the house glaring at them with guns, they had no choice but to surrender.
In a short time, a large red flag was raised at the entrance of the puppet county government. This marked the moment of the Yizhang uprising and the starting point of the Hunan South uprising. From then on, the Hunan South uprising opened a great chapter.
"The uprising has begun!" "The revolt has started!" Young people picked up their spears, women held their children, and the elderly leaned on their canes, running to inform each other. Before long, the news spread throughout the city and the surrounding areas. Together with the troops, we organized propaganda teams of three to five people to go to the streets, squares, and suburbs to promote and spread revolutionary ideas to the masses. Once the revolutionary anger was ignited, it spread everywhere. Workers in the city (especially the porters at the salt card) and poor peasants in the countryside came in droves to join the struggle. Everyone who participated wore a red cloth band about an inch wide and two feet long around their necks as a mark. These activists quickly formed teams with the Party and the troops to go to various villages and towns to promote: fight the landlords, redistribute land, attack the salt card, and mobilize to establish a workers' and peasants' government. The revolutionary wave quickly swept across the entire county. Comrades Peng Shai, Peng Huai, Li Zhifan, Zhang Jichun, Zhang Dengtian, Tan Xing, Chen Dongri, Chen Ce, Chen Jun, Ouyang Yi, and others cooperated with the workers and peasants revolutionary army in various districts and towns to restore the peasant self-defense army and launch a struggle against the landlords.
In the evening, I returned to the county town and met with comrades Gao Jingshan, Yang Zida, Hu Shaohai, and Hu Shijian at the "Yangzheng Academy" in the east of the city to meet Comrades Zhu De and Chen Yi. When we entered, if it weren't for Comrade Hu Shijian's introduction, I really wouldn't have known which one was Comrade Zhu De or Comrade Chen Yi, because they were dressed in gray coarse military uniforms like the soldiers. They welcomed us warmly like long-lost relatives and then inquired about the situation after the uprising, earnestly advising us on what we should pay attention to. We talked until late at night, and only left when they had to go check the sentries.
About ten days later, the reactionary Kuomintang's executioner of the Hunan "March 1926 Incident," Xu Kexiang, personally led more than two thousand people from Shaoguan, Guangdong, straight to Yizhang, attempting to extinguish the newly ignited revolutionary fire in one fell swoop.
The Red Army learned of this news and pretended to withdraw its troops to the Holy Altar Mountain in Bali Fort, eighty miles south of Yizhang City. Just as the enemy advanced into Liyuan and Yanquanwei (more than fifty miles south of Yizhang City), our army launched a counterattack. The enemy suffered a severe blow from our army along the Yanquan, Liyuan, and Wuyangsi lines, retreating in disarray to Pingshi. Our army pursued them relentlessly, chasing them all the way to Pingshi, where the enemy was completely annihilated, with only Xu Kexiang disguising himself to escape with his life.
The streets of Pingshi are about three miles long, and the rifles, machine guns, pursuit artillery, abandoned ammunition, military equipment, and cooking pots and stoves left behind by the enemy nearly blocked the streets. About two thousand Yizhang peasant soldiers participated in the battle alongside the workers and peasants revolutionary army, eagerly helping the Red Army clean the battlefield by placing their spears in a pile. They returned to Yizhang with the spoils of victory, waving the red flag, and the revolutionary fervor in Yizhang surged even higher.
With weapons in hand, under the leadership of the Xiangnan Special Committee and the Yizhang County Committee, we organized a new local army guided by the workers' and peasants' revolutionary army, which is the Third Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army. Comrade Hu Shaohai served as the division commander, Comrade Chen Dongri as the deputy division commander, and comrades Tan Xing, Li Guanghua, and Zhu Shewo as the task group leaders. Additionally, a howitzer company and a machine gun company were organized. Furthermore, some firearms were provided to the farmers' red guards, and each district organized red guards of thirty to forty people. The red guards were extremely happy and bravely cooperated with the main forces to encircle and suppress the reactionary local teams, fighting landlords and redistributing land. In the city, workers' patrol teams and children's groups were also organized, armed with red tassel guns and wearing red armbands, keeping watch day and night on the streets and checking passersby.
During this period, the main force of the Third Division also launched siege battles against the bandit group led by Hu Fengzhang in Pingshi City, and pursued and annihilated the bandit groups led by Kuang Jingming in Shuidong City, Linwu, and Hu Shaozheng, Liu Zhanjia in Yanquan and Guanyinsi, delivering severe blows to the enemy. Our division's chief of staff and commander of the first regiment, Comrade Tan Xing, also sacrificed his life in the heroic battle at Guanyinsi.
In just one week, trade unions, farmers' associations, and student unions were successively established. At the end of January, a grand ceremony was held to officially establish the county Soviet (Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Representative Assembly) government. The original Kuomintang county government was transformed into a Soviet government, the plaque of the county office was taken down, and a two-zhang-long red cloth was hung in its place, with dazzling golden characters in regular script: "Yizhang County Workers', Peasants', and Soldiers' Soviet Government," prominently displayed above the main entrance, truly magnificent.
The red guards marched out of the east gate to welcome Comrade Mao Kewen, the chairman of the Soviet, in the countryside more than ten miles away from the city. Over ten thousand people gathered, some holding small flags that read "Down with the landlords and local tyrants!" and "Long live the liberation of workers and peasants!" welcoming him along the way. Some people said, "We are here to welcome Lord Su (mistakenly thinking that Soviet is a person's name), which means we are welcoming our Comrade Mao Kewen!"
Comrade Mao Kewen, born into a poor peasant family, is a Communist Party member. Before the "March 10 Incident," he was one of the leaders of the county farmers' association and also a member of the revolutionary government of Hunan Province, enjoying high prestige among the people. With the establishment of the county Soviet, everyone supported him to serve as the first chairman of the Yizhang County Soviet.
In a few days, district and township Soviets were successively established, and the struggle against the landlord class was launched vigorously and comprehensively. The armed remnants nurtured by the landlords and local tyrants were forced to flee into the deep mountains; the big landlords and local bullies who did not escape were executed. The small and medium landlords, frightened, voluntarily handed over their land contracts to the Soviet to be burned, paid money to the Soviet as funding, and expressed their compliance with the decrees of the Soviet government.
The Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army led by comrades Zhu De and Chen Yi, after the victory in the Pingshi battle outside Yizhang City, rapidly expanded into the vast areas of Xiangnan, continuously defeating the reactionary Kuomintang forces of the Gui Army and Xiang Army, capturing the county towns of Chenzhou, Yongxing, Zixing, and Leiyang, and reaching Dongyangdu in Hengyang. In less than a month, the vast areas of Xiangnan, including Guiyang, Changning, Guidong, Rucheng, and Lingxian, like Yizhang, were filled with revolutionary red flags, establishing Soviet governments and organizing red guards.
In April, the counter-revolutionary army led by Fan Shisheng, along with the bandit group led by Hu Fengzhang in Pingshi and local reactionary armed forces such as Cheng Shaochuan, Kuang Jingming, and Li Shaowen in Yizhang County, launched a frenzied attack against us. At that time, the Third Division of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army and over three thousand local armed forces from Yizhang and Chenzhou were stationed at the Zhelin area of the Qitian Mountain range to block the enemy's attack, causing the enemy many difficulties and casualties. Subsequently, they joined forces with the fourth division of the peasant army led by Deng Yunting from Chenzhou and the peasant armies from Yongxing, Zixing, and Leiyang, together with the main forces of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army led by comrades Zhu De and Chen Yi, entered the Jinggangshan area, and successfully joined forces with the Red Army led by Comrade Mao Zedong, later merging to form the Fourth Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. The peasant army of Yizhang County was reorganized into the 29th regiment of the 10th division, while the peasant armies from other counties were mostly reorganized into the 12th division (with Comrade Chen Yi also serving as the division commander), with some incorporated into the 28th and 30th regiments of the 10th division and the 31st regiment of the 11th division. The workers' armed forces from Shuikou Mountain were incorporated into the special battalion of the army headquarters.
Comrade Hu Shaohai (also known as Hu Bie), commonly referred to as Hu Lao Wu. His family was a well-known wealthy household in Yizhang County, and his father and brother were powerful local gentry. He was influenced by our party's ideology and showed progressive behavior, so we often conducted activities in his name. He joined the party in April 1928 and later served as the commander of the Red Army's column and other positions. He sacrificed his life in combat in Yongfu County, Fujian Province in 1931.
"Published in the first volume of 'Star Fire' [Upper], People's Literature Publishing House"
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