Many people should not be unfamiliar with the name of He Zizhen when it comes to her. She was the second wife of Mao Zedong and later abandoned by Mao. When did Mao and He Zizhen meet? The time was after Mao went to Jinggang Mountain. At that time, He Zizhen was already in Jinggang Mountain.
In the history of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong was the founder of the Jinggang Mountain base area, the first base area of the Chinese Communist Party, and in September 1927, after the Autumn Harvest Riot, Mao led his troops to Jinggang Mountain in Jiangxi, a remote place far from the city, to set up camp. Jinggang Mountain is located in the junction of Jiangxi and Hunan Luoxiao Mountain in the middle, at that time is “two regardless” (that is, Hunan Province, Jiangxi Province is not governed) zone, and the terrain is dangerous, the national government troops rarely come here.
However, long before Mao came, Jinggang Mountain already had two “king of the mountain”: Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo. They “robbed the rich to help the poor”, deeply supported by the local people, and were regarded as the “green forest” good guys. The former was an intellectual who joined the Communist Party in January 1927. It was with his help that Mao Zedong gained a foothold in Jinggang Mountain. Yuan also intended to send He Zizhen, who was hiding from the Nationalists in his own cottage, to Mao’s side so that He could live with him. However, Mao had not divorced Yang Kaihui at that time, and Yang Kaihui and her children were still living in the Changsha area.
After gaining a foothold in Jinggang Mountain, Mao sent He Changgong to negotiate with Wang Zuo, and later went to the mountain to have a long talk with Wang Zuo himself. Mao said, “People who work in the green forest are not good in the end, they are either eaten by the government or fight with their men. Only by following the Communist Party in the revolution can we grow from small to large, from weak to strong, and take over the world. Wang Zuo was convinced, so he approached Yuan Wencai and said he wanted to be one with Mao’s Communist army. Yuan Wencai, who had this intention for a long time, was naturally a hundred times willing.
In early February 1928, in Dalong, Ninggang County, Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo’s two peasant self-defense forces were formally incorporated by the Chinese Communist army, that is, they became the second regiment of its first division, with two battalions under its jurisdiction. Yuan Wencai’s division was the first battalion and Wang Zuo’s division was the second battalion, with Yuan as the regimental commander and commander of the first battalion and Wang as the deputy regimental commander and commander of the second battalion.
Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo’s green troops were incorporated, strengthening the power of the Chinese Communist Party, and Yuan and Wang also became the Red Lords. However, not long after, Yuan and Wang were brutally murdered.
The Tragic Death of Yuan and Wang
Due to the Nationalist Party’s pursuit of CCP members, the CCP ran to Moscow in June 1928 to hold the Sixth Congress. The congress adopted the programmatic document “Resolution on the Organization of Soviet Power,” which stipulated that “alliances of groups similar to bandit forces (meaning alliances with which they form a united front) can be used before armed uprisings, and after armed uprisings it is advisable to disarm them and to suppress them severely.” “Their leaders should be counter-revolutionary chiefs, even if they help the armed uprising, and all such chiefs should be completely annihilated.”
In early 1929, Wang Huai, head of the Yongxin County Committee, and Long Chaoqing, head of the Longgang County Committee, proposed a motion to get rid of Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo in accordance with the spirit of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of China at an expanded meeting of the Red Army to study the resolutions of the Sixth Congress. The two of them had previously strongly advocated the killing of Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo.
In the fall of the same year, the CPC Central Committee, which had been working in Shanghai, sent Peng Qingquan (i.e. Pan Xinyuan) to inspect the Xiang-Gan border. After listening to the reports of the Xiang-Gan Border Special Committee and some county committee leaders, the central inspector asked the Fifth Red Army and the Xiang-Gan Border Special Committee to deal with Yuan and Wang without compromise according to the resolutions of the Sixth Communist Party Congress.
In January 1930, the Fifth Red Army Military Committee and the Special Committee of Ganxi and Xiang-Gan Border held a joint meeting and secretly made the decision to settle Yuan and Wang by force. one day in late February, Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo received notice that they were to rush to Yongxin County with more than 700 troops to attend a meeting of the Border Special Committee on the one hand, and to upgrade their troops to the Third Column of the Sixth Red Army on the other. After their arrival, the Border Special Committee and the Yongxing County Committee organized more than a thousand people to line the streets to welcome them. In the evening the Special Committee also hosted a banquet. Later, the Special Committee took advantage of the night to surround Yuan and Wang with troops borrowed from Peng Dehuai and disarmed all their soldiers in their sleep, with the individual resisters being killed immediately.
According to the Chinese Communist Party history, Yuan Wencai, who was asleep, came out of the house to see what was going on and was shot by Zhu Changqai, the secretary of the Border Special Committee, who was ambushed outside the house. Wang Zuo jumped out of the back window when he heard the gunshot, and jumped into a river in a panic amidst the sound of the chase, drowning halfway through the swim.
In a book published by the Chinese Sons and Daughters Publishing House in Hong Kong in May 2001, there is another version: Zhu Changkai led his men to No. 22 Yinjiaxiang and killed Yuan Wencai who was suddenly woken up on the bunk. The other way was led by Peng Wenxiang who went straight to the “Family Shrine” to deal with Wang Zuo. Due to the unpreparedness and the lack of a leader, Yuan and Wang’s men were scattered by their well-designed opponents and finally all of them were eliminated.
Regardless of the version, it is an indisputable fact that Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo died at the hands of their own people.
Reasons behind their tragic deaths
Why were Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo, who had already defected to the Chinese Communist Party, finally killed? The first reason is, of course, the motion introduced at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of China, which sentenced Yuan and Wang to death; the second reason is the dispute between locals and foreigners.
Local people refer to people of native origin, and foreigners are guest people. The leadership of the party and government at the Xiang-Gan border has always been in the hands of the native people. In the case of this region of Ninggang, the guest population is not much less than the native, despite the guest Yuan Wencai how to fight, but only two seats in the nine Standing Committee, the party and political power is basically controlled in the hands of the county party Long Chaoqing and other native people. The original phrase “the party of the native nationality and the gun of the guest nationality” was circulated back then.
Long Chaoqing and other people of native origin had transferred guns and borrowed guns from Yuan Wencai in the name of the county committee, but they were refused. So, Long Chaoqing and so on from outside the county to buy guns, at the same time to the Red Army for assistance, after several efforts finally pulled up a team of sixty-three guns, their officers and soldiers are a clear color of the native people. This was obviously built against Yuan Wencai and the whole Hakka people. As a result, Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo increased their wariness of Long Chaoqing and others, and friction between the two sides continued.
After the resolution of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of China tossed around for nearly half a year and arrived in Jinggang Mountain, Mao Zedong approached Zhu De, Chen Yi, Peng Dehuai, Tan Zhenlin and Deng Qiangyuan for discussion in a small group of people, and the majority opinion at the meeting was that the situation of Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo could not be compared to that of bandits and greenwoods, and that this policy of the central government did not apply to them. However, several border special committee secretary for Yuan Wencai, Wang Zuo but not at all a little good feeling, advocating the implementation of the resolution in accordance with the Sixth Congress. In response, Mao, Peng and others eventually agreed.
In February 1930, Yuan Wencai commanded his men to capture alive Luo Keshao, the chief of the Kuomintang United Defense Corps in three counties, including Chaling and Ninggang, and moved his small arsenal with 18 workers and several machines to Ninggang. The motive of Yuan, Wang and others was to use Luo’s arsenal to make guns and bullets. In order to get the heart of Luo Keshao, Yuan Wencai adopted the strategy of softening and probation to him, treating him with courtesy as a VIP. And rumors such as Yuan Wencai colluding with Luo Keshao against the water soon spread. Yuan and Wang were entrapped and killed.
Chen Shiju, who was a senior Chinese Communist general, once said, “Yuan Wencai and Wang Zuo were killed by their own people, this matter is really unforgivable!” I don’t know if Chen Shiju knew that the Chinese Communist Party had killed so many people not only within the Party but also many innocent Chinese people along the way, and that these were unforgivable in heaven’s name.
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