In September 1990, a 90-year-old man got off the train from Shenzhen to Shaoguan. He came to Changlai Village, Lechang County, Guangdong Province on crutches with people around him. When the old man arrived at the door of his hometown, the villagers’ warm firecrackers and grand welcome banquet brought tears to his eyes. He then handed the letter he had written to Gong Hongyong, deputy secretary of the Lechang County Party Committee, and asked him to help send it out. Gong Hongyong took the letter and found that the recipients on the envelope turned out to be Chairman of the Military Commission Deng Xiaoping and Vice Chairman of the State Wang Zhen. .
The content of the letter is roughly stated as follows: I committed a crime at the beginning and made mistakes, but now I am old and have returned to my hometown Lechang County to visit relatives, please allow me to provide a job for my hometown before I die He has stayed in the hometown for a long time, and the fallen leaves return to their roots, and they also die in their hometown. And the signer impressively wrote the words "Gong Chu". Who is this Gong Chu from? What crimes did he commit, why did he still apply to Deng Xiaoping when he returned to his hometown when he was old? Today we will tell the story of Gong Chu, the first "traitor" of the Red Army.
Gong Chu was born in Changlai Village, Changlai Township, Lechang County, Guangdong Province in 1901. His original name was Gonghe Village. At the age of 12, he was admitted to the best municipal No. 1 middle school in Guangzhou. At that time, Guangzhou was the center of revolutionary thoughts. In 1917, Sun Yat-sen prepared to launch the protection movement . The 16-year-old Gong Chu joined the Cantonese army to engage in revolutionary struggle.
In 1917, Gong Chu served as squad leader and deputy brigade deputy of the 2nd Brigade of the Guangdong Army. Later, he felt that his cultural level could not adapt to the military, so he was admitted to the branch school of the Yunnan Army Lecture Hall in Shaoguan. To learn. In 1923, Gong Chu, who was greatly promoted in the Guangdong Army, became a major staff officer of the National Revolutionary Army.
Sun Yat-sen accepted the Soviet Union's proposal at this time and put forward the three major policies of uniting Russia, uniting the Communist Party, and helping farmers and workers. The Kuomintang and the Communist Party launched their first cooperation. Gong Chu also came into contact with a lot of communism knowledge while studying at Guangzhou Technical College, and joined the Chinese Socialist Youth League in June 1924 under the introduction of his classmates.In 1925, he officially became a member of the Communist Party of China.
Later, Gong Chu, who was experienced in revolutionary struggle, was sent by the party organization to lead the local peasant movement in Lechang County. In February 1927, Gong Chu established a party branch in Lechang and served as branch secretary. After Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12 coup", Gong Chu served as the commander-in-chief of the workers and peasants of Lechang and Beijiang 's workers and peasants army, and went to Wuhan to defeat Chiang Kai-shek.
When the Nanchang Uprising started, Gong Chu led the workers and peasants army to Nanchang to participate in the uprising. In January 1928, Zhu De and Chen Yi led the rest of the Nanchang Uprising Army to meet the workers and peasants army led by Gong Chu in Guangdong. The two sides merged into the Third Division of the Workers and Peasants Revolutionary Army, with Zhu De as the commander and Gong Chu as the party representative.
In April 1928, Zhu De, Chen Yi and Gong Chu decided to go to Jinggangshan to meet with the Mao Zedong team who led the autumn harvest uprising in order to resist the Kuomintang reactionary forces and preserve the revolutionary forces, and they successfully assembled on April 28. Six days after arriving in Jinggangshan, Mao Zedong, Zhu De and others decided to establish Red Fourth Army at the celebration meeting. Gong Chu was appointed to the Red Fourth Army together with Zhu De because of his years of revolutionary experience and high prestige in the peasant army. Chairman of the Standing Committee and former Secretary of the Committee was appointed by Mao Zedong. At that time, Zhu, Mao, and Gong of the Fourth Red Army jointly stated that Gong Chu's status was second only to Zhu De and Mao Zedong. The Hunan Provincial Party Committee referred to the Fourth Red Army as "Zhu Mao Gong."
In May 1929, Gong Chu came to Guangxi County Party Committee to work, and planned the Baise Uprising with the local armed forces, and met Deng Xiaoping. After the victory of the Baise Uprising, the Red Seven Army was established, commander Zhang Yunyi, political commissar Deng Xiaoping, and chief of staff Gong Chu. The revolutionary friendship between Gong Chu and Deng Xiaoping began,When Gong Chu got married, Deng Xiaoping also served as his witness.
In order to regulate the army, more than 7,000 members of the Seventh Red Army were reorganized in Hechi, under the jurisdiction of the 19th, 20th, and 21st divisions. Gong Chu served as the chief of staff and concurrently served as the commander of the 19th division with the strongest combat effectiveness. Deng Xiaoping concurrently served as the political commissar of the 19th Division. Deng and Gong worked together in the early days of the Seventh Red Army. Gong Chu made great contributions to the development and construction of the Seventh Red Army by using the experience accumulated in the establishment of the army during the Jinggangshan period.
In 1931, the Seventh Red Army established a revolutionary base in Meihuaxu, Guangdong in accordance with the instructions of the Central Soviet Area. However, it was attacked by the Kuomintang Chen Jitang and the 19th Division of the Hunan Army. The Seventh Red Army suffered unprecedented serious damage. Gong Chu was also seriously injured during the breakout process and had to be transferred to the Jiangxi Soviet area with Deng Xiaoping. After that, Gong Chu was transferred to a hospital in Shanghai for treatment. In August 1931, he moved from Hong Kong to the Central Soviet Area again.
After returning from injury, the party organization placed heavy responsibility on Gong Chu. He was successively appointed as the commander of the 34th Division of the 12th Red Army, the chief of staff of the 12th Red Army, and the commander of the 7th Red Army. In 1932, Gong Chu made a right-leaning error in the course of commanding the Seventh Red Army, which caused the Red Seventh Army to be hit hard again, and he was removed from the post of commander of the army.
At this time, the Kuomintang was in desperate pursuit of "encirclement and suppression". The complex and arduous struggle situation in the country and the hard life within the party made Gong Chu exhausted physically and mentally. He began to lose confidence in the revolution and slowly shaken the revolutionary will. The criticism of Gong Chu at the Communist International Conference in 1933 made him resent the party organization, so he was transferred to the Red Army University for a year of training.
After returning from the training, Gong Chu buried his inner dissatisfaction and resentment in his heart without showing it. At that time, General Staff of the Military Commission Liu Bocheng was sent to the hospital for treatment due to severe anemia. The party organization placed great trust in Gong Chu, allowing him to serve as the acting chief of staff of the Red Army’s general headquarters and directly participate in commanding the Red Army’s fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign. Struggle, but the number of the national army was too large. Although Gong Chu led the army in the guerrilla warfare that our army is best at, he still suffered heavy losses in the transfer process.
and the Kuomintang also tempted the Red Army heavily,Using high-ranking officials and fame and fortune to defraud the Red Army commanders to join them, many unsteady Red Army generals were fascinated by their temporary wealth and fell into the embrace of the Kuomintang. Gong Chu felt that the prospect of the revolution was slim, and the seeds of the Kuomintang's temptation were planted in his heart.
The party organization that knew nothing about this was transferred to Gong Chu as the commander of the Southern Jiangxi Military Region after the failure of the "encirclement and suppression" campaign, and was changed to chief of staff one month later. It was just that the increasingly severe situation made the Red Army gradually fall into a disadvantage in the battle. At the end of 1934, Gong Chu, as the chief of staff of the Central Military Region, took over the defense work of the Red Army together with Xiang Ying and Chen Yi to cover the transfer of the Red Army’s main force. The Red Army was 25,000 miles. The Long March began. However, the Kuomintang's policy of "suppressing and applying both" once again impressed Gong Chu, especially the difficult conditions during the Long March, which made his already weak revolutionary will gradually disappear. On May 2, 1935, Gong Chu abandoned a company he had brought to Huangmao Village, Chen County, Hunan Province, leaving a letter and fled back to his hometown of Lechang County alone.
It can be said that since Gong Chu joined the Red Army, he has always held a senior position in the army. The party organization also promptly corrected and educates his mistakes, and continued to entrust him with important tasks. No one thought that Gong Chu would betray the revolution, betray the party organization, and escape the army.
Soon after returning to his hometown, Gong Chu felt that there was nowhere for him to use his abilities, so he decided to join the Kuomintang. He found Zhang Shaoqin, secretary general of the Guangzhou Appeasement Commission, and under his arrangement became a subordinate of Yu Hanmou of the Guangdong Army. Yu Hanmou appointed him as the guerrilla commander of the suppression of communism, and was later promoted to the commander of the bandits in the border area of Guangdong and Hunan and the director of the joint defense of the five counties in northern Guangdong. In order to express his determination to "surrender" to Chiang Kai-shek, Gong Chu did not hesitate to point his gun at his former comrade-in-arms.
Gong Chu was once the commander of the Seventh Red Army and also served as the General Staff of the Central Committee. He was the highest-ranking cadre in all the Red Army that surrendered to the Kuomintang. He revealed a large number of absolute secrets to the Kuomintang, which caused an unprecedented blow to our party's intelligence organization within the Kuomintang. Gong Chu himself was also known as the "first traitor of the Red Army."
Gong Chu used his familiarity with the Red Army's combat strategy and guerrilla tactics to lead the Kuomintang army disguised as a Red Army guerrilla, trapping the Red Army where he was not yet known to betray the revolution. On October 13, 1935, Gong Chu led a 40-man team in another unit under Beishan and Yu Hanmou for a fake fight.Spread the momentum to the entire Longxishi area. At that time, Beishan's guerrilla group leader He Minxue used to be Gong Chu's subordinate. After hearing that the leader was Gong Chu, he hurried to meet him.
Gong Chu pretends that he now belongs to the Red Army in southern Hunan, and needs to receive Xiang Ying and Chen Yi to organize work in southern Hunan, and then deceive them into the ambush circle in the name of convening a meeting of the Red Army guerrillas, threatening to induce the guerrillas to surrender. He Minxue was the first to react. He raised his gun and rushed out. In the end, he was shot three times and rolled down the mountain. As a result, he rushed out of the encirclement. Only eight or nine members of the entire guerrilla team succeeded in breaking through, and all the other 50 members died. Only the rear master He Changlin chose to rebel. This is the "Beishan Incident" with the greatest loss and the most serious nature of the Long March troops on the border of Jiangxi and Guangdong.
Gong Chu did not catch Xiang Ying in this operation, and Chen Yi was very unwilling. Seven days later, he led the Guangdong army to outflank Xiang Ying and Chen Yi's garrison again, and happened to meet Wu Shaohua, an investigator who was out for procurement. Gong Chu pretended to talk and asked Wu Shaohua to take him to meet Xiang Ying and Chen Yi, but Wu Shaohua keenly sensed that there was something wrong with Gong Chu. Gong Chu had a guilty conscience. After hearing the gunshots, he thought that he had no chance of winning, and led the small detachment to escape.
After the all-out war broke out, Gong Chu continued to work within the Kuomintang and became a tiger general on the front battlefield of the Anti-Japanese War. Gong Chu once became the fifth war zone of because of repeated heavy blows to the Japanese army The famous anti-Japanese generals successively served as the colonel’s staff, the major general’s staff, and the major general’s adviser. However, as the highest-ranking general who defected in the Red Army, he never won the trust of Chiang Kai-shek. Therefore, until the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Gong Chu remained the rank of major general.
With the gradual advancement of the war of liberation , the People's Liberation Army entered Beijiang in October 1949. Gong Chu, who was originally an administrative inspector and security commander in Beijing, fled to Yaoshan in Lechang County with his men. Huang Songjian, director of the Beijiang Administrative Office of the Communist Party of China, wrote to Gong Chu to persuade him to surrender. Gong Chu seriously considered the situation of the year and confirmed that the Kuomintang did not have the power to resist, and brought his subordinates to the Beijiang district of Shaoguan to surrender.
December,The governor of Guangdong Province Ye Jianying sent Gong Chu to Hainan Island to challenge the Kuomintang guard Xue Yue . He and Gong Chu are fellow villagers in Lechang. However, Gong Chu hid the party funds in Hong Kong. Not only did he not go to Hainan to meet Xue Yue, he also changed his name to Gong Song'an and settled in Hong Kong.
During the period, Chiang Kai-shek invited Gong Chu to Taiwan to conspire to counterattack the mainland, but Gong Chu felt that Chiang Kai-shek had been forced to a small Taiwan Province, and retaking the mainland was tantamount to idiotic dreams, so he declined Chiang Kai-shek. As an important member of the Kuomintang, Gong Chu allocated 50 acres of overseas Chinese garden in Hong Kong to engage in animal husbandry and breeding.
In the 30 years since he has settled in Hong Kong, Gong Chu has become very popular. His calligraphy works can be sold for tens of thousands of yuan in the Hong Kong market. The business of the Gong family is also booming, but the family has never mentioned returning. The mainland matter. It was not until the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee that the country began to implement the reform and opening policy. Gong Qingshao's nephew, Gong Qingshao, returned to Guangdong to do business. After listening to him talk about the changes in Guangdong, Gong Chu gradually moved back to his hometown.
However, he knows the truth of "the generals can be accepted, the traitors cannot tolerate". He doesn't know if he will be liquidated when he returns to Guangdong, and whether the people in his hometown can forgive his mistakes, and he has never had the courage to return home. With the increase in age, the idea of Cantonese returning to clan ancestral halls after death became more and more important in Gong Chu's mind. Until he learned that a member of his family named Gong Hongyong was the deputy secretary of the Lechang County Party Committee, the fire finally Burned up.
In 1989, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued an announcement that they would no longer pursue criminal acts committed by people before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and Gong Chu made up his mind to return to his hometown. On October 13, 1990, Gong Chu got on the train to Shaoguan anxiously, and returned to his hometown, Changlai Village, so the scene at the beginning came.
A few days after receiving Gong Chu’s letter, Deng Xiaoping called Gong Chu’s home. No one knew what they said, only that Gong Chu was able to return to his hometown and settle down. In his later years, Gong Chu, who realized his wish, was crying with excitement and choked speechlessly. Gong Chu, who spent his old age in his hometown, aroused the interest of the local people. Many media and reporters came to interview him.Gong Chu always talked about his own affairs in the Red Army, but he never mentioned the development after the rebellion revolution. Obviously he also understood that his defection experience was not glorious.
In 1995, Gong Chu died at home at the age of 94, realizing his wish to enter the ancestral hall and ancestral grave. His life is over, and future generations have different opinions on his merits and demerits.
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