June 1950, Yunnan.
The 47-year-old commander of the Yunnan Military Region, Chen Geng, sent an urgent telegram to the Southwest Military Region headquarters. Then, he began to wait quietly for a reply from his superiors. Because the matter was so important, this urgent telegram was sent to Deng Xiaoping, then political commissar of the Southwest Military Region.
I saw this, and it read this paragraph:
"The rebellion of Long San and Long Kuiyuan was already expected. In order to do our utmost to be benevolent and righteous, we strive to only order the 43rd Division before they officially launch a rebellion." Mobilize troops to monitor closely, and as soon as their actions are discovered, they can be quickly annihilated..."
In this short telegram, there are several words that are quite eye-catching:
The first word is expected; the second word , benevolence and righteousness are exhausted; the third word is to gather and annihilate quickly.
Obviously, Chen Geng already had his own idea and ordered his 43rd Division to make all-round deployments. What he needs is the approval of the Southwest Headquarters. As long as the headquarters gives an order, he will follow his own plan.
We all know the character of General Chen Geng. He has always been very straightforward and dares to speak and act. At the same time, his abilities have also been tested in battles, and there is no need to doubt them. Therefore, since taking charge of the suppression of bandits in the Southwest under the orders of the Central Committee, Deng Xiaoping has always let Chen Geng do the work in Yunnan. But looking at such a telegram, Deng Xiaoping suddenly understood Chen Geng's caution.
Obviously, this caution is related to a person in the telegram: Long San. Yes, he is Long Shengzeng, the third son of the Long Yun family, the "King of Yunnan".
There is an old saying in China called "a tiger father has no dog sons", which comes from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However, it is regrettable that this statement obviously cannot be applied to Long Yun and his son Long Shengzeng.
Faced with Chen Geng’s telegram, how would Deng Xiaoping make a decision?
After his son was shot dead, Long Yun was quite unhappy. What did Chairman Mao say and do that left him speechless?
In this issue, the author wants to tell you that there are too many things worth thinking about in this period of history.
1: The famous anti-Japanese general Long Yun
In modern Yunnan, Long Yun was obviously an unavoidable figure. After all, he has been in the position of "King of Yunnan" for nearly 20 years. To this day, when people in Yunnan discuss the events of that year, "Long Yun" is still often mentioned on their lips. If you listen carefully, you will find that the common people's evaluation of him is not low.
Long Yun was born in Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province in 1884. His family belonged to a feudal landlord family. When he was 6 years old, his father died and he was sent to live with his uncle, where he lived with his cousin Lu Han day and night. After
grew up, Long Yun, Lu Han and a young martial arts student named Zou Ruoheng formed a trio, known as the "Three Musketeers of Zhaotong". It is worth mentioning that these three young men later became local celebrities: Long Yun and Lu Han both served as the "King of Yunnan"; and this Zou Ruoheng became a famous martial artist in modern times, "Zou Family Boxing" the founder of.
In short, since then, the three brothers have climbed up the Yunnan system step by step and steadily. And Long Yun finally became the veritable "King of Yunnan" after experiencing various wars, and began to have actual control over this border province for many years.
So, the question is: since he is an old-style warlord, why does Long Yun have a good reputation in Yunnan? To sum up, the reasons are nothing more than three points:
One is young chivalry.
In the age of war, people are always eager to have martial arts legends. In a sense, Long Yun, who was quite righteous and daring when he was young, is in line with people's wishes.
In the autumn of 1914, Long Yun had just turned 30 and had graduated from the Army Lecture Hall. After arriving in Kunming, he heard that there was a French strongman there who acted quite arrogantly. Not only did he look down on the Chinese, but he also threatened that if no one defeated him within three days, then there would be no one in China, and he would open a martial arts gym in Kunming; if someone could defeat him, he would never set foot in Kunming again.
Long Yun was not convinced and jumped onto the competition stage to fight with him. Long Yun performed extremely well throughout the martial arts competition. It only took a few moves to make the French strongman fall to the ground and beg for mercy. In that era, defeating foreigners in the ring was a great achievement for the Chinese people.Soon, the incident spread from Kunming to the entire Yunnan Province. From this, Long Yun's chivalrous reputation was passed down.
The second thing Long Yun is remembered by local people is: his active resistance to Japan.
On the matter of resisting Japan, Long Yun was indeed unambiguous. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, Long Yun quickly summoned his subordinates and called on all warlords to put aside their internal fighting and prepare for a full-scale resistance against Japan. The two things he did at that time were recorded in the history of the Yunnan Anti-Japanese War:
First, he organized 200,000 Yunnan troops to rush to the anti-Japanese front line.
People all over the world say that "no army can be formed without a river", but in fact, the contributions made by the children of Yunnan in the fight against Japan are not weak at all. On the day of the swearing-in, Long Yun, who was over 50 years old, dressed in military uniform, climbed high and raised his arms. The children of Yunnan in the audience shouted anti-Japanese. After that, there were more than 40,000 Yunnan students who arrived in Changsha and went to Taierzhuang in the first batch. You know, they walked for more than 1,000 kilometers to get there.
Second, build the Burma Highway and open up a major channel for international aid to China.
In order to build this famous highway at home and abroad, countless people from Yunnan died and were injured. This road is also called by historians: the anti-Japanese blood transfusion tube. According to statistics, at that time, about 100,000 workers were working on road construction in Yunnan every day. It took only 8 months to repair the 927-kilometer Yunnan-Myanmar Highway, completing a feat.
Of course, in order to do these two things well, Long Yun wasted his money. For an old-style warlord, the most valuable thing is not money, but the number of troops under his command. Because this is the biggest weight in the warlord fight. But in order to fight against Japan, Long Yun didn't care about this. Therefore, throughout the anti-Japanese period, Long Yun was respected by the people across the country. (In this matter, there is a person who is very similar to him: "King of Sichuan" Liu Xiang)
The third thing Long Yun is remembered by the locals is: abandoning darkness and turning to light.
The feud between Long Yun and Chiang Kai-shek has a long history. For Chiang Kai-shek, Long Yun's existence would affect the influence of his Central Army in Yunnan. Moreover, Long Yun has always advocated cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in the matter of resisting Japan. During this period, he admired Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and others.
Chiang Kai-shek naturally didn't like this. He tried to overthrow him several times, but never succeeded. Finally, Chiang Kai-shek listed Long Yun's "three major crimes": first, obstructing government orders; second, endangering the war of resistance; third, harboring left-wing elements.
Just like that, in 1946, Long Yun was taken to Nanjing. It was not until December 1948 that, with the help of many friends, he escaped from Nanjing and arrived in Hong Kong, China. In August 1949, Long Yun and other 44 people staged an electrical uprising in Hong Kong, completely breaking with Chiang Kai-shek.
It should be said that Long Yun's uprising is extremely important. Because he directly influenced Lu Han's subsequent decisions, on December 9, the famous general Lu Han also announced a peaceful uprising, avoiding an unnecessary war in Yunnan.
Although he is an old-style warlord, he is heroic and courageous, has made great achievements in resisting Japan, and is finally able to abandon the dark side and turn to the bright side. Such people will naturally be valued by our party after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Therefore, in January 1950, on the day Long Yun arrived in Beijing, our Commander-in-Chief Zhu De visited him in person. After that, he served as vice chairman of the Southwest Military and Political Commission.
2: The Incompetent Third Young Master Long
Long Yun himself is very chivalrous, but his son is hard to describe. Long Yun had three sons. The eldest son and the second son were both sent to France to study military affairs. Only the youngest son, Long Shengzeng, studied at the Yunnan Lecture Hall.
Long Sheng was born in 1912. During his studies, Long Yun was already the "King of Yunnan". Because he was the third son of the Long family, Long Sheng had always been cynical and unwilling to take the right path. He is always surrounded by a group of flattering young people, who can be described as arrogant and domineering in the local area.
Long Yun, on the other hand, was too busy with military affairs and was often away from home. He often only heard the details of these matters and rarely really cared about his son. It wasn't until one time when Long Sheng caused a big disaster that Long Yun realized how audacious his son was.
That day, Kong Lingjun, the daughter of Kong Xiangxi, was wandering in Chongqing and happened to meet Long Shengzeng. Long Sheng had long heard that she was Soong Meiling 's most beloved niece. Wherever she went across the country, local officials at all levels coaxed and supported her.
In order to stand out, Long Sheng once stepped forward and teased Kong Lingjun in public. Who knows, this Kong Lingjun is not a good person. This woman relied on the support of her aunt Soong Meiling, and she was also a lawless master. She did nothing less to oppress the people.
Kong Lingjun didn't expect that someone would dare to be rude to him, and he became very angry. She drew her gun on the spot and had a gun battle with Long Sheng. In the end, the fighting became more and more intense, forming a "melee" between the two parties.
Neither of them are good people, so it's just a fight, but the people who get hurt are unrelated people. In just a few minutes, many pedestrians were injured. In the end, the military rushed to the scene to avoid harming more innocent people. Through this small incident, it is not difficult for us to see Long Shengzeng's personality: he doesn't care about the lives of others, loves to be in the limelight, and is arrogant and domineering.
In 1949, the news of Long Yun's power uprising in Hong Kong reached Yunnan. Long Sheng, who was accustomed to being pampered and privileged, had to declare an "uprising" with his armed force of more than 3,000 people no matter how unwilling he was.
The People's Liberation Army obviously welcomes Long Shengzeng's uprising. After all, it can avoid more bloodshed and sacrifices. In order to express the importance he attached to him, Chen Geng, commander of the Yunnan Military Region, specially invited him to Kunming for talks.
After that, Chen Geng invited him to dinner, toasted him, and appointed him deputy commander of Zhaotong Garrison District. In short, both in terms of face and reputation, everything was given to him.
Regarding all of this, Dragon Rope has indeed done a good job on the surface. He took Chen Geng's glass of wine, drank it down in one gulp, and promised Chen Geng in public: "From now on, we will all be brothers!"
But in fact, the dragon rope has never really been severed from the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek, who retreated to Taiwan, believed that the southwest region could not be given up easily no matter what. Therefore, before leaving Chongqing, he placed a large number of spies in the southwest region, ready to deal a fatal blow to New China at any time.
At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek had already figured out Long Shengzeng's personality and knew that he was a "careerist". Therefore, Lao Jiang simply awarded him two high-level official positions, one as "Military and Political Chief of Northeast Yunnan" and the other as "Commander-in-Chief of the Kangxi Suppression of the Communists in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan."
Long Sheng had never been such a big official before, so he naturally benefited from it. And Chiang Kai-shek is indeed very good at " painting ". He promised many benefits to Long Sheng in the telegram, and constantly exaggerated the power he left in the southwest. Therefore, it was thought that with the support of Chiang Kai-shek, Long Shengzeng became more courageous. After that, he did three shameful things:
One of them was to expand his troops in spite of the yin and yang.
After accepting Chen Geng's appointment, Long Sheng was supposed to return to Zhaotong and actively reorganize his original troops. However, he repeatedly delayed the reorganization time on the grounds that there were many local mountains, a large number of Yi people, and scattered troops. Every time our military representatives asked him, he always looked embarrassed.
Secondly, hooking up with armed bandits is a disaster for one party.
At that time, under the instruction of Lao Jiang, Long Sheng searched for spies and bandits everywhere and formed a bandit armed force with more than 80,000 people. These people are doing evil in the local area. In just two months in the spring of 1950, these bandit armed forces provoked a series of bloody incidents, causing untold misery to the people.
Third, harm our soldiers.
In order to urge Longsheng Zeng to reorganize as soon as possible, Chen Geng sent many army representatives to his headquarters at that time. To these people, Long Sheng once did not dare to come to light, so he resorted to despicable means.
For example, after the 128th Regiment of the 43rd Division of our army entered the army, Long Sheng actually put potent poison into the drinking water of the regiment commander and deputy commander. In the end, deputy leader Hao Shigui died unfortunately. Regarding this matter, when our army asked about it, he always looked innocent and said: "I didn't know this happened!" The generals judged that he must have the support of Chiang Kai-shek behind him, and once everything was in place, his rebellion was inevitable.
It was at this time that the scene at the beginning of this article occurred. An urgent telegram from Chen Geng was delivered to Deng Xiaoping.As Chen Geng mentioned in the telegram, we were extremely benevolent and righteous to Long Sheng. In order to get him to turn around, many military representatives from top to bottom of our army talked to him to give him a last chance. But all this is in vain.
After carefully analyzing the situation, Deng Xiaoping personally decided to put down the rebellion.
Long Sheng once thought that with his considerable strength and the support of spies and bandits, he would be able to succeed in one fell swoop. However, he ultimately underestimated the combat effectiveness of the People's Liberation Army. In fact, his every move has long been under the surveillance of our People's Liberation Army, and Chen Geng has long anticipated the time of his rebellion. In the end, our army took complete control of the situation in just two hours. Long Sheng was shot dead on the spot and the rebellion was quelled.
During this counterinsurgency, our army seized a total of 60 guns and two guns, 46 rounds of various artillery shells, and 108 kilograms of explosives. If it had not been deployed in advance, once these explosives exploded, the consequences would be disastrous. In addition, there are also radio stations that Dragon Rope was used to specifically communicate with Taiwan, China.
After the news spread that Long Rope had been killed, two things happened:
The first thing was that the people of Zhaotong jumped for joy. The people had been suffering for a long time. When they heard that he had been shot dead, they all held the hands of the People's Liberation Army and said: "You have really done a great thing!"
The second thing, Deng Xiaoping reported to the Central Committee. After all, this matter concerns Long Yun. Deng Xiaoping wrote truthfully in his telegram to the central government:
"The Dragon bandits have been exterminated. Daliangshan The Yi people and the Sichuan, Kangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou border areas will do better in the future."
Deng Gong's words are very accurate. Various forces in the southwest are intertwined. Long Shengzeng's death made the spies and bandits fearful of the People's Liberation Army.
Three: Long Yun’s Later Years
After Deng Xiaoping’s situation report reached Beijing, Long Yun, who was busy with various affairs in Beijing, was obviously unhappy. At that time, he had no idea what his son was doing in Zhaotong. From his point of view, his son was just a little naughty in the past, but not enough to be shot to death.
Long Yun's dissatisfaction also reached Chairman Mao's ears. Chairman Mao always convinced people with reason when doing things, so he immediately instructed Long Yun to go back to Yunnan to check the situation. So, 66-year-old Long Yun quickly took a plane and flew directly to Yunnan.
Upon learning of his arrival, Chen Geng was quite polite and led his troops to receive him in the Yunnan Military Region. When he asked about his son's situation, Chen Geng and others presented a series of evidence: Chiang Kai-shek's letter of appointment to Long Shengzeng, various telegram documents, etc. At the same time, the comrades responsible for counterinsurgency also explained clearly the situation when the two sides were fighting.
After hearing this, the comrades were afraid that Long Yun was still emotional, so they invited him to go to Zhaotong to understand the situation. After all, the people there knew very well what Long Sheng had done.
At this time, Long Yun had already been "convinced" by this series of evidence. Long Yun and Chiang Kai-shek had been "fighting" for most of their lives, but they never expected that their son would be bribed by Chiang Kai-shek to do such a thing. So, Long Yun said two sentences to the comrades of the People's Liberation Army: one was "My son is very bad"; the other was "Thank you." After saying that, he hurried back to Beijing.
Long Shengzeng's fate was entirely his own fault. Deng Xiaoping and Chen Geng made timely arrangements to prevent the common people from suffering. However, although my son was the cause of the disaster, I was indeed a hero. In this matter, Long Yun's profound understanding of justice after understanding the situation is also worthy of praise. Since then, he has worked diligently in his position and contributed a lot to the construction of New China.
On June 27, 1962, Long Yun died in Beijing of acute myocardial infarction at the age of 78. In order to express respect for him, the central government specially organized a funeral committee, with Marshal Chen Yi personally serving as the chairman of the committee to arrange his funeral arrangements. After the grand public sacrifice ceremony, Long Yun's ashes were sent to Babao Mountain .
As Premier Zhou said when he expressed condolences to Long Yun, Long Yun had four major contributions: meritorious service in the War of Resistance, meritorious service in opposing Chiang Kai-shek, meritorious service in the democratic movement, and meritorious service in returning to the motherland. Being able to be buried in Babaoshan and recorded in the annals of Yunnan's anti-Japanese history is the recognition of him by the motherland and the people.
