One day in late October 1949, the sound of salutes of the founding of New China was heard. Huang Kecheng, full of joy of victory, embarked on the train to go south. He was going to Hunan Province to take office and serve as the top military and political leader.

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One day in late October, 1949, the sound of salutes from the founding of New China was heard. Huang Kecheng, full of joy of victory, embarked on the train to go south. He was going to Hunan Province to take office and serve as the top military and political leader.

Huang Kecheng was waiting in the waiting room, and suddenly several people rushed in and shouted for the first person: "Director Huang wait a minute." The so-called director refers to Huang Kecheng's new position: Deputy Director of Hunan Military and Political Committee. The real director was General Cheng Qian, but the central government decided to transfer Cheng Jian to Beijing to take up his new position soon, and Huang Kecheng would take on the burden of Hunan Province.

Huang Kecheng knew that the person who came was General Cheng Qian's subordinate. The man hurriedly handed him a letter. Huang Kecheng saw the letter: The letter was to Qu Boping my brother.

someone came to say, "It's a pity that Song Gong didn't catch up with you. He told you that this letter must be given to you. It will definitely be useful when you go to Hunan."

Huang Kecheng quickly thanked him, and the train drove immediately. He didn't have time to ask who Qu Boping was, so he got on the bus in a hurry.

1. As soon as the bandits in western Hunan arrived in Hunan, Huang Kecheng was so entangled by the oncoming cumbersome affairs that he could not be distracted, and he had no time to ask Cheng Qian for the Qu Boping's affairs.

Hunan Province is different from the northern provinces. For example, The three eastern provinces , Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong, all of them were fought through the War of Liberation, one shot, one city and one pool. All the remaining forces of the Kuomintang reactionaries were eliminated and the regime was very consolidated.

Most of Hunan Province was accepted peacefully. The two generals Cheng Qian and Chen Mingren abandoned the secret and turned to the light. They revolted peacefully, which saved the people of Hunan from war and made great contributions to the happiness of the people of Hezhou Province.

Things in the world are divided into two parts. Without the war in Hunan, there are still many remaining forces in the Kuomintang. They are connected with the old bandits in Hunan, hidden in the mountains in the corners, and are enemies of the new people's regime, which is a headache.

Just a few months before the founding of New China, Chiang Kai-shek made an advance arrangement, allowing the deputy commander of the Central China Military and Political Chief Office and Lieutenant General Commander of the 14th Corps to grant official titles to local bandit armed forces at the junction of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, and all the bandits were incorporated into the so-called "regular army", and three temporary troops and 12 temporary troops were established. Many bandit leaders became commanders and division commanders.

There are many bandits in Hunan, especially Xiangxi . As early as the late Qing Dynasty, many giant bandits appeared. They occupied the deep mountains and ditches of Wuling Mountains. The government troops could not enter the suppression. After several periods of the late Qing Dynasty, early Republic of China and the National Government, neither the Qing government nor the Yuan Shikai nor Chiang Kai-shek could truly wipe out the bandits in western Hunan. By the founding of New China, the disaster in western Hunan has been around for a hundred years.

After Song Xilian's inclusion, the bandits in Hunan became more rampant. There are as many as 200,000 bandits in the province, and more than 170 bandits with more than 100 people. Among them, Xiangxi is the hardest hit area, with nearly 100,000 bandits and their enslaves. They claim to form the "Thousand Mile Civil Defense Great Wall" to prevent the Communist Party from taking over Hunan.

Huang Kecheng's first heavy burden is to wipe out these bandits.

Huang Kecheng learned that when the Fourth Field Army marched south, it had already carried out a thunderous sweep of Hunan bandits. However, at that time, the main task of the Fourth Field Army was to pursue the remnants of the Kuomintang troops such as Bai Chongxi and . It did not stop in Hunan for many times, but only fought a few major battles at the junction of Hunan and Guangxi.

On the surface, Hunan bandits fled far away from the power of the People's Liberation Army, but in fact their strength was not damaged at all.

Chairman Mao asked how many main forces Huang Kecheng needed to draw to suppress the bandits. Huang Kecheng was willing to keep more, but considering that the army of the Second Field and Fourth Fields were advancing to South China, it was enough to ask the Fourth Fields to leave one main force. Chairman Mao then ordered the fourth field to leave the forty-seventh army to suppress the bandits.

Huang Kecheng is from Yongxing, Hunan. He is very familiar with the geographical situation in Hunan. It is useless to keep more soldiers and cannot be expanded. Instead, it is better to leave a small number of elite soldiers and be able to perform.

2. Thunder and lightning attack

Song Xilian had heard of Huang Kecheng and knew that he had a certain level. However, Song Xilian claimed to be a top student in the first issue of Huangpu , and not many people like the Communist Army generals, and only Lin, Liusu, Xu Peng and others could catch his eye. Even though he was already in a downturn and was about to lose, he was still above his brilliance and did not take Huang Kecheng seriously, believing that he did not know his military command, which would be a problem. Song Xilian cheered the bandit leaders everywhere, saying that Huang Kecheng could not be beaten. Mao Zedong sent him to defeat him purely. The bandits spread to him one by one, and they all sneered, wanting to give Huang Kecheng a warning.

Although Huang Kecheng is not good at military command, he has a very sharp vision and a clear idea.

Hunan bandits are mainly in western Hunan. The bandits in western Hunan are divided into the Kuomintang army, , warlord remnants, local old bandits, scattered bandits, and Kuomintang spy squads. Various bandits are intertwined, and the most harmful one is the remnants of the Kuomintang, which is the twelve temporary divisions built by Song Xilian.

Huang Kecheng divided the different bandits into priorities, first concentrated their forces to attack these twelve temporary divisions, and then attacked the rest.

The forty-seventh Army then concentrated its main force to launch a heavy blow. Although the bandits in western Hunan claim to be 100,000, they are actually scattered in the mountains everywhere, and there are not many large stocks that have truly formed more than 10,000 people. Although under the banner of a temporary division, some of the Kuomintang remnants are also acting as the main force in it, and their combat effectiveness is just average.

The Forty-Seventh Army fought fiercely, killing two enemy temporary troops one after another. The third temporary troops were also disbanded and basically lost their combat effectiveness. In the past three months, a total of 23,000 bandits dominated by the remnants of the Kuomintang were annihilated, with a brilliant result.

The Great Wall of Thousand Mile of Civil Defense advocated by Bai Chongxi and Song Xilian was destroyed before it could resist.

thought that the bandits would fall and disperse the clouds, and they would not be able to become a climate. Unexpectedly, when they attacked several other types of bandits, they encountered unimaginable difficulties.

The main force of the 47th Army traveled around the mountains in western Hunan. The 40,000 to 50,000 troops did not win many results. After three months of fighting, almost no old bandits in western Hunan were caught, and only a few hundred people were captured.

Huang Kecheng was anxious and ran to the 47th Army headquarters and the army leaders to study the situation. Everyone generally felt that they had no place to use their energy and could not find the main force of the bandits. Sometimes I found it, but because of insufficient preparation in advance, I couldn’t detect the terrain well and could not get in.

In November 1949, a team of hundreds of people sent by the 140th Division of our 47th Army went into the mountains to suppress bandits. After a day and night of march, the troops entered a "trench-shaped land" - both sides were cliffs and a turbulent stream in the middle. The troops were about to rest and cook on the spot when suddenly thousands of bandits rushed out from both sides of the mountain and launched a fierce attack on me. Because the bandits were condescending and the enemy was too small, the troops had to withdraw from the "trench-shaped land", and more than 30 young soldiers died.

More situations are that our army just discovered the news of the bandits' activities, and the troops killed the generals, but the bandits ran away first.

What's going on? It turns out that the bandits in western Hunan have a characteristic: rabbits do not eat grass by their nests . They have been fighting with the government army for nearly a hundred years and have figured out a set of survival rules. The most important one is that they cannot be irritated with the people around the village, and they cannot be too cruel to their subordinates.

The famous bandit leader in Xiangxi Qu Bojie , active in the area of ​​ Longshan . At most, his subordinates had more than 10,000 bandits. Qu Bojie made three rules for his subordinates:

, no offense to offend people without money.

2 cannot insult women.

3 Don’t lead other people’s ox.

He reasoned to the bandits that it is useless to kill people without money. Such people are the most loyal. If you treat him well, he will be nice to you and can inform you. If you insult a woman, his whole family will be enemies with you. You can marry more wives and concubines, and never insult others' wives and daughters. Plowing ox is a must-have item for farming in all families. Without plowing ox, it is like killing people.

Under his constraints, the bandits basically did not do bad things around Longshan. Even if they did it, they would go far away. Therefore, some local people are happy to inform him in exchange for the so-called "mercy" and protection of the bandits.

Qu Bojie has been a bandit for many years and has a great power to deal with internal and external affairs.For example, he is generous in his work and does not care about trivial matters, and usually doesn't care much about his subordinates' mistakes. For example, if he can be cruel, he doesn't want his own father in the face of interests. When the 86th Army of the Kuomintang entered the suppression of Qu Bojie in 1945, Qu hid his father in the home of a Wang family in the old village of Youyang, Sichuan. This family, who was surnamed Wang, was afraid of the charge of the bandit suppression troops installing him a nest of bandits, so they strangled Qu's father to death and threw it into the cellar well in the mountains. Later, the eighty-six troops withdrew, and the Wang surnamed took the initiative to surrender to Qu Bojie, but Qu Bojie spared the Wang surname. Others were unfair to Qu Bojie, but Qu Bojie said, "Anyway, his father is dead, and killing his enemy cannot bring his father back." In the end, he did not kill the king. As soon as this spread, Qu Bojie became a big figure like a saint in the eyes of the people of Longshan.

The Kuomintang army encircled and suppressed Qu Bojie three times during the War of Resistance Against Japan, but none of them could be completely wiped out. Often, once the National Army left, Qu Bojie could rekindle in the local area. In 1947, Cheng Qian was in charge of Hunan and recruited Qu Bojie in a desperate situation of defeat. He appointed him as the commander of the newly formed 10th Division. On the surface, Qu accepted the requisition, but in fact he still hid his subordinates in the mountains. Cheng Qian had no choice but to do anything to him.

In April 1949, the People's Liberation Army crossed the river and headed south. Qu Bojie was seriously ill, but he was still arrogant and said that the Communist army could not do anything to him when it came. Soon Qu Bojie died of illness, and his bandits were taken over by Qu Boping, the clan's brother and number one confidant.

Huang Kecheng commanded the 47th Army to attack, killing and annihilated several bandit troops, but he never could do anything to Qu Boping.

3. Water-melting Kung Fu

Military attack was incompetent. Many leaders in Hunan's military and political affairs were anxious and looked for Huang Kecheng, saying that there were too few troops left in Hunan, especially in western Hunan. It was better to ask the central government for instructions and send some field troops here.

Huang Kecheng threw out a account. Some troops only caught 2 bandits in more than a month, one regiment killed 8 bandits a month, and one division only suppressed 117 bandits a month...

Everyone looked at each other. Huang Kecheng got angry: "It's not that there are not many soldiers, but that our method is not right. I ask the central government for instructions to leave an army, not to make a fuss. The 47th Army is enough, not to mention that the 46th Army is still stationed in , southern Hunan , which can help us deter the bandits in central Hunan. We can no longer ask for troops from the central government!"

Everyone knows that once Huang Kecheng is really angry, even God dares to scold him, and no one dares to say it.

Huang Kecheng became more and more angry the more he spoke. He criticized the 47th Army for being clumsy in tactics and only wanted to fight regular wars and mobile warfare, and was accustomed to cannon bombardment and large troops, without studying the characteristics of bandit suppression in mountainous areas.

The Forty-Seventh Army was the army led by Liang Xingchu, the 10th Column of the East Ye and was led by Liang Xingchu. The Black Mountain Blocking Battle was so awe-inspiring that it was also the first-class main force. Huang Kecheng didn't give him any face when he scolded him, not only because he was the deputy commander of Higashino ( Northeast Democratic Alliance during the period), but because the 47th Army was really not fighting well. Cao Lihuai, the commander of the Forty-seventh Army, was so embarrassed that he couldn't sit still.

Huang Kecheng criticized the troops and also criticized himself: he had no experience and regarded bandit suppression as a pure military work. At present, it seems that the key to bandit suppression is to remove the roots of bandits. The roots they have taken for decades. This is the reason why they survived. They must use their efforts to pull out their roots bit by bit. At the same time, they can truly wipe out them completely and bring peace to the people.

To sum up, Huang Kecheng has done three aspects of "slow work".

first, carry out land reform and completely destroy the feudal local tyrants who control the countryside. Everyone knows the land reform, so I won’t say much. The so-called feudal local tyrants are landlords, old Kuomintang bureaucrats, big businessmen and other local tyrants. They are the money bags of bandits and the main force in informing bandits. Speaking of this, people inevitably ask, why should gentry collude with bandits if they are rich and powerful and can live their own lives?

has profound historical reasons.Since the late Qing Dynasty, Xiangxi has never been under the strong control of the government. There is no one under the county and no soldiers to protect it. Bandits are entrenched in the mountainous areas of Xiangxi, entering and leaving the countryside at will, asking for property from gentry with rich wealth. If they don't give it, they kidnap, kill, and loot. The gentry was determined to form an security group , but they could not resist the bandits' repeated attacks. In the end, the two sides reached a compromise. The gentry provided some "protection fees". If the bandits did not come to attack, they could also provide black force support for the gentry's expansion. In the past century, the gentry and the bandits colluded with each other and became evil forces that harmed the village. In 1947, Guzhang County, western Hunan elected a representative of the National Congress. The gentry actually publicly recommended Zhang Ping, the leader of the bandit, as the representative of the county's National Congress. This is really strange.

second, anti-drug. Xiangxi has always had the integrity of "three more": that is, there are many guns, many bandits, and many smoke. At that time, bandits in western Hunan forced the people to grow opium cigarettes and came to kill them if they didn't plant them, which scared the people so much that they dared not speak out. After planting, bandits collect at a low price and then resell at a high price to make huge profits and serve as bandit resources for bandits. It can be said that this is a major pillar of bandits' survival and is much easier than digging money from the pockets of gentry. Since local officials and gentry can also benefit from it, there has never been a real ban in the Kuomintang era, just pretending.

Huang Kecheng adopted the "soft pull the waist" policy in response to this issue. That is: to block the intermediate trafficking activities, so that they cannot be sold, traffickers cannot leave the country, and those who smoke cannot buy it, and gradually solve the problem of planting and smoking; stipulate lenient policies for planting and smoking opium, strict manufacturing and trafficking of drugs, lenient in the past, and strict in the future.

Huang Kecheng also took the people's route in drug control, mobilized the masses, carried out reports and exposes, sealed underground smoking bans on a large scale, and investigated and punished the use of absorbing tools. The drug control in western Hunan was not truly completed until 1957, but at least such a large area of ​​ban, the economic foundation on which the bandits depended for survival was shaken, and they had to run out of the mountains and had no money to spend it. Once

comes out, it will be easy. According to Huang Kecheng's instructions, the 47th Army changed the previous method of flooding the flood, and adopted the method of crossing each county by county, fighting each mountain by mountain, eating piece by piece, gradually forcing all bandits out of the deep mountains and into a dead end.

Huang Kecheng also announced the solution: after the bandit leader catches him, he will only punish the evildoer, and the threat will be different. He also ordered the large army to be broken into pieces, set up a working team, and went deep into the mountains and villages to tell the people who had contact with the bandits, and asked their fathers to persuade their sons and wives to persuade their husbands. Even if they had experience as bandits, as long as they were willing to surrender, the People's Government and the People's Liberation Army would not kill them.

's move is very useful. Many bandits are desperate and have to surrender to the People's Army. Some throw away their weapons and run home secretly. The People's Liberation Army turned a blind eye and let them return to normal.

third, recruit surrender.

This has to be the letter Huang Kecheng left Beijing. After Huang Kecheng opened it, he found that it was General Cheng Qian's letter of persuasion to bandit leader Qu Boping, asking him to put down his weapons immediately and give up confronting the People's Army. Cheng Qian had a friendship with Qu Bojie and Qu Boping. He had already expected that the Qu family would definitely fight against the People's Army, so he prepared a good plan for Huang Kecheng in advance. Huang Kecheng understood Cheng Qian's kindness, so he immediately followed suit and sent someone to find several major bandit leaders in western Hunan to persuade him to surrender.

Qu Boping is the largest bandit leader in Longshan. At this time, under the PLA's water mill skills, he was forced to be desperate. All the effective methods in the past failed. The landlord and old money had no money, and no one dared to come and inform him. The subordinates were almost finished. He can't confront the People's Liberation Army.

The bandit leader Zhang Ping, Long Yunfei and others were defeated and killed one after another. He was the only one of the big bandits in Xiangxi. At the end of his way, Qu Boping had to surrender to the People's Liberation Army.

Another legendary bandit leader Chen Quzhen . This person is the oldest qualified bandit in western Hunan and a veteran bandit who spans the Beiyang era and the National Government era. He has been wandering among the officials and bandits and once became the local emperor in western Hunan. Chiang Kai-shek wanted to completely subdue him and let him hand over the bandits in western Hunan, but Chen refused to listen and was imprisoned. After being released after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he secretly fled back to western Hunan and restored his power again.

On the eve of the founding of New China, Chen Quzhen had already accepted persuasion to surrender and joined the Hunan Military and Political Committee. At this time, we also came out to persuade the bandit leaders of all sizes and big and small, that we must surrender and have a good life.

Huang Kecheng's water grinding effort seems to be not a direct bandit suppression operation, but it hits the bandits' pain. The bandits in western Hunan have no money or anyone. Although they are protected by the mountains, they can no longer survive.

From June 1951, Huang Kecheng led Hunan military and civilians to successfully complete the task of suppressing bandits, annihilated 257,900 remnants of the Kuomintang, bandits and spies. What is even more commendable is that the bandits have not rekindled since then.

Forever eliminates the bandits in Hunan Province and benefits his hometown. Huang Kecheng smiled with relief.