On January 1, 1935, the Party Central Committee made a decision to forcibly cross the Wujiang River at the Weng'an Monkey Farm. The Central Committee of the www.biquge.info of Bi Qu and Ge pointed out: "Establish a base area in the new Soviet region on the Sichuan-Guizhou border. First of all, the northern Qianbei region with Zunyi as the center, and then developing to southern Sichuan, is the most central task of our party and our army at present."

The General Political Department of the Red Army immediately issued the "Instructions on the Disintegration of the White Army in Guizhou Province." Commander-in-Chief Zhu telegraphed to all units of the Red Army that "the smuggling troops should not be less than one regiment" on the Wujiang River.

With the order of the central government, the Second Division of the First Red Army immediately entered the south bank of the Wujiang River, and the Red Fourth Regiment, which was famous in later generations, approached the crossing of the Wujiang Jiehe River, conducted fire reconnaissance, and prepared to cross the river.

On New Year's Eve in 1935, the commander-in-chief did not even eat the New Year's dinner, and wandered outside the house for a long time, looking up at the starry sky, thinking about the warning of the foreign adviser that "the Wujiang River is another Xiangjiang River" and thinking about how to make the Red Army cross the Wujiang River safely.

Wujiang River, the largest river in Guizhou Province, is a tributary of the right bank of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and was known as the Qianjiang River in ancient times. It originates from the Huayu Cave of Xianglu Mountain in Weining County, Guizhou Province, flows through Pengshui of Youyang in northern Guizhou and southeast Chongqing, and flows into the Yangtze River in Fuling, Chongqing City. The Wujiang River system is plume-shaped, the topography of the basin is high in the southwest and low in the northeast. It is famous for its rapids, many beaches and narrow valleys, and is known as "natural risk".

At several major crossings on the Wujiang River, the Guizhou army built strong fortifications, deployed a large number of troops and powerful artillery. Even more dangerous were the Central Army, which was outflanking the Central Red Army, and the Hunan Army, which was advancing at full speed in the direction of the Wujiang River. At this time, the seven divisions of the Central Army and the three divisions of the Hunan Army were less than a hundred kilometers away from the Red Army.

The Central Red Army must cross the Wujiang River before the main force of the Kuomintang arrives, otherwise the bloody battle of the Xiangjiang River will surely be repeated. The commander-in-chief made up his mind and ordered the Red Army to quickly cross the Wujiang River.

At dawn the next day, Liu Bocheng, chief of the General Staff who was in charge of the commander-in-chief of the forced crossing of the Wujiang River in the middle route, invited Zhang Yunyi, deputy chief of the general staff and director of the Operations Bureau, and entrusted him with the task of carrying out the task of smuggling or forcibly crossing the Wujiang River, and transferred the engineer battalion of the Central Military Commission column to undertake the task of building bridges over the Wujiang River.

Zhang Yunyi immediately rushed to the Fourth Regiment of the Second Division of the First Regiment and summoned Geng Biao, the commander of the Fourth Regiment, and others to come to the meeting. After briefly mobilizing, he pointed out with great seriousness: "The Xue Yue column that is tracking us is about to catch up, and the Central Military Commission urges our four regiments to quickly complete the task of crossing the river, and the requirement is that the sooner the better." ”

Finally, in a heavy tone, he said: "Comrades! If we fail to cross the Wujiang River, we will inevitably create a critical situation in the last battle and repeat the tragedy of the bloody battle on the Xiangjiang River, and that situation will be very dangerous, and our Red Army can no longer afford to consume it! ”

After the failure of the first attempt to cross the Wujiang River on New Year's Day, the comrades of the Fourth Red Regiment continued to work together to find a way to smuggle or forcibly cross the Wujiang River, while thinking about the five comrades including Company Commander Mao Zhenhua, who had no news.

At about 9 o'clock in the morning of the same day, the Red Fourth Regiment immediately convened an emergency meeting, and after study, it was decided that although the first attempt to cross the river failed, the Red Fourth Regiment was not discouraged, and immediately tied up 60 bamboo rafts, still taking the three bamboo rafts as the forerunner, and once again organized the troops to carry out the forced crossing.

In order to ensure the success of this forced crossing, the Red Fourth Regiment launched a fierce artillery bombardment on the defending enemy on the opposite bank, causing the enemy to be in disarray. Soon, three bamboo rafts carrying more than a dozen assault fighters, braving the bitter cold wind, one by one, naked, wearing shorts, carrying submachine guns, under the cover of the dense fire of the four regiments, struggled to row towards the north bank of the Wujiang River!

The Qianjun soon discovered the three bamboo rafts they called "water horses" that had crossed the Wujiang River, and they took advantage of the favorable terrain to shoot desperately. In an instant, the three bamboo rafts were under enemy fire, and it was a tragedy of the raft destruction and death.

However, at this critical moment, under the stone cliff of the Guizhou army's position, fierce machine guns suddenly sounded. Then there was another loud explosion of grenades.

Qianjun suddenly exclaimed: "The heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals have arrived!" For a while, he was in a hurry and in chaos. Taking advantage of the chaos of the Guizhou army, the three bamboo rafts intensified their paddling efforts, quickly rowed to the north bank, and took the Jiangbei position held by the Guizhou army in one fell swoop.

At this time, the Fourth Regiment discovered that it was Mao Zhenhua and other five warriors who failed in the first attempt on New Year's Day to make the enemy's position chaotic and exclaim, "Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals".

The commander who tried to cross the river for the first time on New Year's Day was Comrade Mao Zhenhua, commander of the third company of the Fourth Regiment, who led the soldiers to slide three rafts and rush through under the enemy's intensive firepower, regardless of sacrifice.

When they reached the river, due to the threat of enemy firepower, the other two rafts were washed away by the water, and only one of Mao Zhenhua's rafts struggled alone. After rowing to the north bank, there were only five people left on the bamboo raft, five of whom were Mao Zhenhua, Liu Changhua, Zhong Jiadao, Wen Zanyuan, and Ding Shengxin, who were later known as the Five Warriors of the Wujiang River Flying Crossing.

When they landed on the shore, because the enemy was outnumbered, the five men could not carry out the task of expelling the enemy and seizing the position, so they were trapped at the bottom of the Wujiang stone cliff and endured hunger and cold for a day and a night, until the next day, when the fourth regiment forced the crossing for the second time, Mao Zhenhua and the five climbed to the top of the mountain in one breath like tigers' wings, picked up the light machine gun and fired a fierce fire, and immediately occupied the enemy's main position.

Subsequently, the second echelon of the fourth regiment supported dozens of bamboo rafts, like dozens of arrows shot at the north bank of the Wujiang River, and under the control of the first echelon, they quickly reached the opposite bank and quickly occupied the enemy's position to defend the river.

However, the enemy, who had woken up from a dream, soon brought in reserves and launched a counteroffensive against our troops with powerful artillery fire, not only regaining the lost positions, but also pressing the Red Army soldiers who had crossed the Wujiang River to the riverside, and the situation became very dangerous again!

The covering firepower of the fourth regiment was limited, so the commander Geng was so anxious that he hurriedly asked the corps headquarters for artillery support. In order to race for time, Zhao Zhangcheng, commander of the artillery battalion of the legion, rushed over with only one mortar and a few mortar shells. At this critical moment, Zhao Zhangcheng, known as the "sharpshooter" of the Red Army, defeated the enemy with only five shells.

Zhao Chengzhang was originally the deputy commander of the artillery company in the Northwest Army, but he "voluntarily joined" the Red Army when he encircled and suppressed the Soviet area of the Red Army. Although he had no culture, under strict training, combined with his talent and combat experience, he developed superb mortar operation skills, and his shooting skills were very skillful, and he summed up many local methods.

When the troops crossing the river were at the last moment, Zhao Zhangcheng only used his left hand to hold up the cannon body without a gun mount, and relied entirely on his own hands and experience and technology to replace the aiming device, and only had five precious shells, which could not be test-fired and was not allowed to be wasted.

In this extremely difficult situation, Zhao Zhangcheng's five shells, which accurately hit the target in time, destroyed the enemy's machine-gun fire point.

Zhao Zhangcheng's accurate artillery bombardment enabled the troops crossing the river to seize the fortifications and gain time for the follow-up support troops to dock. At the same time, these five cannons were a great threat to the enemy who did not have too many heavy weapons and equipment, and they did not know that Zhao Zhangcheng only brought five shells. The enemy soldiers, fearful of shelling, began to retreat, and the defensive line completely collapsed.

Wujiang Tianwei was broken through by the hero's Red Fourth Regiment in this way!