Target plane, northwest of the Yanhuang Continent. With the bankruptcy of the "Four Horses" surprise attack on Shaanxi, all the troops of Gansu Wang Ma Buqing and Qinghai Wang Ma Bufang were surrounded, closed and annihilated. And the troops of the two brothers of Ningxia Wang Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin, on the contrary, because the battle was too wasteful, after seeing that the Red Party's resistance position was a little difficult to gnaw, Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin, who had been thinking about preserving their strength, actually planned to withdraw to Ningxia in advance, and finally when Ye Jianying's encirclement had just shown signs of closing, Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin gave full play to the advantages of not fighting as well as others and running faster than anyone, and led more than 15,000 cavalry to escape, of course, the remaining more than 50,000 offensive troops, They gave it all up.

At the beginning of September 1943, with the end of the encirclement and annihilation campaign, the 6th, 7th, and 8th columns marched to Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia provinces respectively according to the pre-plan. Among them, the 7th Vertical Xu Xiang Qian Division, under the deliberate arrangement of the Zhōngyāng Military Commission, took the route that happened to be the route of the Western Route Army's westward march that year, that is, the Five Buddha Temple-Forty Lipu-Zhangye-Gaotai.

In 1936, a total of 21,800 people of the Red Party West Route Army attacked Gansu, and more than 7,000 people died in the end, including 143 cadres above the regiment level and more than 20 cadres above the division level; After being captured, more than 5,600 people were tortured, killed, and buried alive; rescued more than 4,700 people who returned to Yan'an; There are about 4,500 soldiers left in Qinghai, Gansu and other places.

The most tragic death among them was Xiong Houfa, the commander of the 88th Division of the 30th Army, who was seriously wounded and tied to the barrel of a cannon by Ma Bufang and bombed to death. As for the captured female soldiers of the Western Route Army, the vast majority were raped and humiliated. And Qingma (Ma Bufang's subordinate) took the captured female warriors to the collective, took off their clothes and pants, inserted sorghum stalks on them, and tied them to the trees to show the public...... According to Mou Bingzhen, a nurse at the Second Red Army General Hospital, he recalled: "I grabbed you, took off your pants, cut the tree to a sharp point, and died like that." ”

Therefore, for the surviving soldiers of the Western Route Army, the history of the westward expansion is like an ugly, miserable, and unbearable old photo of themselves, and they are unwilling to turn it up and recall.

At this time, among the troops close to Gansu in the 7th Vertical, there was a special unit composed of about 2,500 people in the Zhengzhōngyāng of the column marching formation, and they were the survivors of the original Western Route Army specially recalled by the Yanhuanghong Party from various units and localities. Throughout the journey, not a single person in this unit spoke, and all of them silently sorted out their equipment and marched towards the place where they had appeared countless times in their dreams.

A day earlier, Xu Xiangqian, who was holding the heads of Ma Buqing and Ma Bufang (borrowed from Nie Shuai) in his hands, met with his comrades in the "memorial group" on a flat ground, and at the same time he ordered Jǐng Weilian to stand guard in the distance, and no matter what happened or what sound he heard, he was not allowed to come back and intervene.

According to the memories of Zhao Xin, a retired member of the Jǐng Weilian at that time, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was a cry at first on the flat ground, and then there were questions and curses, at that time they originally wanted to go back, for fear that the chief would have an accident, but they were stopped by the commander of the Jǐng Weilian Company, and finally, the questioning and cursing on the flat ground turned into a cry again until late at night.

"Old chief, it's Zhang Ye in front!" Wang Shusheng, deputy commander of the 7th column, said in a low voice.

"Yes!" When Xu Xiangqian heard this, he nodded fiercely.

Due to the total annihilation of Ma Buqing's main force in Gansu, the 7th column of troops crossing the Yellow River from Shaanxi to the west did not encounter decent resistance at all along the way, except for some diehards who were stupidly loyal to the Ma family to launch suicide attacks, and the rest of the place can be said to liberate wherever the army goes. And because Gansu was vast and sparsely populated at that time, more than one million people died in the entire Gansu Province, and the 7th column plus the 17th column of the support column had a total of 100,000 troops, so the remnants of the Ma Jiajun couldn't make any big waves.

"Report!" Just as Wang Shusheng and Xu Xiangqian were chatting, a Red Party soldier ran towards them on horseback.

"What's wrong?" Wang Shusheng asked.

"Report to the commander, deputy commander! The vanguard met a man in peasant clothes on the side of the road, claiming to be Wang Huaiwen, the head of the communication squad of the 75th Regiment of the Red Ninth Army of the former West Route Army! ”

"What?"

"Really!? Bring him over quickly, no, let's go over, Shusheng, go to the regiment (memorial group) to see if there are any comrades who know him! ”

"Yes!"

Ten minutes later, in a military command armored car, Xu Xiangqian, Wang Shusheng and two former soldiers of the Western Route Army who knew Wang Huaiwen sat opposite each other.

"Comrade Huaiwen, you have worked hard for so many years!" Xu Xiangqian saw the vicissitudes of life, and Wang Huaiwen, who had wrinkles on his face at a young age, comforted.

"Old chief, I didn't expect Huaiwen to have this luck, I saw you with my own eyes, and I saw with my own eyes that the Western Route Army was fighting back!" Wang Huaiwen said this, his eyes were red, and his tears were left uncontrollably.

"Brother Wang, don't cry, if we come back this time, we won't leave, and we will definitely avenge everyone!" It turned out that Xiao Wenting, a soldier who was in the same platoon with Wang Huaiwen, said.

"By the way, Comrade Huaiwen, how have you spent all these years?" Wang Shusheng saw that the atmosphere was too solemn, so he changed the topic.

"Deputy commander, it's like this, when I was in the battle at Liyuankou, I was hit by the enemy's shrapnel and was seriously wounded in the waist and legs. When I was about to die, I met an old Taoist priest who happened to be passing by, named Xu Hede, who risked his life to transfer me to different caves five times to avoid the search of Ma Jiajun. And every day he brought me water and food, and also applied medicine to treat my injuries. I survived. Hearing Wang Shusheng's question, Wang Huaiwen replied.

"I don't think you can walk very well now, are you sick?" Xu Xiangqian also asked.

"Although his life was saved, due to the infection, the pus and blood did not stop, and maggots were born. The old Taoist priest finally boiled coriander into water and poured it into the wound, smoked out the maggots one by one, and then scrubbed them with salt water and applied herbs to survive, but because of this, one leg was wasted, and the waist was a little unable to straighten up. Speaking of this, Wang Huaiwen took out two grenades from his arms and continued: "Commander, this is what I brought back from the battlefield back then, and it has been kept for 7 years!" ”

"You're suffering!! Don't worry, when you return to Yan'an, there are the most professional doctors and enough medicines, and you will definitely be cured! Xu Xiangqian saw the scars on Wang Huaiwen's legs and the grenades he took out, and his tears couldn't stop falling.

"Er~~~" Hearing the words of returning to Yan'an, Wang Huaiwen was a little silent for a while.

"What's wrong?" Wang Shusheng asked.

"Deputy commander, after I recovered from my injury, I went home in Zhangye, got married, and had a baby." Wang Huaiwen said a little crampedly.

"That's it~~" After Xu Xiangqian heard it, he was silent for a few seconds, and then said: "I don't blame you, I blame me for being incompetent, it's been 7 years since I left, 7 years~~~"

"Comrade Huaiwen, this is not a problem, this time after we liberate Gansu, the army will not leave, so you can restore your military membership and continue to work in the army, or you can work in the local area, and you must take care of it organizationally. As for going to Yan'an to see a doctor, you can wait until everything is settled, we will organize everyone to go together, or invite the doctor from Yan'an to come, and we will definitely cure everyone's illness! Wang Shusheng continued to persuade beside him.

"Thank you, two leaders, I am very content to be able to see the Western Route Army fight back with my own eyes. So many soldiers, cadres, and heroes who were with me sacrificed. But I survived, and I didn't die after drilling 8 holes in my body, so I was really content. ”

After another ten minutes, the 7th column army arrived in Zhangye, Xu Xiangqian and Wang Shusheng, under the guidance of Wang Huaiwen, went to Wang Huaiwen's house and sat for a while, comforted Wang Huaiwen's nervous wife, and left a large number of daily necessities such as grain, canned food, towels, quilts, salt and sugar, and left.

On the way back to the military headquarters.

"Shusheng, we must organize personnel to go deep into the lowest villages in Gansu, in addition to publicizing the policies of our party and our army, we must also collect the soldiers of the Western Route Army who were scattered among the people in Gansu for various reasons, we are sorry for them, it is time to atone for our sins!" Xu Xiangqian said in a deep voice.

"Yes, we have to get all our comrades-in-arms back and take good care of them!"

In this way, with the military supplies provided by Wang Fan, the Red Party liberated Qinghai, Gansu, and Ningxia provinces six years ahead of schedule, so that many historical tragedies could be avoided.

Yang Wenju, the wife of the Minister of General Supply, was killed in the battle, and she was more than eight months pregnant, and was captured by horse bandits in the Qilian Mountains. As a result, during the escort, because she was about to give birth, the enemy threw her away. In a common people's house, Yang Wenju gave birth to Zheng Menghai, the widow of ** Zhai.

Xiong Guobing, the former military and political commissar of the West Route Army, after the troops were dispersed, he consciously brought out so many young people from his hometown, all of whom died on the battlefield, went back without face, and stayed in Gansu incognito. After learning that the Western Route Army had fought back, he cried with joy, thus avoiding the tragedy of being starved to death in the heavy snow due to three years of natural disasters after the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Yi Mingqing, the former platoon commander of the communication company of the Red Fifth Army of the Western Route Army, was found from Shiwo Mountain, and in history he could not follow the transferred troops because of his broken leg, and hid in the Kanglong Temple under Shiwo Mountain to recuperate. As a result, after his leg was healed, he became a villager of Shiwo Village and never left Shiwo Mountain for the rest of his life.

……

With the deepening of the work of the propaganda search and rescue team, some soldiers of the Western Route Army in remote villages have been found one after another, and a considerable part of them are female soldiers of the Western Route Army who are living in the people of the three provinces and cannot return to Yan'an for various reasons. Crying loudly and jīng in a trance (until 1984, according to the survey statistics of the Gansu Provincial Women's Federation, there were still 231 female Red Army soldiers scattered among the people in Gansu Province, most of whom were female soldiers of the former West Route Army; There are 136 female Red Army soldiers scattered among the people in Qinghai, all of whom are female soldiers of the former West Route Army).

Two days later, in the camp of Ni's family in Linze, where the Western Route Army had held out for more than 40 days and finally more than 10,000 soldiers were wiped out, a temporary memorial platform was erected.

More than 2,500 of the "memorial group" are the soldiers of the original West Route Army, and these few rì have been found, the original scattered soldiers of the West Route Army, under the leadership of Xu Xiangqian, Wang Shusheng, Chen Mingyi and others, collectively bowed to the newly carved monument to the West Route Army.

"Put!" With an order from the captain of the salute team, the sound of the salute began to "bang, bang, bang".

"Brothers of the Western Route Army, we are back!" Xu Xiangqian looked at the handwriting on the tombstone and muttered to himself.