The majestic power of the "boat" across the river

　"The victory of the Battle of Crossing the River depended on the people rowing out with small boats". On the afternoon of August 19 this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping, who was on an inspection tour in Hefei, Anhui, visited the Memorial Hall of the Battle of Crossing the River on the shore of Chaohu Lake to review the revolutionary history and remember the revolutionary martyrs. He warned the whole party: "at any time, we must not forget our original ideals and aspirations, bear in mind our mission, never forget the root of the people, and always be loyal people's servants."
　　organizational support movement
In order to ensure the people's Liberation Army to cross the river, since the end of January 1949, under the organization and mobilization of our party, the broad masses of the people have actively and enthusiastically devoted themselves to the work of supporting the front, raising food and grass, paving roads and bridges, and transporting ammunition day and night, setting off a large-scale upsurge of mass support for the front, providing strong logistical support and material support for the campaign, and giving full play to the powerful power of the people's war.
On February 8, the East China Bureau of the Communist Party of China established the East China Branch Front Command to uniformly lead the support work of the cross-river campaign. On February 15, the East China branch committee was established, and two rear branch offices were set up in Hefei and Chuxian County, Anhui Province, which were responsible for the work of the branch. The local front-support brigades went deep into the masses, patiently and meticulously did ideological education work, and publicized the truth that "Chiang's army will be defeated, our army will win, and crossing the river will win. At a meeting between the soldiers and the people, a middle-aged boatman said excitedly, "We are also from a difficult background. The Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army help our poor to live a good life. As long as I can send you across the river, I am worth my death! The Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army will surely succeed!"
Under extensive and in-depth organization and mobilization, the political consciousness of the people in the liberated areas is soaring, and it is better for the whole family to starve than to ensure the supply of food and grass for the army crossing the river. The people of Jianghuai and western Anhui alone provided 0.36 billion kg of grain and 36000 tons of firewood. In order to ensure transportation, people in northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui formed emergency repair brigades to actively cooperate with engineering troops to repair railways, highways and bridges along the way. The two sub-districts in central China rushed to repair 1169 kilometers of roads and 95 bridges. The people of northern Anhui are repairing 210 kilometers of the railway in the process of repairing the Bengbu-Suxian section of the Jinpu Railway and the Bengbu Huaihe Railway Bridge. The four divisions of Jianghuai have built two highways: Bengbu (port) Chuzhou (county) and Hehe (Fei) Pu (mouth). In northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui, 3.2 million migrant workers were mobilized to form stretcher teams and transport teams to transport supplies and the wounded. Hefei people transferred a total of 51.25 million kg of materials and 8500 wounded. Lai'an, Binghui, Jiashan and other counties transferred migrant workers to form 4 expeditionary stretcher regiments, 2 picker regiments and 3 picker battalions to continue to support the front with the army crossing the river, which lasted for 2 months.
　　Raising vessels, boatmen
To transport hundreds of thousands of troops across the turbulent Yangtze River, enough ships are important strategic materials to ensure smooth crossing. Tao Yong, commander of the 23rd Army, once said: "Crossing the river is all by boat, and the boat is the lifeblood." The Kuomintang began to seal the river in March 1949 and ransacked the riverside ferries. A small boat on the rolling Yangtze River could not be seen. Our party and our army have made active arrangements to form a recruitment policy of "relying on ship owners, using help heads, and educating armour", and have launched a detailed plan to raise ships and train boatmen. In the whole process, more than 50000 ships were mobilized, and more than 190000 boatmen participated in the war. Anhui is the main battlefield of the campaign to cross the Yangtze River, and the counties along the Yangtze River in the Jianghuai region are important bases for the campaign. According to statistics, Wuwei County alone has recruited more than 5000 ships and more than 2000 boatmen, while other counties have recruited thousands of ships and thousands of boatmen.
In order to solve the ideological concerns of some boatmen about risking their lives to send the PLA across the river, Wang Xuili, a company commander of a regiment of the Second Field Army, asked the old boatmen Li Pan and Yao Hai to show themselves to the masses, saying that "the PLA crossing the river is to liberate the whole of China and to turn over the people to be masters." the common people who have lived in the Kuomintang-controlled areas for a long time felt the same way, and said one, it is the army that truly conquers the world for the people." They salvaged the boats sunk in the river and the river, pasted the red paper slogan "Crossing the river will surely win" on the mast, and made up their minds to send the People's Liberation Army across the Yangtze River.
Guijiaba Village, Tietong Township, Zongyang County, is one of the earliest liberated areas in Anqing, and it is also the earliest crossing point selected by our army in the battle of crossing the river. The father and son of Chen Wenyi and Chen Zhenghua, who have been fishing in the Caizi Lake next to Guijiaba Village for a living all the year round, are very familiar with the hydrology of the river and the terrain on both sides of the river. They took the initiative to sign up as boatmen and formed a sailor training team together with the PLA soldiers. They helped the "land duck" soldiers from the north to overcome their fear of water and practice their skills in water warfare. They paired up with the soldiers to become "swimming coaches" and introduced the soldiers to the wind, wind and waves, water speed, river tides, reefs and other waters of the Yangtze River ...... More than a month of eating, living and training together, so that the father and son and the PLA formed a deep relationship. In mid-April, the head of the field army in charge of the crossing of the Zongyang River personally selected a group of boatmen as the vanguard, and Chen Wenyi and his son were gloriously elected.
　Qian Fan Crossing the Yangtze River
On April 20, 1949, the KMT refused to sign the peace agreement, and the KMT talks broke down. In the early morning of April 21, Chairman Mao Zedong and Commander-in-Chief Zhu De issued the "Order to March to the Country". The Second and Third Field Armies of the Chinese People's Liberation Army chanted the slogan "Go across the Yangtze River and liberate the whole China". Crossing the Yangtze River on the thousands of miles from the mouth of Jiujiang Lake in the west to Jiangyin, Jiangsu, in order to destroy the withered and decadent, the force flew the sky, breaking the Yangtze River.
At 8:30 that night, signal flares from each ferry were fired into the sky like thousands of arrows. At the moment, thousands of wooden boats in the north of the Yangtze River were loaded with PLA soldiers, and they were sailing in a mighty force. On the other side of the Yangtze River, ferry workers from Nanjing Xiaguan Power Plant and Xiaguan locomotive depot crossed the river to meet the PLA. The overturned water police station drove patrol boats to Pukou of the Yangtze River, where the PLA is located. Thousands of fishermen risked their lives to snatch out the fishing boats docked in the inland river and rowed to the opposite bank to meet the PLA. The whole river was rumbling with guns and flames, and the ships never stopped coming and going, shuttling between the water columns exploded by shells. Jiang Ruifu, a soldier of the 27th Army of the Nine Soldiers Regiment of the Three Wild Forces, once sighed, "We were sent across the Yangtze River by ordinary people in the north of the Yangtze River with both hands." Sister Ma Mao, the first boat to cross the river, Zhang Xiaohua, the first boat to cross the river, the special class hero Che Shengke, the tiger hero Ding Guangtian ...... Thousands of former boatmen gave up their lives and drove a million people's liberation army to the front line in the south of the Yangtze River, completely shattering the dream of the Kuomintang reactionaries to "draw the river and rule.
On the night of April 20, Anhui Wuwei boatman Che Shengke carried the assault troops across the river to the other side of the river. As we reached the landing point in the south of the Yangtze River, the enemy's bunkers fired all together. Many soldiers in a platoon on the ship were shot. Che Dewang and Che Shengfu, the father and second brother of the boatman Che Shengke, also fell down one after another. In the face of the heavy artillery fire, Che Shengke was fearless and shook his oars desperately. He was shot in his left hand and was bleeding. The soldiers wanted to help him into the cabin for first aid, but he gritted his teeth and said, "Leave me alone, I can stick to it!" From the night of the 20th when the first commando was sent across the river to the 26th when the Jiangbei Liberation Army was completed, Che Shengke and his boat rowed back and forth on the river for 7 days and 7 nights. After the Battle of Crossing the River, the Command of the Third Field Army of the People's Liberation Army awarded Che Shengke the title of "Crossing the River Special Hero" who was injured three times. In 1951, he was invited to Beijing to attend the National Day ceremony and was received by Mao Zedong.
Rolling Yangtze River, Pentium. We have never and cannot forget the countless martyrs and people who sacrificed for the great battle 71 years ago. In the battle of crossing the Yangtze River, 10 ordinary people were supporting one PLA commander. The victory of the battle of crossing the Yangtze River depended on the full support of the people. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed: "the foundation of the Communist Party of China lies in the people and the blood lies in the people." The Chinese Communists in the new era must persist in taking the people as the center, and gather the "small boats" supported by the people into a majestic force to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Source: Learning Times