The weather during the Spring Festival in Siyang

The Republic of China, which is infinitely beautiful to many civilized people, is actually very dangerous. Apart from famine and plague, soldiers and bandits are killing people every minute. Until the founding of New China, the average life expectancy of ordinary people was only over 30 years old. Even in Jiangsu, the capital of the national government at that time, although it was known as the land of plenty, banditry was very serious. In the same year when the Northern Expedition started, an appalling case occurred in Suining County, northwest Jiangsu Province. Bandits slaughtered more than 800 people in the village.

Suining belongs to the Yellow River flood area in history, and the land is barren. In addition, after the rebellion of Nian Army in the late Qing Dynasty, floods, locusts and bandits frequently occurred, and people's livelihood was depressed. In order to prevent thieves and stragglers, local people choose to live in groups, and the village is large in scale. There are earth dikes (walls) outside each village, and trenches are dug to access by suspension bridges, so the place name is often called "a dike". Even this village has built its own turrets and formed an armed force to protect itself. At that time, this practice was common throughout northern Jiangsu, especially at the junction of Jiangsu and Anhui. Ten miles south of Gaozuo Town, Suining County, there is a large quarry called Shijiadun, also known as Shilidun. There are about 400 families in the yard, most of whom are surnamed Lu and Zhang. Most people in the market only want food and clothing, and only a few landlords surnamed Lu are relatively rich. The owner is Lu Ziyun, and there are directors Lu Zigui and Lu Kuiyi. In order to protect their wealth and local peace, they used the feudal clan forces to organize young and middle-aged villagers to open incense halls, set up "Red Boxing Club", practiced martial arts every day, and bought some guns and three local cannons, becoming well-known folk armed forces. After a long time, Shijiadun became the de facto boss of the surrounding village fair, and only Shijiadun followed suit in fighting bandits. Due to the strength of Shijiadun, not only do small bandits dare not rob easily, but sometimes they will be shot or chased by the congregation when passing through the stockade, thus driving the surrounding villages to cut off contacts with bandits (paying for food in a similar way to avoid robbery). In the long run, Shijiadun has forged a grudge with bandits, the most prominent of which is the bandit's "gourd ladle" old Wei San near Hongze Lake.

Who is old Wei San? In fact, he is also from Suining. 1895 was born in Xiaozhuzhuang, northwest of Shaji. His original name was Wei Qifu. Because he is the third brother and sister, he is also called Wei San. After a long time, it will be called Old Wei San. Because of his poor family, he fled to the east of Sixian County (now Sihong County, Suqian City, Jiangsu Province) south of Suining as a teenager, and worked as a long-term laborer in Chengtou, Sun Yuan and Vision Wei near Hongze Lake, mowing grass, raising pigs and herding cattle. One year, near the Spring Festival, old Wei San took two bags of corn from his boss and prepared to go back to his hometown. Unexpectedly, when he went to the VIP gathering, he was taken away by local ruffians and hooligans. This is a year's hard work! Old Wei San couldn't help being angry from the heart, and evil came to him. He won three real guns from a local landlord with a wooden fake pistol, and with the help of a distant cousin, he killed the grain robber. Good people can't do it anymore. From then on, old Wei San started his career as a bandit who robbed others.

Previously, when San was working in the village Chen family, he met Xu Hetu, a nephew of the Chen family who was a little older than him and was studying at that time. The latter colluded with officials and bandits, set up a fragrant hall in the local area to collect disciples and became a local tyrant, so he was worshipped as an "old man" (master). With the "integration" of officials and bandits as the backing, coupled with old Wei San's daring and cautious work and certain leadership skills, the bandit forces gathered around him expanded rapidly like snowballs and became the famous "girl" leader in the northern border of Jiangsu and Anhui, especially in Hongze Lake. Directly control nearly 1 000 guns. If you add the "tents" under his control, he used his familiarity with the surrounding conditions and reeds of Hongze Lake to turn it into his own "bandit nest". His activities are all over the northern part of Jiangsu and Anhui, extortion, burning, killing and adultery, and doing all kinds of evil, and he has become the most famous, powerful and harmful bandit gang around Hongze Lake.

Old Wei San, though cocky, ran into a hard nail on Shijiadun. Old Wei Sangang began to be afraid of the armed forces of his congregation and did not dare to fight recklessly. Instead, he managed to make ten docks main. On one occasion, Wei San wrote to Lu Zigui, director of the market, asking the market to prepare some rice noodles, eggs and pancakes for "serving". Unexpectedly, Lu Zigui did not show weakness, and sent a message to old Wei San: "There are no rice flour and eggs, only nails, plowshares (used as shells in soil cannons) and bullets!" Seeing this "stubborn land", Lao Wei dared to defy orders. On the one hand, I lost face, on the other hand, I wanted to give other villages some color to see. So, he threatened in public: "I can't beat ten piers, and my name is not Wei in Wei San!" The two sides are at daggers drawn, and the conflict is on the verge.

Liu Zigui and others heard that old Wei San vowed to crush ten piers, and also strengthened the combat readiness in an all-round way. Organize manpower to cut all the reeds in the ponds on both sides of the southeast bank to prevent bandits from hiding. It turned out that the east gate of Sanweimen was blocked with earth bags, leaving the north gate and southwest gate open during the day and locked at night. Throughout the market, broadswords and javelins were made at night, and many stone residues and stones were broken, transported to the market wall and piled there for later use. The residents in the whole area, together with some villagers from other places who escaped from bandits, were singled out and prepared to take part in the battle. Plus some courageous old men and women, * * * has seven or eight hundred people, who are on duty in the parade with weapons, especially the "Red Boxing Club" congregation, with bare arms, wrapped in headscarves, red belts around their waists and swords in their hands, vowing to do or die with bandits.

Old Wei San also kept his promise, and transferred more than 0/00 bandits/kloc from the upper, middle and lower lakes (formerly known as different areas of Hongze Lake), such as Liu Rongduo, Liu Guangyi, Chen Maozhao, Liang Jiashan and Deng Wu, and seized about 0/500 guns, which were distributed according to the size of Shunzhuang and Guandi Temple, ready to attack at any time. They also prepared several earth cannons, unloaded all the rake teeth of the villagers in the vicinity as shells to prepare for attack, and brought several ox carts to cross the bridge when crossing the outer trench.

On the afternoon of August 1927 and 17, it was dark with two gunshots, and a bandit attacked Shijiadun from three directions: east, south and north. There are people holding flags in the first three directions. The gangster wore a red cloth on his gun and a man stood behind him. He is of medium height, slightly fat and slightly black. He has a mole in the lower right corner of his mouth and a pinch of hair about an inch long. Anyone who knows will say it's old Wei San. When the robber approached, a call was made at the market, and the crowd shot back. The bandits attacked several times, once approaching the fenced wall, but were cut by the defenders on the fenced wall with knives, spears and stones. They fought fiercely until dark and were all repelled.

The next morning, bandits attacked again, and the situation became more intense, especially in the east of Weizi. Some places in the trench were almost filled with bandits' bodies. The bandits filled several ox carts with wheat straw, poured kerosene on them, lit them and pushed them to the gate, trying to burn them. The first ox cart was hit by a local cannon installed in the market, and even people and cars turned over the ditch. However, the second ox cart finally stood against the gate and was set on fire by a raging fire. Lu Huai Kong, the leader of the "Red Boxing Club" who commanded the battle in Weimen, ordered the fire. Unexpectedly, the bandits were shot and killed. When the polder gate could not be captured for a while, the bandits concentrated their soil cannons on the polder wall. The walls of many polder fields collapsed. Wherever it collapsed, the villagers filled it with door panels and soil bags, and then beat off the bandits who took the opportunity to come up. Guard Lu saw a gangster holding a small tree on the dike wall and trying to climb up, so he raised his broadsword and cut off the gangster's head with one knife, even the small tree.

In the afternoon of the war, all the bullets and gunpowder in the polder fields were used up, and the polder walls collapsed, so bandits invaded the polder fields. Although the congregation of the "Red Boxing Club" fought hand-to-hand with bandits, there were no reinforcements outside, and they suffered heavy casualties and were eventually exhausted. Old Wei San and his gang killed people, regardless of gender, age, and wantonly slaughtered and raped them. Ten families died in hell on earth. There is an elm nursery in the market, where many people who had no time to escape died, or were forced by bandits to sit on the tip of a knife buried vertically in the soil and stabbed to death, or were hacked to death and shot on the spot. A well in the northeast corner was almost filled with corpses, and the well water turned into blood. While killing people, bandits robbed everything they saw and burned houses. Even the pigsty and sheepfold were burned down. More than 3000 houses in the market were reduced to ashes, and many villagers hiding in the houses were also buried in the sea of fire. Some villagers tried to escape when the dike burst, but some women and children drowned in the moat because it was too deep. When the bandits retreated, they plundered 140 people, some were killed on the road and some were raped. According to the statistics afterwards, 827 villagers were killed and more than 40 people were injured in Quanwei. Three or four people in a family were killed, and some families were killed and separated from their families.

Only after the bandits completely retreated did the villagers and neighbors dare to return to the village to collect the bodies. At the end of July, the weather was very hot and hundreds of corpses were highly corrupt. Besides, they were bitten by dogs beyond recognition, and the smell of their bodies could be smelled miles away. The situation was terrible and became the biggest bloody case in Suining County. In Shijiadun, there was a Lu who later served as Suqian county magistrate in the National Government. At that time, he was studying abroad, and both his parents and sisters were killed in this bandit disaster. He took the lead in running around calling for help and asked the then Jiangsu provincial government to send troops to fight bandits and help the victims. He successively raised 17000 silver dollars to help survivors rebuild their homes, but the villagers were killed too much and their vitality was exhausted, and Shidun never recovered. The officers and men sent to "suppress bandits" colluded with the three gangs of Lao Wei and were repeatedly suppressed. Old Wei Sangang still committed crimes around, and a * * * did dozens of piles, large and small, before and after the Tucun massacre. For example, in the spring of 1930, old Wei San led hundreds of bandits to attack Wei Xiaopeng, four miles away from Jin Suozhen, burning and looting, taking away 18 guns and killing dozens of local people. The Commissioner of Huaiyin Department of the National Government once lamented: "A hollow land (referring to Hongze Lake) disturbs six counties."

1937, the full-scale anti-Japanese war broke out, and the Kuomintang Jiangsu provincial government moved from Zhenjiang to Huaiyin city east of Hongze Lake. In order to expand personal influence, Han Deqin, the governor of this province, adopted the strategy of "suppressing, appeasing and wooing" to Sany Group, and at the same time increased the intensity of wooing. Under pressure, Wei Sanlao accepted Zhao 'an in July 1938 and was appointed as the brigade commander of Jiangsu Independent Brigade by South Korea. He was stationed in Laozi Mountain opposite Hongze Lake with Wang's Jiangsu Standing Seventh Brigade. Old Wei San also gave himself a new name, Wei Zhixin. However, although the name was changed, the evil banditry did not converge at all. On the contrary, with the secret support of the Japanese puppet government, it has done more harm to the people, not only setting up checkpoints on the lake to collect taxes, but also often going ashore to rob and kill people on the west bank of Chengzi Lake, openly opposing the local political power led by our party, and even blocking the connection between the east and the west of the anti-Japanese armed forces.

1940 In March, the anti-Japanese regime of Siyang Eight Districts led by our Party was established, which governed six township offices, including Luji, Ji Jie, Taiping, Gaoji, Longji and Jinwei. Soon, the eighth district held a congress from all walks of life, and proposed a joint * * * to overthrow the old bandit Wei San. On the morning of March 20th, Lao Wei San and Gao Zhu and other lake bandits jointly attacked the eighth district, and were defeated by the self-defense forces of the eighth district, and they retreated for more than 30 miles in a row. In May, the 5th detachment of the New Fourth Army, under the command of Zhang Aiping, worked closely with the Suluyu detachment and Longhai southward detachment to drive the patron king of old Wei San out of the base area, and the bandits retreated into Hongze Lake. In August, under the command of jiangbei headquarters, Luo Binghui, commander of the fifth detachment, led his troops to cross the Sanjiang River in the north, which liberated the Huai River to preserve its territory and made the anti-Japanese base areas in northeast Anhui, Huainan and Huaihai become one. Through the continuous attack of anti-Japanese armed forces along the lake, the activities of the bandit department in old Wei San were gradually reduced. On September 16, Lao Wei led 1000 people to go ashore to grab food near Luji, and joined the 5th Huang Kecheng Department of the Eighth Route Army, which suffered heavy losses.

194 1 February, the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Division of the New Fourth Army returned to the northeast of Anhui and Qingyang Town in Shouke, and soon the results were extended to the surrounding areas, sweeping away the bandits' land strongholds along the Hongze Lake, defeating the bandits' department of old Wei San again and again in Luji and Tianji areas, and successfully entering the half city. In order to consolidate the base area in northeast Anhui and get through the water links between Huaibei, Huainan and Huaihai Liberated Areas, the 9th Brigade decided to eliminate the bandits in Hongze Lake. On May 2nd, the 25th Regiment of the 9th Brigade, with the cooperation of the 5th Brigade of the 2nd Division and the 4th Division 10 Brigade, launched an attack on bandits in the lake from the mouth of the old Bianhe River in Linhuai, the yellow wharf of Siyang and the Gaozui 3rd Road on the west bank of Chengzi Lake. After three days of fighting, most of the bandits in the lake were wiped out, and all the bandits in the old Wei Sanli were wiped out. Only he escaped by diving.

Old Wei San, who narrowly escaped the net, has never changed. He took refuge in Han Deqin again and became the head of the regiment. This time, he turned to espionage, organized "black killing teams", stepped up infiltration and lurking in our country, planned riots and incited rebellion. At first, it did have some results. Sun Dekun was admitted to the party, and Wei Baozhai, a distant nephew, even joined the Hongze Lake Administration established by the anti-Japanese regime and became the deputy director. However, the good times did not last long. These espionage activities were all detected by our public security department one by one, and Sun Dekun and Wei Baozhai were duly punished. It's not dark, it's bright again. /kloc-in the spring of 0/943, old Wei San followed Han Deqin and Wang and invaded Lirenji and Chengdaokou in Huaibei anti-Japanese base area, with the intention of coordinating the eastward advance of the Kuomintang die-hards in Mengcheng, Anhui Province, in an attempt to attack from east to west and destroy the main force of the 4th Division of the New Fourth Army. On March 17, 2007, the 4th Division took the initiative to attack Shanzitou Village, about 12 miles northeast of Jijie Lake. After 15 hours of fierce fighting, Han Deqin and others were captured alive and Wang and others were killed, but Lao Wei San escaped from the encirclement.

/kloc-One morning in March, 2008, old Wei San went to Qiuzhuang, about 20 miles away from Shanzitou Village, and knocked on the door of Qiu Xiangjiu's house, which he was guarding himself. Old Wei San said to Qiu, "As long as you send me to Yanghe, you can have as many oceans as you want. I'll leave you two boxes of guns!" While pretending to promise, Qiu Xiangjiu secretly sent his nephew Qiu to report to Xu Honglou, the township head of Tuyuan District. That morning, old Wei San, who was lying in bed and didn't get up, was caught with a gun. Old Wei Sanben thought that life was worse than death this time, but after two days, things changed again. It turned out that although there was always friction between the two sides at that time, it was after all a period of cooperative anti-Japanese war, and at the same time, the New Fourth Army decided to release all the captured personnel in the Shanzitou battle in order to reflect the rational, beneficial and restrained struggle policy.

Old Wei San couldn't help feeling something hanging on his chest when he heard the news. It seems that with the help of a civet cat, it really won't kill me! It turned out that old Wei San believed it, saved the day many times, and escaped, which was related to a "double-headed jade cat card" he wore with him. This "jade cat" was acquired from a landlord named Qin in the spring of 1930. He loves it at ordinary times. He wears it on his body during the day and sleeps under his head. The local people were fascinated by this, saying that when there was a "fire letter" (something happened), the "Jade Cat" would shake its body and remind old Wei San to run for his life.

But this time, Jade Cat can't save old Wei San. When the officers and men of the Ninth Brigade took prisoners of war to the Dawangzhuang headquarters near half the city, they passed by the land plane on the way. Old Wei San, who burned and looted here many times, was recognized by the local people who collected dung. The news spread, and the people heard that the old bandit leader Wei San was caught by the New Fourth Army, so they gathered more than 100 people and happened to meet Wei Guoqing, the brigade commander of the 9th Brigade. Everyone stopped the horse's head, explained the reasons, and unanimously demanded that the New Fourth Army immediately execute the heinous old Wei San. Wei Guoqing was really angry when he saw people. He immediately wrote to the correspondent to send him to the captain of the escort team to bring old Wei San who had gone to Nanqiao, Tang Huai, back to Luji. Old Wei San saw that the bearer only brought himself back. Knowing that he was in born to die this time, he sighed helplessly: It was God's will that killed Lu Ji!

At noon on March 24th, old Wei San was executed in a mass grave in the southwest corner of Lujixu. The onlookers did not feel wronged, so they stripped off their clothes and burned them on corn stalks. After hearing the news of his death, his wife and apprentice managed to transport the unrecognizable body back to Shaji's hometown and buried it in a field about 3 miles away from his ancestral home. Soon, people in Shijiadun heard that old Wei San was killed by the New Fourth Army and his body was transported back for burial, so more than 65,438,000 people took nails and shovels to dig graves and burn bodies to avenge them. The family only picked up some scattered bones and reburied them in the grave. At 1958, the people's commune finally razed the old Wei San's tomb, and this vicious gangster became history with his legend.