Before and after the Red Army established its first radio team
In December 1930, the Red Army captured the "half radio station" of the Kuomintang army.
foreword
The People’s Signal Corps started from the captured half of the radio station and grew rapidly in the war, becoming an important combat force of our army. Red radio waves transmit the party’s voice and issue the party’s orders, which plays a vital role during the revolutionary war. From the agrarian revolution in single spark can start a prairie fire to the arduous Long March, from the war-torn War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression to the magnificent war of liberation, and then to the war to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, red radio waves ensured the battlefield command and communication and ensured the coordinated and efficient actions of our army; Opened up a hidden battlefield and strengthened intelligence reconnaissance and confrontation against the enemy; Establish a publicity window for public opinion and expand the political influence of our party and army. In order to let more readers know about the development history of our army’s signal soldiers and radio undertakings, this edition has launched a series of manuscripts of "Never-Gone Red Radio Waves" from today, so please pay attention.
In 1931, the first radio communication team of the Chinese Workers and Peasants Red Army was established in the Central Soviet Area. Since then, the Red Army has used battlefield capture, class training and real-time application to overcome the difficulties of radio equipment shortage, lack of communication talents and lack of experience in application, and has developed and strengthened the radio communication cause of our party and army, providing effective information and communication guarantee for the central government to make decision-making arrangements and the troops to move flexibly and quickly, which is of great significance for breaking through the enemy’s military blockade and winning the war.
"Half Radio Station" lays the foundation
When organizing the "encirclement and suppression" of the Red Army, the Kuomintang already owned a long-wave radio station and used Morse code to send messages, while the Red Army mainly relied on sports communication and simple signal communication such as riding horses, messengers, whistles and bugles. Mao Zedong once said with emotion, "Without radio communication, the troops could not communicate, which seriously affected the operational command". Since October 1930, Chiang Kai-shek has mobilized more than 100,000 troops to carry out the first large-scale "encirclement and suppression" of the Central Soviet Area. At the end of December, two brigades of the 18th enemy division went deep into Longgang, the hinterland of the Soviet area. During the battle, the Red Army took advantage of the enemy’s shaky foothold, seized the favorable fighter plane, concentrated its superior forces to wipe out the enemy in one fell swoop, captured its teacher Zhang Huizan alive, and seized a 15-watt radio station with a spring lamp holder. The receiver and charger of the radio station were in good condition, but the transmitter was damaged and normal communication could not be carried out. Radio operators such as Wang Qian, Wu Rusheng, Wei Wengong, Liu Yin and Liu Shengbing, who were mobilized to join the Red Army voluntarily, became the first operators of the Red Army. Three days later, the Red Army annihilated the enemy’s 50th Division in the battle of Dongshao and seized an intact 15-watt radio station. On January 3, 1931, Mao Zedong and Zhu De cordially received Wang Chen and others, and ordered Wang Chen to set up the first radio station team of the Red Army. Zhu De pointed to the captured radio station and said, "No matter what weapons and equipment the White Army has, the Red Army will have them. If not, the enemy will’ send’ them to us."
On January 6, 1931, the East Room of the General Staff Office of the Red Army was arranged as a "newspaper room", and Wang Chen and others installed and tested this radio station for the first time. At this time, this radio station cannot establish radio communication, and can only be used to copy the news and telegrams of the Kuomintang Central News Agency. After debugging, the radio station received the first speeding radio wave. Mao Zedong praised the telegraph news sent by the radio for the first time: "This is a newspaper without paper!" Since then, the Red Army began to use this radio station to capture enemy radio signals and understand the enemy’s movements, which provided a strong guarantee for the Red Army to grasp the fighters, make correct decisions and win by surprise.
In mid-January, 1931, the Red Army set up its first radio team in Xiaobu Town, Ningdu, Jiangxi Province, with Wang Chen as the captain and Feng Wenbin as the political commissar. Later, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China sent Wu Yunfu, Zeng San and Tu Zuochao from Shanghai to the Central Soviet Area to strengthen the radio team. Mao Zedong, Zhu De and other leading comrades attached great importance to and strongly supported radio work. Zhu De almost goes to the radio station after supper every day to ask if there is any news. Mao Zedong also attaches great importance to radio communication. In the third anti-encirclement campaign, the Red Army assembled from western Fujian to Xingguo in southern Jiangxi. In order to break through the encirclement of the enemy, it was necessary to use the night to jump out from the gap about 20 kilometers apart between the two enemies. After the operation began, commanders and political cadres at all levels went deep into the company and demanded strict confidentiality of the operation. As the general political commissar of the Red Army, Mao Zedong is keenly aware that there is another loophole that may expose the whereabouts of the Red Army in the night-the radio signal of the radio station. He immediately asked the radio staff and learned that the radio station could not work without the key. So he sent someone to collect the call keys and give them to the guards and told them: No one is allowed to take them away until they reach their destination!
In view of the technical personnel who used to work in the Kuomintang army, Mao Zedong repeatedly instructed that we should do a good job in the unity of radio personnel, trust them politically, and even personally appointed Wang Wei to attend the Soviet Congress. For the business management and living arrangements of radio technicians, even if the Red Army was short of funds and supplies at that time, the monthly allowance for radio technicians was only much more than that of ordinary soldiers, and transport horses were given priority. With the concern of the Red Army leaders, the radio communication team has gradually grown.
Cultivate talents from scratch
After the establishment of the red army radio team, it mainly relied on retaining the technical personnel of the former Kuomintang army. The headquarters of the Red Army realized that in order to give full play to the role of radio stations, radio technicians were urgently needed. On January 28th, 1931, Mao Zedong and Zhu De jointly issued the Order of Selecting and Transferring Students to Learn Radio, and organized the first radio training in Ningdu, Jiangxi. Mao Zedong, Zhu De and other Red Army leaders often take time out to make situation reports and give political lessons to training classes. Mao Zedong encourages everyone to build an air bridge as soon as possible to connect the divided Soviet areas with radio waves. Zhu Deze encourages everyone to be not afraid of difficulties in building the Red Army’s radio communication career. At that time, the teaching conditions of the training class were very simple. The students used the shade as a classroom, the slate as a table, and the thumb of their left hand as an electric key to practice. The pencils could not be pinched with their fingers, and they were put on a small bamboo tube to continue to use. In four months, Wang Chen taught telegraphy and maintenance for the students, made electric keys from wood blocks and iron sheets, and made training equipment such as code trainers from old copper wires for 17 students to practice, and trained the first batch of radio communication personnel.
At that time, due to the tight blockade of the Central Soviet Area by the Kuomintang, the material conditions for the production of communication equipment were difficult. Wang Chen mobilized everyone to use local materials, smelt copper coins into thin copper plates for processing and manufacturing electrical components, and ground the horns into powder and pressed them into bakelite substitutes. With the unremitting efforts of the officers and men of the radio team, the Red Army finally formed the the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Radio Communication Network.
Since then, the training team has been expanded into the Red Army Communication School. Until the eve of the Long March, 11 radio training courses have been held, which have trained more than 2,100 communication personnel in telegraph, maintenance, telephone, company number and semaphore, which has had a far-reaching impact on the future development of China revolution.
Make a name for yourself in the fight against "encirclement and suppression"
In the complicated and fierce struggle against "encirclement and suppression", Wang Chen proposed that the telegraph could be used to intercept enemy electricity to obtain information. He asked the communication class to put the antenna on the top of the mountain after dark to improve the communication effect and withdraw it before dawn to avoid exposure. At that time, the Kuomintang army’s telegraph translator and commander had not realized the importance of radio secrecy. Every time the radio station started to contact, they asked the other party where and who was in the main direction. Wang Chen and the members of the radio communication team listened and captured the useful information of the enemy radio station day and night. Wang Chen is familiar with the call sign of the Kuomintang army radio station and the methods used by radio operators to send telegrams, so he can judge the name of the sender from the signal of the receiver, and then judge the arrival time, place, serial number, distribution and action intention of the enemy, and master the information of the enemy’s action direction, retreat route, arrival position and command order, which provides an important basis for the leaders of the Red Army headquarters to make strategic decisions. Relying on this important information, the Red Army concentrated its forces and made a breakthrough from the relatively weak enemy forces, which directly contributed to the great victory of the second and third counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression".
The Red Army’s good news came frequently, and Mao Zedong said happily in the military-civilian rally in the Soviet area, "We, the Red Army of workers and peasants, also have clairvoyance and ears.". In May, 1931, the Red Army seized a 100-watt radio station of the Gong Bingfan Department of the Kuomintang Army in the second anti-encirclement campaign. Radio technicians got in touch with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China through this radio station. On November 7, 1931, the first National Congress of the Chinese Soviet opened in Yeping Village, Ruijin, Jiangxi. In several earthen houses not far from the meeting place, technicians of the Red Army Radio Station, such as Wang Chen and Liu Yin, broadcast the text through the previously seized 100-watt radio station. The news that the first national congress of the Chinese Soviet was held in Ruijin soon turned into airwaves and spread to the distance. The earliest news agency "Red China News Agency" (the predecessor of Xinhua News Agency) established by the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the revolutionary base area was announced. For the first time, our party crossed the enemy’s "iron wall" through radio, and announced to the whole country the good news of the establishment of the provisional central government in chinese soviet republic and the election of Mao Zedong as the chairman of the provisional central government, which spread the good news of victory to the people of the whole country.
(Source: China Military Network)