It is well known that the suppression of bandits was in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. More than ten years later, on March 26th, 1965, the spokesman of the Central Military Commission solemnly announced that the last two gang leaders in Chinese mainland had been annihilated. What's going on here?

Pursuing the distant memory, the picture of fighting bandits in Wuling Mountain area reappears in the smoke of history. In the early days of liberation, bandits were "a dime a dozen" in Xiangxi. With the close cooperation of the people of Xiangxi, our anti-bandit troops finally wiped out the bandits of the temporary division for more than a few years. Finally, only Mei Tian, the female commander of the bandits, and Qin Guoqing, her male deputy commander, disappeared.

His name is Tian, and he is from Lifta, Sangzhi County. She is stronger than most women, and when she was young, she was somewhat beautiful: a pair of phoenix eyes, a round face flushed, and long black hair tied in a flat bun at the back of her head. It is this woman with delicate appearance, but more poisonous than scorpions at heart. 1950 She is only in her early twenties and has been a bandit for many years. Holding spears in both hands is a provocative means of "ruling the nest" among bandits and a veritable female bandit commander. Qin Guoqing, also known as Qin Xun, is a famous "shoulder pole" leader in Wuling Mountain area. He is small and thin, but sinister and treacherous. At that time, he was appointed as a temporary teacher by the Kuomintang authorities. He once commanded more than 3,000 troops and fought against the PLA for half a year. After most of the bandits were eliminated, the two bandits who escaped by luck plunged into the underground cave of Lifta like lost dogs. Lifuta area is a rare cave area in the world. There are empty mountains everywhere underground, with holes in them and holes in them. What nine caves, Guanyin cave, big wind tunnel, cylindrical cave, ... are unfathomable and uninhabited underground caves. Tian Yulian and Qin Guoqing are hiding in Zidong Cave in Jiudian Cave. No fireworks were set off during the day. In the evening, they sneaked into the nearby countryside to steal rice, oil and salt, steal some necessities and kill time together. Female bandits who know how to treat herbs also dress up as local peasant women and hang out in market towns such as Lifuta and Taozixi, selling medicines, and then taking the money from selling medicines to buy daily necessities and bring them back to the cave. So a few years later. One night, Tian met Fan Shize, a former orderly who lives nearby. She held a dagger to his throat and threatened him to send meals to Huang Jiagang regularly in the future. Fan Shize was afraid that the female bandit leader would kill the whole family, so he had to carry a bucket of rice, two catties of suet and half a catty of salt every month and deliver them to the designated place at night. Cunning female gangsters are not completely at ease with Fan Shize. Every time she picked up something, she forced Fan to taste it with her mouth before she dared to take it away. In this way, bandits lived in caves for 15 years. Long-term cave life makes them have long hair and pale skin, which looks scary.

On August 26th, 1964, children Zhai Shaodong and Liu Chuanshu from Zhuyuwan Village chased the weasel and ran into a forest, where they were seen by two bandits hiding in the grass by the roadside. Two gang leaders jumped on him, one grabbed the other, gagged, blindfolded and tied up the two children. Only in the dense forest and thick grass can the blindfolds of the two children be untied. Two teenagers, only thirteen or fourteen years old, saw a man and a woman standing in front of them, especially Tian, who had two spears pinned to his waist, and immediately realized that they had met bandits. Because they have long heard adults say that Mei Tian and Qin Xun, the female commanders of bandits, have not been caught by the militia. I don't know whether they fled to Taiwan Province Province or got into a cave.

The female bandit leader has never raised a child. The purpose of catching two children is to make them call their mother! However, both children were stubborn and refused to scream. After Tian's coaxing and scaring were useless, he became angry from embarrassment, pulled out his pistol, and was about to hold a fire at two kids. When Qin Guoqing saw it, he quickly dissuaded him. He was worried that the gunfire would disturb the outside world. At this moment, the female gangster who killed without blinking an eye somehow felt pity and even rolled out a tear from the corner of her eye. She sighed, shaking hands can't hold the spear. The female bandit leader didn't embarrass the two kids any more, but blindfolded them, took them out of the cave and let them go.

Two teenagers out of danger came home and told the adults about their troubles. The parents of the children panicked and reported to the brigade and commune together. Only then did people realize that the gang leader was still alive, and they were a little nervous. They are especially alert when they go into the mountains to do things.

Starting from 16, the life of hiding in caves to avoid raids has made the gang leader's nerves extremely fragile. On March 23rd, 1965, Yu Biande, a villager from Rifuta, and other three people came to Gangbodong Valley to cut wood. When the two gangsters hiding in the cave saw the woodcutter approaching the hole, they were afraid to cut down the firewood in front of the hole and expose the hole, and they suddenly became afraid. Two people fired at the same time, three villagers were injured, 1 died.

Gunfire in the Gangpodong Valley exposed the trail of the bandit leader. The atrocities of the gang leader angered the local people's government. That night, the party, government and military departments of Sangzhi County held a joint meeting to deploy the work of fighting bandits. On March 24th, more than 2,000 bandit troops and armed militia surrounded the Gangpodong Valley and conducted a carpet search. At first, the gang leader and his wife used favorable terrain to resist. A militiaman was shot in the abdomen, and Nan Shu, the deputy instructor of the army, was shot in the chest and died on the spot. The pair of bandits walked to the entrance of the barrel guards, and the troops and militia approached the entrance step by step, firing mortars into it and throwing dozens of grenades at the same time. After a pause, the soldiers rushed into the cave and found the dead bandit couple more than ten meters away.