"China only has fallen division commanders, not captured division commanders, and the Third Army must not start its cause."
In 1941, at the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain, when he was besieged by the Japanese and could not escape, he committed suicide in Xia County, Shanxi Province, and was martyred in a heroic way, saying this loudly.
He was Tang Huaiyuan, commander of the Third Army of the National Revolutionary Army.
Tang Huaiyuan
Tang Huaiyuan (1886-1941), a native of Jiangchuan, Yunnan, graduated from The Wutang in Yunnan, a famous general in the Yunnan Army, and the commander of the Third Army of the National Revolutionary Army.
In 1886, Tang Huaiyuan was born in Ma Liyuan Village, Cuifeng Township, Jiangchuan County, before he was one year old, his father abandoned him (there is a saying of death), Tang Mother Yao's mother, the relatives of no uncles outside, no rice in the inside, servants in the township squire Hou clan, bitter festivals to care for orphans. Tang Huaiyuan was slightly older, reading with Hou Shizi, because of his intelligence and studiousness, his mother was filial piety, and he was deeply loved by the master Hu Qishan, and was repeatedly funded.
In September 1909, in the examination of Tang Huaiyuan Township, he had to go to Kunming Province to pass the examination and enter the Yunnan Army Lecture Hall, and was incorporated into the second team of the C class, and was classmates with Zhu De and fellow villager Jin Handing. Tang Huaiyuan is taciturn, practical in his work, loyal to others, studied hard, and has a very good popularity among his classmates, which has won the praise of instructors and alumni. During this period, under the influence of Li Gengen's ideas of democratic revolution, he joined the League.
On October 30, 1911 (the ninth day of the ninth month of the old calendar), he participated in the "Chongjiu" Uprising in Yunnan.
On November 1, 1911, he participated in the Xinhai Revolution. When Yunnan expanded the new army, there was a shortage of junior officers, so more than 100 outstanding students were selected from among the students of the Lecture Martial Arts Hall and organized into special classes. Tang Huaiyuan, along with Zhu De and Jin Handing, was selected to join the special class, stepped up training, graduated in November 1911 eight months ahead of schedule, and was sent to the army as a platoon leader.
In November 1915, Yuan Shikai restored the title of emperor, and on December 25 of the same year, Yunnan first attacked Yuan To protect the country, and Tang Huaiyuan, along with the First Army of the Protectorate led by General Cai Yi, went out to Sichuan in January of the following year to fight against Chen Eun's Beiyang Army, serving as a deputy company commander. During the battle, Tang Huaiyuan was resourceful, repeatedly built up qigong, and was promoted to battalion commander.
In 1918, he was promoted to the commander of the Fifth Infantry Regiment and transferred to Yibin County, Sichuan Province, as the county magistrate, which was quite famous. In office, there is an inscription left in Leshan: spoiled and unfazed, liver wood is self-tranquil, moving and quiet, and the heart is self-determined. Diet is moderate, spleen soil is not diarrhea. Pranayama is taciturn, and the lungs are self-sufficient. Idyllic and widowed, kidney water self-sufficiency, less thinking to nourish the heart, do not move to nourish the bone, abstain from anger to nourish the liver, taste to nourish the stomach, provincial language to nourish the spirit, read more to nourish the courage, at any time to nourish the vitality. Sorrow is angry, anger is angry, fear is angry, restraint is depressed, and urgency is exhaustion. The desire to walk slowly and steadily, the desire to be fixed and respectful, the desire to sit upright and straight, and the desire to be low and harmonious. Clumsy words can be widowed, slow words can be exempt from regret, words can be far away, words can be blessed, and quiet words can be longevity.
Subsequently, he was promoted to brigadier general of the 15th Mixed Brigade and participated in the Yasukuni Campaign.
At the beginning of 1922, the Dian army was infighting, and Tang Jiyao returned to Yunnan to restore.
On March 10, 1922, Tang Huaiyuan left Dian with Zhu De and Jin Handing. In April, he reached Chongqing and joined Liu Xiang, the overseer of Sichuan, and in June, the Sichuan army was in a scuffle, and Tang, Zhu, and Jin left Chongqing to go to Shanghai, staying at the Mengyuan Hostel in Shanghai, and soon moved to Li Hongzhang Ancestral Hall in Huqiu, Suzhou.
On June 16, 1922, Jin met Sun Yat-sen, and then Zhu De went to Europe to study, and Tang and Jin entered Guangdong to participate in the Northern Expedition, starting with the Third Army and moving into Jiangxi.
In 1927, Tang Huaiyuan was appointed chief of education at the Nanchang branch of the Kuomintang Army School.
In October 1928, the Nationalist Nanjing government decided to reorganize the national army, and Tang Huaiyuan was transferred to the deputy commander of the 12th Division and the commander of the 35th Brigade.
In 1932, when the Wei Lihuang Department of the Kuomintang Army entered and occupied Jinjiazhai, Tang Huaiyuan was then the commander of the 12th Division and the brigade commander of the 35th Brigade of the Army, stationed in the area of Lianhua Mountain in Jinjiazhai Oil Mill, and Tang left his handwriting on the cliffs of the deep mountains. The content of the stone carvings includes: "Heaven and Earth Righteousness", "Meritorious Stone", etc., and the handwriting is strong and powerful, and the pen is old and spicy, which has a high cultural relics value. The moya stone carvings are located in the lofty mountains and are rarely visited, so they have been preserved intact, of which "Heaven and Earth Righteous Qi" has several large characters, each word is about two square meters in size. According to the memories of the local surviving old people, soldiers climbed to the top of the mountain, took the word mold and put a rope down, and chiseled stones on the cliff.
On March 8, 1933, he was promoted to the commander of the 12th Division, supervising Ganwan Ganning.
In October 1936, he was appointed deputy commander of the Third Army and commander of the 12th Division.
In 1937, the Anti-Japanese War broke out and he was promoted to commander of the Third Army. Tang Huaiyuan ruled the army extremely strictly, and whenever the troops went to a place, they explicitly ordered that they should not disturb the people, cause trouble, or violate the orders and severely punish them.
On September 19, 1937, the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, Zhu De and Tang Huaiyuan met at the Yangquan Railway Station in Shanxi Province. Subsequently, Tang Huaiyuan's troops turned to Yan Zhao, waved their troops to Jijin, participated in the battles of Jixi, Jindong, and Jinnan, killed the enemy at Jiuguan, fought hand-to-hand in southern Jin, and inflicted heavy damage on the enemy in the area of Niangziguan. On the battlefield in North China, Tang Huaiyuan led his troops to resist Japan, calmly and resolutely, and repeatedly defeated the stubborn enemy and Weizhen Huaxia.
In the summer of 1938, the Third Army led by Tang Huaiyuan was ordered to move from the northeast battlefield to the Zhongtiao Mountain in southern Jin. Mount Nakajō is a place where soldiers must fight. In order to defend this strategic position, the Kuomintang mobilized two group armies and 7 whole troops, an reorganized brigade, a guerrilla group, and about 160,000 people to defend Zhongtiao Mountain. The Third Army of Tang Huaiyuan's army, subordinate to the Fifth Army, was composed of Jian'er in southern Yunnan, guarding the area east of Wenxi and Xia County in the middle of the Zhongtiao Mountains. Beginning in October of the same year, the Allied Forces defeated 13 large-scale military offensives by the enemy and defended Tongluo. Whenever the situation ahead was dangerous, Tang Huaiyuan always personally went to the front to supervise the battle, saving many dangerous situations.
On April 17, 1939, Tang Mu passed away. In the autumn of that year, when the war eased slightly, Tang Huaiyuan took a leave of absence to return to his hometown to mourn, and when his father and elder learned that he was kneeling to greet him, Tang Huaiyuan got off his horse and entered the village, knelt down to pay homage to his mentor Hu Qishan, and gave silver 70 oceans.
In March 1941, the Japanese army secretly transferred troops from North China, East China, and the Central Plains, reaching more than 250,000, several times more than me, well-equipped, and pounced on Zhongtiao Mountain, determined to win.
On May 7, 1941, the Japanese army launched a rampant attack from the east, west and north in four directions, taking advantage of the danger of backwater and annihilating us on the north bank of the Yellow River. The Nakajō-san plane roared, the cannons shook the sky, and the smoke filled the air. The officers and men of our army fought against the enemy and dealt a head-on blow. Because of lack of preparation, there are no emergency measures, and there is no follow-up reserve force to remedy. On that day, our army's forward positions were breached by the enemy in several places, and the battlefield formed a shape of staggered teeth, and the communication and cooperation between our troops was blocked.
On May 8, 1941, our Forty-third Army, which was defending Yuanqu, had its position broken, counterattacked several times, failed to reverse the situation, and retreated early in the afternoon, allowing the Japanese army to take advantage of the void and divide the position of our army in half, and the entire battlefield of Zhongtiao Mountain was critical and dangerous. The headquarters of the commander of the theater ordered a retreat.
On May 9, 1941, when the other units of our army had already broken through and retreated, Tang Huaiyuan was still commanding the officers and men of the Third Army to fight to the death, with the spirit of defending the country and fighting for every inch of land, calmly and resolutely commanding the officers and men of the post, repeatedly charging and killing, the sound shook the sky, and the yellow river was swallowed!
On May 10, 1941, when Tang Huaiyuan received the evacuation order, he was already under siege and had no way to retreat. Tang Huaiyuan organized a breakthrough, encountered the enemy at Wenyu Avenue, and launched a fierce battle in the northeast highlands.
On May 11, 1941, the Third Army suffered more than half of the casualties, was attacked on all sides, ran out of food, and the rear road was cut off. At this critical juncture, Tang Huaiyuan gathered the three division commanders under him and resolutely said: "The current situation is dangerous, and our generation should make the greatest determination about their duties and personal way out, and when things are possible, they must do their best to restore the situation, otherwise they should preserve the personality of the country and the nation, so as to preserve the righteousness of heaven and earth." "The Chinese army only has the commanders of the dead divisions, not the captured divisions, so we must not let the Third Army start its end." Tang Huaiyuan ordered that the regiments be divided into pieces, so as to divide the enemy's position and break through separately. Tang Qin led a part of the Twelfth Division, marched towards the county hill and fought and walked, encountered a large Japanese army, rushed left and right, could not be surpassed, had to turn to the west, was in an unfavorable terrain, and was blocked by the enemy near the east junction. The corpses of the enemy and ourselves were all over the field, and the blood stained the loess mountains and rivers. Tang Huaiyuan personally rushed to the front, and our army fought a decisive battle with the enemy to the death, and the sound of killing was tremendous.
On May 12, 1941, Tang Huaiyuan led the crowd and fought and walked, and later he entered an earthen house on the top of the hill in Fanjiagou County, with only a few signal soldiers and operators around him. Tang Huai graduated from the Yunnan DaowuTang and joined the army for thirty years, experienced hundreds of battles, built many special awards, and was promoted from platoon leader to military commander. Now in a desperate situation, he wrote a suicide note in his notebook with the arrogance of a mighty mountain and river: "The rest of his body has been entrusted with the heavy responsibility of the three armies, and today's soldiers have suffered complete casualties, the environment is dangerous, and the two parts of the General Army have lost contact." After Yu's death, The commander-in-chief and chief of staff of Wangyu cleaned up the mess of their own army and continued to resist the war. He died in the line of duty with a drinking bomb at the age of 55.
Tang Huaiyuan, a famous anti-Japanese general of a generation, was generous and righteous, martyred the country heroically, and was moved by it for nine days, and the three armies wept for it.
After Tang Huaiyuan's death, the Nationalist government issued a special commendation order in February 1942, posthumously awarding him the title of general of the army. In June 1986, with the approval of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the People's Government of Yunnan Province posthumously recognized Tang Huaiyuan as a revolutionary martyr.