On August 7, 1944, the Tenth Army of the National Revolutionary Army summoned four division commanders to discuss countermeasures: "We have been defending Hengyang for 47 days. At present, we have also seen the situation, the food has been eaten, and the bullets and shells have been gone. There are still so many brothers in the city who are injured and have not been treated. ”
He looked at the four division commanders and said helplessly: "I have sent many telegrams requesting assistance from the Chongqing Military Commission, but I have not seen reinforcements and food and ammunition for a long time." I felt that Chongqing had abandoned us, and I decided that our army would ask the Japanese to stop the war immediately. ”
A division commander immediately stood up against it: "Commander, isn't that surrender?" We all insisted for 47 days and couldn't do it, so that people would think we were traitors. ”
Fang Xianjue further explained: "Instead of unconditionally surrendering, we asked them to promise not to kill the prisoners and to treat the wounded officers and men. If we don't do this, our army will still be annihilated by the Japanese army, and surrendering will still save the lives of our brothers. ”
Fang Xianjue's words made everyone fall into contemplation, whether to descend or not to descend.
Another division commander said: "I agree with the commander's suggestion, if you don't surrender, everyone will die, and if you surrender, you may still have a way to live." The other two division commanders said, "I agree with the commander's decision." The dissenting division commander looked at everyone and said, "Okay, since everyone has decided so." I agreed. ”
What kind of person is Fang Xianjue? Is he a traitor? This has to start with his entry into the Whampoa Military Academy.
Fang Xianjue, born in 1905, a native of Xiao County, Xuzhou Province, Jiangsu Province, was born in a family of squires, with 5 brothers in the family, he was the third oldest, and he studied in a private school since childhood. Under the influence of Confucianism, he had lofty ambitions from an early age and aspired to become a lawyer.
In September 1924, Fang Xianjue was admitted to the law department of Shanghai Fazheng University as he wished, and came into contact with the Three People's Principles (nationalism, civil rights and people's livelihood) proposed by Sun Yat-sen in the school, and began to germinate revolutionary ideas.
In 1925, Wang Zhonglian, a graduate of the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, went to Shanghai to secretly enroll students for the military academy, and Fang Xian, who was full of patriotic enthusiasm, felt the news and decided to give up his original favorite lawyer profession, took the initiative to apply for the Whampoa Military Academy, and through layers of selection, became a recruit of the third phase of the Whampoa Military Academy.
After half a year of arduous training, Fang Xianjue officially became a military cadet. During the training, one day, Fang Xianjue and his classmates found that the school food had suddenly deteriorated. He could not understand that as a school that cultivated the warlords of the Beiyang Dynasty, it should be kind to the students of the military academy, who were after all the pillars of the future.
He went to secretly ask a guy who had a good relationship with him, and it turned out that it was not because of the level of the guy's cooking, but because the ingredients transported to the warehouse every day suddenly became less, and there was no meat at all.
The man suspected that the quartermaster might have been corrupt, the cost of food was reduced, and the ingredients were naturally reduced. When Fang Xianjue heard this, he was furious, thinking that he and his classmates had originally come here to learn combat skills and serve the country, but they did not expect to be profited by such profiteers, and their hearts were very unpleasant.
He immediately went back to tell his classmates about it, and someone shouted, "Let's go teach that nasty quartermaster a lesson." The other students also agreed, and Fang Xianjue picked a few of the best students and took the lead in seeking justice from the quartermaster.
As soon as Fang Xianjue saw the quartermaster, without saying a word, he directly rushed up, a fist hit his head, the classmates saw the situation, and also rushed up, you punched, I kicked the quartermaster down, the quartermaster was beaten to the nose and face swollen, rolling straight on the ground.
The patrolling guards saw this and hurriedly pulled the students away, and the quartermaster lay on the ground, holding his head, and screaming in pain. However, the top management of the school did not ask about the cause of the incident and directly expelled Fang Xianjue. At this time, he was less than a month away from graduation!
Fang Xianjue joined the army after leaving school, and his behavior of rushing ahead and fighting for people has not changed. Although his impulsive personality once made him suffer losses, he always rushed forward with all his strength when fighting, but slowly made a name for himself.
He rose from company commander and battalion commander to military commander. Fang Xianjue had a high prestige in the army, so why was everyone willing to fight for him? He cherished his soldiers. Once, when he was inspecting his troops in the Battle of Changsha, the soldiers were sitting on the ground eating according to the rules, and when they saw Commander Fang Xianjue coming, they immediately threw down their rice bowls, stood up, and saluted him.
Fang Xianjue thought that this would disturb the soldiers' eating, so he changed this rule, and no matter what officer came to inspect in the future, the soldiers did not need to stand up and salute during the meal time. He said: "Being a soldier is so bitter that you can't even eat a full meal, how can you do it?" ”
At that time, the soldiers made the mistake of wanting to spank, and Fang Xianjue said to the person in charge of spanking: "The sound of hitting the ass with a flat shoulder is not loud enough, you will hit the flat burden on the ground later, so it will be louder." In fact, he was reluctant to beat the soldiers, so he used this way to reduce the punishment of the soldiers.
Fang Xianjue made great contributions to the Northern Expedition to the Battle of Taierzhuang and the Battle of Changsha from the Beginning of the Northern Expedition. However, the defense of Hengyang made Fang Xianjue change from an "anti-Japanese patriotic hero" to a "traitor who defected to the enemy". What the hell is going on in this war?
In 1944, the Japanese army lost in the Pacific War, in order to reverse the situation, they pointed their claws at China, intending to open up the northeast of China to Vietnam communication route, gathered 500,000 troops, implemented the "No. 1 Operation" plan, and began the largest offensive since the invasion of China, the main firepower concentrated in Henan, Hunan and Guangxi provinces.
In April 1944, the Japanese army occupied Zhengzhou, in May Xuchang and Luoyang fell consecutively, on June 18, Changsha in Hunan Province fell one after another, and on June 23, the Japanese army began to target Hengyang.
Hengyang is known as the gateway and military throat of the southwest, occupies an important strategic position, and is the intersection of the Guangdong-Han Railway and the Xianggui-Guiqian Railway. In order to get this piece of fat meat, the Japanese army did not hesitate to mobilize more than 100,000 of them to frantically attack Hengyang.
In May 1944, Chiang Kai-shek made Fang Xianjue the commander of the Tenth Army, asked him to hold out for 10 days, gave him only 17,000 troops, ordered him not to enter Hengyang, guarded outside Hengyang City, and promised reinforcements. As a result, this guard was kept for a full 47 days. How did he do it?
In order not to waste a bullet, Fang Xianjue issued an order to the whole army to "three no fights", do not fight what is invisible, do not fight if you are not accurate, do not hit if you cannot hit, and let every bullet take the life of a devil!
Fang Xianjue led several senior generals to the slope in front of him to inspect the situation. As a result, the Japanese not far away saw them and immediately threw shells directly at them.
Seeing this shell coming, everyone was frightened and rushed to the bottom of the slope to lie down. Fang Xianjue not only did not dodge, but stood upright on the slope, his eyes did not blink, he felt that he was the main general, a shell fell down and was going to run, unlike words. His adjutant saw this and immediately dragged him down the slope.
The shell landed not far from them, and as a result, no sound was heard for a long time, and it turned out to be a dud bomb, a false alarm. As a general, Fang Xianjue was not afraid of danger in the face of life and death.
Fang Xianjue established the defensive position at a commanding height outside Hengyang City, surrounded by small hills and small mountain bags. According to this geographical situation, Fang Xianjue cut off the slope of the slope and turned it into a cliff at a right angle of 90 degrees, and dug a trench 15 meters deep and 15 meters wide under the cliff, which was called "Fang Xianjue Trench" to defend Hengyang against foreign enemies.
In the process, fang Xianjue's grenades from the Tenth Army rained down on the trenches, and the Japanese army wandered around in the trenches, with nowhere to escape. Because it was a vertical cliff, the Japanese army did not shoot at Fang Xianjue's troops at any angle, and could only shoot madly into the air.
Even if they want to retreat, they must climb out of the 15-meter-high trench with a ladder, like a caged bird, and it is difficult to fly with wings. Fang Xianjue's trench extended the time of the Japanese charge, and the Japanese suffered heavy losses.
Of course, the Japanese could not sit still, they came up with many other methods, once used shells to blow up the southwest tiger-shaped nest position into a slope, the trench collapsed in an instant and lost.
At the Zhangjiashan and Wuguiling positions, the Japanese used the method of gas release, and as a result, this position was also lost. During the Defense of Hengyang, the Japanese released a large amount of poison gas, and Fang Xianjue's troops could only wear gas masks or cover their mouths and noses with wet towels. Even though the Japanese army came up with three methods: building ladders, shelling cliffs, and releasing poison gas, they still suffered heavy casualties.
The Japanese army praised the "Fang Xianjue Trench": "This great defensive fortification, which was first seen in the war, is the crystallization of the wisdom and efforts of the Chinese army in fighting with our army for many years. ”
Fang Xianjue's Tenth Army desperately guarded Hengyang, killing a large number of enemy troops, while eagerly waiting for the arrival of reinforcements, he repeatedly sent telegrams to Chongqing asking for reinforcements, but the reinforcements did not arrive, and even the weapons and ammunition supported were missing.
Fang Xianjue and his Tenth Army were dying and struggling in Hengyang for 47 days, killing about 20,000 enemy troops, wounding nearly 60,000 enemy troops, and finally running out of food, leaving only 1,200 defenders, he found that he and his Tenth Army had become outcasts, in a situation of isolation and helplessness, and a large number of wounded and sick people were still in the city without timely treatment.
On August 7, 1944, the day before Fang Xianjue's surrender, after disbanding the military department, he sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek of the Chongqing Military Commission at that time, claiming that this was probably his last telegram, and wrote the four big characters of "Goodbye in the Next Life" on behalf of all the division commanders of the Tenth Army.
Fang Xianjue remembered that Hengyang, which had been fighting on the front line for 47 days and had sacrificed his life and death to defend it, would eventually be lost, so he pulled out the pistol behind his right waist in frustration and pulled the trigger on the temple, intending to end his life. At this time, wang Zehong, the aide-de-camp beside him, discovered this scene, and immediately stepped forward to grab his arm, and the bullet slammed through the roof, Fang Xianjue did not expect that his subordinates would save him, and he could not help but feel very lost in his heart.
At this time, he thought that there were still wounded soldiers who were still in the water and needed his rescue, so he resolutely gave up the idea of suicide and sent Sun Mingyu, chief of staff, and Zhang Guangkuan, deputy director of the department, to discuss the armistice with the Japanese commander.
He demanded that the enemy army not harm the prisoners and treat the wounded soldiers, but the enemy did not agree to Fang Xianjue's conditions, but reorganized the Tenth Army, and demanded that Fang Xianjue continue to serve as a military division, otherwise he would kill all the wounded soldiers, and he was forced to agree. Fang Xianjue asked the Japanese army to treat the wounded soldiers, but was refused. Later, the Japanese army still did not trust him and imprisoned him in the Catholic Church.
During this time, he developed a high fever and refused to accept medical treatment from Japanese doctors.
Three months later, Dai Kasa and others sent people to rescue him, and he fled back to Chongqing. When they arrived in Chongqing, Chairman Jiang received him and said to him: "Hengyang has fallen, the responsibility is not on you, you have done your best." At the same time, Jiang awarded Fang Xianjue and his five generals the Order of qingtian and white sun, and each of the condolence money was 1 million yuan.
Chiang appointed Fang Xianjue as deputy commander-in-chief of the 37th Group and commander of the 207th Division of the Youth Army, and his five subordinates were also given military powers. The Battle of Hengyang led by Fang Xianjue was a city defense battle in which china engaged in a head-on battle with a small number of enemy majorities, the largest number of enemy casualties, and the longest duration since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Fang Xianjue and his fighters crushed the Japanese army's ambition to take Hengyang in 3 days and open up the southwest communication route in 7 days.
Sun Tzu said that the prophet wins by means of a pedantic strategy. War is not about attacking forward to win, and a roundabout way of fighting can also bring greater benefits. Fang Xianjue took advantage of the terrain of Hengyang to tailor the "Fang Xianjue Trench" for the Battle of Hengyang, which made the Japanese army feel frightened and lost a large number of enemy troops.
Liu Bocheng commented on Fang Xianjue: "This man is as cunning as a rabbit and as fierce as a tiger, and he is also a fierce general of the national army." Chairman Mao spoke highly of the Jiefang Daily in Yan'an that the fighters who insisted on Hengyang were heroic.
Although Fang Xianjue's surrender has caused many people to disagree, we must also look at him with an objective attitude. He made a significant contribution to the War of Resistance Against Japan, annihilating 20,000 enemy troops and wounding 60,000 people in the Defense of Hengyang, which is rare since the War of Resistance Against Japan.
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Author: Zero Lu Jinghao
EDIT: Follow the memories
Typography: Mu Xi