In 1955, Wei Lihuang returned to the mainland of the motherland under the careful arrangements of relevant parties. He was the most high-ranking Kuomintang general to return from overseas after the civil war. Wei Lihuang became a senior general of the Kuomintang by virtue of his military merits, but because he had openly and covertly helped the Communists in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he was suspected and monitored by the Kuomintang's reactionaries, and although he was a general of the Five Tigers, he was always guarded by Chiang Kai-shek at every turn.
At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wei Lihuang personally commanded the Battle of Xinkou, and although the battle ultimately failed, the battle gave the Japanese a blow. Since the Japanese army entered the customs, it has not suffered such a heavy blow, and it has lost more than 20,000 troops at Xinkou alone. If it were not for Chiang Kai-shek's beloved general Liu Zhi's rout in Hebei, the Nationalist army would probably have won a great victory at Xinkou. Helplessly, Liu Zhi ran and Niangzi Guanyi was lost, which seriously affected Wei Lihuang's side, and he could only choose to retreat, otherwise he would fall into a two-sided attack. The Battle of Xinkou ended in a defeat without a fight.
What really made Wei Lihuang famous at home and abroad was in 1943, when he served as the commander of the expeditionary force and the Chinese army entered Burma for the second time to fight against Japan. The expeditionary force increased dramatically, and the Japanese forces entrenched in Burma were gradually wiped out. The Burma Highway was completed in its entirety, and international aid was continuously imported into the interior. Stilwell praised Wei Lihuang's abilities in his memoirs, saying he was the most talented general in the Chinese army. Chiang Kai-shek also knew of his talents, and together with Chen Cheng, Liu Zhi, Gu Zhutong, and Jiang Dingwen, he was called the Five Tiger Generals of the Nationalist Army. However, the other four can only ascend to the throne because of obedience, while Wei Lihuang is a solid superior. Among these five people, Chiang Kai-shek was most uneasy about Wei Lihuang, who was always in a state of war.
After the Xi'an Incident, the Kuomintang and the Communists unanimously went out at gunpoint to resist the Japanese invasion. In 1938, Wei Lihuang was appointed deputy commander of the 2nd Theater of Operations, assisting Yan Xishan in defending Shanxi. In the face of national difficulties, he advocated equality between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and that military supplies should be treated equally, and that one should not favor one over the other. Wei Lihuang advocated from the perspective of resisting Japan, but this move was suspected by the Kuomintang reactionaries, especially Chiang Kai-shek, who was still trying to prevent the Communist Party from gaining power when the country was in trouble, and his own tiger general actually wanted to distribute materials equally, which made him very angry, believing that Wei Lihuang had bad intentions and let the secret agents monitor it everywhere.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the suffering China fell into a civil war, and Chiang Kai-shek had 8 million troops in his hands, planning to spend a year to solve the Communist Party. However, what Chiang Kai-shek did not expect was that the superficially powerful nationalist army had rotted to the core internally, first failing to start an all-out war, and then failing to focus on the offensive. However, the People's Liberation Army is getting stronger and stronger, and the people's support is getting stronger and stronger. Soon, the decisive battle in the northeast began, the People's Liberation Army attacked the city in the northeast, and the territory of the Nationalist army became smaller and smaller.
In early August 1947, Chiang Kai-shek, who was in Nanjing, sent his confidant Chen Cheng to Shenyang to replace Xiong Shihui, who was already in a state of distress. In the face of the mess of the Nationalist army in the northeast, Chen Cheng was also helpless, and everything was under the remote command of Chiang Kai-shek in the distance. Two months later, the People's Liberation Army launched the Autumn Offensive, and Chen Cheng's 100,000 troops became cannon fodder. Just after January 1948, Chen Cheng's concubine, the New 5th Army, was reimbursed by a raid by the People's Liberation Army. Chen Cheng felt that the general trend had gone, and had no choice but to ask Chiang Kai-shek to send another person to replace him in the future.
Chiang Kai-shek scolded Chen Cheng for his incompetence and quickly appointed Wei Lihuang, who had just returned to China, to the northeast to clean up the mess. However, what Chiang Kai-shek did not expect was that when Wei Lihuang arrived in the northeast, he actually ignored his own orders and disobeyed them again and again. Chiang Kai-shek did not want hundreds of thousands of elites to be wiped out one by one, so he asked Wei Lihuang to transfer the main force to Jinzhou, so that he could rely on North China for support. But Wei Lihuang refused, believing that the People's Liberation Army was highly mobile and good at mobile warfare, and that it was very likely that the entire army would be destroyed before it could go to Jinzhou.
Later, the People's Liberation Army closed the door to fight dogs, to fight Jinzhou, Chiang Kai-shek asked him to send troops to support, Wei Lihuang was still unmoved, and then later, Liao Yaoxiang's corps was surrounded, he still decided not to save, angry Chiang Kai-shek scolded Wei Lihuang for shrinking his head tortoise.
During the Liaoshen Campaign, Wei Lihuang repeatedly refused to carry out the above orders because he was well aware of Chiang Kai-shek's personality. Chiang Kai-shek liked to conduct cross-level command, often issuing orders in the form of passwords, without any regard for changes in the war situation. If the command is good, it is better to say, if there is a defeat, it is that the people below are incompetent, and someone must bear the responsibility. Wei Lihuang did not want to follow the old path of others, or decided to act according to his own judgment.
In early November 1947, the People's Liberation Army advanced to the first line of Shanhaiguan, and the entire northeast was liberated. Chiang Kai-shek's mood was so bad that he issued an order on the 26th announcing the dismissal of Wei Lihuang from all his posts, on the grounds that he hesitated and lost his fighter. Wei Lihuang was imprisoned in a private residence in Nanjing and was monitored by secret agents all day long. In the face of the defeat in the northeast, the Kuomintang began to shirk, and some people took the opportunity to spread news that Wei Lihuang had been fighting with the Communist Party since the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and that this time he did not move in the northeast, which was a typical behavior of the Communist Party. Severe punishment should be imposed. However, this is all propaganda carried out by ill-intentioned people, there is no evidence, and the Trial cannot be carried out within the Kuomintang.
After the founding of New China, Wei Lihuang was not accustomed to Chiang Kai-shek's post-autumn accounting behavior in Taiwan and chose to return to the mainland from Hong Kong. In order to let Taiwan understand the mainland's policy toward Taiwan, he specially published a "Letter to Taiwan's Friends in Robes" in the People's Daily. He said that he had worked with Chiang Kai-shek for more than 30 years and was bent on fighting for him and fighting the world, but in the end he was suspected and suspected, and he really followed the wrong person, hoping that the compatriots in Taiwan would wake up as soon as possible.