During the Great Wall War, Zhang Zizhong led the 38th Division of the 29th Army to a fierce battle with the Japanese army at Xifengkou. After the 29th Army withdrew from Pingjin, he credulously believed the lies of the Japanese army, leaving a curse: after the Japanese army occupied Peiping, he absconded in disguise, and was later scolded as a traitor by the Chinese. Later, when Zhang Zizhong came to Jinan and wanted to join the "fleeing general" Han Fuyu to participate in the War of Resistance, he stood outside the door and heard Han Fuyu in the living room say, "What is this traitor coming to me for?" Hearing this, Zhang Zizhong left in tears, and Han Fuyu was later shot by Chiang Kai-shek for losing Jinan without firing a shot.
In order to wash away the crime of adultery, Zhang Zizhong returned home at night, arranged the aftermath, gave his daughter and cousin a little money each, saying that it was their dowry, and then quietly left in a robe and a top hat, which was the last face he saw the children. Zhang Zizhong came to Nanjing to defect to Li Zongren. He was full of shame and bowed his head, and Li Zongren, Feng Yuyan, and Song Zheyuan, the commander of the 29th Army, tried to protect Zhang Zizhong in front of Chiang Kai-shek, who asked him to make meritorious contributions to the crime and serve as the commander of the 59th Army, which was expanded from the 38th Division.
Zhang Zizhong returned to the 59th Army, and he said to the generals: "I came back to die." "In the Battle of Taierzhuang, Linyi was in danger, and Li Zongren ordered Zhang Zizhong to break the siege. At that time, the Japanese army trapped in Linyi City was Pang Bingxun, the commander of the Third Army, and during the Central Plains War nine years ago, Zhang Zizhong and Pang Bingxun, who were also Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army, fought against the Central Army, Pang Bingxun rebelled against Feng and surrendered to Jiang, and secretly attacked Zhang Zizhong at night, so that Zhang Zizhong almost died. Zhang Zizhong swore: "In this life, I will not work with such unrighteous and unkind villains." However, at this time, Zhang Zizhong put aside his personal thoughts and rushed to Linyi to rescue Pang Bingxun, saying in a telegram to the front line: "Death in battle, although death is still alive, life without war, although life is still dead." In this battle, the 59th Army annihilated more than 5,000 Japanese troops and rescued Pang Bingxun.
In those years, Zhang Zizhong said the most a word was "death", and the most said sentence was "If I die, the country will live, and if I am born, the country will die." From the moment he left Peiping, he thought about dying in battle, and from the moment he left his daughter and nieces, he thought of not coming back. He wanted to use death to wash away the crime of adultery. Whenever the war situation was critical, Zhang Zizhong rushed to the front with the guard battalion, and the war situation was reversed.
Later, Zhang Zizhong was promoted to commander of the 33rd Group Army, and many generals, considering their safety, often advised him not to be a pioneer in battle, not to rush to the front, and to put his own life first. Zhang Zizhong said that when Japan dares to bully china, it means that Chinese afraid of death, and if we are not afraid of death, will the Japanese dare to be so rampant? I am dead, the commander-in-chief still has people to be there, and there are still people leading you to resist the war, what are you afraid of? Zhang Zizhong also said in his conversation with Sun Lianzhong, commander of the Second Army, that he should wait for the opportunity, sacrifice himself to become a benevolent person, and set an example for the whole army.
The time soon came to sacrifice oneself for humanity. In May 1940, the Battle of Zaoyi began. Five days after the start of the war, Zhang Zizhong did not listen to the general's persuasion, and after arranging the offensive and defensive arrangements of various units, he entrusted the affairs of the army to his agent, General Feng Zhi'an, and then went to the east bank of the Xiang River, where the battle was most fierce, to block the Japanese army.
General Zhang Zizhong has always lived a simple life, wearing cloth clothes and shoes, and not wearing a hat, and in that river crossing battle, he put on the general's uniform and put on a big brimmed hat, and everyone understood that the general was going to die with the Japanese army this time.
General Zhang Zizhong led 2,000 soldiers to aid Hedong, at that time, the three divisions of Hedong fought separately, suffering heavy casualties, Zhang Zizhong arrived, morale was greatly boosted, and the enemy was fighting, giving the Japanese great damage. The Japanese army found that the 33rd Army was a fierce enemy, so it drew two divisions from the four divisions participating in the battle to attack the Nationalist army in Hedong, and General Zhang Zizhong fell into a siege on all sides and died under the bayonet of the Japanese army.
The Japanese army lamented the loyalty of General Zhang Zizhong, buried him on a hill in Fangjiaji, cut wood into a stele, and wrote: "The Tomb of Zhang Zizhong, the Great General of Zhina.".
Huang Weigang, commander of the 38th Division, heard of General Zhang's heroic sacrifice and was so sad that he personally led a plainclothes team of hundreds of people to attack Fang Jiaji at night. They found the grave of General Zhang Zizhong, opened the coffin and removed the body, and transported it to Chongqing. The next day, the Japanese army also received orders to transport the general's body to Hankou. At that time, Hankou had become a occupied area.
General Zhang Zizhong's body was transported to Yicheng, Hubei Province, where the headquarters of the 33rd Group Army was located, and all the officers and men of the army knelt down to greet and wept bitterly, and then the general's body was transported along the Yangtze River to Chongqing, where Chiang Kai-shek led military and political dignitaries to gather at the dock to greet the spirits, and Chiang Kai-shek wept in his coffin. General Zhang Zizhong defended the dignity of soldiers with his life, and he was the highest general who died in the Chinese army during the War of Resistance.