Chen Cheng was the founder of the 18th Army of the National Revolutionary Army and the first commander.
In order to pull up a troop and build it into a formidable division, the founders and first commanders of almost all military groups with independent combat capabilities, whether ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign, will inevitably devote all their efforts to the army he created.
Chen Cheng is the same, as the founder and first commander of the 18th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, his mark is deeply engraved in the military history of the 18th Army, not only his command style and military philosophy strongly influenced the successors of the 18th Army, but also his practice of using all means to expand his strength was also imitated by successive commanders of the 18th Army after him.
He really deserves to be emulated by Luo Zhuoying and other successor commanders of the 18th Army. With Chiang Kai-shek's support and acquiescence on the outside and the help of a bunch of little brothers on the inside, Chen Cheng, after squeezing out Cao Wanshun, the former commander of the 11th Division, seized control of the 11th Division, and was able to transform this unit, which had nothing to do with him, into his own men and horses, so that he took the 11th Division as his starting capital, and even expanded the 11th Division into the 18th Army in a few years, and then separated other large and small military and division-level units from the 18th Army, and established the 18th Army with the 11th Division as the core. It became the strongest military group in the National Government of Nanjing.
Looking at the development of the entire National Revolutionary Army, it is really difficult to find a candidate to match the person who can succeed so easily except him.
To this end, after Chen Cheng left office, the foundation laid by him and his strong influence, the successive commanders of the 18th Army, whether it was Luo Zhuoying, or Huang Wei, Peng Shan, Fang Tian, Luo Guangwen, and Hu Lian, all danced to his beat, and united all the senior generals of the Nationalist army who went out from the 11th Division and even the 18th Army camp to worship him as the co-leader of the civil engineering department, making him essentially the spiritual leader of the 18th Army and even the civil engineering department.
Then, who was Chen Cheng, and how did he seize the throne of the commander of the 11th Division? And on this basis, the 18th Army was created, and then a huge civil military group was established.
Chen Cheng, zixiu, nicknamed Dexin, alias Shi Shuo, born in January 1898, from Qingtian County, Zhejiang Province.
In 1917, he graduated from the 11th Normal College of Zhejiang Provincial Prefecture. In the following year, he was admitted to the Hangzhou Provincial Three-Dimensional College, and after graduation, he was introduced by the division commander Du Zhiyuan and entered the Baoding Military Academy to learn martial arts.
In June 1922, after graduating from the 8th Artillery Section of Baoding Military Academy, he served as a probationary officer in the 2nd Division of the Zhejiang Army.
In 1923, he accompanied Deng Yanda to Guangdong to join the National Revolutionary Army, serving as a captain and aide-de-camp in the 3rd Regiment of the 1st Division of the Guangdong Army, and later transferred to the Guard of the Grand Marshal's Office. In the summer of 1924, he served as a special officer of the Whampoa Military Academy as a lieutenant and an adjutant of education, and from then on he became acquainted with Chiang Kai-shek and gradually became Chiang Kai-shek's confidant.
In January 1924, Chen Cheng was appointed commander of the artillery company. In September, he participated in the 2nd Crusade, made a military achievement in the attack on Huizhou, and was promoted to the commander of the 2nd Artillery Battalion.
In July 1926, Chen Cheng was appointed as a lieutenant colonel staff officer of the General Headquarters of the Northern Expeditionary Army. He was later appointed commander of the 3rd Regiment of the 1st Reserve Division, and in November became the colonel of the 63rd Regiment of the 21st Division.
In March 1927, Chen Cheng led his troops to make new contributions in the battles of Longyou and Tonglu in Zhejiang, and was promoted to deputy commander of the 21st Division, and soon after, he was promoted to the commander of the division, completing the transformation from regimental commander to division commander within 3 months. However, in October of the same year, he was dismissed by He Yingqin for the reason of borrowing, and was later appointed as the deputy director of the Military Affairs Department of the Military Commission under the serious sponsorship of the Military Commission.
In April 1928, he was appointed lieutenant general of the General Headquarters of the National Revolutionary Army in Nanjing.
At this time, the 17th Army of the 1st Army of the National Revolutionary Army was downsized and abolished. The 53rd and 55th Divisions under the command of the army were downsized to the 11th Division of the National Revolutionary Army, and the 54th Division was downsized to the 6th Brigade of the 2nd Division. Cao Wanshun, the former commander of the 17th Army, served as the first commander of the 11th Division.
Because Chiang Kai-shek had a serious distrust of the non-concubine generals and did not want the non-concubine generals to control his own troops, and only the commander of the 11th Division of the 6 divisions to which the 1st Army belonged was not from Huangpu, Chiang Kai-shek assigned Chen Cheng to lead the two guard regiments of the General Headquarters of the Northern Expeditionary Army to be reorganized into the 31st Brigade under the 11th Division, serving as the deputy commander of the division, monitoring Cao Wanshun, and preparing to replace Cao Wanshun with Chen Cheng at any time.
Cao Wanshun was born in the army, although he did not know a few big characters, he knew Chiang Kai-shek's intentions, and after Chen Cheng's arrival, he appeared respectful and respectful to Cao Wanshun, and he was serious in his work and led by example, so he ostensibly let Chen Cheng take charge of the affairs of the whole division, so that Chiang Kai-shek could rest assured of him.
After Chen Cheng's arrival, in order to change the original warlord habits of the 11th Division, he immediately took measures to rectify military discipline and often had breakfast and heart-to-heart talks with all the division's officers. This move was supported by some of the elderly of the former 17th Army.
In March 1929, the Jiang-Gui War broke out, and the 11th Division was assigned to the command of Zhang Fakui's 4th Army, and marched from Jiangnan to Wuhan as a vanguard force. In early April, the unit captured Hesheng Bridge, cutting off the Gui army from Xiang'e and other places. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek successively divided and co-opted the Gui soldiers, so that they led the main Gui forces to withdraw from Wuhan and declare obedience to the central authorities, so that the 31st Brigade, as the vanguard of the 11th Division, successfully entered and occupied Wuhan on April 5. Soon after, the Gui warlords were defeated. The 11th Division, especially the 31st Brigade brought by Chen Cheng, made great achievements in battle, which established the prestige for Chen Cheng to fully control the division in the future.
Subsequently, the 11th Division transferred strategic points such as Xiangyang and Fancheng in Hubei to prevent Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army from posing a threat to the central government. In June of the same year, when the deputy division commander Chen Cheng was on a business trip to Hankou, there was an incident in which the division commander Cao Wanshun was appointed to serve in the 62nd Regiment by the commander Xiao Qian and other officers from Huangpu. After the news reached the Camp in Wuhan, Chiang Kai-shek used this reason to transfer the division commander Cao Wanshun, and Chen Cheng officially took over as the division commander, which was the beginning of the gradual development and growth of the civil engineering department.
In fact, when Chen Cheng became the deputy commander of the 11th Division, it was not smooth sailing, but was resisted by some Huangpu generals led by Gui Yongqing. In order to consolidate his position, Chen Cheng took advantage of Gui Yongqing's opposition to Du Congrong's appointment as deputy brigade commander of the 31st Brigade to give Gui Yongqing a trap, conniving him to directly send a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek rejecting the letter of appointment. As a result, Gui Yongqing was removed from his post. Subsequently, Chen Cheng found some reasons to exclude Guan Linzheng, who supported Gui Yongqing, from the 11th Division, making the division Chen Cheng's home. This move caused Guan Linzheng to be extremely dissatisfied, and after that, Guan Linzheng found opportunities to confront Chen Cheng everywhere, which caused Chen Cheng a headache.
After Chen Cheng took over the division, he immediately carried out a new round of rectification of the various departments under his command. He openly proposed that the conditions for selecting and using cadres were: They would not be greedy for money, would not be afraid of death, would lead troops, could fight wars, and had no bad habits; and should be loyal to Commander-in-Chief Chiang Kai-shek and obey his orders. When the conditions were laid out, when the officers were actually recruited, he recruited a large number of Huangpu students as middle and lower-ranking officers, of which the Huangpu 3rd phase students served as regimental attachés and battalion commanders, and the 4th huangpu students served as battalion attached and company commanders.
At the same time, he also dismissed the former officers of the 11th Division Cao Wanshun's old department, took over as the commander of the 33rd Brigade with chief of staff Luo Zhuoying, and then promoted Luo Zhuoying to deputy division commander, abolished the 33rd Brigade, and made the 11th Division a unit with a 2 brigade and 6 regiments.
Subsequently, he successively reorganized 4 regiments of the Cao Wanshun faction, so that the old forces of the Cao clan were reduced to 1 regiment (66th regiment). The chief of staff of the division was Zhou Zhirou.
Since then, the 11th Division has formed a situation in which Chen Cheng is the division commander, Luo Zhuoying is the deputy division commander, and Zhou Zhirou is the chief of staff. This laid the foundation for the development and growth of the civil engineering army with Chen Cheng as the core and Luo Zhuoying and Zhou Zhirou as the right and left arms.
In February 1930, when the division was moved to Wuhan, Chen Cheng suddenly disarmed the 66th Regiment, which had been reduced to the remnants of Cao Wanshun, and the officers were dismissed, and the soldiers were divided into the remaining regiments. At this point, the 11th Division really became Chen Cheng's family.
In April of the same year, Chen Cheng incorporated Xu Shengyu's independent 14th Brigade. It was reorganized into the Independent Brigade of the 11th Division, and the Supplementary Regiment of the 11th Division was changed to the 1st Regiment of the Supplementary Brigade as the backbone, making the division a 3-brigade and 9-regimental A division, and its strength was greatly enhanced. This was the first attempt and a successful attempt by the civil engineering department to expand its army. From then on, Chen Cheng, who had tasted the sweetness, and his followers did everything they could, as long as they found an opportunity, they would absorb and annex other troops and expand the lineup of the civil engineering department.
In April 1930, the Central Plains War broke out. In the course of the battle, the 11th Division was promoted to the 18th Army of the National Revolutionary Army by the Military Committee of the Nanjing Government for its outstanding military achievements. Chen Cheng, commander of the 11th Division, served as the first commander of the 18th Army and also served as the commander of the division. After the End of the Central Plains War, with the help of Chiang Kai-shek, Chen Cheng incorporated the 3rd Division of Instruction, which was reorganized from Tang Shengzhi, and after changing its name to the 14th Division, he handed over the position of division commander of the 11th Division to Luo Zhuoying, the deputy division commander, and officially served as the commander of the 18th Army.
Subsequently, the 18th Army adopted a similar approach, causing the number of divisions under its command to snowball, reaching a maximum of 8 divisions. It is impossible for any army to have so many men and horses on a regular basis, and even if Chen Cheng has become Chiang Kai-shek's confidant and is extremely popular in military circles, it is impossible for the 18th Army to maintain such a huge organization for a long time.
Therefore, he and his right and left arm used the 18th Army as a base, widely absorbed other troops to enter, and after incubation and cultivation, they became Chen Cheng's concubines, and then let them form a separate army, or pushed out one division after another, let them enter other military-level units, and waited for the opportunity to evolve all of the army into Chen Cheng's concubines. Because Chen Cheng's backbone was the 18th Army, and the basis of the 18th Army was the 11th Division, the Chen Chengyuan troops that extended from this were called the Civil Engineering Department