In the early morning of April 23, 1949, soldiers from the 3rd Battalion of the 312th Regiment of the 35th Army of the People's Liberation Army stormed the enemy's presidential palace in Nanjing, marking the complete demise of the enemy's rule on the mainland, which was a moment of historical significance. However, many people who know nothing about this history say on the Internet that the 35th Army is an insurrectionary force, and the commander of the army, Wu Huawen, is even more "five surnames**", so that they took the lead in the original intention of consuming them, and they did not expect to be picked up by them for a big bargain. The person who said this was unfair. The real situation is that the predecessor of the 312 regiment was the famous railway guerrillas. In other words, it was the railway guerrillas who took the lead in storming the presidential palace.
Speaking of Wu Huawen's experience is indeed complicated, he was once a subordinate of Feng Yuxiang, and in 10 years he went from soldier to chief of staff of the division. At the critical time of the Central Plains War, he surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek, and in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he fought against the Japanese army in Tai'an, Wande and other places, and was highly praised by the Eighth Route Army. However, after this, he continued to create friction with the Eighth Route Army, and in 1943, Wu Huawen suddenly surrendered to the enemy.
This time, he defected to Wang Jingwei, was received by Okamura Ningji, and became the commander of the "Third Front of the Peace And Founding Army". After that, he repeatedly attacked the Eighth Route Army of the Luzhong Military Region, but was hit so hard that Shandong could not stay and fled to Anhui. In 1945, seeing that the general trend in Japan had gone, he once again surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek and served as the commander of the reorganized 84th Division.
Wu Huawen (middle)
In July 1948, at the recommendation of Wang Yaowu, Wu Huawen became the commander of the reorganized 96th Army, but only a month later, he led more than 20,000 of his subordinates to revolt on the battlefield and joined the People's Liberation Army. Regardless of Wu's character, his battlefield uprising led to the rapid liberation of Jinan, and the casualties of the officers and men of our army who participated in the war were also greatly reduced, and its positive significance cannot be erased.
After the uprising of the 96th Army, our army reorganized it and paid for the road if it was willing to go home. After reorganization, the officers and men of the original 96th Army were downsized into 3 regiments, and our army joined 6 regiments of the Luzhongnan Column, and the new unit was organized into the 35th Army, but this decision made the Luzhongnan Column explode.
The predecessor of the Luzhong South Column was the famous railway guerrilla
The predecessor of the Luzhong South Column was the famous railway guerrilla, and when the Japanese army in Zaozhuang surrendered, it was named to surrender to the railway guerrillas, becoming the only guerrilla group in our army to accept surrender. After the railway guerrillas were reorganized into the Luzhongnan Column, they fought many battles with Wu Huawen's "Peaceful Jianguo Army", and the two sides had a bloody feud, and now they want to merge these two units together, and it is no wonder that the Luzhongnan Column is unwilling.
Finally, Chen Shuai personally came forward, and Wu Huawen reflected and reviewed at the conference, and finally completed the joint compilation work. After the merger, the 35th Army was still headed by Wu Huawen, but the military command was headed by political commissar He Kexi. After the merger, the 35th Army has a total of 9 regiments, including 6 regiments of the Luzhongnan Column and 3 regiments of the former 96th Army, and after the merger, they are all people's liberation army, and there is no such thing as "attrition".
Millions of heroes cross the river
On April 21, 1949, our million-strong army launched the Battle of Crossing the River, and after a fierce battle, the 35th Army captured Miura (Pukou, Jiangpu, and Puzhen) in the north of Jiangbei, across the river from Nanjing. However, the 35th Army did not receive the order to capture Nanjing, which made the soldiers of the former Lu Zhongnan Column very dissatisfied, believing that they were implicated by the rebel forces.
Just when the warriors were angry, the pie fell under the heavens, and Noji ordered that the 35th Army immediately cross the river to occupy Nanjing and protect the public and private property abandoned by the enemy. Prior to this, the task of capturing Nanjing was entrusted to the 4 corps. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Armies under the jurisdiction of the 4th Corps are either the old foundations of the Eyu-Anhui Red Army, or the old foundations of the Eighth Route Army of the Taiyue Military Region, and the PLA units that are truly rooted in Miao Hong.
Captain Liu of the Railway Guerrilla Corps was reorganized as chief of staff of the 105th Division of the 35th Army
What a privilege it was to capture the enemy's lair, and there was nothing wrong with leaving such a force. However, the world is unpredictable, the enemy's so-called impregnable Yangtze River defense line collapsed in one day, a large number of rout troops fled to Shanghai, the 4 corps pursued all the way, and then turned back to occupy Nanjing, the fastest time to pay 3 days.
The enemy army in Nanjing had already run clean on the same day, and there would be a vacuum in 3 days, and if it was not occupied immediately, there would be unpredictable chaos, in which case the 35th Army, which was closest to Nanjing, was in danger. Since there were no preparations for crossing the river before, the 35th Army at this time did not even have a boat, and after receiving the order, the whole army immediately moved and went out to find a boat.
The moment the 35th Army invaded Nanjing
Finally they found some train ferries and crossed the Yangtze River overnight. In the early morning of the 24th, the soldiers of the 3rd Battalion of the 312th Regiment of the 104th Division of the 35th Army took the lead in attacking the enemy's presidential palace, marking the end of the enemy's reactionary rule on the mainland. The predecessor of the 312th Regiment was the 138th Regiment of the 46th Division of the Luzhong South Column, nor was it an insurrectionary force. Therefore, there is no such thing as "attrition", and from a certain point of view, it was the railway guerrillas who took the lead in invading the presidential palace and won the supreme honor.
The 50th Army of the Volunteer Army, which was the first to invade Seoul, was also an uprising force
In fact, the vast majority of the grass-roots soldiers in the insurrectionary troops were also from poor backgrounds, and after joining our army, after ideological education, they were able to clearly understand the reactionary nature of the enemy and know why they fought, and then burst out with amazing revolutionary enthusiasm. In the subsequent War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the first to invade seoul was the original rebel troops, and they were all good soldiers of our army.