Let's assume a scenario: you are an anti-Japanese general, in the battle, the troops were defeated by the Japanese army, and you had to take your surviving subordinates to choose a path in the middle of the barren mountains and mountains. Suddenly, a Japanese army rushed out and surrounded you, the muzzle of the gun pointed to the chest, and the bayonet flashed with murderous light. Do you have the courage to draw a gun and commit suicide?
Most people don't have the courage. This was true not only of the nationalist generals during the anti-Japanese period, but even by the professional revolutionary Che Guevara. The fate of the generals who became prisoners was different, some refused to surrender to the enemy, some "curved to save the country", and the great era also gave them different answers to their choices.
What kind of fate will you encounter if you refuse to surrender to the enemy?
In April 1944, the Japanese army launched "Operation No. 1" to invade Henan. The newly formed 29th Division of the Nationalist Army fought the main force of the Japanese 37th Division in Xuchang, the 3rd Tank Division, and the 7th Independent Mixed Brigade. After the city was destroyed, Major General Lü Gongliang and Major General Deputy Division Commander Huang Yonghuai led their troops to break through, but were intercepted by the Japanese army. During the battle, Huang Yonghuai was wounded and taken prisoner by the Japanese. When the Japanese army assassinated the captured officers and soldiers, he rose up to grab the weapon to resist, and was killed by the Japanese army in the fight, the most heroic of the captured generals.
Huang Yonghuai
Several other captured generals paid with their lives for refusing the Japanese military's persuasion to surrender. In May 1941, Major General Kim Chong-in, chief of staff of the 17th Army, was wounded and captured in the Battle of Nakajōsan, and the Japanese army had released the "thank you Japanese army for not killing" in his name, but he was determined not to cooperate and was killed two months later. Tan Tianjue, chief of staff of the 27th Army, who was captured in Shanxi in June 1942, and Shi Weifu, senior staff officer of the Guangxi Appeasement Office, who was captured in October 1944 at the Battle of Guiliu, suffered the same fate in the face of persuasion to make the same choice as Jin Chongyin. In May 1942, Qi Xueqi, deputy commander of the newly formed 38th Division, was captured in Burma and imprisoned in Yangon Prison for nearly three years, repeatedly refusing to be persuaded by the Japanese army to surrender. In March 1945, Qi Xueqi was killed by enemy elements in a prisoner-of-war camp, and was the last Nationalist general to die in the War of Resistance.
Jin Chongyin (left) Shi Weifu (middle) Qi Xueqi (right)
There were also several generals who were captured and did not attach themselves to the enemy, and survived by chance, and Tan Youfo, chief of staff of major generals of the 3rd Army, could be used as a model. He was a veteran soldier who had participated in the Xinhai Revolution, a classmate of Zhu De's martial arts hall in the Yunnan Army, and a lieutenant general during the warlord melee. In September 1939, Tan Youfo was invited by Tang Huaiyuan, a classmate of the Lecture Martial Arts Hall and the new commander of the 3rd Army, to serve as his chief of staff and rushed to the anti-Japanese front. In May 1941, the 3rd Army lost the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain, and Tang Huaiyuan, who was supervising the battle at the front, did not want to be captured and humiliated, and chose to commit suicide. Tan Youfo stayed behind at the military headquarters, learned of the death of the commander, and led the remnants to break through, but was scattered and captured by the Japanese army.
Tan You Buddha
According to the Japanese military's interrogation records, Tan Youfo adopted a strategy of avoiding the serious and neglecting the interrogation. When asked about "the situation of China's domestic combat strength system," he said, "This is the top military secret, and I don't know." The Japanese side asked, "With the strength of thirty divisions, taking Mount Nakajō as a natural danger, spending two years building fortifications, and collapsing in front of only five divisions of the Imperial Japanese Army, isn't the answer to this question already very clear?" He replied, "The reason for the failure of this operation is the lack of training and supplies of the troops, not a complete failure." It is too early to show that China has no hope." The Japanese side asked, "How do you evaluate Chiang Kai-shek?" He responded, "Mr. Jiang is a great figure, and ordinary people like me cannot be evaluated casually."
After that, Tan Youfo was imprisoned in the Taiyuan Shelter and the Peking Qinghua Garden. During this period, the Japanese military repeatedly advised him to "cooperate" and promised him the post of "Commander of the Yellow River Solicitation". Tan Youfo was lucky, he rejected the Japanese side, but was not harmed. In November 1941, Tan Youfo was sent to Nanjing and handed over to the Wang puppet government. When received by Wang Jingwei, Wang Shi put on a forced face and said, "In order to cope with the Japanese side, for two months, the right to take a small rest, there are many places to borrow here, fortunately there is no misunderstanding", Tan Youfo did not respond. In order to soften Tan Youfo's will, Wang Fu relaxed his guard in March 1942 and allowed him to walk around the city of Nanjing. As a result, a few days later, Tan Youfo secretly contacted a patriotic young man to help him apply for a good citizen certificate, sneaked out of Nanjing for Anhui, and returned to the nationalist camp.
Whenever possible, captured generals would choose to flee, but in different ways. Bi Meixuan, commander of the 6th Guerrilla Column of the 1st Theater of Operations captured at Nakajō Mountain, was not as firm as Tan Youfo in the face of the Japanese army, and complained about the unequal treatment of the Central Army and miscellaneous troops when he was interrogated, and obediently participated in the training course after being sent to the shelter. But after "graduating" in 1942, Bi Meixuan immediately put on makeup and fled. He was not familiar with life, bought tooth powder claiming to be eye medicine, and relied on walking through villages to cheat money to make a living, until the Luoyang First Theater Commander's Department returned to the team.
Zhang Zhonglei, chief of staff of Lieutenant General Zhang Zhonglei of the 36th Army, was never revealed after being captured at the Battle of Yuzhong in 1944, and mixed with other middle- and lower-ranking officers. When he was escorted by the Japanese army to a Taoist temple, Zhang Zhonglei bought a channelist and ran out. Major General Chao Wei of the 170th Division was captured at the Battle of Guiliu that same year, when he suffered facial injuries and lost more than half of his teeth. In this way, Chao Wei still took the opportunity to go to the toilet to climb over the wall and escape from the tiger's mouth.
Zhang Zhonglei (left), Chao Wei (right)
Escape is not always successful. In January 1943, Li Jing, the commander of the 2nd Detachment of the Lianghuai Taxation Police Corps, was captured in northern Jiangsu. After nearly a month of japanese captivity, he escaped from prison while guarding lax, but drowned when he overturned his boat while crossing the river. This news was not widely known at the time, and many people mistakenly fell into the trap of Japanese propaganda, believing that Li had actually defected to the enemy. On August 13, 1943, the "Liberation Daily" published a signed Bian Zhangwu entitled "Overview of the Fifty-Eight Traitorous Generals of the Kuomintang in the Past Two Years", and Li was actually listed among them.
Lee actually
If you throw in the service of "Mr. Wang", you are still under the banner of the blue sky and white sun, "it is not considered to be an enemy"?
There are indomitables, and naturally there will be some apostates. Major General Liu Qixiong of the 260th Brigade of the 87th Division is very representative.
Liu Qixiong, who was captured by the Japanese army during the defense of Nanjing, was the first general to be captured after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. He was captured by the Japanese army in the bed of the Drum Tower Hospital, and because he did not have obvious identification, he disguised himself as a soldier and tried to escape, but was unexpectedly reported by the soldiers who had served him, so he fell into prison. Liu Qixiong initially refused the persuasion of the Japanese army, but as the situation of the War of Resistance continued to deteriorate, Liu Qixiong's mentality in prison also continued to change, and when Wang Jingwei established a new puppet national government in Nanjing, he finally agreed to "go out of the mountains" and embarked on the road of "saving the country by curve".
Liu Qixiong
Liu Qixiong was not only one of the 18 generals in Chiang Kai-shek's "Yulin Army" at that time, but also a graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy, which meant a lot to both the Japanese army and Wang Fei. In addition to Wang Jingwei's approval, Zhou Fohai, the third figure of Wang Pseudo, also believes that Liu Qixiong is "very capable and can be used". He successively served as a military commander, a guard division commander, and the education chief of the "Wang Ji" Central Military Academy, and trained a large number of grass-roots backbones for the puppet army.
Liu Qixiong's background of heavy use is that before 1941, there were only a few captured generals in the Nationalist army. In addition to Liu Qixiong, the main ones were Cai Xiongfei, deputy commander of the 68th Division, who was captured in Lishi in June 1939, and Wang Jian, chief of staff of major generals. Of the two, Cai Xiongfei was from the Northeast Army, and later joined the Jin Sui Army in Yan Xishan, and after he was captured, he took the initiative to provide intelligence to the Japanese army, openly persuaded the officers and men of the Jin Sui Army to surrender to the enemy on the radio, and proposed himself to be the leader of the Japanese Taiyuan Engineering Team. After the establishment of the Wang puppet regime, Cai Xiongfei was appointed as the commander of the 1st detachment of the "Xingya Yellow Army", and was promoted to lieutenant general commander of the "Xingya Yellow Army" half a year later. Since then, he has successively served as the director of the pseudo-Shanxi Provincial Security Department and the deputy commander of the pseudo-Shanxi Provincial Security Brigade. As for the chief of staff, Wang Forging, at first refused to take up a pseudo-post, but eventually under the temptation of Cai Xiongfei, he became the chief of staff of the Taiyuan Engineering Team of the Japanese side, and later transferred to serve as the county chief.
Cai Xiongfei (front row)
Cai Xiongfei's capture and his various performances after his capture had a very bad impact on the Chinese army, especially the Jin Sui army. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, although Cai Xiongfei took the initiative to surrender his troops to Yan Xishan, he was still inevitably executed by trial and shooting.
In contrast, the defection of Zhao Rui, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, Duan Bingchang, deputy commander of the Major General, and Yang Cheng, commander of the 4th Cavalry Division, who were captured by the Japanese army in Pingyao in July 1942, is quite "wonderful".
According to Zhao Rui's recollection, their surrender to the enemy after being captured was a step in Yan Xishan's plan to "collaborate with the enemy and commit treason", that is, to "surrender to the enemy on Yan's orders." Afterwards, Zhao, Duan, and Yang served as the commander of the 1st Division, the deputy commander of the Major General Division, and the commander of the 2nd Division of the 1st Division of the "Shanxi Suppression Communist Army", respectively, and became the "underground army" in the Yanxi Pass. After that, this unit was incorporated into the pseudo-North China Appeasement Army, with Zhao Rui as the deputy commander of the Shanxi Provincial Security Corps, Duan Bingchang as the chief of staff of the 12th Group Major General, and Yang Cheng as the commander of the 13th Group. After the victory of the War of Resistance, the three men each led one to reorganize into the Shanxi Provincial Defense Army in Yan Xishan, thus completing the "underground" task assigned by Yan and continuing to be the generals of the Jin Sui Army.
Zhao Rui
Since 1941, the situation of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression has become increasingly difficult, many front-line and enemy-rear troops have been surrounded and annihilated by the Japanese army, and the number of captured generals has gradually increased, of which pang Bingxun's capture and surrender to the enemy incident has dealt the greatest blow to the military and people of the whole country.
Pang Bingxun was captured at Taihang Mountain in April 1943 and was then the deputy commander-in-chief of the Jicha Theater, chairman of the Hebei Provincial Government, and commander-in-chief of the 24th Army. Pang Bingxun was a hero of the 1938 Linyi Defense War, who was awarded the Order of the Blue Sky and White Sun for his merits, and was known as a famous general of the War of Resistance, and did not want to fail to kill Chengren when he was in a desperate situation. More importantly, he was the only current general to be captured by the Japanese during the War of Resistance, which was a serious blow to the morale of the army. Pang Bingxun's identity is also very important to the Japanese army, not only giving preferential treatment, but also repeatedly sending personnel to persuade him to surrender, and finally putting him on the road of "saving the country by curve".
Pang Bingxun
There are still different opinions on the reasons for Pang Bingxun's defection to the enemy, and there is no conclusive conclusion, but after he joined the puppet army, he sat in a high position and successively served as the commander-in-chief of the 24th Group Army, the commander-in-chief of the 5th Front, and the director of the Kaifeng Appeasement Office. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he voluntarily surrendered his troops as a Yugong and later died in Taiwan. The reason for his failure to accept the trial may be related to the widely circulated "surrender to the enemy at the behest of Chiang Kai-shek."
It is worth mentioning that Li Mingyang, commander-in-chief of the Advancing Army in the lower Reaches of the Yangtze River, mistakenly hit the Japanese ambush and was captured in May 1945 when he went to inspect his units. Curiously, Li Mingyang explicitly refused to surrender to the enemy, but the Japanese army unusually arranged a special residence in Shanghai to be "detained" and gave preferential treatment in life. Two months later, a month before the victory of the War of Resistance, Li Mingyang was released by the Japanese army. After Li Mingyang returned to the Kuomintang Region, he was not officially examined and held accountable, but was appointed deputy commander of the 10th Theater of Operations and became a local deputy commander after the victory of the War of Resistance. The experience of Lieutenant General Wang Jinya of the 128th Division after being captured is also similar to that of Li Mingyang, and the internal situation of the 128th Division has not yet been solved.
Li Mingyang
Attached: List of captured generals during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (37 in total, in order of capture time)
Wang Geng, Brigadier General, Independent Brigade, 88th Division, 1932/1
Liu Qixiong, Brigadier General, Major General, 260th Brigade, 87th Division, 1937/12
Yi Shigu, Chief of major generals in the Adjutant Division of the 22nd Army, 1938/5
Cai Xiongfei, deputy commander of the Major General of the 68th Division, 1939/5
Wang Forge, Chief of Staff of major general of the 68th Division, 1939/5
Liu Wei, Commander of the Chengxiyu Forward Command Post of the Zhongyi Salvation Army, 1941/3
Li Jiesan, Senior Staff Officer of major generals in the headquarters of the Commander of the 1st Theater, 1941/5
Tan Shanyang, Chief of Staff of major general of the 3rd Army, 1941/5
Jin Chongyin, Chief of Staff of major general of the 17th Army, 1941/5
Gong Bingfan, Commander of the 34th Division, 1941/5
Liu Mingxia, Commander of the 94th Division, 1941/5
Zhao Kuige, deputy commander of the newly formed 2nd Division, 1941/5
Bi Meixuan, Commander of the 6th Guerrilla Column of the 1st Theater, 1941/5
Liu Yinxuan, commander of the 1st Guerrilla Column of the Hebei Nationalist Army, 1941/5
Wang Kejing, Commander of the 42nd Division, 1941/8
Qi Xueqi, deputy commander of the newly formed Major General of the 38th Division, 1942/5
Liu Yueting, Commander of the Provisional 3rd Division, 1942/6
Tan Tianjue, Chief of Staff of major general of the 27th Army, 1942/6
Zhao Rui, Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, 1942/7
Yang Cheng, Commander of the Major General Division of the 4th Cavalry Division, 1942/7
Duan Bingchang, deputy commander of the Major General of the 1st Cavalry Division, 1942/7
Li Shijian, Commander of the 2nd Detachment of the Two Huai Taxation Police Corps, 1943/1
Han Ziqian, Commander of the 113th Division, 1943/2
Pan Guoping, Deputy Division Commander and Director of the Political Department of major general of the 113th Division, 1943/2
Li Wenli, Commander of major general of the 2nd Column of the Rusu Theater of Operations, 1943/2
Wu Shuquan, Brigadier General, Major General, 351st Brigade, 117th Division, 1943/2
Wang Jinya, Commander of the 128th Division, 1943/2
Li Dexing, Chief of Staff of major general of the 128th Division, 1943/2
Ren Lanpu, Brigade Commander, Major General, 382nd Brigade, 128th Division, 1943/2
Pang Bingxun, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Jicha Theater and Commander-in-Chief of the 24th Group Army, 1943/4
Chen Xiaoqiang, Commander of the Preparatory 8th Division, 1943/5
Zhang Zhonglei, Chief of Staff of Lieutenant General of the 36th Army, 1944/5
Wang Shangzhi, Commander of the 4th Column of the Rusu Theater, 1944/5
Huang Yonghuai, Deputy Commander of the Newly Appointed 29th Division, 1944/5
Shi Weifu, Senior Staff Officer, Major General, Guangxi Appeasement Office, 1944/10
Chao Wei, deputy commander of the Major General of the 170th Division, 1944/10
Li Mingyang, Lieutenant General Commander-in-Chief of the Advancing Army in the Lower Yangtze River, 1945/5