During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there was a Kuomintang unit, which was called "China's First Terror Army" by the Japanese army because of its bravery in battle and tenacious style. The full name of this unit is the 74th Army of the National Revolutionary Army.
The 74th Army was formed on September 1, 1937, during the Battle of Songhu, and by the end of 1948 it was basically wiped out by the People's Liberation Army in the Battle of Huaihai, with five well-known commanders, namely Yu Jishi, Wang Yaowu, Shi Zhongcheng, Zhang Lingfu and Qiu Weida.
In fact, after the Battle of Huaihai, the 74th Army's designation was not revoked, and 2 senior Kuomintang generals served as the commander of the 74th Army, and it is interesting that the 74th Army did not end up martyring for the Chiang Family Dynasty, and the outcome was beyond imagination.
Here is an overview of the top 5 commanders of the Nationalist 74th Army.
1. Yu Jishi: The first military commander.
In August 1937, on the front line of the Battle of Songhu, Yu Jishi, the 33-year-old commander of the 58th Division, received a letter of appointment from the Nationalist government and was appointed commander of the newly formed 74th Army of the National Revolutionary Army.
In the Kuomintang military circles, Yu Jishi was a rather mysterious figure. He was a fellow countryman with Chiang Kai-shek and a graduate of the first phase of Whampoa. With these two points, coupled with his alertness and ability, he was deeply favored by Chiang Kai-shek.
From the time of the Eastern Crusade in 1925, Yu Jishi began as Chiang Kai-shek's personal bodyguard, and in just a few years, he jumped to the commander of the First Guard Division, and once served as the commander of the Nanjing garrison, which can be described as a "rocket-like" promotion.
After Serving as the commander of the 74th Army, Yu Jishi participated in the Battle of Songhu, the Battle of Nanjing, and the Battle of Wuhan. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he successively served as the director of the Military Affairs Bureau of the Military Participation Department of the National Government, the officer of the Central Committee of the Three People's Socialist Youth League, the member of the Sixth Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, and the director of the Third Bureau of the Presidential Office.
In 1949, he went to Taiwan and successively served as the general affairs director of the Office of the President of the Kuomintang and the chief of bodyguards.
2. Wang Yaowu: Wait for the second military commander.
Wang Yaowu was born in the same year as Yu Jishi, a native of Shandong, who was born as an authentic farmer and a student of the third phase of Huangpu. When the 74th Army was formed, Wang Yaowu was the commander of the 51st Division.
In June 1939, Chiang Kai-shek summoned Wang Yaowu in Chongqing, praised his achievements as commander of the 51st Division, and personally appointed him as the second commander of the 74th Army.
Subsequently, Wang Yaowu led the 74th Army to participate in the First Battle of Changsha, the Battle of Shanggao in Jiangxi, the Battle of Zhejiang, and the Battle of Western Hubei, and made great military achievements. Chiang Kai-shek praised Wang Yaowu for being "good at leading troops and having the ability to command," and people at the time said that "it is better to touch the king of Yan than to touch the old king."
In the Battle of Shanggao, the 74th Army received a Flying Tiger Banner, which was the highest honor of the Kuomintang army. In April 1943, after the battle of Western Hubei, Wang Yaowu was promoted to deputy commander-in-chief and commander-in-chief of the 29th Group Army.
During the Liberation War, Wang Yaowu was captured in the Battle of Jinan, and later reformed at the Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center in Beijing, where he was pardoned by the people's government in 1959.
3. Shi Zhongcheng: The third commander.
Shi Zhongcheng is a native of Tongcheng, Anhui Province, and graduated from the fourth class of the Higher Education Class of the Central Military Academy.
When the 74th Army was formed, Shi Zhongcheng was the commander of the 57th Division, and in the spring of 1943, Shi Zhongcheng became the third commander of the 74th Army, stationed in western Hunan Province.
In May 1945, Shi Zhongcheng led the 74th Army to participate in the Battle of Western Hunan Province, Shi Zhongcheng personally came to the front line to command, and fought a bloody battle with the Japanese army under the Xuefeng Mountain, killing thousands of enemies and capturing a large number of guns and ammunition.
The great victory in western Hunan severely damaged the vanguard of the Japanese army, making it dare not rush westward. Shi Zhongcheng fulfilled his vow of "annihilating the enemy and insulting foreign countries and repaying our mountains and rivers." Shi Zhongcheng also added another flying tiger flag to the 74th Army.
In December 1945, the 74th Army accepted the surrender of the Japanese army on the hengyang front. In the spring of 1946, during the garrison of the 74th Army in Nanjing, Shi Zhongcheng stepped down as the commander of the 74th Army and was transferred to the commander of the Nanjing Garrison.
On the eve of the liberation of Nanjing, Shi Zhongcheng was transferred from Hong Kong to Taiwan, and later served as the deputy commander of the Central Taiwan Defense Command of the Nationalist Government, leaving Taiwan in 1959 and living in Los Angeles.
4. Zhang Lingfu: The fourth commander.
Among the successive commanders of the 74th Army, Zhang Lingfu is the most well-known, however, his tenure is the shortest and his end is also the saddest.
In the spring of 1946, Zhang Lingfu took over the flag of the 74th Army from Shi Zhongcheng, and after the reorganization of the troops, he served as the commander of the reorganized 74th Division.
Zhang Lingfu was a native of Chang'an County, Shaanxi Province, graduated from the huangpu military academy in the fourth phase, and had been imprisoned for killing his wife, but after the anti-Japanese war began, After Wang Yaowu spoke to Chiang Kai-shek, Zhang Lingfu was able to return to the army.
When the 74th Army was formed, Zhang Lingfu served as the commander of the 305th Regiment. After the outbreak of the Liberation War, he led the reorganized 74th Division to frantically attack northern Jiangsu and central Jiangsu Liberated Areas, successively occupied Huainan, Huaibei and other places, and attacked all the way to Shandong, arrogant and arrogant, and finally in May 1947, due to the adventurous invasion of the lone army, he was killed by the East China Field Army at Meng Lianggu.
5. Qiu Weida: The fifth commander
After the devastating blow of the People's Liberation Army at Menglianggu, in the summer of 1947, the Nationalists rebuilt the reorganized 74th Division on the basis of the three new corps and howitzer battalions that had been allocated to the reorganized 74th Division before the war, but did not participate in the battle in the rear, with Qiu Weida as the division commander, and the reorganized 74th Division was renamed the 74th Army and then changed to commander.
In the Battle of Huaihai, the 74th Division was completely annihilated by the Chinese People's Liberation Army in the Chenguanzhuang area, and Qiu Weida was captured.
At the beginning of 1950, Qiu Weida was assigned to teach at East China Military and Political University, and later served as a counselor in the Counselor Office of the Jiangsu Provincial Government, a member of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and a member of the Standing Committee.
After the death of Zhang Lingfu Meng Lianggu, the fourth commander of the 74th Army, although the 74th Army had a round of glory, but after the Battle of Huaihai, after the defeat of Qiu Weida, the fifth commander of the 74th Army, was defeated and captured, the prestige of the 74th Army as a Kuomintang ace no longer existed.
However, in 1949, the 74th Army was "resurrected".
Next, let's talk about the two commanders of the Nationalist 74th Army after the "resurrection".
6. Lao Guanying: The sixth military commander.
A native of Hepu, Guangdong Province, Lao Guanying has been in the guard army system for a long time after graduating from the fifth phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and participated in two battles in the defense of Shanghai. It was during the Second Shanghai War of Resistance that Lao Guanying met Yu Jishi, an old commander of the Guard Army, and became a close associate of Yu Jishi and has always been blessed by Yu Jishi.
Yu Jishi took advantage of Lao Guanying's meritorious service in the Songhu War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression to transfer him to the 74th Army as a brigade commander, and from then on, Lao Guanying's life was indissoluble with the 74th Army.
After the loss of the northeast, under the full protection of Yu Jishi, Lao Guanying was appointed as the new commander of the 74th Army.
In April 1949, after the People's Liberation Army successfully crossed the Yangtze River, Lao Guanying was ordered to lead the 74th Army to retreat along Lishui to Fujian, and the march was intercepted and attacked by large-scale troops of the People's Liberation Army, and the rebuilt 74th Army suffered countless casualties.
On August 13, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) pounced on the Kuomintang forces from north of Ningde and west of Danyang. The unit of the 74th Army stubbornly resisted with the existing positions, and by the evening of the 14th, Lao Guanying, seeing that the PLA was unstoppable, once again ordered a retreat to Langqi Island, and the next day, Lao Guanying withdrew to the Matsu Islands with the remnants of his 74th Army. At this time, the number of soldiers was less than 5,000.
After Fuzhou was breached by the People's Liberation Army, the 74th Army was transferred to Pingtan Island, and Chiang Kai-shek instructed the Ministry of National Defense to withdraw the 74th Army, and the remnants of the 74th Army were reduced to the 51st Division, which was included in the combat sequence of the 73rd Army, and the 74th Army was abolished.
In this way, on September 5, 1949, the 74th Army ended its prominent status as the five main forces of the Nationalist Army, the elite of the Central Army, and the ace of the aces.
After painstaking retreat to Taiwan, Lao Guanying no longer had any intention of joining the military, so he went through the follow-up of retirement and returned home to reunite with his wife and children.
In his later years, Lao Guanying was very poor, and in order to let the family have food, clothing, food and clothing, he even opened a grocery store.
It is reasonable to say that from the time Chiang Kai-shek revoked the 74th Army's name, the 74th Army should have died, but in less than a month, the 74th Army's number appeared again.
7. Yu Jianxun: The seventh commander.
After the outbreak of the civil war, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Lu Han to lead the main force of the Dian army to the northeast, and Lu Han proposed a quid pro quo, using the old subordinate Yu Jianxun and others to form a security regiment in Yunnan, and applying to Chiang Kai-shek for the number of troops.
I don't know what Chiang Kai-shek thought, he gave the 74th Army, which he had just taken from Lao Guanying, to Lu Han's newly formed security force of the Dian Army.
In October 1949, Yu Jianxun, a general of the Dian Army, became the seventh commander of the 74th Army, and the last commander of the 74th Army in the Kuomintang army sequence.
If the sixth commander, Lao Guanying, is more or less related to the 74th Army, then the 74th Army of the Seventh Commander Yu Jianxun has nothing to do with the old 74th Army in the complete and utter way, and the 74th Army is only a numerical number for them, and Chiang Kai-shek will not re-incorporate the 74th Army as a concubine because of this number.
Even if the last 74th Army number was only a "candy" for the old Chiang Kai-shek to appease Lu Han, it did not last much longer, and two months later, Lu Han launched the Kunming Uprising, and the 74th Army, as his concubine, revolted with it, changing its name to the Provisional 12th Army of the People's Liberation Army, with Yu Jianxun as its commander.
At this point, the number of the 74th Army of the Kuomintang Army was officially declared to be dead.
If we compare the 74th Army's final formation to the final exit from the stage of history to a play, then the "grand finale" of this play is indeed beyond the imagination of many people, it is really ups and downs, unexpected, and it seems reasonable to taste it carefully.