In 1937, the Battle of Songhu was fought in Shanghai, the battle lasted for three months, the Kuomintang army announced casualties of 300,000 people, one of which, the commander of the lieutenant general, was killed, but after the war was condemned as "treason", the Nationalist Government Military Commission also revoked the name of this army.
This army was the 67th Army of the Nationalist Army, and its commander was named Wu Keren.
General Wu Keren was from the Northeast Army, he was one of the first senior generals of the Nationalist Army to die in the frontal battlefield in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and among the senior generals who died in the Battle of Songhu, he had the highest rank and the most tragic result.
General Wu Keren graduated from the Artillery Section of the Baoding Army Officer School, in 1925, Zhang Xueliang recommended General Wu Keren to study artillery in Japan, and after returning to China, he became the colonel of the Artillery Teaching Team of the Northeast Army, and from 1931, General Wu Keren successively served as the deputy commander and division commander of the 117th Division of the 67th Army of the Nationalist Army, and by April 1936, General Wu Keren had been promoted to deputy commander of the 67th Army, and the commander was General Wang Yizhe.
After the peaceful settlement of the Xi'an Incident, the "young marshal" Zhang Xueliang was placed under house arrest by Chiang Kai-shek, the Northeast Army fell into chaos, General Wang Yizhe was shot and killed by radical soldiers, General Wu Keren succeeded him as the commander of the 67th Army, and his troops were moved from Shaanxi and Gansu to jieshou, and the 5 divisions under the jurisdiction of the 67th Army were reorganized into two divisions, 107 and 108.
At this time, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out, and Wu Keren immediately led all the generals of the army to ask for help, and was ordered to go to Cangzhou to take over the frontal position of the 29th Army that had withdrawn from Pingjin to the south. Later, Wu Keren was ordered to fight in Songhu and garrison the Qingpu area in western Shanghai.
On November 5, three divisions of the Japanese 10th Army landed on a large scale from Jinshanwei in Hangzhou Bay, directly attacked Songjiang County, and detoured from the western front to the rear of the Chinese defenders, and the battle situation was suddenly dangerous.
Zhang Fakui urgently ordered the 67th Army to "advance lightly to Songjiang and strike hard at the enemy, in order to ensure the safety of our right-wing army in Shanghai."
At the same time, Huang Qixiang, acting commander-in-chief of the Right Wing Army, also gave orders to Wang Gongjie, commander of the Songjiang Security Command, ordering him to cooperate with General Guo Rudong of the 43rd Army and General Wu Keren of the 67th Army to hold the county seat of Songjiang for three days, and those who violated the order would be severely punished by military law.
The county seat of Songjiang was only sixty miles away from Jinshanwei, and Wang Gongxuan, who was the commander of songjiang security at the time, had only a few local troops under his command, and general Guo Rudong of the 43rd Army had only a few hundred remnants left at this time.
General Wu Keren was well aware of the danger of the war situation, in order to seize the fighters, Wu Keren led his army to the county seat of Songjiang overnight, and at the same time ordered the 107th Division to quickly occupy the north of Songjiang, and the 108th Division to occupy the south of Songjiang City, and the camera to meet the enemy head-on, in order to ensure the safe retreat of the Friendly Forces in Shanghai.
On November 7, the Japanese troops landing by Jinshanwei had sneaked to the other side of the Huangpu River, and immediately used fierce fire cover to force a landing by rubber boats and wooden sailing ships. The officers and men of the 107th Division suppressed the enemy's fire with flat-fire guns, and violently attacked and forced the Japanese army, killing and wounding hundreds of Japanese troops at once, and the enemy corpses on the Huangpu River were numerous, and the enemy rubber boats and wooden sailing ships were almost all sunk. Acting Commander-in-Chief Huang Qixiang personally went to the battlefield after hearing the report and praised the heroic deeds of the officers and men of the division.
On the afternoon of the 8th, Japanese reinforcements arrived one after another, and the offensive was strengthened. The 107th Division fought fiercely with the enemy on the front line of Jinhebang and Deshenggang, with heavy losses and the chief of staff of the division was killed.
At the same time, the 108th Division encountered the enemy at the Bridge 30 between Songjiang and Shihudang, and the commander of the 322nd Brigade was martyred in a fierce battle, and after the Japanese army took the opportunity to move back to the 108th Division, Xia Shuxun, commander of the 324th Brigade, led the remnants of the troops to defend Songjiang West Pass and desperately prevented the Japanese from entering Songjiang.
In the evening, the follow-up troops of the Japanese army came from one source, the two sides repeatedly strangled, the battle was extremely cruel, the Japanese army still rushed to the songjiang county town like a tide, and the east, south, and west sides were surrounded by the Japanese army, and the situation was extremely critical.
In order to fulfill the military order of "sticking to the three days", General Wu Keren personally went to battle many times to supervise the battle, completely disregarding his personal safety, and the generals were greatly encouraged, and finally suppressed the Japanese army's offensive, and the war situation gradually stabilized.
On the night of November 8, Wu Keren's troops had been holding Songjiang for three days, and between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m., some officers advocated immediate withdrawal from Songjiang in order to take the initiative to reduce casualties, but at this time there were still friendly troops who had not completely withdrawn from Shanghai, and Wu Keren decided to hold until 12:00 midnight to buy more precious time for the retreating friendly troops.
It was not until the early morning of the 9th that General Wu Keren issued a breakthrough order. Even in the order of retreat, General Wu Keren showed great generosity and calmness, and he asked Commander Guo Rudong to evacuate first, and then led the command personnel and Wang Gongjie to attack from the North Gate and rush towards Kunshan in the direction of Jinshan.
At this time, on the way to the retreat of our Shanghai defenders, there were constant attacks and harassment by Japanese troops, and a large number of people, cars and horses made the situation extremely chaotic. Wu Keren could have chosen another path to advance quickly, but after seeing this chaos, he changed his mind and commanded his troops to capture several Japanese positions in succession, clearing the road and allowing the crowd to pass quickly.
On the afternoon of November 9, General Wu Keren, who had completed his mission, led the rest of his troops to Baihe Harbor on the border between Qingpu and Kunshan, preparing to cross the river to Kunshan from here, but the bridge over the river had been blown up by enemy aircraft.
General Wu Keren immediately made a decision and commanded his troops to cross the river. At this time, enemy planes in the sky repeatedly came to bomb and harass, and the Japanese ground troops detoured to search nearby, and Wu Keren was not afraid of danger, calm and self-assured, and calmly commanded.
In the evening, just as the 67th Army headquarters was about to finish crossing the river, a japanese plainclothes team suddenly appeared at the river without warning, and fierce fighting ensued between the two sides, General Wu Keren was unfortunately shot and killed at the age of 43, and at the same time martyred Wu Tonggang, chief of staff of the army.
After the End of the Battle of Songhu, the 67th Army was unable to replenish its troops and formation due to heavy casualties, and the name of the army was revoked by the Nationalist government, and its subordinate units were incorporated into other units.
However, what is sad is that after the martyrdom of Commander Wu Keren, because all the soldiers who participated in the crossing of the river at that time were killed, some people with ulterior motives used the lack of confirmation as an excuse to hastily declare that Wu Keren's "whereabouts are unknown," and some people even openly spread rumors that Commander Wu Keren died on the way to "defect to the enemy."
In this way, General Wu Keren was immediately burdened with heavy burdens and crimes such as desertion and defection.
Many parties concerned recalled and historical records that in order to cover up this command mistake, the Kuomintang military and political authorities not only failed to praise the 67th Army, which had been holding out for three days, but even framed this unit of heroic resistance and created rumors that Commander Wu Keren had defected to the enemy.
Some people have also analyzed that this is another case of retaliation suffered by the Northeast Army after the "Xi'an Incident"...
So, is the stigma of "treason" carried by General Wu Keren true and has it been cleared? Who will stand up for the general to get justice?
Here it is necessary to mention a person, he was Mr. Wang Gongyi, who fought with Wu Keren in those years, during the Battle of Songhu, Mr. Wang Gongyi was then the administrative inspector and security commander of Songjiang.
Mr. Wang Gongyi still remembered that on the afternoon of the 8th, when it was the last day of the 'three days of death', Commander Wu Keren came in from the small south gate with a short gun in his hand, he was covered in mud and sweating.
Wang Gongxi asked, "How did Commander Wu go up?" ”
General Wu Keren said: "I must go up, as soon as I go to the front, the brothers fight hard." ”
Wang Gongxi said, "The general takes good care of himself, and his safety is of paramount importance." ”
General Wu Keren smiled and said, "It's all right, it's a big deal to sacrifice your life for the country." By the way, you'll have to testify for me then. ”
Mr. Wang Gongjie may not have thought that General Wu Keren's words at that time were actually a slur.
In the years after the war, Mr. Wang Gongjie has been running to wash away the stigma of General Wu Keren, and he has come forward to confirm the details of Wu Keren's death with his own experience and personal observations, and mr. Tian Yushi, a newspaperman in the United States, wrote an article in the newspaper in 1981, shouting: If the truth is not revealed to the world, it is intolerable!
After all, the fabricated stigma could not hide the fact that the blood stain was stained, and more than 40 years later, Wang Gongjie and his surviving comrades-in-arms who had survived guarding Songjiang with General Wu Keren spoke out and published an article in Taiwan's "Chinese and Foreign Magazines", which recorded Wu Keren's combat deeds and once again cried out for General Wu Keren.
The article first attracted the attention of the Chinese government, and in 1987, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs posthumously recognized Wu Keren as a revolutionary martyr.
It was not until the Qingming Dynasty in 1989 that the Taiwanese side added the spiritual position of General Wu Keren to the Martyrs' Shrine.
The stigma of decades has finally been washed away, and may General Wu Keren rest in peace from now on.