Text/Kingdom Building
He was a lieutenant general (integrated brigade) in the south of the Kuomintang Huzong, and during the Battle of Wulongpu in August 1947, he cleverly thought that the Northwest Field Army was going to fight his ambush, but he violated the orders of the division commander Zhong Song and did not move closer to the main force. As a result, General Manager Peng, who did not eat meat, was furious and turned around and wrapped the brigade commander and his troops in dumplings. After being captured, the general disliked the People's Liberation Army's Qingshui noodles and was scolded by Mr. Peng. Later, he joined the revolutionary ranks and contributed to the liberation of the Great Northwest. This Kuomintang lieutenant general was Liu Ziqi, commander of the 123rd Brigade of the reorganized 36th Division.
Liu Ziqi, Zi'an Qiu, a native of Ningxiang, Hunan, was born in 1907. In 1924, he entered the second infantry section of the Whampoa Military Academy, during which he participated in two crusades and battles against Chen Jiongming, and was promoted to deputy company commander for merit.
In 1929, Liu Ziqi was selected by the Nationalist government to study in the twenty-third term of the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officers. As a result, after the September 18 Incident in 1931, all chinese students sent to study in Japan withdrew from school and returned to China, but they were not able to graduate.
After returning from Japan, Liu Ziqi successively served as a military staff officer in Qian Dajun, Yu Jishi, and Tang Enbo, and was promoted from major to colonel.
In 1936, Liu Ziqi graduated from the third special class of the Army University and was promoted to major general of the Army.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Liu Ziqi served as a senior staff officer and head of the cadre training class in Tang Enbo's 31st Group Army. Due to the ineffectiveness of the Tang Enbo's army against the Japanese army, there was no outstanding performance.
In 1944, Hu Zongnan was promoted to commander of the First Theater of Operations and appointed Liu Ziqi as his deputy chief of the general staff. On the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, he was transferred to the commander of the reorganized 66th Division. Liu Ziqi performed superiorly during this period and won a lot of battles against Japan. He was awarded the Victory Medal and the Order of the Cloud of the Fourth Class by the National Government.
In 1946, Liu Ziqi was transferred to the commander of the 123rd Division. In the same year, the Kuomintang reorganized the army, reducing the 100 armies after the end of the War of Resistance into 100 divisions, and the original divisions were reorganized into brigades. The reorganized 123rd Brigade was subordinate to Zhong Song's reorganized 36th Division. The 36th Reorganized Division is largely staffed, with a total of 3 integrated brigades (28th, 123rd, 165th Brigades) and nine infantry regiments, with a total number of more than 30,000 people.
In early August 1947, Liu Ziqi's 123rd Brigade was recuperating after following Zhong Song on a rescue mission to Yulin. At this time, Hu Zongnan mistakenly judged that the main force of the Northwest Field Army was surrounded by it in the area north of Mizhi County, so he ordered the reorganized 36th Division to encircle from Yulin to the south. Unable to withstand Hu Zongnan's urging, Zhong Song led Liu Ziqi's 123rd Brigade and 165th Brigade, totaling more than 20,000 people, and carefully went south from Yulin along the route designated by Hu Zongnan. Zhong Song was also really cunning, and he suspected that Hu Zongnan's intelligence was wrong, so he divided the troops into two, leaving Liu Ziqi's 123rd Brigade to explore the way in front, and he led the division headquarters and the 165th Brigade to follow. Zhong Song's judgment was very accurate, commander Peng Dehuai had already laid a trap in the middle of the road, and waited for this "undead Zhong Song" to throw himself into the net.
On August 18 of the same year, the small units of the 3rd Column of the Northwest Field Army launched a feint attack on Liu Ziqi's 123rd Brigade, and at the same time, the Northwest Field Army of two complete columns, under the command of Peng Laozong, pounced on the headquarters of the reorganized 36th Division. The main force of the 165th Brigade exchanged fire with Nishino, and within an hour several positions were lost. Zhong Song was shocked after hearing the report, this was clearly the main force of the communist army, and wanted to eat himself in one bite. Zhong Song sent a telegram to Hu Zongnan for help, but what resulted was a scolding from Commander Hu: "The main force of the communist army has been surrounded in Mizhi, you are just a guerrilla." Don't be greedy for life and afraid of death, hurry south to participate in the encirclement and suppression operation! Zhong Song was speechless, he couldn't count on Hu Zongnan, so let's save himself."
Fortunately, the Northwest Field Army did not have heavy weapons, if the 123rd Brigade could be transferred back to join forces, then it would not be easy for General Manager Peng to eat these 20,000 people in one bite, and when the fainting Hu Zongnan woke up and sent troops to support, maybe he could still fight a big victory? Zhong Song moved quickly and immediately gave Liu Ziqi an order: "The division headquarters encounters the main force of the communist army, and immediately moves closer to the division headquarters." At that time, Liu Ziqi's 123rd Brigade had reached Wulongpu, and Zhong Song's 36th Division headquarters was still in Shajiadian, dozens of miles away. After receiving the order, Liu Ziqi, who knew that Peng Dehuai was good at ambushing, muttered in his heart: The division commander did not let me send it to the tiger's mouth, the communist army must ambush on the halfway. However, he did not dare to really disobey the military order, and played a slippery slope, letting Sun Tieying's 493 regiment move closer to the division headquarters and see the situation himself. Why did Liu Ziqi let Sun Tieying act as cannon fodder? Because the 493rd Regiment was a unit of the 165th Brigade, it was temporarily assigned to the command of the 123rd Brigade, not its own concubine. The official level crushed people to death, and Sun Tieying, even if he had ten thousand reluctances, had to rush to shajiadian with a hard scalp. However, to everyone's surprise, Sun Tieying's group of people did not even see a figure halfway through, and smoothly escaped from the encirclement. This time it was Liu Ziqi's turn to be dumbfounded.
It turned out that when General Peng was formulating this ambush battle, he had a relatively large appetite and was ready to eat all of Zhong Song's reorganized 36th Division in one go. Therefore, almost all the troops of the Northwest Field Army at that time were concentrated to fight an ambush of 50,000 people. Hu Zongnan's so-called "main force of the communist army" was nothing more than an independent brigade formation, scattered around the Mizhi area, creating the illusion that the main force was attacking the city, attracting Hu Zongnan's large army to attack, so as to facilitate the main force to fight.
As a result, the cunning Zhong Song divided the troops into two, and after weighing the pros and cons, Mr. Peng planned to spare Liu Ziqi's 123rd Brigade and annihilate Zhong Song's division headquarters and the 165th Brigade, which enabled Sun Tieying's 493rd Regiment to successfully meet the division headquarters. Zhong Song waited until August 19 to see the shadow of the 123rd Brigade, knew that things had changed, and led all his men and horses to quickly cross the Wuding River and escape. The ambush battle turned into a sandwich meal, and Mr. Peng was furious. Tens of thousands of soldiers ambushed in the wilderness for two days and two nights, or let the cunning Zhong Song run away, not to mention the commander of the battle, even ordinary soldiers nested fire. Fortunately, the meat was not eaten, and there was a little meat foam left, and Liu Ziqi's two regiments were still in the encirclement of the Northwest Field Army. Mr. Peng took this meritorious tiger master and went back to clean up Liu Ziqi, who was clever.
At 17:00 on august 20, 1947, the Northwest Field Army launched an attack on more than 6,000 Kuomintang troops in the encirclement. The entire battle ended in less than two hours, and the two regiments of the 123rd Brigade of the enemy's reorganized 36th Division were completely destroyed, and the brigade commander Liu Ziqi and several regimental commanders were taken prisoner. At dinner, Mr. Peng deliberately asked the cooker to cook noodles to entertain this Hunan fellow, while he and the soldiers ate miscellaneous grains. But I didn't expect that Liu Ziqi, who was accustomed to a good life, did not have a little meat in the meeting bowl, and even the chopsticks did not move. After the guards reported, the hot-tempered Mr. Peng rushed over and scolded Liu Ziqi with his head covered.
Not to mention, Liu Ziqi, who has a very high self-esteem, does not sell the accounts of political work cadres, but he was touched by the innocence and frankness of Mr. Peng, and immediately expressed his willingness to join the revolutionary contingent and exert his residual heat for the revolutionary cause. Liu Ziqi did what he said, and took advantage of his old connections in the Kuomintang army to rebel against many Kuomintang officers and soldiers, and made important contributions to the liberation of the Great Northwest.
In October 1949, Mr. Peng appointed Liu Ziqi as the director of the Logistics Corps of the First Field Army (that is, the Northwest Field Army), specializing in the management of the warhorses of the cavalry unit.
In 1955, Liu Ziqi returned to local work from the army and served as a counselor in the counselor's office of the Gansu Provincial People's Government, where his old friend Deng Baoshan was the chairman.
In 1959, he was elected a member of the National Political Consultative Conference.
He died in Shanghai in 1993 at the age of 87.