Text/Kingdom Building
On November 13, 1935, Sun Chuanfang, the commander-in-chief of the once invincible Five Provinces Coalition Army, was assassinated in the Buddhist hall. Her assassin was a young woman named Shi Jianqiao. The reason for sun Chuanfang's assassination was that his father Shi Congbin, as the commander-in-chief of the Fengzhi warlord Zhang Zongchang, was defeated and captured in a battle with Sun Chuanfang for Anhui, and Sun Chuanfang violated the civil war rule of not killing prisoners and beheaded Shi Congbin for three days. After Shi Jianqiao killed Sun Chuanfang, he voluntarily surrendered himself and was pardoned by the Nationalist government in 1936. But in fact, the story behind this case is far more complicated than recorded in the history books, and even has a great connection with Shi Zhongcheng, the commander of the later Kuomintang ace 74 Army.
In October 1925, the Fengzhi warlord Zhang Zongchang and the commander-in-chief of the Five Provinces Coalition Army, Sun Chuanfang, broke out into a war over Anhui. Zhang Zongchang appointed Shi Congbin, commander of the Second Army, as commander-in-chief and attacked Sun Chuanfang from Shandong to Zhejiang. As a result, Shi Congbin was defeated and captured by Sun Chuanfang. Shi Congbin was older than Sun Chuanfang, and was more qualified than Sun Chuanfang among the Beiyang generals, and when he saw Sun Chuanfang, he politely gave him a military salute. At first, Sun did not embarrass Shi Congbin, but as the war situation developed unfavorably to himself, he became angry and ashamed, and despite the bitter advice of his subordinates, he insisted on killing Shi Congbin. In order to put pressure on the Warlords of the Feng clan, he even cruelly hung Shi Congbin's body on the city gate and exposed it to the sun for three days. Sun Chuanfang's atrocities did not have much practical effect, but laid the foundation for the later killing.
Shi Congbin had only one daughter, Shi Gulan (Shi Jianqiao), who succeeded his second brother's son Shi Zhongcheng as his heir. When Shi Congbin died, Shi Zhongcheng was only a lieutenant platoon leader under Zhang Zongchang. The two brothers and sisters wanted to avenge Shi Congbin, but they could not reach it, so they asked Zhang Zongchang to promote Shi Zhongcheng to the regimental commander, nominally to support the family, but in fact to grasp the military power to prepare for revenge on their father. Therefore, from the perspective of this plan, the protagonist of the assassination of Sun Chuanfang should be Shi Zhongcheng, not Shi Gulan.
In 1926, Zhang Zongchang appointed Shi Zhongcheng as the head of the regiment. Three years later, he was promoted to Commander of Yantai Garrison. At this time, Sun Chuanfang had been defeated by the Northern Expeditionary Army and hid in Tianjin as a Duke of Yu, and with the status of Shi Zhongcheng, it was easy to assassinate Sun Chuanfang. However, Shi Zhongcheng was already established as a family, afraid (based on Shi Zhongcheng's performance in the War of Resistance Against Japan, it is not objective to say that he was afraid of death) assassinating Sun Chuanfang would affect his future, and at the same time, he gradually gave up the idea of avenging his father. Shi Zhongcheng told his sister Shi Gulan of his thoughts, dissuading Shi Gulan from thinking about revenge and living his life with peace of mind. However, Shi Gulan, who has a tough personality, is not moved and breaks off the brother-sister relationship with Shi Zhongcheng. At the same time, Shi Gulan met Shi Zhongcheng's military school classmate Shi Jinggong by chance, and Shi Jinggong was well aware of the feud between the Shi family and Sun Chuanfang, and promised in front of Shi Gulan's mother and daughter that as long as Shi Gulan married him, he would avenge his father for Shi Gulan. In this case, Shi Gulan married Shi Jinggong and bore him two sons.
In 1935, Shi Jinggong had become a major general brigade commander of the Nationalist government, but he repeatedly resigned from the assassination of Sun Chuanfang. In a fit of rage, Shi Gulan returned to his mother's house with his two sons, changed his name to Shi Jianqiao, spent a lot of money to buy a pistol, let go of his foot binding to practice running, and actively prepared for the assassination of Sun Chuanfang. On November 13 of the same year, Based on the clues of the investigation, Shi Jianqiao shot and killed his father's enemy Sun Chuanfang three times at the Guanyin Temple in the Japanese Concession of Tianjin. At this time, Sun Chuanfang had been out of the world for many years, and was killed in broad daylight, and his family was not convinced, demanding that the National Government severely punish the murderer. Shi Zhongcheng went around asking people to find connections to appeal for his sister Shi Jianqiao, and finally under the intervention of Feng Yuxiang, then vice chairman of the Kuomintang Military Commission, the Nationalist government announced in 1936 that Shi Jianqiao would be pardoned and would not pursue his legal responsibility.
After Shi Jianqiao was released, he lived with his brother in Changsha. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he served as the chief instructor of the Aircraft Donation Committee, raised funds for the purchase of 3 aircraft for the country, and was personally received and commended by Song Meiling. After liberation, he stayed in Suzhou, Beijing and other places, and died of illness in 1979.
Shi Zhongcheng was promoted to commander of the 57th Division in 1937. In 1939, the division was incorporated into the 74th Army (then commander Yu Jishi), and Shi Zhongcheng was the only military commander of the army who was not from Whampoa. In 1941 he was promoted to commander of the 100th Army. In 1943, after Wang Yaowu, commander of the 74th Army, was promoted to commander of the 24th Group Army, several of his cronies fought for the post of commander, among which Li Tianxia and Zhang Lingfu fought the most fiercely. In order to prevent infighting in the 74th Army, Wang Yaowu transferred Li Tianxia, who had the highest voice, to the 100th Army as the commander, while transferring Shi Zhongcheng, who had no factional colors, back to the 74th Army as the commander, and promoting Zhang Lingfu, commander of the 58th Division, to deputy commander of the 74th Army. After Shi Zhongcheng, who has a generous personality, became the commander of this ace army, he made the pig eight precepts look in the mirror, and he was not a person inside and out. The above was managed by Wang Yaowu, and wang Yaowu had the final say on all matters, and the three division commanders below, Qiu Weida, Li Yan, and Lao Guanying, including deputy commander Zhang Lingfu, were all from Zhenzong Huangpu and did not pay attention to this miscellaneous military commander at all.
In early 1946, Wang Yaowu promoted Shi Zhongcheng to deputy commander-in-chief of the 20th Group Army, and handed over the post of commander of the reorganized 74th Division (which was reorganized from the 74th Army) to Zhang Lingfu. Shi Zhongcheng was caught in the middle of the factional struggle, and he saw this opportunity to simply fail even the deputy commander-in-chief of the 20th Group Army, and resigned on the grounds of old age and illness to return to his hometown for the elderly.
After the liberation of Nanjing in 1949, Shi Zhongcheng fled to Taiwan with his wife, children, and children, and supported his family under the false post of lieutenant general and deputy commander. Until his death in 1974.
From plotting to assassinate Sun Chuanfang to ceding the military power of the 74th Army, Shi Zhongcheng's style of dealing with people has always taken the middle way, which is far from his title of famous anti-Japanese general. On the surface, Shi Zhongcheng is a brave soldier with boiling blood, and hand-bladed Sun Chuanfang should be taken for granted. However, the reality is very humiliating, he is fully capable of avenging his father, he voluntarily gave up the revenge plan, not because he is afraid of death, but to follow the traditional Chinese Confucian thinking, do not want to repay the wrongs of time. Just as he gave up military power in 1946, Shi Zhongcheng was not a strong personality who liked to play with power, so he preferred to wrong himself rather than fight with others. Such a person cannot achieve any great cause, but he will not cause trouble, which is also an important reason why he can enjoy his old age in peace!