If you have seen the old movie "Battle of Shanghai", you will definitely remember the story of the Kuomintang general Liu Changyi who led his troops to surrender to the People's Liberation Army near the end of the battle to liberate Shanghai. In fact, there was indeed a patriotic Kuomintang general who was preparing to launch an uprising in the central city of Shanghai, and joined forces with the People's Liberation Army to liberate Shanghai in one fell swoop, and the name of this general was Zhang Quan.
Unfortunately, General Zhang Quan and others were arrested on May 15 due to secret agent whistle-blowing, only one day before the scheduled uprising on May 16, otherwise the history of the liberation of Shanghai would be rewritten.
General Zhang Quan had contact with the CCP when he was studying in Japan, and he accepted the party's instructions to stay in the enemy camp for a long time, and installed Wang Yawen, a communist, with him as a secretary. In 1948, he went to Shanghai as the commander of the Taihu Lake Garrison District and a lieutenant general inspector of the Ministry of National Defense, and the following spring, Zhang Quan investigated all the river defenses of Jiangyin Fortress, drew drawings and handed them to the Shanghai underground party, which played a vital role in the People's Liberation Army's conquest of the Yangtze River defense line and the liberation of Nanjing.
Zhang Quan was then commissioned by the ccp's underground party to start plotting against the Kuomintang troops stationed in Shanghai. Many of the Kuomintang generals stationed in Shanghai at that time were zhang quan's friends or subordinates, and even Tang Enbo was a subordinate during his Northern Expedition, and Zhang Quan skillfully used these "connections" to carry out rebellion work cautiously and without losing the opportunity.
Xu Shiyi, a close friend of Zhang Quan's class of generals and a major general in the Presidential Office, was one of zhang Quan's targets of rebellion, and he provided Zhang Quan with important military information such as the information of various military warehouses, the deployment, mobilization, and combat situation of troops on the outskirts of Shanghai. In order to grasp and control the arms and materials needed for the uprising, Zhang Quan managed to transfer his student and niece and son-in-law Qin Ranxuan to be the director of the Qijiang Road warehouse, the largest military material warehouse in Shanghai.
Li Xiyou, commander of the provisional First Column of Li Yannian's corps, Wang Bingcheng, commander of the 51st Army, Wang Bangwei, commander of the 182nd Division, and Fang Maokai, commander of the 230th Division of the Youth Army stationed in Pudong, all joined the preparations for the uprising.
Zhang Quan's counter-rebellion work was highly appreciated by the Shanghai underground party organization, and the central government approved his uprising plan, appointed Zhang Quan as the commander of the Shanghai rebel army, And Wang Yawen as the political commissar, and decided to hold an uprising at 10 a.m. on May 16.
The uprising plan included: Liu Zhongquan's rebel troops of the 51st Mechanized Regiment attacked Yunzaobang from the inside out to welcome the PLA into the city; when the PLA attacked the Fangmaokai position at Wusongkou, Fang Maokai raised the white flag to give way as agreed; Wang Bingcheng's 51st Army and the Zhong Mian Mechanization Regiment stationed in the city responded in a timely manner and cooperated with the attack; and Li Xiyou controlled the 132nd Division stationed on the campus of Fudan University. The guns and ammunition needed by the rebel troops were supplied by the Qiujiang Road warehouse controlled by Qin Ranxuan.
In terms of the navy and air force, the navy's "Captain Chen" was responsible for sinking the warships at the narrow key crossing of Wusongkou and blocking the passage of the Kuomintang warships; Zheng Zhenhua organized forces to destroy the airfield so that the planes of the Kuomintang Air Force could not take off.
Zhang Quan personally led the elite rebels to attack the Shanghai Garrison Headquarters, and cooperated with the People's Liberation Army to capture Chiang Kai-shek, who was then supervising the battle on Fuxing Island...
The uprising plan was established, and Zhang Quan, in the name of "inspection," repeatedly went to Baoshan, Wusong, and other fortresses to collect military intelligence, and drew a sketch map overnight to report to the Platon troops outside the city.
If this well-planned uprising succeeds, the process of the campaign to liberate Shanghai will be greatly accelerated.
However, just one day before the scheduled uprising, Zhang Xian, chief of the intelligence section of the Nationalist 132nd Division, who had been sworn to support the uprising, suddenly informed Tang Enbo that Zhang Quan, Li Xiyou and other generals were betrayed together.
Tang Enbo ordered the arrest of Li Xiyou and Qin Ranxuan on the morning of May 15, and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, Zhang Quan was also arrested by ambush agents at the entrance of the Alley Entrance of His residence in Macquarie. When the agent escorted him into the residence to search, Zhang Quan calmly hung a red dress on the iron wire on the balcony, which was the "warning code" he had agreed with Wang Yawen, and Wang Yawen also survived.
Tang Enbo imprisoned Zhang Quan on the 4th floor of the Kuomintang Police General Bureau on Fuzhou Road, and arranged extremely strict vigilance measures around the perimeter, and although the CCP underground organization actively organized rescues, none of them worked.
Zhang Quan took the whole matter of organizing the uprising on himself, and in addition, ignored all the enemy's questions. The enemy was forced to be anxious and began to torture him, but Zhang Quan remained unyielding.
As a result of Zhang Quan's arrest, the uprising and plan to capture Chiang Kai-shek, which were prepared by tens of thousands of officers and men of the Nationalist army, had to be stopped, and the entire uprising plan was aborted. However, due to Zhang Quan's tight mouth, he protected the underground party members and a large number of patriotic officers and soldiers of the Kuomintang. The Shanghai underground party tried in many ways to rescue Zhang Quan and others, but failed.
On the 19th, the People's Liberation Army successively captured Yuepu, Chuansha, Zhoupu and other places, and completely annihilated the Kuomintang 51st Army. The rumbling cannon on the outskirts of Shanghai reached the cell, and Zhang Quan, who was in prison, could not suppress his excitement, and he said to his fellow guests: "The sky in Shanghai is about to dawn, let's wait!" ”
However, Chiang Kai-shek's murderous butcher knife had been raised. Shortly after Zhang Quan and Li Xiyou were arrested, Chiang Kai-shek, who was deploying Shanghai defense on Fuxing Island, learned of Zhang Quan's planning of the uprising, and knowing that there was also a content of "catching Chiang Kai-shek" in the uprising plan, he immediately broke out in anger and scolded, and immediately ordered the execution of Zhang Quan and other "important criminals."
At 10 o'clock on May 21, Zhang Quan and Li Xiyou were tied up by the gendarmes and pushed into the prison cart. Zhang Quan understood that the last moment had arrived. Zhang Quan, Li Xiyou, and others were shot by the military police of the Nationalist government in front of the Daxin Company for disturbing finances and undermining public order. (Daxin Company is located in Nanjing Road, the most prosperous place in Shanghai, and the original site is now the First Department Store in Shanghai)
The day before, Chiang Kai-shek left Fuxing Island on a warship and never said goodbye to his birthplace of Shanghai. Five days later, the whole territory of Shanghai was liberated.
After the liberation of Shanghai, the organization searched around, and finally found the body of General Zhang Quan in the "Pushan Mountain Villa" in Zhabei. On July 30, 1949, General Zhang Quan was posthumously recognized as a revolutionary martyr by the people's government. General Zhang Quan's coffin was buried in Hongqiao Cemetery and later moved to Shanghai Longhua Martyrs Cemetery.
Although the "Shanghai Uprising" died prematurely, it should not be forgotten. We must not forget the martyrs zhang quan and other martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the liberation of Shanghai, let alone the heroes who have won or lost, and the martyrs Zhang Quan will always live in the hearts of the people.