As a major warlord faction in the Republic of China, the Northwest Army's strength can be described as very strong, although it quickly fell apart after Feng Yuxiang's Central Plains War, many troops were still branded by the Northwest Army, and also retained the combat effectiveness and tradition of the Northwest Army.
For example, the Twenty-ninth Army of Song Zheyuan in the Great Wall War, and the Thirty Army that this article will talk about.
The Thirtieth Army had thrown itself into Chiang Kai-shek since the disintegration of the Northwest Army, and after the outbreak of the War of Resistance, the army fought a bloody battle with the enemy at Taierzhuang and won unanimous praise throughout the country, but with the outbreak of the civil war, this anti-Japanese army was also involved in a new torrent of war.
First, Shanxi was hit hard twice
On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its unconditional surrender, and the Thirtieth Army was immediately incorporated into the Eleventh Theater, and was ordered to go north to Xinxiang, Henan to be surrendered, and Sun Lianzhong, the original Thirty Army, had become the commander of the Eleventh Theater, and the commander was replaced by Lu Chongyi.
In order to ensure the occupation of Beiping and Baoding, Sun Lianzhong ordered the Thirtieth Army to go north along the Pinghan Road and garrison Beiping, and when Lu Chongyi led the troops to advance, he received a new order, Sun Lianzhong asked the Thirtieth Army to march north along the Pinghan Line after the 40th Army, the New Eighth Army, and planned to attack the Liu Deng People's Liberation Army in Handan with the 3rd Army and the 16th Army occupying Shimen to ensure the safety of the Baoding area.
The 30th Army and the 40th Army joined forces to launch an attack on the Linzhang area where the PLA was located, while the PLA was waiting for the Kuomintang army to enter the battle, planning to surround the 30th Army, the 40th Army and the New Eighth Army, and by the time Lu Chongyi and the other three commanders discovered this situation, the situation was already unfavorable to them.
So the three commanders decided to shrink their positions and hold the existing positions to wait for reinforcements, only to expect that Gao Shuxun and his new Eighth Army would revolt in front of the front, so that the positions of the Forty Army collapsed completely.
Lu Chongyi saw that it was impossible to hold on, so he issued a breakthrough order, and the Thirty Army broke through in two ways, and was intercepted by the People's Liberation Army along the way, suffering heavy losses, and finally barely broke away from the encirclement and reached Ji county.
The Thirtieth Army was reorganized in Anyang for three months, recovered its vitality, and was newly incorporated into Li Xuezheng's Sixty-seventh Army, which upgraded the B-type army, which was originally a two-division system, to a three-division A army.
In April 1946, the 30th Army was reorganized into the 30th Division, and Lu Chongyi became the commander of the division, and it was not long before the 30th Army, which had just recovered from the Battle of Handan, was once again thrown into the battlefield.
In July 1946, the reorganized 30th Division, which had been moved to Yuncheng, Shanxi, was ordered by the Xi'an Appeasement Office to cooperate with the garrisons in Shaanxi and Shanxi to launch an all-out offensive against the People's Liberation Army in Shanxi to stabilize the entire territory of Shanxi and the Guanzhong region of Shaanxi.
According to the plan of Hu Zongnan, who was in charge of command, the main force of the 30th Division was divided into two roads by Wen Xibing to attack the People's Liberation Army in Hengshui Town and Dai County.
The People's Liberation Army retreated step by step according to the predetermined plan, the Thirty Division did not know what the plan was, and pursued it all the way, but the speed of the People's Liberation Army was too fast, Lu Chongyi pounced one after another, just at this time, a regiment that remained in the rear of Fushan was besieged by the People's Liberation Army, Lu Chongyi hurriedly mobilized troops to return to reinforcements, because of the insistence of the Nationalist army, the People's Liberation Army attacked day and night, only attacking a watchtower in the northeast corner of the city, and at this time the reinforcements of the Thirty Division were about to arrive, and the People's Liberation Army had to give up the attack.
After the Battle of Fushan, the main force of the 30th Division was transferred to Linfen for rest for half a year.
In December 1946, Hu Zongnan transferred the 30th Division and the reorganized 67th Brigade, which was transferred from the order of the 30th Division, into the battle to attack the Lüliang Mountains of the People's Liberation Army.
However, the Sixty-seventh Brigade participated in the battle for a week and never encountered the People's Liberation Army, so Hu Zongnan ordered all his subordinates to return to the original defensive area, and the Sixty-seventh Brigade was in charge of the rear of the palace.
Unexpectedly, this decision caused the Sixty-seventh Brigade to fall short, and was suddenly besieged by the People's Liberation Army, the brigade quickly collapsed under a powerful attack, after which the Sixty-seventh Brigade was completely transferred from the Thirty Division, and Lu Chongyi only had two brigades left under his command.
It was these two brigades that encountered the People's Liberation Army at Tongguan and Linfen successively, and although they did not follow in the footsteps of the Sixty-seventh Brigade, they also suffered heavy losses, and Lu Chongyi had to pull all his troops to Xi'an to rest.
Second, the Taiyuan Uprising failed due to leaks, and the Chengdu Uprising finally succeeded
In 1948, the People's Liberation Army launched the Taiyuan Campaign, and Yan Xishan, who was surrounded in Taiyuan City, was so anxious that he rushed to Hu Zongnan for help, although Hu Zongnan was at this time in the Shaanxi battlefield and lost troops and was unable to take care of himself, but because of Yan Xishan's face and Taiyuan's strategic position, he decided to airlift Taiyuan as a reinforcement by the 30th Division.
At this time, Lu Chongyi, who had been promoted to commander and division commander of the entire Twenty-ninth Army, knew that he would be destroyed to reinforce such an isolated city, so he used the excuse that his military affairs were important and inconvenient, and asked deputy division commander Huang Qiaosong to command the Thirty Division to reinforce, and Huang Qiaosong also knew that he would not be able to return and wanted to take advantage of his illness, but Hu Zongnan, Lu Chongyi reluctantly agreed under repeated requests.
In August 1948, Huang Qiaosong took more than 10,000 people from the division headquarters and some troops to Taiyuan by air.
After Huang Qiaosong's troops arrived in Taiyuan, Yan Xishan entrusted the task of defending the eastern part of the city to the Thirty Division, and in order to unify with the defenders in the city, the number of the 30th Army was restored, and at the same time, Huang Qiaosong officially served as the commander of the 30th Army.
Although this former northwestern army brigade won victories in several strongholds and battles with the People's Liberation Army, the situation in Taiyuan was still not optimistic, especially in other battlefields, the Kuomintang army was gradually defeated, and many senior generals were captured, deepening Huang Qiaosong's pessimism about the future.
Soon after, Huang Qiaosong received a letter from Gao Shuxun, the old commander of the Handan uprising, hoping that he could lead the uprising, and it was this letter that changed Huang Qiaosong's view, and he immediately sent his subordinates to actively contact the People's Liberation Army outside the city, and planned to open the city gate in his defense area to receive the People's Liberation Army into the city.
Huang Qiaosong told this plan to Dai Bingnan, commander of the Twenty-seventh Division, and Dai Bingnan immediately summoned the deputy division commander, Dai Dehou, and told him about the plan of the uprising after He Dehou made an oath.
The main force of the Thirty-Seventh Army was the Twenty-seventh Division, and the command of the Twenty-seventh Division was in the hands of Dai Bingnan, no matter how Huang Qiaosong decided, he must get Dai's support, and as the deputy division commander, He Dehou would inevitably be swayed by this person who held the actual military power.
As a result of Dai Bingnan's whistle-blowing, Huang Qiaosong was arrested and imprisoned by the Military Justice Department of the Taiyuan Sui Bureau, and soon he and Jin Fu, a representative of the People's Liberation Army who had contacted the city, were escorted to Nanjing, and after a special trial with Yu Hanmou as the presiding judge, Huang Qiaosong was sentenced to death for the crime of "leading his troops to surrender to the communist army".
Huang Qiaosong, Jin Fu and others bravely rebelled in Nanjing on November 27, 1948.
After Huang Qiaosong was arrested, Dai Bingnan was promoted to commander for his meritorious whistleblowing, and Dai Dehou was also promoted to commander of the 27th Division, but Dai Bingnan's military commander's throne did not last long before the People's Liberation Army invaded the city, all four regiments of the 30th Army were annihilated, the division commander Tong Dehou surrendered to the People's Liberation Army, Dai Bingnan left the army in disguise and hid in a residence, and was later arrested by the Public Security Bureau, and was executed on July 8, 1949 for informing incidents.
After the Thirtieth Army was annihilated in Taiyuan, Lu Chongyi changed his 113th Army, which was also the commander of the Army, into the Thirtieth Army, and at the same time, the former 30th Army troops stationed in Shaanxi were rebuilt, and the 30th Army was reorganized from Hanzhong into Sichuan, at this time, almost all the main forces of the Kuomintang were annihilated, and Lu Chongyi, under the contact of his old friend Gao Gaoya, made contact with the underground party of the Chinese Communists and began to plan for the uprising.
On December 25, 1949, Lu Chongyi received a clear instruction from the Ccp to agree to the uprising, and led the 30th Army to declare the uprising in Chengdu, and at this point, the 30th Army, as an old unit of the Northwest Army, officially ended its history.