History of the Gansu warlord Lu Dachang

Lu Dachang, zi Songling, a native of Huangniwan, Linxia County. If he loses his mother at an early age, his aunt will take care of him. At the age of seven or eight, he was sent to the home of his grandparents in Jijia Lane (now Freedom Road) in the city, and studied with his uncle Lu Youcai (born to his step-grandmother) at Li Guangbin's private school. For several years, uncles and nephews were not in harmony, and they often fought. The grandmother favored the parents and children and hated Lu Dachang very much. In order to avoid his own anger, my grandfather also asked Lu Dachang to "he does not study when he reads", and allowed him to do as he wished, and listened to his suspension from school to business. Since then, he has been called a stall, a cargo man, and a porter, but none of them suited his taste. Finally, he stole five hundred pieces of money and fled to Xunhua in the last year of Guangxu, where he was introduced by his brother Lu Dayuan (who was then a soldier under The Xunhua general Luo Kaifu) and joined Luo Kaifu as a service soldier. In 1911, When Ma Anliang organized Luo Kaifu's department into an elite Western Army Auxiliary Battalion, and when he was transferred to Shaanxi to attack Qianzhou, because of Lu's fierce nature and similar temperament to Luo Kaifu, he was promoted by Luo kaifu to be a personal escort (called Daqi). In the siege, he bravely moved forward, injuring his arms, legs and waist three times, and he was loved by Luo. Later, Luo Bu retreated from Shaanxi and garrisoned Linxia. During this period, he took Luo Kaifu and indulged, doing whatever he wanted, often drinking and gambling, and committing murder and fighting.

In 1915, Luo Kaifu resigned from his post as the battalion commander of the Attached Middle School battalion and returned to his native Hunan in the east, and Lu Dachang followed suit. Because Luo had some ties with Wang Zhanyuan, the overseer of Hubei, he became the commander of the second battalion of the Dou Langxuan Regiment of the Seventh Division of Wang's Seventh Division, and also assigned a platoon commander to Lu Dachang, and was promoted to company commander. After Luo's death, he also acted as battalion commander for a few days.

After Luo Kaifu's death, Lu Dachang lost his patron. In 1921, after Lu Dachang broke away from Wang Zhanyuan's department, he once traveled to Beijing and Shanghai and was mixed in fireworks and willow lanes. When he was poor and bored, he was pleased to hear that Lu Hongtao had been promoted to the governor of Gansu, so he took the lead in the name of his fellow villagers in Gansu province and Shanghai, and sent a telegram from Shanghai to support the land, and then returned immediately. When passing through Pingliang, as soon as he stepped down as a battalion commander, he met Zhang Zhaoxi and was extremely flattered. Zhang regarded him as a "rising hero" and gave Lu Hongtao a telegram to sponsor. After Lu arrived in Lanzhou, he was appointed by Lu Hongtao as an aide-de-camp of the Governor's Office. After two or three months, he tried to gain a position of strength and power in the army. Ben Yang asked Deng Long, a member of the Linxia Jinshi, to write a resignation and send it to him with the story of "not riding a horse for a long time, and being reborn with hip meat". This matter was deeply appreciated by Lu's aide Fan Dingshu. Within a few days, Lu Dachang was appointed as the sentry officer and assistant of Zhang Zhiyuan's battalion of Song Youcai's department.

On the 21st day of the first lunar month in 1922, the Song Department was pulled out of Lanzhou Gongxingdun and moved to the barracks of Lintao East School. After reorganization, Lu was promoted to battalion commander of the third battalion of the First Infantry Regiment. Since then, he has tried his best to change his original appearance, and as soon as he gets off the playground, he takes off his military uniform, puts on a robe and short coat, and dresses up as a gentle and elegant person. He originally read very little, but he had a rough understanding of writing, but at this time he imitated the literati, pretended to be a posture, wrote hundreds of large characters every day, and recited one or two ancient texts; praised Zhuge Liang for "going out and entering the picture", and Mu Yanghu for "Confucianism will flow". On the door of his house, it reads "Dare to speak slowly, light qiu yang uncle; self-is a lun towel, Lufan Wuxiang Marquis" of the Yang Lian. Whenever he interacted with the gentry, he always talked loudly, and it was difficult to recognize that he was an "embroidered pillow".

In the spring of 1926, Wu Peifu ordered Zhang Zhaojia, the town guard of Longdong, and Kong Fanjin, the defender of Longnan Town, to encircle and suppress Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army, in a vain attempt to eliminate Feng Yuxiang in Gansu. Zhang Zhaojia overestimated Liu Yufen's power, and in order to seize the throne of the Gansu Overseer, he did not contact Kong Fanjin, preemptively sent troops, and sent his troops Liu Fusheng and Han Youlu to lead ten battalions to march into Dingxi. After liang guanying of the northwestern army stationed in the west of Ding, after slightly resisting, on the one hand shortened the battle line, defended according to danger, and on the other hand concentrated its forces to launch a fierce attack on Huang Degui's troops stationed in the town of Agan. Unable to resist, Huang Bu sent personnel to ask for help from Song Youcai's troops stationed in Lintao. Song Youcai was timid before the battle, and because of his indecision, it was convenient for a military conference to be held on the evening of the sixth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar to conduct research. At the meeting, Lu Dachang spoke first, insisted on participating in the war, and volunteered to take the lead. With Song Youcai's reluctant consent, Lu Dachang immediately returned to the battalion headquarters, led the Ninth and Twelfth Companies, set out that night, day and night, and arrived at Guanshan (the area around Qidaoliang near present-day Lanzhou) in the afternoon of the eighth day of the first month. Just as the Huangbu was fleeing, Lu Dachang encountered the pursuing soldiers. With a sharp breath, he rushed and killed indiscriminately, repelling the Northwest Army and occupying the top of Dogwa Mountain. At dawn on the ninth day of the first month, the Northwest Army gathered about a battalion of troops and launched a fierce attack on the position held by Lu Dachang. Lu Dachang used to fight white-bladed hand-to-hand combat, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Northwest Army, and repeatedly used the reckless "Yak Array" to repel the Northwest Army several times. After three days of fierce fighting, the Northwest Army was never successful. The Northwest Army then changed its tactics and launched an attack from the flank before dawn on the thirteenth, but Lu Dachang was caught off guard and injured in his right arm, so he retreated back to defense. After the Battle of Guanshan, the Northwest Army regarded him as a fierce enemy, and repeatedly appeared Lu Dachang's name in its war reports; the officers and men of Zhang Zhaojia's unit praised him as "the hero of the Battle of Guanshan" and won the reputation of "brave and good at war". In addition, at this time, Liu Yufen was frequently requisitioned in Gansu, and there were too many poor dispatches, so that the people's grievances boiled over, so there was no shortage of people who touted Lu Dachang, and they also had a great "influence" in society. This created conditions for Lu Dachang's later flying yellow Tengda and occupying Tao min.

After the defeat at the Battle of Guanshan, Song and Lu shirked their responsibilities to each other, and contradictions arose. Song believed that this catastrophe was caused by Lu Dachang; and Lu Dachang believed that in this operation, Song Youcai's measures were inappropriate, so that the military plane was delayed. Therefore, after the rout to Guanbao (官堡, in present-day Huichuan Town, Weiyuan County), Lu did not listen to Song Youcai's military orders to retreat from Longnan and retreated to Min County alone in an attempt to break away from the Song forces.

In the spring of 1927, the Northwest Army advanced from Lintan and Zhongzhai. In this situation, Lu retreated to Xihe and threw himself into the arms of Song Youcai. However, Kong Fanjin, the defender of Longnan Town, did not seek Song's consent and appointed Lu Dachang as the commander of the first regiment of the Song Brigade (the former regimental commander Zheng Xiru absconded when he was suspected of collaborating with the enemy). Later, he became more arrogant and arrogant towards Song Youcai, and at that time he was nicknamed "General of the Pagis".

Later, Zhang Weixi of the Northwest Army drove Kong Fanjin out of Tianshui, and the Song brigade stationed in Xihe also all retreated, from Wudu and Bikou to Mian County, and threw themselves into Wu Xintian, where they were organized as the Eighth Infantry Brigade, with Lu Dachang as the commander of the Fifteenth Regiment. First stationed in Ankang, then in Pingli, Hubei Province, which borders Ankang, Zhang Weixi drove Wu Xintian out of southern Shaanxi in 1928, and the Song brigade collapsed to Hanyang, where it was disarmed by Li Zongren's Xia Wei division. Since then, Lu Dachang has gone to Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Han again. Although it is a re-visit to the same place, the stimulation of this failure is very different from the previous recall, coupled with the lack of tariffs, no way to borrow money, and dare not return to his hometown publicly, like a dog that has lost his family. But at the end of his rope, his nature is always difficult to move. Soon he seized the opportunity of Chiang Kai-shek's attempt to harass Feng Yuxiang's army and search for frustrated old officers, and through Chiang's accomplice He Chengjun, he obtained the rank of commander of the second road of the "Gansu Rebel Army." Later, after passing through Wanxian County, Sichuan Province, he met With Wu Peifu and asked for the post of commander-in-chief of the "Gansu Autonomous Army." Arriving in Guanxian County, It coincided with the hometown porter Gu Kaiji preparing to return to Linxia. So he consulted and funded him for the road. After passing through Maowen County to Songpan, he hired a yak and rode to the Strange Place in Gannan, hiding in a Tibetan home. With the assistance of the Tibetan leader, he collected two or three horses and two bad guns, under the banner of the commander-in-chief of the "Gansu Autonomous Army", and used his influence as a battalion commander to carry out activities. He first started by bribing the police in Lintan and Minxian counties, expelled the two county chiefs, and robbed the two counties of the tobacco mu that were preparing to relieve the province and fined them 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. Later, he also appeased several bandits in Tao, Min, Zhang, and other counties, and distributed salaries and clothing to attract a wide range of people. He also used intimidation to capture more than 200 rifles, several mortars and machine guns, as well as ammunition, mules, and horses, which were sent by the provincial side to aid Tianshui and stay in Longxi. After planning and consideration, he felt that Chiang Kai-shek's banner was clearer than Wu Peifu's, so he used the name of the commander of the second road of the "Gansu Rebel Army" to continue his activities. Later, a group of Lei Zhongtian's armed forces were captured. With the gradual strengthening of his strength, starting from 1930, he successively occupied fourteen counties such as Min County, Lintan, Zhangxian, Longxi, Taosha, Lintao, Weiyuan, Wudu, Xigu (present-day Zhouqu County), Wen County, Wushan, Xihe, Li County, and Gangu County, forming a situation of separation and occupying it for seven or eight years.

In 1931, the Nationalist government gave Lu Dachang the title of a newly formed 14th Division. In early September 1935, Lu Dachang took advantage of the natural danger of Lazikou in an attempt to block the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army from going north to resist japan. Lazikou is a canyon in Diebu County, which is the natural gateway of Sichuan and Gansu Provinces, with cliffs and cliffs, and has the trend of "one husband and one pass, and no enemy". Lu Dachang held here with three battalions of troops. In order to conquer Lazikou, the Red Army organized troops to attack from the front, along the steep stone wall in the east, with ropes, using the trees on the mountain, climbing up one by one, and then detouring back to the side of the defending enemy and attacking with grenades to match the frontal attack. After a day and night of fierce fighting, all three battalions of Lubu were defeated and fled to the county seat of Min County. In December 1936, the Kuomintang government "rewarded meritorious deeds" and changed its name to the 165th Division of the Central Army. He was accused of improper employment, nepotism (referring to his son Lu Min as the head of the special service regiment), and financial injustice (monthly funding of 120,000 yuan, distributed at 70,000 yuan) and so on. After being investigated by Zhu Shaoliang, commander of the Eighth Theater, the matter was dealt with: In terms of employing personnel, the post of chief of staff was appointed by the central authorities, and Zhun Lumin resigned and was sent to Lu Da for training; on the financial side, the central authorities sent Han Qi as quartermaster general, emphasizing financial independence. After this internal contradiction, Chiang Kai-shek, in order to eliminate the miscellaneous factions and create a "blue and one-colored" national armed force, took advantage of the gap to seize real power, appointed Wang Zhiqi to take over the position of commander of his division, and gave Lu Dachang the official post of commander of the newly organized Second Army, and later hung up the empty title of commander-in-chief of the Eighth Theater East Road.

After that, he lived in Lanzhou, used the proceeds of cruel exploitation in more than ten counties such as Longxi, borrowed money through the Bank of China, built large-scale construction in Qilihe, built high-rise buildings, and lived an extremely luxurious life. He also hung a big sign of the "General Headquarters" in front of his home, and as a "senior general," he haunted the high-ranking military and political bureaucracy to decorate the Chiang family dynasty. In addition, he used his identity to make friends with bank owners, to hoard juqi business, and to make anti-war wealth. In 1946, with the support of Gu Zhenglun, he was elected as a deputy to the National Congress. When he was liberated in 1949, he fled to Min County. Later, he was detained by the people's government for labor reform, during which he was released on medical parole due to illness. On October 1, 1962, he died of illness in Lanzhou.