Sun Dianying's impression in the minds of the Chinese people has never been positive, and his image of being spurned by others is mainly attributed to his image of the Great Thief of Tanglin. However, his performance in the years before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was also remarkable, for example, in 1933, he led his troops to block the Japanese army at Chifeng for seven days and nights, and then at the Monkey Head Gou Gate, he continued to fight the enemy for more than ten days, and once showed the appearance of Chinese soldiers. But Sun Dianying was a bad boy with milk after all, and later defected to the Japanese army and was despised by the Chinese people.
Xing Zhaotang became Sun Dianying's deputy after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. At that time, Song Zheyuan's troops withdrew from Beiping, and in order to organize the resistance, Song Zheyuan appointed Sun Dianying as the commander of the Chabei Nationalist Army, and later Lao Jiang appointed Sun Dianying as the commander of the Jicha guerrillas, and Xing Zhaotang, who organized the organization of the contingent around Fangshan in Hebei Province, together with Sun Dianying, was appointed deputy commander, and the unit was reorganized into the New Fifth Army as the deputy commander.
Xing Zhaotang is a native of Tongwei, Gansu, born in 1894, after graduating from the Gansu Army Survey School, he was assigned to work in the Gansu Army Survey Bureau, and was later transferred to the Longdong Town Guard Office as a staff officer, and soon left his post to join the Cavalry Training Office of the First Division of the Shaanxi Army. Later, Xing Zhaotang was sent by the Kuomintang in the northwest to Guangzhou to report on party affairs to Sun Yat-sen and others. After the meeting, Sun Yat-sen decided to let him go north to coordinate with Li Dazhao, Tan Pingshan, and Liu Shouzhong to do party affairs work and develop the revolutionary military forces in the northwest.
In 1924, Xing Zhaotang was appointed by Hu Jingyi, commander of the First Shaanxi Division, as the commander and instructor of the first company of the supplementary battalion, and has officially entered the military circles since then. After the establishment of the Nationalist Army, Xing Zhaotang marched with the Cavalry Training Office, departed from Handan, reached the line of Rehe Pingquan via Tongzhou and Xifengkou, fought fierce battles with the warlords of his direct lineage, and won successive battles, capturing a large number of weapons from the direct warlord Wang Huaiqing along the way, and he was also promoted to the commander of the third battalion of the Supplementary Tenth Regiment of the Second National Army.
After the surrender of the Nationalist Second Army to Wu Peifu, it was reorganized into the Fifth Mixed Brigade of the Yi Army, xing Zhaotang served as the commander of the third regiment in Gao Guizi's department, and after Gao Guizi's department was submitted to the Nationalist government, the troops were reorganized into the newly organized Nineteenth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, and Xing Zhaotang served as the commander of the first division and led the troops to participate in the Northern Expedition.
Soon, however, the old Chiang Kai-shek reneged on his promise and ordered the whole army to clean up the party. However, Xing Zhaotang, then commander of the 108th Division of the Forty-seventh Army, was slow to move, and he also persuaded Gao Guizi to release all the more than thirty members of our party who had been imprisoned in the Fuyang riots.
In the course of subsequent developments, Xing Zhaotang felt more and more that lao Chiang kai-shek was unpopular, so he made up his mind to no longer use the reactionary warlords as a tool, and in 1929 he left the Forty-seventh Army and joined the "Party Protection and National Salvation Army" of Tang Shengzhi, president of the Military Senate. Although it was a failure each time, when the Xi'an Incident occurred, he still planned to go to Xi'an to continue his anti-Chiang kai-shek cause.
Of course, the main contradiction in the country after the Xi'an Incident has changed, and the national War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the salvation of the country has risen to become the main contradiction. Xing Zhaotang's main energy also shifted to focusing on resisting Japan and saving the country. After he became the deputy commander of the New Fifth Army, he also went to Chongqing specifically for the establishment, salary, and equipment to ask for old Chiang, and old Chiang also attached great importance to his door-to-door request for a meeting, and sent He Yingqin, Zhang Zhizhong, Chen Cheng, and other high-ranking officials to meet with him.
However, when Xing Zhaotang did not agree, the old Chiang immediately issued an edict to Wei Lihuang, commander of the First Theater: "It is reported that Xing Zhaotang, deputy commander of the New Fifth Army, has made absurd remarks and is acting in the same way as the same party." He asked Wei Lihuang to quickly send people to strictly investigate and "handle it with approval." Wei Lihuang did not dare to be sloppy, but he could not find out the real evidence, so Old Jiang had no way to start.
In the second half of 1940, regardless of the overall situation of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek began to engage in small anti-communist actions and constantly engaged in friction with the Eighth Route Army. At that time, the "friction expert" Zhu Huaibing, who was stationed on the side of the New Fifth Army, had many clashes with the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and Wei Lihuang ordered the New Fifth Army to cooperate with Zhu Huaibing's attendant operations to prevent "invasion by different parties." At this time of crisis, Xing Zhaotang ordered all the officers and men of the army not to fire a single shot, and those who violated the law were dealt with by military law.
As a result, when Zhu Huaibing and others clashed with the 129th Division of our Eighth Route Army, because they did not have the support of the New Fifth Army, they were confronted by our Eighth Route Army and suffered heavy losses. Sun Dianying, commander of the New Fifth Army, knew that they had not helped this time, and old Jiang would definitely hold him accountable, so he made a careful eye and quietly let the wind in the troops say that this time the New Fifth Army was guaranteed, all thanks to the credit of Deputy Commander Xing Zhaotang. Naturally, this news spread quickly to Chongqing, and within a few days He Yingqin called to "invite" Xing Zhaotang to Chongqing and discuss important matters.
So, how did Xing Zhaotang deal with this matter later?
Xing Zhaotang knew that if he went to Chongqing, he would definitely be like Zhang Xueliang went to Nanjing. In November 1940, he quickly fled the New Fifth Army and defected to the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Anti-Japanese Base Area of the Eighth Route Army under the leadership of our Party.
What was the end of the later Xing Zhaotang?
On January 1, 1941, Xing Zhaotang was cordially received by Mr. Peng, and was soon elected as the deputy chairman of the Provisional Senate of Jinji-Hebei Luyu; in 1943, he went to Yan'an, the holy land of revolution, where he joined our party. During the Liberation War, he was sent to the rebel army Gao Shuxun as deputy commander and deputy commander-in-chief of the Democratic Construction Army, and later served as vice chairman and chairman of the Ningxia People's Government, and first vice governor of Henan Province. He died on 31 May 1961 at the age of 67.