During the Kuomintang civil war, there were many reasons why the Kuomintang reactionaries lost the war, one of the most important of which was the warlord struggle within the Kuomintang.
We all know that Fu Zuoyi surrendered to our army through peaceful uprising, but in the early stages of the Liberation War, Fu Zuoyi was a high-ranking general who was quite capable on the battlefield and caused a lot of trouble to our army.
Chen Cheng, who was also a senior Kuomintang official, once commented on Fu Zuoyi in his later years:
After he captured Zhangjiakou, he changed from an honest man to an old fox.
What are the unknown past events of Chen Cheng and Fu Zuoyi?
The rise of Chen Cheng
A careful study of Chen Cheng's history of origins will reveal that it is not so glorious.
In 1919, Chen Cheng was preparing to apply for the Baoding Army Officer School, but he did not graduate from middle school at all, was not qualified to apply for the examination, he borrowed a middle school diploma, imposter took the exam, even so, he did not pass the admission because of poor test results.
Later, Chen Cheng went through dredging with the chief examiner of the Director of the Department of Learning of the War Department before entering the Baoding Military Academy in the name of preparing students.
At that time, in the land of China, warlords were often involved in a situation of chaos, and not long after Chen Cheng was admitted to the Baoding Military Academy, a war broke out between the warlords directly under his direct lineage and the warlords of the Anhui clan, and the Baoding Military Academy had to be suspended.
Chen Cheng saw an opportunity from the chaos of the war, he came to Guangzhou to join the Cantonese Army, and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party, after the Baoding Military Academy resumed classes, Chen Cheng returned to the school, until 1922 completed his studies, and was promoted to lieutenant platoon leader.
Chen Cheng and Chiang Kai-shek met in 1923, when Chen Cheng followed Sun Yat-sen's troops to fight against Shen Hongying's rebels, during the battle Chen Cheng was sent to the hospital for treatment because of his gunshot wounds, and Chiang Kai-shek, as chief of staff, came to the hospital to inspect the wounded and comfort the officers and soldiers wounded in the battle.
Lying on a hospital bed, Chen Cheng met Chiang Kai-shek for the first time, and later Chen Cheng was discharged from the hospital after recovering from his injuries, and during the Second Crusade, he made a meritorious contribution to the bombardment of Huizhou City and was promoted to the commander of the artillery battalion major.
After that, Chen Cheng scrupulously fulfilled his duties in the army, exerted his firepower superiority in various battles, and played an important role many times, so that he was gradually appreciated by the high-level and entered the sight of Chiang Kai-shek.
In 1928,
Chiang Kai-shek appointed Chen Cheng as the commander of the guards of the General Headquarters of the National Revolutionary Army.
His position in the Chiang faction was formally established.
The game behind it
Fu Zuoyi was a warlord of the Jin dynasty, and it is reasonable to say that with a jiang family like Chen Cheng, it is impossible to have a high opinion of such a miscellaneous army general, but Chen Cheng's gradual defeat during the Kuomintang civil war made him lose face in front of Chiang Kai-shek, and Fu Zuoyi's victory in Zhangjiakou gave Chen Cheng a chance to show his face.
In October 1946, the People's Liberation Army and the Kuomintang Sun Lianzhong's troops fought near Zhangjiakou, Fu Zuoyi took advantage of the opportunity that the People's Liberation Army had no time to take care of, led a large army to besiege Zhangjiakou, the situation of our army on the battlefield suddenly became passive, in order to reduce unnecessary casualties, our army had to take the initiative to withdraw from the vicinity of Zhangjiakou.
Generally speaking, Fu Zuoyi was an excellent general, and during the War of Resistance Against Japan, he repeatedly fought bloody battles with the elite units of the Japanese army and achieved countless impressive achievements.
On the battlefield of liberation, when confronting the Platon Army, he was able to take the initiative to understand the rapidly changing situation on the battlefield and seize the opportunity to attack quickly.
The Kuomintang top brass made a big fuss about Fu Zuoyi's victory at Zhangjiakou, and Chiang Kai-shek was very happy, because in the previous wars, although the Nationalist army occupied a large area on the battlefield, the Platon Army fought and retreated, eliminating a large number of nationalist forces.
Fu Zuoyi paid a very small casualty price when he attacked Zhangjiakou, which was indeed very worthy of celebration for Chiang Kai-shek, and Chen Cheng, who was the chief of the general staff of the Kuomintang Army at that time, was also overjoyed by Fu Zuoyi's victory.
As soon as Zhangjiakou was captured, he ran to inspect the situation in the local area, and for Chen Cheng, a high-ranking Kuomintang official, such an anxious approach also showed his inner desire to make meritorious contributions in a hurry.
Chen Cheng walked through the corners of the Zhangjiakou front like a general who had won every battle, as if the battle had been won under his command.
After that, he held a huge press conference and threatened to solve the Chinese Communist Party within 3 to 5 months, while Fu Zuoyi, the real protagonist of the battle, stayed in the corner and did not make too much publicity.
Chen Cheng, who was overwhelmed by the victory, even sent a report to Chiang Kai-shek, saying that he would take the Pinghan Railway within three weeks and open the route from Wuhan to Beiping.
Entanglement within the Kuomintang
At the post-war summing-up meeting in Zhangjiakou, Chen Cheng proposed to the generals attending the meeting a plan to open up the railway to Beiping in three weeks, and the high-ranking Kuomintang officials present were dumbfounded, knowing that the person stationed at the Pinghan Railway was Liu Bocheng, a senior general of the People's Liberation Army, and his combat effectiveness had long been appreciated by many Kuomintang generals.
Li Zongren first raised his own doubts, believing that the Nationalist army simply did not have enough troops to confront Liu Bocheng, and that Li Zongren's seniority in the Kuomintang was much older than Chen Cheng's.
Chen Cheng, who had just issued a military order with Chiang Kai-shek, was suddenly unable to get off the stage, and he set his eyes on Fu Zuoyi, who had been silent all along, and asked him to express his opinion.
Fu Zuoyi's heart was not interested in the struggle of interests between these parties, and he actually had a basic understanding of the form of the entire Kuomintang-Communist civil war, that is, the Kuomintang was not an opponent of the Communist Party at all, and instead of participating in the quarrel between the Kuomintang over military deployments, it was better to put things aside and preserve his military strength, in case things changed in the future, he still had chips in his hands.
It was because of Fu Zuoyi's steady and steady attitude that he was promoted to commander-in-chief of the North China Suppression Campaign in 1947 and dominated one side for a time.
After Chen Cheng followed Chiang Kai-shek in defeat and retreated to Taiwan, he was very angry at Fu Zuoyi's betrayal of the party-state.
After he once commented that after he captured Zhangjiakou, he changed from an honest man who was loyal to the country to an old fox with warlord ambitions.
As everyone knows, Fu Zuoyi made great contributions to the defeat of the Japanese invaders during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and it was benevolent and righteous to the party-state, and the tilt between factions made Fu Zuoyi have to preserve his strength.
brief summary:
Fu Zuoyi's subsequent peaceful uprising and surrender to our army precisely shows his cleverness. Instead of contributing to a political party with no future, it is better to abandon the dark and cast light and contribute to the cause of liberating all of China.