I don't know if some friends still have the impression that in the old home or in the house of their parents, either there was a portrait of a great man, or a map of the Eight Juns, or a map of the Ten Marshals of the Founding of New China. Many friends are quite interested in the ranking of the ten marshals, careful friends may find that among the top ten marshals, Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen are both from the North China Field Army, Xu Shuai is the 8th, and Nie Shuai is the 9th. You must know that during the Liberation War, Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen were paired up with a team, Nie Rongzhen was the commander-in-chief of the North China Military Region, and Xu Xiangqian was the deputy commander, why was Xu Shuai's ranking one place higher than Nie Shuai's?
Some friends said that the marshal's ranking was based on seniority and achievements, and Nie Rongzhen had an advantage over Xu Xiangqian on this factor alone, but the ranking was reversed.
Nie Rongzhen's education is higher than Xu Xiangqian's. Nie Rongzhen went abroad for further study twice, while Xu Xiangqian graduated from the Shanxi Normal School (did not graduate). Nie Rongzhen received progressive ideas here because his school was a new-style school in the middle school stage and actively participated in the May Fourth Movement. Later, Nie Rongzhen went to France to work and study with the idea of "industry to save the country", and the representative figures of the same period were Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.
After the success of the October Revolution in Russia at that time, the socialist trend greatly influenced all countries in the world, and nie Rongzhen in France came into contact with Marx's theory at that time, felt that a new door had been opened, and then went to the Soviet Union for further study. After Xu Xiangqian went to private school, he dropped out of school to work as a farmer at home because of family difficulties, and when his father saw that he loved to study like this, he entrusted him to send him to a bookstore as an apprentice, and later, by chance, he entered the Shanxi Provincial National Normal School. Xu Xiangqian accepted the influence of the new trend of thought there, but because the principal of the school at that time was Yan Xishan, he was very strict about the students' ideological control, and seeing that Xu Xiangqian was so radical, he directly went through the procedures for him to withdraw, so Xu Xiangqian was expelled from school.
Nie Rongzhen joined the party earlier than Xu Xiangqian. In 1922, Chinese progressive youth established the Chinese Youth Communist Party in France, and Nie Rongzhen actively accepted new ideas and organized several mass struggle movements, and officially became a member of them. Later, the Young Communist Party of China in Europe was reorganized and renamed the European Branch of china Travel Service, nie Rongzhen devoted himself to the revolutionary cause, directly gave up his study in France and possible opportunities for great development in the future, and in 1923, Nie Rongzhen officially joined the Communist Party of China through the introduction of others.
Xu Xiangqian studied at the Shanxi Provincial Normal School and the Whampoa Military Academy, actively moved closer to the party organization, and joined the Communist Party of China in 1927 through an introduction, which shows that Nie Rongzhen joined the party two years earlier than Xu Xiangqian.
Nie Rongzhen was Xu Xiangqian's teacher at the Whampoa Military Academy. After Nie Rongzhen returned to the embrace of the motherland in 1925, he first served as an instructor at the Whampoa Military Academy, as a secretary of the Political Department and a political instructor, and together with Zhou Enlai, he developed progressive youth at the Whampoa Military Academy, spread communist ideas and talked about the way to truly save the country and the people, sowing the seeds of revolution in the Whampoa Military Academy. At that time, Xu Xiangqian, after being expelled from Shanxi Normal School, was admitted to Huangpu School in Shanghai and other places, becoming the first batch of students, and Nie Rongzhen was Xu Xiangqian's teacher.
Nie Rongzhen participated in more battles than Xu Xiangqian. Nie Rongzhen participated in the famous Nanchang Uprising and the Guangzhou Uprising, and played a relatively important role in them. For example, in the Nanchang Uprising, 2 regiments of Zhang Dakui's army were mobilized to revolt, and when the Guangzhou Uprising temporarily fell into a low trough, he adjusted the direction with Ye Ting to preserve the fire. Nie Rongzhen had excellent political foresight; during the period of the agrarian revolution, he actively supported Chairman Mao's opinion in opening up base areas, covered the rapid crossing of the river by the Central Red Army during the Long March, and even more insisted on Chairman Mao's propositions at the Zunyi Conference to open the way for the main force of the Red Army to break out of the encirclement.
In the Shanxi battlefield, Nie Rongzhen and Lin jointly commanded the Battle of Pingxingguan, which shocked China and foreign countries, took the lead in firing gunfire against the Japanese invaders, and even achieved the first major victory of the Eighth Route Army against Japan, breaking Japan's undefeated record in China and completely striking at Japan's arrogance.
In 1939, Nie Rongzhen carried out military battle plan deployment in the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area he had established, seized the loopholes in the Japanese army's defenses, and directly killed Lieutenant General Norihide Abe of the Japanese army, who was a high-level commander of the Japanese Army in China, and this victory greatly encouraged the anti-Japanese sentiment throughout the country. During the Liberation War, troops were sent to support the northeast battlefield many times, actively cooperated with the Liaoshen Campaign, and participated in the Pingjin Campaign, achieving major victories.
As one of the deputies, Nie Rongzhen actively promoted the policy of peacefully liberating Peiping, made major contributions to the liberation of Beiping, and served as the first mayor of Beijing after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Xu Xiangqian was ill for many years, and the number of battles and battles he participated in was not as much as Nie Rongzhen.
As soon as the above four reasons were said, everyone was a little uneasy, saying that if they participated in the voting for the award at that time, they should give Nie Rongzhen a few more votes. But what we should note is that our party has never engaged in the Kuomintang's system of ranking seniority, and has paid attention to democracy and fairness within the party, and all important matters are decided by collective.
Then let's take a look, why xu Xiangqian ranked first among the ten marshals than Nie Rongzhen?
First, Xu Xiangqian's prestige in the army was higher than Nie Rongzhen's.
Develop the strength to lead the troops well, and achieve more good results with fewer victories. Xu Xiangqian had his own views and abilities in leading the troops, and was good at fighting with the masses to develop the revolution, and it took less than 2 years of effort to develop the more than 300 people left by the jute uprising into a Red Army team with more than 40,000 people, with 2 corps numbers, and finally reorganized into the Red Fourth Front.
Xu Xiangqian led his troops and organized four battles in different places, annihilating more than 60,000 enemy troops in total, and almost captured Chiang Kai-shek's ace general Tang Enbo alive. In the ensuing anti-encirclement and suppression war, many excellent tactics and tactics were summed up, including the tactic of enticing the enemy and the tactic of tightening the positions to directly annihilate more than 80,000 enemy troops, once again smashing Chiang Kai-shek's encirclement and suppression plan.
Young and authoritative, he is the head of the country. As mentioned earlier, he developed a regiment of less than 300 people into a front of the Red Army, and became the commander-in-chief of the Red Fourth Front in his early 30s, which can be said to have authority in the army at a young age. In fact, Xu Xiangqian can be alone and has his own personality charm, in the daily management of the troops, he often advocates the concept of loving soldiers like sons, and officers at every level must cherish their brothers and children, only in this way can they gather strength to defeat the enemy. For example, when attacking Linfen, the city gate could not be attacked for a long time, and the front-line instructor asked Xu Shuai to organize another death squad and assault company to attack the wall, but Xu Shuai looked at the defense of the wall with thick bricks, and could not bear the soldiers to sacrifice in vain, so he directly ordered the use of explosives to blow up the city wall.
Shusheng Ru will fight a hard battle, and the battle charge will be brave in front. The fighting style of the Red Fourth Front is to be able to fight hard battles, which is the military style that Xu Xiangqian brought out with his own hand. Every time there was a battle, Xu Xiangqian was the first soldier to charge forward, receiving the remaining soldiers of the jute uprising, and leading the battle, because the brothers under his command were all new soldiers, watching the machine gun sweep over and directly bowing their heads to avoid, while Xu Xiangqian stood forward and commanded the lines without moving, which directly encouraged the soldiers around him.
When he was in Shanxi, because of his physical illness, he lay on a stretcher to command the battle, and surrounded more than 100,000 people in Yanlaoxi with more than 60,000 people, and annihilated more than 100,000 people in the Battle of Jinzhong alone.
Second, Xu Xiangqian has made outstanding contributions to maintaining the unity of the central authorities.
Xu Xiangqian corrected the chaos in the Long March, opposed Zhang Guotao, and maintained unity and qigong. In several anti-encirclement and suppression wars of the Red Army, the Central Red Army suffered heavy losses. At that time, the Red Fourth Front developed the best, did not experience too many attritions and base areas were eaten, from the earliest 300 people to a large army of 40,000 people, and later thrived into an army of 80,000 people. During this period, Zhang Guotao thought that his merits were great, and seeing that the Central Red Army was not as good as before, his thinking fluctuated.
At that time, the Central Red Army went through several twists and turns, and decided to carry out two units to meet divisions and concentrate their forces to facilitate breakthroughs in encirclement and suppression. At that time, Zhang Guotao and Xu Xiangqian presided over the work of the Red Fourth Front. After receiving the order, Zhang Guotao reacted passively and even began to negotiate conditions with the central authorities. After meeting the division, the central government decided to go north to find strategic space and re-establish a base area, Zhang Guotao refused to implement it and insisted on leading the team south, but Xu Xiangqian was resolutely opposed and sent several telegrams to Zhang Guotao to stop it.
Zhang Guotao saw that the Central Red Army had only more than 20,000 people, while the Red Fourth Front army on his side had more than 80,000 people, so he planned to split the Central Committee and the Red Army. Xu Xiangqian, on the other hand, resolutely supported the central authorities' strategy and resolution to go north to open up new base areas, and did not hesitate to engage in "confrontation" with Zhang Guotao.
In order to clean up Xu Xiangqian, Zhang Guotao once took Xu Xiangqian's wife to open a knife, arrested Xu Xiangqian's wife and tortured him to torture Xu Xiangqian to engage in the so-called "black materials" of Xu Xiangqian, but he did not fish for anything, and later directly killed him in secret for the sake of secrecy, and Xu Xiangqian knew nothing about it in foreign combat.
Later, the Red Army began to move north, and some of the Red Fourth Front army was misled by Zhang Guotao and prepared to intercept and fire on his comrades-in-arms, after learning of this situation, Xu rushed to the scene to suppress the incident and let the Red Army move north at a fast speed. It was at this time that Xu Xiangqian said the classic words of "one's own people do not fight their own people, and the Red Army does not fight the Red Army", and finally Xu Xiangqian promoted the red four sides to go north, avoiding internal divisions and maintaining unity.
Third, at several moments of historical crisis, Xu Xiangqian took the correct position
During his studies at the Whampoa Military Academy, Xu Xiangqian not only studied the Three People's Principles, but was also influenced and influenced by communism. Later, Chiang Kai-shek openly betrayed the people and betrayed the revolution, liquidated the Communists, and carried out white terror in schools and society, creating a series of bloody cases, but this did not frighten Xu Xiangqian, but on the contrary, he saw clearly the hypocritical side of Chiang Kai-shek, he believed that only the Chinese Communist Party could save the country and save the people, and more firm confidence to follow the party. So he resolutely applied to join the Communist Party. In the face of the first crisis of our party, Xu Xiangqian proved his political belief with practical actions.
He openly supported Mao Zedong and resolutely opposed Zhang Guotao. As mentioned earlier, after the Red Army and the Red Fourth Front army met, Zhang Guotao wanted to seize power and ascend to power, so he put forward a series of unreasonable demands in a vain attempt to overthrow the central government and establish itself. Zhang Guotao not only demanded the reorganization of the Central Committee, arranged for people from the four red fronts to be supplemented, and privately released some remarks unfavorable to the Central Red Army, but also demanded that the Central Line be liquidated and directly pointed at Mao Zedong and Zhu De.
Whether in supporting the central policy or from the perspective of safeguarding Mao Zedong, Xu Xiangqian openly agreed with Mao Zedong's views and safeguarded the authority of the central authorities.
Based on the above three main reasons, Xu Xiangqian's historical merits are recognized as greater than Nie Rongzhen's, and we can also see some traces from the post after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xu was the former chief of the general staff, and Nie Rongzhen was the deputy chief of staff. Of course, these are some of our own views and analyses, and if you have good views, you are welcome to discuss them in the comments section.