Welcome to the 2018 issue of The History Column. In January 1949, Fu Zuoyi, the military leader of the Beiping Kuomintang, led more than 200,000 troops to declare an uprising against the Northeast Field Army and the troops of the North China Military Region, and drove the sui army and the central army units to the city to accept the reorganization of our army, which was Fu Zuoyi's greatest contribution during the liberation war.
When he learned of fu Zuoyi's initiative to surrender his gun in Beiping, Yan Xishan, the "Tu Emperor" of Shanxi, who was not far from him, was furious and publicly commented that Fu Zuoyi's approach was "impersonal." Why was Yan Xishan so angry? Although Yan Xishan and Fu Zuoyi were both Generals of the Kuomintang Army at the time, in terms of warlord characteristics and sphere of influence, he did not belong to the same military system as Fu Zuoyi. Yan Xishan was not an old Jiang, and it was reasonable to say that he would not have such a big reaction.
Fu Zuoyi was the leader of the warlords of the Sui Army, and in his early years he was also a subordinate of Yan Xishan, and was a general in the Jin Army. However, since the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Fu Zuoyi had his own subordinate troops and had no direct relationship with Yan Xishan; in the middle and late period of the Liberation War, his official position was even larger than Yan Xishan's, and he became the commander of the Kuomintang General Headquarters of the North China Suppression Army, directly and indirectly controlling nearly 600,000 troops, and was the supreme commander of the nationalist army in North China.
Before the liberation of Taiyuan in 1949, although Yan Xishan had only a few hundred thousand troops in his hands, Shanxi Province had been under its control for more than thirty years, and many areas were fortified and fortified, and it was very difficult for our army to conquer the city of Yan Xishan, and even many local people were confused by Yan Xishan and supported him more. Before Fu Zuoyi's uprising, most of Shanxi had been defeated by the 1st Corps of North China led by Xu Shuai, and Yan Xishan had only one ancient city left in Taiyuan, and the situation was very unoptimistic. Against this background, although our army has a good chance of winning a strong attack on Taiyuan, it is bound to pay heavy casualties.
The reason why Yan Xishan angrily scolded Fu Zuoyi and accused him of not having a personality was mainly for the following reasons. First of all, north China included Shanxi Province, Beiping and Shanxi were very close, and Fu Zuoyi's hundreds of thousands of troops fell without a fight, so the People's Liberation Army naturally had more troops concentrated to attack Taiyuan. Originally, the strength of the North China army was limited, only one corps besieged Taiyuan, and Xu Shuai's 1st Corps was born from a weaker local force. Therefore, Yan Xishan's military pressure was not small, but he could barely hold on to it. In fact, Yan Xishan originally had a defensive advantage, and there were heavy troops in southern Jin and central Jin, but because of the gap in military command, Xu Shuai took more than 60,000 officers and men who originally had only the task of containment, and literally destroyed the main force of the Jin army, from south to north all the way to Taiyuan, which Yan Xishan had not expected before.
Fu Zuoyi surrendered his gun in Beiping, and the more than 800,000 Northeast Field Army, which was originally used to deal with Fu Zuoyi's army, and two other corps in North China, could be flexibly maneuvered. In this way, Yan Xishan's Taiyuan City would definitely not be able to be saved, and from a purely military point of view, Yan Xishan would naturally be angry at Fu Zuoyi's actions. In addition, most of Shanxi has been liberated, Taiyuan has been besieged by the People's Liberation Army, military supplies are very problematic, and the main materials rely on air transport and airdrops to solve the problem. Beiping is the closest big city to Shanxi and its main material transit point, and now that Beiping has been liberated and the airport cannot be used, the supply problem of Yan Xishan's troops has become more serious. Even a simple siege without attacking could trap the Taiyuan defenders, which made Yan Xishan feel angry and desperate.
However, ironically, although Yan Xishan behaved very "backbone" in front of foreign reporters and ordinary people in Shanxi, unlike Fu Zuoyi, who was "impersonal", he was completely putting on a show. He knew that after the liberation of Peiping, it was only a matter of time before the Shanxi war situation collapsed, so he privately and intensively prepared an escape plan, and also informed his generals and the people of Taiyuan in public that he was going to coexist and die with Taiyuan. Yan Xishan did not forget to find some American reporters and showed them in front of them the potassium cyanide drugs he had prepared and a large coffin, which meant that he would never leave Taiyuan City and would take the initiative to "die" as a last resort. After all the arrangements were in place, he flew out of Taiyuan and escaped from the danger in the name of going out for a meeting at the request of the government, and never returned.
Before Taiyuan was liberated by our army, Yan Xishan's troops suffered a devastating blow at the Battle of Jinzhong, losing 100,000 main forces. During the Battle of Jinzhong, his commander, Lieutenant General Zhao Chengshou, was captured by our army. Xu Shuai, Zhao Chengshou and Yan Xishan were originally fellow villagers in Shanxi, and Xu Shuai and Yan Xishan's hometown was only separated by a river. Xu Shuai was very kind to Zhao Chengshou, and he sat down with Zhao Chengshou to discuss the previous war, and then modestly asked: What shortcomings and mistakes does General Zhao think are in the command and arrangement of our army? When Zhao Chengshou heard Xu Shuai say this, he felt ashamed and embarrassed: The general of the defeated army, how can he see what flaws your army has?
Zhao Chengshou deeply felt the preferential treatment policy of the People's Liberation Army and was determined to abandon the dark and surrender to the light, so he wrote a letter to persuade his old superior Yan Xishan to surrender as soon as possible and find a way for the sons of the army to survive. As a result, after Yan Xishan received the letter, he not only did not listen to the advice, but instead scolded Zhao Chengshou for having "no dignity", just like when he later evaluated Fu Zuoyi. In fact, before our army's general attack on Taiyuan, in order to reduce the casualties of officers and men and ordinary people on both sides, Xu Shuai had planned to send peace talks representatives to The City of Taiyuan to discuss the uprising with Yan Xishan, hoping to win over this fellow at the last moment and promise to give him a generous guarantee and political status.
Zhao Chengshou had taken the initiative to ask miao to be the messenger of peace, but Xu Shuai took into account the security factor and politely rejected General Zhao. The people sent to the city by our army were Yan Xishan's teachers when he was a teenager. The result was unexpected, and the teacher did not say a few words before he was angrily ordered to be shot by Yan Xishan, who was more than 80 years old at the time, and Yan Xishan's approach was very cruel. After Xu Shuai learned about it, he angrily said three words: Type in!
In contrast, Fu Zuoyi's uprising at least took into account the safety of the lives of hundreds of thousands of subordinates, and did not let the Jin general Wang Jingguo and others die in Taiyuan like Yan Xishan, but he found an opportunity to escape in advance. From this point of view, General Fu Zuoyi is more bright and straightforward and understands the great righteousness. Operated by Chinese writers of modern and contemporary Chinese history, the "History Column" focuses on the study of party history, military history and war history, and restores the whole historical situation for you from a professional perspective and brings wonderful historical details. Welcome to follow
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