At the beginning of 1949, the Kuomintang's relatively stable territory on the mainland was only left in the southwest. But the southwest region is too complicated. On the one hand, although Hu Zongnan had hundreds of thousands of troops in his hands, he was scared by the People's Liberation Army. On the other hand, the Sichuan army and the Yunnan army in the southwest are not the concubines of old Chiang Kai-shek, and they are separated from old Chiang Kai-shek and expect them to guard the southwest, which is a pipe dream. Count on Hu Zongnan, the "first protégé of the Son of Heaven", although he has heavy troops in his hands, he proposed to Lao Jiang to evacuate the mainland quickly, which made Lao Jiang greatly angry and had lost trust in him.
What to do? Old Jiang thought of his student Song Xilian. In May 1944, Song Xilian attacked the strong strongholds of Pingjia, Longling, and Mangshi that had been occupied and operated by the Japanese army for many years on the border of Yunnan and Burma, although the battle achievements were outstanding, but because of their arrogance, they were first thrown into the general officer class of the Army University by old Chiang, and then assigned to Xinjiang Dihua as the director of the ninth branch of the Central Military Academy, and then acting as the director of the northwest line. In August 1948, the old Chiang Kai-shek had no one to use, so he was transferred back to serve as the deputy commander-in-chief of the "Suppression of the Communists" in central China and the commander of the 14th Corps. This is a big official, but with Bai Chongxi pressed on it, and with the general trend of the Kuomintang already gone, It is difficult for Song Xilian to do anything.
In February 1949, Song Xilian was appointed as the director of the Sui Bureau of Lieutenant General Sui of the Sichuan-Xiang'e Border Region, commanding the Kuomintang troops in the southwest region, but the only troops that Song Xilian could really use were the 122nd and 124th armies of the former 14th Corps. There was no news of this, only for the old Chiang, but the People's Liberation Army soon found his whereabouts, and on December 11, 1949, the 18th Army of the Erye 5th Corps, which entered the river from northern Guizhou, approached Song Xilian's troops.
At this time, Song Xilian was running with his troops to Niuxichang, east of Yibin, Sichuan, to prepare for rest. At this time, the guards came to report that there was a regiment of Nationalist troops moving in the direction in which they were stationed. This news, for Song Xilian, should be good news, after all, he did not have many troops around at this time, and there was a regiment of national troops, which was a savior, which could protect him and continue to escape. But as soon as Song Xilian heard the news, his face immediately changed.
Why is there such an expression? It turned out that as mentioned earlier, Song Xilian knew that he could not defeat the People's Liberation Army, and he had been running with his troops, and moreover, he had broken off contact with Lao Jiang, and this kind of move was absolutely not allowed by Lao Jiang. Now suddenly a regiment of troops came, and he thought that this was the troops sent by Old Chiang Kai-shek to kill him, so he immediately gave the order and ran away quickly. In fact, Song Xilian guessed right or wrong. No, it was this unit, not old Chiang Kai-shek who sent it out. Yes, this unit really came to capture him. This unit was the unit of the Kuomintang 72nd Army stationed in Yibin, and the commander was the famous red spy Guo Rujie, who was planning an uprising at that time, and when he heard that Song Xilian was nearby, he planned to seize Song Xilian and quickly disintegrate the Southwest Kuomintang troops.