Hu Zongnan was a graduate of the first term of the Whampoa Military Academy, he was quite trusted by Chiang Kai-shek, he was known as the "first protégé of Tianzi", he was once one of the most favored and trusted senior generals of the Nationalist Army, Hu Zongnan had five firsts in the Huangpu students of the Nationalist Army, that is, the first commander of the Huangpu Sheng, the first corps commander-in-chief, the first commander-in-chief of the Group Army, the first commander-in-chief of the Theater, and the first to step into the ranks of generals. In addition, he was also the only one among Huangpu sheng who received the third general star before fleeing (not counting the generals who added the rank of general).
In addition to not being the first division commander (at the end of 1927, Fan Hanjie was the commander of the Zhejiang Garrison Division, the first division commander of the Huangpu Sheng in the Nationalist army), Hu Zongnan won the first place in the Huangpu Sheng in the Nationalist Army, but if compared with another Huangpu I student, Hu Zongnan was far behind, this person was the famous military expert of our army, the founding marshal Xu Xiangqian.
Hu Zongnan
In July 1931, Xu was formerly the commander of the Red Fourth Army in the Eyuwan base area, and on November 7, 1931, the Red Army in Eyuwan was reorganized into the Red Fourth Front, and Xu was the former commander-in-chief, with the Red Fourth Army and the Red Twenty-fifth Army under his command, and soon after formed the Red Ninth Army, which had six divisions in the front army, with a total of more than 45,000 people (excluding local troops); and Hu Zongnan, who was 36 years old at the time, was the commander of the 1st Division of the Nationalist Army, although the division commander was later than Fan Hanjie, but the first division was a concubine of Chiang Kai-shek's family.
Xu was 31 years old when he was the commander-in-chief of the Former Red Fourth Front, and he was the first military commander of the Huangpu Army to become the first-class military commander of the Front, at that time the Red Army only had two fronts, the Red First and Fourth Fronts, and the Red Fourth Front later established a Sichuan-Shaanxi base area in northern Sichuan, with more than 80,000 people at its peak. During his time in the Eyu-Anhui base area and the Sichuan-Shaanxi base area, Xu Xiangqian commanded the Red Fourth Front army and hundreds of thousands of nationalist troops to fight, and Hu Zongnan, Wei Lihuang, Tang Enbo, Chen Jiji, and others were only one of the generals of the Nationalist army who participated in the battle, and they were repeatedly defeated by the Red Army.
Xu Xiangqian commanded many classic battles in his military career, among which the Battle of Sujiabu, the Anti-Six-Way Siege of the Sichuan-Shaanxi Base Area, the Battle of Jinzhong, and the Battle of Taiyuan were listed in the top ten classic battles of our army before 1955.
In the Battle of Sujiabu (March 22 to May 8, 1932), Xu Qiangqian commanded more than 20,000 Red Fourth Fronts to encircle and reinforce, besieged Sujiabu for more than 40 days by the enemy Chen Tiaoyuan's unit, mobilized more than 20,000 people from 13 enemy regiments to come to his aid and annihilate them completely, and the defenders of Sujiabu fell without a fight in terror. In this battle, the Red Fourth Front annihilated more than 30,000 enemy troops, including Li Shiding, commander-in-chief of the "suppression of the Communists" in western Anhui Province, 5 brigade commanders, and 12 regimental commanders, captured more than 15,000 guns of various types, more than 200 light and heavy machine guns, 44 artillery pieces of various types, 5 radio stations, and shot down 1 plane.
During the siege of the Sichuan-Shaanxi base area against the Sixth Route (mid-December 1933 to late September 1934), more than 80,000 men of the Red Fourth Front and more than 200,000 Sichuan troops gathered by Liu Xiang fought fiercely for ten months, Xu Xiangqian commanded the Red Army to tighten its position in a planned way, and after the enemy launched four general offensives exhausted, the Red Army began a major counteroffensive on August 9, 1934, recovering a vast area from Guangyuan in the north to the east bank of the Jialing River in langzhong in the south. In this battle, the Red Fourth Front killed and wounded more than 80,000 enemy prisoners, including more than 20,000 prisoners, more than 30,000 guns and guns, and more than 100 artillery pieces of various types.
In the Battle of Jinzhong (June-July 1948), Xu Xiangqian, the first deputy commander of the North China Military Region, commanded more than 60,000 people in 47 regiments with fewer victories and more, adopted the combat method of mainly mobile warfare, fought continuously for more than 40 days, annihilated Yan Xishan's main force, including 4 military departments, 9 divisions, 2 general units, and a large number of local security teams, totaling more than 100,000 people.
In the Battle of Taiyuan (October 5, 1948 – April 24, 1949), in the first and middle stages of the campaign, Xu Xiangqian besieged the city of Taiyuan defended by 130,000 enemy troops with 100,000 troops, and in the case of troops and firepower that were inferior to the defenders, he dared to take the initiative to attack the city and achieved a long-term siege of Taiyuan, which played a great role in alleviating the pressure on other theaters.
Among the four classic battles commanded by Xu Xiangqian, the Sujiabu Campaign was a model example of encircling points to fight for assistance; the Sichuan-Shaanxi base area was an anti-six-way siege, annihilating 80,000 enemies and defeating 100,000 enemies, which was the largest number of enemies in the history of the Red Army;the Jinzhong Campaign swept through Jinzhong with 60,000 troops in the form of a mobile battle; Lianke 14 county towns, annihilating 100,000 enemy troops with fewer victories; the Taiyuan Campaign was the first and only time in the Liberation War in which our army's strength was less than that of the enemy army, and its firepower was far inferior to that of the enemy army. However, they dared to take the initiative to attack the city and were able to achieve a large campaign of long siege.
Of course, the classic battles commanded by Xu Xiangqian are far more than these four battles, such as the Battle of Huang'an, the Battle of Shanghuang, the Anti-Three-Way Siege, the Battle of Baozuo, the Battle of Linfen, etc. are all textbook classic examples, and Xu Xiangqian is a well-deserved military expert.