In early May 1939, the Battle of Suizao broke out, although the Nationalist army had the advantage in numbers, but because the weapons and equipment were not as good as the enemy, and the various departments did not coordinate well, so at the beginning of the campaign, the Nationalist army repeatedly lost and retreated, and many places were occupied by the Japanese, including the Tang River and Xinye in Henan. After the Japanese occupied these places, they frantically burned and looted, and some female comrades who were too late to retreat were also insulted by the devils, and the common people were miserable, hoping that the nationalist army would no longer retreat and stay behind to fight the devils.
At that time, Henan belonged to the defensive area of the Kuomintang Seventh Army, and the commander of the group army, Tang Enbo, saw the fierceness of the Japanese Kou and repeatedly ordered the troops to retreat in order to preserve their own strength and regardless of the lives of the people. Many of the generals withdrew after receiving the order, but one division commander stayed behind in defiance and insisted on fighting the devils. This person is Zhang Yi, a native of Luoshan, Henan, who graduated from the Baoding Military Academy and was once the chief tactical instructor of the fourth phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and has been following Cheng Qian around since then.
Since he was not a concubine of Chiang Kai-shek, and Cheng Qian had opposed Chiang Kai-shek in the early days, although Zhang Yi had made many meritorious contributions on the battlefield, his promotion was very slow. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Zhang Yi led his troops to fight bloody battles with the Japanese army on the battlefield many times, and on several occasions they almost wiped out their troops. In the Battle of Taierzhuang, he led the 110th Division to fight fiercely with the Japanese Kou for more than 40 days, with more than 3,000 casualties in the division, and after the war, the division was awarded the "First In Mobile Warfare" by the Fifth Theater Command.
After the Japanese army invaded Henan, Zhang Yi saw that his father and elder in his hometown had been bullied by the Japanese, so he decided to lead his troops to fight the devils to the death. However, Tang Enbo blindly protected himself and forced Zhang Yi to lead his troops to retreat. Zhang Yi was very angry, categorically refused this order, and then rushed up with his brothers to meet the devils, and after a deadly battle to block the Japanese offensive, many people were able to retreat, and the villagers gave a high evaluation to Zhang Yi and his troops. However, due to the lack of support from the lone army, Zhang Yi's troops also suffered relatively large attrition, with more than 2,000 dead and wounded. When Tang Enbo learned that the troops had suffered such a large loss, he was very angry, bypassed Zhang Yi and directly ordered the troops to retreat, and called Zhang Yi to the headquarters to criticize them fiercely.
Zhang Yi was not afraid of Tang Enbo's power, pointed at his nose and said, "Japanese devils burn and loot everywhere, can't you see?" As soldiers, we are not worthy of the common people if we do not resist Japan? Are you not afraid of the villagers poking their backs in the back when you repeatedly retreat? Tang Enbo was asked to be unreasonable, and in a fit of rage, he reported to Chiang Kai-shek that Zhang Yi had dismissed him on the grounds that he had "disobeyed his orders and caused heavy losses to the troops." After receiving the report, Chiang Kai-shek withdrew Zhang Yi without even doing an investigation, thanks to Li Zongren's efforts to protect Zhang Yi, he retained an idle post in the army. In May 1949, after Zhang Yi led his troops to revolt in Jinkou, Chairman Mao personally sent a report to Xiao Jinguang and others, asking them to draw a division from the 10th column and the 12th column to merge with Zhang Yi's troops into the 51st Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and appointed Zhang Yi as the commander. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhang Yi successively served as vice governor of Henan Province and vice chairman of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and died of illness in Zhengzhou in 1981.