During the Republic of China period, the Kuomintang army factions were numerous, such as the more famous Guangxi Gui Army, don't look at the beginning it was just a miscellaneous army of the people, but its strength should not be underestimated, and when it comes to fighting, it is even more brave and invincible, and it is not too much to describe them as if they are dead. The senior generals of the Red Army at that time called it: The monkeys in Guangxi are the Gui Army, fierce as tigers and evil as wolves. The most famous of these is actually an elite unit in the Gui Army, called the Seventh Army, some people call it the "Seventh Army of Steel", and the last commander of the Seventh Army was Lieutenant General Li Benyi of the Nationalist Army.
Li Benyi, a native of Rong County, Guangxi, came from a poor family, joined the army at the age of 18, and as a rising star in the new Gui clan, he was appreciated by Bai Chongxi and sent to the Nanning Military Academy for further study. When the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in 1937, Li Benyi participated in the Battle of Songhu with his troops. He successively served as the inspector of the 5th Administrative Region of Anhui Province, the commander of the guerrilla army in eastern Anhui, the commander of the 10th guerrilla column of the 5th Theater, the commander of the 138th Division, the commander of the 176th Division, the deputy commander of the 7th Army and the commander of the 171st Division. During the Dabie Mountain War of Resistance, Li Ben took the lead and fought bravely. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Li Benyi continued to serve as the deputy commander of the 7th Army and the commander of the 171st Division.
Although Li Benyi made certain contributions in the Dabie Mountain War of Resistance and was promoted to commander of the "Seventh Steel Army," he overestimated the combat effectiveness of the "Seventh Steel Army" during this civil war.
However, the PLA, which readjusted its plan, immediately concentrated its forces to surround and annihilate the 7th Army, and Li Benyi was caught off guard; this was originally an offensive unit, and was thus defeated by the PLA, and Ling Yunshang, deputy commander of the 7th Army, Deng Dazhi, chief of staff, Zhang Ruisheng, commander of the 171st Division, and Liu Yuejian, commander of the 172nd Division, were all captured, leaving only Li Benyi, the commander of the Light Pole Army, to rush out of the encirclement and return to Guangxi to resume his life.
At this time, Li Benyi failed, not only was not punished, but was promoted to deputy commander of the 3rd Corps and commander of the 7th Army, and wanted to rebuild the "Seventh Steel Army" to confront the People's Liberation Army.
The so-called Steel Seventh Army reorganized by Li Benyi became the "Mud Seventh Army" as soon as it fought with the People's Liberation Army, and in a short period of time, it collapsed, first the 224th Division was destroyed in Wuzhou, the division commander Liu Kunyang was captured, and then the 172nd Division was led by the division commander Liu Weikai in Baishou Uprising. Li Benyi had to take the 171st Division closer to the headquarters of Zhang Gan of the 3rd Corps, but he did not expect that Yang Shoucai, the commander of the 171st Division, who finally insisted on insisting, left Commander Zhang and his commander Li and ran away, and after the remnants of the 7th Army were destroyed in Bobai, Li Benyi absconded in disguise and did not know where he was going.
The 121st Division of our army, which had just finished the Battle of Hengbao, had already entered the Yulin area, and the slogan put forward by the vanguard troops at the higher level was "capture Bai Chongxi alive" and the second goal was "capture Li Benyi alive." Our army took advantage of the victory to pursue the remnants of the Seventh Army, and indeed captured many prisoners, but even Li Benyi's shadow was not seen.
At that time, our army was the first to enter the Da Rong Mountain, where the mountain terrain was rugged and the mountain road was complicated, and it seemed that it would be difficult to capture Li Benyi. But our army was not discouraged, and during an operation, the scouts in the front reported that Li Benyi's troops were moving to the northeast! Our army did not stop encircling the enemy and crushing and scattering the enemy, but unfortunately, it still did not catch Li Benyi.
According to the analysis of the commanders and fighters of our army, the remnants of the enemy have no combat effectiveness at all, and there are not many people and horses. He must have been hiding in a nearby village, so he ordered our army to carry out a dragnet search and mobilize the masses to make rewards for reporting and rewarding those who provided useful clues.
Sure enough, not long after, a small village called Bin Village, the whole village is only a few dozen households, the common people are very simple, as soon as our army search team entered the village, there were reports from the masses, saying that a Kuomintang soldier came to the village the day before yesterday, and led the PLA detachment to a small house, and sure enough, there was a medium-sized enemy soldier with a face full of flesh, a disheveled face, and a rather sloppy look.
The captain snapped at him, "What are you?" What are you doing here? The man looked very flustered, did not dare to face the commander's eyes, and said: "Sir, I am a man arrested by the Kuomintang, you let me go!" ”
The captain looked up and down at the Kuomintang soldier who claimed to be a "brother-in-law" and said coldly, "Do you know where your military commander Li Benyi has gone?" As soon as the man heard the words "Li Benyi," he had a hint of fear in his eyes and hurriedly said, "Sir, I am a brother-in-law, and I know where our military commander has gone." ”
The captain glanced at the man a few more times, and saw that his eyes were dodgy, and he always had his right hand behind his back when he spoke, as if he was afraid of being seen. Just at this moment, a SOLDIER of the People's Liberation Army suddenly stood up, pulled out the right hand of the "guy", raised it high, and shouted: "He is Li Benyi!" ”
The captain fixed his eyes on it, only to see that the "guy's" right hand was only four fingers! In fact, not long ago, a Kuomintang prisoner provided a very important clue to the People's Liberation Army, that is, Li Benyi only had nine fingers! In this way, Li Benyi's identity was exposed! The man who escaped in disguise was None other than Li Benyi, deputy commander of the Kuomintang 3rd Corps and the last lieutenant general of the Seventh Steel Army!
The captain smiled and said, "General Lee, your brother-in-law is not simple!" When Li Ben heard this, he could only admit his fate, and in this way, this once invincible lieutenant general of the nationalist army finally became a prisoner of the People's Liberation Army. What is even more interesting is that after Li Benyi was captured, he made a request to the captain, that is, he hoped that the reporters accompanying the army would not take pictures, but this move was rejected, and the captain said: "The purpose of taking pictures is to publish the newspaper and leave information, and I cannot agree to your request." Since then, the following image of Li Benyi, who is full of flesh and dirty, and quite sloppy, has been circulated.
However, although Lieutenant General Li Benyi of the Nationalist Army was taken prisoner, in accordance with our army's policy of giving preferential treatment to prisoners and remembering that he had done some practical things in the War of Resistance, at the same time, he was indeed particularly capable of leading troops; after he was captured alive, the senior leaders decided to give him a chance to reform himself, let him serve as an instructor in our army's military school, and help our army train a large number of brave soldiers in combat.
What he did not expect was that at that time, Li Tianyi could not clearly recognize the situation, categorically refused this excellent opportunity, and was unwilling to cooperate with our army; since he refused to cooperate, then Li Tianyi was no different from other captured enemy troops, and he was directly sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, just like other captured enemy troops.
In the ensuing "town rebellion" movement, the masses around Anhui Anhui and Huainan, Jiangsu, where Li Benyi had been stationed, demanded liquidation of this murderous demon king and reported his frenzied massacre of the New Fourth Army and the revolutionary masses in the base areas.
Later, after trial by the Anhui Anhui North Bureau People's Court, it was found that Li Benyi had committed a lot of crimes of "killing 30,000 people", committed a heinous crime, owed a blood debt, and was extremely indignant. He was also the only lieutenant general to be executed at trial in the Liberation War, and according to the current war crimes interpretation, he was a war criminal rather than a prisoner of war.
Later generations commented: The reason why Li Benyi was directly executed was entirely self-inflicted, first of all, he refused to cooperate after being arrested, did not change his thinking of reformation in the slightest, and continued to be the enemy of the newborn people's power; secondly, he had done too many bad things, and in our ancient words, to do many evils is to die and be cursed, even after death, he is still scolded by posterity.