The History Inn introduced the legendary general Tang Shengming yesterday, in fact, his brother Tang Shengzhi is more legendary than him, not only has a higher status, but also is more controversial.
What made him controversial was naturally the famous Defense of Nanjing.
For decades, Tang Shengzhi has been regarded as the culprit of the Nanjing Defense War massacre, carrying a half-life curse, but how much responsibility he has to bear is still worth discussing.
In the situation in Nanjing at that time, the Japanese army was full of arrogance, sufficient troops and armaments, the fall of Nanjing was almost an inevitable outcome, and even Chiang Kai-shek had long anticipated the outcome, but considering the historical status and influence of Nanjing, the Battle of Nanjing was not only a military war, but also a "political war."
Therefore, Tang Shengzhi did not actually need to be responsible for the result of the fall of Nanjing, but he was responsible for the process of the fall of Nanjing.
After the Battle of Songhu, the Japanese army commanded Nanjing, and on December 17 and 18, 1937, Chiang Kai-shek invited He Yingqin, Bai Chongxi, Tang Shengzhi, Xu Yongchang, Liu Fei, Gu Zhenglun and other senior generals to a meeting. At the first meeting, Operations Minister Liu Fei, Bai Chongxi, He Yingqin, and Xu Yongchang all attended the meeting, and after analyzing the current war situation, they unanimously held that Nanjing was undefendable.
However, Chiang Kai-shek was unwilling to follow the example of the US military in Manila to classify Nanjing as an "undefended city", so he sent a telegram asking Chen Cheng, and Chen Cheng also advocated abandoning the guarding of Nanjing and focusing on preserving strength.
Chiang Kai-shek's feelings were very complicated, and the first meeting was inconclusive, and there was a second meeting.
It was this second meeting that Tang Shengzhi attended, and the content of the meeting was still closely centered on the issue of Nanjing's garrison.
In the Memoirs of Bai Chongxi, it is recorded: "The chairman of the committee declared at the meeting that Nanjing is our capital, the seat of the tomb of the father of the nation, and must be defended. Asked at the meeting who would like to assume defensive responsibilities, Tang Shengzhi stood up and spoke, made a generous statement, and volunteered to defend. He criticized the many sacrifices of middle and lower non-commissioned officers since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, but did not see any senior officers who died, and he was willing to take on defensive responsibilities and coexist with the city. The chairman of the committee praised his ambition, but most of the participants were worried about Tang. ”
However, in the memories of Chiang Kai-shek's military telephone line, there was a slight discrepancy, believing that "Nanjing is our capital, the seat of the mausoleum of the Father of the Nation, and must be defended" This sentence is not what Chiang Kai-shek said, but What Tang Shengzhi said, and Tang Shengzhi's spirit at that time seemed to be a little bad, and he squatted in a chair during the meeting.
There are many theories about the specific situation at that time, and whether Tang Shengzhi actively stayed behind or passively is still uncertain, but what can be determined is that it was Tang Shengzhi who finally guarded Nanjing.
As soon as he took office, Tang Shengzhi held a press conference to the effect that he was ordered by the chairman of the cppcc committee to garrison Nanjing, and even if he sacrificed, he would make the Japanese army pay a terrible price and not hesitate to coexist and die with Nanjing!
The words spoken, the nails that were marked, tang Shengzhi's arrangements for the city's fortifications, the city's military fortifications, and even the city's troops were all designed according to the city's destruction and the enemy's death-fighting battle. At that time, Nanjing was surrounded on three sides, like an isolated city, in order to show his determination to fight to the death with the enemy, Tang Shengzhi ordered Song Xilian to remove all the large and small steamships and civilian ships at the lower pass of the Yangtze River, and ordered: Those who withdraw from Nanjing without permission will be dealt with by military law!
However, later Tang Shengzhi fled on the only two remaining steamers, putting the Compatriots in Nanjing in a desperate situation.
According to Song Xilian' recollection: "Due to excessive load, there are people who sink the ship into the river. Many officers and men dismantled the door panels of shopkeepers, made rafts, and traveled to the river, but because of the turbulent water and their inability to control them, thousands of people were tragically wiped out. The cries of wailing for help, those on both sides of the south and north sides of the strait, could not help but sigh and weep, which can really be described as the most tragic in the world. ”
Tang Shengzhi's actions caused great confusion among the Nanjing City guards in the breakout operation 12 days later, and when the troops retreated from the periphery and inward, they were unplanned and chaotic, like hell on earth!
(Pictured: When the Nationalist army retreated, it left four big characters on the city wall: "Oath to restore the country and revenge")
Due to the chaos of the retreat, most of the people were trapped in the city, and with the long drive of the Japanese army, the people of Nanjing suffered an unprecedented massacre, and 300,000 people were wiped out, becoming an eternal wound of the Chinese!
Although Tang Shengzhi had many reasons for this massacre, as the supreme commander of the Nanjing defense war, he undoubtedly bore the main responsibility.
After the fall of Nanjing, Tang Shengzhi also felt that he had no face to see the world again, so he resigned from the high-ranking official Houlu and returned to his hometown in Hunan, facing the wall to apologize for his sins, and never went out of the mountains again.
In August 1949, the Siye Army marched south, and Tang Shengzhi, together with Cheng Qian, Chen Mingren and others, declared an uprising, and later became the vice governor of Hunan Province, and died in 1970 at the age of 80.