He was a blessing in China's modern history, always able to make wise choices, sometimes for factional struggles and sometimes forced to compromise over something. But anyone has his merits and faults, in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Battle of Taierzhuang that he commanded was also recorded in the annals of history, and he was Li Zongren.
Li Zongren, a native of Lingui (present-day Guilin), Guangxi, was a leader of the Gui clan, a patriotic general, and a famous military figure and commander.
Li Zongren
Li Zongren's family has been farming for generations, and it can be said that it is an authentic peasant sub-land. He had eight brothers and sisters, and because he was in the ninth place, everyone in the village called him "Old Nine". When he was six years old, he studied with his father, Li Peiying, who was still capable of teaching him as a private school teacher. Later, he entered the newly established Lingui County Second Class Primary School in the city.
Because I am from the countryside, I am not very comfortable when I first enter the city, and there is a little local atmosphere between my clothes and conversation. In addition, he could not keep up with mathematics, English and other subjects, his grades were very poor, and he was even ridiculed by his classmates as a "fool from the countryside". Li Zongren dropped out of school after two semesters. After a period of apprenticeship in the provincial publicly-funded textile art factory, in the winter of 1908, he was admitted to the Guangxi Army Primary School, which is considered to be the official start of his military career.
After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, Li Zongren relied on his physical strength, courage and agility, and sexual pleasure, and in his spare time, he took pleasure in practicing horseback riding, and his equestrian skills were second to none among his classmates. I also studied very hard, and each exam was always within the top three, which was highly respected by teachers and friends. In December 1915, Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor, and all sides issued slogans against Yuan Shikai. Li Zongren was introduced by the old man, joined the Sixth Army of the Defending Army, of which Lin Hu was the commander-in-chief, and served as a lieutenant platoon leader in the Second Battalion of the Thirteenth Regiment of the Seventh Infantry Brigade, and participated in the Patriotic War against Yuan.
After experiencing some wars, Li Zongren successively served as a company commander and a battalion commander, but this was only the beginning. In August 1920, he participated in the First Guangdong-Guangdong War, leading the whole battalion to break through the Dangerous Canyon and open up the only passage between Sihui and Zhaoqing. Since then, he has become famous and is known for his bravery and good fighting. The next year the war resumed, and at this time Li Zongren had been promoted to gang commander. Later, his unit was incorporated by Chen Jiongming as the "Third Road of the Guangdong-Guizhou Border Defense Army", and Li Zongren, who was not yet thirty years old, served as the commander of the road.
In order to reform the old military's accumulated habits and raise the army's standards, Li Zongren, while arranging civil affairs and personnel affairs, concentrated on straightening out military discipline and training cadres. He set up a cadre coaching institute in Yulin, transferred junior officers from his own army to be trained, and recruited some young people who graduated from middle school to serve as junior officers. In addition, there is also an attached teaching brigade, training squad leaders and superior soldiers who are enough to serve as squad leaders to enrich the grass-roots cadres of the troops. After several years of development, Li Zongren actually unified Guangxi.
At the same time that Li Zongren unified Guangxi, Guangdong was also reunified after the Second Crusade. At the beginning of 1926, the two sides met and the two sides were formally unified under the orders of the Nationalist government. In January, the Kuomintang held its second congress, and Li Zongren was elected as an alternate member of the Central Control Commission. In March, the two armies in Guangxi were merged into the Seventh Army of the National Revolutionary Army, with Li Zongren as its commander.
After the victory in the Northern Expedition, the contradictions within the Kuomintang became increasingly acute, and warlords of various departments competed one after another. Li Zongren was defeated in the gui clan in the melee, and returned to Guangxi, struggling to hold on to the situation in an attempt to make a comeback.
Kung Fu pays off, and after experiencing several wars, Li Zongren has also become a giant. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Li Zongren served as the commander of the Fifth Theater, Changgong, and commanded the defense of Jinpu Road. Prior to this, Li Zongren's development in Guangxi was also remarkable. He first streamlined the military and civilian policies in the province, and appointed himself commander-in-chief of the Fourth Army, with Bai Chongxi as deputy commander.
After the outbreak of the Lugou Bridge Incident, Li Zongren continued to expand his armament, rapidly expanding the fourteen regiments to forty-eight regiments, organized into four armies, and quickly marched to the anti-Japanese front. In the War of Resistance Against Japan, the current period was at a disadvantage, and according to the analysis of the current situation, Li Zongren also put forward the anti-war strategy of "exchanging space for time."
Li Zongren's most brilliant battle can be described as the Battle of Taierzhuang, in which more than 20,000 Japanese troops were killed and wounded, effectively dealt a blow to the arrogance of the Japanese aggressors, successfully smashed the myth of the Japanese army's invincibility, and inspired the enthusiasm of the Chinese military and people for the War of Resistance, becoming a glorious page in the history of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
Li Zongren later served as vice president and acting president of the Kuomintang, but with the victory of the People's Liberation War and his reluctance to work with Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, he settled in the United States.
In the United States, Li Zongren is always concerned about the development of the motherland. He was very touched to see that New China had made great achievements in all fields and that its international status had been enhanced as never before. After thinking about it, he bravely admitted the failure of his regime and expressed his support for New China, hoping to return to the motherland.
In order to return to China, he also made careful preparations. In 1965, he took a plane to bypass the surveillance of the Taiwan side, detoured to Pakistan, got on a plane back to China, and finally returned to the land of the motherland. He also warmly embraced Premier Zhou who came to greet him, and the fallen leaves finally returned to their roots. And he also hopes to dedicate his residual heat to the development of the motherland.
On January 30, 1969, Li Zongren died in Beijing. He also spent his old age on the mainland of his motherland.