In the national army system, there is a local army called the Jin Sui Army, for example, when we watch the anti-war drama "Bright Sword", the Chu Yunfei 358 Regiment in it is the Jin Sui Army unit. In real history, the famous Fu Zuoyibu of the Nationalist Army was also the Jin Sui Army before it established itself.
Why the Jin Sui Army? The so-called Jin refers to Shanxi, Sui refers to Suiyuan, the famous warlord Yan Xishan in modern times has actually controlled Shanxi since the Xinhai Revolution, and created the Jin Army, after which Yan Xishan has not fallen left and right, and the power has continued to extend, and after controlling Suiyuan, the part is renamed the Jin Sui Army.
Of course, in the heyday of Yan Xishan, the territory controlled was not only the Jin and Sui provinces. In 1928, at the time of the "Second Northern Expedition", Yan Xishan, as the commander-in-chief of the 3rd Group Army of the Nationalist Army, commanded the Jin Sui Army to go east, and the sphere of influence expanded to Jicha and Pingjin, becoming the number one real power faction in North China.
At the peak of Yan Xishan's power, the strength of the Jin Sui Army under his command was also rapidly expanding, from more than 20,000 people when the Jin Army first expanded, more than ten times, becoming a huge army with 10 infantry troops, 4 cavalry divisions, 4 security columns, 7 artillery brigades, 10 engineer battalions, and 10 heavy battalions, totaling 250,000 people.
It was precisely because of this capital that Yan Xishan was able to unite with Feng Yuxiang to fight the Central Plains War with Old Chiang Kai-shek in 1930. However, old Jiang had many means, especially the "silver bullet offensive", so the Central Plains War ended in Feng Yan's defeat. Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army had since effectively disintegrated, while Yan Xishan's forces had retracted back to Suiyuan, and he himself had been forced to power down and avoid Dalian.
However, unlike Feng Yuxiang, even if Yan Xishan avoided Dalian, he still controlled the control of the Jin Sui Army, especially by collecting information from the generals of various factions and secretly provoking and restraining. If the factions could not reach an agreement, Yan Xishan could only come forward to take power.
In fact, Yan Xishan is somewhat similar to old Chiang Kai-shek, this kind of person's military command ability is not strong, but they are all masters of power manipulation, and only those who are absolutely loyal to them can give relative trust.
Yan Xishan is so natural, and he also has the historical experience of eliminating dissidents and monopolizing power in the early days of controlling Shanxi. Therefore, when we look at Yan Xishan's way of employing people, we will feel very strange, even contradictory.
First of all, it can be seen who is the talent Yan Xishan, such as the famous general Fu Zuoyi, who has been serving in the Jin army after graduating from the Baoding Military Academy, and was immediately promoted as soon as he showed his talent.
In 1924, Fu Zuoyi was still a battalion commander in the Jin Army, performing well in Shijiazhuang, and was soon promoted to regimental commander; in 1926, he performed well in the Battle of Tianzhen and was promoted to brigade commander of the 4th Brigade, and then to commander of the 4th Division. After Fu Zuoyi became famous in Zhuozhou, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the 5th Army and commander of the Tianjin Garrison, and became a senior general in the Jin Sui Army.
It should be noted that Yan Xishan recruited more than just Fu Zuoyi, and many of the early graduates of the Baoding Military Academy were all in the Jin Army, and many of them were also capable.
For Shang Zhen, Xu Yongchang and others who came halfway to invest, Yan Xishan could also entrust heavy responsibilities, and these people also made great efforts in the early development of the Jin Sui Army.
However, Yan Xishan actually had absolute obedience and loyalty requirements for those who started together, whether they had joined the shares in the middle of the way, or generals who had been promoted by themselves. If there is a slight dissident, Yan Xishan will be suspicious, and he will be very wary of those who are capable and dissident.
In this context, it is inevitable that some generals will be excluded or even killed, and it is also inevitable that other generals will break away from Yan Xishan.
For example, in the Jin Army big man Shang Zhen, who has been cultivating his own power, Yan Xishan has long been dissatisfied. After the defeat of the Central Plains War, Yan Xishan took refuge in Dalian, and Shang Zhen was still the chairman of Shanxi Province, but there was a great contradiction with Yan Xishan's generals in the formation of the Jin Sui Army, so he soon led 9,000 people from the headquarters of the 32nd Army to break away from the Jin Sui Army and surrender to Lao Jiang's side.
For example, the later Fu Zuoyi, Yan Xishan did not trust him, so Fu also led his troops to establish a self-reliant portal after taking over as the deputy commander of the 8th Theater of Operations.
Both Shang Zhen and Fu Zuoyi were capable and themselves extremely vigilant, and for some jin sui generals who were not very bright-minded and half-hearted, Yan Xishan was going to be a killer—such as Li Shengda.
Li Shengda's eldest brother was a member of the League, and he himself attended the Shanxi Army Primary School in his youth, and was later admitted to the fifth phase of the Baoding Military Academy, at the same time as Fu Zuoyi, Wang Jingguo, Zhao Chengshou, Chu Xichun, Lu Yinglin and so on.
After graduating from the Baoding Military Academy, Li Shengda joined the cadre training team of the Taiyuan Cadet Corps of the Jin Army, and Li Shengda and others were attached to the team; after the official opening of the cadet corps, Li served as the commander of the 3rd Company. The Cadet Corps was An institution for training grassroots officers in Yan Xishan, and its graduates were also assigned to schools and factories in addition to serving in the Jin Army. Li Shengda, who served as the company commander of the cadet corps, was naturally reused after he was transferred to the army.
In 1926, Li Shengda served in the 10th Regiment of the Jin Army, and was promoted to regimental commander for his outstanding performance, and soon after he was promoted to brigade commander, and then promoted to commander of the 15th Division and guard of Jinbei Town.
In 1927, Yan Xishan's Jin Sui Army was renamed the Northern Army of the Nationalist Army, and a fierce battle was fought with the Feng Army, and Li Shengda led his troops to participate in the battle on the Xuanhua front, and after the unfavorable war, he blocked the Feng Army in Fanzhi.
In 1928, Jiang, Yan, and Feng jointly fought against the Feng army, and Li Shengda led his troops directly into the flank of Baoding and annihilated a large number of Feng troops. After the Jin Sui Army entered North China, it was expanded again, and Li Shengda was promoted to the commander of the 5th Army. Before the Battle of the Central Plains, Li Shengda was changed to the commander of the 4th Army, and he had 3 divisions under his command, including Chen Changjie.
After the defeat of the Jin Sui Army in the Central Plains War, Zhang Xueliang presided over the downsizing, and Li Shengda's department was organized into the 72nd Division of the 35th Army, which was one of the 8 main divisions of the Jin Sui Army at that time, and Li Shengda served as the commander of the division. Moreover, this division was not under the command of Fu Zuoyi, the commander of the 35th Army, and in fact existed independently, so it can be said that Li Shengda was a powerful general of the Jin Sui Army at that time.
As we said earlier, Yan Xishan was electrified and retreated from Dalian at the time of the downsizing of the Jin Sui Army, but Yan Xishan still had control over the Jin Sui Army.
In August 1931, Yan Xishan sneaked back to Shanxi from Dalian, and nanjing was about to attack Yan Xishan when the "918 Incident" broke out. Under the new situation, the Nanjing side had to accept the status quo and formally restored Yan Xishan's identity in early 1932, and he openly presided over the military and political affairs of Jinsui.
Yan Xishan returned, but the minds of some of the generals of the Jin Sui Army changed, and Li Shengda was one of the ones who had changed his mentality greatly.
As early as 1928, when the Jin Sui Army entered Pingjin, Li Shengda had contacted Old Jiang, when Old Jiang took the train from Nanjing to Tianjin and then transferred to Beiping to meet with Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang, Li Shengda and Fu Zuoyi walked south from Tianjin to 5 stops to greet them, so Old Jiang was deeply impressed by Li Shengda, and Li Shengda also had a lot of admiration for Nanjing.
In the winter of 1929, when Yan Xishan summoned senior generals to discuss the strategy against Chiang, Li Shengda remained silent and did not agree to go to war against Chiang.
After the defeat in the Central Plains War, Li Shengda served as the commander of the 72nd Division of the Jin Sui Army, and in June 1931, when he and Wang Jingguo went to Nanjing as military representatives of Shanxi, Li was actually elected to a senior position in the Kuomintang. At the same time, Lao Jiang specially summoned Li Shengda and donated 150,000 yuan.
It can be said that this trip to Nanjing has made Li Shengda harvest a lot. He took 50,000 yuan from the grant to purchase tweeds, quilts, gold shell watches, gold parkak pens and other gifts and distributed them to the brigade and battalion-level officers of the department. He also spent 50,000 yuan to set up a paper cigarette factory in Mancheng, Hebei Province, and made a lot of profits.
After Yan returned to Shanxi from Dalian, Li Shengda went to the river to see Yan Xishan. On the surface, Yan Xishan was very enthusiastic, as if nothing had happened. After Li Shengda returned to the Yangquan Division, he immediately received a telegram from Yan Xishan, saying that he wanted to borrow 1 million yuan from Li.
Li Shengda understood that Yan already knew about the old Jiang's grant, so he hurried to the riverside village, and when he saw Yan, he wept bitterly and reported on the process and specific uses of the grant, yan Xishan pretended to persuade Li not to be too careful, but Li Shengda understood that this matter was difficult, so he simply stayed at his home in Taiyuan and transferred it to the chief of staff to handle military affairs.
Li Shengda nominally released his military powers, but he understood that since he had gained little trust in Yan Xishan, he actively increased contacts with the Nanjing side and secretly protected the personnel installed by Nanjing in Taiyuan. By 1932, Li Sheng arrived in Nanjing and brought 3,000 bottles of Fenjiu and Qinzhou rice to send to the dignitaries in Nanjing.
After the outbreak of the Great Wall War of Resistance in 1933, Li Shengda led his troops to Shijiazhuang, where he was received by Lao Jiang and designated a secret radio station for Li to contact Nanjing.
In 1934, Lao Jiang asked the Jin Sui side to send troops to the south, and the Yan generals were unwilling to go south, only Li Shengda was willing to lead his troops south. Yan Xishan was originally extremely disgusted, but under the persuasion of Xu Yongchang and others, he finally agreed to the Jin army to go south, but asked Nanjing to replenish military expenses, in essence, to use Nanjing's wealth to raise Jin Sui's troops.
After Li Shengda led his troops to the south, he was also received by Lao Jiang, who directly promoted him to the commander of the 19th Army, and also specially allocated the equipment and vehicles of the special service battalion. It can be said that Li Shengda has been completely bought off by Lao Jiang.
When the Jin Sui army went south, the main force of the Red Army was no longer there, so this was almost a long-distance march, because the main force of the Red Army turned north and entered Shaanxi, so Li Shengda's troops also returned from the south to the north and returned to the Jin Sui army.
Regarding this return to the north, Li Shengda was reluctant at first, but after being received by Lao Jiang, his attitude changed greatly, and his subordinates all believed that Li's change of attitude was due to the intention of carrying a special mission.
What kind of special mission?
When Li Bu returned to the north, Old Jiang rewarded each of his soldiers with 5 yuan, officers above the school level gave a photo of Chiang Kai-shek and the "Collection of Wang Linchuan", and Gu Zhutong gave Li Bu a set of Jiangxi tea sets to senior officers of Li Bu. Moreover, Li Shengda also ordered his department to mention Chairman Jiang, that is, all of them, when they held a meeting or made a collective speech; in the long run, there was no reaction to the mention of Director Yan, and this change made Yan Xishan very dissatisfied.
As mentioned earlier, Li Shengda was appointed commander of the 19th Army when he went south, but Yan Xishan did not recognize this commander and still called him the commander of the division in the Official Documents of Shanxi, and Li was greatly dissatisfied.
In the battle against the Red Army, lao Jiang gave Li Shengda a heavy responsibility and gave him command of 15 regiments of Shanxi troops. At that time, there were only less than 60 regiments in the regular army of the Jin Sui Army, which accounted for a quarter under the command of Li Shengda, and it was self-evident what Old Jiang wanted to do.
At this juncture, the assassination of Li Shengda by his defender Xiong Xiyue finally occurred, and although the reasons for the assassination were rumored to be different, the outside world still believed that Yan Xishan had secretly planned all this.
When the 19th Army reported to Yan Xishan that Li Shengda had been assassinated, Yan immediately called back: Shu Min (Li Shengda's character) was stabbed, which made me feel sad!
After Li Shengda died, Wang Jingguo, a close confidant of Yan Xishan, was ordered to come to mourn, and in front of Li's subordinate Duan Shuhua and others, Wang Ji said: Shu Min himself cannot protect himself, how can he lead his troops to fight? Between the words, there is no sense of grief.
With the assassination of Li Shengda, the old Jiang hoped to divide Yan Xishan through the Jin Sui clan's strategy of shaking the generals and failed, and Yan Xishan no longer sent troops into Shaanxi on the grounds that Li Shengda was assassinated and the army was unstable.
After the Li Shengda incident, Yan Xishan increased the requirement for loyalty to the generals of the Jin Sui Army, and made many moves against the suspected generals. This was also the main factor that Later Fu Zuoyi realized that the situation was wrong and immediately led his troops back to Suiyuan. After all, Li Shengda's lessons from the past were there, and it was too dangerous under Yan Xishan's eyes.