Feng Yuxiang is a legendary person.
Time magazine, published on July 2, 1928, described him as a "devout Christian" and "sharpshooter" with "the world's largest private army."
Feng Yuxiang's military strength in the heyday was as high as 400,000 people,
Although Feng Yuxiang had a prominent ancestor, his ancestor Feng Rulin was a Zhenwei general of the Qing Tongzhi Dynasty, but by his grandfather's generation, he had become the poorest family at the bottom of society.
So, how did Feng Yuxiang make his career bigger?
This can be called a miracle on earth, which makes people extremely surprised and infinitely admired.
It is said that Feng Yuxiang's father, Feng Youmao, was a mason when he was young, and one day he went to a rich man's house to help the rich man work, and saw that the martial artist invited by the rich family was teaching the children of the rich family to learn martial arts. The martial master saw that he had a good look when he danced, and saw that his bones were exquisite, which was a piece of material for practicing martial arts, so he accepted him as an apprentice for free, hoping that he could carry forward the master's door.
Feng Youmaofu to the soul, waste sleep and forget to eat, beat bones and bones, and practice fists and feet hard.
After two years, he took the Wuke examination, unexpectedly won a Wu Xiucai, and was recruited into the Huai Army of Li Hongzhang, one of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, as a junior officer.
That is, the Feng family started from Feng Youmao and returned to the army.
When Feng Yuxiang was born, Feng Youmao was transferred to Baoding with the troops and served as the right sentry officer of the rear battalion. But the family was still poor.
When Feng Yuxiang reached the age of 11, he was already tall and powerful, and the soldiers in his father's camp called him "Feng Big Man".
Also in this year, there was a vacancy in the barracks, and the pipe belt surnamed Miao was friendly with Feng Youmao, and Feng Yuxiang was allowed to make up for the soldiers for personal gain--that is, Feng Yuxiang did not need to serve in the battalion, but the family could receive a monthly salary according to the military salary system.
At the age of 14, Feng Yuxiang officially entered the military camp.
Feng Yuxiang crawled and fought in the army, practiced a good marksmanship, and slowly survived.
In 1910, on the eve of the Xinhai Revolution, Feng Yuxiang was already the pipe belt of the 80th Standard 3rd Battalion of the 20th Town (Division) of the Army.
Don't underestimate this pipe belt, it is the cornerstone of Feng Yuxiang's life's career.
Now, many historians and researchers like to call Feng Yuxiang a "defective general."
They believe that Feng Yuxiang's origins are similar to the profit situation of businessmen - businessmen rely on continuous buying and scalping, and constantly hoarding strange goods according to the supply and demand requirements of producers and consumers, so as to make a fortune.
Feng Yuxiang changed sides in different camps, reversed back and forth, and developed his army.
Feng Yuxiang's first act of defection was the Luanzhou Uprising launched after the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising in 1911.
Feng Yuxiang was originally a middle- and lower-ranking officer of the Qing Dynasty, he rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, this is not a defection?
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Feng Yuxiang joined Yuan Shikai's camp and became the commander of the 14th Brigade of the 7th Division (later transferred to the 16th Mixed Brigade).
In 1915, Feng Yuxiang was ordered to lead his troops into Sichuan to fight against the Defending Army, and was awarded by Yuan Shikai as "loyal and courageous, extremely good as Jiashang", and was awarded the title of third-class baron.
However, seeing that Yuan Shikai had gradually become the target of public criticism and had become the target of siege by various warlords, he quickly contacted Cai Yi and launched a counterattack against Yuan Shikai.
In November 1917, Sun Yat-sen launched the Dharma Protection Movement, and Duan Qirui sent Feng Yuxiang's 16th Mixed Brigade to Fujian to engage Sun Yat-sen's Protector Army. Feng Yuxiang judged the situation, stopped the troops at Wuxue, and counterattacked Duan Qirui.
Of course, Feng Yuxiang's most criticized act of defection was the one during the Second Zhifeng War in October 1924.
Originally, Feng Yuxiang led his troops into Shaanxi in 1921 and was already subordinate to the warlords of his direct lineage, but in the first Zhifeng War in the summer of 1922, he went out of Shaanxi to aid Zhizhi, defeated the Henan overseer Zhao Qianbu, and was awarded the rank of general of the army, which was a real direct general.
During the Second Zhifeng War, as the commander-in-chief of the Third Army of the Zhifang Side, he accepted a bribe of 500,000 silver dollars from Zhang Xueliang, brazenly launched a coup d'état in Beijing, imprisoned Cao Kun, stabbed Wu Peifu in the back, and overthrew the government of Cao Kun.
Xue Dake, a strange scholar in the Republic of China newspaper and a talented man in Hunan, wrote a strange article entitled "Feng Yuxiang of the Republic of China", which specifically mentioned that Feng Yuxiang "once performed a forced palace drama to expel Puyi from the palace" during this defection, and he said that Feng Yuxiang's move was "not to eradicate the roots of the Qing Dynasty royal family, but to have another purpose", that is, to seize the antique playthings and celebrity calligraphy and paintings accumulated by the Qing Dynasty for three hundred years.
Xue Dake said that after Puyi was expelled from the palace, the precious famous products in the palace were "all obtained by The Feng family."
If this is not false, then it is not difficult to understand where Feng Yuxiang's financial resources to raise the "world's largest private army" come from.
Then again, after Feng Yuxiang overthrew the government of Cao Kun, who was directly related to Cao Kun, he announced his separation from the Beiyang Military Department and reorganized it into the "National Army", and sent a telegram inviting Sun Yat-sen to go north.
However, the plan could not catch up with the situation, and Sun Yat-sen's far water could not quench Feng Yuxiang's near thirst; Sun Yat-sen was still in a hurry to catch up and hurry up to the north, and Feng Yuxiang, through balancing the gains and losses of the interests, compromised with the anti-direct warlords Zhang Zuolin and Duan Qirui, and participated in the formation of the Beiyang government ruled by Duan Qirui.
This made Sun Yat-sen's eyes dry with anger.
Also, in 1925, Zhang Zuolin's general Guo Songling took the initiative to contact Feng Yuxiang to jointly oppose feng. Beforehand, Feng Yuxiang swore an oath, but in the end he released Guo Songling's pigeons, so that Guo Songling and his wife Han Shuxiu were both shot and killed after the defeat.
In any case, at this time, Feng Yuxiang was still a general of the Beiyang Army, and when the Northern Expedition War broke out in 1926, Feng Yuxiang swore an oath in Wuyuan, led his troops to participate in the Northern Expedition War, and raised troops against the Beiyang government.
In 1927, when Ning and Han confronted each other, Feng Yuxiang first intended to belong to Wang Jingwei, and on June 10, he made a pact with Wang Jingwei's Wuhan government to oppose Chiang Kai-shek; but on the 19th, unable to withstand Chiang Kai-shek's slight co-optation, he fell into Chiang Kai-shek's arms and reached a cooperation agreement with Chiang Kai-shek's Nanjing government.
Of course, he and Chiang Kai-shek did not get along harmoniously, and launched the Chiang Feng War and the Chiang Feng Yan War in 1929 and 1930, respectively.
Because Zhang Xueliang joined the melee, Feng Yuxiang was defeated and lost, and his people were eventually absorbed by Chiang Kai-shek.
By the way: After Feng Yuxiang was baptized in 1917, he was addicted to using religious power to control the army, and was known as "General Christ".
Theory, brainwashing soldiers through religion should make soldiers die for themselves, but why did Feng Yuxiang's troops suddenly let Lao Jiang absorb them after the Central Plains War?
The main reason is that Feng Yuxiang's paternalistic management is too strict to convince the public.
Han Fuyu, one of Feng Yuxiang's "Thirteen Taibao", was punished by Feng Yuxiang for rebelling against Feng Yuxiang and was punished by Feng Yuxiang for kneeling. Han Fuyu therefore scolded Feng Yuxiang for this was an old practice used by the warlord Li Ke in the old feudal society, and led his troops to oppose Feng and go to Jiang.
However, looking at Feng Yuxiang's defective behavior in his life, his daughter-in-law Yu Huaxin said in the book "General Feng Yuxiang": "Every change of the general is a change of progress for the benefit of the country and the people. Loving the country and the people, from thought to action, runs through the life of the general. ”
This is not a fiction.
We see that Feng Yuxiang's anti-Qing, anti-Yuan, anti-Duan, anti-Wu, anti-Wang, and anti-Chiang are all in line with the trend of historical development, and there is really not much to say about it.
It can be said that Feng Yuxiang's life was a life of revolution and a life of pursuing truth.
Of course, the biggest bright color of Feng Yuxiang's life is still in the War of Resistance to Save the Country.
After the September 18 Incident, Feng Yuxiang issued a telegram pointing out 13 proposals for resisting Japan and saving the people; later, he also established the Chahar People's Anti-Japanese Allied Army, personally serving as the commander-in-chief, to recover the four counties of Chadong; and after the outbreak of the "July 7 Incident" in 1937, Feng Yuxiang served as the commander of the third and sixth theaters and the supervisor of the third theater.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Feng Yuxiang continued to draw closer to our party, and as a result, he was sent to the sea by Chiang Kai-shek in the name of "special envoy for inspecting water conservancy" and forcibly ordered him to retire.
On July 31, 1948, Feng Yuxiang returned to China at the invitation of our party to participate in the preparations for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, but he died in the Black Sea because of a fire on a ship.
Despite Feng Yuxiang's death, his widow Li Dequan returned to Beijing as scheduled to attend the first plenary session of the Chinese Political Consultative Conference and served as the first minister of health of the People's Republic of China.
Later, Ms. Li Dequan also served as vice chairman of the All-China Women's Federation and vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and was promoted to the rank of vice-state.
Premier Zhou Enlai's appraisal of Feng Yuxiang was the most pertinent: "General Feng Yuxiang is a staunch democratic fighter who has been transformed from an old soldier," and his "contribution to the cause of Chinese democracy will be immortal." ”