Hu Lian, a first-class general in the Kuomintang Army and a fourth-term student of the Whampoa Military Academy, was one of the generals in Chen Cheng's civil engineering department. One of the prototypes of Chu Yunfei in "Bright Sword", its fame began in the War of Resistance Against Japan, which won the stone defense battle of China's "Stalingrad Defense War".
On May 25, 1943, the Japanese Kou on the Xiang'e border occupied Yuyang Pass and crossed the Qing River to approach The Shipai Fortress in a vain attempt to directly attack Sichuan and threaten the wartime capital Chongqing. Shipai is located in Yichang, Hubei Province, and has been a place of contention for soldiers since ancient times. In order to seize Shipai, the Japanese army gathered nearly 100,000 elite soldiers of the main forces of the 3rd, 13th and 39th Divisions to approach Shipai, and it was Hu Lian's 11th Division stationed at shipai at this time.
When the great war was imminent, Chiang Kai-shek strictly ordered that "the Stone Fortress is China's Stalingrad" and that the Stone Tablet Fortress should be guarded at all costs. Hu Lian was well aware of the importance of this battle, and before the war, he left five suicide notes to his family, among which he wrote to his father's family: "Father, your son is now ordered to serve as the defense of Shipai Fortress, fighting alone, the future is unpredictable, but there is no other way but to succeed in becoming a ren... There is a son who can die in the country, and the adult's affection is also enough to comfort... Implore the lord to add clothes and strong food according to the time, that is, so the soul of the super plucked naughty child is also ...". Then bathe and change clothes, lead the whole division to worship heaven and earth, swear to coexist and die with the fortress, and be ready to be martyred at any time. He also pushed the division command post to the insect guest ant bag close to the line of fire, and personally commanded.
Hu Lian was a general who was good at mountain combat. He took advantage of the favorable terrain of the mountains around the stone tablets, the walls of thousands of people, the thousands of ravines, and the towering ancient trees to build strong fortifications, and set up deer blocks on the main roads of the mountain passes to defend themselves according to danger. Under the powerful fire of the Japanese army, Hubu stood still. When the battle was at its most intense, Chen Cheng called Hu Lian and asked, "Is it safe to hold the fortress?" ”。 Hu Lian replied emphatically: "Although success is uncertain, Cheng Ren is indeed determined!" ”
The fierceness of this battle was so great that by the time the battle was at its most intense, there were three hours when the sound of gunfire could not be heard. This is not an armistice between the two sides, but a white-knifed and hand-to-hand battle in which the enemy and our armies twist into a ball. The battle was later called the bloodiest bayonet battle of World War II. In the Shipai Defense Battle, the Japanese army used various means to never break through the main position of the 11th Division of the Shipai Fortress, and the confidence in the battle was lost, and after paying the cost of more than 7,000 casualties, it turned around and withdrew on the night of May 31, and the Shipai Defense Battle ended.
More important than the J7,000 Japanese army, the elite Japanese 13th Division was crippled and suffered more than half of its casualties, which was once regarded by Okamura Ningji as one of the strongest divisions on the Chinese battlefield, and the Tiger and Wolf Division that participated in the Nanjing Massacre finally paid the price for the crimes they committed. After the war, Hu Lian was promoted to deputy commander of the 18th Army, and Chiang Kai-shek personally awarded Hu Lian the Order of the Blue Sky and White Sun.
After Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in Taiwan, Hu Lian was appointed commander of the Kinmen Defense Command, causing repeated trouble to the People's Liberation Army and being known as the "King of Kinmen.".