What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
The most capable high-ranking general in Chiang Kai-shek's military clique is None other than Wei Lihuang.
Five of Chiang Kai-shek's men held senior positions above the commander of the theater, namely Wei Lihuang, Chen Cheng, Gu Zhutong, Liu Zhi, and Jiang Dingwen, all of whom held the rank of second-class general of the Nationalist Army, so he was called "General of the Five Tigers."
The Supreme Commander of the Japanese Army in North China, Kiyoshi Kazuki, had taught Wei Lihuang how powerful he was, and honored him as "Tiger General".
In his memoirs, Stilwell, commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Force, called Wei Lihuang, commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, "the most capable general in the Kuomintang army."
The "Dictionary of Chinese Names" published in the United States simply called Wei Lihuang "General Changsheng".
Wei Lihuang was born in 1897 in Weiyang Village, an eastern suburb of Hefei County, Anhui Province, and joined the army at the age of 15 and joined The Revolutionary Army of Bai Wenwei.
On July 12, 1912, Li Liejun of Jiangxi Declared Independence at Hukou and took the lead in raising the banner of anti-Yuan.
Five days later, Anhui became independent, Bai Wenwei was appointed commander-in-chief of Anhui Yuan, and Wei Lihuang participated in the battle to hold on to he county.
After the battle was lost, Wei Lihuang first joined the Xiang Army and then switched to the Guangdong Army.
In July 1917, Sun Yat-sen established a military government, appointed himself as the Grand Marshal of the Military Government, launched the Dharma Protection Movement, and Wei Lihuang entered the Grand Marshal's Office as a guard.
In 1918, the Grand Marshal's Office was dissolved, Dr. Sun Yat-sen left Guangzhou for Shanghai, and Wei Lihuang was transferred to Xu Chongzhi's subordinates as a platoon leader, and made many achievements in the cantonese army and the local warlords in Fujian, from platoon commander to company commander, and then from company commander to battalion commander.
He was only twenty-two years old when he was promoted to battalion commander, and everyone called him "little battalion commander."
Wei Lihuang's grandson Wei Zhi said in an interview with reporters a few years ago: "When my grandfather was only 22 years old, he was worried that his young age would be despised, so he specially put up a handful of beards to show 'old age', and the nickname of 'Wei Beard'. The beard eventually stayed with him for more than 30 years, until he shaved it off in 1949 when he fled from Nanjing to Hong Kong to avoid the eyes and ears of Kuomintang agents. ”
In October 1921, Sun Yat-sen sent a telegram to the Fujian-Yue Army to return to Guangdong to discuss Chen Jiongming, and Wei Lihuang rebuilt Qigong and was promoted to regimental commander.
After the victory of the First Crusade, Wei Lihuang participated in the grand ceremony of Sun Yat-sen and his wife re-boarding the Yong prison ship and taking a group photo with Chen Yougong personnel, and was also given a eight-character photo signed by Sun Yat-sen with "Comrade Wei Lihuang, Sun Wen gift".
In September 1925, Wei Lihuang participated in the Second Crusade against Chen Jiongming, taking the lead in capturing the city of Huizhou, known as the "first day of danger in Southern China".
Of course, the most popular thing for Wei Lihuang was the Northern Expedition.
In the second half of 1926, Wei Lihuang led his troops to lian ke Sun Chuanfang's Zhou Yinren, and in the Battle of Songkou, he broke more than 20,000 enemies in one fell swoop, and became famous and promoted to the commander of the 14th Division.
In February 1927, Wei Lihuang triumphantly captured Zhenjiang and served as the commander of the Zhenjiang garrison.
When Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zongchang joined forces to cross the Yangtze River and occupy Longtan Station, in a vain attempt to cut off the Shanghai-Nanjing line and encircle And counterattack Nanjing, Wei Lihuang led his troops to rush to the aid, he personally braved artillery fire and fought day and night, not only to retake Longtan Station, but also to beat Sun Chuanfang and Zhang Zongchang to the north, so that Nanjing could turn the crisis into safety.
Wei Lihuang's name of daring to fight has thus spread throughout the north and south of the great river, and the world knows it.
The Nanjing government specially gave a pennant embroidered with the four characters of "Party-State Gancheng" to commend it.
At the end of the year, Wei Lihuang led his troops into Xuzhou, concurrently serving as the commander of martial law in Xuzhou, and soon transferred to the deputy commander of the Nanjing garrison.
In the Battle of the Central Plains in 1930, Shi Yousan suddenly turned against Nanjing.
At that time, Chiang Kai-shek's elite troops had already moved north one after another, And Nanjing was empty, and Chiang Kai-shek jumped straight to his feet in a hurry, and Urgently dispatched Wei Lihuang, who was studying in the first special training class of the Army University, to organize the army and defend Nanjing.
Wei Lihuang recruited troops in Hefei, recruited two regiments, defeated Shi Yousan in one fell swoop, and lifted the siege of Nanjing.
Wei Lihuang twice defused the dangerous situation in Nanjing, which greatly satisfied Old Jiang.
What made Old Chiang even more satisfied was that in the anti-Japanese anti-Chiang regime established by Li Jishen, Chen Mingshu, Jiang Guangnai, Cai Tingkai, and others, Wei Lihuang served as the commander-in-chief of the Fifth Route Army, and surrounded and incorporated the Nineteenth Route Army from Fuzhou in Jiangxi, down the Min River, through northwestern Fujian.
While old Jiang was overjoyed, he first appointed him as the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Route Army, and then became the commander-in-chief of the reserve unit stationed in Fujian, and also the commander of the Tenth Appeasement District in Fujian.
However, although Wei Lihuang was called "The General of Constant Victory" by the Americans, he still lost some of his achievements.
For example, in early 1931, he participated in the third counter-revolutionary "encirclement and suppression" of our Jinggangshan revolutionary base area, was defeated by our heroic Red Army, and retreated to Ji'an in a hurry.
For example, in May 1932, he was appointed commander of the sixth column of the Middle Road to carry out "encirclement and suppression" in the Eyu-Anhui Soviet area, only to be surrounded by the Red Army in the Fengshou area of Huang'an, and finally, relying on the desperate resistance of a well-armed special agent company, he was spared from being captured alive.
In 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out in full swing, and the Japanese army attacked the 38th Division of the Chinese garrison and occupied the Area of Dagu. Subsequently, the Japanese Kwantung Army responded to the action and continuously sent additional tank troops to Tianjin, so that the number of Japanese troops in the Pingjin area reached more than 100,000 people, and Peiping was in danger.
Wei Lihuang asked Miao to go north, and he led the Fourteenth Army to fight fierce battles with the Japanese army west of Beiping, Xiamaling, Qianjuntai, and thirty-eight kilometers away from Fengtai.
The Supreme Commander of the Japanese Army in North China, Xiangyue Qingsi, felt that wei Lihuang was struggling in the first battle, and had to continue to increase his troops, and ordered his twentieth division to encircle Wei Lihuang's wei department.
After Wei Lihuang fell into a heavy siege, he did not panic, and ordered all the troops to take advantage of the yamagata terrain to skillfully maneuver with the Japanese army, and finally all of them rushed out of the encirclement circle and reached the designated rendezvous point.
Next, Wei Lihuangwei prepared to participate in the battles of Baoding and Shijiazhuang.
However, Liu Zhi, the commander-in-chief of Baoding, unexpectedly fled without a fight, triggering a total rout, and Baoding and Shijiazhuang were lost one after another.
It was also at this time that the Japanese army attacking Shanxi broke through the defensive line in the northwest of Jin and attacked Xinkou.
Wei Lihuang then led his troops to aid Shanxi.
In Taiyuan, Wei Lihuang met with Yan Xishan, Premier Zhou, and General Manager Zhu, and he warmly congratulated Premier Zhou and General Manager Zhu on the Eighth Route Army's victory in Pingxingguan, and also notified Wu Haide, the head of the office in Xi'an, by telephone, to purchase tens of thousands of yuan of condolences to send to the Eighth Route Army. Later, the Eighth Route Army gave 1 million rounds of ammunition and 250,000 grenades.
In early October, the Nanjing Military Commission announced that Wei Lihuang was the commander-in-chief of the former enemy in the Second Theater, commanding all the Central Army and the Jin Sui Army in northern Jin, including the Eighth Route Army, to block the Japanese attack at Xinkou.
The Battle of Xinkou was fought on October 13 of that year.
Three Japanese divisions and special forces, under the cover of aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery, launched a frenzied onslaught on Xinkou.
Wei Lihuang gathered 6 group armies, a total of 31 divisions, 13 brigades, and about 280,000 people, and resisted bravely.
The battle was extremely fierce, and Hao Mengling, commander of the Ninth Army, Liu Jiaqi, commander of the 54th Division, and Zheng Tingzhen, commander of the Independent Fifth Brigade, were martyred in the fierce battle, and the casualties of officers and men reached thousands.
Until the 31st, the Japanese army was unable to break through the defensive line.
Ren Bishi, then director of the Political Department of the Eighth Route Army, commented: "The Xinkou War was the fiercest war in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in North China." "Although the entire line of troops under the command of General Wei Lihuang suffered heavy casualties, they did not waver, and the heroic struggle of many loyal and courageous soldiers is worthy of eternal commemoration by every compatriot."
Unfortunately, just as Wei Lihuang was preparing to launch an offensive against the Itagaki Division from the left flank, the Japanese army attacking Taiyuan from the east had broken through niangzi Pass and drove straight into Taiyuan.
Wei Lihuang had no choice but to command his troops to withdraw from the Xinkou position and move closer to Taiyuan.
The Japanese offensive was too fierce and too fast, Wei Lihuang had not yet formed a defensive line in Taiyuan, and the enemy's Fifth Division had already attacked Taiyuan, and Taiyuan was immediately lost.
Wei Lihuang had no choice but to lead his troops to Jiexiu and Xiaoyi to defend themselves and confront the enemy.
In mid-February 1938, Wei Lihuang was appointed commander of the Second Theater and commander-in-chief of the former enemy, commanding all the central armies in Shanxi.
On the Japanese side, Kyoshiki concentrated the 18th, 20th, 19th, 14th, and 16th Divisions, a total of about 100,000 people, from Taiyuan to the south, in an attempt to capture the southwest of Shanxi in one fell swoop.
Wei Lihuang, Yan Xishan, and Commander-in-Chief Zhu studied and determined that they would block the enemy at Han Xinling, north of Linfen.
In the Battle of Han Xinling, Wei Lihuang waved his army and engaged in a vicious battle of flesh and blood with the Japanese army, and did not give way to any land.
It can be said that from 1937 to 1941, this period was the most prosperous period since Wei Lihuang became a general, and he worked closely with the Eighth Route Army to jointly block the Japanese army on the north bank of the Yellow River, so that the Japanese army could not cross the Yellow River graben for four years.
In 1941, Wei Lihuang also severely damaged the Japanese army in the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain; subsequently, he defeated Okamura Ningji in the Zhengzhou Reconquest and successfully recaptured Zhengzhou.
However, the elder Jiang sensed that Wei Lihuang and the Eighth Route Army were too close, and thought that he "harbored different intentions", so he removed him from the rank of general of the army in the summer of 1941, and at the end of the year, he used the method of rising and descending in the bright and the dark, dismissed him from the commander of the first theater and his various posts, and was transferred to the post of director of the general office of the northwest camp in Xi'an.
Wei Lihuang's grandson Wei Zhi said: "My grandfather had many contacts with Commander-in-Chief Zhu De and Deputy Commander-in-Chief Peng Dehuai, and formed a deep friendship. In April 1938, my grandfather went to Xi'an for a meeting, visited Yan'an halfway, and met with Chairman Mao. He was the first senior Kuomintang general to arrive in Yan'an for a visit. At that time, Yan'an organized a long line of people to welcome them, and signs such as "Welcome commander-in-chief of Wei to Yan'an" were posted along the way. Chairman Mao personally received and interviewed him several times. He was very kind and friendly to my grandfather, and specially approved more than 50 yuan to invite my grandfather to dinner. ”
Wei Zhi also said that the trip to Yan'an brought about a major change in his grandfather's thinking, "Grandfather felt a fresh atmosphere different from the outside world here, the people here, although poor, are very vigorous, organized, very clean, and in stark contrast to the luxury and corruption of the Kuomintang area." Later, during his stay in Luoyang, in the three years from 1939 to 1941, my grandfather exchanged more than 60 telegrams with Chairman Mao, discussing the theory and strategy of the War of Resistance and Revolution, and through exchanges with Chairman Mao, my grandfather gained a deeper understanding of the Communist Party."
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, China established an expeditionary force, and Wei Lihuang later succeeded Chen Cheng as commander of the expeditionary force, winning a series of battles, including the Battle of the Nu River in northern Burma, including the Counteroffensive Campaign in Northern Yunnan, crushing the Japanese army on the border between Western Yunnan and China and Burma, opening up the Burma Road, and preserving the lifeline of the anti-Japanese resistance.
At this time, the American "Time" magazine published a photo of Wei Lihuang and called him "General Changsheng".
In January 1948, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Wei Lihuang to be the deputy director of the Northeast Expedition and the commander-in-chief of the Northeast.
After Wei Lihuang arrived in Shenyang, he concentrated his troops near Shenyang and refused to listen to Chiang Kai-shek's dispatches.
After the People's Liberation Army liberated all of northeast China, Chiang Kai-shek burst into flames, loudly reprimanded Wei Lihuang, who had returned by plane from Shenyang, and issued an order on November 26: "Wei Lihuang, the commander-in-chief of the northeast, hesitated to make up his mind, took the opportunity to lose his plane, and lost his important town, and immediately dismissed him from his post to investigate and deal with it." ”
Wei Lihuang was silent, and soon after, he left Hong Kong and temporarily settled in Hong Kong.
In October 1949, the good news of the founding of the People's Republic of China came from the mainland, and Wei Lihuang's long-scrolled poems and books were ecstatic.
On October 3, he personally drew up a congratulatory telegram to Chairman Mao, Commander-in-Chief Zhu and Premier Zhou, and "sent a telegram of congratulations" to Chairman Mao, asking Commander-in-Chief Zhu and Premier Zhou to "express congratulations on behalf of Him."
Chairman Mao was also very happy when he received the telegram. In his busy schedule, he sent a telegram back to Wei Lihuang.
In March 1955, Wei Lihuang refused the Kuomintang's offer to let him go to Taiwan and resolutely returned to Beijing from Hong Kong.
Wei Lihuang was the first high-ranking Kuomintang general to return from overseas with the highest official position, and General Manager Zhu was overjoyed, so he sent someone to take him to his residence, set up a banquet to wash the dust for him, and invited Peng Dehuai, Ye Jianying, Nie Rongzhen, He Long, Chen Yi, and several other marshals to accompany him.
Wei Lihuang admitted that the most beautiful and sensational event in his life was that he commanded the Chinese Expeditionary Force to recover the lost land in the late stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which was highly appreciated by the Allies, and the photo was on the cover of the US "Time" magazine; the other was his "return" in 1955, which attracted the world's attention.
Chairman Mao warmly received Wei Lihuang on April 25, and he tightly held Wei Lihuang's hand and said: "Time flies so fast, I didn't expect us to come together again, and the right way in the world is vicissitudes!" ”
This sentence made Wei Lihuang feel incomparably warm.
Chairman Mao also invited Wei Lihuang to participate in major state affairs, including deliberating on politics and discussing the army, inspecting and visiting, and so on.
Wei Lihuang was inexplicably grateful, he said: "It is difficult to describe such hospitality and trust, and the feeling of shame. ”
Later, Wei Lihuang successively served as a member of the Second and Third National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a deputy to the Second National People's Congress, a standing committee member of the Third and Fourth Central Committees of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee, and a vice chairman of the National Defense Commission of the People's Republic of China.
Since then, Chairman Mao has also entertained Wei Lihuang many times.
Wei Lihuang sighed heartily: "The Communist Party's broad-mindedness is the most admirable to us, so it can unite the people of the whole country, and its achievements and boldness are unprecedented in history." ”
On January 17, 1960, Wei Lihuang died of illness in Beijing at the age of 64 and was buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing.