What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
Wei Lihuang was a native of Hefei, Anhui Province, who had long followed Dr. Sun Yat-sen to join the revolutionary army and had very high seniority within the Kuomintang. As a military general, Wei Lihuang's military career was also very brilliant, and he experienced the Northern Expedition War, the Central Plains Warlord War and the War of Resistance Against Japan. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wei Lihuang successively served as deputy commander of the Kuomintang Second Theater and commander-in-chief of the former enemy, commander of the First Theater, commander of the Expeditionary Force, and other important posts.
When Wei Lihuang was the deputy commander of the Kuomintang Second Theater, he participated in the command of the Battle of Xinkou, which dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese invaders. When Wei Lihuang was the commander of the expeditionary force, he commanded his troops to open the Burma Road, which was regarded as a lifeline.
Among the military generals under Lao Jiang, five people were collectively known as the Five Tiger Generals, and Wei Lihuang was one of them. Moreover, among these five tiger generals, the other four (Chen Cheng, Gu Zhutong, Liu Zhi, and Jiang Dingwen) were all vain and had suffered major defeats during the War of Resistance, and only Wei Lihuang's battle exploits were the most prominent. As Wei Lihuang's opponent, Kiyoshi Kazuki, who had served as the supreme commander of the Japanese invaders in North China, once praised Wei Lihuang as a "Chinese tiger general." As an ally, the American Stilwell, who once served as the chief of the general staff of the Chinese theater, once said in his memoirs that Wei Lihuang was the most capable general in the Kuomintang army.
Shortly after the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, Wei Lihuang, who had made great achievements in battle, was soon relieved of all his duties by Chiang Kai-shek and forced to go abroad for military investigation. Until the beginning of 1948, Wei Lihuang, who was still inspecting abroad, returned to China at the urging of the old Chiang Kai-shek and was soon appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Northeast Suppression Campaign, taking charge of the military and political power in the northeast. In the Liaoshen Campaign that broke out in September 1948, General Wei Lihuang repeatedly refused to carry out Lao Jiang's orders in accordance with his own strategy of sticking to Shenyang and waiting for the times to change, and was finally deposed by Lao Jiang after the end of the Liaoshen Campaign and was monitored by secret agents. There is a saying that at that time, standing still on the battlefield was deliberately done by General Wei Lihuang.
Later, General Wei Lihuang escaped the surveillance of secret agents and took refuge in Hong Kong with his family. At the time of the founding of New China, General Wei Lihuang, who was in Hong Kong, was overjoyed and personally sent a congratulatory telegram. In March 1955, General Wei Lihuang returned to the mainland from Hong Kong with the efforts of many parties and was warmly welcomed by our side. Since then, General Wei Lihuang has been elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang Revolutionary Committee, and also served as vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, becoming a deputy state-level leader. Unfortunately, in January 1960, General Wei Lihuang died of illness in Beijing at the age of 63 and was buried in Babaoshan Cemetery.
The life of General Wei Lihuang was not only a life of military and horse-making, but also a magnificent life, and he made a correct choice at an important juncture in history. Wei Lihuang was married four times in his life, and there were three sons and two daughters who survived, most of them living in obscurity as ordinary people. More famous is Wei Lihuang's younger son, his name is Wei Daoran, born in 1931, since childhood to follow Wei Lihuang's side, has long worked in beijing auto repair company, is a senior engineer in the field of auto repair, died of illness in 2011, at the age of 80. Wei Daoran has a son named Wei Zhi, who has been working in the financial field, and from time to time he will see information on the Internet about Wei Zhi's participation in activities related to the commemoration of the War of Resistance. Let us pay tribute to General Wei Lihuang and wish his descendants a happy and healthy life.