What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
Why the CCP was able to go from being weak to strong and eventually defeating the KMT to establish a new China, the kmt leaders, including Chiang Kai-shek, have always pondered this question after the defeat of Taiwan. Zhang Xueliang, as Chiang Kai-shek's brother and prisoner, was no exception, and he left his thoughts on this issue in his dictation.
In Zhang Xueliang's view, when people have faith, they have strength, and the CCP is an example. "The Communist Party has a purpose, he believes in communism, so he can succeed ... The Communist Party, the Red Army, they do have their faith, the Communist Party believes in his doctrine. Faith is power. "Even every soldier is completely an idea—communism."
The Kuomintang, on the other hand, is a negative teaching material, "The reason why our army cannot defeat the Communist Party is that we do not have a central idea," and Zhang Xueliang's so-called "central ideology" is faith. Although the KMT has repeatedly talked about the so-called "Three People's Principles" and held high the divine card of Sun Yat-sen, in Zhang Xueliang's view, the KMT has no idea what the "Three People's Principles" are.
"What is the real Three People's Principles? I can say that most people don't know. Carrying the Prime Minister's will, just there, what is his true and thorough meaning? No one has studied it profoundly. "The old chinese woman, who mutters 'Amitabha Buddha' all day, you ask her what 'Amitabha Buddha' means, and she doesn't know."
When the army has no faith, "feelings" have become the link that maintains the army, the so-called feelings in Zhang Xueliang's view, "to put it bluntly, it is a moral atmosphere, you are a good man, I will follow you, you dare to do it, I am still afraid of something", Zhang Xueliang himself is the "big parent" of the Northeast Army, outsiders can not bring, can not bring the Northeast Army, even after Zhang Xueliang lost the Northeast field to go abroad, can still remotely control the Northeast Army. "At that time, leading soldiers, in other words, everyone was directed at you personally." ...... Someone said to me, no one will take your army, and they take you as a saint. This is called a relationship problem. ”
By analogy, Chiang Kai-shek is actually also the "great patriarch," and the so-called "great patriarch" of the Central Army is also under the command of others. During the Battle of Taierzhuang, Li Zongren of the Gui clan served as the commander of the Fifth Theater, but commanded the Twentieth Army of Tang Enbo, which was not moved by Chiang Kai-shek's concubine. Since he commanded the armies of other factions, the so-called miscellaneous armies, Chiang Kai-shek pushed the miscellaneous armies to the front line of the civil war and the War of Resistance, and in the name of suppressing the Communists and resisting the War of Resistance, they were worthwhile.
Zhang Xueliang already had a very good opinion on this, and the reason why he changed his mind after he was sent to the northwest to suppress the Communists was not unrelated to the fact that two divisions of the Northeast Army were annihilated by the Chinese Communists, and Chiang Kai-shek not only did not pay pensions but canceled the number. "I'm heartbroken. I would add, no. However, in addition to my personal money for the pension, the pension for the death of so many people was reported to the Central Committee according to the "suppression of the Communists", but the Central Committee did not allocate any money. At that time, I had a battalion commander... He said: 'The government gave me a note and told me to go home and get it, my home is in the northeast, where do I go to get it?' "This thing irritates me very much... We northeasterners, the family is gone, where to get a pension? Those who have been killed do not receive a pension, and those who have been injured cannot return to their places of origin... The central authorities are very unreasonable. ”
"We found that he revoked the names of the two divisions we had lost, but secretly let Hu Zongnan recruit troops... Kissing a son can do anything, a son can't do anything, how can it work? "Mr. Jiang, he always has a consciousness... It's always mine, it's his, and it's particularly clear. This is my own son, that is my own son, and he does not see people as equals. That is to say, in Zhang Xueliang's view, Chiang Kai-shek is just a warlord with a home in his heart, the Central Army, but no country.
Zhang Xueliang also criticized Chiang Kai-shek's employment a lot, quoting Wang Xinheng, who studied in the Soviet Union in his early years, as saying of Chiang Kai-shek several times: "He does not summon talents, he calls slaves." "Mr. Jiang not only uses slaves, he also listens to slaves." Let me give you an example, at that time we had a meeting to study something, Chen Cheng, he did not speak, then we think he must have agreed, then Mr. Jiang did not squeak, this matter is not equivalent to a decision. Gu Zhutong said to me: 'Mr. Zhang, do you believe it?' What is decided at today's meeting will be overturned tomorrow. I didn't believe it. He said, "After the meeting, he (Chen Cheng) must go to Mr. Jiang's muttering, you see, tomorrow this thing must not be like this.' "After the meeting, I went to Guannei, and someone told me that Chen Cheng had gone to Mr. Jiang. I understand this, Gu Zhutong is right. "I commented on Mr. Jiang, in our northern dialect, that Mr. Jiang is willing to listen to small talk. What you officially say to him, of course, he also listens, not does not listen, but it can not withstand the muttering underneath. "So he uses Chen Cheng, Dai Kasa, he likes this kind of person." We in China are not without talents, and these talents have nowhere to run. The sages in society do not do things in the government and are not used. “
It is precisely because Chiang Kai-shek likes to use "slave talents" that in military command he likes to directly intervene in specific operations, directly bypassing the corps commanders, army commanders, and even division commanders of the direct front line of the Ministry of National Defense, the General Staff Headquarters, and the theater directly frontline. At the Battle of Songhu, a company of artillery units of Zhang Fakui, then commander-in-chief of the Eighth Army and Right Wing Army, did not know where to go, and after investigation, it was learned that it was Chiang Kai-shek who had transferred away, which made Feng Yuxiang, who was the commander of the Third Theater, very angry, and he criticized: "The troops fighting in the front have different command powers, and the supreme commander is under the command of even a company of artillery. ”