Author: Military handsome man
In the history of the South Korean military and police force, there is an officer whose identity is very strange, he once called himself Peng Zong's "guard", and during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he intersected with senior generals such as Peng Zong and Zuo Quan. After the victory of the War of Resistance, he returned to his country and joined the South Korean army in 1950, becoming an "alternative officer" in the South Korean army. His name is Che Yihe.
Che Yihe had joined the North China Detachment of the North Korean Volunteer Brigade, and in 1942, the War of Resistance behind enemy lines entered an extremely difficult stage, and the Japanese army hoped to annihilate the Eighth Route Army through several large-scale combat operations.
In May 1942, the Japanese army sent heavy troops, with the cooperation of heavy weapons such as aircraft artillery, to launch a large-scale "sweep" of the headquarters of the 129th Division and the Eighth Route Army, Peng Zong and other comrades-in-arms led the troops to disperse and break through, and Zuo Quan stayed behind to cover his comrades-in-arms, and finally died heroically.
【Left Right】
At the critical moment, in order to protect the safety of the commander of the Eighth Route Army, more than 100 officers and men of the volunteer brigade, including Che Yihe, took the initiative to ask for battle.
At first, their request was not approved by their superiors. They also found Luo Ruiqing, hoping to play a role in protecting the safety of the chief's organs and to be the "guards" of General Peng and the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army. Luo Ruiqing was impressed by their persistence and approved their request.
The cadres and fighters of the volunteer brigade were tasked with occupying the hill in two ways to resist the Japanese army. In the face of the attack of the superior Japanese army, the officers and men of the Volunteer Brigade resisted desperately, winning valuable time for the breakthrough of the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army. During the battle, Che Yihe was unfortunately wounded.
【Korean Army during the Korean War】
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Che Yihe returned to China and joined the Rok army in 1950. But the problem arose: Che Yihe was originally an officer and soldier of the North Korean Volunteer Brigade, and belonged to the special structure of the Eighth Route Army. Supposedly, he should return to China after the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and become the backbone of the People's Army, but Che Yihe went to South Korea and joined the Korean Army, what are the little-known stories behind this anomaly?
On August 9, 1945, the Soviet Red Army attacked the Kwantung Army, and two days later, Zhu Laozong ordered Wu Ting and other generals to lead the Korean Volunteer Brigade and other anti-Japanese forces to return to the northeast in advance, "in order to achieve the task of liberation." The North Korean volunteers and cadres who came to the northeast were reorganized into 4 detachments, and Wu Ting and others led 3 detachments back to the north, and most of these people became the backbone of the people's army.
At the critical moment when Wu Ting and the others marched into the northeast and returned to the north, Che Yihe went to South Korea alone. The reasons for this vary, but most believe he went to South Korea in search of his long-lost wife.
Back in South Korea, Che Yihe joins a local social organization and kills a Japanese agent who wanted him with a pistol. Because some japanese in the former Governor's Office of the DPRK at that time cooperated with the US military, Che Yihe, who killed the Japanese secret agent, was wanted by the US military. In order to save his life, Che Yihe was forced to enter the Samsung Group and support his family as the head of a small department. As a result of his hard work at Samsung, Cha joined the paramilitary organization of Syngman Rhee's authorities and used the paramilitary organization Tatsumi Youth League as a springboard to become a captain in the South Korean Army, commanding the 18th Combat Police Brigade to attack the left-wing guerrillas.
Che Yihe's record is very outstanding, and he once repelled the attack of more than 2,000 guerrillas with three companies of troops, which impressed the ROK generals and was praised by American advisers. It is worth mentioning that Che Yihe's experience in commanding troops to fight also exposed a shortcoming of the South Korean army: poor military discipline.
When the police unit commanded by Che Yihe surrounded and suppressed the "guerrillas" in China, it was found that the military discipline of other South Korean military and police units was very poor, and they often killed people indiscriminately and killed ordinary people. He was very strict with the troops, did not commit any crimes against the people, and achieved good results, and was praised by American advisers.
Speaking of which, I have to say why South Korea's military discipline is so bad. The predecessor of the South Korean army is closely related to the Japanese army, which begins with the tragic history of the peninsula before South Korea's independence.
The geographical location of the Northeast Asian Peninsula is important, during the Tang Dynasty and The Ming Dynasty, the Japanese army invaded twice, and as a result, it was repelled by the Tang army and the Ming army. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Japanese army invaded for the third time, and the Qing army returned from a crushing defeat in the Battle of Pyongyang, losing the status of the Central Plains Dynasty as a "suzerainty" to the peninsula.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the "Korean Empire" had collapsed and Japan had become the suzerainty of the peninsula. In order to cope with the people's resistance, the Japanese authorities established a colonial institution on the peninsula with the governor as the main body, and carried out extremely cruel persecution of the people with the Japanese army, pseudo-police and other organizations. Even before the outbreak of China's all-out War of Resistance in 1937, it was impossible for young people on the peninsula to join the Japanese army, after all, in the eyes of the Japanese, they were only so-called "second-class citizens" and were not worth mentioning at all.
With the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the Chinese army fighting against the Japanese army in the battles of Songhu, Xuzhou, and Taiyuan, Japan's ambition to "destroy China in March" was shattered, and Japan increasingly felt that there were not enough soldiers. In order to maintain the war of aggression against China, on the one hand, Japan recruited soldiers from the mainland to urgently expand the army, and on the other hand, it thought of the "second-class citizens" of the peninsula and began to recruit locals to join the Japanese army. Throughout World War II, no less than 200,000 young people participated in the Japanese army in the peninsula, and later South Korean President Park Chung-hee served as an officer in the Japanese army during World War II.
On August 15, 1945, the Japanese army surrendered, a large number of retired veterans and officers who participated in World War II Japanese army returned to the peninsula, and later after the independence of South Korea, Syngman Rhee authorities to form their own army to counter the people's army north of the 38th line, the people's army purchased a large number of T34 tanks, self-propelled guns, Yak 9 fighter jets and other advanced heavy weapons from the Soviet Union, and the backbone of the people's army also participated in the War of Resistance and the War of Liberation. What about the South Korean side? Syngman Rhee naturally thought of the Koreans who had fought in the Japanese army in World War II.
Therefore, in order to rush to form a South Korean army, Rhee adopted the routine of "take-ism" and left a group of people who participated in the Japanese army in World War II and had experience in officer command directly in the South Korean army. Looking at their names and origins, you will know why the military discipline of the Rokk army was very poor from before and after the Korean War to the Vietnam War.
Bai Shanye, this person did not directly participate in the Japanese army, but participated in the puppet Manchurian special operations unit, and once fought with our army. He later served as commander of the 1st Division of the ROK Army.
Ding Yiquan, a graduate of the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School, served as a staff officer in the puppet Manchu army.
These people either directly participated in the Japanese army or participated in the puppet army that closely followed the Japanese army, because of the Cold War, their crimes in World War II were not liquidated, and then returned to the ROK army and became the generals of the ROK army.
[Park Chung-hee, who participated in the Japanese army during World War II]
According to relevant records, the ROK army slaughtered more than 1,800 so-called "prisoners" at one time in July 1950. According to eyewitness accounts, the Rok military would escort the "prisoners" to the seashore for a mass massacre. The Roks would also press the "prisoners" onto the ship and send them into the sea en masse. In February 1951, South Korean troops massacred more than 350 unarmed children in Juchang County. According to data released in 2008 by the U.S. archives, more than 100,000 innocents and "prisoners" died under the muzzle and bayonet of the South Korean army before and after the outbreak of the Korean War.
The above massacres are only the tip of the iceberg of the Massacres of the Rokmen in the Korean War, and during the Vietnam War, the Rokmen continued to commit "old mistakes" and killed in Vietnam.
Most of the Rok army's troops are poorly disciplined, and massacres are commonplace, but the South Korean police force commanded by this officer named Che Yihe can do nothing to the civilians, no wonder he has become an alternative in the Rok army, and Rhee has also excluded him. And because Che Yihe had served in the Eighth Route Army, he was even more jealous of the Rhee authorities and could not be promoted.
By 1958, Che Yihe suddenly drowned while accompanying his family, and the official conclusion in South Korea was that Che Yihe died of a physical illness and an accident, but more people believed that Che Yihe died in the assassination of Syngman Rhee's authorities.