Fang Xianjue's life is full of legends, but at the same time full of various controversies, for these controversies, he can only accept them all, even in his later years, he still often likes to say a sentence is: "The biggest regret in my life is that I did not die on the battlefield."
Many people have doubts about the practice of surrendering to the Japanese army in the defense of Hengyang, and even some people will question whether Fang Xianjue is a traitor, why has he insisted on holding out for 47 days, and finally chose to surrender to the Japanese army? In fact, behind the problems we see, there are too many secrets that are not known.
An anti-Japanese fighter who dared to fight as an officer at the Whampoa Military Academy
Fang Xianjue was born in 1905, is a Fangjiazhai person in Xiao County, Xuzhou Prefecture, Jiangsu Province, he was born in a family of squires, it can be said that the family is also quite solid, and the father's education of the other party is also very attentive, so when Fang Xianjue was still young, his parents arranged for him to enter the academy to start studying.
Fang Xianjue was very intelligent from an early age, and his grades were also very good, in 1924, he was admitted to the Law Department of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law with excellent results, in the school, Fang Xianjue came into contact with many advanced ideas and cultures, and had a more profound understanding of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three People's Principles, and it was under the influence of the Three People's Principles that Fang Xianjue's revolutionary ideas gradually took root.
By chance, Fang Xianjue heard that the Whampoa Military Academy was secretly enrolling students, so he did not hesitate to sign up, and finally got his wish to be admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy and became one of them, knowing that during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, many of the best military geniuses in the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy, which shows that the Whampoa Military Academy at that time was indeed of great significance to the military.
However, just when everyone was very optimistic about Fang Xianjue, and he was about to graduate in applause and recognition, a strange thing happened, that is, Fang Xianjue openly led several people to beat up an officer in charge of military supplies at the Whampoa Military Academy, and as a result, several of them were severely punished, Fang Xianjue was directly expelled from the school, and the rest were also placed on probation.
Why would Fang Xianjue take such a big risk to hit an officer? In fact, this has the most direct relationship with the character of Fang Xianjue, who is a person who cannot tolerate sand in his eyes, and some corruption problems within the Whampoa Military Academy are very serious, and officials and officials protect each other, resulting in a small officer in charge of student supplies and materials, who dares to openly embezzle student food expenses under the protection of others, resulting in a plummeting decline in the quality of students' food.
When Fang Xian felt that after learning about this, he could not control his inner anger at all, so he led several students who were equally dissatisfied with the officer's behavior to beat up the officer, and after the beating, because the officials and officials within the Whampoa Military Academy protected each other, fang Xianjue and others would eventually be punished.
When Fang Xianjue was expelled, his heart was even more dissatisfied with the bureaucracy of the Whampoa Military Academy, and he secretly swore in his heart that even if he failed to graduate from the Whampoa Military Academy, he would still have to do a career to prove himself.
Fang Xianjue was expelled from the Whampoa Military Academy in 1925, and after leaving the school, he relied on his own struggles, and a year later he met Wei Lihuang, the commander of the Major General regiment of the 9th Regiment of the National Revolutionary Army, who was very appreciative of fang Xianjue's talent and ability, and recommended him to become the captain of the 3rd Company of the 1st Army Gendarmerie.
After becoming a company commander, Fang Xianjue soon showed his talent and ability, he participated in the Northern Expedition War, the Guangdong-Guangdong War and other major battles, in which he made great achievements, so he was successively promoted to the newly built 10th Division Commander, Deputy Division Commander and other positions, only two years, Fang Xianjue became the deputy division commander.
In 1940, Fang Xianjue's 10th Division and the Japanese army launched a bloody battle at Chenjia Dashan, when under the command of division commander Jiang Chaoxiong, the 10th Division was divided into two teams to meet the Japanese army, of which Jiang Chaoxiong himself led a team, and deputy division commander Fang Xianjue led a team, and it was this war that changed Fang Xianjue's fate again.
In the war, Fang Xianjue successfully captured the right mountain by relying on his excellent command ability and won the victory, while the division commander Jiang Chaoxiong had limited command ability, and when faced with the fierce attack of the Japanese army, he was overwhelmed in an instant, and eventually suffered heavy casualties. Seeing this situation, Fang Xianjue first went to support Jiang Chaoxiong, and then in order to reduce casualties, everyone retreated together.
After this battle, division commander Jiang Chaoxiong was dismissed from his post for poor command, while deputy division commander Fang Xianjue was directly promoted to the new division commander of the 10th Division and began to lead the 10th Division to glory.
The defense of Hengyang lasted for 47 days but surrendered to the Japanese army
As the situation in the War of Resistance Against Japan became more and more severe, and Japan was in a disadvantageous position in the Pacific theater, some Western countries, led by the United States, began to implement a policy of embargo on Japanese materials, and under the influence of this policy, Japan must find ways to find a new material reserve warehouse, otherwise their materials in this island country will not be able to support them to continue fighting.
After the Japanese research, they found that Hunan is rich in products and strategically located, especially In Changde, Hunan is the political, military and even economic center of the western part of Hunan, as long as it is controlled here, it can directly pose a fatal threat to the military supplies of the Chongqing Nationalist Government.
With this understanding, the Japanese army sent 100,000 people to capture Changde, when the Nationalist army met the Japanese army with 210,000 troops, but such a war, in the case of obvious numerical superiority, finally ended in a fiasco, becoming a Waterloo incident in Fang Xianjue's military career.
In the Battle of Changde, Fang Xianjue, who was the commander of the 10th Army, together with Zhou Qingxiang, commander of the 3rd Division, Zhu Yue, commander of the 190th Division, and Sun Mingjin, commander of the Reserve 10th Division, led the army and the Japanese army in a deadly battle, but only because during the battle, Fang Xianjue's 190th Division was transferred by Xue Yue, so Fang Xianjue also had a big quarrel with Xue Yue.
As for this personnel transfer, many people felt that it was because there was a contradiction between Xue Yue and Fang Xianjue that they would do so, but in my opinion, in that case, Xue Yue, as the commander of the theater, must have had a good reason for such a personnel transfer, otherwise he could not have risked doing so.
This quarrel had a great impact on the ensuing war, and in the confrontation with the Japanese army, the 10th Division encountered an ambush by the Japanese army, almost the entire army was destroyed, and even the division commander Sun Mingjin was directly killed on the battlefield, which was enough to see its fierceness. After the defeat of the 10th Division, Fang Xianjue led the only 3rd Division in his hand to fight with the Japanese army, but the Japanese reinforcements continued, and Fang Xianjue was difficult to break out and join the Nationalist troops stationed in Changde, which eventually led to a disastrous defeat in this battle, annihilating the enemy 10,000 at the cost of 60,000 casualties.
After the defeat at the Battle of Changde, Fang Xianjue, who had been arguing with Xue Yue in the course of the battle, was dismissed by Xue Yue on the grounds of "weak reinforcements and disobedience to commands", but because the subordinates of the 10th Army were dissatisfied with this removal, and many people in the army interceded for Fang Xianjue, Xue Yue never formally removed him.
On May 30, 1944, the Defense of Hengyang broke out, when Xue Yue lacked talent, so he planned to reactivate Fang Xianjue and give him a chance to make meritorious contributions, and it was in this situation that Fang Xianjue was reinstated as the commander of the 10th Army and led the 10th Army into a major battle with the Japanese army.
At the beginning of the great war, Fang Xianjue said to everyone: "With our foresight, there is Hengyang.", it can be seen that Fang Xianjue attaches great importance to this battle, and judging from his later military layout, we can also see that he made a lot of efforts in this battle, and he specially put his 3rd Division, where his old backbone was located, to be in a second-line position and be prepared to fight a protracted war, and the rest of the main forces were arranged to fight a bloody battle with the Japanese army on the main offensive position of the Japanese army.
The reason why Fang Xianjue would make such an arrangement was, on the one hand, because he had previously failed, Fang Xianjue was ready for a protracted war, the 3rd Division had lived and died with himself, and was more trustworthy, as long as they were there, Fang Xianjue would be more at ease; on the other hand, Chiang Kai-shek specifically instructed Fang Xianjue to try to hold Hengyang for more than two weeks.
After combining the two key factors, Fang Xianjue made this military layout, which can be said to have created a miracle of this war, but it is also such a layout that caused Fang Xianjue to be late and not safe, why do you say so? Let's see what happens next.
In the face of the fierce attack of the Japanese army, the 10th Army suffered heavy losses, and those main forces that rushed to the front line, after facing the successive attacks of the Japanese army, were miserable, even the 3rd Division, which was on the second line, had to join the war on the front line, seeing that the war was becoming more and more cruel, Fang Xianjue had no choice but to send a telegram to seek Chiang Kai-shek's support, but Chiang Kai-shek told him not to send a telegram, lest the telegram be intercepted and expose himself.
After Chiang Kai-shek's reply, Fang Xianjue could only grit his teeth and continue to insist, but he waited until August 4, and no reinforcements came, and in desperation, Fang Xianjue sent a final telegram telling Chiang Kai-shek that "this telegram is afraid that this telegram will be the last telegram, and I hope to see you in the next life", this telegram expressed that Fang Xianjue was ready to die in battle.
Of course, at this time, the 10th Army had been holding hengyang for more than forty days, far exceeding the battle plan proposed by Chiang Kai-shek, but the reinforcements had never arrived, and Fang Xianjue had to fight against more than 100,000 Japanese troops with less than 20,000 troops, and also annihilated more than 20,000 Japanese troops, wounding more than 60,000 people, creating a record for the nationalist army and the Japanese army.
Unfortunately, in the absence of reinforcements outside and heavy casualties inside, the 10th Army had already begun to waver, and on the evening of August 7, when Fang Xianjue summoned everyone to discuss the next battle plan against Japan, some people suggested that Fang Xianjue surrender to the Japanese army, but Fang Xianjue did not agree, and he believed that the surrender was an act of cowardice.
Late on the night of August 7, Xiao Guitian of the 3rd Division surrendered to the Japanese army and opened the city gate to let the Japanese army enter, Fang Xian felt that after knowing this, he planned to kill himself with a gun, but found that the magazine had been replaced by the aide-de-camp, the gun was empty, and he was sad. On August 8, Zhou Qingxiang, commander of the 3rd Division, invited the Japanese representatives into Hengyang City directly in front of Fang Xianjue and urged Fang Xianjue to discuss surrender.
Seeing that the general trend has gone, 47 days of perseverance have been in vain, the grief-stricken Fang Xianjue can only ask the Japanese army not to harm the surviving soldiers, he signed the surrender document, and as a result, even such a small request, the Japanese army had to put forward quid pro quo, must agree to the formation of the "first peace army", before agreeing to Fang Xianjue's conditions. There was no way, Fang Xianjue could only agree to it for the time being.
epilogue
Fortunately, Chiang Kai-shek tried his best to rescue Fang Xianjue and finally rescued him from the hands of the Japanese army, but for Fang Xianjue, the surrender of the Hengyang Defense War has become the biggest regret and shame in his life, so he often regrets that he did not die in battle!
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