Speaking of the Northeast Army, many people will think of the army that withdrew without a fight after the September 18 Incident, thus equating the Northeast Army with the cowards.
In fact, how to evaluate the Northeast Army, the problem is very complicated. As far as the situation at the time of the September 18 Incident is concerned, the problems at the top level of the Northeast Army are extremely great, but for the middle and lower-ranking officers and men, they may not all be soft bones.
After the September 18 Incident, the main force of the Northeast Army withdrew into Guannei, and the rest of the troops were reduced to puppet troops, but we should also see that some of the Northeast Army still chose to stay and resist Japan.
After the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance, the former Northeast Army troops also participated in successive bloody battles, but these battles and sacrifices were rarely mentioned, of course, even less known. In this article, we focus on the 49th Army of the Northeast Army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, providing a perspective of the Northeast Army's War of Resistance.
After the Xi'an Incident in 1936, the Northeast Army was divided, including the 6th and 8th Brigades of Artillery, the 10th Cavalry Division, and the 106th Infantry Division successively broke away from the Northeast Army system and surrendered to the Central Army system.
The remaining Northeast Army was reorganized into 5 infantry corps and 1 cavalry corps, and 1 infantry corps, 6 infantry divisions and 1 cavalry division were abolished. Each infantry corps was compressed into 2 divisions, and the division implemented the C division of 2 brigades and 4 regiments.
Among them, the 49th Army is the most advanced infantry corps of the Northeast Army, under the jurisdiction of the 105th Division and the 109th Division, the commander is Liu Duoquan, the unit was reorganized from the former Northeast Army Guard Unit, so the quality of the equipment is better.
After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance in 1937, the various armaments of the Northeast Army were divided and used, and since then this military system has completely disintegrated, and the armies have been reduced to miscellaneous armies in the theaters to which they belong.
The 49th Army was initially transferred to the North China Battlefield to block the Japanese 10th Division south at Jinpu Road.
At that time, there were many Chinese troops gathered in the Battlefield of Hebei, but what no one expected was that Liu Zhi of the Central Army collapsed at the first touch, first lost Baoding, then lost Shijiazhuang, and then retreated to Kaifeng, and Liu Zhi was known as the "General with Long Legs". The fierce battle between the 49th Army and the Japanese army was also a heavy casualty, but the battle was heroic.
Two months after the Battle of North China, the Songhu battlefield in East China was tight, and the 49th Army was transferred to the Songhu Battlefield to participate in the battle.
The 105th Division was deployed in the area of Yaojiadu and Fanjiaqiao, and the 109th Division was deployed around Jiwangmiao and Mamuqiao, and under the onslaught of the Japanese army, both divisions suffered heavy casualties.
Among them, Gu Zhongquan, the commander of the 626th regiment of the 105th Division, was killed, and the losses of the troops were nearly half; the casualties of the 109th Division were even greater, 3 regimental commanders were killed, two-thirds of the officers of the regiment and battalion suffered casualties, and almost all the fighters were wiped out.
At that time, the 49th Army was fighting in Songhu at the same time as the 67th Army of the Northeast Army.
In order to complete the task of "holding songjiang for three days", the 67th Army suffered more casualties than the 49th Army. Commander Wu Keren, Chief of Staff Wu Tonggang, 107th Division Chief of Staff Deng Yuzhuo, 321st Brigade Commander Zhu Zhirong, 324th Brigade Commander Liu Qiwen were martyred one after another, and the remaining troops of the army were led by deputy commanders to Kunshan to shelter the remnants.
What no one expected was that the number of the 67th Army was cancelled, and the rest was reduced to the 108th Division and merged into the 25th Army.
When Zhang Wenqing, commander of the 108th Division, asked for compassion for the fallen officers and men, he was replied:
General Wu Keren
Wu Keren, commander of the Sixty-seventh Army of the Former Northeast Army, after our army withdrew from Shanghai, had already led his troops to defect and surrender to the Japanese army, and this time the occupation of Nanchang was the headquarters under Wu Keren's personal command and was the precursor of the Japanese Kou.
This circular was also sent to various theaters of operations, causing the former Northeast Army to worry deeply about the future of its units at a time of extreme indignation.
As for the 49th Army, because Chiang Kai-shek particularly hated the commander of the army, Liu Duoquan (Liu was the commander-in-chief of the operation to capture Chiang Kai-shek during the Xi'an Incident), would it also be downsized after suffering heavy losses, or even cancel the number?
After the Songhu War, the 49th Army was active in Wuhan, begging for people everywhere and even spending money to buy a way, and finally won the 5th Reserve Division with all its bare hands to replenish the 109th Division, which had suffered great losses.
Fortunately, the 49th Army was originally a guard unit, and the Northeast Army was very well equipped, and later it was downsized with a batch of reserve weapons.
Based on this batch of weapons, the newly added infantry of the 109th Division was equipped with Czech rifles, each infantry company was equipped with 6 Czech light machine guns, each infantry battalion had a heavy machine gun company, and each infantry regiment had a mortar company.
However, what the 49th Army did not expect was that the new 109th Division commanders were all Huangpu officers, and they could not command at all, and even when the troops were pulled out, all four regimental commanders of the new 109th Division were on leave. After reporting the report, Chiang Kai-shek not only did not deal with these four regimental commanders, but instead dismissed Zhao Yi, commander of the 109th Division, with Li Shude as the commander of the division, and all the former officers of the Northeast Army were replaced.
And that's not all, the 109th Division was subsequently transferred out of the 49th Army, and the main force of the 49th Army was left with only one 105th Division.
This tactic was Chiang Kai-shek's usual method of eliminating dissidents and miscellaneous troops during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which was called "mixing sand" at the time, and finally centralized the miscellaneous army. As for the troops who did not even have the value of centralization, they were used as victims, and when the troops were exhausted, they were abolished, as was the case with the 67th Army mentioned above.
On the one hand, the miscellaneous army that was not cancelled was on the one hand, because there were very few supplements, and on the other hand, it was also afraid that it would be cancelled after excessive combat losses. Therefore, after the middle of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the actual combat strength was far inferior to that of the early stage of the All-out War of Resistance. Some miscellaneous troops were pushed to the Japanese-occupied areas to fight guerrilla warfare, and in the absence of replenishment from the Japanese army in the front, the weak will simply defected to the enemy. And the funny thing is that some miscellaneous generals surrendered to the enemy or even ordered by the state government.
As far as the 49th Army was concerned, it suffered more repression than the average force. According to the "Statistical Table of Major Weapons Supplementing All Units In the Country Since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression" of the Ordnance Department of the State Government, the 49th Army received only 200 rifles, 79 light machine guns, 41 heavy machine guns, and 7 mortars during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Due to a defeat in a battle, Liu Duoquan, commander of the 49th Army, was even demoted to colonel. In terms of the units under its jurisdiction, after the division of the 109th Division, a reserve 9th Division was added, and then the 118th Division was incorporated, but all of them were new units.
When the command relationship of the 49th Army was slightly straightened out, it was immediately replaced by another unit.
For example, the 118th Division was later transferred to the 79th Army as the 26th Division; the Reserve 9th Division was transferred to the 70th Army, supplemented by the Provisional 13th Division, which was reorganized from the Wang Pseudo-Pingjian Army; and then the Provisional 13th Division was transferred out and supplemented by the 79th Division. None of these new divisions could be effectively commanded by the 49th Army, which had always been able to command only the 105th Division at will.
Despite all the twists and turns and unfair treatment, the 49th Army was still very active in the War of Resistance.
In 1938, the 49th Army participated in the Battle of Wuhan, and in 1939 it participated in the Battle of Nanchang and the First Battle of Changsha.
There is an oil painting in Japan called "The Desperate Fight of the "Bean" Chariot", which shows a Japanese tank and a group of Chinese soldiers "hand-to-hand combat". The Japanese may want to show the bravery of their chariots, but we can also see the tragedy and tragedy of the Chinese soldiers in this oil painting.
This painting is not a casual work, but a real battle in the Weijia Camp on Fengqi Mountain on the Xiushui River, and the Chinese soldiers who fought against the Japanese tanks were the officers and men of the 629th Regiment of the 315th Brigade of the 105th Division of the 49th Army.
In the Battle of Nanchang, the Japanese army used armored units to fight on a large scale, and although its tank performance was not good, it was still an armored monster in front of the inferior Chinese army.
This battle, according to Japanese records, was when the tank covered the infantry's impact, its tracks were damaged, and the infantry was besieged by the Chinese army and fell into a bitter battle. At this time, the soldiers still alive in the chariot suddenly operated machine gun fire, allowing the infantry to escape back.
When the Japanese reinforcements counterattacked, they found that the Chinese army threw grenades into the tank, killing the Japanese tanker, and the tank was surrounded by the bodies of 12 Chinese soldiers.
The Chinese record is that the tank was blown up by the death squad members with a cluster grenade, and all the daredevils were killed.
Similar battles were the norm in the course of the 49th Army's War of Resistance, after which this unit successively participated in the Battle of Shanggao, the Second Battle of Changsha, the Third Battle of Changsha, and the Battle of Zhejiang.
By the time of the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945, almost all the Northeasterners in the army had been wiped out, and only some of the senior officers were still Northeasterners. For example, Wang Tiehan, the then commander of the 49th Army, was the commander of the 620th Regiment of the 7th Brigade stationed in The North Camp at the time of the September 18 Incident in 1931, and he did not carry out the order not to resist, but led his troops to fight out - although there was not much preparation at that time, there were not many bullets and not many Japanese were killed.
The 49th Army is a microcosm of the former Northeast Army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, but not all of them, and some of the Northeast Army troops in the Central Plains during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression also tended to be reactionary and were keen on friction rather than anti-Japanese resistance.
In the course of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the former Northeast Army units were also divided by Chiang Kai-shek, some of which became the central concubines, some of which were abolished, and some of which wandered among the third-rate troops. Of course, at this time, in addition to the senior officers of the Northeast Army who were from the Northeast Army, the middle and lower-ranking officers and soldiers were no longer Northeasterners.