In the early morning of December 12, 1936, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng led the Northeast Army and the 17th Route Army to detain Old Chiang Kai-shek in the form of "military advice" and opened the curtain of the "Xi'an Incident". In desperation, old Jiang once prepared for the worst, and even wrote a suicide note. However, thanks to the efforts of various forces, the "Xi'an Incident" was finally resolved peacefully, and China's anti-Japanese forces were effectively integrated in a short period of time, which was a great blessing for the upcoming all-round war of resistance.
However, the two protagonists of this incident, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, had a tragic ending, the former was placed under house arrest for most of his life, and the latter was killed by secret agents. Then we can't help but ask, why did Zhang Xueliang launch the "Xi'an Incident" in those years? After Zhang Xueliang regained his freedom, he settled in Hawaii. In his later years, he once made an oral history, telling the reason why he wanted to launch the "Xi'an Incident": You old man, I want to teach you a lesson!
In the autumn of 1935, the Central Red Army arrived at the revolutionary base area in northern Shaanxi after a 25,000-mile long march. At this time, although there were no longer old Chiang Kai-shek's troops in northern Shaanxi, he still did not give up his plan to continue to "encircle and suppress" the Red Army. Subsequently, Lao Jiang set up the "Northwest Suppression and Bandit General Headquarters" in Xi'an, and transferred the Northeast Army to the Shaanxi-Gansu region to fight with the Red Army. Zhang Xueliang was very dissatisfied with Lao Jiang's practice, and he said in his recollection that Lao Jiang's move was to use the miscellaneous troops to achieve the purpose of "one axe and two slashes", which not only struck the Red Army but also weakened the miscellaneous forces.
At the same time, Zhang Xueliang also believed that the Red Army could not be completed by "suppressing" because "the people did not support us", so he advocated peace talks with the Red Army. However, this suggestion was rejected by lao Jiang's stern words, and Zhang Xueliang was forced to be helpless and had to lead his troops to participate in the war. As a result, two divisions were lost in the Battle of Laoshan and the Battle of ZhiluoZhen, and Lao Jiang not only did not replenish them, but also took the opportunity to take out the names of these two divisions. Zhang Xueliang was extremely dissatisfied with this, and at the same time, many of his generals were no longer willing to fight with the Red Army, and they demanded that they go north to resist Japan and return to their hometowns.
In early December 1936, Lao Jiang personally flew to Xi'an to supervise the war, and Zhang Xueliang repeatedly persuaded him to "stop the civil war and unanimously resist Japan" but Lao Jiang refused. Zhang Xueliang said in his recollection that "
Mr. Jiang and I were in pain, and Mr. Jiang also scolded me, scolding very badly! If I say this, you will surrender. Mr. Jiang said, Han Qing, you really are, you are shameless, our soldiers have never had the word "surrender.". I said, you are more powerful than surrendering, and the soldier who yields without a fight is also the best strategy. You tell people to swallow up our China a little bit without a fight, don't you mean that it is better than surrendering?
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Zhang Xueliang's words made old Jiang very angry, and he thought that Zhang Xueliang was already unreliable, so he was ready to replace him with Jiang Dingwen. On December 9, the first anniversary of the 129 Movement, tens of thousands of patriotic students went to Chiang's residence to petition him to "stop the civil war and unite against Japan." Old Jiang not only refused to receive the student representatives, but also told Zhang Xueliang that there was no other way for these students than to strafe with machine guns.
Zhang Xueliang recalled the incident: "
His words made me angry, I was really angry, just because when the student movement was in, I was embarrassed to talk about him again, because I was really angry, he said to hit with machine guns, I said machine guns don't hit the Japanese, how can I hit students? I was on fire, I was really on fire, so this sentence infuriated me. If I get angry, I'm not afraid of anyone, and if I get angry, I'll shoot people. I was really angry, that's why I had the Xi'an Incident. What am I angry about? I mean this: you old man, I'm going to teach you a lesson!
Thus the "Xi'an Incident" occurred, and China's ten-year civil war ended, beginning a new situation of kuomintang-communist cooperation against Japan.