The 100,000 Northern Expeditionary Army defeated 700,000 Beiyang Army, which sounds like a classic battle in which less wins more, but in fact it is not the case. The reason why the Northern Expeditionary Army was able to defeat the Beiyang Army was that the disunity of the Beiyang Army made its troops fight less and less, while the Northern Expeditionary Army fought more and more, so that the Guangdong National Revolutionary Government finally unified the world.
Let's go back to the earth-shattering battle at that time. On July 1, 1926, the Northern Expeditionary Army swore an oath to the Northern Expedition in Guangzhou. The main targets of the Northern Expedition were Wu Peifu, Sun Chuanfang of the Anhui dynasty, and Zhang Zuolin of the Feng dynasty. Compared with the Beiyang Army, the Northern Expeditionary Army had clear objectives, a complete military appearance, and strong morale. But the only deficiency is that the number of the Northern Expeditionary Army is only 100,000, while the Beiyang Army adds up to 700,000.
Although the Beiyang Army was numerous, it was actually controlled by three factions: the direct lineage, the Anhui clan, and the Feng clan. The three factions of men and horses occupied their own territories and fought for their own battles, which gave the Northern Expeditionary Army an opportunity to achieve the goal of unifying China by breaking them one by one.
The victory of the Northern Expeditionary Army in the early stage was thanks to Feng Yuxiang. Before the Northern Expeditionary Army was dispatched, the struggle between the Beiyang warlords had reached a climax. After the end of the Second Zhifeng War, Wu Peifu's hundreds of thousands of elite troops were pit by Feng Yuxiang, which made Yu Shuai very angry. Feng Yuxiang provoked not only Wu Peifu alone, but also Yan Xishan and Zhang Zuolin.
Feng Yuxiang was expanding very quickly in the north, when the Feng army had already controlled Shaanxi, Gansu, Suiyuan, Hebei, and parts of Henan, and for Yan Xishan, who lived in a corner of Shanxi, he felt as if he had been surrounded by Feng's army. Zhang Zuolin and Feng Yuxiang were a pair of old enemies, Feng Yuxiang first united with Sun Chuanfang to oppose Feng, and then united with the general Guo Songling to oppose Feng, and Zhang Zuolin hated him so much that he gritted his teeth.
So under the concatenation of Wu Peifu, the three men formed a red alliance and dragged their elite troops north to fight Feng Yuxiang. As the initiator of the Red Alliance, Wu Peifu contributed the most, taking only all the elite troops in the Two Lakes region. Wu Peifu looked down on the revolutionary forces in the south, believing that they only had more effort in words than on their hands, so they did not do sophisticated defense. Unexpectedly, Wu Peifu's mistake actually gave the Northern Expeditionary Army an opportunity. In July 1926, just as Wu Peifu and Feng Yuxiang were fighting at the south entrance of Beijing, the Nationalist government blew a clarion call for attack in Guangdong, and the Guizhou Seventh Army set out to conquer Wu Peifu's territory in the two lakes.
At this time, although there were still 200,000 troops in the two lakes, they were generally some new recruits, and the Northern Expeditionary Army only took two months, and Hunan was in the pocket. In this battle, the Wu army lost about 70,000 or 80,000 troops, leaving only 100,000 troops. In the north, although Wu Peifu won the victory over Feng Yuxiang, his elite was also exhausted. The war situation underwent subtle changes, the Northern Expeditionary Army expanded its men after occupying Hunan, and the party members alone absorbed more than 200,000 people, which was obviously superior to Wu Peifu's more than 100,000 remnants.
After the Northern Expeditionary Army marched into Hubei, Wu Peifu wanted to persuade Sun Chuanfang to join his 250,000 troops in resisting the Northern Expeditionary Army. Wu Peifu said that he had exhausted the reason for the cold of his lips and teeth, but Sun Chuanfang refused to send troops. He had no choice but to deal with the Steel Seventh Army and the Iron Fourth Army on his own. The Northern Expeditionary Army was a unit with firm ideals and convictions, and they dared to fight on the battlefield more than the Beiyang Army, which only fought for money. The Northern Expeditionary Army was numerous and strong in combat, and Wu Peifu was soon beaten to the point of losing his armor and had to borrow troops from Jin Yunlu, the overseer of Henan.
Where does Wu Peifu know that his move is tantamount to sending a sheep to a tiger's mouth. Instead of helping Wu Peifu, Jin Yunlu left all his remaining soldiers and horses to serve himself, and Commander Guangzhu had to go away.
After destroying Wu Peifu, the next target of the Northern Expeditionary Army was Sun Chuanfang. On the surface, Sun Chuanfang was the commander-in-chief of the five-province coalition army, with 250,000 soldiers and horses. But not many people listened to his orders, but there were many people who wanted to get rid of him. As soon as the Northern Expedition army advanced eastward, Fujian and Zhejiang surrendered. Therefore, in fact, the main force of the concubines who gave Sun Chuanfang his life was more than 100,000. The main force of the Northern Expeditionary Army also had 100,000, so the two were on par. The difference is that the Beiyang Army was once jokingly called a one-time unit by the Japanese army, because when the battle was finished, it was finished, and there was no place to replenish the troops. However, the Northern Expeditionary Army was different, and after occupying the Two Lakes, it recruited new recruits by recruiting party members, and the troops expanded rapidly. Moreover, the Northern Expeditionary Army used the strength of six provinces to deal with Sun Chuanfang, who occupied three provinces, which was simply too easy. After eliminating Sun Chuanfang's elite, the other second- and third-line troops were as vulnerable as they were, and the Northern Expedition troops took Jiangxi, Anhui, and Jiangsu smoothly and smoothly. Sun Chuanfang had to run to Zhang Zuolin to borrow troops. Zhang Zuolin was well aware of the stakes, so he sent Zhang Zongchang to meet the Northern Expeditionary Army. But this three-unknown general was too weak to let the Shanghai workers pickets beat the fart and urine flow. Therefore, he had to retreat with Sun Chuanfang to Shandong to wait for an opportunity to counterattack.
At the critical moment of the Northern Expedition, there was a split within the Kuomintang, which was the "Ninghan split." In those months, the Kuomintang and the Communists were fighting each other, and the Kuomintang troops were attacking each other. The strength of the Northern Expeditionary Army and the Beiyang Army became balanced again. Sun Chuanfang saw that the time had come to bring up 100,000 remnants of the army to fight, and this counterattack was quickly suppressed by Bai Chongxi, known in history as the "Great Victory of Longtan". The victory in this crucial battle directly led to a drastic change in the war situation. On June 6, 1927, Yan Xishan took the oath of office in Taiyuan, and at the oath-taking meeting, he took out a handwritten letter from Dr. Sun Yat-sen and changed his banner to join the National Revolutionary Army. Just nine months before the flag of Yan Xishan was changed, the 200,000 Nationalist Coalition Army had already changed to the Qingtian White Sun Flag and became the Northern Expeditionary Army. At present, there are four units on the side of the National Revolutionary Army, led by Chiang Kai-shek, Li Zongren, Feng Yuxiang, and Yan Xishan. In total, there were 700,000 horses. In contrast, in the Beiyang Army, there were only 400,000 people left, Zhang Zuolin and Zhang Zongchang. In April 1928, the four leaders agreed to eliminate all Beiyang Army. In less than half a month of the great battle, Zhang Zongchang's troops were wiped out. Not long after, Zhang Zuolin's Feng army deployed in Hebei was also defeated. By June, the Bong clan had to withdraw all the way to Kannai. It can be seen that the 100,000 people of the Northern Expedition are a sharp sword, and the so-called 700,000 Beiyang Army is just a broken shield, and the discord between them makes the Northern Expeditionary Army occupy an overwhelming advantage in numbers every time.