During the Liberation War, among the Kuomintang troops at that time, there was a saying: "Ten northwest kings are no better than one King of Kinmen." The King of the Northwest was Hu Zongnan, the fastest promoted of Chiang Kai-shek's Huangpu disciples, and the King of Kinmen was Hu Lian, the commander of the Kinmen Defense Zone.
Hu Lian graduated from Huangpu Ivy, Shaanxi, and later Zhang Lingfu, the commander of the famous Reorganized 74th Division, was both a classmate and a fellow villager. However, Hu Lian's personality was completely different from Zhang Lingfu's, Hu Lian was very good at being a man, so his popularity in the Kuomintang army was relatively good, and he was also the main general of Chen Cheng's faction. In the 1943 Shipai Defense War, Hu Lian, deputy commander of the 18th Army and commander of the 11th Division, led his troops to severely damage the Japanese army in Shipai, and was promoted to the commander of the 18th Army the following year, and the 18th Army was also one of the five main forces of the Nationalist Army.
After the liberation war began, the 18th Army was reorganized into the 11th Division, and Hu Lian served as the commander of the reorganized 11th Division. The reorganized 11th Division was also the shelf of the army, with a total strength of more than 30,000 people, fully equipped with American weapons and equipment, plus the support of Chen Cheng, and the weapons and equipment were not worse than any other unit. In 1946, Nakano concentrated three columns in the Zhangfengji area to try to encircle Hu Lian's integrated 11th Division, but was stopped by one of Hu Lian's regiments, fought for several days, and was escaped by the regimental commander, Nakano had no choice but to retreat. In 1947, not long after the reorganized 74th Division was completely annihilated by Huaye, this unit was surrounded by four columns of Huaye led by Su Yu in the Nanma area, but after a week of fighting, Huaye's various units did not make much progress, and finally because the reinforcements of the Nationalist army arrived, they could only be forced to retreat.
During the Battle of Huaihai, the 12th Corps led by the 18th Army was surrounded by Nakano and Huaye regiments in the Shuangduiji area, and the 18th Army resisted the most stubbornly in the case of the uprising and surrender of various units. When the last parts of the 12th Corps were scattered and broke through, Huang Wei, commander of the 12th Corps, Yang Botao, commander of the 18th Army, and other generals were captured, but Hu Lian drove a tank and rushed into the encirclement of the People's Liberation Army.
In 1949, Hu Lian served as the commander of the 12th Corps, and then the 12th Corps was reorganized into the Kinmen Defense Army, with Hu Lian as the commander. In the Battle of Kinmen in October 1949, more than 9,000 officers and men of three regiments of the 28th Army of the Third Field Army launched a major attack on Kinmen, but they failed miserably and almost completely destroyed the army. In 1952, Hu Lian commanded more than 9,000 people to take more than ten ships, under the cover of 8 aircraft, to sneak attack Nanri Island, Nanri Island and later reinforcements more than 1,300 people were completely destroyed, more than 800 people were captured, which was another major defeat in Sanye since the Battle of Kinmen.
On July 16, 1953, Hu Lian led more than 10,000 Kuomintang troops to attack Edongshan Island in the southeast of Fujian Province, but was repulsed by our army, annihilating more than 3,000 enemy troops, blowing up two tanks, shooting down two planes, and sinking 2 landing craft. In 1958, Hu Lian became deputy commander of the army. In 1977, Hu Lian died in Taipei.