The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was an arduous war of anti-aggression in Chinese history, in which the Chinese paid a terrible price in order to resist the aggression of Japanese imperialism. Throughout the anti-Japanese period, China suffered more than 3 million casualties, and the general alone killed hundreds.
The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression also produced many outstanding military generals, such as Zhu De, Peng Dehuai, Zhang Zizhong, Wei Lihuang, Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, Zuo Quan and others. However, there is a young general whose merits have made many people feel admiration, and this person is Wang Yaowu.
1. Huangpu Phase III
In 1904, Wang Yaowu was born in Shandong to an ordinary peasant family, and Wang Yaowu's father and brother died very early, and he was raised by his mother. At the age of 9, Wang Yaowu began to study in private schools and began to read the Four Books and Five Classics from an early age. At the age of 19, Wang Yaowu's family was in ruins, working as a worker in a tobacco company in Tianjin.
Wang then came to Shanghai as a clerk at a confectionery company in Shanghai. Wang Yaowu's experience had a great influence on him, and even in his later military career, Wang Yaowu still did not change his true color as a businessman.
In 1924, the Huangpu Military Academy in Guangdong recruited aspiring young people from all over the country, and Wang Yaowu and several Fellow Villagers in Shandong applied for the Huangpu Military Academy. In November 1924, Wang Yaowu was officially admitted as a Whampoa III student, beginning his legendary life. After entering the military academy, Wang Yaowu studied very diligently.
Moreover, he had the experience of a small teller, and he understood the sophistication of people, not only often sending some gifts to the instructors, but also giving gifts to the brothers and masters who had already mastered the military power, so he was quite liked by his superiors, and his popularity in Huangpusheng was also very good.
In September 1925, Chen Jiongming rebelled, and the Kuomintang army began the Second Crusade, the main force of this campaign was the First Army of the National Revolutionary Army and the student teaching regiment of the Whampoa Military Academy, and some of the Whampoa Iii students also participated in the battle. Wang Yaowu was also selected and made a military achievement in this battle.
In January 1926, after graduating from the military academy, Wang Yaowu was assigned to the Fourth Company of the Third Regiment of the First Division of the National Revolutionary Army as a second lieutenant platoon leader, which was the unit started by Chiang Kai-shek and the elite of the Kuomintang army at that time, and its combat effectiveness was very strong. Although Wang Yaowu understood people's feelings and sophistication, his military ability was also very good, and he was soon promoted to company commander because of his many meritorious deeds. During the Great War of the Central Plains, Wang Yaowu once again made meritorious contributions and was promoted to regimental commander.
In 1932, Wang Yaowu led his troops to hold firm in Yihuang, and the Red Army sent heavy troops to attack for 24 days, but instead of conquering it, it suffered heavy losses. After the war, Wang Yaowu was promoted to brigadier general of the Supplementary First Brigade, and his promotion was already very fast, and he was the best in the three phases of Huangpu.
In the middle of 1934, the Red Seventh Army of Xunhuai Prefecture and Fang Zhimin's troops were merged into the Red Tenth Army, with Fang Zhimin as the regimental commander, Su Yu as the chief of staff of the regiment, and Xunhuaizhou as the commander of the Red 19th Division, with a total of more than 6,000 people in the whole army. In November 1934, the Red Tenth Army was ordered to go north to resist the Japanese. Wang Yaowu's Supplementary 1st Brigade, as well as the 7th Division led by Yu Jishi, totaled 11 regiments, ambushed the Red Tenth Army at Tanjiaqiao.
This battle led to the almost total annihilation of the Red Tenth Army,
The regimental commander Fang Zhimin was killed after being captured, the commander of the Red 19th Division, Xun Huaizhou, was killed, and the commander of the Red 21st Division, Hu Tiantao, was killed after being captured, and only the chief of staff Su Yu led more than 400 people to break out desperately
。 In this battle, Su Yu was only the chief of staff and had no military command authority, but Wang Yaowu saw Su Yu's talent and ordered someone to collect relevant information about Su Yu and study Su Yu's tactics. The Battle of Tanjiaqiao also left a lingering shadow on Su Yu.
Before Su Yu's death, he made a will to divide his ashes into two parts, one part was scattered to Meng Lianggu and the other was scattered to Tanjiaqiao.
After the Battle of Tanjiaqiao, Wang Yaowu was commended by Chiang Kai-shek and promoted to commander of the Fifty-first Division.
2. Famous generals of the War of Resistance
When it comes to the integrated 74th Division, that is, the 74th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, many people will think of Zhang Lingfu, but what many people do not know is that it was not Yu Jishi, the first commander of the 74th Army, who really brought this unit to the peak, nor Zhang Lingfu later, but Wang Yaowu.
In the Kuomintang army, there are "
It is better to touch the king of Yama than to touch the old king
According to this statement, this old king refers to Wang Yaowu. During the War of Liberation, there were also "
Three plums are not as good as one king
”
According to the saying, the three Li refer to Li Yannian, Li Yutang, and Li Xianzhou, all three of whom are also famous generals in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and have all graduated from the Huangpu Phase I
In particular, Li Yutang was the commander of the Tenth Army of the Taishan Army, which was known as the two ace units of the Ninth Theater during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and Wang Yaowu's 74th Army. The famous Third Battle of Changsha, the Battle of Hengyang, was fought by the Tenth Army.
San Li's high qualifications are not as good as Wang Yaowu's, and he can be extraordinary. Before the Battle of Songhu, the combat units of the Chinese army were mainly divisions, but during the Battle of Songhu, in the face of the Divisions and Regiments of more than 30,000 Japanese troops, many armies and group armies had to be formed in order to facilitate unified command. Later, the famous 74th Army of the National Revolutionary Army was formed during the Battle of Songhu.
The 74th Army was formed by the merger of the 51st and 58th Divisions, which had already entered the battlefield, and the commander of the 51st Division was Wang Yaowu and the commander of the 58th Division, Yu Jishi (who was replaced by Feng Shengfa of the Huangpu Phase I after Yu Jishi was promoted to commander). The first commander of the 74th Army was Yu Jishi, who graduated from the huangpu first term, although Yu Jishi was an ordinary talent, but he was Chiang Kai-shek's hometown, and he was also a Huangpu I, and Yu Jishi's family was still related to Chiang Kai-shek, so he was very much valued by Chiang Kai-shek.
Although the 74th Army is a newly formed unit, the 51st Division and the 58th Division are not ordinary units, these two divisions are two brigades and four regiments, the number of both divisions is more than 11,000 people, plus the direct subordinate units of the army, the 74th Army has nearly 30,000 people. Li Tianxia, another of Wang Yaowu's Huangpu iii classmates, was the commander of the 153rd Brigade of the 51st Division of the 74th Army at this time, and Zhang Lingfu, the commander of the later reorganized 74th Division, who was the commander of Li Tianxia's regiment at this time.
During the Battle of Songhu, although the 74th Army was just formed and fought, the various units fought very bravely, especially the 51st Division led by Wang Yaowu, which repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese army. In a state of chaos among the various units of the Kuomintang army, the 51st Division led by Wang Yaowu was calm and calm, and heroically resisted wave after wave of Japanese attacks at Luodian and the 18th Army. After the war, Wang Yaowu was promoted to lieutenant general.
After the Battle of Songhu, the 74th Army retreated to Nanjing. During the Defense of Nanjing, Ji Hongru, acting regimental commander of the 301st Regiment of the 51st Division, led his troops to fight Japanese aircraft and artillery with rudimentary rifles, machine guns, grenades and other light weapons. In the end, the fortifications of Chunhua Town were almost all destroyed by Japanese artillery fire.
The 301st Regiment suffered casualties, with two-thirds of the regiment's 12 company commanders suffering casualties
More than 1,400 officers and men below the platoon suffered casualties, and almost the entire army was destroyed.
The regimental commander Ji Hongru was also carried off the line of fire after being seriously injured
In view of this, the 51st Division was forced to abandon the town of Chunhua and retreat.
In order to cover the retreat of the whole division, Wang Yaowu ordered Zhang Lingfu's 305th Regiment to launch a counterattack against the Japanese army. During the battle, the regimental commander Zhang Lingfu was shot in the left arm, and his subordinates advised him to withdraw across the Yangtze River for treatment, but Zhang Lingfu was furious:
"In the past, Xiang Yu's army was defeated, and he was still unwilling to cross the Wu River, so how could I cross the Yangtze River because of my injuries?" Fight the enemy for life and death to fulfill your oath! ”
After saying this, Zhang Lingfu continued to engage in combat until after completing the task and retreating to Nanjing, and the troops were continued under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Chang Xiaode. December 12,
Cheng Zhi, commander of the 302nd Regiment, led his troops to be killed in a fierce battle with the Japanese at Saihongqiao.
meanwhile
Li Tianxia, commander of the 151st Brigade of the 51st Division, and Qiu Weida, commander of the 306th Regiment, were wounded in the battle to defend the Zhonghua Gate.
Feng Shengfa's 58th Division also suffered heavy casualties in the battle. In order to cover the retreat of the main force,
After Xu Jingming, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 302nd Regiment, resolutely led his troops to break, the whole battalion staged the most tragic scene of the 74th Army's defense of Nanjing with their flesh and blood in the case of fighting alone.
During the Nanjing Defense War, the 74th Army showed strong combat effectiveness and organizational strength, and also showed the effective overall situation view of the officers and men of the unit. In the later retreat, the Central Military Academy Teaching Corps led by Gui Yongqing and the 88th Division led by Sun Yuanliang, the two all-German armaments, were also the most effective and best-equipped units in the Chinese army at that time. However, the officers and men of the 74th Army showed a very strong overall view, especially Wang Yaowu's 51st Division, many of his generals preferred to be completely destroyed, but also to cover the main force to break through, from the division commander Wang Yaowu, to the brigade commander, the regimental commander, all fighting with the soldiers on the front line. Finally, the 74th Army had 14,000 men when it retreated, including more than 8,000 men in the 51st Division.
After the end of the Battle of Nanjing, the 74th Army immediately participated in the Battle of Xuzhou and the Battle of Lanfeng. At the Battle of Lanfeng, although the Kuomintang army ended in a crushing defeat, the performance of the 74th Army in this battle was remarkable, and Chiang Kai-shek once again commended Wang Yaowu, commander of the 51st Division.
In September 1938, Xue Yue, commander of the First Corps of the Ninth Theater, commanded 25 divisions to duel with Okamura Ningji, the most powerful corps in the Chinese army at that time, including the 18th and 74th Armies of the Central Army, and the Guangdong Fourth Army, known as the Iron Army. The Japanese 106th Division entered the Wanjialing area southwest of De'an and wanted to surprise the Chinese army from the flank.
The Fourth Army of the Cantonese Clan suffered the loss of the Roundabout Encirclement of the Japanese Army, so it would send a search team in every battle, and as a result, the search team of the Fourth Army found the Japanese 106th Division. After the 106th Division's sneak attack plan was learned by the Chinese army, Xue Yue was very happy and prepared to concentrate his forces to completely annihilate the Japanese 106th Division behind the enemy. In order to annihilate this force, Xue Yue mobilized all the troops he could mobilize, a total of more than 100,000 troops moving towards the vicinity of Wanjialing.
The Japanese army did not know anything about the movement of the Chinese army, until Okamura Ningji saw the pocket circle of the Chinese army through aerial reconnaissance, and immediately ordered the 106th Division to break through, but it was over, and the Chinese army had compressed the 106th Division into a mountainous area of more than a dozen ordinary kilometers around Wanjialing. The Japanese 106th Division suffered heavy losses in this battle,
At one point, the Japanese parachuted more than 200 officers to restore the command system of the unit, but they were all killed by the Chinese army.
The 106th Division, under the dog jumping off the wall, chose the direction of the breakthrough in the defense area of the 58th Division of the 74th Army, and more than 10,000 officers and men of the 58th Division were left with more than 500 people. The 51st Division of the 74th Army, under the command of division commander Wang Yaowu, launched several attacks on the northern end of Changling and the commanding heights of Zhang Gufeng occupied by the Japanese army, and Tang Shenghai, commander of the 305th Regiment of the 51st Division, led a small and capable force to attack from the cliff of the rear mountain where the Japanese army was unguarded, and after a white-knife fight, occupied the main position of Zhang Gufeng. After the Japanese reacted, under the cover of the air force, they frantically launched an attack on Zhang Gushan, but they were all repelled by the officers and men of the 51st Division.
Later, many people said that the battle of Zhang Gufeng was commanded by Zhang Lingfu, but in fact, it was not at all, the battle of ZhangGushan was commanded by Tang Shenghai, the commander of the 305 regiment, and the regimental commander Tang Shenghai and the battalion commander Hu Xiong were seriously injured in the battle, and the acting regimental commander Yu Qingxiang was heroically sacrificed. In the Battle of Wangjialing, the 74th Army was able to attack and defend, and it performed quite heroically. After the battle began, Chiang Kai-shek looked at the casualty figures of the 74th Army, worried that his own troops would be wiped out, and twice called to withdraw the 74th Army, but Xue Yue refused.
In June 1939, Yu Jishi was promoted to deputy commander of the Tenth Army and commander of the 86th Army, Wang Yaowu was promoted to commander of the 74th Army, Li Tianxia (Huangpu PHASE III) was promoted to commander of the 51st Division, Yu Chengwan (Huangpu Phase I) was appointed commander of the 57th Division, and Liao Lingqi (Huangpu Phase IV) was the commander of the 58th Division.
In 1941, the 74th Army, under the leadership of Wang Yaowu, participated in the Battle of Shanggao. On March 19, 1941, Luo Zhuoying, deputy commander of the 9th Theater and commander-in-chief of the 19th Army, made up his mind on the 19th: to use the existing positions to resist one by one, and to lure the Japanese army into the Shanggao area to be surrounded and annihilated.
In this battle, the 74th Army and the Japanese army fought from the beginning to the end, and the Japanese army once concentrated tens of thousands of troops under the cover of dozens of aircraft to storm the positions of Yuntou Mountain and Baimao Mountain of the 74th Army, and the 74th Army and the Japanese army repeatedly fought, and 7 times launched fierce hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese army, all of which said that the 74th Army repelled. In the ensuing pursuit, the various units of the 74th Army rushed to the front, inflicting heavy casualties on the Japanese and killing Major General Iwanaga, the commander of the Japanese 34th Division.
Throughout the Battle of Shanggao, the Japanese 33rd Division was severely damaged, and the casualties of the 34th Division and the independent 20th Mixed Brigade were as high as 70%, killing and wounding 15,000 Japanese troops.
He Yingqin praised it as "the most wonderful battle since the beginning of the war". After the war, Luo Zhuoying, commander-in-chief of the front line, commented that the 74th Army was "the most effective in combat effectiveness", and the 74th Army won the highest honor in the National Army, the "Flying Tiger Banner".
After the Battle of Shanggao, the 74th Army became one of the first five armies of the Kuomintang Army to change its Soviet armaments, and the whole army received 4 115 mm howitzers, 8 76 mm field guns, 4 37 mm anti-tank guns, 25 heavy machine guns, and 70 turntable light machine guns.
In September 1941, the Second Battle of Changsha broke out, the 74th Army was ordered to participate in the battle, the commander of the 58th Division Liao Lingqi returned home and got married, and the unit was commanded by deputy division commander Zhang Lingfu. In this battle, due to the urgency of the battle, the 74th Army had to march during the day, was frantically strafed by enemy aircraft, walked in front of the 57th Division, the 58th Division suffered heavy losses, and the 51st Division in the back caught up with it, and was stunned to see the casualties of these two divisions. However, the 74th Army still relied on its strong combat effectiveness to inflict heavy losses on the Japanese army.
In November 1943, the Battle of Changde broke out, and the 8,000 tiger troops of the 57th Division led by Yu Chengwan were guarded here.
Yu Chengwan, with 8,000 officers and men, blocked the attack of more than 30,000 Japanese troops for half a month, the Japanese army suffered tens of thousands of casualties, and the 74th Army won two flying tiger flags in this battle in a row.
In 1944, Wang Yaowu was promoted to commander-in-chief of the 24th Group Army, under the jurisdiction of the 73rd Army, the 74th Army, the 100th Army, and the 70th Army. In 1945, Chiang Kai-shek reorganized all his troops into four fronts, and Wang Yaowu was promoted to commander of the Fourth Front, once on an equal footing with Xue Yue, Zhang Fakui and other Kuomintang elders.
In April 1945, the Japanese army concentrated 100,000 people to launch an attack on western Hunan Province, and Wang Yaowu led the 18th Army, 73rd Army, 74th Army, 100th Army, and the security forces led by Wu Qiwei in Hunan Province, with a total of about 300,000 troops to meet the Japanese army.
The battle lasted for two months, killing and wounding 30,000 Japanese troops, capturing 17 Japanese officers, capturing 230 Japanese soldiers, and the Chinese army suffered 20,000 casualties
To recover a large area of land, which was the smallest casualty ratio since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, sweeping away the haze of Yu Xianggui's fiasco in 1944, when Wang Yaowu was only 40 years old.
From the beginning of the War of Resistance to the end of the War of Resistance, Wang Yaowu and the 74th Army he single-handedly supported almost covered the whole field, and every battle would cause heavy casualties to the Japanese army.
3. People who understand during the War of Liberation
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Wang Yaowu returned to his hometown of Shandong and began to govern Shandong. In late January 1946, Wang Yaowu was appointed commander of the Second Appeasement District, and in March he was also the director of the Kuomintang Shandong Provincial Party, Government, and Army Unification Headquarters; on October 23, he was also the chairman of the Shandong Provincial Government, as well as the provincial security commander and the commander of the Shandong Military District. It can be said that Wang Yaowu was a veritable leader in Shandong at that time, and the Kuomintang's military and police xian special in Shandong, as well as government agencies, were all responsible to Wang Yaowu.
Compared with his performance during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wang Yaowu's performance during the War of Liberation can be said to be very flat, not because his ability has declined, but because he does not want to fight a civil war. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wang Yaowu commanded his troops to fight too many vicious battles, and after eight years of all-out war of resistance, China paid too much price. In Wang Yaowu's eyes, the war of liberation is not a battle with foreign enemies, there is no need to fight to the death, there is nothing wrong with winning a battle and surrendering, anyway, it is Chinese.
Another reason for Wang Yaowu's lackluster performance during the Liberation War was the constraints of Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng, and the Battle of Laiwu was a typical example.
After the Battle of Laiwu began, the two large armies of the Kuomintang army in the north and south directly approached Linyi, but Su Yu pretended to be defeated in Linyi, and arranged local armed forces to advance into Yanzhou and build bridges on the canal, creating the illusion that the main force would march west to join the Jinji Luyu Field Army, in order to confuse the Kuomintang army. Secretly, however, he quietly sent the main force north to approach Li Xianzhou's corps on the northern front. Wang Yaowu had studied Su Yu's tactics for a long time, so he did not believe Chen Cheng's battle report on the great victory in Linyi at all.
Wang Yaowu had also already guessed Su Yu's thoughts, and repeatedly ordered Li Xianzhou's army on the northern front to retreat immediately and be careful of Huaye's main force. However, Chen Cheng ordered Li Xianzhou to continue south and join the Southward Corps to pursue the remnants of the so-called East China Field Army.
No one on either side of Li Xianzhou could afford to offend, and coupled with the fact that Chiang Kai-shek, a micro-master, had from time to time overstepped his authority to command a little, which made him even more dizzy, and finally he was surrounded by Huaye in Laiwu, and 56,000 people were annihilated by Su Yu in three days, of which more than 30,000 were captured, and Li Xianzhou himself was also captured. Later, Wang Yaowu angrily scolded Chen Cheng for being a rice bucket and reprimanded: "
Even if it is 30,000 pigs, let the communist army catch it, it will not be able to catch it in three days.
If in the Battle of Laiwu, Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng seriously injured Wang Yaowu, then the Battle of Jinan, Chiang Kai-shek's persistence, completely ruined Wang Yaowu.
In the Battle of Jinan, Huaye gathered 150,000 troops, Xu Shiyou, Wang Jian'an, Song Shilun, Nie Fengzhi and other famous PLA generals all gathered under the city of Jinan. At this time, Wang Yaowu only had 110,000 people in his hands, and these 110,000 people were full of factions and low combat effectiveness, and they were not opponents of the People's Liberation Army at all.
Wang Yaowu knew better than anyone the balance of power between the two sides, and he flew to Nanjing before the war to report the situation to Chiang Kai-shek, demanding that Jinan be abandoned, and that the 100,000 people be evacuated for training to preserve their strength for the great armageddon that followed. But Chiang Kai-shek not only did not listen, but reprimanded him, and Wang Yaowu later complained about Chiang Kai-shek when he was in Gongdelin:
Not to mention the city of Jinan, the old man is not even willing to give up a small village, what a victory this can fight.
Before the city of Jinan was destroyed, Wang Yaowu ordered the release of all Communist Party cadres imprisoned, as well as the officers and men of the People's Liberation Army who had been captured earlier, and sent his own cronies to carry out the incident, sending them all to safety. If Wang Yaowu had not sent his cronies to protect him at that time, these people might not have survived even if they were released. At that time, some Kuomintang troops in the city had told Wang Yaowu that they would fight the People's Liberation Army to the last moment, and Wang Yaowu advised: "This is not a war against the Japanese Kou, this is a civil war, there is no need to fight to the death!" ”
After the war, Wang Yaowu was captured while absconding in makeup. When the People's Liberation Army searched Wang Yaowu's home, it did not find any luxury goods, nor did it find much gold and silver foreign exchange, but found two tractors, and later someone asked him why he put two tractors at home, wang Yaowu said that he wanted to go home after the war and farm.
When Wang Yaowu was imprisoned in the Beijing Merit Prison, he behaved very well, but he still had ideological concerns, and chairman Mao, after hearing about Wang Yaowu, said: "
Wang Yaowu, anti-Japanese meritorious! After that, Chairman Mao asked Public Security Minister Luo Ruiqing to relay to Wang Yaowu: "Your merit is merit, and your deeds are excessive." Your anti-Japanese merits will always be remembered by us Communists, and as long as you are at ease with reform, you will soon return to the people.
In February 1959, Wang Yaowu became one of the first Kuomintang war criminals to be pardoned in Gongdelin. In 1968, Wang Yaowu died in hospital. On July 29, 1980, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held a memorial service for him, Puyi and Liao Yaoxiang, and buried Wang Yaowu's ashes in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery in Beijing.