How many high-ranking Nationalist generals were captured in the Battle of Huaihai? In fact, this number is indeed quite large, such as Du Yuming, deputy commander-in-chief of Xuzhou, Huang Wei, commander of the 12th Corps of the Nationalist Army, Wen Qiang, deputy chief of the general staff of the Xuzhou Forward Command Post, Liu Zhenxiang, commander of the 64th Army, and so on.
In addition, there are many others, all of whom were later imprisoned in the War Criminals Management Center of Beijing Gongdelin Prison, and the Kuomintang general I want to introduce today was captured in the Battle of Huaihai, and this person was also a well-known anti-Japanese general who once became famous in the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain and dealt a fierce blow to the arrogance of the Japanese army.
But in the Battle of Huaihai, he and Huang Wei were captured in the double pile, and just before he was captured, he even chose to jump into the river to commit suicide, because he was extremely remorseful and sad about the situation at that time, only to die to mingzhi, but it was not long before he accidentally jumped into the river, but he suddenly climbed ashore, why is this?
He is Yang Botao, Yang Botao is a Native of Hunan, he studied at the Whampoa Military Academy, and his greatest achievement is undoubtedly in the War of Resistance Against Japan, in 1939, Yang Botao led his troops to garrison Yichang, during which he also repeatedly destroyed the Japanese army; in 1941, he participated in the counterattack against Zaoyi, and the most famous thing for Yang Botao was undoubtedly in the Battle of Xuefeng Mountain in 1945, when the Japanese army attempted to seize the airport, and the 18th Army led by Yang Botao cooperated with Wang Yaowu's troops to actively give the Japanese army a devastating and decadent blow.
However, although Yang Botao made great contributions on the anti-Japanese battlefield, he later followed Chiang Kai-shek to stand against the people and brazenly launched a war against our Communist Party in disregard of the wishes of the Chinese people.
With the outbreak of the Battle of Huaihai, Yang Botao's 18th Army also participated in the battle, but in the later period, the 18th Army was surrounded by our People's Liberation Army, and then this 18th Army was almost completely annihilated, and Yang Botao, the boss of the 18th Army, was captured.
Just before being captured, Yang Botao also chose to jump into the river to commit suicide, because in his opinion, it was undoubtedly a shame for the soldiers to be captured on the battlefield, and he could not accept the defeat of the Huaihai Campaign, so he decided to jump into the river to commit suicide, but not long after, Yang Botao suddenly climbed up.
Why? Do you know the start time of the Battle of Huaihai? It was from November 6, 1948 to January 10, 1949. This is a cold winter, even if you stand outside feel cold, let alone jump into the river, for this reason Yang Botao did not struggle in the river for a long time to climb up (the river water is very shallow), because it is indeed too cold, cold to the bone!
After that, Yang Botao was captured by our army and imprisoned in the Gongdelin War Criminals Management Center for reform. According to Shen Wei's "What I Saw and Heard in the Reform of War Criminals", Yang Botao is still very cooperative with the reform, and his attitude is very correct, which is indeed in stark contrast to Huang Wei, and it is precisely because of this. In 1958, Yang Botao became one of the first Kuomintang generals to be pardoned.
In his later years, Yang Botao still did some things for New China, and also wrote "General Du Yuming", "Chen Cheng's Military Group Minutes", "Yang Botao's Memoirs", etc., and died of illness in 2000 at the age of 91.