a little more than a million
01 Cross-cutting hot-blooded youth
Hu Ben General Yu Chengwan's hometown is Taishan, Guangdong, graduated from Panyu Normal School and Guangdong Railway College in his early years, and had a college degree.
There are many overseas Chinese in their hometown, and due to historical reasons, some overseas Chinese have come back to build a railway; Yu is also a local surname, if there is no accident, Yu Chengwan will have a good life in the local area.
Sun Yat-sen established a revolutionary government in Guangdong, and under the inspiration of the National Revolution, Yu Chengwan decided to join the National Revolutionary Army instead, and in 1924 he was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy for the first period of study.
After graduating from the military academy, Yu Chengwan became a political work cadre and later became the director of the Political Department of the Naval Bureau.
Yes, you heard that right, not only the People's Liberation Army, but also the National Army also has a political department and political work cadres. When the Nationalist army was first established, it was under the Red Army of the Soviet Union, and the party representatives and political work departments were readily available.
As an all-rounder of literature and martial arts, the leaders attached great importance to Yu Chengwan, and later Yu Chengwan went to the Department of Political Science of Sun Yat-sen University and the Army University for further study.
However, Yu Chengwan, who had been sitting in the office for a long time, was a little tired and planned to apply to go to the grass-roots troops. But his superiors did not let him lead the troops, but became a major general instructor.
The instructor worked for three years, and in 1934 he was finally able to lead the troops, serving as the commander of the 49th Division of the Miscellaneous Army. Relatively speaking, this position is a bit low.
As a senior student at the Whampoa Military Academy, a former director of the Political Department of the Navy, and an instructor of a major general in the army, many of the students in the huangpu military academy are now serving as regimental commanders in miscellaneous units.
On July 7, 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out. Ten days later, Chiang Kai-shek, who had been forced by Zhang Xueliang to resist Japan with a gun, finally couldn't bear it anymore and made a Speech at Lushan to prepare for the Anti-Japanese Resistance.
On July 31, the full text of Lushan's speech was published publicly, and the soldiers who had long been fed up with the arrogance of the Japanese invaders were indignant and asked for war.
Chang
Yu Chengwan, who had already been promoted to deputy division commander, also went to the front line with the army. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Yu Chengwan gradually gained the approval and trust of his superiors, and in 1940 he was promoted to the commander of the 57th Division of the 74th Army.
In March of the following year, Yu Chengwan led his troops to participate in the Battle of Shanggao. After the War of Resistance entered a stalemate, the Japanese army was insufficient and difficult to continue to expand, and even in the front-line confrontation, it felt that the strength was stretched.
In order to stabilize the front, the Japanese army often launched attacks against the heavy army groups of the Nationalist army, not to expand the occupied area but to weaken the effective strength of the Nationalist army, and incidentally to seize the materials and stabilize the territory.
Since the Japanese army wanted to transfer the 33rd Division near Nanchang to Zhongtiao Mountain, and worried that the remaining 34th Division would be difficult to support, it was decided to launch an offensive campaign against the Nationalist army before the 33rd Division was transferred, focusing on the main army of the Nationalist army, so the Battle of Shanggao broke out.
Battle of Kamikoku
As the main force of the Nationalist Army, the 74th Army was one of the first units to change into American armaments, and the equipment and personnel quality were first-class in the Nationalist Army, so it also became the focus of the Japanese army's attack.
At that time, the 57th Division was holding on to a place called Xiapi Bridge, which was the last line of defense for the Nationalist army.
Although the Nationalist army had long had the idea of enticing the enemy to go deep and then encircle and annihilate it, due to the defeat of friendly forces, the Japanese army made rapid progress, breaking through layers of obstacles to kill the Xiapi Bridge in advance, and encircling the 57th Division.
In the war, due to the poor intelligence gathering ability of the national army, the weak mobility of the troops, and the lack of will to fight, there were often embarrassing situations in which the overall strength was superior but the enemy fought more and fought less in the local area.
The 57th Division's precarious situation was an accident, but it made sense. At this time, Yu Chengwan exerted his tenacious will to fight and excellent command ability, and did not retreat in the face of the superior enemy.
The Japanese army could not move Cheng Wan for a while, and was reluctant to withdraw. The theater commander's headquarters took the opportunity to mobilize troops to surround the attacking Japanese army, and for a time a complex situation of you having me and me forming on the battlefield.
Yu Chengwan lived up to expectations, held his position under heavy pressure, and cooperated with friendly and neighboring troops to counter-encircle and annihilate some of the Japanese army. The rest of the Japanese army had no choice but to flee, and the Nationalist army pursued and recaptured the lost ground one after another.
The Chinese army achieved great results in the Battle of Shanggao, and Yu Chengwan also became famous for his excellent performance.
02 The final moment has arrived
What Yu Chengwan did not expect was that the experience of being surrounded at the Battle of Shanggao was experienced again in Changde. But this time his luck was not so good, and his life was completely reduced to tragedy.
In 1943, due to the continuous defeat of the Japanese army in the Pacific Theater, its defeat was already an inevitable event. The Japanese even ordered that the "Chinese dispatch army" should not be allowed to launch any offensive operations.
The Nationalist army is very negative about the domestic war, the Japanese army does not attack the nationalist army nor counterattack, quite to "lie and win", the front line and the Japanese army confronted for 4 months, the battle preparation is insufficient.
However, the nationalist army is more enthusiastic about transnational conquests, and has drawn troops from the front line to Burma for expeditions, after all, for the National Government, overseas aid is its lifeline.
China's Expeditionary Force into Burma
For example, half a million troops were mobilized to prepare for a blitzkrieg attack on Yan'an on the anniversary of the "July 7" incident, after all, in Chiang Kai-shek's view, the Communist Party was the biggest problem.
The Japanese army, which was about to fall into a desperate situation in the world, refused to sit still, and after a period of confrontation, at the end of 1943 decided to gamble again in the Changde area.
The Japanese army launched the Battle of Changde, first, to attack the confidence of Chiang Kai-shek's government in resisting the war and force him to surrender;
Second, it is necessary to strike at the effective forces of the Chinese army and seize materials to achieve the purpose of feeding the war with war;
The third forced the Nationalist army to transfer back the troops transferred to the direction of Burma, reducing the pressure on the Japanese army in Southeast Asia.
After the Japanese army launched an attack, the soldiers and horses of the Nationalist army lost one battle after another. On November 18, 1943, Japanese soldiers approached Changde, and on the 21st, they cut off all of Changde's contact with the outside world, and Yu Chengwan fell into a heavy siege.
Yu Chengwan began to garrison Changde on November 3, and he knew that he would face a fierce battle, but he only had 8,000 troops, and the Japanese army in front of him was as high as 30,000.
The entire Changde Huiguo Army supported 82 divisions, the actual combat strength was 260,000 people, and the Japanese army had more than 100,000 troops. Faced with such an unfavorable situation, Yu Chengwan was ordered to: Stick to Changde, and if he does not succeed, he will become a ren.
At this time, Chiang Kai-shek was holding a meeting in Cairo, attended by Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill.
At the end of 1943, the Allied forces had made progress in all major battlefields, and Chiang Kai-shek was in need of a victory. He said: "Changde will be The Stalingrad of China. ”
Yu Chengwan originally believed that the early stage of the Nationalist army's combat was unfavorable, and the next step in the theater should be to plan to encircle the Japanese army in Changde and annihilate it, and whether or not it could hold Changde before the encircling troops arrived was the key to turning the tide of the war.
Unexpectedly, Yu Chengwan's battle was not only a military issue, he had to stick to Changde. However, Chiang Kai-shek did not want his students to die in vain, and there was no hope of Yu Chengwan retreating, so Chiang Kai-shek mobilized a large number of troops to come to reinforcements.
However, the encirclement and reinforcement operations did not go well, and the rest of the 74th Army could not take care of themselves and could not be rescued; the reinforcements of the 10th and 29th Armies were weak in attack, and they were blocked by Japanese reinforcements and could not advance.
Some reinforcements were slow to move, for example, the 10th Army of the 9th Theater of the Nationalist Army received orders to reinforce Changde on the 18th, but the army only left the boundaries of the 9th Theater on the 26th to contact the Japanese army.
But this can not all be blamed on the 10th Army, the organizational ability and combat effectiveness at that time were there, that is, how many ways could the soldiers and immortals be alive?
Fang Xianjue, commander of the 10th Army, also encountered the same dilemma as Yu Chengwan in the defense of Hengyang in June 1944, the reinforcements were slow to progress, and the Fang forces trapped in the isolated city were completely destroyed.
Yu Chengwan, who could not get reinforcements, was ordered to continue to hold out. Yu Chengwan faithfully fulfilled the order, and after many days of fierce fighting, the 57th Division suffered heavy casualties and many formed units were completely destroyed.
Yu Chengwan sent the miscellaneous personnel to the combat detachment, and the policemen left behind in the city and some citizens who could fight also participated in the battle after being organized.
In the face of the reinforcements of the Nationalist army coming from all sides, the Japanese army was also uneasy. In order to end the battle as soon as possible, the Japanese ordered the evacuation of the besieging forces southeast of Changde, while increasing the offensive from other directions.
The Japanese army means "encircling three and missing one", giving Yu Chengwan a way to live, forcing him to break through, if Yu Chengwan flees, the Japanese army can complete the task of capturing Changde as soon as possible.
Moreover, the south of Changde is the Yuan River, and Yu Chengwan's movement will be limited after breaking out of the city. Lacking fortifications in the field, the Japanese army could easily eliminate the 57th Division with the field combat capabilities of the Nationalist army.
Yu Chengwan's choice is to continue to hold out for help.
On November 29, the Japanese army invaded the city, Yu Chengwan led the troops to engage in a brutal street battle with the enemy, the Japanese army did not expect Yu Chengwan's troops to be so tenacious, ordered the air force and artillery to blow up Changde City.
Yu Chengwan led the remnants of officers and men to fight in the ruins, and by December 1, the strength of the 57th Division was only about 500 people, even if the wounded, medical and miscellaneous personnel were counted. Changde fell almost entirely, and the last position of the 57th Division was only three hundred meters wide.
Yu Chengwan sent a report to Sun Lianzhong, commander of the group army: "The bullets are exhausted, the people are dead, the city is broken, and the friendly forces are on the sidelines." At this moment, the streets and alleys are in a mess, the deputy division commander and the chief of staff are stubbornly guarding the central bank, and the regimental commanders divide the areas, hold a house, make final resistance, and swear to die..."
As a soldier, the final moment has arrived.
03 Nearly shot
Yu Chengwan felt that he was going to die in battle, but Sun Lianzhong called back: "I would like to give a message to Chairman Chiang Kai-shek: The value of the defense war defending Changde and Stalingrad in the Soviet Union is equal, and it is indeed the glory of the country and the nation, and reinforcements from all sides are coming, and we must hold out until victory is hoped." ”
But where are the reinforcements?
In fact, Fang Xianjue's 10th Army had already killed outside Changde City, and could not contact Yu Chengwan. Yu Chengwan sent someone out to look for it, but he did not contact him.
By the early morning of December 3, Yu Chengwan had only 200 troops, and reinforcements still had not arrived. He couldn't figure out that there were forty divisions of the nationalist army around Changde, so why didn't one come to reinforcements?
Yu Chengwan did not choose to die in battle, he divided the troops into two parts, the chief of staff led 100 people to continue to hold the city, and he took another hundred people out of the city to contact the reinforcements.
The chief of staff ran out of ammunition during the daytime battle on the 3rd, and led his subordinates to launch a final charge against the Japanese army with knives, guns and sticks, and died in honor.
After Yu Chengwan left the city, he contacted the reinforcements and led the reinforcements to kill Changde again.
The Japanese who captured Changde suffered heavy casualties, and reinforcements from the surrounding Nationalist forces arrived one after another and had to withdraw. On December 9, Yu Chengwan led reinforcements to retake Changde.
According to statistics afterwards, Yu Chengwan's 57th Division had about 8,000 men, 5,700 killed and more than 2,000 wounded, defended the city for 16 days at the cost of almost all casualties of the division, and annihilated more than 4,200 enemy troops.
In this battle, the 57th Division was commended by Chiang Kai-shek, but Yu Chengwan was captured. Chiang Kai-shek believed that Yu Chengwan had failed to hold Changde, that almost all of his troops had been lost, and that he had abandoned his troops at the last moment to flee and should have been shot.
Chiang Kai-shek's reasoning sounded grand and sounded like a moral trial.
However, in the years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there were many generals who were ineffective in combat, and there were not many generals who were shot, but it seems that people like Yu Chengwan are not yet sentenced to death.
Now it seems that the reason for shooting Yu Chengwan may be that he has humiliated the old Chiang Kai-shek: A few days ago, Chiang Kai-shek said in Cairo that Changde is Stalingrad in the east, and the Chinese army has the ability to hold Changde, and now you have lost the city, and the people have abandoned the city and fled!
There are accusations in the international arena that the Chinese army is waiting for victory to preserve its strength, Chiang Kai-shek has always been very concerned about international observation, and Yu Chengwan abandoned the city to "escape" and made him very faceless, no wonder he was so angry.
Chiang Kai-shek's decision to shoot Yu Chengwan was criticized by all quarters.
Wang Yaowu and other senior generals tried their best to protect Yu Chengwan, after all, Yu Chengwan had experienced a bloody battle and had already tried his best, and if he was shot, wouldn't it make the generals shudder.
The surviving officers and men of the 57th Division were also dissatisfied, and the entire 57th Division would be completely destroyed, so what was wrong with the division commander leading people to break through and leave some seeds for the 57th Division?
The governor of Changde County also participated in the defense of Changde, and knowing that the battlefield was fierce, he contacted celebrities to intercede for Yu Chengwan.
The citizens of Changde also did not want Yu Chengwan to die.
The old man in Changde said that before 1943, the local people were not accustomed to being soldiers, and they were contemptuous of the "grain" of soldiers. However, Yu Cheng wanzhi's army was strict, and unlike other Nationalist troops, the 57th Division had better military discipline.
An old man named Chen Lazhi also told such a story that there was a soldier who took shelter in front of her house, and when Chen Mother saw it, she invited him to enter the door, but the soldier replied: "Your family has female dependents, the troops have discipline, and you can't disturb the people casually." ”
When the soldiers left, Chen Lazhi found that the soldiers' clothes had been wet. Later, Chen Lazhi learned that this person was Yu Chengwan. The citizens of Changde gathered tens of thousands of signatures to request that Yu Cheng be spared death.
Under the mediation of many parties, Yu Chengwan was released after only 4 months in prison, and later served as the deputy commander of the 74th Army.
04 A lamentable ending
In 1948, Cheng Wan was transferred to the commander of the 26th Army and stationed in Yunnan.
At that time, Lu Han, chairman of the Kuomintang Yunnan Provincial Government, had the heart to revolt, and in December 1949, Yu Chengwan and seven other generals and high-ranking officials were put under house arrest and forced to revolt.
Yu Chengwan and others did not want to revolt, but under the compulsion of Lu Han, they signed a telegram supporting the uprising.
A few days later, the 26th Army began to attack Kunming in the name of rescuing Yu Chengwan. Under Lu Han's various promises, Yu Chengwan's attitude was somewhat shaken, and he ordered his subordinates to cease fire.
However, the ideology of the 26th Army was not unified, and the demands of the uprising caused chaos in the army, and Yu Chengwan could not fully control the troops, and in the end Yu Chengwan failed to revolt and retreated to Hainan with his troops.
Luján
In 1950, Yu Chengwan was called to Taiwan to report for duty. Yu Chengwan played drums in his heart, first, he was worried about being imprisoned by Chiang Kai-shek because of the uprising, and second, he was afraid that he would not be trusted by Chiang Kai-shek after taking the initiative to confess, so he fled to Hong Kong to live in seclusion.
Yu Chengwan saved a lot of money when he was in the military, and started a business after arriving in Hong Kong. Business is booming, and the family is living well.
In August 1955, misfortune struck. Three robbers broke into Yu Chengwan's home and tied up all of his family.
After the police arrived, they engaged in a shootout with the robbers, and 1 of the 3 robbers was killed and 2 escaped. During the melee, Yu Chengwan was shot and killed.
The cause of Yu Chengwan's death, the identity and motives of the robbers have not been clarified. Some people say that the robbers killed Yu Chengwan, and some people say that they were killed by the police by mistake.
Some people said that the robbers only came to grab money, some said that the underworld coveted his wife's beauty, and some people said that because Yu Chengwan complained too much about Chiang Kai-shek, the robbers were actually sent by Kuomintang agents to kill him.
After Yu Chengwan's death, the family lacked a source of income, life became very bad, and the wealthy family was reduced to having to live on.
Yu Chengwan's youngest daughter Yu Peifang looks very beautiful, and the pseudonym Yu Sally enters the show business circle. I don't know why, Yu Peifang was a naked star and became a famous star in Hong Kong in the 1970s.
Yu Peifang's marriage was not happy, and both marriages ended in divorce. He had little savings when he was young, and in his later years he made a living selling fake jewelry.
As a generation of famous anti-Japanese generals, Yu Chengwan's ending is indeed not very good.
Resources:
1. "My Old Commander- "The Battle of Hu Ben" General Yu Chengwan and Changde"; Kuang Wenqing; Huangpu, No. 06, 2013
2. "The Battle of Shanggao: An Important Battle in the Frontal Battlefield of Jiangxi During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression"; Zhu Yan; "Party History Wenyuan", No. 15, 2009
3. "Eight Thousand Changde Roars"; Zhu Wei; "China Television (Record)", No. 10, 2010
4. "The 70th Anniversary of the Defense Of Changde"; Yang Jianming; Essence of Literature and History, No. 4, 2013
5. "Famous Anti-Japanese Generals Who Died in Bizarre Robberies"; Shen Zhou; Literature and History Expo, No. 05, 2011