In the history of our army, there is such a legendary general!
He first served in General Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army, and then joined the Japanese as commander of the Third Front.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he was recruited by Chiang Kai-shek and sent to the front line of the civil war, and finally lost his way back, held high the banner of righteousness in the Battle of Jinan, and embarked on the road of revolution from then on, and was also appointed as the commander of the Thirty-fifth Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
In the "Battle of crossing the River" in 1949, he and the Thirty-fifth Army led by him were the first to enter Nanjing, and planted the red flag on the pseudo-presidential palace in Nanjing.
However, when he was awarded the rank in 1955, he was not awarded a military rank, and there were people who petitioned to kill him...
This legendary general is Wu Huawen!
In this article, let's talk about the legendary story of General Wu Huawen; if you are also interested in history, you may wish to calm down and read it, maybe there will be a different harvest!
Northwestern Army career
Wu Huawen, also spelled Shaozhou, was born in 1904 in Ye County, Shandong (present-day Laizhou), born into poverty, and often had no food or clothing in his childhood.
In order to survive, when he was 8 years old, his father Wu Yizhai had to move with his family to Mengcheng, Anhui Province to make a living, and the family of more than a dozen people struggled to survive.
In March 1920, at the age of 16, Wu Huawen left his hometown and came to Xinyang due to the compulsion of life, and threw himself into the Northwest Army, serving as a brother in the independent 16th Mixed Brigade of Feng Yuxiang's troops.
Because he was quick and clever, he quickly attracted Feng Yuxiang's attention, and soon after he was summoned by Feng Yuxiang as his own messenger.
As a big man in the Northwest Army, Feng Yuxiang has a characteristic in the employment of people, he likes to reuse those small people who come from poor families and come from the army. Of course, this has a lot to do with his special experience in his childhood.
Figure | General Feng Yuxiang
In May 1921, Feng Yuxiang was ordered by the Beiyang government to lead an army into Shaanxi to expel Chen Shupan, the former governor of Shaanxi.
During the battle, Wu Huawen's unit was ordered to attack a commanding height.
Initially, the unit made tentative attacks on the high ground with a small number of troops, but the enemy fire was too fierce, so several attacks were blocked, and many people died.
When the leaders of the unit were worried about this, Wu Huawen volunteered to lead a platoon of more than 20 soldiers, braving the enemy's gunfire and bullets, rushed up the hill in one fell swoop, took control of the commanding heights, and annihilated a company of Chen Shupan, who was guarding the mountain.
Under the fierce attack of the Northwest Army, Chen Shupan's defensive deployment was quickly disrupted, and Chen Shufan saw that it was difficult to cope with the battle, so he had to flee.
Figure | Chen Shupan
After the battle, because of Wu Huawen's heroic performance, he was commended by Feng Yuxiang. Three months later, the 16th Mixed Brigade of the Northwest Army was reorganized into the 11th Division of the Zhi Army, and Wu Huawen was promoted to platoon commander of the cadet battalion.
After the first Zhifeng War began in 1922, Feng Yuxiang led his army out of Shaanxi into Yu to fight against Zhang Zuolin's Fengjun.
On the battlefield, Wu Hua was a brave and fearless soldier, and commanded the troops to fight many beautiful battles, resulting in a major defeat of the Feng army.
Later, after Feng Yuxiang became the overseer of Henan, he began to order the expansion of the army, and Wu Huawen's student battalion was expanded into a student regiment, and Wu Huawen was appointed as the company commander of the regiment.
The following year, Wu Huawen, under the protection of Feng Yuxiang, entered the Beijing Senior Teaching Regiment to study, and then entered the Army University to study, and after graduation, he successively served as a staff officer of the headquarters in the Northwest Army, the chief of education of the Luoyang Military Academy, and the head of the headquarters special service regiment.
Figure | Feng Yuxiang, Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan
After the end of the Northern Expedition, a split began to appear between Feng Yuxiang and Chiang Kai-shek, and the "Great War of Chiang And feng" was about to erupt.
In 1929, Feng Yuxiang officially rebelled against Chiang Kai-shek, and then the "Central Plains War" broke out!
As a result, Chiang Kai-shek bribed Feng Yuxiang's general Han Fuqu with heavy money, causing Han Fuqu to turn against him, and finally prompted Feng Yuxiang to go into the wilderness, and the Northwest Army was also disintegrated.
At that time, Wu Huawen was sent by Feng Yuxiang to Serve as a liaison staff officer in Han Fuqu's department, so after Han Fuqu defected, Wu Huawen also followed him to Chiang Kai-shek.
After Wu Huawen defected to Chiang Kai-shek, he could be described as a smooth step, starting from a liaison staff officer, from regimental commander and brigade commander to pistol brigade commander and commander of The Jinan garrison.
Defect to the Wang puppet government
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, Han Fuqu, then deputy commander of the Fifth Theater, commander-in-chief of the Third Army, and chairman of the Shandong Provincial Government, was responsible for commanding the Shandong military and undertaking the defense of the Yellow River.
When the Japanese army attacked Shandong, Han Fuqu had resisted the Japanese attack in Texas, and after a bloody battle, his troops suffered heavy losses, and the three divisions lost more than half, plus Chiang Kai-shek ordered the transfer of the artillery belonging to Han Fuqu's department, causing him to fall into military difficulties.
In such a situation, Han Fuqu's attitude gradually changed! In order to preserve his strength, Han Fuqu abandoned Jinan without a fight.
On the eve of the evacuation, Han Fuqu also ordered the burning of the provincial government and the Jinde Association, which was called the "Scorched Earth Resistance War".
Readers who are interested in the history of the war should not be unfamiliar with this term!
The so-called "scorched earth resistance" refers to setting fire to any property, equipment and houses that can be used by the enemy, so as to achieve the purpose of exchanging space for time.
This is not the first time in military history that the Russians set fire to Moscow in order to resist the invaders when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek also repeatedly emphasized the policy of "scorched earth resistance", such as the "burning of Changsha" on the night of November 12, 1938, which is one of the typical examples.
Figure | Han Fuqu
Han Fuqu successively withdrew to Jinan, Tai'an, Yanzhou and other strategic places, and finally retreated all the way to the area of Juye Cao County in southwest Lu.
Han Fuqu's "retreat without a fight" meant that he voluntarily abandoned the natural danger of mounting the Yellow River and abandoned the Yellow River defense line that could have been held for several weeks within a few days.
After Han Fuqu left Jinan, Li Zongren immediately sent a telegram ordering him to stay in Tai'an. But Han Fuqu called back: "Nanjing is not guarded, He Shou Tai'an." ”
When Li Zongren received the telegram, he was furious, and then forwarded Han Fuqu's telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, and reported that Han Fuqu did not listen to the command.
Han Fuqu was worried that Chiang Kai-shek would exclude dissidents, so he secretly contacted Liu Xiang, then chairman of the Sichuan provincial government, in an attempt to jointly launch an anti-Chiang movement.
This series of actions by Han Fuqu made Chiang Kai-shek firm in his determination to get rid of him!
On January 11, 1938, Han Fuqu was invited by Chiang Kai-shek to Kaifeng to attend a high-level military conference of northern generals, and was arrested by Order of Chiang Kai-shek.
Subsequently, Han Fuqu was escorted all the way to Hankou, and after a "military judicial trial," he was executed on the charge of "disobeying orders and retreating without authorization."
After Han Fuqu's death, Wu Huawen, then commander of the Fourth Division of Han Fuqu's department, gradually felt that the situation was not good, worried that Chiang Kai-shek would implicate himself because of this, and that he had done a very unsatisfactory job under Mu Zhongheng, who took over as chairman of the Shandong Provincial Government, so he became disengaged.
In fact, there are many reasons for Wu Huawen's idea!
For example, at that time, the situation in Shandong was complicated, the regular army of the Kuomintang and the Shandong provincial government basically withdrew from Shandong, Shandong could be eaten by the Japanese army or the central army at any time, and the National Government was slow to replenish the military salaries, ammunition, and so on to the Wuhua Ministry of Culture.
Wu Huawen, who was in such a difficult and dangerous situation, felt for a time that his future was uncertain.
Just at this time, hata Shunroku, commander of the Japanese North China Dispatch Army, mobilized all the troops of the 17th and 32nd Divisions and the 10th Independent Mixed Brigade, as well as one unit of the 21st and 34th Divisions and the Independent 6th Brigade, totaling more than 50,000 troops, and launched a large-scale "sweep" of our Yimeng Mountains.
In the face of the menacing Japanese army, the Lusu Theater immediately ordered Wu Huawen to lead the four divisions and the temporary first division to insist on fighting on the inside line and to cooperate with the Fifty-first Army, so as to attack the Japanese troops who came to sweep inside and outside.
However, at this time, Wu Huawen's troops were already thin and bulleted, and the ammunition storage of the whole division was not enough to cope with such a large-scale war.
To this end, Wu Huawen once approached Mou Zhongheng, who was then the chairman of the Shandong government, and asked him to replenish the Fourth Division with ammunition.
Figure | Mou Zhongheng
But who knows, Mu Zhongheng, after a meal of crying, only replenished him with 500 rounds of rifle ammunition.
Wu Huawen looked at this "large" note, his hands trembled with anger, and he said excitedly: "Mr. Mou, there are 20,000 people in my unit, and these 500 rounds of ammunition are really a drop in the bucket!" ”
But Mu Zhongheng not only did not have the slightest sympathy, but also replied impatiently: "Lack of food and ammunition, what are you doing raising so many troops?" You can lay off troops! ”
I can't believe that such words were actually spoken from the mouth of a high-ranking government official!
As a result, in the sweeping battle with the Japanese army, the Wuhua Wenbu, who was short of food and ammunition, was not an opponent of the Japanese army at all, and after only two days of fierce fighting, it was surrounded by more than 20,000 Japanese regiments in a small area of less than 500 kilometers.
Although Wu Huawen was in danger, the other Kuomintang troops could not be saved, and the Originally Planned 51st Army never showed any signs of action.
Only now did Wu Huawen understand that he was just their cannon fodder, and instead of sticking to it, it was better to fight to the death to break through and seek a glimmer of life.
In the end, Wu Huawen led the remnants to successfully break through the encirclement of the Japanese army, but in this battle, his Fourth Division suffered heavy casualties and serious injuries.
In the spring of 1942, Wu Huawen, who was in internal and external difficulties, wrote a letter to the Headquarters of the Japanese Tenth Army stationed in Jinan, requesting the release of the captives. From then on, Wu Huawen began to have relations with the Japanese army.
Later, when yu Xuezhong was preparing to leave Shandong and the Japanese army was about to start a new round of "sweeping" came, Wu Huawen was completely panicked, and he hurriedly sent people to conclude a so-called "non-aggression pact" with the Japanese army, and at the same time sent his chief of staff to Jinan to maintain contact with the Japanese army.
In the process, the Japanese army saw that Wu Huawen was already showing signs of wavering, so they took the opportunity to help him and try to pull him into the water.
At first, Wu Huawen was worried that he would be charged with "traitor", so he refused to agree.
However, with the various threats and inducements of the Japanese army, Wu Huawen finally compromised!
In January 1943, Wu Huawen's chief of staff, Ning Chunlin, led the Japanese army and Wang Pseudo representatives to the wuhua cultural department to discuss with Wu Huawen the relevant matters of surrender negotiations.
In March of the same year, the Wang puppet government issued an order to reorganize Wu Hua's Ministry of Culture into the Shandong Front of the "Peaceful Nation-Building Army", with Wu Huawen as commander-in-chief.
After that, the Shandong Front of the "Peaceful Founding Army" was renamed the Third Front Of the "Peaceful Founding Army", and Wu Huawen was still appointed as the commander and received the rank of general.
From the summer of 1943 to the spring of 1944, the Luzhong Military Region of the Eighth Route Army launched three campaigns against Wu Huawen.
After three consecutive crusades by our army, wuhua's ministry of culture and culture suffered a fatal blow, and its strength was greatly weakened, and by the end of 1944, the ministry of culture and culture of Wuhua had been reduced from more than 20,000 people in the original 27 regiments to more than 6,400 people in 10 regiments.
In mid-to-late June 1945, Wu Huawen followed the advice of his deputy commander Ning Chunlin and led his troops to evacuate Shandong and go south along the Jinpu Line to the bengbu area of Anhui.
It was incorporated by Chiang Kai-shek
In August 1945, after Japan announced its unconditional surrender, Chiang Kai-shek, in order to compete with our side for territory, did not hesitate to find a spokesman from the original "Traitor" team to expand his military strength to confront our army.
Under the influence of Chiang Kai-shek, Wu Hua's Ministry of Culture was also incorporated by Chiang Kai-shek and reorganized into the 'New Fifth Route Army', with Wu Huawen as commander-in-chief.
Later, the Fifth Route Army was reorganized into the Kuomintang Ninety-sixth Army, with Wu Huawen as its commander and the Commander of the Eighty-fourth Division.
Since then, this miscellaneous army with a bad track record has been tied to his chariot by Chiang Kai-shek in this way, charging for him and acting as cannon fodder for the war.
In mid-October 1945, Wu Huawen was ordered to lead an army to the Lunan area to cover the Kuomintang's concubine Li Yannian's troops stationed in Jinan to accept the surrender of the Japanese army, in order to seize the fruits of the victory of the War of Resistance.
As a result, as soon as Wuhua's ministry entered the jiehe area of Teng County, it was ambushed by our army, the Sixth Army to which its subordinate belonged was completely annihilated, and the commander of the army, Yu Yi'an, was captured and suffered heavy losses.
In fact, Wu Huawen has fought with our people's army more than once, but each time he has been defeated by our army and fled.
Wu Huawen, who has been defeated for a long time, has more and more complicated feelings in his heart, and he is worried all day!
In the past, he acted as an accomplice of the Japanese aggressors and became a sinner of the nation; now, after he defected to Chiang Kai-shek, he was repeatedly ostracized; he had many confrontations with our people's army, and each time he returned with a great defeat.
The complicated experience of these years has made Wu Huawen gradually understand a truth: whether it is Japanese and pseudo-Japanese, or Chiang Kai-shek, it is not his ultimate dependence, and the only thing he relies on is the people.
But the question is, what should he do to jump out of the predicament and seek a glimmer of life for himself?
Just when Wu Huawen was racking his brains to try to get out of this predicament, the Chinese Communists, who did not care about the previous accusations, threw an "olive branch" to him!
At the same time that our party was carrying out the work of winning over Wu Huawen, Feng Yuxiang and some other progressive people also actively educated Wu Huawen.
However, Wu Huawen had been plagued by a poor education for many years and occupied a very important position in the Kuomintang army, so while our party was actively fighting for him, Chiang Kai-shek was not idle at all, and flew to Shandong to talk to him, and also reorganized his unit into the reorganized Eighty-fourth Division, with him as the commander of the division.
Under the bombardment of Chiang Kai-shek's various "sugar-coated shells," Wu Huawen increased his illusions about Chiang Kai-shek.
In March 1947, when the Kuomintang mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to launch an attack on the Liberated Areas of Shandong, Wu Hua's Ministry of Culture actively acted as a pawn for the Kuomintang army.
However, in spite of this, our party has never given up its patient struggle and education for Wu Huawen, and has adopted all available methods to strive to enable him to change his mind at an early date, change his course, and stand on the side of the people.
Finally, after a long period of arduous struggle and education, although Wu Huawen has changed in his thinking, he has always been uncertain and capricious.
In fact, it is not difficult to win over Wu Huawen, in addition to basic ideological education, the simplest and most direct way is to completely defeat the Kuomintang army, let him see the changes in the strength of both sides, and thus prompt him to move closer to our side.
Abandon the dark and cast the light
After July 1947, the situation of the War of Liberation underwent fundamental changes, our people's army began to change from strategic defense to strategic offensive, the Kuomintang army was gradually defeated and retreated, and a large number of its living forces were annihilated by our army.
In view of These Problems of Wu Huawen, the Jinan Municipal CPC Committee has formed a special leading group to be responsible for winning specific leadership over Wu Huawen's work.
After discussion among the members of the leading group, it was decided to take the following three steps for Wu Huawen's efforts to win:
The first step is to conduct ideological education, clearly explain our Party's policies, and point out the way out;
The second step is to expose the essence of his shaking wait-and-see, and to relieve his ideological worries and worries;
The third step, after the Battle of Jinan began, in coordination with the military offensive, adopted a policy of attacking the heart and exerted pressure on it.
In fact, for a person like Wu Huawen, who is left and right, and who is undecided, the best way is to use both soft and hard to promote his uprising. The so-called wait-and-see is just to see "whose hand the deer dies".
In 1948, the "Battle of Jinan" officially began!
After the battle began, our people's army broke through the enemy's perimeter position in just three days, and then quickly attacked deep into the depths.
In order to urge Wu Huawen to make up his mind to defect as soon as possible, our army decided to first give him a battalion to get off the horse and completely annihilate Wu Huawen.
Under the long-term patient struggle and military pressure of our party, Wu Huawen, who saw that the general trend had gone, finally made up his mind to lead the uprising.
After that, according to the agreement, Wu Huawen led his army to retreat to the designated location and ceded the defensive line to the People's Liberation Army. At this point, the Kuomintang Reorganized 96th Army led by Wu Huawen and the 84th Reorganized Division, which belonged to it, totaled more than 20,000 people, and officially completed the task of uprising.
Wu Huawen's uprising opened the western gate of Jinan to the People's Liberation Army, thus disrupting Wang Yaowu's defensive deployment and shortening the time for the liberation of Jinan.
On September 24, 1948, Jinan was liberated, tens of thousands of Nationalist defenders in the city were all annihilated, and Wang Yaowu, then the second commander of appeasement and chairman of the Shandong provincial government, and a number of senior officials under his command were captured alive by our army.
The victory in the Battle of Jinan has brought the Liberated Areas of North China and East China together, creating favorable conditions for the upcoming "Battle of Huaihai."
On September 25 of the same year, Wu Huawen sent a telegram to the whole country and was ordered to take the troops to the area of Jiyang and Yucheng north of the Yellow River for reorganization.
Soon after, Chairman Mao, President Zhu, and President Chen sent congratulatory telegrams to Wu Huawen one after another, giving him high praise and encouragement for leading the uprising.
On October 29, Wu Huawen's rebel forces were reorganized into the 35th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, with three divisions under its jurisdiction, namely the 103rd Division, the 104th Division, and the 105th Division, with Wu Huawen as the commander and He Kexi as the political commissar.
Figure | General Hokshi
The first to lead the army into Nanjing
After a month of reorganization, the Thirty-fifth Army was immediately ordered to go west of Xuzhou to participate in the "Battle of Huaihai" launched in early November of that year.
Until the end of the Battle of Huaihai on January 10, 1949, the Thirty-fifth Army commanded by Wu Huawen and He Kexi all participated in the battle, making great contributions to the victory of the Battle of Huaihai.
In February of the same year, the Thirty-fifth Army was ordered to go to pixian for reorganization, and then merged with the Luzhongnan Headquarters of the East China Field Army and was subordinated to the Seventh Corps of the Third Field Army.
On April 20, 1949, the "Battle of Crossing the River" officially began, and Wu Huawen's Thirty-fifth Army was ordered to capture Pukou, Puzhen, Jiangpu and other places in order to achieve the goal of clamping down on Nanjing, covering the operation of the East Road Army, and taking advantage of the opportunity to capture Nanjing.
Figure | Painting of the Battle of the Crossing River
On April 21 of the same year, the 103rd Division of the 35th Army completely annihilated the Nationalist army in Jiangpu, and the 104th Division swept away the forward positions in Puzhen in one fell swoop.
On the 24th, after crossing the river from Pukou, the special agent company of the 312nd Regiment of the 104th Division went straight into the center of Nanjing.
After the March 15th Regiment entered the nanjing puppet presidential palace, it immediately raised a bright red flag in the gate tower of the presidential palace.
The Thirty-fifth Army of the People's Liberation Army, led by Wu Huawen, was not only the first unit to invade Nanjing, but also the first to plant a red flag on the pseudo-presidential palace in Nanjing.
At this point, Nanjing was officially liberated, and in this battle, Wu Huawen and his Thirty-fifth Army contributed indispensably!
After the liberation of Hangzhou on May 3 of the same year, Wu Huawen was appointed commander of the Hangzhou garrison. In July 1949, the three divisions under the jurisdiction of the Thirty-fifth Army were changed to the Third Military Subdistrict, the Tenth Military Subdistrict and the Hangzhou Garrison District of the Zhejiang Military Region.
In January of the following year, the Headquarters of the Thirty-fifth Army was transferred to the Navy of the East China Military Region, and the title of the Thirty-fifth Army was revoked. Wu Huawen, on the other hand, applied to his superiors due to illness, requesting that he be transferred from the army to work in a local area, which would also facilitate recuperation. The superior approved Wu Huawen's request!
After Wu Huawen was transferred from the army, he was successively appointed as a member of the Zhejiang Provincial People's Government, director of the Transportation Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Government, vice chairman of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Figure | When Nanjing was liberated, soldiers of our army planted the red flag in the pseudo-presidential palace
On September 27, 1955, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) received its first title in history.
According to the requirements for conferring titles at that time, all those who participated in the title were all on the post, and Wu Huawen had already transferred to local work at this time, so he did not meet this condition, so he did not participate in the first ceremony of the new China.
He Kexi, the political commissar who had been with him in the Thirty-fifth Army, was awarded the rank of major general when he was awarded the rank of major general in 1955.
Therefore, if Wu Huawen was still serving in the army at that time, he could at least be awarded the rank of major general.
However, due to the complex history of Wu Huawen, his exploits have not been hyped up, and there is not much ink about the contribution to the liberation of Nanjing, and even many people do not know that Wu Huawen is a person.
It is worth mentioning that after the liberation, Wu Huawen was recuperating in Shanghai, and when the people of Shandong heard that Wu Huawen was not dead, but was still alive, they were immediately unhappy, so they sent a public opinion representative to Shanghai to request that Wu Huawen be killed.
However, the superiors did not pursue Wu Huawen's responsibility for his merits in the liberation of Nanjing, as well as out of many considerations.
It was not until 1962, when General Wu Huawen died of illness, that it was really considered to be "the debt of death"!