The cattle man I want to introduce today is the commander of an ace army of the Kuomintang, but his historical fame is far less famous than that of his subordinates.
During the Liberation War, the Kuomintang had five main forces, which were not only well-equipped, but also far greater in combat effectiveness than other units of the Nationalist Army. Among them, the new first army is different from the other four main forces, he is the first American equipment unit, the first American training unit, this unit was established in India, famous in the India-Burma battlefield, with the national army "the first army under the world" reputation.
The commander of this unit, many people only know General Sun Liren, in fact, at the beginning of its establishment, his first commander was called Zheng Dongguo, when Sun Liren was only the commander of his new 38th Division.
Zheng Dongguo, born in 1903 in Shimen County, Hunan Province, had four brothers and sisters in a family, and because his family was relatively poor, he studied very hard. In 1919, after the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement, Zheng Dongguo, who was still studying at Shimen Middle School, also followed the tide of revolution and took to the streets to participate in the patriotic movement to boycott Japanese goods, and during this period, he decided to abandon his pen and join rong, hoping to revitalize the country by force.
In 1924, he took the name of someone else and was admitted to the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and he was the only one to enroll in the Whampoa Military Academy. At that time, there was a small episode, Zheng Dongguo heard about the enrollment of the Whampoa Military Academy, so he went to Guangzhou, and when he arrived in Guangzhou, the registration day had passed. But it happened that at this time, there was a student named Huang Turtle, worried that he would not be able to pass the examination, registered for the name twice, and later gave up a place for Zheng Dongguo. Unexpectedly, both of them were admitted, and later this matter was exposed, and Zheng Dongguo explained the reason, but he did not expect to be left by the school in the end.
Zheng Dongguo, after graduation, was appointed as a battalion commander of the First Army of the National Revolution, and then participated in the Northern Expedition with the troops, when attacking Yongding City, he took the lead as a soldier, led the battalion to undertake the main force of the siege, and with the cooperation of other troops, first invaded the city and made the first contribution. In November of the same year, he was promoted to commander of the 8th Regiment of the 3rd Division of the First Army, when he was only twenty-four years old.
Subsequently, he followed the Central Army to participate in the Jiang-Gui War, the Central Plains War and other battles, and was promoted to the commander of the Fourth Brigade of the 2nd Division. Zheng Dongguo was one of the first nationalist troops to participate in the War of Resistance, and since the outbreak of the 918 Incident, the ambitions of the Japanese army have been expanding, and after occupying the three eastern provinces, they began to march on the various passes of the Great Wall. Under the pressure of the national anti-Japanese resistance, Chiang Kai-shek abandoned the encirclement and suppression of the Eighth Route Army and transferred three divisions of the Central Army, namely the 2nd, 25th, and 83rd Divisions, to form the 17th Army. Rushed to Gubeikou (The Great Wall Fortress between Shanhaiguan and Juyongguan) to resist the Japanese, and the Northeast Army and the Northwest Army also participated in the battle.
At that time, the Fourth Brigade of Zheng Dongguo was ordered to garrison the first-line position of the South Tianmen Gate. Soon after, the Chinese and Japanese armies began an 8-day and 8-night bloody battle on the south Tianmen line. Because the soldiers had fought the civil war before, they all had enough courage to fight the Japanese army this time, and repelled many Attacks of the Japanese Army, but due to poor support, they could only fight and retreat, until May 31, 1933, when the Two Sides signed the Tanggu Armistice Agreement, and finally the Great Wall Resistance War ended in failure. However, during the Great Wall War, one army played a prestigious role, that is, Feng Yuxiang's Twenty-ninth Army, and achieved a great victory at Xifengkou.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, Zheng Dongguo sat on the post of commander of the 2nd Division, and successively participated in the Battle of Baoding, the Battle of Xuzhou, the Battle of Taierzhuang, the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Changsha and other famous battles, and repeatedly achieved good results.
In 1946, Du Yuming, then commander of the Kuomintang Northeast Security Command, was seriously ill and invited him to go to the northeast to preside over the military affairs of the northeast on his behalf and serve as the acting commander- After Zheng Dongguo took office, he commanded hundreds of thousands of Kuomintang troops and quickly occupied several important cities in the northeast. In September 1948, after the outbreak of the Liaoshen Campaign, he was appointed chairman of Jilin Province and commander of the First Corps, and held Changchun, which was already surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, but he still fought to the death, and finally was held hostage by his men, laid down his weapons and surrendered, and broke away from the Kuomintang.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he retired from the military circles and devoted the rest of his life to the great cause of the reunification of the motherland. He died in Beijing in 1991 at the age of 88. He was the second of the Whampoa Military Academy graduates to be jointly chased down by both sides of the Strait, and the first was Du Yuming.