In the history of the People's Liberation Army, there have been five major field armies, namely the Northwest Field Army, the Central Plains Field Army, the East China Field Army, the Northeast Field Army, and the North China Field Army. Among them, the first four field armies were reorganized into the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Field Armies after the reorganization of the whole army, while the North China Field Army was directly subordinate to the headquarters of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. In the history of the battle sequences of these five field armies, the formation of columns has been used, and each field army has multiple columns. Interestingly, in the column formation of the four major field armies, they all deliberately avoided a number, which became a strange phenomenon in military history. Only the Northeast Field Army did not believe in evil and later filled the vacancy.
The Northwest Field Army had 7 columns
By February 1, 1949, before the unified reorganization of the whole army, the Northwest Field Army had a total of 7 field columns, including the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th columns, with a total strength of more than 75,000 people.
The commanders of the seven columns were He Bingyan (admiral), Wang Zhen (admiral), Xu Guangda (general), Wang Shitai (not awarded the title due to his transfer to local work), Luo Yuanfa (lieutenant general), Peng Shaohui (general), and Yao Zhe (lieutenant general).
The Central Plains Field Army once had 9 columns
In April 1948, the Central Plains Field Army and the Central Plains Military Region were established at the same time, with the commanders and political commissars liu and Deng respectively. There were 7 field columns and the 38th Army in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 9th and 11th Columns.
The commanders of these seven columns were Yang Yong (admiral), Chen Zaidao (admiral), Chen Xilian (admiral), general Chen Xilian (shangjun), general Chen (geng) of the fourth column, Wang Jinshan (lieutenant general) of the sixth column, general of the ninth column Qin (Jiwei), and Wang Bingzhang (lieutenant general) of the eleventh column.
In the history of Erye, there were also brief occurrences of the Seventh and Eighth Columns, that is, in November 1945, when it was still called the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region, and the commanders of the Seventh Column and the Eighth Column were Yang Yong (Admiral) and General Xie (Fuzhi), respectively.
The East China Field Army once had 16 columns
Before the reorganization of the whole army in February 1949, the East China Field Army successively established 16 field columns.
The commanders of each column were: 1 column Ye Fei, 2 columns and 1 Wei Guoqing (first), Teng Haiqing (second term), 3 columns He Yixiang (first term), Sun Jixian (second term), 4 columns Tao Yong, 6 columns Wang Bicheng, 7 vertical Chengjun, 8 column Wang Jian'an (first term), Zhang Renchu (second term), ninth column Xu Shiyou (first term), Nie Fengzhi (second term), 10 longitudinal Song Shilun, eleven longitudinal pipe Wen Wei (first term), Hu Bingyun (second term), 12 longitudinal Chen Qingxian (first term), Xie Zhenhua (second term), thirteen column Zhou Zhijian, special column Chen Ruiting, Yuan Yelie of the Binhai Column, Fu Qiutao (the first) and Qian Jun (the second term) of the Luzhongnan Column, and Zeng Sheng of the Two Guangdong Columns.
The Northeast Field Army once had 12 columns
Before the reorganization of the Northeast Field Army in November 1948, it had 12 columns under its jurisdiction.
The commanders of each column were Li Tianyou (admiral), Liu Zhen of the second column, Han Xianchu (general) of the third column, Wu Kehua (lieutenant general) of the fourth column, Wan Yi (lieutenant general) of the fifth column, general of the sixth column Hong (Xuezhi), general Deng Hua of the seventh column, general Huang (Yongsheng) of the eighth column, Zhan Caifang (lieutenant general) of the ninth column, Liang Xingchu (lieutenant general) of the tenth column, He Jinnian (major general) of the eleventh column, and Zhong Wei (major general) of the twelfth column.
The North China Field Army once had 11 columns
Among the five major field armies, the column organization of the North China Field Army is the most distinctive and unique.
Before the reorganization of the whole army in February 1949, the North China Field Army had a total of 11 columns under its jurisdiction, in addition to the 9 columns of the first, second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, there were also two eighth columns, namely the eighth column of the first corps of the North China Military Region (commander Wang Xinting) and the eighth column of the second corps of the North China Military Region (commander Qiu Wei).
It can be seen from this that the North China Field Army did not have the Fifth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Columns, but was organized into the Fifteenth Column.
Among the five major field armies, why did only the Northeast Field Army set up the Fifth Column?
A very interesting problem can be found through the above-mentioned inventory of the column organization of the five major field armies: In addition to the Northeast Field Army, the four major field armies in the northwest, central plains, east China, and north China have not appeared in the history of the "fifth column", and they have remained vacant from beginning to end.
In fact, strictly speaking, before March 1948, the five major field armies had been vacant with the title of "Fifth Column".
In October 1946, when the Northeast Minmin (Main) Coalition Army, the predecessor of the Northeast Field Army, was first formed, there were only the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth columns, and only the fifth column was missing.
Why? Is there anything special about this?
Yes, the four major field armies are indeed deliberately circumventing the name of the Fifth Column, because the "Fifth Column" was once a notorious number in world military history.
Why did the "Fifth Column" make everyone avoid it?
To clarify the context of this matter, it is necessary to mention a period of history during the Spanish Civil War.
In 1936, there was a large-scale rebellion in Spain, with a rebel general leading four columns to attack Madrid in conjunction with the fascist armies of Italy and Germany. At the same time, he also arranged the fifth column in Madrid as an internal response to realize his plot of internal and external attacks.
Since then, the "Fifth Column" has become synonymous with the treasonous troops, becoming a shameful name and a major political (political) taboo, and all countries in the world have deliberately avoided the establishment of the "Fifth Column".
During the War of Liberation in our country, the major strategic regions of our army also conformed to this trend when arranging the number of troops, and none of them adopted the name of "Fifth Column."
Why does the Northeast Field Army not believe in evil?
By February 1948, a full 12 years had passed since the history of the Spanish rebellion, and the notoriety of the "Fifth Column" had faded with the passage of time.
At the same time, with the needs of the development of the war, the Northeast Field Army needed to expand the troops, and the chiefs felt that in the middle of the column sequence, there was always an empty "fifth column" which was somewhat awkward, so this number re-entered the scope of consideration of the chiefs.
Coupled with the fact that the Northeast Field Army was able to fight in the habit of fighting, it was a particularly capable unit, and the chiefs felt that such an iron army should not be limited to a small number, so in March 1948, the Fifth Column was established and appointed Wan Yi, a fierce general who had been lamented by the Japanese puppet army that "I am not afraid of ten thousand, I am afraid of Wan Yi" as commander.
Since then, the Northeast Field Army has had a complete column number from the first column to the twelfth column, which can also be regarded as alleviating the "obsessive-compulsive disorder" of many military fans to a certain extent!