During the Liberation War, our army captured many senior generals of the Nationalist army, among whom the most famous were Du Yuming and Wang Yaowu. So who was the highest-ranking of these captured senior generals of the Nationalist army? Perhaps some friends will say that it is Du Yuming, who served as the commander of the Kuomintang Northeast Security And was a serious eight-hundred-year-old feudal official. But in fact, one of the captured generals of the Nationalist army had a higher rank than Du Yuming, and when he was captured by our army, his position was deputy commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang army.
The middleman is Tang Yao
So who is this person? He is Tang Yao. The name Tang Yao may feel very strange to many people. It felt like any famous battle or battle had nothing to do with him, in fact, In the Liberation War, Tang Yao played a role in playing soy sauce. Tang Yao is a native of Hefei, Anhui Province, born in 1897, after graduating from hefei Wubei Academy, he could not find a job for a long time, and was forced by life to join the Youth Gang. After the establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy, there were not enough instructors, and Tang Yao, after some operations, became an arms instructor at the Whampoa Military Academy with the rank of colonel.
Many of the instructors of the Whampoa Military Academy later went to the battlefield and became leading generals, the most famous of which was Liu Zhi. He started as a tactical instructor and eventually became one of the five generals of the old Jiang Wuhu, an official to the commander of the theater, and became prominent for a while. Although Tang Yao later went to the battlefield, he spent most of his time in the military station and logistics support department, although he was a fat man, but because he had never led the troops to fight on the front line, his reputation was always inconspicuous. At the end of the Liberation War, Tang Yao served as chief of staff of the Kuomintang Army Command.
The image of Tang Yao in film and television dramas
After our army liberated Nanjing, Tang Yao ran to Guangzhou, and soon after Guangzhou was also liberated by our army, Tang Yao ran to Qujing, Yunnan. After coming to Yunnan, Tang Yao cheered up his subordinates and said that he would do a good job here and prepare for future counteroffensives. Unexpectedly, as soon as his voice fell, Lu Han revolted in Kunming. In order to regain Kunming, Lao Jiang appointed Tang Yao as deputy commander-in-chief of the army and asked him to lead the 8th Army and the 26th Army to counterattack Kunming. Although the troops were superior, Tang Yao never led the troops to fight, so there was no tactic in command, and he was eventually repelled by Lu Han.
At this time, the Erye army was approaching Kunming, and Tang Yao was afraid that he had been wrapped in dumplings, so he hastily led his troops to retreat to the Mengzi area. At that time, Mengzi also had a military airfield, and Tang Yao thought that even if he could not defend Mengzi, he could escape by plane. In order to cut off the enemy's air escape route, Liu Bocheng ordered the main force of the Erye 13th Army to advance from Nanning to Mengzi. The 13th Army again gave the leading task to the 37th Division, when the 37th Division was still more than 2,000 miles away from Mengzi, in order to complete the task on time, deputy division commander Wu Xiaomin personally led the 110th Regiment to run forward at the speed of a rapid march.
Founding Major General Wu Xiaomin
After 14 days and nights of forced marching, the 110th Regiment arrived in Mengzi on the night of January 15, 1950 and occupied the airport with great force. Tang Yao, who was watching the Beijing opera at the theater, did not expect that the People's Liberation Army would descend from heaven, and after learning the news of the loss of the Mengzi airport, Tang Yao panicked and hurriedly led his troops to retreat in the direction of the Red River and the Yuan River, in a vain attempt to escape into Vietnam. Our army then launched a multi-way pursuit. After the vanguard of the 8th Army ran across the Yuanjiang Iron Rope Bridge, in order to block the pursuing troops of our army, they blew up the bridge despite the fact that Tang Yao had not yet crossed the bridge.
He had not yet crossed the bridge, and the vanguard troops actually blew up the bridge, and Tang Yao almost vomited blood after learning the news. In order to escape, even the deputy commander-in-chief could not take care of it, which showed the extent to which the national army was chaotic at that time. Tang Yao had no choice but to run along the river to the mountains. At dawn on the 24th, the 37th Division caught up with the fleeing enemy, ending the battle in less than an hour and capturing Cao Tiange, the commander of the 8th Army, alive. After learning of Tang Yao's whereabouts from Cao Tiange's mouth, Wu Xiaomin immediately ordered: "Those who can run with me will advance in the direction of Ertang Mountain, and those who can't run will catch prisoners on the spot." Act fast, be sure to catch Tang Yao alive! ”
Half an hour later, the 1st Company of the 110th Regiment found more than 1,000 remnants of Tang Yao in a ravine. Without any hesitation, the company commander Zhang Hesuo immediately ordered the troops to launch a charge. More than 1,000 enemies were frightened by the PLA's charge and ran away. The 1st Company began to capture prisoners all over the mountains, and Tang Yao was eventually captured alive by Hao Zhengfu, the leader of the 1st Platoon. From being appointed deputy commander-in-chief of the army by Chiang Kai-shek to being captured alive by the People's Liberation Army, it was only a little more than a month apart, and Tang Yao became the highest-ranking nationalist general captured in the Liberation War. Tang Yao was then sent to Gongdelin for rehabilitation, and died of illness in 1962.