With copper as a mirror, you can wear a crown; with history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall; with people as a mirror, you can see the gains and losses- "Old Book of Tang, Wei Zheng Biography"
Tang Enbo was one of the important generals of the Nationalist army, and at the same time a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek, and the commander-in-chief of the Japanese dispatch army, Okamura Ningji, once believed that "Tang Enbo is the most capable general of the Nationalist army."
Even Okamura Ningji, who was an enemy army, commented on Tang Enbo in this way, which shows that Tang Enbo was an extremely excellent anti-Japanese general, but such a famous anti-Japanese general was considered one of the four evils by the people of Henan at that time.
In the last century, Henan folk spread the saying of four pests, the four pests are "water", "drought", "locust" and "soup", water refers to flood, drought refers to drought, locust refers to locust plague, and soup refers to Tang Enbo.
Together with Jiang Dingwen, who was also a general in the Nationalist army, he also recalled himself in his later years:
"In Henan at that time, there was a folk song that would rather the Japanese army come to burn and kill than Tang Enbo to station."
So what did Tang Enbo do in Henan, and why did the people of Henan hate Tang Enbo so much, not only comparing him to one of the four evils, but even preferring the Japanese army to burn and kill, rather than Tang Enbo to station?
In 1942, a major disaster occurred in Henan, and after the famine occurred, it did not rain for several months, which also led to the people's grain harvest only 10% or 20% of the previous years, but natural disasters were terrible, but compared with it, man-made disasters were the reason why most of the people in Henan at that time could not survive.
As early as December 1940, Tang Enbo was appointed commander-in-chief of the border regions of the four provinces of Lusu, Yuwan, and Anhui, and continued to serve as the commander-in-chief of the 31st Group Army, which at that time was stationed in Ye County, Henan, with more than 400,000 troops stationed in Henan.
In 1942, after the outbreak of famine in Henan, Tang Enbo took this opportunity to vigorously expand the army, and the more the army expanded, the more supplies and food were needed, however, as early as 1938, in order to solve the problem of insufficient supplies for the army.
Chiang Kai-shek proposed
"The difficulties ahead must be solved by the front, and the local affairs must be solved by the local area."
At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek also allowed the army to set up cooperatives to improve the lives of officers and soldiers.
With Chiang Kai-shek's words, Tang Enbo was even more unscrupulous, using the name of setting up cooperatives to engage in military business, according to Hu Zongnan's diary on February 20, 1944, Tang Enbo quietly revealed:
In the next year, efforts will be made to purchase materials, and Henan tobacco leaves will be exchanged for Xuhai's salt, and it is expected that this year's income will be 20,000 yuan. The expenditure was 60 million yuan for guerrilla clothing, 30 million yuan for recurrent expenses, 1.5 million yuan for the reception of young people, 100,000 yuan for the commander-in-chief's allowance, 10,000 yuan for the chief of staff, and 5,000 yuan for the deputy chief of staff.
In addition, Tang Enbo also wantonly expanded the army, using the expansion of the army as an excuse to levy more grain taxes on the local people in Henan.
Tang Enbo's troops were expanded, they all went directly into the villages to arrest people, forcibly conscripted, each time a few dozen people, hundreds of people, in order to avoid being forcibly conscripted, you must pay some bribes to the conscripted soldiers, either give thirty or fifty yuan, or give two or three stones of wheat.
This also makes the people who are arrested are poor people, after being conscripted, it does not mean that there is any guarantee, and the conscription officers of Tang Enbo's unit are still frequent
"Withholding soldiers, deducting rations, embezzling medicine." As soon as Zhuang Ding was conscripted, it was like entering the ghost gate...".
In order to strengthen his own power, Tang Enbo recruited many local bandits and rogue armed forces, and under such a mixed integration, the number of Tang Enbo's army reached a maximum of about 600,000 people, which also made Tang Enbo's army quality decline rapidly.
Under the indulgence of Tang Enbo, these absorbed troops, under the banner of Tang Enbo, bullied men and women in the local area, and did all kinds of evil, and at that time, Zhang Zhonglu, who was then the director of the Construction Department of Henan Province, later described the scene like this:
Hundreds of thousands of disciplined and corrupt bandit-like troops have lived in Henan for a long time and eaten Henan to the ground. No matter how small the household is, there is no food reserve. When the famine came, they panicked and helpless. The poor discipline of the garrison at that time was indescribable.
The Thirteenth Army was a disciple of Tang Enbo, and it fought against Tang Enbo's forces, rampaged through the local cabinet, committed many evils, and the pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks raised by the peasants were also plundered as much as possible.
What is particularly heinous is that when a hen is arrested, an egg is extorted, and the peasant is a little late, and the soldier who is a soldier loudly rebukes him: The hen can not lay eggs, where are the eggs?
The absurdity and shamelessness of the officers are even more difficult to say. If an officer had called a refugee girl for her to play with, but after inquiring about her family lineage, it was found that it was his own daughter (this officer had been in the army for many years, abandoned his family, married a new family, and fled to the army station in the midst of the catastrophe).
Tang Enbo's actions also laid the foundation for the defeat of the future Battle of Yuxianggui.
In April 1944, the Battle of Yuxianggui broke out, and the Battle of Yuzhong (also known as the Battle of Henan), the Battle of Yuzhong was an important part of the Battle of Yuxianggui, after the outbreak of the Battle of Yuzhong, according to the Cambridge History of the Republic of China, the Battle of Yuzhong was recorded:
In the winter of 1942-1943, there was a full-scale famine, with many people eating bark, grass roots and livestock feed. It is reported that there are human flesh eaters. About two or three million people died in the disaster; another 3 million fled outside the province.
Subsequently, hundreds of thousands of Henan farmers were rushed together to transport grain to the grain collection center in horse-drawn carriages and trolleys, to find forage for the military horses, to build roads, and to dig a huge 300-mile anti-tank trench — which proved to be completely useless. - The Cambridge History of the Republic of China, Vol. 2, Chapter XI, Section VIII
The Kuomintang, because of its widespread corruption and inflationary tendencies like a deadlocked horse, could not show a fundamental difference from that of the Japanese.
Official incompetence, grain stockpiles and speculation exacerbated the famine of 1942-1943, with an estimated 2 million farmers dying of starvation. When the Japanese invaded Henan in 1944, they encountered no peasant resistance.
On the contrary, the peasants attacked the Kuomintang troops on certain occasions, surrendered their weapons, and even killed them. - The Cambridge History of the Republic of China, Vol. II, Chapter XII, Section XIV
Because the Tang army was running amok and doing no evil in Henan, after the henan campaign broke out, the people of Henan shouted the slogan of "I would rather the Japanese army come to burn and kill than Tang Enbo to garrison."
Even many ordinary people in Henan also acted independently to help the Japanese army kill the defeated Soldiers of the Tang Army, which caused a great sensation at the time and became a scandal in the history of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
In this regard, Wang Shoudao, then political commissar of the Independent First Guerrilla Detachment of the Eighth Route Army, said in a speech at the anti-Japanese Military and Political University branch in November 1944:
Some people say that the Kuomintang army, like the armies of Hu Zongnan and Tang Enbo, is not protecting the interests of the people, but endangering the interests of the people, and the people of Henan hate such an army very much.
The people of Henan say it well, there are four wildernesses in Henan: water, drought, locusts, and soup, and soup is Tang Enbo's military disaster.
The common people hate Tang Enbo like locusts, Tang Enbo's army will be exhausted wherever it goes, Japan implements the 'three lights' policy, and so does Tang Enbo.
After the end of the Battle of Yuzhong, Chen Cheng, the commander of the First Theater, summed up the reasons for the defeat in the Battle of Yuzhong.
He held that "cadres at all levels have almost all become figures who do not distinguish between officials and businessmen, and one by one they are entangled in their waists," and That Tang Enbo "cannot set an example by example, and his personality is too strong, and he is effective from top to bottom, and he is often deceived by the same rate and does not dare to raise his head," and "the corruption of military discipline is really an indisputable fact."
Judging from the above content and evaluation, Tang Enbo is considered by the people to be one of the four harms in Henan, but in fact, it is not wronged him.
References: "Water, Drought, Locusts, and Soups" in the National Unity Area of Henan during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Research on the Historical Memory of the Great Disaster in Henan from 1942 to 1943, And a Cambridge History of the Republic of China