In the history of the People's Liberation Army, there was a very special unit, the 35th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. This unit was reorganized in February 1949 and withdrawn in January 1950, and in just one year of military history, it had set a record for capturing Nanjing and laying the foundation of the presidential palace.
However, this unit has two kinds of blood on its body, including the genes of the Kuomintang and even the puppet army, as well as the blood of the Luzhongnan Column, which can fight in battle, and the most interesting point is that the commander of the 35th Army has always been Wu Huawen, who has been scolded as a traitor. To understand the history of the 35th Army, we must start with Wu Huawen.
Wu Huawen was born in 1920, joined Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army in his early years, because he was Feng Yuxiang's service soldier, plus he was more clever, all the way to the green light, and soon became the chief of staff of the division. In 1930, after the Battle of the Central Plains, due to Feng Yuxiang's defeat, Wu Huawen joined Han Fuyu as a brigade commander.
In 1938, Han Fuyu was executed for "not obeying orders and retreating without authorization", and Wu Hua's Ministry of Culture and Culture came under the control of the Nationalist government, and its department was changed to the newly organized Fourth Division, which resisted The Japanese in the Shandong region.
Later, Wu Huawen defected to the Wang puppet regime, but was repeatedly defeated. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1945, Wu Huawen was again assigned to the Nationalist government and was appointed commander of the Fifth Route Army. However, Wu Huawen was always ostracized in the Kuomintang because he was born in the Northwest Army and served as a puppet army, which made him disheartened. Originally a wall-headed grass personality, he was uncomfortable in the Kuomintang, and he thought of the Communist Party.
After the outbreak of the War of Liberation, Chiang Kai-shek asked Wu Huawen to block the PLA on the front line, obviously intending to use the hands of the PLA to eliminate his miscellaneous army. In order not to be cannon fodder, Wu Huawen went to Shanghai to visit his old boss Feng Yuxiang. The Fengs and his wife showed Wu Huawen a clear path and asked him to contact the Communist Party, which was exactly what Wu Huawen wanted.
Wu Huawen
After contacting the party organization, Wu Huawen had the idea of surrendering. In April 1947, Wu Huawen's unit was reorganized into the Kuomintang Reorganized Eighty-fourth Division. In 1948, on the recommendation of Wang Yaowu, Wu Huawen's troops were reorganized into the Ninety-sixth Army, which was responsible for defending the western part of Jinan. However, no matter how his official position changed, Wu Huawen always felt that he was blindsided everywhere within Chiang Kai-shek's army, and his troops were not of Chiang Kai-shek's lineage, and were always cannon fodder, which made him very annoyed.
Because he had always maintained contact with the Communists, when the People's Liberation Army besieged Jinan in August 1948, Wu Huawen decided to revolt, and on September 16, he led the reorganized two brigades of the 84th Division and the independent brigade of the 96th Army to formally revolt.
After the Wubu uprising, with regard to their establishment, the PLA Headquarters sent a telegram to Su Yu, acting commander and political commissar of the East China Field Army: One army is organized into one army, one division and one division, and it must be worthy of the name, do not shrink because of discrimination against the other side, and do not make up a false organization in order to win the hearts and minds of the people, and Wubu can be temporarily organized into an army.
Subsequently, Wu Huawen withdrew with his troops to Jiyang for reorganization. On September 25, Wu Huawen sent a telegram of uprising to the whole country, and this force officially got rid of the shadow of Chiang Kai-shek's army, was reborn in Nirvana, and was officially organized: the 35th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
In order to show trust in Wu Huawen, this newly established unit was immediately incorporated into the sequence of the East China Field Army, with the same rank as other armies, and the prefix of "new organization" was removed to show equal treatment. The PLA Headquarters sent He Kexi, former deputy commander of the First Column, as political commissar of the 35th Army and Director of the Liaison Department of the Political Department of the East China Field Army wu Xian as director of the political department of the army.
Hokshi
It is precisely because of the trust of the PLA headquarters that the 35th Army feels a different atmosphere within Chiang Kai-shek's army and has a strong willingness to fight. The Battle of Huaihai entered the final stage, and Su Yu ordered the 35th Army to participate in the battle as a reserve, but before it could go to the battlefield, the battle was over.
In January 1949, the Huaihai Campaign officially ended, Huaye's whole army rested, in order to facilitate management, the headquarters decided to integrate the three columns of Jianghuai into three uprising troops. Among them, the Luzhongnan Column was merged into the 35th Army. This decision was opposed by the LuzhongNan Column, because in the early days of the Liberation War, the Luzhongnan Column was fighting with Wuhua Wenbu in Shandong, and the two sides were originally enemies with red eyes when they met, but now they were to merge into one unit. The soldiers of the Luzhongnan Column could not think straight, believing that this was an "arranged marriage" and did not consider the feelings of the soldiers.
In the face of resistance, Chen Yi had to mediate, saying: "Enriching the insurrectionary troops with revolutionary troops is helpful to the insurrectionary troops," we did not treat them as miscellaneous cards, nor as guests, but as our own family. ”
At this time, Wu Huawen also openly reviewed in front of the whole army and denounced what he had done in the past, at this point, the soldiers of the Luzhong South Column were relieved, the contradictions eased, the 35th Army successfully completed the reorganization, and Wu Huawen continued to serve as the commander.
In fact, Wu Huawen's 20,000 people were not many because of the escape and dismissal, and the Luzhongnan Column was enriched into the 35th Army, accounting for 60% of the whole army, while the original rebel troops only left one regiment in each division, in a sense, the 35th Army had become a "red miaozheng" unit at this time.
The 35th Army, which had completed its reorganization, was assigned to the 8th Corps. On April 8, 1949, the 8th Corps Chen Bing on the north bank of the Yangtze River was about to encircle Nanjing. Su Yu's task to the 35th Army was to blockade the river, bite the enemy in Nanjing, not let the other side run, and wait for other troops to cross the river and encircle the enemy. Specifically, the operational objective of the 35th Army was Chiang Kai-shek's 28th Army, and Su Yu stressed that the 35th Army should not immediately capture the "Miura" areas of Jiangpu, Puzhen, and Pukou, nor should it shell Nanjing.
Judging from Su Yu's arrangement, the main task of the 35th Army at this time was not to liberate Nanjing, but to contain the Kuomintang 28th Army on the north bank of the Yangtze River, but after several days of fierce fighting, the 28th Army had basically lost its combat effectiveness. On the morning of April 22, a million male divisions of the People's Liberation Army's Eastern, Central and Western Roads successfully crossed the Yangtze River, and Chiang Kai-shek's Yangtze River defense line collapsed. At noon on the 22nd, Chiang Kai-shek abandoned Nanjing and the whole army retreated.
The People's Liberation Army Headquarters had originally scheduled the Erye 4th Corps to take over Nanjing, but at this time they were still in Anhui Andang, and it would take at least two weeks to move to Nanjing, so the task of the 4th Corps to take over Nanjing was cancelled. After the battle, the 35th Army had already occupied the "Miura" area of Nanjing and had the best conditions for entering Nanjing, so the 35th Army naturally became the vanguard of the liberation of Nanjing.
Su Yu sent a telegram to the 8th Corps: "If the enemy in Nanjing escapes, the 35th Army should immediately cross the river, enter and occupy Nanjing, and maintain order." On the afternoon of the 22nd, the 35th Army met at the Pukou Railway Station and formulated a battle plan, and on the morning of the 23rd, the various units of the army arrived at Pukou one after another and prepared to cross the river. After a day and a night of transportation, the 35th Army all arrived at the city of Nanjing.
Because the enemy had retreated, Nanjing was in fact an empty city, and the 35th Army entered the city without encountering fierce resistance. On the 24th, the special agent company of the 312th Regiment of the 104th Division preemptively occupied the Kuomintang Presidential Palace, and then the 315th Regiment of the 105th Division entered the Presidential Palace and raised a bright red flag in the gate tower of the palace. At this point, the 35th Army led by Wu Huawen and He Kexi and fraternal troops completed the glorious task of liberating Nanjing.
He Kexi, political commissar of the 35th Army, later recalled: "Being able to successfully liberate Nanjing with the cooperation of other units is the greatest glory of our 35th Army!" ”
On April 29, Su Yu ordered the 24th Army of the 8th Corps to go to Nanjing to take over the defense, and the 35th Army was transferred to Zhejiang to Jinhua to suppress the remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's army. More than half a year later, on January 16, 1950, the East China Military Region ordered the 30th Army and the 35th Army to be abolished.
The 35th Army Headquarters and the Military Artillery Regiment were assigned to the newly established People's Navy, and the three infantry divisions under its jurisdiction were transferred to the Zhejiang Military Region. At this point, the 35th Army, which had been established for only one year, withdrew from the establishment of the people's army and completed its historical mission. Wu Huawen also submitted a request to return to his hometown due to illness, which was approved by the organization.
The 35th Army is the shortest unit in the history of the People's Liberation Army, its combat experience is not long, but it is not ordinary, Chiang Kai-shek's miscellaneous origins, so that it is not very honorable, although it accepted the blood transfusion of the Luzhong South Column, changed genes, but still carrying a lingering historical burden, until the glorious liberation of Nanjing, this unit finally bid farewell to the past and proved itself.
Although the history of the 35th Army is short, through bloody battles, it has found an indelible position in the genealogy of the People's Liberation Army and completed its historical mission.