Wu Qiwei (1891-1953), born in 1891 in Mikeng Village, Huliao Town, Dapu County, Guangdong Province, was the fourth among his brothers. Lieutenant General of the National Revolutionary Army, famous general of the Northern Expedition and famous general of the Anti-Japanese Resistance.
In 1919, he graduated from the sixth term of the Baoding Army Officer School. Graduated from the first class of the General Officer Class of the Army University.
Because of his family's poverty, when he was 10 years old, he left home to work as a young man in the shops opened by his uncle in Lianping, Huizhou and other places.
He was intelligent and studious, diligent and sensitive, and was deeply appreciated by his uncle, and with the support of his uncle, he completed primary and secondary schools in Huizhou.
At the age of 13, he worked as a young man in a shop in Laolong, and was later funded by others to study at the Huangpu Army Primary School in Guangzhou and the Wuchang Army Primary School, and then entered the Baoding Army Officer School, graduated from the sixth period, and then served as a probationary platoon leader in the Chen Jiongming Department in Guangdong, successively serving as a platoon leader, company commander, deputy battalion commander and other positions.
Later, he served as the commander of the Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, the commander-in-chief of the Ninth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, the commander of the defense of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the deputy commander of the Sixth Theater, and the chairman of the Hunan Provincial Government.
During the National Revolution, he participated in the Unification of Guangdong and the Northern Expedition.
During the ten-year civil war, he participated in the fourth and fifth encirclement and suppression of the Central Soviet Region. After the Long March of the Red Army, he led his troops to pursue the Red Army to Sichuan.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wu Qiwei resolutely went all out to resist the Japanese, and he led the Fourth Army to the anti-Japanese front line around Jiading and Luodian to wage a fierce battle with the Japanese army.
In order to defend the territory of the motherland, after three days and nights of hand-to-hand combat and bloody fighting, the stubborn enemy was finally defeated and thousands of enemies were annihilated. The Fourth Army led by Wu Qiwei has since won the glorious title of "Iron Army".
Since then, he has also led his troops to participate in the "August 13" Battle of Songhu, the Battle of Wanjialing at the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Nanxun Line and the Battle of Western Hubei, and has won the Order of the Blue Sky and White Sun.
During the Liberation War, it was jointly revolted with 7 other Guangdong Kuomintang military and political personnel.
The eastern Guangdong uprising was successful, and most of Meizhou and Huizhou were liberated ahead of schedule.
(Wu Qiwei and Luo Zhuoying in the Forbidden City)
Participated in the Northern Expedition
When Wu Qiwei graduated from high school, it was on the eve of the Xinhai Revolution.
He was admitted to the Guangdong Army Primary School in Huangpu, Guangzhou, then entered the Wuchang Army Second Preparatory School, and then promoted to the sixth phase of the Baoding Army Officer School, graduating in the autumn of 1919.
After graduation, Wu Qiwei returned to Guangdong to join the Guangdong Army, and successively served as a probationary platoon leader, a company commander, and a battalion deputy. Fortunately, Wu Qiwei was assigned to the 1st Division of the Cantonese Army.
Under the influence of the good atmosphere of the First Division, Wu Qiwei advanced politically and militarily at the same time.
He successively participated in two eastern expeditions against Chen Jiongming, quelled Yang Liu's rebellion, and fought in the Southern Expedition, and was tempered as never before in actual combat, and was both literate and martial, laying a good foundation for him to become one of the famous Cantonese generals of the sixth period of Baoding.
In July 1926, the National Revolutionary Army waved the Northern Expedition, Wu Qiwei served as the deputy commander of the 36th Regiment of the 12th Division of the Fourth Army, in the battle against Pingjiang, Tingsi Bridge, He Sheng Bridge and Wuchang City, he eliminated the concerns of the elder among the same level or even the superior commanders, took the lead, charged into the battlefield, assisted Huang Qixiang, a native of Meixian County, who was 8 years younger than himself, and won many battles, which was highly praised by soldiers, colleagues and appreciated by his superiors.
With the victory of the Northern Expedition and the brilliant achievements of the Fourth Army, wu Qiwei was known as the "Iron Army", and Wu Qiwei, with his diligence and bravery, leapt to become one of the main generals in the Fourth Army, but he was not a first-class role.
Wu Qiwei's real rise in the military circles came in the first half of the first civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists.
In less than five years from the end of the Northern Expedition to September 1932, he was promoted from a mid-level officer to the commander of the long-established Fourth Army, and transferred from a Cantonese soldier to the Chiang Kai-shek Central Army.
Pursue the Red Army
As soon as Chiang Kai-shek appointed Wu Qiwei as the commander of the Fourth Army, he summoned him to Jiangxi to participate in the fourth "encirclement and suppression" of the central base areas.
In this "encirclement and suppression" of the Red Army, Chiang Kai-shek gathered the strength of more than 30 divisions and drove straight into the left, center, and right roads, and Wu Qiwei's troops were incorporated into Chen Cheng's Middle Route Army and served as the commander of the second column.
As soon as Wu Qiwei commanded the Second Column into contact with the Red Army, it was attacked by the ambushed Red Army left and right, and more than half of the losses were lost.
In the autumn of the same year, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized more than 500,000 heavy troops, made himself commander-in-chief, and launched the fifth large-scale "encirclement and suppression" of the Central Red Army.
Wu Qiwei served as the commander of the 7th Column of the Northern Road Army, commanding the Fourth Army and the 99th Division of Guo Siyan, a fellow of Tai Po. Wu Qiwei carried out Chiang Kai-shek's operational policy, and every time he went deeper, he built a bunker, both as a fortification and as a blockade fortress, and gradually advanced to avoid going deep alone.
At this time, the Central Red Army, commanded by Bogu, the interim head of the Central Provisional Committee, who lacked practical experience, and Li De, a military adviser of the Comintern who was good at urban defense warfare, adopted the tactic of attacking hard and fighting hard, which led to the failure of the anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign and forced to withdraw from the base area.
In October 1934, the Long March of the Red Army, Chiang Kai-shek calculated: the Red Army withdrew west to Xiangyue, with the former fourth army generals Xue Yue and Wu Qiwei as the vanguard of the pursuit of the Red Army, which was particularly appropriate.
Because of the Eastern Expedition, the Northern Expedition, Xue and Wu have been here for a long time and are familiar with the local geographical customs.
In December, the Red Army in the Long March accepted Mao Zedong's proposal at the Liping Conference, changed the plan to meet the Second and Sixth Armies of the Red Army in western Hunan Province, turned to qianbei, where the enemy was weak, forcibly crossed the Wu River, and captured Zunyi.
The Red Army's move was unexpected by Chiang Kai-shek. Jiang urgently summoned Xue Yue and Wu Qiwei to turn to Guizhou and advance, and to cooperate with the local troops of Wang Jialie in Guizhou to retake Zunyi at any cost.
But at that time, the "Zunyi Conference" had already been convened, the command power began to be controlled by Mao Zedong, and his subordinates Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao were all strong generals, and such a lineup, Wu Qiwei, Xue Yue, and Wang Jialie, were far from opponents.
Although Wu Qiwei led all his troops into battle, and once occupied the main peak of Lao Ya Shan on the outskirts of the city, he could not escape the fate of annihilation in the end, and he lost more than half of his troops, and he himself almost became a prisoner.
Fortunately, in order to cover up the defeat, his superior Xue Yue reduced the number of casualties and losses, and at the same time asked for punishment himself, in order to seek forgiveness from Chiang Kai-shek. Wu Qiwei successfully passed the pass, was exempted from punishment, and regrouped to pursue the Red Army and "make meritorious atonement for his sins."
Fight against the Japanese
In August 1937, the Songhu War of Resistance broke out. Wu Qiwei was ordered to lead his troops to Songhu, serving as the commander of the Eighteenth Army and deputy commander-in-chief of the Nineteenth Army, and blocking the Japanese army at Luodian, Liu Xing, and Dachang.
During the battle, Wu Qiwei assisted the commander-in-chief Luo Zhuoying and commanded the troops to adopt "concealed tactics".
When the enemy planes and artillery are heavily bombarded, our officers and men ambush in the trenches to hide and monitor the enemy, adjust their positions purposefully between artillery fire, and when the enemy charge is approaching, concentrate their firepower on the enemy nearby, and engage in hand-to-hand combat when they are in contact with the enemy's short troops, so as to block the enemy's attack.
Although the Chinese defenders were finally defeated and retreated under the powerful artillery attack of the enemy, Wu Qiwei and many Kuomintang officers and men showed a military style of defending the territory and having a responsibility in the Songhu War of Resistance, which was praised by public opinion and affirmed by people from all walks of life.
In July 1938, the Japanese Kou gathered heavy troops to march west along the two banks of the Yangtze River and detoured from the north and south ends to Wuhan, an important town in the central part of the mainland.
At this time, Wu Qiwei was promoted to commander-in-chief of the Ninth Army, leading the new commander Ou Zhen's Fourth Army, under the command of Xue Yue, commander-in-chief of the First Corps, and was responsible for the war on the Nanxun Line.
In late July, relying on the artillery fire of warships and aircraft bombs on the Yangtze River, the Japanese army captured jiujiang, a barrier southeast of Wuhan, and attacked the strongholds of our army in northern Jiangxi.
In accordance with the strategic deployment of the headquarters, Wu Qiwei successively commanded Ou Zhen, Li Hanling, Ye Zhao, Yu Jishi, and Wang Jingjiu to block the Japanese army in the area of Xingzi, Ruichang, Baicha, and the southern foothills of Lushan for 4 months.
Regarding the glory of the "Great Victory of Wanjialing", it was generally under Xue Yue's name, but the specific commander of this battle was actually Wu Qiwei.
At that time, after the tactical plan was formulated, the armies entered a state of imminent battle, and Xue Yue ordered: "The time of attack and the detailed deployment shall be stipulated by Wu Qiwei." Wu Qiwei personally went to the front and "gave the order on June 15".
(Wanjialing Victory Memorial Park, Wu Qiwei, Xue Yue-Zhong)
In October 1940, Wu Qiwei was transferred from the post of deputy commander of the Fourth Theater to the deputy commander of the Sixth Theater and the commander of the defense of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
The strategic position of defense in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is very important, and it is responsible for blocking the Japanese ground troops along the coast, ships along the Jiangxi River, and threatening Sichuan and Chongqing.
Wu Qiwei set up a general headquarters at Sandouping in western Hubei, commanding Fang Tian's Eighteenth Army, ChiFengcheng's Thirtieth Army, Song Kentang's Thirty-second Army, and Fang Riying's Eighty-sixth Army.
In May 1943, the Japanese 3rd Division and the 13th Division attacked the Jiangfang Army's garrison between Shipai and Qingjiang.
Wu Qiwei set up the front-line command post in a cave not far from the enemy, and without fear of the bombardment of enemy aircraft, commanded the defenders to stubbornly resist the attack of the Japanese army, and ordered Hu Lian, commander of the 11th Division of the Eighteenth Army, to hold the Shipai Fortress.
Under the unified command of Chen Cheng, commander of the Sixth Theater, and the cooperation of other group armies, Wu Qiwei led the Jiang Defense Army to bravely defend.
The Japanese army could not attack for a long time and ordered a retreat. Wu Qiwei, Hu Lian, Commander of the Theater, Fang Tian, Commander of the Eighteenth Army, and Luo Guangwen, Deputy Commander of the Eighteenth Army, were also awarded the highest honor of the Nationalist Army, the Order of qingtian and White Sun.
Eastern Guangdong Uprising
At the end of 1944, on the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Wu Qiwei entered the first class of the General Class of the Army University for training. In the middle of the following year, he became the chairman of the Hunan provincial government and the commander of the provincial military district.
Wu Qiwei did not serve long in Hunan and was dismissed on April 9, 1946.
After Wu Qiwei stepped down as chairman of Xiang Province, he was successively appointed deputy director of the Wuhan Xingying Camp, deputy director of the Xuzhou Appeasement Office, deputy commander-in-chief of the North China "Suppression General", and deputy director of the Guangdong Appeasement Office. In the meantime, when the second civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists broke out in full swing, Wu Qiwei showed his tiredness of continuing the civil war, and he long excused himself or handled household chores or recuperated from illness, staying on the sidelines.
Seizing the opportunity, the Hong Kong Branch of the CPC dispatched Rao Zhangfeng and Wu Qiyan to do his ideological work as fellow villagers and relatives and friends, as well as the active instigation of Wu Qiwei's old subordinates Wei Jianxian and Zeng Tianjie, who participated in the revolution in his early years, joined the Nationalist army, and fought back to his "hometown" during the "uprising" during the Liberation War, and Wu Qiwei's thinking was gradually transformed.
In May 1949, led by him, seven other Guangdong Kuomintang military and political personnel jointly issued an uprising declaration in Laolong, Longchuan. After the success of the uprising in eastern Guangdong, most of Meizhou and Huizhou were liberated ahead of schedule, and on June 21, Mao Zedong and Zhu Defu sent a telegram to praise the uprising, expressing "great satisfaction" and "welcome" to the uprising.
In late September 1949, as one of the representatives of the South China People's Liberation Army, Wu Qiwei went to Beijing to attend the political consultative conference of the Chinese people, and was elected as a member of the First National Committee, one of the 7 members of the 198 members. On October 1, he participated in the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China.
He later served as a member of the Central South Military and Political Committee, a member of the People's Government of Guangdong Province, and the chairman of the Board of Directors of Guangzhou University. On July 10, 1953, Wu Qiwei died of illness in Beijing at the age of 63.
(Tomb of Wu Qiwei of Babaoshan Mountain)
In 2005, Wu Qiwei's former residence was announced by the People's Government of Dapu County as a county-level cultural relics protection unit.
On August 12, 2008, the General Wu Qiwei Memorial Arch was formed in Mikeng Village, Huliao Town, Dapu County.
On the morning of August 23, 2013, the unveiling ceremony of the former residence of General Wu Qiwei, a famous anti-Japanese general, was held in Dapu County.
In the Liberation War, Wu Qiwei revolted and became a hero in the liberation of Guangdong.
His deeds in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression were fully affirmed, and his examples were widely mentioned in the commemoration of the Battles of Songhu, Wuhan, and Western Hubei, and were selected for relevant memorials.