On March 26, 1950, the People's Liberation Army marched into Xichang and Kangding, and finally annihilated the last vestiges of Hu Zongnan's group. In the middle of the canghuang, Hu Zongnan, He Guoguang, Zhao Longwen and his party fled Xichang and went to Haikou by plane. After only a week in Haikou, he flew to Taiwan on April 4.
Soon after Hu Zongnan landed in Taiwan, doubts and attacks on him within the Kuomintang poured in like a tidal wave. In early May 1950, Led by Li Mengbiao, the "Control Yuan" of the Taipei government, he united more than 40 members of the Control Commission and jointly proposed the impeachment of Hu Zongnan to the "Control Yuan" in a joint motion. He should be held accountable for the great crime of "losing the northwest and then losing the southwest." In their view, Hu Zongnan had more than 200,000 central troops, and local warlords such as Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui were used as auxiliary commanders. In any case, it was impossible to defeat Peng Dehuai's mere 20,000 people. However, in the northwest battlefield, Hu Zongnan has experienced dozens of battles without a single victory, and his performance is not as good as the "Ma Family Army" in the northwest.
The general of the defeated army, how to speak bravely. He did not argue much about these accusations, because his heart was already dead.
First, a trick to eat fresh all over the sky
Hu Zongnan was once Chiang Kai-shek's most powerful general. During the Northern Expedition, the First Kuomintang Civil War, and the War of Resistance, Hu Zongnan performed well. At the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Hu Zongnan as commander of the First Theater of Operations, commanding and commanding more than 700,000 troops, namely the 34th Army, the 37th Army, the 4th Army, the 29th Army, and the Third Army. He sits in the Great Northwest, has guns, grain and money, and can be called the real "King of the Northwest".
After the outbreak of the War of Liberation, Hu Zongnan, as the anti-communist vanguard of Chiang Kai-shek, once again actively threw himself into the battlefield of the civil war. At that time, Hu Zongnan always wanted to prove himself. Because during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Hu Zongnan had always served as a strategic reserve and had no military achievements, which was not at all in line with his status as a general.
Therefore, at that time, many people behind him said that he was "wasted", so he wanted to make a miracle to prove himself. Subsequently, Hu Zongnan came up with the "blitzkrieg plan to attack Yan'an" at the bottom of the pressure box, hoping to attack the Communist Party and please Chiang Kai-shek by occupying this "red capital".
Therefore, Hu Zongnan gathered 250,000 elite troops and launched a so-called "key attack" on our Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia base area. At that time, our army placed its main forces in the northeast and the Shandong battlefield. More than 20,000 people are in charge of the defense of Yan'an. However, it was this 20,000 people who lacked clothes and food that beat Hu Zongnan to the point of losing face and face. Because the commander of this unit is no one else, it is Peng Dehuai, who is known as the "Great General".
There is a kind of defeat called occupation, and there is a kind of victory called retreat. In fighting wars, communists never care about the gains and losses of each city and one place, and have always paid only attention to concentrating superior forces and eliminating the effective forces of the enemy army. Even in Yan'an, our army can give up.
Just when Hu Zongnan was proud of the "brilliant battle record" of "taking Yan'an without a fight", a series of blows followed.
On the night of March 17, 1947, Peng Dehuai pretended to be a large army and passed in front of Hu Zongnan. Hu Zongnan did not know what the plan was, and led the main force to go with this "main force". Who knew that the main force of our army had already laid an ambush in Qinghua Cloth. In just a few hours, the 31st Brigade, which had fallen alone, was completely annihilated.
After the initial victory, Peng Dehuai repeated the same trick and ordered some troops to disguise themselves as large regiments and retreat along the Xianyu Highway to Qingjian County. After Hu Zongnan heard this, he quickly sent 70,000 troops to follow him and came to an armed parade. On the 31st, Hu Zongnan's 70,000 troops rushed to Qingjian, found that only a small force was being chased, and only then did they realize that they were deceived, so they quickly turned back to the west and went to the front line of Yan'an Wayao Fort to seek battle.
However, our army had already laid an ambush circle in the Yangma River, and within 6 hours, more than 4,700 people of the enemy's 125th Brigade were completely annihilated, and The acting brigade commander Mai Zongyu was captured.
Two consecutive defeats made Hu Zongnan angry. However, in the face of Peng Zong's schemes, this "Northwest King" did not learn a lesson at all. Peng Dehuai once again disguised some of his troops as the main force and pretended to go north to Suide.
It was said that it was only three, but Hu Zongnan was deceived for the third time, sending more than 70,000 people to follow in the rear. Peng Dehuai led the main force to attack Hu Zongnan's logistics supply station, Panlong.
In a short period of time, more than 6,700 members of the 167th Brigade were completely annihilated, and the brigade commander Li Kungang was also taken prisoner. The battle captured 6 mountain guns, more than 1,000 mules and horses, 40,000 sets of military uniforms, and 12,000 bags of flour. Our army has sufficient supplies.
After abandoning Yan'an, Peng Dehuai won three battles and three victories, annihilating more than 14,000 enemy troops, but the losses of our army were less than one-tenth of that of the enemy.
What is even more funny is that Peng Dehuai showed his form three times and sacrificed a strategy to lure the enemy. Hu Zongnan, on the other hand, was deceived three times as if he had no memory. At that time, some people said that Hu Zongnan's command level was only a regimental commander, and what he said was not false. To deal with a mediocre general like Hu Zongnan, Peng Dehuai, who is brilliant and strategic, only needs one move.
Second, completely defeat Hu Zongnan
On July 28, 1947, Peng Dehuai led the Northwest Field Army to besiege Yulin. On August 8, after two days of fierce fighting, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) marched straight under Yulin City, encircling Yulin City, the center of The Kuomintang rule in northern Shaanxi.
At Chiang Kai-shek's repeated urging, Hu Zongnan urgently ordered the 8 brigades of the reorganized First Army and the 29th Army to rush to the Suide and Jiaxian areas in two ways, with the reorganized Thirty-sixth Division as the aid to the Yu Rapid Corps and rush to the aid of Yulin.
The 36th Division, a unit of the Central Army, was one of the three main forces under Hu Zongnan. At this time, although our army had already annihilated more than 3,000 enemy troops, it had not yet been able to capture Yulin City. Therefore, Peng Dehuai decided to encircle the point to provide reinforcements, withdraw from the Battle of Yulin, and point the main target at the 36th Division.
This time, Peng Dehuai once again pretended to cross the Yellow River in the east with a small force. The main force of the field army gathered covertly in the southeast of Yulin and the northeast of Mizhi.
Not surprisingly, Hu Zongnan was deceived again, and he mistakenly thought that the Northwest Liberation Army had "fled in a hurry", so he ordered his troops to pursue frantically. For Peng Dehuai, Hu Zongnan really wanted revenge.
Who knew that Peng Dehuai had already laid an ambush in Shajiadian. At dawn on August 20, 1947, the People's Liberation Army launched a fierce attack on the reorganized 36th Division, fighting fiercely for one day, annihilating more than 6,000 people of the reorganized 36th Division, capturing 2 major generals including the enemy brigade commander, and the division commander Zhong Song was spared only.
The defeat of the 36th Division completely turned the tide of the northwestern war, and Hu Zongnan went downhill and collapsed. He withdrew his command post from Yan'an to Xi'an, and he no longer had hope for northern Shaanxi.
On February 24, 1948, Peng Dehuai besieged Yichuan, an important town in northern Shaanxi, with one column each from the 3rd and 6th columns. In fact, the purpose of our army was not just to capture yichuan city, but to lure Hu Zongnan's main force out of Xi'an and then gather and annihilate it.
Hu Zongnan was deceived again, and while he strictly ordered the city of Yichuan to be held, he also sent an urgent telegram to Liu Jie to lead the reorganized Twenty-ninth Army to rush east to aid Yi. But when Liu Jie walked to Wazi Street, he had already vaguely found that Peng Dehuai had already laid a pocket array there. Therefore, Liu Jie urgently contacted Hu Zongnan, hoping to temporarily rescue Yichuan.
Who knew that Hu Zongnan actually rejected Liu Jie's opinion and forced him to advance along Wazi Street. Sure enough, the reorganized Twenty-ninth Army was ambushed by our army in Wazi Street.
In this campaign, the main force of hu zongnan group was completely annihilated, the 29th Army, 2 integrated divisions and 1 integrated brigade, a total of 5 integrated brigades, more than 29,000 people, and a large number of military materials were captured. Killed 2 lieutenant generals, 3 major generals, and captured 4 enemy major generals.
After this battle, there was a huge shock within the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek was furious: "The loss of Yichuan is not only the greatest setback for the Nationalist army, but also the most meaningless sacrifice." Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek removed Hu Zongnan from his post and retained him as a punishment.
Obviously, Hu Zongnan, who was sitting on the superiority of troops and repeatedly lost battles, replaced him with a bystander, had already taken him down. However, Chiang Kai-shek's use of personnel is adhering to the absurd principle of "preferring to use slaves rather than talents." For Hu Zongnan, he just lifted it high and gently lowered it. The military and political power in the northwest is still in the hands of Hu Zongnan.
Facts proved that even if Hu Zongnan searched for troops around Xi'an, he was still not Peng Dehuai's opponent. On August 15, 1948, Peng Dehuai launched the Battle of Libei and ate three of Hu Zongnan's reorganized divisions. Subsequently, a winter campaign was launched, which completely annihilated more than 30,000 people in the 76th Army in the south of Huzong.
After repeatedly defeating Hu Zongnan, Peng Dehuai calmly rushed to the battlefield of North China, replaced Xu Xiangqian, who was not in good health, and conquered the city of Taiyuan, which had been besieged for a long time. Subsequently, more than 200,000 people from the 17th and 18th Corps of the North China Liberation Army entered Shaanxi in batches. The 19th Corps led by Yang Dezhi and Li Zhimin also arrived at the same time.
On June 17, with the consent of the Central Military Commission, the First Field Army established the 1st and 2nd Corps. The 1st Corps was commanded and politically assisted by Wang Zhen and had jurisdiction over the 1st, 2nd, and 7th Armies; the 2nd Corps was commanded by Xu Guangda and Wang Shitai as the political commissar, and had jurisdiction over the 3rd, 4th, and 6th Armies. The First Field Army has a total of 4 corps and 12 corps, plus the troops of the Northwest Military Region, with a total strength of more than 410,000 troops, which has completely changed the situation in which our army in the northwest has long been outnumbered.
Peng Dehuai only had 20,000 horses in his hands, and Hu Zongnan was not yet his opponent. Now that Peng Dehuai is holding on to 400,000 troops, Hu Zongnan's end is naturally the total annihilation of the army.
From July 10 to 14, 1949, Peng Dehuai commanded the First Field Army in the Battle of Fumei. Previously, Peng Dehuai's battles with Hu Zongnan had always been based on ambush warfare and mobile warfare. This time, Peng Dehuai, who was sitting on a strong army, fought with Hu Zongnan for the first time, and this was also the last time.
Hu Zongnan concentrated four armies and formed an echelon on both sides of the Wei River to unfold side by side, and Hu Zongnan demanded that when the positions were equipped, the divisions, regiments, and battalions each formed three lines, overlapping and overlapping, and scattered among them. Some Kuomintang generals ridiculed it as a sheep pulling position, but Hu Zongnan did not think so, but instead smugly and smugly. He felt that in this way, the positions were all turned into horns, and the PLA could not form a closed encirclement, which could invalidate the PLA's usual heart-digging tactics.
However, in fact, under peng Dehuai's attack, Hu Zong's southern strength was already stretched, and he concentrated 100,000 horses in the bag-shaped area, with only the remnants of the 214th Division of the 57th Army stationed in Baoji in the rear, and the remnants of the 123rd Division of the 36th Army were replenished near Mei County. That is, there are no battle reserves available within the depth of the defense. Once several armies in the bag-shaped area were encircled, they could not escape the fate of total annihilation.
What's more, on the two flanks of Hu Zongnan, there were unreliable troops of Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui. The terrain between the two armies was complex, and neither side was fortified, which created the conditions for the First Field Army to encircle in a roundabout way.
At the beginning of the battle, Hu Zongnanman thought that our army would launch a main attack on the front of his position along the Longhai Railway and the Sealand Highway. However, in fact, Peng Dehuai asked Xu Guangda to lead the Second Corps to march 75 kilometers in one night, inserted into the rear of the enemy luoju town, cut off the retreat route of Hu Zongnan's main force, and reduced the enemy's four armies to the weihe beach south of Noonjing and north of Meixian City to Hulukou.
It can be said that Hu Zongnan and Peng Dehuai have fought for so many years and lost so many battles, but the tuition fees are still paid in vain.
In the Battle of Fumei, our army annihilated 4 armies, 6 divisions and 6 regiments in the south of Huzong, totaling more than 43,000 people. Hu Zongnan's main force was lost, and he was no longer able to compete with the People's Liberation Army. If you encounter the People's Liberation Army again, you can only flee in defeat.
Eventually, Hu Zongnan fled from the northwest all the way to the southwest. In the Battle of Chuandong, hu Zongnan's first army, which Hu Zongnan relied on, was completely annihilated by Liu Deng's army. The Kuomintang's last main strategic group on the mainland was thus overthrown.
On December 10, 1949, at the last moment when Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland, he still summoned Hu Zongnan and asked him to lead his troops to stabilize the situation in Xichang. However, at this time, Hu Zongnan's men, only more than 1,000 people were left, and they truly became a "regiment leader".
After arriving in Xichang, Hu Zongnan painstakingly worked hard and pieced together more than 10,000 people. But how can these remnants of the defeated army resist the heroic revolutionary forces?
Third, the bleak old age
While besieging Xichang, Chiang Kai-shek kept calling Hu Zongnan, asking him to quickly lead the remnants of the First Army into Sanya. However, Hu Zongnan was stubborn and did not allow the plane to come. On February 23, 1950, the plane that picked him up finally arrived. However, Hu Zongnan only handed over a bag of things for someone to bring back, claiming:
"I'll have a drink with you today and send you away."
It seems that Hu Zongnan really wants to "coexist and die" with Xichang. However, since the plane came to pick up Hu, it was natural that it could not pick up people. So the group pulled hard and finally pushed Hu Zongnan onto the plane. As soon as Hu Zongnan left, the troops he left behind immediately fell and scattered, and were soon completely annihilated by our army.
Hu Zongnan first flew to Sanya and then to Tainan. Hu Zongnan, who once had an army of 500,000, now has only 6 military and political attachés left around him.
One day, Hu Zongnan and his entourage were walking by the sea, and he pointed to the sea and asked the people around him: "Where should we commit suicide?" It's really not interesting here. ”
However, Zhang Zhengda said: "If you want to commit suicide, you will also commit suicide in Chengdu with our troops, and there is no point here." Because there are only a few people, there is no meaning! ”
Hu Zongnan's son, Hu Weishan, once recalled that Hu Zongnan wanted to jump into the sea several times. He felt that it was too much of a necessity to fly to Taiwan.
Hu Zongnan sat on the superiority of troops but repeatedly lost, so the Kuomintang not only thought he was incompetent, but even some people thought that he was a "communist spy" and "a communist." Sure enough, it was time to come.
Led by Li Mengbiao, the "Control Yuan" of the Taipei government, more than 40 members of the Supervision Commission jointly proposed to the "Control Yuan" the impeachment of Hu Zongnan.
Li Mengbiao and others mimeographed dozens of copies of the impeachment documents and posted them to some newspapers and periodicals in Taiwan and Hong Kong for publication
Li Mengbiao believes that in the nearly 20 years that Hu Zongnan has been in the northwest, he has been the heaviest in office, the most unified the army, and the longest in trouble, but he has "taken obedient measures and misrepresented the military state the most." Until now, the "State Government" authorities have not punished Hu Zongnan, which is simply unbelievable.
At the same time, Li Mengbiao also listed Hu Zongnan's crimes one by one:
First, he abandoned Xi'an without a fight; second, he failed to unite with the Ma family army to counterattack Xi'an to regain Guanzhong; third, he could not actively rescue Lanzhou; fourth, the emperor fled southern Shaanxi; fifth, the entire army in western Sichuan was destroyed, and he struggled and failed in Xichang, and finally lost his division and fled back to Taiwan.
Finally, Li Mengbiao said: "Where are the hundreds of thousands of troops raised by Hu Zongnan now?" The heavy land given to them has been abandoned one after another, so that there is no land left, and the teachers have lost their land, and the facts are obvious, and the people of the whole country have seen and heard about it together...
To tell the truth, none of Li Mengbiao's allegations against Hu Zongnan are untrue. The defeat of the Nationalist army in the northwest and southwest, as the supreme commander of the theater, Hu Zongnan had his own unshirkable responsibility, and his impeachment and punishment were also taken for granted.
However, when we analyze it carefully, we also find that there is something strange about it. As Chiang Kai-shek's favorite vassal, Hu Zongnan, although repeatedly defeated, never received such a severe attack. Now that Li Mengbiao dares to make trouble, there is naturally an element of Chiang Kai-shek's acquiescence.
From the very beginning, Chiang Kai-shek did not want Hu Zongnan to come to Taiwan. In particular, Chiang Kai-shek was even more angry after he learned from the Secrecy Bureau that Hu Zongnan's side had hidden the red agent Xiong Xianghui for more than ten years without knowing it. Later, Guo Jiyao, deputy chief of staff, repeatedly insisted to Chiang Kai-shek that sending a general to a PLA prisoner would not only violate the interests of war, but also violate command ethics. It was Guo Jiyao's insistence that allowed Chiang Kai-shek to reluctantly open his mouth and send a plane to bring Hu Zongnan back.
However, the death penalty can be avoided and the living sin cannot be escaped. Chiang Kai-shek decided to acquiesce in the "Control Yuan' efforts" to violently impeach Hu Zongnan and let him taste a little bitterness. Hu Zongnan naturally knew that the attacks of Li Mengbiao and others were all from Chiang Kai-shek, so Hu Zongnan chose silence, he said
"The truth will always come out one day, and I don't have to defend it." At present, we do not have to argue with others about the length of the matter and write a lawsuit. I only want to be worthy of the heavens, and not to be humbled by others. I am neither angry nor mindful of any slander or accusation. ”
But in the end, Chiang Kai-shek decided to let Hu Zongnan go and spare him punishment. Although he escaped this political turmoil, Chiang Kai-shek's favor for him was gone. What awaits Hu Zongnan will be refrigeration and cold reception that will last for more than a decade.
In Hualien, Hu Zongnan walked by the seaside with his wife Ye Xiazhai every day. There, Hu Zongnan often looked at the other side of the sea and wept. In 1955, Hu Zongnan briefly served as the "defense commander" of Penghu. But in October 1959, his father left Penghu and returned to Taipei as a "strategic adviser to the Presidential Office." Although he still maintained his military status, he did not hold any real position and has since faded out of the military circles.
Hu Zongnan has been from Rong for decades and has been accustomed to military life. After that, what he did every day was to accompany his wife to watch a movie in the morning and play bridge with his wife in the afternoon. For Hu Zongnan, the idle life was too painful.
Hu Zongnan's son, Hu Weishan, once recalled his childhood. At that time, he often climbed with his father. But when he got to the mountain, Hu Zongnan often shouted alone at the top of the mountain. At that time, Hu Weishan felt very faceless and thought that his father was crazy.
Later, he asked his mother Ye Xiazhai to learn that his father hated himself for not dying early and not dying on the battlefield, otherwise how could he bear such a shame. In Taiwan, he was suppressed too deeply.
Due to long-term depression, on February 14, 1962, Hu Zongnan suddenly had a heart attack and unfortunately died at the age of 66. When he died, he raised his left arm and screamed several times, which was shocking. It is indeed not too much to say that he is depressed.
As a general of the Kuomintang, Hu Zongnan was not without merit, he lived frugally, paid attention to self-discipline, and treated others loyally, modestly, generously, and affectionately. However, as a marshal in all aspects, he lacked decisiveness, courage, and outstanding strategic vision, and even more lacked outstanding military and political ability, meticulousness, and wisdom in the use of people. For Hu Zongnan, Peng Dehuai once had a refined evaluation: "Hu Zongnanzhi is very talented."
Obviously, there was only one division commander or even a regimental commander, but he was pushed to such a high position by Chiang Kai-shek. Facing the top marshal Peng Dehuai, can Hu Zongnanyan be undefeated? Under Peng Dehuai's attack, he showed that he was incompetent, overstretched, ambitious, exhausted, vain and rough, full of flaws, and even in a hurry, his face was pale, he hid his face and wept, and eventually he went to failure.
Hu Zongnan's defeat was not unjust...