In the spring of 1925, Wan Yi was admitted to the 4th Infantry Section of the Northeast Army Non-Commissioned Officer Teaching Team.
(Wan Yi)
When he first entered the Northeast Army, Wan Yi was assigned to the Lecture Hall for training and study. Wan Yi cherished this hard-won opportunity very much, he studied hard, and in the graduation examination of the Northeast Army's Daowu Hall, the results of more than 2,000 graduates ranked first.
Zhang Xueliang awarded him a pocket watch and a command knife. Later, during the reform of the military system in the northeast, the army publication offered a reward for the "standard company commander" program, and his enlistment article won the first place, and Zhang Xueliang awarded him a new-style parker pen.
(Zhang Xueliang)
It was through such efforts that he rose from a soldier to a company commander and a battalion commander, and by the time of the "Double Twelve" Incident in 1936, when Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng launched a military campaign against Chiang Kai-shek, he was already the regimental commander.
Zhang Xueliang personally said to him: "You are the youngest regimental commander in the Northeast Army, and you will bounce around among them in the future."
In 1941, the Kuomintang once again disregarded the security of the country and turned against the Communists, followed by a large-scale arrest of the Communists, and the "Anhui Southern Incident" shocked China and foreign countries. At this time, Wan Yi, who had become a member of the Communist Party of China, could not escape the arrest of the Nationalist army, so he was imprisoned.
In July 1942, on Chiang Kai-shek's orders, the Kuomintang Lusu Theater Army began a so-called court-martial trial of Wan Yi, and then a ridiculous scene occurred. At the opening of the trial, Chief Military Judge Li Wenyuan announced that he had been instructed by the government to declare wan Yi guilty of the following crimes: First, he was an accomplice to the Double Twelve Incident; and third, he was suspected of treason.
Regarding the first crime, Wan Yi said angrily: "From December 1937, when I first participated in the war against Japan in Jiangyin, to the time you detained me, I fought nearly a hundred battles with the Japanese army. Which battle proves that I am a Japanese? By charging me with such a crime, you are not only a great slander against me, but also a slander against the Chinese anti-Japanese soldiers. We fought the enemy with blood and our lives, and you say so now, and the conscience is not to blame? ”
Li Wenyuan probably also felt ridiculous, and he had no words to defend, so he said sadly: "There is this one in the indictment, I can't help but ask." Wan Yi refuted: "As the presiding judge, you always have to think about it and look for evidence, right?" ”
Li Wenyuan knew that he was in a wrong, so he skipped the first article and asked about other charges, but he was also refuted by Wan Yi one by one, and Li Wenyuan was speechless. The first trial ended hastily.
In August 1942, Wan Yi accepted a second trial, which ended hastily without the verdict.
Wan Yi saw that the Kuomintang was going to kill himself no matter what, and on the eve of the execution, he was locked up in a small courtyard full of sentries, and when he returned from the court, he had carefully observed the surrounding situation and the escape route in his favor.
Finally, when it was late at night, he extinguished the candles, pretended to go out to the toilet, but took the opportunity to climb out of the wall from height, and hurriedly crossed the river, facing the sentries on the other side of the river, he was not in a hurry, pretending to be his own people, and because of his lack of panic, he escaped the sentry's pursuit. He didn't get to dawn until dawn, and finally came to the guerrilla zone, back to the communist army he had dreamed of.