Before the Battle of Xuzhou, Pang Bingxun's 40th Army had always been the main force of Linyi, why did it finally go to the road of "saving the country by curve", and what happened in this process?
Pang Bingxun, born in 1878, worked as a small trader in his youth, and later entered the Beiyang warlords to join the army, under the command of Feng Yuxiang, in the Central Plains War, he was blown off by a cannonball, so he was also called "Pang Lame". After the Battle of the Central Plains, his troops were reorganized into the 40th Army, with Pang Bingxun as the commander, commanding the 36th Division and the 106th Division, but the 106th Division was not under his control, so there was only one division under his command.
The 40th Army, despite its small number of troops and miscellaneous origins, achieved remarkable results in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the most commendable of which was the Defense of Linyi in the Battle of Taierzhuang.
Linyi was an important town in southwest Lu, and in January 1938, the Banyuan Seishiro Division landed in Qingdao and approached Linyi, attempting to meet the Division of Theogu Lianjie Division at Taierzhuang and attack Xuzhou instead. At this time, Pang Bingxun's 40th Army, under the command of Li Zongren of the Fifth Theater of Operations, was ordered to Linyi to block the Japanese army.
People who like the history of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression know that Itagaki Seishiro's 5th Division was an elite unit in the Japanese army, with a good degree of mechanization, and most of the officers were young and strong. Pang Bingxun's troops, only one division, 10,000 troops, weapons and equipment naturally can not be said.
Under extremely difficult circumstances, Pang Bingxun lived up to expectations and led his troops to fierce battles with the Japanese army, repelled the 5th Division many times, and stubbornly held his position.
Li Zongren once described it this way: No one expected that Japan's most elite troops would be frustrated with the miscellaneous army that no one had looked at.
The Japanese army gradually increased its troops, Pang Bingxun's troops gradually fell out, and finally Li Zongren ordered Zhang Zizhong to lead the 59th Army to help. Zhang Zizhong's troops launched a fierce attack from outside the city, Pang Bingxun's troops came out of the city, and the two units combined to attack the 5th Division, driving it all the way to junan county, 90 kilometers away.
Soon, the 5th Division counterattacked again, and Pang Bingxun withdrew his troops to the outskirts of Linyi to engage the Japanese in order to reduce the position front. At the critical moment, Zhang Zizhong turned around and came back to reinforcements again, at the same time, a cavalry regiment of Tang Enbo's troops, a brigade of the 57th Army, also arrived in time, and the three units counterattacked in all directions, once again daring to hit the Japanese army 30 kilometers outside Linyi City.
The victory in the Battle of Linyi shattered the plan of the two divisions of the Japanese army to meet in Taierzhuang, and also created conditions for the great victory of Taierzhuang, and Pang Bingxun also became famous for this battle.
After the Battle of Linyi, the 40th Army was ordered to Wuyang for repairs, until early 1939, pang Bingxun sent Ma Fawu to lead a brigade across the Yellow River flood area, arrived in the Taikang area of eastern Henan, and blocked the Japanese army from moving south to the Central Plains. After several battles, he stopped a part of the Japanese army and captured a large amount of booty, which was commended by the Nationalist government.
In March 1939, Pang Bingxun's troops were transferred to North China and ordered to establish a Kuomintang base area in the Taihang Mountains area. Here, Pang Bingxun's garrison area and the garrison area of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army overlapped, and there was often friction between the two, perhaps because of this, Pang Bingxun was promoted to commander-in-chief of the 24th Army.
In May 1941, at the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain, the Kuomintang army suffered a major blow, and the 27th Army under the jurisdiction of the 24th Army actually surrendered to the Japanese army and became a puppet army.
At this time, Pang Bingxun was more than 60 years old and had repeatedly offered to resign, but it had not been approved. In October, in order to cooperate with the Central Plains operation, Pang Bingxun led his troops to carry out an attack on the Japanese army on the Pinghan Railway, which caused the Japanese railway transportation line to be cut off for half a month.
However, in April 1943, Pang Bingxun's life took a turn.
At this time, the Japanese army mobilized more than 50,000 people to sweep the Taihang Mountains in an attempt to annihilate the 40th Army and the 27th Army in one fell swoop. In mid-April, the Japanese army began to surround Pang Bingxun's troops from the three roads. Despite this, Pang Bingxun actively organized troops to attack, but he was still outnumbered and could only move to the mountains with his troops.
According to the recollections of Pang Bingxun's subordinates, when Pang Bingxun was at his most difficult, Sun Dianying appeared. At this time, Sun Dianying's New Fifth Army had already defected to the Japanese army, so he came with the Japanese army to persuade him to surrender. Pang Bingxun originally wanted to use hunger strikes to commit suicide to save the late festival.
However, two days later, Dai Kasa sent someone to send a message: let Pang Bingxun not commit suicide, pretend to surrender, stay behind and engage in underground armed forces, in order to make a comeback, so Pang Bingxun defected to the Japanese.
After the surrender, the Japanese army began to publicize it, and then Pang Bingxun met with Gangcun Ningji, and finally was sent to Wang Jingwei's side as the "Kaifeng Appeasement Director", becoming a traitor in the hearts of the Chinese people.
The hat of a traitor is not something that anyone can afford. It is said that Pang Bingxun secretly sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek asking him, "How do you deal with yourself?" Chiang Kai-shek's reply was to "seek perfection through compromise." Later, the Kuomintang had asked Pang Bingxun to cross the Yellow River south to break away from the Japanese army in the name of military exercises, but for some reason, Pang Bingxun delayed the time, and finally succeeded in fate.
In August 1945, after the surrender of the Japanese army, Pang Bingxun sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek: he was willing to wear the guilt and make meritorious deeds, and went to Kaifeng to listen to the fate. Chiang Kai-shek directly appointed him commander of the advance army, led the troops, and prevented the Eighth Route Army from entering the city to accept the Surrender of Japan, and the two sides fought fiercely for more than a month.
At the end of 1945, his old colleague Sun Lianzhong gave advice to him, and Pang Bingxun voluntarily gave up his military post and lived in Xinxiang, Zhengzhou, and Nanjing. In 1949, he went to Taipei and opened a restaurant with Sun Lianzhong.
In 1963, Pang Bingxun died of illness at the age of 84.
Pang Bingxun, there is a foundation for throwing the sun, there are tragic colors that can be accepted, Sun Lianzhong finally co-opened a restaurant with him, which makes people sigh.