In 1991, two white-haired old men met on American soil. The two men burst into tears after meeting, holding each other's hands tightly and refusing to let go.
The two people had been waiting for this meeting for too long and too long, and no one expected that the place where they would finally meet would be a foreign country.
When it comes to this, both people are overwhelmed.
When the two people talk about the past, they are also full of memories of the past. It turned out that these two old men, one was Zhang Xueliang, and the other was Lu Zhengcao, the founding general of the mainland.
Why did two people with such disparities meet on American soil? What kind of relationship does the two people have?
It turned out that General Lü Zhengcao was not a general of our Party at the beginning. He initially served in the Northeast Army of the Warlords of the Feng clan.
Only later did he surrender to our Party and become a well-known general of our Party.
Before his surrender, General Lü Zhengcao had been Zhang Xueliang's subordinate. So the two people have a very deep friendship.
When General Lü Zhengcao was serving as a soldier under Zhang Xueliang, it was Zhang Xueliang who discovered his military talent and sent him to study at his own expense in the Lecture Hall in Fengtian (now Shenyang).
General Lü Zhengcao did not live up to Zhang Xueliang's expectations, and achieved success in his studies, becoming Zhang Xueliang's aide-de-camp after graduating from the Tangwu Hall, and was later promoted by Zhang Xueliang to the rank of regimental commander.
Zhang Xueliang's experience is very bumpy.
Zhang Xueliang took over the Fengshi forces after Zhang Zuolin's death and took charge of the Northeast Army.
At that time, the Northeast Army could be said to be one of the few Chinese troops that could truly have combat effectiveness.
After the September 18 Incident, many generals in the Northeast Army petitioned Zhang Xueliang to fight the Japanese back, but Zhang Xueliang did not agree to their suggestion, but obeyed Chiang Kai-shek's instructions not to resist, but instead made the Northeast Army retreat.
Under Chiang Kai-shek's erroneous instructions, the Japanese intensified their efforts and gradually encroached on the northeastern lands.
However, after chiang kai-shek saw the insatiable greed of the Japanese, he actually ordered Zhang Xueliang to lead the northeast army to withdraw from the northeast, abandon the people of the three eastern provinces, and give up the land of the entire three eastern provinces.
The Japanese were overjoyed to see this, and hurriedly occupied the northeast, and supported Puyi to become a puppet emperor and establish a puppet state of Manchukuo.
After Zhang Xueliang led the Northeast Army to withdraw from the northeast, he gained the nickname of "Non-Resistance Army".
Zhang Xueliang was also insulted as a traitor by the Chinese. The Northeast Army was also ridiculed as a first-class unit that could not fight and fled.
The Northeast Army was naturally very angry, but it had no choice. They approached Zhang Xueliang and demanded to fight back to the northeast and reclaim the lost land.
Zhang Xueliang, on the other hand, found someone to buy back boxes of good wine from abroad. He divided each of these good wines into two bottles and told them:
"I'll give you two bottles of this wine!" Please wait for the opportunity, Han Qing will lead you back to your hometown in armor and recover the lost land. At that time, I will drink this wine with you on the Yalu River, so as to wash away the shame of "not resisting the general" on our heads, and thank the people of the country! ”
Soon after, Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng, who were very dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek's principle of non-resistance and the principle that foreign countries must first be safe and internal, launched the "Xi'an Incident."
Forcing Chiang Kai-shek to agree to the United Communists against Japan.
After the Xi'an Incident, Zhang Xueliang was worried that being under house arrest for too long would cause him to be dissatisfied and lead to a change in the policy of the final united communist resistance to Japan, so he personally escorted Chiang Kai-shek back to Nanjing.
However, what Zhang Xueliang did not expect was that as soon as Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Nanjing, he ordered Zhang Xueliang to be placed under house arrest at the Song Ziwen Mansion.
Since then, Zheng Xueliang has spent his whole life under house arrest and has never seen his subordinates again.
And this meeting is also a meeting that spans decades.
Zhang Xueliang also said with great emotion: "Then what did I do?" I am telling myself the truth, not laughing, not being humble, and I have not contributed anything to the country."
General Lü Zhengcao said: "You can do the Xi'an Incident in your life, fight Japan and others fight for you, and the Northeast Army fights for you." ”
So why did General Lü Zhengcao say that? What kind of contribution did the Northeast Army make in the War of Resistance Against Japan?
Zhang Xueliang was placed under house arrest after launching the Xi'an Incident, and before sending Chiang Kai-shek to Nanjing, Zhang Xueliang was worried that something had happened to him, so he asked General Yang Hucheng to take good care of the Northeast Army.
However, after Zhang Xueliang was placed under house arrest, General Yang Hucheng was also placed under house arrest and eventually brutally killed.
Since then, the Northeast Army has been leaderless.
Chiang Kai-shek was worried that the Northeast Army was making trouble, and even went to Nanjing to rescue Zhang Xueliang.
Therefore, it was ordered to reorganize and compress the Northeast Army, and finally the Northeast Army was reduced to zero and distributed on various battlefields throughout the country.
Because chiang kai-shek was careful, he not only did not issue re-equipment to the Northeast Army, which had been placed under house arrest, but also sent them to a situation of certain death, and entrusted them with the task of retreating and breaking the retreat of his concubines.
In the entire War of Resistance Against Japan, the casualties of the Northeast Army were the largest and the most tragic.
After the "July 7 Incident", Zhang Xueliang could only issue a "Letter to the Northeast Generals", in which Zhang Xueliang appealed:
"My dear soldiers, the glorious responsibility of the anti-Japanese restoration has fallen on our shoulders! ...... Strengthen your training, stand by and kill the enemy, and take back our white mountains and black waters..."
The soldiers of the Northeast Army did not live up to Zhang Xueliang's expectations when they were attacked internally and externally.
In 1937, during the Battle of Songhu, it was the Northeast Army that led the resistance of the Japanese to buy time for Chiang Kai-shek's family to retreat.
Wu Keren, commander of the 67th Army of the Northeast Army, led his subordinates to resist to the death, and eventually the 67th Army of the Northeast Army was completely destroyed.
Wu Keren, commander of the 67th Army of the Northeast Army, Guan Xianggang, chief of staff, and Jin Kuibi, commander of the 107th Division, were the first soldiers, and Ma Ge was wrapped in a corpse.
In December 1937, during the Defense of Nanjing, the 57th Army of the Northeast Army led its troops to support, and General Wan Yi led his troops to block the Japanese troops who went to Nanjing, and finally the blood stained the battlefield, almost the entire army was destroyed, and the blood of the fallen soldiers stained the water of the Yangtze River red.
In 1938, the great victory of Taierzhuang, General Wang Zhaozhi of the 333rd Brigade, with 1400 casualties, defeated the Japanese Itagaki Division head-on, and successfully blocked the Japanese reinforcements who went to Taierzhuang to support.
There was also General Bai Fengxiang, and due to Chiang Kai-shek's delay in issuing supplies, General Bai Fengxiang had to sell his property to arm his troops. In the end, he was even poisoned by Japanese agents.
By the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Northeast Army had very little left, and Chiang Kai-shek did not commend, reward, resupply, or pension the Northeast Army.
Even after the total annihilation of the Northeast Army, Chiang Kai-shek directly canceled the unit number of the Northeast Army, so that the Northeast Army disappeared into the long river of history.
Under chiang kai-shek's reactionary rule and the policy of fake anti-Japanese and anti-communist policies, many generals of the Northeast Army could not bear it, and finally led their troops to surrender and join the ranks of the Communist Party of China.
Against the Japanese army, the Northeast Army was full of anger and made outstanding achievements in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
The patriotic feelings of these northeast generals and the determination to resist Japan are incomparably resolute, which is also what General Lu Zhengcao said: "When you fight Japan, others fight for you, and the Northeast Army fights for you."
Since Zhang Xueliang was unable to embark on the battlefield of the Anti-Japanese Resistance in his lifetime, is his life really as he said, "I have not contributed anything to the country"?
Of course not. As General Lü Zhengcao said, "You can do this one thing in your life in Xi'an."
Before Zhang Xueliang launched the Xi'an Incident, Chiang Kai-shek was determined not to resist Japan and to "take care of the outside world first."
He felt that it was not too late to deal with the Communists before it was too late to resist the Japanese army. Chiang Kai-shek felt that even if some territory was ceded to the Japanese, it would not matter. It was also this extremely bourgeois idea of weakness and compromise that made the Northeast Army and Zhang Xueliang, who had already been ordered to withdraw from the northeast, feel very disappointed and angry.
Because the northeast is their root, their home. There were his fathers and countrymen, wives and children. Under Chiang Kai-shek's orders, they abandoned their wives and children, abandoned their wives and children, left their hometowns, and left the northeast like dogs that lost their families.
Chiang Kai-shek made this decision, and the insult was handed over to the Northeast Army, which was bent on resisting Japan.
Therefore, Zhang Xueliang, who could not bear it, led the Northeast Army to carry out a "military advice" and put Chiang Kai-shek under house arrest.
It was also this military admonition that brought about a qualitative change in the direction of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression on the mainland.
After the Xi'an Incident, Zhang Xueliang and General Yang Hucheng were placed under house arrest by Chiang Kai-shek.
However, because Chiang Kai-shek had already issued an anti-Japanese proclamation, it was difficult to ride the tiger.
I had to fight against Japan. However, many of Chiang Kai-shek's concubines and local warlords, although nominally anti-Japanese, were in fact passively resisting Japan and actively opposing communism.
Even so, there were still patriotic generals and soldiers represented by the Northeast Army who actively resisted and fought bloody battles against the Japanese aggressors on the frontal battlefield, thus providing favorable conditions for our party's opening up and struggle in the battlefield behind enemy lines.
It was precisely the occurrence of the Xi'an Incident that made the anti-Japanese enthusiasm on the mainland unprecedentedly high, and also contributed to the establishment of the anti-Japanese national united front on the mainland. In the end, with the continuous efforts of the military and the people of the whole country, the mainland won the final victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
And this is also the greatest achievement of Zhang Xueliang's life. It can be said that the Xi'an Incident was Zhang Xueliang's own unique way of resisting Japan.
Although Zhang Xueliang lost the northeast because of the initial policy of non-resistance, and has not been able to embark on the anti-Japanese battlefield after the Xi'an Incident, the Victory of the Anti-Japanese War laid a solid foundation for the Xi'an Incident, so we should correctly view Zhang Xueliang's merits and faults.
But the two old friends never saw each other again. In 2001, Zhang Xueliang died in Honolulu, USA, at the age of 100. In 2009, Lu Zhengcao died at the age of 106.