In his later years, Sun Yat-sen learned the lessons of past revolutionary failures and was determined to build a genuine revolutionary army, so he founded the famous Whampoa Military Academy in June 1924.
But everything was difficult at the beginning, and when the Whampoa Military Academy was first established, it was difficult. There was a lack of funds and few guns. The students of the Whampoa Military Academy came to study military affairs, how can they not have guns. Liao Zhongkai, a party representative at the military academy, struggled to get about 30 guns, which could only barely be used by the guards. Three months after the start of school, the gun problem remains unresolved.
Just when everyone at the Whampoa Military Academy was worried about guns and ammunition, guns and ammunition aided by the Soviet government arrived in Guangzhou.
One day in October 1924, Whampoa Island was bustling. The 8,000 rifles shipped from the Soviet Union excited the entire teachers and students of the military school. When the ship arrived at the dock, the Whampoa Military Academy came to the general mobilization, the students did the dock work, the officer became the foreman, and everyone carried boxes of weapons into the school. Although the labor is hard, everyone can't hide their joy, from the dock to the school, it is bustling and lively. Everyone said, "Only friends of the revolution can have such help." ”
This time, the Soviets shipped a total of 8,000 bayonet-armed rifles, each with an additional 500 rounds of ammunition. This is undoubtedly a blessing in disguise.
Sun Yat-sen attached great importance to the use of these weapons, and on October 11, Sun Yat-sen wrote to Chiang Kai-shek to put forward his views on the use of these weapons, which read:
Jie Shi Brother Jian:
The newly arrived weapons should be used to train a revolutionary army that will fight to the death. Its soldiers should be recruited from the peasant regiments, trade unions, and revolutionary comrades of Guangdong and the provinces, using Whampoa students as the backbone. The training ground was in Shaoguan, so I hoped that my brother would handle it according to the previous order and quickly transport the weapons to Shaoguan to avoid accidents. Please convey this intention to Consultant Bao and ask him to make a proper plan from various experts and recruit special forces talents.
Sentence October 11
Sun Yat-sen's basic idea was to use these weapons to build a party army as the basic armed force of the Kuomintang against imperialism and feudalism.
After that, the Soviet Union continued to ship guns and ammunition. In 1925, the value of arms in a single shipment to Guangzhou was 564,000 rubles. In 1926, all kinds of arms were transported to Guangzhou in four batches, and the first batch included 4,000 Japanese-made rifles, 4 million rounds of ammunition, and 1,000 sabers; The second batch has 9,000 Soviet-made rifles with 3 million rounds of ammunition; The third batch had 40 machine guns, 4,000 cartridges, 12 cannons, and 1,000 shells; The fourth batch consisted of 5,000 rifles, 5 million rounds of ammunition, 50 machine guns and 12 cannons. In order to solve the financial difficulties of the military school, the Soviet Union also funded 2 million rubles for the opening of the military school.
Since the opening of military schools, the Soviet Union has successively sent military-political advisers. They were: artillery adviser Beschastrov, quartermaster adviser Gillev, transport adviser Dratwin, political adviser Karativ, acting chief adviser Vorykin, infantry adviser Pribelev, engineer adviser Valin, political adviser Rogachev, health adviser Akhmedov, communication adviser Ali and many others. Pavlov died in July 1924 on the Dongjiang. In October, Galen arrived in Guangzhou to serve as chief military adviser to the revolutionary government of Guangdong and lead a Soviet advisory group at the military academy.
Soviet advisers helped the Whampoa Military Academy to formulate a teaching plan, revise the curriculum of various subjects, provide the experience of the Soviet Red Army, participate in teaching courses and personally demonstrate it, and made important contributions to the success of the military school.
In short, with the hard work of Soviet advisers, the teaching work of the military school laid a relatively good foundation from the very beginning.