In 1965, Li Zongren and his wife returned to China after several trips. Li Zongren was the leader of the Gui warlords and the acting president of the Nationalist government, and was an important figure in the Kuomintang. But this kind of identity did not make him snubbed by our party. As soon as he got off the plane, he saw our leader standing outside the plane greeting him, along with Zhou Enlai, Chen Yi, and other founding fathers. Li Zongren did not expect that he could actually get such a grand reception. After sixteen years in exile in the United States, Li Zongren shed tears for the first time.
On the day of receiving Li Zongren, Chairman Mao hosted a banquet in Zhongnanhai and received Li Zongren's family. At the banquet, the two men talked happily, during which Li Zongren proposed to Chairman Mao that he wanted to become vice chairman of the NPC. This position had previously been served by the Kuomintang generals, Zhang Zhizhong and Cheng Qian, and Li Zongren believed that with his early qualifications and contributions to the country and the nation, he could take on such a deputy state-level job. However, to his surprise, Chairman Mao refused Li Zongren's request and said three major reasons.
What is the story behind Li Zongren, who has been a horseman for a lifetime? When he proposed that he wanted to serve as vice chairman of the Npc, on what three grounds did Chairman Mao refuse?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > exiled to the United States, homesick</h1>
In 1949, under the overwhelming offensive of the People's Liberation Army, the elite troops of the Kuomintang army were completely lost, the rule rooted in the Chinese mainland was successively uprooted, and the Kuomintang was left with only the strength to resist. Politics was bleak, rule was on the verge of extinction, and Kuomintang President Chiang Kai-shek was forced to step down, with Vice President Li Zongren as president. In order to change the difficult situation of the Kuomintang, Li Zongren took the initiative to request peace talks, and he also ordered the release of political prisoners arrested by the Kuomintang, so that many important people in our party escaped chiang kai-shek's killing.
However, although Li Zongren replaced Chiang Kai-shek as president, he did not have much power in his hands, the Kuomintang military power was still controlled by Chiang Kai-shek, a large amount of gold, silver and treasure were transferred to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek, and the current Kuomintang was just a mess.
Li Zongren, who had taken over the mess, was seriously ill long before Chiang Kai-shek left. Seeing that Chiang Kai-shek was preparing to flee, Li Zongren, fearing that he would become the next target of the Communist Party, went to Hong Kong first on the pretext of going abroad for treatment. But after arriving in Hong Kong, Li Zongren was worried that Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan would not be able to tolerate him, so he quickly got on a plane to the United States again.
Because Li Zongren belonged to an important figure in the National Government, he was also solemnly received by the US Government when he first arrived in the United States. However, the "grandeur" of the United States toward Li Zongren is based on the corresponding intelligence that Li Zongren brought to the United States, and after contacting Li Zongren, the United States found that Li Zongren could not give any help to the United States at all. Over time, the U.S. government also lost interest in him.
In his lifetime, Li Zongren went from being an ordinary man with nothing, becoming the second-in-command of the Kuomintang without a background, once threatening chiang Kai-shek's position, to now living in exile in a foreign country, with no official position and no mass base, which made him feel very unwilling. In his opinion, a large part of the reason why he has ended up in this position is because of Chiang Kai-shek.
The Communist Party, which was initially suppressed by Li Zongren and Chiang Kai-shek, was the opposite; along with the victory of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the world saw for the first time the strength of New China, and the influence of the Communist Party and New China in the world was also increasing. Subsequently, at the Bandung Conference, Premier Zhou clearly expounded China's position on the Taiwan issue, which also represented New China and made an important appearance in international diplomacy.
The rise of New China and the Communist Party has excited Li Zongren, who has been paying close attention to the current situation. He believes that Taiwan is an urgent problem to be solved, and as a Chinese, he should make every effort to promote Taiwan's return. As long as Taiwan returns, it will not be far from the time for him to return to his homeland.
He mentioned that there are now two ways to resolve the Taiwan issue, and the First is that the Kuomintang and the Communist Party have begun to cooperate for the third time and settle the Taiwan issue through peaceful negotiations. Second, the United States should make a public statement and recognize Taiwan as China's territory. The Party Central Committee attached great importance to the open letter issued by Li Zongren, and To this end, Premier Zhou also contacted Li Zongren, who was far away in the United States, through Li Zongren's former secretary, and invited him to return to China.
Before receiving Premier Zhou's invitation, Li Zongren was seriously pondering the issue of returning to the motherland, the tree was tall, the leaves fell back to the roots, he was forced into exile in the United States, naturally thinking of the motherland and thinking of his hometown, the longer he stayed in the United States, the more he missed his hometown.
But now, in the face of Premier Zhou's sincere invitation, Li Zongren began to fear that he was not a Kuomintang general who surrendered to the country, and if he rushed back to China, he would probably be liquidated by the Communist Party. Li Zongren thought about it left and right, and decided to first express his sincerity to the CCP, and also to test the other party's attitude toward his return to China, so Li Zongren decided to donate the calligraphy and paintings he bought with 110,000 US dollars to the state, and used these calligraphy and paintings to throw stones to ask for directions.
But what Li Zongren did not expect was that only a very small part of these calligraphy and paintings were authentic, and experts assessed that these calligraphy and paintings were only worth three thousand US dollars, and after repeated consideration, Premier Zhou believed that it could not affect Li Zongren's return to China, nor should he live up to his painstaking efforts, he decided to give Li Zongren thirty thousand US dollars. Chairman Mao directly approved 120,000 US dollars, saying that he wanted Li Zongren to see the arrogance of the Communist Party and our sincerity.
Regarding Chairman Mao's grand gesture, Premier Zhou also very much agreed that Li Zongren has a special status and has very important political significance, and if he can return to China, it will also be helpful to promote the process of Taiwan's return. From here, we can see that the leaders of our party attach great importance to Li Zongren and the urgency of inviting him back to China; Li Zongren, as an important general in the Kuomintang, did not surrender to our army during the Liberation War, but fled to the United States. What's so great about him?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > unified Guangxi with outstanding achievements</h1>
In 1891, Li Zongren was born in Guilin, Guangxi, which is located in the borderlands and is mostly inhabited by ethnic groups. In addition, this place was once the birthplace of the Hongyang Revolution, so the people here have extremely strong national ideas, and the resistance to autocracy and corrupt rule is particularly fierce. When Li Zongren was born, at a time when the imperial court was corrupt and the external troubles were serious, most people in Guangxi had the spirit of resisting oppression and taking risks, and Li Zongren was naturally no exception.
In 1910, Li Zongren joined the League, at this time revolutionaries everywhere were plotting uprisings, and Liangguang was located on the border and became a gathering place for revolutionary volunteers. In the second year of his joining the League, the seventy-two martyrs' uprising failed in Guangzhou, and finally the great event of generosity and righteousness, Li Zongren and others were affected and prepared to revolt in Guangxi, but soon after wuchang broke out the Xinhai Uprising, followed by the guangxi governor uprising. Without the opportunity to revolt, Li Zongren could only continue to return to school.
In 1913, at the age of 22, Li Zongren graduated from the Guangxi Army Accelerated School and entered the Nanjing Lecture School as a second lieutenant, after which he participated in many warlord wars, because of his excellent command ability, he soon stood out from the crowd and gradually entered the military and political center of Guangxi. By 1925, at the age of thirty-four, Li Zongren defeated other warlords and unified Guangxi, becoming the head of the Guangxi Gui warlords.
Soon after, the Northern Expedition broke out. As the head of Guangxi, Li Zongren actively advocated the connection between the two provinces and the Northern Expedition. In addition, he personally visited Guangdong to mobilize the revolutionary forces in Guangdong to participate in the Northern Expedition, and with the efforts of him and Bai Chongxi, the two Guangdong governments finally cooperated and participated in the war together, laying the foundation for the Northern Expedition. This is also Li Zongren's first brilliant battle in promoting the development of Chinese history.
In 1926, Li Zongren personally led more than 20,000 people to participate in the war. Before the war broke out, he not only personally supervised his subordinates to build defensive deployments and build strong fortifications many times, but also fully analyzed the enemy's military situation, cooperated with the terrain to formulate a policy against the enemy, and made full preparations for the war. Under his leadership, the Gui army fought bloodily, pushing forward all the way, beating the enemy's head and rats, eliminating Sun Chuanfang's main force, and effectively promoting the progress of the Northern Expedition.
After the end of the war, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi returned to Guangxi, and the focus of the Gui warlords shifted from the war to the construction and development of Guangxi. Under the rule of the two, Guangxi's economy has developed to a greater extent, and Chairman Mao praised them: "Li Zongren was able to turn Guangxi, which was originally so poor, into a model county, and he was indeed a very capable person." ”
Although Li Zongren was the key point of the Kuomintang, his implementation of the Three-Self Policy in Guangxi basically did not require the support of the Nationalist government. Under his construction, the Gui army became the most effective army in the Kuomintang, and every soldier was brave and powerful, brave and good at war. This kind of toughness of the Gui Army was vividly demonstrated after the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
After the July 7 Incident, the anti-Japanese national united front was formed, and Li Zongren also led the Gui army north to resist Japan. After the Japanese army occupied Nanjing and Jinan successively, it decided to continue the northern and southern battlefields, attacking Xuzhou from two directions, and the Battle of Xuzhou began. The commander-in-chief of the Nationalist army in this battle was None other than Li Zongren.
Li Zongren knew that the key point of the Battle of Xuzhou was in Taierzhuang, which was located at the junction of Sulu and was the last barrier for the Japanese army to invade Xuzhou, so its strategic location was very important. If the Japanese army is allowed to get it, then they will soon invade Xuzhou and accelerate the process of aggression, which is very unfavorable to our army. Therefore, before the great war, Li Zongren ordered a solid defensive deployment at Taierzhuang.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" > indelible contribution to the Great Victory of Taierzhuang</h1>
Within a few days, seventy bunkers were sitting on the main road of the Japanese attack, and the strong stone walls spread for three kilometers. At the beginning of 1938, the Japanese army marched in the direction of Taierzhuang, and the Nationalist army then launched a fierce battle and competition with the Japanese army, Li Zongren, who was stationed in Taierzhuang, did not choose to fight hard with the Japanese army, he ordered the soldiers to withdraw to the rear, blinding the sight of the Japanese army.
The previous attack on Shandong and the chinese army's retreat without a fight have already made the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army have a light enemy mentality, so when he saw that the Nationalist troops were insufficient, the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army had no doubt. In this way, one team after another of the Japanese army was led in by Li Zongren and annihilated in batches. Seeing that the number of their own troops was shrinking little by little, and in the end there were less than half of the troops left, and the Japanese army realized that something was wrong. Later in the campaign, the Japanese army began to take advantage of the cover of artillery fire to launch a large-scale attack on Taierzhuang, and the Nationalist army vowed to resist to the death and refused to take a step back.
By April 6, the Japanese had reached the vicinity of Taierzhuang. In order to boost morale, Li Zongren personally went to the battlefield and commanded the troops to carry out a comprehensive counterattack. The appearance of Li Zongren gave the Nationalist army great confidence, and when it heard the counterattack order, the Nationalist army did not hesitate to charge forward, and for a time the killing sound soared into the sky, Taierzhuang was hidden under the artillery fire, the smoke billowed and the bullets never stopped. Under the heroic and fearless attack of the Kuomintang army, the Japanese army soon collapsed and could only retreat in its entirety.
After more than a month of the Battle of Taierzhuang, the Chinese army won a great victory, causing more than 16,000 casualties to the Japanese army and capturing countless chariots. The result of this battle was very surprising to Chiang Kai-shek, and he was surprised to say to Li Zongren: "You can even command miscellaneous troops?" Li Zongren's Gui army was called wolf soldiers by everyone, and their strength was also well known, but Chiang Kai-shek did not expect that Li Zongren's command of other collateral troops could also be so good, and achieved such good results, which made him start to change his mind about Li Zongren.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Li Zongren served as the director of the North Parallel Battalion, and gradually broke away from the battlefield and the army, and embarked on the road of vying for power and profit. Li Zongren was originally a capable and ambitious man, and as his power grew, the struggle between him and Chiang Kai-shek gradually became apparent. Later, due to the frequent defeats of the Kuomintang army in the Liberation War, coupled with the fate of the collapse of the rule on the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek was forced to resign, and Li Zongren replaced Chiang Kai-shek as the president of the Republic of China.
Since the Northern Expedition, Li Zongren has always held a very important position in the Kuomintang, so his influence in the Kuomintang cannot be underestimated, and in the Northern Expedition War and the War of Resistance Against Japan, he led the army to achieve brilliant results many times, and his contribution to the process of China's liberation is also indelible. Therefore, the leaders of our party attach great importance to the matter of Li Zongren's return to China, first, because he is a prominent figure in modern China and made important contributions to the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan; second, because of his identity and right to speak, he can promote the peaceful reunification of the two sides of the strait.
Therefore, after Li Zongren expressed his hope for peaceful reunification of the two sides of the strait, Premier Zhou actively contacted him, even if he knew that the calligraphy and paintings he donated were only worth three thousand US dollars, Chairman Mao was willing to give him 120,000 US dollars. After Li Zongren received 120,000 US dollars, he was very moved, he saw the belly and sincerity of the Communist Party, and he also knew that the Communist Party must do what it said, so Li Zongren put the plan to return to China on the agenda, hoping to do some work for the reunification of the motherland.
In 1964, Li Zongren issued an open letter to the Us side, exhorting them not to follow the wrong path and to adjust their policy toward China. His letter made huge waves on both sides of the strait, and Li Zongren was also besieged by the Taiwan authorities, but he did not take these pressures seriously. In the same year, Li Zongren expressed his idea of returning to China to the mainland, and Premier Zhou believed that the time was ripe for him to return to China, and immediately arranged the itinerary for Li Zongren and his wife to return to China.
Stepping on this land again, it has been sixteen years, and Li Zongren looked at the new China that had become larger and larger, and he was full of emotions. He was cordially received by Chairman Mao in Beijing, and he also brought up his idea of becoming vice chairman of the National People's Congress. But I didn't expect Chairman Mao to refuse, and since the state attached so much importance to Li Zongren, why did it refuse him to take this post?
Chairman Mao gave three reasons: First, Li Zongren did not hold a post on the mainland, and he could also use his status as a former Kuomintang elder to do ideological work for Taiwan's old subordinates and comrades-in-arms, so as to make it easier to contact them. If Li Zongren assumes the position of vice chairman of the National People's Congress, it will cause a gap between the KMT and Li Zongren. Second, Li Zongren's return to China without holding any official position is enough to send a signal to Taiwan that the mainland welcomes them to return to their hometowns, and it is okay to come here to be an official or not to be an official. Third, although Li Zongren does not have the position of acting president now, after all, he was once the supreme leader of the Kuomintang, and it is a little wronged for him to serve as vice chairman of the National People's Congress.
After listening to Chairman Mao's explanation, Li Zongren was also suddenly enlightened; he calmly accepted and understood this matter, understood Chairman Mao's painstaking heart, and saw Chairman Mao's great wisdom.
On his deathbed in 1969 due to worsening rectal cancer, Li Zongren left a letter to Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou, in which he said that he had resolutely returned to China in 1965 and was the most correct choice, and that he felt extremely honored to be a member of the Chinese people. Perhaps for Li Zongren, how about the yellow flowers in his old age, the tree is thousands of feet high, and the leaves have to fall back to the roots.