#Headline article post task #Opportunity will always be given to those who are prepared, and after reading Feng Yuxiang's story, I really feel that this sentence makes sense.
Feng Yuxiang in his youth
Feng Yuxiang, formerly known as Feng Jishan, was a famous northwestern warlord during the Republic of China, a first-class general of the Republic of China Army, and once controlled the situation in the country. Such a powerful figure came up step by step from the soldiers, known as the cloth general.
Feng Yuxiang's father, Feng Youmao, was originally a mason in rural Anhui Province who later fled to work as a domestic servant in a landowner's household. The landlord asked him to accompany his son to practice martial arts and test martial arts, but the landlord's son did not practice, and he was admitted to the martial arts instead. After obtaining the qualification of martial arts, he joined the Huai Army, and then followed Zuo Zongtang into Xinjiang, becoming a sentry officer (equivalent to a company commander) of the army, and then returned to the interior, married a wife and had children, and his family accompanied the army at his own expense. Feng Youmao had seven sons, but five of them died in infancy. Only the eldest son and second son Feng Ki-sun remained. Li Hongzhang's Huai Army trained troops in the "Five Battalions" directly under Baoding Prefecture. Feng Youmao took his family to Baoding Prefecture, and Feng Jishan grew up in the Baoding Prefecture Barracks since childhood.
Perhaps it was the special care for military families at that time, according to the rules of father-son succession, in 1891, Feng Youmao filled a vacancy for the eldest son as a horse soldier in the Green Battalion, and Feng Ki-sun took over his brother's position and entered the private school of the station, and practiced writing after enlightenment. The poor family could not afford paper and pens, so they used a thin bamboo pipe, tied a bunch of hemp at the top, dipped in thin yellow mud, and practiced writing on square bricks.
In order to reduce the family's financial burden, Feng Youmao tried his best to find connections, and Fang made up a reserve place for his second son to serve in the Huai Army. In 1892, there happened to be a vacancy, acquaintances because of fear of being robbed by others, too late to find Feng Youmao, when the registrant asked for Feng Jishan's name, the acquaintance casually said a name "Feng Yuxiang", since then Feng Jishan with the name of Feng Yuxiang in the Huai army, only later changed to "Feng Yuxiang". It was not until 1896 that 15-year-old Feng Yuxiang officially enlisted as a soldier in the fifth battalion, and under his father's hand-to-hand training, he gradually became a qualified soldier, and later became a deputy platoon commander.
In the barracks, Feng Yuxiang paid attention to building good relations with others. Two of his men contracted smallpox and were quarantined. Feng Yuxiang insisted on delivering food and water to the two of them every day, and enthusiastically took care of them. After the two recovered from their illness, they were very grateful to Feng Yuxiang. But the discipline of the Huai Army was loose, the superiors pressed the subordinates, and the twilight was dull, and Feng Yuxiang always wanted to leave the Huai Army. One of the two people who happened to have smallpox disease had a relatively wealthy family and was related to Yuan Shikai's new barracks, and through the soldier's family, Feng Yuxiang resolutely gave up the improper deputy platoon commander in the Huai Army and became a recruit in Yuan Shikai's new barracks.
In the new barracks, Feng Yuxiang did not forget to study cultural knowledge in addition to assiduously participating in military training. He discovered that an old man in the new barracks was actually a backward Xiucai, so he saved a piece of his monthly military salary of four yuan to Xiucai and asked him to teach him to read. It was under the teaching of Xiucai that Feng Yuxiang's cultural level was greatly improved, and he was able to understand "Sun Tzu's Art of War".
He carried the book "Sun Tzu's Art of War" every day, participated in military training, and read this book whenever he had free time. At that time, there was no one in a hundred who could read in the army, so if you could read a few words, you would be respected by others. One day, Feng Yuxiang hid "Sun Tzu's Art of War" on his body and ran with the soldiers, but accidentally the book fell down. Lu Jianzhang, an officer who led the drill at that time, saw it, picked up the book, and saw that it was "Sun Tzu's Art of War". He asked whose book it was, and Feng Yuxiang had to say that it was his own book and accidentally dropped it. Lu Jianzhang asked him if he could understand the book? Feng Yuxiang said that he had been watching and of course he could understand. So Lu Jianzhang asked him to read a paragraph, and he actually memorized it backwards. Since then, Lu Jianzhang has looked at Feng Yuxiang differently, constantly promoted Feng Yuxiang, and married his niece to Feng Yuxiang.
Feng Yuxiang and Chiang Kai-shek
It was precisely when he met a noble like Lu Jianzhang that Feng Yuxiang naturally progressed rapidly, and within a few years, Feng Yuxiang became the commander of the new barracks. At this time, on the eve of the Xinhai Revolution, Zhang Shaozeng, the division commander of the new barracks, joined the revolutionary party while studying in Japan. As a result, the new barracks are constantly equipped with propaganda materials issued by the revolutionary party. Feng Yuxiang knew the words, and during this period, he saw a lot of the brutality of the Qing army when it first entered the Central Plains. Examples such as the forced implementation of hair without hair, such as the massacre of the Ten Days in Yangzhou, and so on, made Feng Yuxiang's ideas gradually close to the ideas of the revolutionary party, and also tended to overthrow the rule of the Qing Dynasty and achieve a republic.
The new battalion had autumn training every autumn, and Zhang Shaozeng decided to take advantage of the autumn training to launch a mutiny, so he planned with his three regiment commanders. Feng Yuxiang and the other two regiment leaders were inclined to revolution, and those two regiment leaders were also revolutionary parties. During the autumn training in 1910, Zhang Shaozeng took advantage of the situation to issue live ammunition to the soldiers, used the training to force the city of Beijing, and proposed twelve points to the Qing government, and if he did not agree, he would launch a mutiny. As a result, the Qing government actually agreed to the twelve points he proposed, which made him have no motivation to launch a mutiny, so he had to withdraw his troops. Subsequently, the Qing government took advantage of the situation to transfer Zhang Shaozeng out of the army. At this time, without a leader, the three regiment commanders still wanted to launch a mutiny, preparing to launch it in the autumn of 1911. Who knew that on October 10 of that year, the Wuchang Uprising was successful, and the three regiment commanders also decided to launch an uprising in Luanzhou. But on the eve of the upcoming uprising, Feng Yuxiang moved the printing press to his home to print the leaflets. The two regiment commanders discussed together that night how to revolt the next day, and because Feng Yuxiang was not present, they identified Feng Yuxiang as the chief of staff of the rebel army.
However, because the uprising was not confidential, it was known by Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai immediately sent troops to take control of the new battalion and arrested the three regiment commanders. At this time, the southern provinces became independent, the revolutionary fire was raging, and the Qing government, anxious to send troops to suppress the armed uprising of the southern revolutionaries, urgently sent Yuan Shikai to send troops. While he was hiring, Lu Jianzhang took the opportunity to intercede for Feng Yuxiang, saying that Feng Yuxiang did not know about the mutiny, and asked for Feng Yuxiang's release. Lu Jianzhang is a red man around Yuan Shikai, and Yuan Shikai does not want to really eliminate the revolutionaries. He wanted to use the revolutionaries to force the Qing government to give him greater power. So he released Feng Yuxiang, but in order to give an explanation to the Qing government, he killed the two regiment commanders.
At this time, Yuan Shikai's subordinate Feng Guozhang led the Beiyang Army to fight the revolutionary army in Wuhan, and soon captured Hankou, and the revolutionary Huang Xing could not resist the enemy and was about to withdraw from Wuchang. At this time, Yuan Shikai was anxious, he wanted to stop the speed of Feng Guozhang's march, so he hurriedly sent Lu Jianzhang to the south to restrict Feng Guozhang's actions, Lu Jianzhang took the opportunity to recommend Feng Yuxiang, so Feng Yuxiang, who had been removed from the post of regiment commander, was promoted to the brigade commander of the mixed brigade of the new barracks.
Since then, Feng Yuxiang has given full play to his wisdom and talents, from brigade commander to division commander, and then to army commander, in the future warlord melee, left and right, ideas have been constantly sublimated, and finally became a famous patriotic general in modern times.
Feng Yuxiang and his wife