On December 30, 1948, Bai Chongxi sent a second telegram in Wuhan under the guise of negotiating peace, but in fact forced the old Chiang Kai-shek to step down, "Hai Quan Dian", which contained eight shocking words: "Time is pressing, fleeting." At the same time, under the liaison and lobbying of the Gui clan, local power factions Cheng Qian (chairman of Hunan Province), Zhang Yi (chairman of Henan Province), Lu Daoyuan (wuhan police commander) and others were also pushed by the wall, and they called directly or indirectly to ask Jiang to "resolutely withdraw and show his politician's style." Under the compulsion of such a political situation and the disastrous military defeat north of the Yangtze River, the old Chiang Kai-shek must come forward to show his attitude.
On New Year's Day 1949, Chiang Kai-shek, the "president" of the Nanjing government, officially issued a proclamation, saying for the first time: "As long as the Communist Party has the sincerity of peace and can make a precise statement, the government will meet with each other openly and sincerely, and is willing to discuss with them specific ways to stop the war and restore peace... Then I personally have nothing to ask for, the Chinese people have been revolutionizing all their lives, they have long been on the sidelines of life and death, and they only hope that the fruits of peace can be realized, then the personal entry and exit will never be nostalgic, and the only public will of the people is from "clouds and clouds." The publication of this New Year's Day proclamation is a gesture that Old Chiang had to make under the internal and external difficulties, and in fact he is still unwilling to hand over power.
At the party that read the proclamation internally on December 31, 1948, in the face of the indignant voices of the members present who supported Chiang Kai-shek, the old Chiang could not suppress his indignation and declared that it was not that I wanted peace talks, nor that I was willing to go to the wilderness: "My wish to go to the wilderness is not because of the Communist Party, but because of a certain faction in the Party." Which faction he was referring to was self-evident, and Li Zongren, who was here, was stupid, because under the situation at that time, the old Jiang Xiaye was already the trend of the times, and there was no need to tear his face and argue about anything. Then, what capital did the Gui clan have at that time, which was enough to force the president of the Kuomintang, the president of the Nationalist government, and the special general of the army, navy, and air force to hand over power?
I. The victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was the second heyday of the Guizhou military clique.
After the Battle of the Central Plains, as an important part of the anti-Chiang Kai-shek alliance, the Gui army was comprehensively suppressed by the Nanjing government, and even after Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi drove out Yu Zuobai to regain the throne of Gui, they did not dare to blatantly expand the army, for fear of arousing the suspicion of old Chiang kai-shek and the oppression of large troops. By July 1933, the regular forces of the Gui clan retained only two corps names, of which 12,335 were members of the 7th Army and 16,320 were members of the 15th Army, with a total strength of only 29,155 (excluding local militias). It was not until the end of 1936, when a settlement was reached with the Nanjing side, that Li Zongren was officially inaugurated as the director of the Guangxi Appeasement Office, and the Gui army was "legitimized" and gradually began to expand its strength.
The Gui Army was allowed to expand into the 11th Group Army and the 21st Group Army to participate in the anti-Japanese battlefield, and by 1938 its total strength had been expanded to more than 160,000 people. Especially in the middle and late period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in addition to the old nest of Guangxi, the Gui warlords also directly or indirectly controlled southern Henan, northern Hubei and other places through the convenience of the newly built Tenth Theater in the Dabie Mountains and Li Zongren as the commander of the Fifth Theater, and the number of regular troops further increased, and indeed deliberately preserved strength to a certain extent, so in 1945, when the Victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the strength of the new Gui military group had grown to more than 240,000 people, which was the second peak stage of the Gui Army.
Old Chiang's attitude toward the Gui clan was "both cooperation and restriction," so before the liberation war broke out in full swing, he put all the two big men of the Gui clan up, gave Li Zongren the "director of the North Parallel Battalion" and Bai Chongxi the "minister of national defense" to a high post, and promoted Bai Chongxi to a general of the army (before Chen Cheng), but neither of them had actual military power. Subsequently, in the process of disarmament and reorganization, the Gui army was killed, for example, in January 1945, the 31st Army was abolished, in April of the same year, the 16th Army was abolished, and in November of the same year, the 84th Army was abolished, and the strength of the Gui Army was seriously weakened.
However, li zongren and Bai Chongxi were helpless under the banner of old Chiang Kai-shek; since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression had been victorious, the army would naturally be reduced; moreover, during the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Lao Chiang, through a series of means such as abolishing the number of trumpets and merging and rectifying them, made the proportion of the central military units increase rapidly, and by 1945 this proportion had reached about two-thirds, which constituted an overwhelming advantage over the remaining warlord forces. The number of guns determines the size of the right to speak, so Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, knowing the sinister intentions of the old Chiang Kai-shek, dared to be angry but did not dare to speak out; although Bai Chongxi held the so-called "minister of national defense," the real power of the army was in the hands of Chen Cheng, the "chief of staff."
Under such circumstances, all Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi can do is to be patient and dormant, waiting for the opportunity to change the situation and turn the tables.
(Chen Cheng stills)
Second, the size of the Gui Army in the early and middle stages of the Liberation War was strictly limited.
In the course of the "reorganization" of the Kuomintang army in 1946, Chen Cheng, who presided over the reorganization, adhered to the intention of lao Chiang Kai-shek and was rude to the Gui army, giving only the names of three reorganized divisions, namely, Han Liancheng's reorganized 46th Division, Zhang Guangwei's reorganized 48th Division, and Zhong Ji's reorganized 7th Division (the second phase participated in the reorganization), and the entire regular field unit had only nine reorganized brigades of more than 70,000 people, and cut off more than half of them. In the Guangxi territory, only 10 local security regiments and 5 special battalions were allowed to be retained by the Gui clan, and by December 1948, before and after the three major battles, these 10 security regiments actually had 17,244 officers and men, that is to say, before the third time chiang kai-shek went into the wilderness, the regular army and local armed forces of the Gui army did not exceed the size of 100,000 people.
Even with these three reorganized divisions, Lao Jiang still could not rest assured, and after the outbreak of the Liberation War, he threw them all into the Shandong battlefield, of which the entire 7th Division and the entire 48th Division were assigned to gu Zhutong's army general headquarters under the command of the "Linyi Command Post", and the entire 46th Division was assigned to Wang Yaowu's Second Appeasement Zone. For example, in the Battle of Menglianggu, the 7th Army, which had not yet completed the reorganization, was assigned to the command of Tang Enbo's First Corps, and in the Battle of Laiwu, the reorganized 46th Division was almost completely destroyed.
The first turnaround of the Gui clan came in July 1947, after Liu Deng's army advanced into Dabie Mountain, and in order to eliminate this serious problem, Lao Jiang mobilized 33 reorganized brigades of heavy troops to carry out "encirclement and suppression", and for the first time truly granted Bai Chongxi military power. Therefore, Bai Chongxi personally commanded all the troops in the name of the "Jiujiang Command Post of the Ministry of National Defense", during which he not only rebuilt the entire 46th Division, but also used the need for combat as an excuse to transfer all three integrated divisions of the Gui Army to central China, completing a new round of integration of the military strength of the Gui army.
Although this military power was quickly taken back, the "Little Zhuge Ge" was still quite fruitful, and at least three main forces (integrated divisions) completed the assembly and left the Shandong battlefield. In the process of forming a mobile corps in the Kuomintang army, in November 1947, based on the "first column" of the Gui Army that originally participated in the Dabie Mountain Operation, the Zhang Gan Third Corps was formally established, with more than 45,000 people under the jurisdiction of the reorganized 7th Division, the reorganized 48th Division, and the 1st Hubei Security Brigade, while the rebuilt reorganized 46th Division was assigned to the Eighth Suijing District, which was responsible for the garrison of Jiujiang.
In May 1948, after Li Zongren's success in "running for vice president," the old Chiang Kai-shek, worried that the gathering of two big men of the Gui clan in Nanjing was unfavorable, kicked Bai Chongxi out of the position of "defense minister" and sent him to Wuhan, but unexpectedly let Bai Chongxi regain control of the actual military power.
Third, the killer in Bai Chongxi's hand is a strategic position in central China.
Bai Chongxi was originally reluctant to go, and avoided going to Shanghai in a negative mood, but the persuasion of Huang Shaohu, one of the original "New Gui Troikas", made him change his mind: Li Zongren was in the center of Nanjing, and he was in charge of the troops in Wuhan on the outskirts, and the two of them would have to do more inside and outside, so they officially took office on June 31, 1948. The first thing after arriving in office was to include Lu Daoyuan's reorganized 58th Division (the Dian army units attached to the Gui clan) into the combat sequence of the Third Corps, so that Zhang Gan's unit reached a total of more than 77,000 people in three integrated divisions, which was also the backbone of the Gui army at that time.
Some people will certainly say, how can Old Jiang be so stupid as to "let the tiger go back to the mountain"? In fact, before Lao Jiang released Bai Chongxi, he also went through a layout, and he was not worried about what waves Bai Chongxi would turn over. Because in the original combat sequence of the "Central China Suppression General", there were three large mobile corps under the command of the Third Corps, the Twelfth Corps, and the Fourteenth Corps, as well as the 5th Appeasement Zone, the 13th Appeasement Zone, and the 16th Appeasement Zone. Among them, Huang Wei's Twelfth Corps (about 120,000 people) and Song Xilian's Fourteenth Corps (about 110,000 people) were both central military units, and Song Xilian of the Huangpu Phase I was also the deputy commander-in-chief of the "Central China Suppression General".
At the same time, among the three appeasement districts, Huo Yizhang, commander of the 13th Appeasement District (under the jurisdiction of the 52nd Division), was a first-term student of Huangpu and a major general of the "Civil Engineering Department"; Wang Lingyun, commander of the 16th Appeasement District (under the jurisdiction of the 9th Division and the 15th Division), although not Huangpu Sheng, was also Chen Cheng's person; and Zhang Yi, the commander of the 5th Appeasement District (under the jurisdiction of the 46th Division and the 97th Division), belonged to the local miscellaneous cards, which was considered to be the closest to Bai Chongxi. Therefore, looking at the organization and distribution of troops in the "Central China Suppression General", it is completely understandable that Lao Jiang was prepared for Bai Chongxi's monitoring, and the three reorganized divisions of the Gui clan were really powerless to do things in the jurisdiction of the "Central China Suppression General" with 400,000 troops.
In this way, everyone can understand why Bai Chongxi easily allowed the Huang Wei Corps to go east to reinforce the Xu Beng battlefield after the Battle of Huaihai began; on the one hand, the corps was the "concubine of the concubines" of the central army, and only old Jiang and Chen Chengma were the leaders, and Bai Chongxi could not stop or control them at all; on the other hand, the fact that the Huang Wei corps was separated from the command of the "Commander-in-Chief of Central China" also allowed Bai Chongxi to be greatly relieved, and the proportion of the Gui army in the jurisdiction increased rapidly. However, he tried his best to intercept the eastern transfer of Song Xilian's corps, because a considerable number of the fourteenth corps was actually the Sichuan Army, not the Central Army.
Therefore, at the end of 1948, when the three major battles were basically over, with the collapse of the elite of Chiang Kai-shek's central army in the northeast, north China, and east China, Bai Chongxi's strength in central China was "smoothly" highlighted: because Huang Wei's corps was annihilated and Song Xilian's corps was transferred to the west, he took charge of the third corps of the Yan clan, and also co-opted Chen Mingren, commander of the first corps rebuilt in Wuhan, and Zhang Yi, commander of the 5th Appeasement District (stationed in Nanyang, Henan, the Henan Provincial Assembly took the lead in demanding peace talks, not without reason, and was soon upgraded to the 19th Corps). Coupled with the use of power to install cronies, it basically controlled the central China region centered on Wuhan.
At this time, the Kuomintang army had restored all the "reorganized divisions" to military ranks, and the regular army that Bai Chongxi could command had reached more than 280,000 people, and there were 11,000 irregular troops, 21,000 special soldiers, a total of 37 divisions of the twelve armies, a total of 310,000 people, as well as 40,000 people in the three armies of the Changsha Appeasement Office (Cheng Qian), and about 20,000 people in the three divisions of the Guilin Appeasement Office (Li Pinxian), accounting for a large proportion of the remaining Kuomintang troops. Because the Tang Enbo group responsible for the defense of the lower Reaches of the Yangtze River was only 450,000 people, and most of them were reconstruction and new troops, the combat effectiveness was not strong, and by this period, chiang's central army had lost the ability to monitor the Gui and Bai Chongxi.
Bai Chongxi also has a killer skill, that is, he can implicitly threaten Lao Jiang, if the other side insists on not handing over power to the field, then the Gui army and its affiliated forces will withdraw from central China and withdraw to Guangxi, open the middle reaches of the Yangtze River to the People's Liberation Army, or achieve "partial peace", which is a result that Old Chiang cannot bear. That would mean that the People's Liberation Army could easily cross the river from central China and then encircle the Tang Enbo clique in the Ninghu-Hangzhou region, and the entire military situation would be unmanageable. Therefore, Gui Shi and Bai Chongxi are now "forcing the palace" at this time, which is targeted according to the changes in the situation, and both have confidence and can also be regarded as the old Jiang dare not to rely on it.
From the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression to the end of 1948, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi of the Gui clan swallowed their anger for three and a half years, and now they finally waited for the opportunity to take revenge, and there was a sense of raising their eyebrows and exhaling from top to bottom, and Bai Chongxi specially telegraphed to Old Jiang: "Make a clear and quick decision on the issue of personal advance and retreat, so as not to make a mistake in peace negotiations", which means not to give face and not to face and seize the stage, and Old Chiang also wrote sadly in his diary: "If you persist again, the Guangxi army will take military measures" Yunyun, Fully explain that Chongxi's threat to open up Central China is not unfounded.
Fourth, the third time that Old Jiang went to the field was also contributed to by many factors.
By the end of 1948, the United States had lost confidence in Chiang Kai-shek, and the US military and political circles, represented by Ambassador Stuart Layden and Military Adviser General Badawi, wrote to Washington to determine that "Chairman Chiang has lost his political support and his masses." Bada Wei even suggested that the US government completely stop aiding Chiang Kai-shek and withdraw the military advisory group, while StuArt Layden and others were contemplating a "change of horses" in an attempt to support Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi of the Gui clan to replace Chiang Kai-shek in order to save the situation in Nanjing.
Situ Leiden entrusted his personal secretary Fu Jingbo to convey to Sun Ke, the "chief executive" of the Nanjing government, that the only way out for the Nanjing government at present was to negotiate peace with the Communist side, and that "Chiang Kai-shek's descent" had become necessary for peace talks. Sun Ke was so angry that he found Situ Leiden and asked him face to face: "Is Fu Jingbo's suggestion that Mr. Jiang go to the field come from the opinion of the ambassador himself?" The American slyly used diplomatic rhetoric: "As a US ambassador, it is not convenient to interfere in China's internal affairs, but personally, I do wholeheartedly approve of peace talks."
Therefore, the Gui clan dared to choose this time to attack, not only because of military strength as the backing, but also because it secretly received the support and promises of the Americans, and even the close associates of the Chiang clan saw this more clearly, that is, in the case of the complete failure of the Chiang Kai-shek army in the three major battles and the complete bankruptcy of the currency reform, if the Nanjing government wanted to seek a respite, it must open a new Kuomintang-Republican peace talks, and the precondition for the peace talks was that the old Chiang Kai-shek must resign. Under such internal and external difficulties, especially after the total annihilation of du Yuming's group on January 10, 1949, the old Chiang finally could not sit still and decided to "retreat into advance" for the third time to officially announce his resignation.
On January 19, 1949, Lao Jiang met with Zhang Qun, Zhang Zhizhong, Sun Ke, and others at the "Presidential Palace" and publicly announced: "I have decided to go to the wilderness, and now there are two plans for everyone to study, one is to ask Li Delin to come out to talk about peace, and I will go down to the field after negotiating; second, I will go down to the field now, and everything will be presided over by Li Delin." These senior members did not take a stand, and in fact all hoped that old Chiang Kai-shek would immediately go to the wilderness, because it would be impossible to start peace talks at all, and old Chiang Kai-shek was furious and frustrated when he saw the situation, and said angrily on the spot: "I am not overthrown by the Communists now, but by the Kuomintang."
Two days later, on January 21, Lao Jiang issued a "resignation notice", leaving Nanjing for Hangzhou in the afternoon of the same day, and then transferring to his hometown of Fenghua Xikou, "Vice President" Li Zongren took over the power of the Nanjing government as "acting president" as he wished, and the Gui clan finally forced Lao Jiang to leave the power center again after 22 years (in 1927, lao Jiang first went to the field, it was Li Zong and Bai Chongxi who joined forces, and He Yingqin remained silent at that time and fell out of favor).
In order to express the "sincerity" of the so-called peace talks, after Li Zongren came to power, he issued eight orders in one go on January 24, declaring: "Decrees that do not conform to democratic principles will be quickly revoked," including a series of measures such as abolishing the rule of secret agents, and even the headquarters of the Secret Service Bureau has instantly become an "underground unit", with only a few dozen personnel retained. Bai Chongxi's "Central China Bandit General Headquarters" was also renamed the "Central China Military and Political Governor's Office" on April 5.
Fifth, Bai Chongxi took the opportunity to desperately expand the strength of the Gui army.
Since the Gui clan boss was in charge, the Nanjing government's original restrictions and monitoring of Bai Chongxi were greatly weakened, and the second boss of the Gui clan naturally had to seize the opportunity to recruit troops, and in January 1949, the Central China Military and Political Governor's Office built a new 126th Army, with Commander Zhang Xiangze under its jurisdiction three divisions (the 304th Division, the 305th Division, and the 306th Division), which was subordinate to the Third Corps. In March, the Tenth Corps was formed, with the Gui general Xia Wei as the commander of the corps (later Xu Qiming), and in April, the 56th Army was newly established, with three divisions (the 228th, 229th and 230th Divisions) under its jurisdiction, which were subordinate to the Tenth Corps, and the Gui Clan also received a considerable amount of US-aided weapons and equipment, which facilitated the expansion of the army.
In early April 1949, before the People's Liberation Army launched the Campaign to Cross the River, the operational sequence of the Central China Military and Political Governor's Office was as follows: the first corps (Chen Mingren), the third corps (Zhang Gan), the 19th corps (Zhang Yi), the 6th Appeasement District, the 8th Appeasement District, the 16th Appeasement District, the Xiang'e Border Region Appeasement Headquarters (Song Xilian's 14th Corps), the Wuhan Garrison Headquarters, plus Cheng Qian's Changsha Sui Bureau and Li Pinxian's Guilin Sui Bureau, with a total strength of more than 400,000 people in 51 divisions of the 20 armies. It actually controls all the central and southern regions except Guangdong.
Although Xibaipo showed great sincerity and goodwill toward the peace talks, the Gui warlords boasted of a certain military strength in their hands and fundamentally lacked the sincerity of the peace talks; Li Zongren presided over the "Yangtze River Defense Conference" shortly after taking office, declaring that "we have no problem defending Shanghai for six months to a year," while Bai Chongxi, who actually controlled the Gui army, shouted even more: "We were born in straw shoes before, and in the end we could go up to the mountains to fight guerrillas and fight with them." This is the attitude of the military and political leaders of the Gui clan. It was decided that the Peking-Republican peace talks could not have a real result.
The principles entrusted by the Gui clan to the Nanjing peace talks delegation were: Refuse to use the eight conditions as the basis for negotiations, refuse the People's Liberation Army to cross the Yangtze River, persist in an armistice on the spot, and engage in the so-called "rule by drawing the river." Xi Baipo's attitude was very resolute: whether the Nanjing side was willing to sign the peace agreement or not, the People's Liberation Army must march to Jiangnan, whether it is the Central Army or the Gui Army, must accept the reorganization, and must not retain any form of reactionary army. In order to show the sincerity of the negotiations, during the peace talks, Xibaipo sent separate telegrams to the generals on the front line to suspend the attacks on Anqing, Taiyuan and other places, and at the same time asked the million troops of Erye and Sanye to also suspend the crossing of the river.
Bai Chongxi, the actual controller of the Gui army, and Xi Baipo also did their best to win, especially saying that although the People's Liberation Army must cross the river, as long as the Gui army does not attack, our army will not fight with the Gui army, pending the discussion of a specific solution, and the great man of Xibaipo even promised that since Bai Chongxi likes to lead the troops, once the peace talks are successful, "we can ask him to continue to lead the troops and ask him to command 300,000 troops.
Bai Chongxi finally rejected Xi Baipo's proposal, and his confidence lay in the fact that after expansion and reorganization, the Gui army still had considerable strength to compete with the People's Liberation Army.
Sixth, Bai Chongxi's political naivety eventually led to the complete destruction of the Gui army.
Before leaving Nanjing, Old Chiang Specially explained to Yu Ji, head of his bodyguard and director of the military affairs bureau of the "Presidential Palace," that he secretly informed the person in charge of the important military radio station of the Telecommunications Bureau: "After that, all the information that Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Huang Shaohu, and other three people have received on the telephone will be notified to me immediately after you collect it." After Jiang arrived at Xikou, he set up seven high-power radio stations, and militarily he still spoke directly with Gu Zhutong, chief of staff, Wang Shuming, deputy commander of the Air Force, and Tang Enbo, commander-in-chief of the Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou garrison, every day and instructed him to be appropriate; politically, from the issue of the formation of the cabinet of the Executive Yuan to the replacement of local officials, Old Jiang did not let go.
In this way, Li Zongren had no personnel power, no financial power, and no military command power other than the Gui army, and his "acting president" almost became a puppet, and Bai Chongxi did not get the power and position he expected, and even his dream of becoming "defense minister" was shattered by Lao Jiang. Therefore, during this period, Bai Chongxi gradually became dissatisfied with Li Zongren, a rift appeared for the first time between the two big men of the Gui clan, and the old Jiang Shunshi tried his best to win Bai Chongxi over, causing a great change in his political stance, and irreconcilable contradictions appeared within the Gui warlords.
On April 16, 1949, the "Draft Internal Peace Agreement" agreed between the two sides was signed in Beiping, and on the same day, the Nanjing delegation returned with the draft, and at the instigation of Bai Chongxi and the resolute opposition of Xikou, Li Zongren announced on April 20 that he refused to sign and announced that he would not accept the case, which also marked the complete rupture of the peace talks between the Kuomintang and the Republic of China. The next day, Commander-in-Chief Zhu issued the "Order for Marching to the Whole Country," calling on the People's Liberation Army to march forward courageously and resolutely, thoroughly, cleanly, and completely eliminate all reactionary troops that dare to resist! Then, of course, this also includes the Gui army.
In the process of advancing the Siye Army, the 19th Corps Zhang Yibu, the First Corps Chen Mingren, and the Changsha Sui Bureau Cheng Submarine Department revolted one after another, and Song Xilian's troops also broke away from Bai Chongxi's command, so by October 1949, the Gui clan and its military strength were seriously weakened: according to the statistics in the "Brief History of the Kuomintang Army", by October 7, 1949, Bai Chongxi's actual control of only 29 divisions and 144,000 troops, and the swept in the Four Fields Army. In the Xianggan Campaign alone, 430,000 troops of ten armies were invested, plus 100,000 men and horses of the Erye Chen Geng Corps, which constituted an overwhelming advantage over the remnants of the Gui army.
What is even worse is that in the face of the approaching step by step of the Four Wild Army, Bai Chongxi once tried to lead the main force of central China to retreat into Guangdong and join forces with Yu Hanmou's troops to defend liangguang, but lao Jiang manipulated the "Ministry of National Defense" and the Guangdong faction and did not allow it at all. So Bai Chongxi was left with only two choices: either to fight Lin Biao in the Two Lakes region or to return to Guangxi with the Gui army. We all know the course of the battle, the Gui army was broken by the first battle in the Battle of Hengbao, Bai Chongxi could only lead the remnants to flee back to Guangxi, while the Siye troops followed and pursued straight into Guijing, and the Erye Chen Geng Corps completed the strategic detour of the "Great Encirclement", completely blocking the land retreat of the Gui army trying to escape from the sea.
At the end of the Guangxi Campaign in December 1949, the Gui army fleeing south was completely annihilated in the coastal area of Qinzhou Bay, and Bai Chongxi's entire family was destroyed, not only did he himself become the commander of the light pole, but also "the bird was put into a cage" under the lure of lao Jiang, and Li Zongren chose to go into exile overseas.