"Brother, have you seen Qiu Weida?"
"Nope. ”
"Strange, I heard that Qiu Weida was also captured, why is there no whereabouts for him?"
In 1950, in Gongdelin, where war criminals were held, Wang Yaowu discovered a strange thing, his old subordinate Qiu Weida was captured and there was no news.
At first, he thought that Qiu Weida was not imprisoned in the same place as him. However, most of the Kuomintang generals who were captured in the war later arrived at Gongdelin, and Wang Yaowu waited for a long time, but still did not see this old subordinate.
For this reason, he was full of doubts, thinking, where did Qiu Weida go?
In the War of Liberation, as long as the high-ranking Kuomintang generals who did not rebel or surrendered, they all went to Gongdelin to undergo reform after being captured, and almost no one could escape this fate. It's no wonder that Wang Yaowu wondered and asked around.
Wang Yaowu, born in Tai'an, Shandong Province in 1904, entered the Whampoa Military Academy at the age of 20, and was assigned to the National Revolutionary Army immediately after graduation and began his military career.
In the battle to invade the Soviet area, his military talents were brought into full play, standing out among many generals and being favored by Chiang Kai-shek.
For example, in the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, the enemy's 32nd Brigade was surrounded by several times the strength of our army in the strategic location of Yihuang, and most Kuomintang generals advocated breaking through the encirclement. Wang Yaowu, who served as the commander of the regiment, advocated holding on to the death and insisted on holding on for 24 days without being broken by the Red Army, becoming a legend, for which he was received by Chiang Kai-shek himself after the war.
In 1933, the Supplementary First Brigade led by Wang Yaowu was once again surrounded by several times the strength of our army at Tanjiaqiao, Huangshan, Anhui Province, and it was difficult to escape. However, Wang Yaowu responded calmly, he commanded the troops to take a commanding height, turned the situation in one fell swoop, turned defeat into victory, and severely defeated the Red 10th Army led by Fang Zhimin, Su Yu and others (one division commander died, and more than eight generals were wounded in the battle).
Many years later, General Su Yu couldn't help but cry when he mentioned this matter.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wang Yaowu led his troops to gallop across the country, conquering the south and the north, almost filling the whole field, and never missed an important battle. The 74th Army under his command became the main force of the Kuomintang army's anti-Japanese war, which made the Japanese army fearful.
However, during the War of Liberation, Wang Yaowu followed Chiang Kai-shek to resist stubbornly, fought against our army, and became a historical sinner.
In 1948, Su Yu, who had become the commander of the East China Field Army, commanded the People's Liberation Army to encircle Jinan and prepare to launch a decisive offensive campaign. Sitting in Jinan was none other than Wang Yaowu, an old opponent whose hands were stained with the blood of Red Army soldiers.
Our army unceremoniously shouted the slogan of "capture Jinan Mansion and capture Wang Yaowu alive", and the battle of revenge began.
At this time, Wang Yaowu was still extremely arrogant, claiming that the defense of Jinan Mansion was impregnable, "it is difficult to attack in the south, and it is difficult to attack in the north...... There is Zuomin (Wang Yaowu's character Zuomin) here, in vain".
As a result, it took only eight days for the city of Jinan to be breached by our army, and Wang Yaowu fled in a hurry and was captured by our army.
After being captured, he realized his guilt, actively accepted reform, regained his freedom in 1959, and became the first batch of war criminals to be pardoned with Du Yuming and others.
Why does Wang Yaowu miss Qiu Weida?
Qiu Weida is a native of Pingjiang, Hunan, born in 1907, he abandoned his pen after graduating from middle school at the age of 20 and went south to Guangzhou, where he applied for the Whampoa Military Academy and became a cadet of the fourth phase of Whampoa.
The Whampoa Military Academy is the cradle of generals, and the first phase of Whampoa is full of famous generals, and the fourth phase is not inferior, and the generals are like clouds.
As a fourth-term student of Whampoa, Qiu Weida is one of the best. Wang Yaowu's ability to achieve so much has nothing to do with Qiu Weida.
During his time in the military academy, Qiu Weida performed outstandingly, and after graduation, he stayed in school as the captain of the district, and it was not easy to have such an opportunity. You must know that the fourth phase of Huangpu has a total enrollment of more than 2,600 people, and only two or three people stay in school as district captains after graduation, which can be said to be one in a thousand.
At that time, Mr. Lin did not have that opportunity, and he was only a squad leader in the Northern Expeditionary Army after graduation. It can be seen that Qiu Weida is outstanding, and his theoretical level is above many people.
Although Qiu Weida and Wang Yaowu were not born at the same time, and they were not in the same army at first, the two were very close.
Qiu Weida is an aspiring young man with the ambition to serve the country, and when he was in school, he was warned and punished by the school for participating in the patriotic movement. After Chiang Kai-shek's betrayal of the revolution in 1927, although he was not a member of the Communist Party as the commander of the Guangdong Army, he was also dissatisfied with what Chiang Kai-shek had done, and followed Ye Jianying to participate in the Guangzhou Uprising.
It was only after the failure of the Guangzhou Uprising that his revolutionary position wavered and fled to Shaoguan. Later, he joined the Whampoa Alumni Association.
In the spring of 1928, Qiu Weida was introduced by an acquaintance and came to Shandong to join Wang Yaowu. At that time, Wang Yaowu served as the battalion commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Regiment of the 22nd Division of the 1st Army in Shandong.
After Qiu Weida went over, he took out a letter of introduction from an acquaintance and handed it to Wang Yaowu. The other party took the letter and looked at it a few times, and began to look Qiu Weida up and down.
Although Qiu Weida is a southerner, fortunately, he is tall, strong and brave, and he is the same as a northerner, Wang Yaowu liked it at a glance. Of course, Wang Yaowu doesn't like to judge people by their appearance, he poured a cup of hot tea, handed it to Qiu Weida with both hands, and began the "interview".
From ancient times to the present, from China to foreign countries, from strategy to tactics, from war examples to military theories, he "consulted" Qiu Weida one by one. Before they knew it, they talked for several hours, and they hated to see each other late, until the orderlies called for dinner, and they ended the talks.
Since then, Qiu Weida has followed Wang Yaowu for nearly 20 years. From 1929 to 1948, Qiu Weida was under Wang Yaowu, giving advice to the other party.
The war between Chiang Kai-shek and the Gui family, the Great War of Chiang Fengyan in the Central Plains, and several "encirclement and suppression" of the central revolutionary base areas, as well as the Red Tenth Army Corps that pursued Fang Zhimin's troops, and even the later "encirclement and suppression" of the Red Army in northern Shaanxi, Qiu Weida participated in all of them.
How much of Wang Yaowu's military exploits benefited from Qiu Weida, we don't know. From Chiang Kai-shek's following actions, it can be seen that Qiu Weida is not an ordinary person.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Qiu Weida, then the chief of staff of Lieutenant General of the 4th Front Army (Commander Wang Yaowu), was parachuted into the 51st Division of the 74th Army as the division commander, and came to Nanjing after the recovery to serve as the commander of the Nanjing garrison, responsible for the garrison of the capital.
In May 1947, under the leadership of Zhang Lingfu, the 74th Division of Chiang's ace army was annihilated in the Battle of Menglianggu in the Yimeng Mountains of Lunan Province, and Chiang Kai-shek rebuilt the division.
After leaving Wang Yaowu, how did Qiu Weida perform after going it alone?
At the beginning of 1948, this unit was formally formed. Less than three months after the reconstruction, the 74th Division faced a challenge. In March of that year, the Central Plains Field Army, which had just come out of Dabie Mountain, was ready to take the initiative to look for fighters to win a battle and boost morale. After some observation, they set their sights on the newly formed 74th Division.
In their opinion, the division is a frightened bird, and Qiu Weida is also a general of the defeated army (the former deputy commander of the 74th Division), and his combat effectiveness is definitely not very good, and he is an out-and-out soft persimmon. Nakano aimed the spearhead of the attack at the 58th Brigade of the integrated 74th Division stationed in Fuyang, Anhui Province.
Despite being a "weak brigade", Nakano did not dare to slack off, and tactically attached great importance to the enemy, after all, this was the first battle after coming out of the mountain. They went all out and dispatched 5 columns (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 11th columns), and in addition, the 10th column of Huaye's ace was also transferred to Nakano.
After the Battle of Lunan in 1947, Nakano had 30,000 people in a column, and there were cavalry regiments and artillery regiments in a column. In other words, the number of our army was no less than 100,000, and the 58th Brigade of Chiang's army had only more than 9,000 people.
Unexpectedly, the Battle of Fuyang was fought extremely difficult, and the attacks of the 1st and 11th columns of the Nakano aces did not go well and entered a stalemate. In the case of inferior troops, the 58th Brigade even carried out several counteroffensives.
As a result, our army fought hard for 6 days, lost troops, and still failed to break through the defense line of the 58th Brigade, and had to withdraw from the battle as reinforcements continued to arrive.
When the Battle of Jinan was raging, Wang Yaowu asked Nanjing for an order, hoping to quickly adjust the 74th Division to put out the fire.
Liu Zhi was a cautious eye, and originally wanted not to let him go. Under Qiu Weida's arguments, Liu Zhicai reluctantly sent 7 companies to Jinan, but even these 7 companies also made our army suffer a lot.
After they entered Jinan, they were responsible for guarding the post and telecommunications building and withstood the attack of a division of our army. Seeing that this place could not be attacked for a long time, the division commander Wang Jiwen personally went to the front line to command, but unfortunately died. The good fighting of the 74th Division can be seen from this.
Despite this, the Kuomintang edifice will collapse, and no one can stop it.
In January 1948, in the Huaihai Campaign, the Kuomintang army suffered a crushing defeat, and Qiu Weida, who served as the commander of the 74th Army, was captured by our People's Liberation Army. Because Qiu Weida was very good at military affairs, he was not imprisoned in a prisoner of war camp after being captured, but became a guest and was sent to the senior group of the PLA officer corps of the East China Military Region to study and Xi.
In March 1950, when Wang Yaowu inquired about him, Qiu Weida had already reported to the East China Military and Political University (later renamed the Nanjing Military Academy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army) and was concentrating on teaching on the podium.
In fact, Qiu Weida was also the only Kuomintang general who did not enter the prisoner of war camp after defeating the captured prisoners and gave lectures to our military cadets, which was kept secret at the time, no wonder Wang Yaowu lost the news of his old subordinates for a long time.
In the autumn of 1958, Qiu Weida left the podium and became a counselor of the Counselor's Office of the Jiangsu Provincial Government.
In 1998, the 94-year-old Qiu Weida died of illness, and in his later years, he loved the country and the people, made his own contribution to the construction of New China, and received a good death.
Source: Wang Yongjun, "Biography of Famous Generals of Huangpu Military Academy", Liaoning People's Publishing House, "The 74th Army of the National Revolutionary Army - Army Military History".