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Text: Lin Yuezhou
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introduction
In January 1949, the elite troops of the Central Army that Chiang Kai-shek relied on were facing losses, and when he had no power, the Gui family, who had a long-standing grudge against him, forced Chiang Kai-shek to go into hiding.
Chiang Kai-shek, who was in a difficult situation at home and abroad, had no choice but to announce his resignation. This is the third time in his life that he has gone into the wilderness, but this time the wilderness is unusual for him, because one of the initiators of this expedition, one of the leaders of the Gui family, is Chiang Kai-shek's life and death enemy, Li Zongren.
(Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren)
Chiang Kai-shek experienced many factional disputes, and the Gui faction led by Li Zongren was the local power faction with which he had been competing for the longest time and the most attacked. Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren actually married brothers, but later they turned against each other and became enemies of life and death.
Chiang Kai-shek was Li Zongren's political nemesis, and Li Zongren was also regarded as a thorn in Chiang Kai-shek's side. Chiang Kai-shek even sent people to assassinate Li Zongren many times, but now he was pulled down by his sworn enemy, how could he be restrained.
But how can Chiang Kai-shek, who has lost his general momentum, deal with Li Zongren, and what is the final outcome?
1. Grievances and hatreds, from close to cold
In the spring of 1926, the dust of the Zhongshan ship incident was settled, and the contradictions between Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai-shek broke out to a climax. After a struggle, Wang Jingwei was defeated and had to obediently leave his post and go abroad, and Chiang Kai-shek became the central figure in Guangzhou.
(Chiang Kai-shek)
At the same time, Li Zongren, commander of the Seventh Army of the National Revolutionary Army, went to Guangzhou in person to instigate the Northern Expedition. As soon as Li Zongren arrived in Guangzhou, Chiang Kai-shek came to visit, and this was the first meeting between them.
When Li Zongren first met Chiang Kai-shek, he felt that this person had a kind of "restrained energy" tenacity, and then when he chatted with Bai Chongxi in the nursing home, he also gave Chiang Kai-shek a high evaluation.
Soon after, the Nationalist Government officially appointed Chiang Kai-shek as commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army and ordered him to launch the Northern Expedition. Taking this opportunity, Li Zongren and Chiang Kai-shek had more contacts.
Li Zongren admired Chiang Kai-shek's personal charm, so he often visited the headquarters and chatted with Chiang Kai-shek over tea and chat, and Chiang Kai-shek was also warm and generous to him. After going back and forth, the relationship between the two became close.
(Li Zongren)
Under the difficult situation of the Nationalist Government at that time, Chiang Kai-shek also took the initiative to allocate a large number of guns, radios, and 200,000 yuan to the Nationalist Army.
Such a generous gesture moved Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi and other officers and soldiers of the Gui family, and they were impressed by Chiang Kai-shek, believing that he had no view of the realm and was a good commander.
The relationship between the two became increasingly close, Chiang Kai-shek proposed to worship Li Zongren as brothers, Li Zongren gladly accepted, and the two wrote the oath of "love compatriots, one heart and one virtue, life and death" after exchanging birthdays.
（蒋介石与李宗仁、白崇禧）
But the relationship between the two took a turn after the Gui family led by Li Zongren took a turn for the rest of the country.
The smoke of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party ignited, he became the target of public criticism, and the gongs and drums of the Eastern Expedition against Chiang became louder and louder, and he knew that he might not be able to protect himself if he continued like this, so he proposed to send a part of his troops to resist the threat of Wuhan.
However, what chilled Chiang Kai-shek was that Li Zongren did not attach importance to his safety, and even criticized Chiang Kai-shek for "not sacrificing the party-state plan for his personal status" regardless of his past situation.
Chiang Kai-shek did not give up, and deliberately proposed to go into the field to test Li Zongren's attitude towards himself, but he did not expect Li Zongren to really not stay, so far, Chiang Kai-shek was completely disappointed in Li Zongren.
(Bai Chongxi and Li Zongren)
Although Chiang Kai-shek went into the opposition twice, he still became the supreme leader of the Kuomintang, and openly fought with the Gui family, and turned against Li Zongren. With the dispute between Chiang Kai-shek and the Gui family, his grudges with Li Zongren slowly piled up.
From a brother to an enemy, Chiang Kai-shek sent people to assassinate Li Zongren many times, but in the end they all failed. The two fought each other as enemies.
(Li Zongren)
Second, domestic and foreign difficulties, the third time into the wilderness
From 1927 to 1949, Li Zongren forced Chiang Kai-shek into the field three times. The first was in 1927, when Chiang Kai-shek established the Nationalist Government in Nanjing, in opposition to the Nationalist Government in Wuhan. Therefore, the Wuhan Nationalist Government repeatedly sent telegrams demanding that Chiang Kai-shek go into the wilderness.
Chiang Kai-shek advocated the use of troops against Wuhan, but he failed to get the support of Li Zongren, who opposed Chiang Kai-shek's approach and advocated reconciliation with Wuhan. Chiang Kai-shek saw that the situation was unfavorable to him, so he had no choice but to send a telegram to the field.
(Li Zongren)
Li Zongren's second visit to Chiang Kai-shek was in 1931, when the two sides of Guangdong and Guizhou reconciled, formed a united front, and raised the anti-Chiang banner in Guangzhou. Li Zongren took the lead in expressing his determination to curry favor with Kai-shek and demanded that Chiang Kai-shek go to the field within 48 hours.
On May 27, an extraordinary meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang was held in Guangzhou, and the next day the Nationalist Government of Guangzhou was formed to confront the Nationalist Government of Nanjing.
(Chiang Kai-shek)
Under the pressure of such a situation, Chiang Kai-shek had to demand peace with the Nationalist Government in Guangzhou. The Nationalist Government in Guangzhou insisted that Chiang Kai-shek go down to the wilderness before he would give up. So Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to go into the field on December 16.
In January 1949, Chiang Kai-shek announced that he had "gone into the wilderness" for the third time. His "going into the wilderness" this time has both "proximate causes" and "distant causes".
His defeat on the battlefields of Liaoshen and Huaihai was a "proximate cause" and a decisive factor. Authoritarian dictatorship, economic crisis, and factional contradictions are the "remote causes" and inevitable factors.
(Li Zongren)
3. Deploy in advance and overhead Li Zongren
Although Chiang Kai-shek, who was ambitious as a wolf, lost his momentum, he laid out his back road in advance. For example, Tang Enbo was appointed commander-in-chief of the Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou garrison, Zhu Shaoliang was appointed director of the Fuzhou Pacification Office and chairman of Fujian Province, Zhang Qun was appointed director of the Chongqing Pacification Office, and Xue Yue was appointed chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Government.
Economically, Chiang Kai-shek sent a large amount of gold and silver from the treasury to Taiwan, while the foreign exchange deposited in the United States into his own pocket.
(Group photo of Li Zongren and other members of the Gui family)
Militarily, in order to completely attack the Gui troops, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Chen Cheng to control the Southeast Military Region and prohibit the entry of the Gui troops, so that the PLA easily occupied the Guangdong Military Region and the Leizhou Peninsula, cutting off the retreat of the Gui troops.
At this point, Chiang Kai-shek successfully defeated Li Zongren's army after careful deployment and achieved the final victory on the field of grievances.
Resources:
Force, and Wu Xuesheng. "Chiang Kai-shek's Third "Lower Field" Analysis." Archives of the Republic of China 2 (2001): 8.
Zhang Jiakang.Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren:From Brother to Life and Death Enemy[J].Reading Digest, 2017, 000(009):P.28-33.