Xiao Jinguang ranked sixth among the top ten generals of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Speaking of him, people first think of him as the founder of the mainland's modern navy and the lifelong naval commander appointed by Mao Zedong.
But if you want people to continue to talk about him, it will be a bit of a racking of brains, unlike Su Yu, Chen Geng, Xu Haidong, Huang Kecheng, and even Wang Shusheng, Xu Guangda and other generals, who will talk about the Tao.
I'm afraid that his fame among the people is far from that of his daughter-in-law ~ the famous singer Li Guyi.
So, what is the reason why the presence of this highly decorated general in people's minds is relatively not so strong? Let's analyze it today.
Combined with the experience of General Xiao Jinguang in various historical periods, we believe that there are the following four reasons:
01 Xiao Jinguang was absent from the major uprisings in the early days of the founding of the army.
Xiao Jinguang was born in 1903, his hometown is in Changsha, Hunan, he and Ren Bishi were alumni and friends in middle school, and this friendship also benefited him a lot in the future.
When he was in middle school in Changsha, he participated in the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and joined the "Russian Studies Society" initiated by Mao Zedong as a secretary.
In 1921, Xiao Jinguang went to the Soviet Union to study, accompanied by Ren Bishi, Liu Shaoqi and others. In the Soviet Union, he attended the Third Congress of the Communist International, listened to Lenin's speeches, and held a memorial service for Lenin after his death.
As early as 1922, Xiao Jinguang joined the party in the Soviet Union, and among the 20 people, including the top ten marshals and top ten generals, he was only one month later than Zhu De in terms of joining the party.
In 1924, Xiao Jinguang returned to China after finishing his studies ahead of schedule, and first went to Anyuan to engage in the workers' movement. During the Northern Expedition, he was appointed as the party representative of the 6th Division of the 2nd Army of the National Revolutionary Army, was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and led his troops to participate in the battles of Nanchang, Nanjing, and Western Hubei.
At that time, Chen Geng was just a company commander, and Lin Biao was just a platoon commander. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was awarded the rank of general, and some comrades-in-arms joked that he had been in the army for 29 years and had only been promoted by two levels.
Xiao Jinguang's early qualifications were proper marshal qualifications, but a little regrettable is that after the failure of the Great Revolution, he went to the Leningrad Military and Political Academy of the Soviet Union, was absent from the major uprisings, and failed to catch up with the grand cause of building the army and creating a base area in full swing in China.
Among the other generals, among them, Su Yu, Chen Geng, Zhang Yunyi, and Xu Guangda participated in the Nanchang Uprising, Tan Zheng participated in the Autumn Harvest Uprising, Huang Kecheng participated in the Southern Hunan Uprising, and Xu Haidong and Wang Shusheng participated in the Jute Uprising.
02 During the Red Army era, Xiao Jinguang did not serve in the main force most of the time.
When he returned home from the Soviet Union for the second time, it was already 1930, and as a military cadre, he was sent to the front line. However, at that time, the high-level positions in the Central Soviet District had been filled, so they had to go to the Western Fujian Soviet District first.
He successively served as chief of staff of the Military Commission of the Fujian-Guangdong-Jiangxi Special Administrative Region, chief of staff of the Fujian-Guangdong-Jiangxi Military Region, chief of staff of the 12th Army, and president of the Central Military and Political School.
The following year, Xiao Jinguang was sent to serve as a political commissar in the Red Fifth Army Corps reorganized from the Ningdu Uprising, and engaged in the transformation of the rebel troops, which was fruitful.
But soon, the fifth anti-encirclement campaign began, and Xiao Jinguang served as the commander of the Jian(Ning) Li (Sichuan) Tai (Ning) garrison area and the political commissar of the Red 11th Army, responsible for the defense of Lichuan.
Xiao Jinguang led a teaching team of only 70 people and some local armed forces to resist the attack of three divisions of the Kuomintang Army on Li Chuan, and finally was forced to retreat because he was outnumbered, and Li Chuan was lost.
Then Xiao Jinguang was appointed as the political commissar of the newly established Red 7th Army. At this time, the 7th Army Corps had not yet been formed, and because of the tight war, it went to cooperate with the Red Third Army Corps commanded by Peng Dehuai to attack Huwan on the periphery of Lichuan, but it was defeated again due to the disparity in strength.
As a result, Xiao Jinguang was detained by Bogu and Li De on the charge of "Luo Ming's representative in the army" and was tried in public and sentenced to death.
After Peng Dehuai's repeated intercessions to no avail, and after the intervention of Mao Zedong and Wang Jiaxiang, Xiao Jinguang was exempted from the death penalty, but he was still dismissed, expelled from the party and the army, and sentenced to five years in prison, and was sent to the Red Army School as a teacher.
After the start of the Long March, Xiao Jinguang served as the captain of the higher-level cadres of the Central Military Commission's cadre regiment, and was not rehabilitated until the Zunyi Conference in 1935.
After the sacrifice of Deng Ping, chief of staff of the Red 3rd Army, Xiao Jinguang returned to the front-line troops and took over Deng Ping's position.
After the end of the Long March to Yan'an, Xiao Jinguang served as the head of the Military Department of the Shaanxi and Gansu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and the commander of the Red 29th Army, and soon after served as the chief of staff of the Red Army Rear Command.
It can be seen that in the era of the Red Army, compared with other generals, Xiao Jinguang worked in some partial divisions most of the time, and suffered some setbacks, which failed to provide him with a bigger stage, which affected the play of his military talents, and his popularity was affected somewhat.
03 During the Anti-Japanese War, Xiao Jinguang was responsible for the left-behind corps, which was not as exposed as the generals on the front line.
During the Anti-Japanese War, the Red Army was reorganized into three divisions: 115, 120, and 129, and a part of the troops from the three main divisions and other units were transferred to form the Eighth Route Army Left-behind Corps, with Xiao Jinguang as the director.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the left-behind corps did a great deal of work, mainly as follows: First, it carried out a sweep out of the bandits that were wandering within the borders; second, it cracked down on and prevented the Japanese troops from invading the border areas; third, it smashed and repelled the first anti-communist upsurge of the Kuomintang; and fourth, it organized a campaign for the military and civilian reclamation and large-scale production in the border areas.
In 1942, the left-behind corps was merged into the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningjin-Sui Joint Defense Army, with He Long as commander and Xiao Jinguang as deputy commander.
Xiao Jinguang's level in the left-behind corps is not low, it belongs to the divisional establishment, and his contribution is not small, it can be said that he has worked hard, but after all, he is in the rear, and he has less exposure and popularity than those generals who bravely killed the enemy on the front line.
04 The Liberation War was famous, but Xiao Jinguang was low-key and was covered by the brilliance of his subordinates.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Xiao Jinguang was first appointed deputy commander of the Shandong Military Region, but on the way to his post, he changed to the Northeast and served as the deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army.
After our army lost in World War II, it was driven all the way to the Songhua River by Du Yuming. Xiao Jinguang was sent to South Manchuria, replacing Cheng Shicai as the commander of the Liaodong Military Region, and joined forces with Chen Yun to win the victory of the Battle of Linjiang in Sibao, defended the South Manchurian base area, and made a major contribution to fundamentally changing the strategic situation of the Northeast Battlefield.
In the following Liaoshen Campaign, Xiao Jinguang did not perform much, because his troops were mainly besieging Changchun.
In the Pingjin Campaign after Siye later entered the pass, it was mainly Cheng Zihua's corps as the main force, and Xiao Jinguang's troops were mainly responsible for the task of encircling Pingjin to defend the enemy and storming Beijing (after peaceful liberation).
When Siye went south, Xiao Jinguang's 12th Corps became the main force of the advance. The famous Battle of Hengbao was Xiao Jinguang's last battle.
In this campaign, he commanded 16 armies and 19 divisions in a unified manner, and with the active cooperation of the East Route Army and the West Route Army, he launched a fierce attack on the Kuomintang army from the front, annihilating the four main divisions of Bai Chongxi's division in one fell swoop, and making a major contribution to the People's Liberation Army's march into Guangxi and the liberation of South China.
The Liberation War can be said to be Xiao Jinguang's highlight moment in the war years, although he has made outstanding achievements, he is a little humble and low-key, but he is not as powerful as his subordinates Han Xianchu, Luo Shunchu, Xiao Hua and others.
05 After the liberation, Xiao Jinguang served as the commander of the Navy for a long time, and his position was almost unchanged.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xiao Jinguang and Liu Yalou were entrusted with important tasks by the chairman to form the navy and air force respectively, and since then they have left Siye, similar to Xu Guangda to form armored troops.
The selection of the three of them, in addition to their personal qualities, is that they all have a background in the Soviet Union, after all, as a new branch of the military, they need to deal with the Soviets a lot.
In 1955, due to his early qualifications and highlights during the Liberation War, Xiao Jinguang, who was the commander of the Navy at the time, was awarded the rank of general, ranking sixth, and deservedly so.
In the various political waves after the founding of the People's Republic of China, although Xiao Jinguang was deprived of actual leadership for a while, he was not affected too much, and the old man's sentence "Xiao is a lifelong naval commander" is a talisman.
In the 1974 "Criticism of Lin and Criticism" movement, Xiao Jinguang was slandered on the deputy commander's thief ship, and it was not until 1979 that he was rehabilitated.
In 1980, Xiao Jinguang resigned as commander of the Navy and was replaced by Admiral Ye Fei, the first political commissar.
Xiao Jinguang set a record as the youngest and oldest commander in the history of the People's Navy, serving for more than 30 years from the age of 47 in 1950 to his retirement in 1980. At the same time, he is also the longest-serving commander in the history of the world's navies.
In 1982, Xiao Jinguang was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Advisory Committee, and since then he has been relegated to the second line. On March 29, 1989, Xiao Jinguang died of illness at the age of 86.
He was the last and longest-lived founding general to die.
It can be seen that after the liberation, Xiao Jinguang's position has hardly changed, and he has rarely been impacted in the wind and waves, which can be described by the word "peaceful", which also has a lot of ups and downs and diluted people's imprints on him.
The above is the analysis of the reasons why Xiao Jinguang has a relatively low sense of presence in people's minds among the top ten generals, but his contribution to China's revolution and construction is not low at all, and he is worthy of our admiration.
(Completed)