After the Northern Expedition, Lao Chiang began to vigorously expand the descendants of the Central Army, intending to support and promote the Huangpu generals. In the middle and late stages of the Anti-Japanese War, these Huangpu teachers and students have begun to take the lead alone. And gradually formed four major factions headed by He Yingqin's faction, the civil engineering faction (Chen Cheng's faction), the Hu Zongnan faction and the Tang Enbo faction.
However, in the later stages of the Liberation War, these factions were caught up by a small group that came from behind, and this is:
Fifth Military Department.
The Orthodox faction of the National Army and its leaders
How powerful was the Fifth Army at that time?
During the three major campaigns, the Fifth Army Department dominated the Liaoshen and Huaihai campaigns, and the leader Du Yuming, as a lieutenant general, directly or indirectly commanded the two major armies in Northeast China and Xuzhou with a total of 1.35 million troops, becoming the winner or loser of the decisive battle in the real sense.
At the same time, it also explains a puzzle that plagues the minds of readers who study the history of Armageddon:
Why did Du Yuming's ability be mediocre, but Lao Jiang still asked him to command the battles of Liaoshen and Huaihai?
If we look at it from a factional point of view, it makes sense.
In a word: the national army contingent in East China and Northeast China is also the movement that Du Yuming can really command, because they all belong to the Fifth Army Department
Lao Jiang and Du Yuming
The Fifth Army Department, which has accumulated steadily
To be correct, there is no such thing as the "Fifth Army" within the national army and military history research circles.
Many of them are the oldest faction in the division and the national army, the He Yingqin faction, but they are not too keen on factional struggles and are self-contained, and they do not have strong superiors and subordinates among themselves, but are more like a loose alumni association.
And the reason why these people can form a loose alliance is mainly because one person plays the role of threading the needle in it, and this person is their leader:
Du Lianming.
Du Yuming's resume in the National Army can also be called the history of the development of the Fifth Military Department.
Lieutenant General Du Yuming
In 1938, Du Yuming, as an instructor of the chariot school, defected to his benefactor Xu Tingyao (Du Yuming's teacher), who had always promoted him, and at this time, Du Yuming happened to be Lao Jiang who wanted to focus on building the strongest mechanized army of the national army - the new 11th Army, and appointed Xu Tingyao, the number one mechanized combat expert of the national army, to the commander of the army, and Du Yuming served as the commander of the 200th division of the ace.
In 1939, the newly formed 11th Army was reorganized into the 5th Army, and the commander Xu Tingyao was promoted to the commander of the 38th Group Army, and Du Yuming took over as the commander of the 5th Army.
I have to say here that Xu Tingyao is really Du Yuming's guide, it not only helped Du Yuming relieve the bullying of Guan Linzheng (the two have never dealt with him) and made him a military commander, but also left him a luxurious faction team.
The relationship between the two is also that of a teacher and a friend
Let's take a look at how luxurious the officer configuration of the 5th Army was at that time.
The 5th Army in 1939 was under the jurisdiction of:
New 22nd Division, 200th Division, and Honor 1st Division.
The commander and deputy commander of the newly formed 22nd Division were the tyrants of the two universities of the Nationalist Army, Qiu Qingquan, who graduated from the German Army School, was nicknamed "Qiu Madman"; Liao Yaoxiang, who graduated from the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in France, was nicknamed "Tiger of the Jungle." In addition to these two people, there are also chief of staff Li Tao, and regiment commanders Xiong Xiaosan, Huang Xiang and other Huangpu generals, the 200th Division is the famous general Gao Jiren, and the Honorary 1st Division has Wu Xiaoya, Wang Bo and Zheng Tingji.
After having a basic plate, Du Yuming also began to expand his group through relationships.
After he was promoted from the commander of the 200th Division to the commander of the army, he found Xu Tingyao, dug a corner from Tang Enbo, and pulled the famous general Dai Anlan, who was also bullied by Guan Linzheng, and his good buddy Zheng Dongguo in Lu University to the 5th Army, serving as the commander of the 200th Division and the commander of the honorary 1st Division as the deputy commander.
Du Yuming poached Tang Enbo's two generals
In January 1940, the Battle of Guinan (Kunlun Pass), which shocked China and foreign countries, ended, and after the war, Lao Chiang began to "reward the good and punish the evil" to the generals who participated in the war.
The supreme commanders of the campaign, Bai Chongxi and Chen Cheng, were demoted to military rank (from first-class general to second-class general), a number of Cantonese army generals were demoted or killed, and Xu Tingyao, commander of the 38th Group Army, was demoted and assigned to the rear.
In terms of reward, Du Yuming's general of the 5th Army can be described as:
Qin Shi Huang ate peppercorns - won hemp.
Not only did most of the officers who participated in the war receive the Order of Baoding of the fourth class, but Xu Tingyao's loss of power also allowed Du Yuming to fill the power vacuum left by Xu before, and also made Du Yuming begin to enter Lao Jiang's field of vision.
After this battle, the power of the 5th Army was expanded, Zheng Dongguo was transferred to the commander of the 8th Army of the National Army, and the Fifth Army began to fly together.
The Japanese army suffered a crushing defeat at Kunlun Pass
In 1942, the first expedition failed, the commander of the 200th Division, Dai Anlan, was martyred, Du Yuming was also defeated in Savage Mountain, and the elite 200th Division suffered heavy losses.
But this did not sink the Fifth Army, but made the Fifth Army the biggest winner of the expedition.
After returning to China, Du Yuming was promoted to the commander-in-chief of the 5th Group Army of the National Army, in addition to mastering the 5th Army, there were also the 2nd Army, the 8th Army and the 53rd Army, etc., and the 5th Group Army later developed into the Kunming Garrison Command, so that the entire Yunnan, including the Dian Army of Luhan, had a cooperative relationship with Du Yuming.
Then Du Yuming and He Yingqin formed a tacit understanding, and the two jointly recommended Zheng Dongguo as the commander of the New 1st Army, and then the commander of the 8th Army was taken over by He Yingqin's nephew He Shaozhou, and the New 1st Army (there was no New 6th Army at that time) was the strongest army in the National Army at that time.
By 1944, Du Yuming's circle (which cannot be called a faction) had reached 1 group army + one army stationed in India, and it had the two best-equipped ace armies of the national army at that time - the new 1st Army and the 5th Army.
Before the end of the Anti-Japanese War, the New 1st Army was divided into the New 1st Army and the New 6th Army, and the spokesperson of the New 6th Army was Du Yuming's descendant - Liao Yaoxiang.
Du Yuming is a descendant of Liao Yaoxiang
By 1945, Du Yuming was no longer an honest man who could only swallow his anger when he was bullied by Du to Guan Linzheng, but became the second largest force among Huangpu students after Hu Zongnan.
After the Liberation War began, the Fifth Military Department embarked on a fast track of development.
The leader Du Yuming was promoted to the commander of the Northeast Security Guard, and while the director of the Northeast Battalion was not in charge, Du Yuming also became the actual controller of the Northeast National Army.
After taking office, Du Yuming first asked Zheng Dongguo to temporarily command the New 1st Army on behalf of Sun Liren, wanting to regain the command of the New 1st Army, and at the same time transferred the "allies" in the Longyun Incident, the 60th and 93rd Armies of the Dian Army (these two armies are semi-American armies), to the Northeast Battlefield to control them, and Lao Jiang sent 4 armies in the Northeast - the New 6th Army, the 52nd Army, In the 71st Army and the 13th Army, Du Yuming is also constantly pulling together, the new 6th Army is the lineage, the 52nd Army is Du Yuming's earliest troops, after breaking away from the control of Guan Linzheng, the army commanders Zhao Gongwu and Liu Yuzhang and others are also close to this former old commander, and the commander of the 71st Army, Chen Mingren, is his old classmate, and everyone is familiar with it during the Yunnan period.
The new 6th Army that entered Shenyang was a descendant of Du Yuming
Therefore, in addition to Shi Jue's 13th Army and the new 1st Army after Chen Mingren's return, the entire 5 elite national army units in Northeast China have become Du Yuming's descendants, plus the 5th Army in East China, Du Yuming's circle of friends is getting stronger and stronger.
The three major battles must be Du Yuming
By 1948, the Nationalist army was defeated again and again on the front line, Hu Zongnan had let General Peng's partial divisions in the northwest almost enter Weinan; Tang Enbo was transferred to Zhejiang to take up an idle post because of his ineffective command in Meng Lianggu; Chen Cheng was even more because of the miasma in the northeast, and was jointly sued by the elders of the Nationalist Government, and he wanted to kill him quickly......
The Iron Triangle faction in the Central Military Department of the National Army is all Wang Xiaoer's New Year, which is getting worse and worse.
In contrast to these factions is Du Yuming's Fifth Army.
Although it failed to save the decline of the national army, before the decisive battle, the forces of the Fifth Army had replaced the previous three major forces and became the main force of the two main theaters of the national army, Northeast China and East China.
Lao Jiang still trusts Du Yuming very much
Take the Liaoshen campaign before the outbreak as an example.
In the Northeast Battlefield, there are a total of 4 corps, and the Fifth Army Department controls 2, namely the Zhengdong National Corps stationed in Changchun, under the jurisdiction of the New 7th Army and the 60th Army, and the Liao Yaoxiang Corps stationed in Shenyang (the strongest corps of the National Army) under the jurisdiction of the New 1st, New 3rd, New 6th, 49th, 52nd and 71st Armies, a total of 6 armies, the two parts of the combined personnel, nearly 280,000 people, accounting for more than 50% of the Northeast National Army, and the elite troops account for more than 75%.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the essence of the Northeast Theater is in Du Yuming's hands.
The Central Army of the National Army in the Northeast is a descendant
After talking about the Northeast, let's talk about East China.
In the East China Battlefield, the Xuzhou Suppression General also had 5 corps under its jurisdiction, but the most relied on was not Qiu Qingquan's 2nd Corps of the Fifth Army Department, and the 2nd Corps was under the jurisdiction of the "5th, 12th, 70th, 72nd, 75th and 116th Army" at that time, a total of 6 corps, and not only that, Li Mi and Sun Yuanliang's two troops also had the idea of respecting the 2nd Corps, and the Fifth Army was at odds with each other.
It can be said that the Fifth Military Department accounts for two of the three strongest mechanized corps of the National Army, and the Fifth Military Department accounts for four of the five most elite main forces of the National Army.
And Du Yuming, as the actual speaker of the Fifth Military Department, is naturally also rising.
In the course of the Liaoshen Campaign, Du Yuming was appointed as the deputy general of the Northeast Suppression and concurrently served as the commander of the Jire Liao Border Region.
During the decisive battle, Du Yuming raised his head in a series of positions
At the beginning, Liao Yaoxiang and Lao Jiang had been arguing with Lao Jiang about whether to advance eastward or retreat to Yingkou, and in the end, Du Yuming coordinated and agreed with Liao Yaoxiang's idea.
Before the Liaoshen Campaign ended, Du Yuming went to East China to command, serving as the deputy general of the Xuzhou Suppression General and the director of the Xuzhou Advance Command Post, directly commanding Qiu Qingquan's 2nd Corps, Li Mi's 13th Corps and Sun Yuanliang's 16th Corps, and had jurisdiction over Huang Baitao's 7th Corps. Many of the battle decisions of the national army were made by Du Yuming. Du Yuming's authority in Xuzhou is so prosperous that even Liu Zhi, the former Huangpu teacher and commander-in-chief of Xuzhou, can only be a shadow commander behind him.
If time goes by, with the influence of Du Yuming's Fifth Military Department, it is not impossible to replace Hu Zongnan as the first student of Whampoa in the future.
Even Liu Zhi had to slap Du Yuming
During the Armageddon period, it was not so much that Lao Chiang asked Du Yuming to be the captain of the firefighting team, and that he went back and forth between Northeast China and East China to command because of his military ability, but rather that the troops in Northeast China and East China could only be commanded by Du Yuming.
You must know that the elites in Northeast and East China at that time were all from Du Yuming's 5th military system, and they were all protégés and thorny generals who were difficult to command.
Liao Yaoxiang in the northeast did not look down on other brother troops at all, Zheng Dongguo in Changchun was a good brother who wore the same pants as Du Yuming, and Qiu Qingquan in East China started a fire and even scolded Lao Jiang, not to mention Liu Zhi, whom he had always looked down on.
But these people have always respected the old chief Du Yuming as a "senior", and many times Du Yuming's opinion prevails.
Du Yuming's coffee position
Therefore, at the time of the decisive battle, we found that there were many generals for Lao Jiang to choose the commander, such as Bai Chongxi, Xue Yue, Tang Enbo and others, but none of them dared to pack a ticket and could move these elites more than Du Yuming's command.
And this is the real reason why Du Yuming can command the 1.35 million national troops in Northeast and East China as a lieutenant general.
Some people here may ask, Lao Jiang has always been very vigilant against his subordinates, and the development of the Fifth Army Department is so strong, won't Lao Jiang be afraid?
And this is what Yutian-kun wants to say, why the "Fifth Army System", he is not a real faction.
Compared with the tightly organized Hu Zongnan and civil engineering departments, the Fifth Army Department is not an organization, it is more like a loose alliance and a "circle of friends".
The leader, Du Yuming, was an honest general, he lacked the ambition of Hu Zongnan and Chen Cheng, and he was not good at power schemes. Therefore, for factions such as Liao Yaoxiang, Qiu Qingquan and Zheng Tingji, it is more like the relationship between seniors and juniors, and for Zheng Dongguo and others, it is more like a friend relationship, so we find that there are many people who are related to the Fifth Military Department, such as Huang Jie, Liang Huasheng, Liu Jiashu and others.
During the Liberation War, Du Yuming was quite loyal to Lao Jiang
They are essentially very good personal relations, and they are Lao Jiang's students, not factions, which also allows Lao Jiang to fully trust Du Yuming. Of course, as for whether Du Yuming will have the idea of organizing factions in the future if he really does it, no one knows.
However, the irony is that before the Fifth Army System had even risen, the national army was facing a great defeat......