After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chairman Mao once commented that Marshal Nie Rongzhen was a "kind-hearted person", and Nie Shuai was indeed gentle and elegant, rarely angry with colleagues or subordinates, and his style of governing the army was relatively generous and gentle. General Zhang Jingwu recalled that Nie Shuai had quietly "helped" him: In the 50s, when Nie Rongzhen was acting chief of the General Staff, Zhang Jingwu, director of the General Office of the Central Military Commission, had negligently issued a document to abolish a certain regiment-level unit. Later, Chairman Mao found that there was a problem and criticized Nie Rongzhen's poor management, but Nie Shuai "carried" it for Zhang Jingwu, and never told the chairman who did it. It can be seen that Nie Shuai is indeed kind and righteous.
However, in 1958, when the army launched an "anti-dogmatism" criticism, Nie Rongzhen, as the main leader of the army, publicly criticized an old comrade-in-arms, Xiao Ke. This is a bit abnormal, you must know that Xiao Ke served as the deputy commander of the North China Military Region during the Liberation War, that is, Nie Rongzhen's direct subordinate. Nie Shuai has always been very good to his subordinates, but during his work with Xiao Ke, the latter did a job that made Nie Rongzhen extremely dissatisfied, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he had to criticize him by name.
In 1942, Xiao Kefeng was transferred to the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, which was the predecessor of the North China Military Region, which was in charge of Nie Rongzhen. Originally, Xiao Ke's seniority in the Red Army was slightly higher than that of Nie Rongzhen, and at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, both of them were deputy division-level cadres of the Eighth Route Army, so Nie Shuai respected Xiao Ke very much and supported Xiao Ke's work. Before Xiao Ke came to Jinchaji, he was the commander of the Jirecha Advance Army, but because of the lack of food and ammunition, the mass base was weak, and this team was difficult to sustain, and finally withdrew, and Xiao Ke was also sent to Jinchaji to give Nie Shuai a hand. Nie Rongzhen is better at political work, so at the military level of the base area, he gave Xiao Ke a lot of authority.
At that time, the central authorities advocated streamlining the administration of the army and demanded that the base areas reduce their personnel so as not to increase the burden on the masses. When Xiao Ke was in Jirecha, he suffered greatly from redundant personnel, and the logistical supply of the troops was a big problem, so he was very supportive of this policy. Xiao Ke promoted the "transformation of large regiments into small regiments" in the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei base area, changed the main field regiment of Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei from more than 2,000 people to less than 900 people, and even cut down the battalion-level number, and the withdrawn comrades were incorporated into local troops, or directly demobilized and farmed. The purpose of this practice is to reduce the taxes of the people in the base areas and at the same time refine the ranks.
Nie Shuai didn't agree with this, but the relevant spirit was called for by Yan'an, and it was inconvenient for him to insist on opposing it. After the reduction of the Jinchaji team, it later fought many defeats in the face of the Japanese army, and obviously had the factor of weakening its own combat effectiveness. At that time, Jinchaji was a well-known base area in the whole country, and there were many soldiers and generals, and they were relatively wealthy economically and could afford to raise soldiers, so Nie Shuai thought that there was no need to reduce the number of troops. The troops after the reduction can no longer fight a war of annihilation, and they are far less good than their previous records. Nie Rongzhen was very dissatisfied with this incident handled by Xiao Ke, and he has always regarded it as a negative teaching material, and in 1958 he was anti-dogmatism, didn't it just happen to be right? Therefore, Nie Rongzhen used the allusion of "changing a large regiment to a small regiment" in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and criticized Xiao Ke for indeed having dogmatic problems in his work.
After this meeting, Xiao Ke was dismissed from his post as head of the training director of the headquarters, and even left the people's army, where he had worked for decades, and returned to work in the Ministry of Agriculture and Reclamation a year later. In fact, "anti-dogmatism" has a historical background: after the founding of the People's Republic of China, our army learned the Soviet model in many fields, and the department led by Xiao Ke was more obvious, citing a large number of Soviet army textbooks. In the late fifties, Sino-Soviet relations changed drastically, and some departments and generals in the army were inevitably impacted, and only then did "anti-dogmatism" develop.
In addition to Nie Rongzhen, Xiao Ke's relationship with the other two marshals is also more delicate. One is Mr. Peng, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xiao Ke had a big disagreement with Peng Dehuai, then Minister of National Defense, on the issue of regularization of the army, and when President Peng criticized dogmatism in 58 years, he showed no mercy to Xiao Ke; the other was Marshal He Long, during the Red Army and the Anti-Japanese War, Xiao Ke was Mr. He's deputy, and the two had friction on some military issues. However, He Long and Xiao Ke have a certain kinship, and they used to be "brothers-in-law". In 1958, He Long did not fall into the predicament of Xiao Ke.
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