Among the generals who graduated from Huangpu in the National Army, Song Xilian, Du Yuming and Wang Yaowu were nicknamed the "Three Heroes of Merit".
Compared with Du Yuming, the leader of the Fifth Military Department, who is more famous, and Wang Yaowu, the spokesman of the 74th Military Department, Song Xilian is much more low-key, but this does not mean that Song Xilian is a mediocre talent, on the contrary, his ability is among the top among Huangpu students.
Song Xilian is one of the few generals in the national army who does not form parties and factions, which is very similar to Huang Jie of the "Su Wu on the Sea", but the difference is that Huang Jie nods and is kind to everyone, while Song Xilian does not buy anyone's account.
It stands to reason that Song Xilian's character will be crowned as "stunned green" in the national army, even in the current workplace, but he has become the target of all forces.
Moreover, because of his record of living to the death in adversity, as well as his free and easy chivalrous style, he can also be called the "chivalrous general" among the famous generals of the national army Huangpu.
National Army General Song Xilian (stills)
A desperate general of the national army
In martial arts novels, heroes always face villains who are stronger than themselves, and then after comprehending life and death in adversity, the desperate situation is reversed, and this is fully reflected in Song Xilian.
Many years ago, there was often a saying in the national army research circle, that is:
"Du Yuming in good times, Wang Yaowu in adversity, Song Xilian in desperate times"
If we look back at many classic battles fought by Song Xilian in his life, most of them were "adversity", especially during the Anti-Japanese War.
Song Xilian during the Anti-Japanese War
In the Battle of Nanking in November 1937.
A month ago in Shanghai, his troops, the 36th Division, one of the three major German divisions, fought a bloody battle with the Japanese army on Jiangwan Road for more than 20 days, reducing the strength from more than 10,000 to 3,000 people, and adding three regiments in the middle. After arriving in Nanjing in November, Tang Shengzhi added 4,500 people to him.
In this way, pulling more than half of the recruits, Song Xilian and the Japanese army started a bloody battle in Xiaguan, fought to the death, and relied on huge casualties to repel the enemy's 16th Division's repeated attacks.
And Song Xilian not only scrupulously obeyed the order to fight to the death and did not retreat, when he saw that the rout wanted to pass through his own defense area, he directly armed these people and asked them to stay to assist in the defense, in Lu Chuan's "Nanjing, Nanjing", Liu Ye led people to block the retreating rout with a human wall, which is actually a real example of the 36th Division.
In this battle, Xilian fought fiercely day and night in a desperate situation, although he was unable to reverse the overall situation of the war, but he also fought a bloody Song and still led the troops to break through.
In "Nanjing, Nanjing", Liu Ye's unit is the 36th Division
In March 1938, Song Xilian also played the role of a "lonely hero" in the Battle of Lanfeng.
In the Battle of Lanfeng, under the leadership of Cheng Qian, the commander of the First Theater of Operations, the National Army formulated a plan for the Battle of Lanfeng to besiege the 14th Division of Tufeiyuan, which rushed south. Song Xilian, who had been promoted to army commander at that time, led the 71st Army and its brother troops: Gui Yongqing's 27th Army, Yu Jishi's 74th Army, Yue Army's 64th Army, Huang Jie's 8th Army, etc.
The operation of the 14th division of the assault Japanese army was mainly focused on Song Xilian, with the hatred of Nanjing, Song Xilian's troops fought very tenaciously and tragically, once attacked Luowang Station, and recovered the empty city of Lanfeng, the 3 commanders of the 88th Division were all seriously injured, and the commander of the 138th Brigade, Ma Weilong, was killed. However, during the battle, Song Xilian's two old classmates, Gui Yongqing and Huang Jie, both escaped from the battle, resulting in the 71st Army could only withdraw from the battlefield and failed to annihilate the Tufeiyuan Division.
It can be said that the Battle of Lanfeng was the most humiliating battle of the National Army since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, but the 71st Army and Song Xilian, who broke into the enemy's position alone, could stand and leave.
The national army at the Battle of Lanfeng
Of course, if you want to talk about Song Xilian's most classic "desperate battle", you also have to talk about the Battle of Fujin Mountain in the Battle of Wuhan.
In the defensive battle at the northern foot of Dabie Mountain, the 71st Army, which belonged to the Fifth War Zone, was responsible for defending the front line of Fujin Mountain, and at that time, the 71st Army had just been defeated from Lanfeng, and the troops were not only tired, but also dissatisfied, and the combat strength of the three divisions was far inferior to that before the war. Moreover, they still faced the 10th and 16th divisions of the Japanese army, and faced the impact of nearly 60,000 people from the two divisions.
The 30,000-strong 71st Army fought fiercely for 40 days and nights in the vicinity of Fujin Mountain and Shawo, which can be called the last swan song of the three main forces of German weapons. During the operation, the enemy even sent poison gas bombs to attack the positions of the 71st Army. Within 10 days of the start of the war, Song Xilian's 36th Division suffered 9 percent casualties, but they relied on white-knuckle combat to repel the enemy's attack, and Song Xilian completed the defensive task very well in this battle, and after the war, the entire 71st Army suffered 15,000 casualties, but killed and wounded 10,000 Japanese soldiers.
After the Great War, the Japanese army called this battle
"Since the Battle of Wuhan began, unprecedented fierce fighting ......"
The bloody national army
It can be seen from here that it may also be because Song Xilian spent a lot of money on his subordinates to fight, so his power has not been able to develop for this reason. He never likes to preserve his strength like other generals of the national army, and sends him to death in a miscellaneous way, and he has a "bright and upright" as a hero here in Song Xilian.
Of course, in the later stage of the Anti-Japanese War, the legend of Song Xilian continued, at the Huitong Bridge Song Xilian personally led a division to defeat the Burmese army that wanted to invade at the Huitong Bridge and Baoshan, and held the southern gate of the country, and has been guarding the western Yunnan region when the main force of the expeditionary force was lost.
Therefore, since the Anti-Japanese War, we will find that Song Xilian fought with the Japanese army, playing the image of a "hero of adversity", but even in adversity, Song Xilian also broke out with an amazing will to fight, abiding by the determination of the soldier's "horse leather shroud", and defeated the Japanese army several times.
Song Xilian commanded in Yunnan
The chivalrous general Song Xilian
The great man of chivalry is for the country and the people.
Although Song Xilian is loyal to Lao Jiang in the general direction, he is full of the "brilliance" of Mr. Jin Yong's heroes in many major rights and wrongs, or daily affairs.
So Song Xilian, what are the "chivalrous winds" on his body?
Among the famous generals of the national army, Song Xilian is the most chic and unburdened.
In the early years, during the Whampoa Military Academy, Song Xilian joined our army, but finally broke with Chen Geng and returned to Lao Jiang. After returning to the national army, many people wanted to win over Song Xilian. First, He Yingqin wooed him, but he was reluctant to go, but fortunately, He Yingqin also appreciated him and let him serve as the commander of the ace 36th Division.
During the Anti-Japanese War, after Hu Zongnan's battle in Wuhan, he served as the deputy commander-in-chief of Hu Zongnan's 34th Group Army, Hu had wooed him many times, but Song Xilian also rejected this proposal.
Hu Zongnan and Song Xilian (stills)
What's even more amazing is that although he rejected other factions, Song Xilian got along very well with these people, in the early days of the Liberation War, although he was under the command of Hu Zongnan during the Northwest period, Hu treated him like a brother and a classmate.
And Song Xilian's freedom is also reflected in his relationship with Zhong Bin.
During the Great Southwest Campaign, after Song Xilian was promoted to the director of the Sichuan-Hunan-Hubei Border Region Appeasement Office, he directly gave the position of commander of the 14th Corps to his deputy Zhong Bin, unlike other generals of the national army.
In fact, Song Xilian sees his position and power more freely than ordinary generals of the national army, many times, he goes to work alone, and a senior officer like Song Xilian must have a few henchmen in the national army, but he doesn't, he comes and goes freely, and he is a chic person.
Commander of the 14th Corps, Zhong Bin (stills)
Chivalrous people like to fight unevenly, such as Ling Hu Chong and Guo Jing and others, and the hot-tempered Song Xilian is also a nosy master who likes to be nosy, and he is also the kind of idle thing that can break the sky, here are two examples.
One is the contradiction between Song Xilian and Xiao Yisu, the staff officer of the Yunzheng Army.
In the national army system, even if it is a descendant, there will be an incident of greed for ink, but Song Xilian is a person who can't rub sand in his eyes, when his 11th Group Army was included in the expeditionary force in the counteroffensive in western Yunnan, it was naturally under the jurisdiction of the expeditionary force headquarters, but although Xiao Yisu, the chief of staff of the expeditionary force, was capable, he was very greedy, so the people below often complained, after Song Xilian knew, he repeatedly reported Xiao Yisu's problems with the above, so that the two made a feud, and finally Song Xilian was relieved of military power in the Battle of Longling, It is Xiao Yisu's complaint.
Here is a small episode, this is actually not the first time Song Xilian has been angry with his colleagues, during the defense of Nanjing, Song Xilian once scolded Sun Yuanliang, in order to escape, he actually hid in a special place, and escaped from the pursuit of the Japanese army under the cover of a group of special women, which is a joke in Whampoa.
Dare to say and dare to do has always been Song Xilian's label.
Song Xilian's nemesis, Xiao Yisu
The other is the contradiction between him and Miss Kong Er.
In the national government, Miss Kong Er is more terrifying than Boss Dai and Mao Renfeng and others to a certain extent, and when she was a sentry on the street, she forced Chen Jitang to get off the plane with a gun, embarrassing the first-class general of the national army. At a high-level gathering of the national government, Song Xilian scolded the second lady in front of many colleagues for being "a complete monster".
But after the second miss knew about this, she dared not speak out, after all, the second miss was not stupid, and she really didn't dare to provoke Song Xilian, who was more horizontal than herself.
Miss Kong Er
The characteristics of the hero's brightness and gratitude are also obvious in Song Xilian.
During the Great Revolution, Chen Geng and Song Xilian, who were also from Hunan, chose different camps, and in 1933, Chen Geng was unfortunately arrested, Song Xilian summoned his Whampoa classmates to write to Lao Jiang together, begging him to read the friendship between teachers and students to Chen Geng again, and even he personally went to Chen Geng to do Chen Geng's work, and it was in his efforts, as well as Lao Jiang's own love and gratitude for saving his life, Chen Geng was released, in which Song Xilian, who was constantly running, contributed a lot.
After being captured by our army in the Liberation War, General Chen Geng often went to see Song Xilian, after getting amnesty, Song Xilian also thanked Chen Geng for his kindness, in 1980 when Chen Geng's widow Fu Ya came back from Europe and the United States, Song Xilian, who was already abroad, also went to let him bring his heart to pay tribute to General Chen Geng.
Chen Geng and Song Xilian
This shows that Song Xilian still knows how to be grateful.
Song Xilian, a bright and upright point, is reflected in the Qu Qiubai incident.
In "The Right Way in the World is the Vicissitudes of Life", Fan Xiliang, the commander of the Whampoa Division who encircled and suppressed the Soviet area in 1935, captured the wounded former Whampoa Military Academy teacher and the famous general Qu En of our army in a battle, and this prototype is actually Song Xilian and Qu Qiubai.
After being arrested, Song Xilian adhered to the code of "steel knives are steel knives, classmates are classmates", and placed Qu Qiubai as a teacher's courtesy, not only prepared a clean room for him, he knew that the teacher liked to read, and arranged a lot of newspapers and books for the teacher to pass the time. However, as a soldier, Song Xilian could only carry out unconditionally after Lao Jiang gave Qu Qiubai the order to "shoot on the spot and take photos for verification".
Fan Xiliang after shooting Qu En (Song Xilian's mood is similar)
In this matter, although he did wrong, as a soldier, he was above board, and the opposite was Yu Jishi.
When encircling and suppressing the Red 10th Army, Yu Jishi captured Liu Chouxi, an old classmate of the first phase of Huangpu, but he chose to avoid it because of Liu's injury and frustration, not only did he not add clothes to his classmates in winter, but also arranged them in a cold cell, which even the hardcore old Jiang Fan Huang Wei couldn't stand it, and almost beat Yu Jishi.
Therefore, the comparison between the two can be described as very different......
In his later years, Song Xilian still couldn't forgive himself
Of course, the chivalrous character of Song Xilian has also brought a lot of inconvenience to his career, which we can understand.
Talented people are often obsessed with personal professional ability and do not want to be in the company of the world, and naturally they are also hated by Xiao Yisu and others, Wang Yaowu and Du Yuming are obviously much smarter at this point......