In 1949, with the end of the Pingjin Campaign, the Kuomintang was defeated and retreated, and the main force of the army was lost. As the People's Liberation Army advanced all the way, Chiang Kai-shek's defeat was a foregone conclusion, and retreating to Taiwan became his only option.
In order to retain his strength and consolidate his rule, Chiang Kai-shek planned an unprecedented large-scale retreat, as the war on the interior was decided, and these troops were evacuated mainly through the ports of the southeast coast.
After the count, there were still 200,000 army units that arrived in Taiwan, belonging to 16 armies, and the top commanders of these units also retreated to Taiwan.
The Great Withdrawal
Because of the defeat in the war, the Kuomintang troops began to withdraw to Taiwan in a planned way in 1949, and they also participated in the War of Resistance against Japan as soldiers, but they mistakenly chose to stand on the opposite side of the people and hindered the reunification of the two sides of the strait.
However, we cannot blindly measure the people and events of the past by the standards of the present, and perhaps in their opinion, the decisions they made are correct from their own standpoint.
Most of the senior officers who arrived in Taiwan were Whampoa graduates, and 14 of the 16 commanders were Whampoa students, with the only exceptions being Liu Zhongdi, commander of the 23rd Army, and Mo Furu, commander of the 63rd Army.
Because although Liu Zhongdi is not a graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy, he is the director of education of the Whampoa Military Academy, and only Mo Fu has no communication with Whampoa.
It is precisely because of this composition that after leading the troops to Taiwan, these army commanders were also highly used by the Kuomintang government, and the troops have been in their hands for decades since, and many of them have served as defense commanders and deputy defense commanders, and most of them are stable for the rest of their lives.
The million-strong Kuomintang army was wiped out in an instant, but many troops began to withdraw in formation after the battle of crossing the river.
Among them, the troops evacuated to Taiwan in the Songhu area included the 52nd Army led by Liu Yuzhang, the 54th Army led by Que Hanqian, the 75th Army led by Wu Zhongzhi, and the 87th Army led by Duan Yuan.
The troops evacuated from Guangdong Province to Taiwan included the 18th Army led by Gao Kuiyuan, the 19th Army led by Liu Yunhan, the 23rd Army led by Liu Zhongdi, and the 50th Army led by Hu Jiaji. The troops evacuated from Fujian Province to Taiwan included the 5th Army led by Shen Xiangkui and the 96th Army led by Yu Zhaolong.
The troops evacuated from Hainan Island to Taiwan included the 4th Army led by Xue Zhongshu, the 32nd Army led by Li Yutang, the 62nd Army led by Li Tiejun, the 63rd Army led by Mo Furu, and the 64th Army led by Rong Youluo.
These 16 army commanders can be described as Chiang Kai-shek's "great heroes", and their troops provided the most direct means of violence to maintain Chiang Kai-shek's rule, in fact, Chiang Kai-shek was also very kind to these army commanders who withdrew to Taiwan with him, and constantly gave them officers and knights.
They once charged forward to defend their homeland, but when they withdrew their troops to Taiwan, they were accomplices in splitting the country, and regardless of their original intentions, their actions formed a de facto antagonism, leaving us with a difficult problem today.
Home
Because of the "efforts to turn the tide", Chiang Kai-shek attached great importance to these 16 army commanders, and the Standing Committee entrusted them with heavy responsibilities.
If someone is unwilling to serve, let the government arrange a high-ranking and low-power vacant position for them, and become a rich idler. In short, as long as there were no serious political issues, Chiang Kai-shek turned a blind eye to what they did, and he did not embarrass these generals in the subsequent purge of the political and military circles.
Most of them died at the end of their lives, with Gao Kuiyuan, the commander of the 18th Army, the oldest to die, who died in 2012 at the age of 105. However, there are exceptions to everything, among which the commander of the 87th Army, Duan Yuan, and the commander of the 32nd Army, Li Yutang, were brutally killed shortly after arriving in Taiwan.
Born in Hengyang City, Hunan Province in 1905, Duan Yuan graduated from the fourth phase of Huangpu, and was promoted to the commander of the 87th Army in September 1948 due to his progressive military achievements.
Although the general trend of the Kuomintang was gone at that time, Duan Yuan's unit still attracted the attention of Chiang Kai-shek because of its outstanding performance, and after arriving in Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek immediately promoted Duan Yuan to deputy commander of the Defense Command, and became the second-in-command of the Taiwan army.
One day in August 1952, the Taiwan Secret Bureau suddenly arrested Duan Yuan, and at this time, the Secret Bureau assumed most of the functions of the previous military command, and being arrested by the Secret Bureau often meant nine deaths.
However, the Secrecy Bureau did not produce conclusive evidence, and only took Duan into custody until he was executed on charges of "espionage" in 1954.
There are many speculations about Duan Yuan's death, and even within the Kuomintang there are different opinions, some people believe that he was a victim of Chiang Kai-shek's purging army, some people think that this is an outright planting of bribes, and another theory is that Duan Yuan has come into contact with our party's underground organization in Taiwan and is preparing to secretly start an incident, but because of the traitor's betrayal, he has fallen short.
Born in 1899 in Guangrao, Shandong Province, Li Yutang participated in the students' crusade against Yuan Shikai as early as 1915, when he was only 16 years old. After graduating from the first phase of Huangpu, he was promoted to army commander by virtue of his military merits, and repeatedly made meritorious contributions in the War of Resistance against Japan, and in 1938, the troops he led were awarded the title of "Taishan Army" by the Kuomintang government.
In November 1949, Li Yutang was appointed to defend Hainan Island and was awarded the post of deputy commander-in-chief of the Hainan Defense Command. At that time, the Kuomintang had already begun to prepare for the construction of counteroffensive fortresses, and apart from Taiwan, Hainan was the most important position.
It was also at this time that our army got in touch with Li Yutang, and after Xiao Yiyi was righteous and declared his interests, Li Yutang agreed to revolt before the battle, but for various reasons, he could not make the trip.
On April 28, 1950, Li Yutang led his troops to Taiwan, but he did not receive the corresponding commendation, but was removed from his military post.
Later, because the adjutant was arrested, he confessed that Li Yutang planned to revolt before the battle, and was immediately arrested and imprisoned, and was sentenced to death in 1951. In 1983, with the approval of the State Council, due to the decision of General Li Yutang to revolt before the battle, he was posthumously recognized as a martyr.
Because of their different positions, comrades-in-arms who used to be in the trenches now have to meet each other with swords, and the times have brought too much helplessness to the people of that generation.
They once had a common goal, to die for the sake of the country, and the enemy's bullets did not knock them down, but they died in the end by their own guns.
epilogue
When these former famous generals of the Anti-Japanese War withdrew their troops to Taiwan, they waved goodbye to their former selves, and they traveled through most of China until the day when Japan surrendered.
The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression ended, the civil war broke out again, and they were vulnerable without the support of the people, but they still resisted stubbornly for the oath they once made, because of their different beliefs, so that a group of soldiers who were supposed to defend their families and the country finally embarked on the road of splitting the country.