From 1937 to 1945, after eight years of resistance, the Chinese finally drove the Japanese invaders out of China. In these eight years, countless heroes have emerged who have sacrificed for the country, but there are also a small number of people who have died not so gloriously. Because Chiang Kai-shek was the principal of the Whampoa Military Academy, many Whampoa students were regarded as his students and were known as Tianzi's protégés. Many of these Tianzi disciples were also shot because of their lack of combat, and Long Muhan was one of them.
Long Muhan graduated from The First Phase of Huangpu, and during his schooling, he was known for his outstanding academic performance and was introduced by Chiang Kai-shek as a concubine. After graduation, Long Muhan was promoted many times, and by the time of the July 7 Incident, he was already the deputy commander of the 89th Division of the 13th Army of the National Revolutionary Army. After the July 7 Incident, Long Muhan followed Tang Enbo, commander of the 13th Army, and others to participate in the Defense of Nankou, and was awarded the Order of the Fifth Class for his outstanding military achievements. Soon after, Long Muhan was transferred to the 1st Reserve Division as a division commander.
Long Muhan
After the Battle of Nanjing, because the 88th Division had suffered too many losses and was difficult to support alone, the Chinese High Command merged the remnants of the 88th Division with the Reserve 1st Division, with Long Muhan as the division commander. Before the war, the 88th Division was one of the few German mechanized divisions in China, and it was the ace unit at that time, belonging to the absolute lineage, and Long Muhan was transferred from a reserve division to a division commander, which was a big leap forward. Unfortunately, Long Muhan did not expect that this was the beginning of his nightmare.
In May 1938, with the defeat at the Battle of Xuzhou, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops in the Fifth Theater of Operations were forced to retreat westward. The Chinese high command had a premonition that the Japanese were likely to continue their pursuit to the west, and that the Chinese army was marching at a much slower pace than the highly mechanized Japanese army, and it was likely that it would be annihilated during the pursuit. In order to cover the retreat of the troops of the Fifth Theater of Operations and at the same time snipe the Japanese army in the west, the Yudong Corps was established. Because the commander of the Yudong Corps was Xue Yue, it was also called the Xue Yue Corps, and their main task was to ensure the smooth flow of the Longhai Line, so that the troops and materials of the Fifth Theater of Operations could be successfully withdrawn. Long Muhan's 88th Division also followed song Xilian, the commander of the 71st Army, and joined Xue Yue's army.
In fact, after the end of the Battle of Xuzhou, the Japanese army did not pursue the west at the first time, but continued to the west after a few days of rest in Xuzhou. This gave the Chinese army plenty of time to retreat, but what they did not expect was that at the critical moment, the Japanese Fourteenth Division suddenly crossed the Yellow River and went straight to the Longhai Line.
This Fourteenth Division regiment was not sent in pursuit by the North China Front or the Central China Dispatch Army, but by Qingji Kazuki, commander of the First Army of the North China Front. After the July 7 Incident, as the culprit, Kiyoshi Kazuki was very beautiful for a while. However, as the Japanese army continued to advance, his contradiction with the commander of the North China Front, Terauchi Shouichi, became more and more serious, and gradually began to stand on the sidelines. Under the command of Terauchi Shouichi, the First Army became a miscellaneous soldier on the battlefield, going to the most bitter and tired places every time, but never taking any credit. What was even more tragic was that once the army was needed elsewhere, Terauchi Shouichi's first thought was to draw people from the First Army. After one or two, the First Army was almost hollowed out. Of course, Xiangyue Qingji was wearing such small shoes, of course, he couldn't stand it, but it was not easy to directly confront his superiors, so he wanted to send an army to invade the empty Henan region to seize the credit while the Chinese and Japanese armies were concentrated in the Xuzhou area. Kenji Toihara was a close general of Kiyoshi Kazuki, and the task of leading the 14th Division to invade Henan was entrusted to him.
Soon after entering Henan, he ran into Xue Yue's corps, and Cheng Qian, commander of the First Theater, immediately issued an order to surround and annihilate the Fourteenth Division. Of course, the enemy who came to the door had to fight, but the Longhai line must also be defended, on the one hand, to ensure the retreat line of the Fifth Theater of Operations, and on the other hand, to prevent the Fourteenth Division from running away. The most important stop on the Longhai Line was Lanfeng, which was handed over to the 71st Army to guard.
Shortly after the 71st Army entered Lanfeng, the 27th Army also arrived in Lanfeng under the leadership of its commander Gui Yongqing. Gui Yongqing, who also graduated from Huangpu I, was not only He Yingqin's niece and son-in-law, but also deeply appreciated by Chiang Kai-shek. At that time, the Teaching Corps was the most elite unit in China, which had been stationed in Nanjing and had the title of "Royal Forest Army", and Gui Yongqing was the chief of the Teaching Corps. Unfortunately, Chiang Kai-shek really looked at the wrong person, and Gui Yongqing couldn't fight a war, even if he didn't care, he still liked to run. During the defense of Nanjing, the Teaching Corps participated in this battle as the backbone. However, when Tang Shengzhi ordered the various units to break through, Gui Yongqing did not go back and issue the retreat order at all, but directly threw down his troops to cross the river and run. As a result, many people in the teaching corps did not receive orders to retreat until they died, and when the other part was later notified by others, it was too late to leave. In this way, the teaching corps was almost completely destroyed in Nanjing, and only a small number of people escaped.
Xue Yue
Although the Teaching Corps was lost, Chiang Kai-shek did not punish Gui Yongqing, but instead merged the 37th army and the 39th Army, which were crippled during the Battle of Songhu, with the remnants of the teaching corps to form a new 27th Army, with Gui Yongqing continuing to serve as commander. After all, the 27th Army had the foundation of the Yulin Army, so Xue Yue transferred the 71st Army and replaced it with the 27th Army guarding Lanfeng, while leaving the 88th Division to assist in the defense. Originally, when the two armies were handed over, Song Xilian introduced Gui Yongqing to the Fourteenth Division and the nearby friendly forces in great detail. Unexpectedly, Gui Yongqing did not listen at all, he felt that the Japanese army was only a division, the Chinese army had more than 100,000 people, it was easy to fight more or less, and there was no need to know anything at all.
Gui Yongqing's light enemy soon paid the price, and he also underestimated Kenji Toihara. After Seeing more and more Chinese troops around him, Kenji Toihara realized that he had bumped into the main force of the Chinese army, so he took the initiative to abandon the various strongholds he had previously occupied, and then on the one hand, he covered with the second wing behind, and on the other hand, he led the main force to attack the important strongholds on the Longhai Line such as Lanfeng, Luowangzhai, and Sanyiji, hoping to hold out and wait for the arrival of the Japanese army advancing westward.
The careless Gui Yongqing soon suffered a big loss, and he never dreamed that the Japanese army would come so quickly. On May 22, the 14th Division, supported by artillery and tanks, launched a fierce offensive against Lanfeng, and the 27th Army suffered heavy casualties. At this point, Gui Yongqing's thought was not to continue to hold on, but to escape. This time, Gui Yongqing had made progress, not only did he want to flee, but he also planned to take the troops with him. However, Lanfeng was a strategic place, and if he did not escape without the order of his superiors, he would definitely be punished. Gui Yongqing also knew that Xue Yue could not let him retreat at this time, so he thought of a way to let the 88th Division stay and continue to hold out, while he led the 27th Army to retreat first.
That night, the 27th Army officially ordered the abandonment of the city. Zhong Song, commander of the 61st Division, quickly saw the problem, and there was no mention of the 88th Division in the retreat plan, and he couldn't help but ask Gui Yongqing: "I see that there is no mention of the 88th Division in the plan, does Long Muhan know about the retreat?" When Gui Yongqing heard this, he smiled and said, "The 88th Division is going to stay in Lanfeng, so there is no need to inform him." Zhong Song was a little unbearable, but reminded Gui Yongqing that he should inform Long Muhan.
Gui Yongqing listened to Zhong Song this time and informed Long Muhan, but only wrote a note with his hand, allowing the 88th Division to continue to stay in Lanfeng. By the time Long Muhan received the note, Gui Yong had already run away early in the morning. Long Muhan was not a fool, he knew that he could not stop the Japanese army by relying on his own division alone, not to mention that Gui Yongqing was gone, and he could not stay here and wait for death, so Long Muhan immediately followed the army and ran away.
In fact, what Gui Yongqing and Long Muhan did not know was that the situation of the Fourteenth Division was also very difficult now, and they were also facing fierce attacks from the Chinese army on the periphery. Not only was it besieged by Xue Yue's corps, but many units from the Fifth Theater also joined the ranks of the attack, and the Fourteenth Division, especially the Second Wing, suffered very heavy losses, and the tanks gradually began to run out of fuel. Unfortunately, at the critical moment, Gui Yongqing and Long Muhan did not even defend for a day, and gave Lan Feng to the Japanese army in vain.
Gui Yongqing
Although the 71st Army recaptured Lanfeng a few days later, it was too late, and not only had the remaining Japanese troops established a strong stronghold in Sanyiji, but the Japanese troops of the westward divisions had also arrived. To make matters worse, Huang Wei, commander of the 8th Army, fled without a fight at Shangqiu and ceded Shangqiu to the Japanese army, which meant that Xue Yue's corps faced the threat of Japanese troops on the flank. Under such circumstances, it was impossible to continue the attack, and Xue Yue's corps had to retreat to the east.
Because the Battle of Lanfeng was so badly fought this time, even Chiang Kai-shek thought it was a joke, and the 12 divisions failed to annihilate thousands of Japanese troops in Lanfeng. As soon as the battle was over, the reckoning began, and although Gui Yongqing was the first to escape, he put all the blame on Long Muhan, plus he was a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek, and was only removed from his post in the end. Another Huang Wei, who escaped in Shangqiu, was also a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek and was also dismissed from his post. Although he was also a protégé of Tianzi, he was not so close to Chiang Kai-shek and others, and naturally became the person who carried the pot.
Soon after, Long Muhan was ordered to be shot, and he became the first Huangpu division commander to be shot in the War of Resistance. Long Muhan was crying out for justice until his death, he felt that he also had merit in conquering Lanfeng and other places, and it was Gui Yongqing who escaped first, and it was really unfair that he was shot alone. In fact, not only Long Muhan, but even his old superior, Song Xilian, felt that Gui Yongqing and others were more responsible, but only because they had good relations with Chiang Kai-shek, He Yingqin, and others, they were saved. It was precisely because of Chiang Kai-shek's style of protecting his own concubines and sacrificing others that the Kuomintang army became more and more corrupt within itself, and it was eventually defeated by our army like a leaf swept away by the autumn wind.