In 1916, the Beiyang warlord Tang Qianming oversaw the army in Hunan, suppressed the revolution and slaughtered the people, the people of Hunan dared to be angry and did not dare to speak, and various anti-Beiyang and anti-Tang secret activities of the people rose and fell one after another.
In mid-March, because he could not support his family as an embankment worker, seventeen-year-old Peng Dehua joined the sixth regiment of the third brigade of the second division of the Xiang Army as a soldier. The composition of officers at all levels in the department is complex; division commander Chen Fuchu is anti-Sun, brigade commander Chen Youjia and regimental commander Lu Diping support Sun, and battalion and company commanders also have their own calculations. Peng Dehua, who had just been promoted from a second-class soldier to a first-class soldier, did not understand these things very well at this time, only knowing that after deducting food and petty expenses, the monthly military salary of six yuan could be sent home for three yuan, barely able to maintain the family's livelihood, and Dehua felt that this errand was much stronger than being an embankment worker. In the summer of 1917, with the secret support of brigade commander Chen Youjia and regimental commander Lu Diping, the Second Division mutinied, Chen Fuchu stepped down, and Peng Dehua participated in the mutiny as a battalion soldier representative, and in the course of the struggle, he became acquainted with Huang Gongluo, Li Can, and other military friends. Subsequently, these enthusiastic young people established a profound friendship in the battles of expelling Zhang Jingyao of Beiyang and aiding E'e Autonomousism, and the battalion commander Yuan Zhi and company commander Zhou Pan also appreciated this new recruit who dared to fight and fight, and were promoted step by step from squad deputy, squad leader, and platoon leader.
At the end of 1919, after all the troops of other provinces were expelled, Hunan Province achieved superficial unification, but due to years of war, the people's strength was meager and unable to provide military salaries, and the various departments of the Xiang Army were seriously in arrears, the heaviest of which was owed twenty-three months. For the soldiers of the old-style army, "when the soldiers eat the salary, it is natural and righteous", what if they are not paid? That's a hustle! Nearly 100,000 Xiang troops invariably marched to Changsha, and at the same time, they made a fuss and gained momentum. All divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies have military congresses, which are elected by soldiers and commanded by the General Congress of the Changsha Army; the actions of the 100,000 Xiang Army only listen to the orders of the soldiers' representatives, and any other commander's orders are invalid; Liu Zhuo, the commander of the Sixth Regiment (Lu Diping has been promoted to brigade commander), only cares about shedding tears and does not say a word; the battalion commander Yuan Zhi and company commander Zhou Pan have a neutral attitude, as long as the soldiers do not disturb the people, they approve of the soldiers' representatives' actions. Suddenly, Quan Xiang shook and people were terrified.
However, because there was no strong leadership core, the seemingly vigorous wage-making movement was quickly resolved by the cunning overseer Zhao Hengti, who used only two tricks: first, to cajole all officers and men into paying off their arrears, and promised to pay them back for three years; second, they divided up, promising to send some of the soldiers' representatives to school, or coercing them, and disintegrating the soldiers' congress from within. The small platoon commander Peng Dehua gained experience from this mutiny: Once the lowest-level soldiers became enlightened and organized, their strength was very great, which had a great guiding effect on Peng Dehua's future organization of the soldiers' committee and the implementation of soldiers' autonomy. After becoming a company commander in the autumn of 2004, Peng Dehua, who had suffered from snacks, did two things: First, the economy was open, and the surplus part of the company's office, miscellaneous expenses, and medicine was accumulated and used for the soldiers' public welfare undertakings; second, corporal punishment was abolished, no flogging, no punishment, and no punishment was replaced by advice, demerit, and punishment stations for soldiers who made mistakes, which was actively supported by the soldiers of the company, and the company led by Peng Dehua slowly took on a different style from the old-style army.