On the stage of modern history, the Whampoa Military Academy is known as the "Cradle of the Stars", especially in the first phase of The Huangpu, many star-studded famous generals have emerged, such as Jiang Xianyun, Xu Xiangqian, Chen Geng, Zuo Quan, He Zhihan, Du Yuming, Hu Zongnan, Chen Mingren, Song Xilian, Guan Linzheng, Huang Wei... They are all well-known military wizards.
So the question is: in this pile of famous players, who is the fastest promoted one?
At present, the fastest promotion among the Huangpu cadets is Hu Zongnan, known as the "King of the Northwest", in which we can see the labels of the first army commander, the first group army commander, the first theater commander and the first general, and the appropriate "first person of Tianzi's protégé".
It is true that from the perspective of the development of the later stage of his military career, Hu Zongnan's self-proclaimed "Huangpu No. 1" is no problem, but if you talk about the early stage of his military career, especially when he just graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy, this title of "the fastest promotion" can not be his turn.
Who should that be? Lee's Dragon.
There may be many people who are not familiar with this name, and it seems that there is no shadow of this person in the famous generals of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party that we often chant, but in fact, this is not surprising, because as early as February 8, 1928, Li Zhilong was killed by agents for publicly opposing Chiang Kai-shek, at the age of 31.
Since he died young, there is naturally no follow-up promotion and development, and there is no way to continue to compare, but from the perspective of the resume of his early military career, Li Zhilong can be regarded as the existence of Hu Zongnan.
Born in Xiantao, Hubei Province in 1897, Li Zhilong joined the Communist Party in August 1921 under the introduction of Dong Biwu. At that time, our party had only been established for a month. With this qualification alone, Li Zhilong was earlier than most of the founding generals.
After being admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy in 1924, Li Zhilong stood out among more than 100 cadets because of his outstanding ability, and was elected as the only student representative, forming an executive committee together with Chiang Kai-shek and others. At that time, Hu Zongnan was just an ordinary student, and his performance was even behind Jiang Xianyun, Chen Geng, He Zhihan and others.
One is an ordinary student and the other is a student cadre, and this gap is still very obvious.
What about after leaving the military academy? Within a year of graduation, Li Zhilong was promoted to the rank of director of the Political Department of the Naval Bureau of the Nationalist Government and head of the Naval Staff Office, with the rank of major general. What does that mean? That is to say, Li Zhilong directly crossed the rank of lieutenant and school, and achieved a "triple jump" on the road to promotion.
Naturally, this was also incomparable to Hu Zongnan, because at this time he was only a lieutenant and belonged to the most basic platoon-level cadres. From this point of view, the gap between the two is immediate.
Wait, don't think this is the end, just a few months after Li Zhilong was promoted to rear admiral, he became the acting director of the Naval Bureau, and his rank was also promoted from major general to lieutenant general!
Looking around, there were no students in the Huangpu Phase I who could look up to him, and even the headmaster, Chiang Kai-shek, was only at the same level as him in terms of rank. Being able to level with his own principal in just two years, except for Li Zhilong, I am afraid that he will not be able to find a second one.
However, 1926 became a turning point in the military careers of Li Zhilong and Hu Zongnan.
Due to the influence of the "Zhongshan Ship Incident", Li Zhilong was jealous of Chiang Kai-shek and imprisoned, and soon after his release from prison, he caught up with Chiang Kai-shek to launch the April 12 counter-revolutionary incident, which also led to Li and Chiang Kai-shek completely standing on the opposite side, until Li Zhilong was tragically killed by spies, and a legendary star fell regretfully.
On the other hand, Hu Zongnan, 1926 happened to be the year of his development. After a few years of polishing at the grassroots level, Hu Zongnan finally stepped into the "right track" of promotion, since the promotion of battalion commander in early 1926, Hu Zongnan quickly became popular from the original loneliness and no name, the following year was awarded the rank of major general, in 1935 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant general, until 1944, he became the commander of the first theater, and truly became a "huangpu brother".
For the military careers of Li Zhilong and Hu Zongnan, we cannot simply talk about who is high and who is low, who is strong and who is weak, after all, both of them are extremely outstanding generals on the stage of modern Chinese history, but due to different beliefs and pursuits, they have led to different trajectories in life.