In ancient times, Guangxi was the distant land of emperor Tiangao: the influence of the rulers had been weakened through thousands of rivers and mountains to Guangxi. Guangxi, far away from emperor Tiangao, was also a region inhabited by various ethnic groups: guangxi's population included the indigenous Han people of the Liangguang lingnan region, as well as the Hakka who migrated south from the Central Plains, as well as ethnic minorities such as Zhuang, Yao, Miao, Dong, Jing, and Yi. Guangxi, where all ethnic groups are mixed, has a tradition of armed fighting in history, so it has also bred the folk style of fierce and martial arts. As early as the Ming Dynasty's Anti-Wei War, the Guangxi Wolf Soldiers were a strong force with the same name as the Qi family army.
In the anti-Wu battlefield of that year, the Guangxi wolf soldiers fought thousands of miles on the vast battlefield from Shanghai County in the east, to Jiaxing Province in the west, from Jinshanwei in the south, and to Gusu City in the north. In the process, he participated in the Battle of Garlin, the Battle of Shengdun, the Battle of Jiashan Shuangxi Bridge, the Battle of Songjiang, the Battle of Kunshan, the Battle of Lujingba, the Battle of Caohejing and other famous battles. In the 34th year of Jiajing, the Guangxi Wolf Soldiers achieved the "First Meritorious Service of Resisting the Wokou in Southeast China" in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, for the feat of killing more than 2,000 Wukou people. In the Battle of Ningyuan at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Guangxi Wolf Soldiers defeated the powerful Eight Banners at that time.
In 1851, Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, Xiao Chaogui, Feng Yunshan, Wei Changhui, Shi Dakai and others launched the Jintian Uprising by relying on a team dominated by Guangxi people. In the early stages, the Taiping Army, which was mainly Guangxi, fought all the way from their hometown to the city of Nanjing. Zeng Guofan, the opponent of the Taiping Army, even said: "The combat effectiveness of 300,000 yuan in the middle and late period of the Long Mao (Taiping Army) is far inferior to the 30,000 that just came out of Guangxi." The Black Flag Army led by Liu Yongfu was also a team composed mainly of Guangxi people. In the 1885 Zhennanguan Victory, guangxi wolf soldiers also participated.
The Eight Banner Army and the Green Camp Army of the Qing Dynasty had become vulnerable in the process of countering foreign invading armies and suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The Hunan Army, the Huai Army, and other local regiments performed quite well in the process of suppressing the Taiping Army and the Twist army, but after the Sino-Japanese War and the Eight-Power Alliance's war of aggression against China, they were already strong and powerful in the outside world. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, it was necessary to reorganize the new army according to the Western training method. In the thirty-first year of Guangxu (1905), the Qing government recruited 500 people from Guangxi itself to reorganize into the first battalion of the Guangxi New Army.
After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, Lu Rongting, the former Governor of Guangxi in the Qing Dynasty, declared Guangxi's independence and turned to the revolution. The Gui forces represented by Lu Rongting are known as the old Gui clan. In 1920, the old Gui clan wanted to eliminate the Cantonese army in Chaoshan under the command of Sun Yat-sen. The First Guangdong-Guangdong War (also known as the "Two Cantons War") broke out, and the two sides fought fiercely until June 1921. After the defeat of the Gui army, Lu Rongting was forced to declare his resignation. The old Gui forces were hit hard. In 1921, the "Second Guangdong-Guangdong War" broke out: the Cantonese army invaded Guangxi and destroyed the old Guizhou regime.
At the beginning of 1924, a fierce battle broke out between Lu Rongting and Shen Hongying, and Li Zongren took the opportunity to send troops to attack Lu Rongting and eliminate Lu Rongting's forces. Since then, the liangguang region has gradually been controlled by the New Gui clan represented by Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi. In July 1926, Li Zongren led more than 20,000 people of the Gui Ace Seventh Army to participate in the Northern Expedition. The first major victory of the Northern Expedition was won by the Seventh Army led by Li Zongren. Since then, the Seventh Army has been called the "Seventh Army of Steel" in the National Revolutionary Army. After that, Li Zongren led the Seventh Army to fight in Xiang, Hubei, Gansu, Anhui and other provinces.
In 1930, the New Gui clan, led by Li Zongren, joined forces with Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, and Chiang Kai-shek to launch a great scuffle in the Central Plains. After the Central Plains War, the Gui clan confronted Chiang Kai-shek many times, and three times squeezed Chiang Kai-shek out of the position of leader, which can be called the third strongest force in the era of the National Government. The strength of the Gui Army was not only reflected in the warlord civil war, but also a strong force with outstanding performance on the anti-Japanese battlefield. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Gui army successively participated in the Battle of Songhu, the Battle of Xuzhou, the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Suizao, the Battle of Zaoyi, the Battle of Guinan, the Battle of Guiliu, and the Guiliu Counteroffensive...
In many important battles in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Gui Army can almost be seen. On October 15, 1937, about 60,000 officers and men of the Gui Army marched into the Songhu Battlefield. The Central Army and the Sichuan Army, which had participated in the war earlier, suffered heavy casualties after a long period of bitter fighting. The Gui army launched wave after wave of charge in the face of the well-equipped Japanese army, and as a result, it was carried for three days and three nights in a state of absolute inferiority in weapons and equipment. Under the charge of the Gui Army's deadly group, the Japanese army suffered more than 10,000 casualties, and the existing defensive line was also greatly reduced.
In the 1944 Guilin Defense War, the Japanese army gathered 150,000 troops from nearly 7 divisions and regiments, equipped with more than 300 tanks, more than 30 aircraft and a large number of heavy artillery. In contrast, the Guilin garrison only had more than 12,000 people in the 131st Division of the Guangxi Gui Army, and the guangxi local militia group that spontaneously entered Guilin City from all over the world was less than 20,000 people. The Gui Army, which was absolutely inferior in strength, had no tanks and aircraft, only 22 artillery pieces (two cannons of the Cannon Cannon, 12 mountain guns, 4 anti-aircraft guns, and 4 tank defense guns), and most of the Guangxi militia regiments and a small number of Gui Army soldiers were still armed with native guns.
By the time of the fall of Guilin on November 10, 1944, 12,000 of the more than 19,000 defenders in Guangxi had been killed, and more than 7,000 had been captured by the Japanese army because they were unconscious from poisoning. The Japanese army's war report commented on the battle as follows: "The Imperial Army lost more than 13,900 people, wounded more than 19,100 people, and missed more than 300 people in the Battle of Guilin. Among them, 9 squadron leaders of the Rank of Daisa, 31 squadron leaders of the Nakasa level, and nearly 100 squadron leaders and squad leaders were killed. The waters of the Li River are stained with the blood of the enemy and our armies. This battle was the worst battle I have ever experienced in my life."
The Japanese then invaded Guangxi again, but lost 4,000 men at Kunlun Pass. This campaign is known as the "first mechanized offensive campaign" of China's anti-Japanese resistance. After that, until the end of the War of Resistance, the Japanese army did not completely conquer Guangxi. During the entire War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Guangxi recruited as many as 4.5 million soldiers and laborers. Such a number of people participating in the war was second only to Sichuan among all provinces in the country. However, at that time, Guangxi had a population of less than 12 million people, so the number of troops sent by Guangxi ranked first in the country according to the proportion of population. The fiercest battle on the Xiangjiang River on the Long March of the Red Army was mainly fought against the Gui Army.
After the Battle of the Xiangjiang River, when the Red Army headquarters counted the number of troops, it was found that the strength of the troops had been sharply reduced from 86,000 to 35,000. The Red Army sacrificed nearly 50,000 men in 5 days, so that the Red 8Th Army was cancelled. After the war, some Red Army generals commented on the Gui Army: "Bai Chongxi's troops are good at climbing mountains, can climb trees, can swim, run fast like rabbits, and fight like hungry wolves and as fine as monkeys." In fact, at that time, there were also many Guangxi soldiers in the two main forces of the Red Army: Guangxi soldiers accounted for nearly 20% of the Red First Army; Guangxi soldiers in the Red Third Army accounted for nearly 30%.
The performance of Guangxi soldiers in the two classic battles of the Red Army is particularly prominent: 16 of the 18 warriors of the Red Army in the Battle of Dadu River; 17 of the 22 warriors of the Red Army in the Battle of Luding Bridge. During the Liberation War, General Su Yu once commented: "Seeing that Jiang's army equipped with AMERICAN weapons and equipment is definitely elite, and the troops who hear the Guangxi accent are also the elite of Chiang Kai-shek's army, we must make adequate preparations for fighting them." However, with the collapse of the Chiang Dynasty, the old warlord armed force of the Gui Army also came to an end: in the Battle of Hengbao, the main force of the Gui Army was finally wiped out by The Two Wilds and the Four Wilds.