In order to achieve China's independence, unity, prosperity and democracy, Sun Yat-sen established revolutionary power in the south three times and fought against the warlords of the north and south. His first task was to unify the two cantons (Guangdong and Guangxi) as a base for the revolution.
In 1921, Sun Yat-sen launched the Battle of Guizhou to conquer the land, with the aim of eliminating the old Gui warlords who were trying to divide Guangxi and threaten Guangdong.
The target of this crusade was Lu Rongting, the leader of the old Gui warlords, who came from the party, served as the commander of the Guangxi Patrol, and was promoted to the viceroy of Guangxi for suppressing the Zhennanguan uprising.
Sun Yat-sen
At the time of the second revolution, Lu Rongting openly sided with Yuan Shikai and killed Jiang Yiwu, Liu Guxiang and other revolutionaries.
After Lu Rongting announced his resignation, the remnants of the Gui warlords and some local tycoons and inferior gentry, as well as the bandits who occupied the mountains as kings, all played the banner of "autonomy". In the name of "autonomy," they each took sides, plunging the whole territory of Guangxi into chaos and ushering in the era of the so-called autonomous army.
At that time, there was also a folk song in Guangxi: "Commanders walk all over the streets, generals are like dogs, killing people and crossing goods, and moving every day." ”
The war between the various warlords has caused great suffering to the masses of the people in Guangxi, and they are eager to end the turmoil as soon as possible and realize the reunification of the whole province.
At 3:00 a.m. on June 16, 1922, because Sun Yat-sen did not step down according to his original promises, an angry Chen Jiongming ordered his subordinates Ye Ju and Hong Zhaolin to lead the army to shell the presidential palace of YuexiuLou, and Sun Yat-sen was forced to flee to the Yongfeng ship for refuge.
After the smoke from the shelling of the presidential palace cleared, Chen Jiongming knew that he could not escape the bad luck of being attacked, so he began to deal with the aftermath, and he planned to use Liu Zhenhuan, commander of the First Division of the Gui Army stationed in Wuzhou, to prevent the Dian and Yue troops stationed in Gui from moving east.
At the same time, in order to foil Chen Jiongming's plot, Sun Yat-sen appointed Zou Lu as a commissioner to persuade Liu Zhenhuan. For a time, Liu Zhenhuan became the key figure in the competition between the two sides.
After repeatedly weighing the pros and cons, Liu Zhenhuan felt that it was more advantageous for him to be on the side of Sun Yat-sen, so he agreed to go to Hong Kong to meet with Zou Lu and conspire to discuss the matter of revenge against Chen Jiongming.
In Shanghai, Sun Yat-sen, through the relationship between Cen Chunying, a member of the late Qing Dynasty of Gui, also brought Shen Hongying, a Gui army stationed in Zhaoping, Guangxi, over.
Chen Jiongming
Shen Hongying was an opportunist, and in order to be able to soar, he once betrayed Liu Guxiang, a revolutionary who had plucked him. Now, while promising Sun Yat-sen to participate in the crusade against Chen Jiongming, he has been secretly in contact with Wu Peifu, the leader of the warlords of his immediate lineage.
Five brigades of Yang Ximin of the Dian army were stationed in the area of Teng County, Guangxi, and Sun Yat-sen sent his son Sun Ke to Hong Kong to contact Hong Kong merchants Yang Xiyan and Wu Xuejian and persuade the Dian army of these five brigades to serve as the main force of the thief army on the western road.
In addition, Chen Jitang and Mo Xiong of the Cantonese troops stationed in Wuzhou and Zhaoqing had already reached a joint agreement with Zou Lu to jointly attack the warlord Chen Jiongming.
Sun Yat-sen secretly appointed Yang Ximin as the commander-in-chief of the Yunnan Army of the Thieves Army, Liu Zhenhuan as the commander-in-chief of the Gui Army of the Thieves Army, and Xu Chongzhi, commander-in-chief of the East Road Thieves Army, as the three main forces against Chen Jiongming, mobilizing and organizing all the forces that could be used.
Under the planning and guidance of Sun Yat-sen, the Dian and Gui armies stationed in Guangxi united.
On December 26, 1922, Yang Ximin, Fan Shisheng, Zhu Peide, Liu Xuehuan, Shen Hongying, and other generals of the Dian and Gui armies held a military conference at the Zima Temple in Dajinjiang, Teng County, Guangxi Province, to discuss the strategy and cooperation against Chen Yanming, known in history as the "White Horse Alliance."
The specific battle plans negotiated are:
"1. Shen Hong's British army attacked the area around Hedong with two brigades;
2. The Dian army was all tasked with attacking Wuzhou directly from the north bank of the Great River, passing through people and directly attacking Wuzhou;
3. Liu Zhenhuan's forces expelled the enemy from Fujian County from the south bank of the river and took Guangzhou directly. ”
After the White Horse Alliance, the coalition forces quickly launched an attack on Chen Jiongming's army, and Liu Zhenhuan and Fan Shisheng personally led the Gui army and the Dian army to Wuzhou. Mo Xiong, Chen Jitang, Deng Yanda, and other intermediate officers of the Yue Army stationed in Wuzhou had already secretly contacted the Thief Army on the West Road and agreed to cooperate with the Thief Army.
Therefore, the thief army did not waste a single shot and a bullet, and successfully recaptured Wuzhou.
In early January 1923, Li Jishen led two regiments and engineer battalions of the First Division of the Guangdong Army to revolt on the Front Line of Fengkai, fighting side by side with the Thief Army on the West Road, successively capturing Zhaoqing and Sanshui, and then attacking Guangzhou.
Li Jishen
On January 15, Chen Jiongming was forced to go down to the field by electricity and fled to Huizhou the next day. After the coalition army occupied Guangzhou, the Revolutionary Base Area in Guangdong was recovered.
Chen Jiongming defected on June 16, 1922, stole Guangzhou, and was expelled by the Dian and Gui armies in January 1923, with only seven months in between.
Sun Yat-sen returned to Guangzhou and established the Grand Marshal's Office, but did not restore the name of the president, but changed his name to Grand Marshal, and at the same time changed all military forces to the Thief Army, officially announcing that it had entered the period of seeking thieves.
The so-called "thief" in Sun Yat-sen's mouth refers to Chen Jiongming in a narrow sense. In a broad sense, it refers to all the provincial warlords who oppose democracy and move against the tide of history.
However, the Gui warlord Shen Hongying re-staged Chen Jiongming's original events, led his troops to launch a rebellion in Guangdong, and even shouted: "Cancel the Grand Marshal's Office and demand that Sun Yat-sen go to the field." ”
On April 16, 1923, with the support of the warlord Wu Peifu, Shen Hongying's troops attacked Guangzhou in three ways, and Sun Yat-sen personally commanded the defense of Guangzhou.
Shen Hongying launched a rebellion this time, but li Zongren, Huang Shaohu, and Bai Chongxi, three young soldiers in Guangxi, established contact with Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary regime.
From the end of 1922 to the beginning of 1923, one of Sun Yat-sen's most important revolutionary goals was to recover the revolutionary base areas in Guangdong. In this process, a group of soldiers and ordinary people in Guangxi played a great role, and if they had not given Sun Yat-sen so much support, this military operation would not have been so smooth.
Therefore, Sun Yat-sen appointed Huang Shaohu as the commander-in-chief of the First Army of the Guangxi Thief Army, and Bai Chongxi as chief of staff, and said to them: "I hope you will quickly occupy Wuzhou, and then the base camp will send the army and navy to assist you." ”
With the support of Sun Yat-sen, Li Zongren, Huang Shaohu, and Bai Chongxi began by attacking Wuzhou, a strategic place occupied by Shen Hongying, and opened the prelude to the unification of Guangxi.
As the situation of unifying Guangxi developed, Sun Yat-sen also appointed Li Zongren as the governor of Appeasement in Guangxi, Huang Shaohu as the chief of staff, and Bai Chongxi as chief of staff, instructing them to quickly unify Guangxi.
Liu Zhenhuan of the Gui Army stationed in Guangzhou and Yang Ximin of the Dian Army ostensibly supported Sun Yat-sen, but secretly colluded with reactionary warlords.
In May 1925, Liu Zhenhuan and Yang Ximin discussed in Hong Kong the plan of a joint offensive against the revolutionary army with representatives of British imperialism and Duan Qirui, Tang Jiyao, Chen Jiongming and others. Subsequently, they launched a counter-revolutionary armed rebellion, which once again plunged the situation in Guangzhou into a serious crisis.
On June 6, Li Jishen led the 1st Division back to Guangzhou, and together with the Huangpu Student Army and the Xiang Army, launched an attack on the Dian Army and the Gui Army, annihilating more than 20,000 people of the Dian Army and the Gui Army, quickly quelling the rebellion and unifying Guangzhou.
As early as July 19, 1923, in order to stabilize the situation in Guangxi, Sun Yat-sen deliberately established the Xijiang Aftermath Supervision Office in the Xijiang area, and specially assigned Li Jishen, commander of the First Division, to concurrently serve as the Inspector of Xijiang, and also handed over to Li Jishen all the military, political, people's livelihood, finance, and education powers in the counties around Xijiang.
After Li Jishen took office, he handed over all the taxes in Guangxi to the Guangdong base camp, which effectively supported the revolutionary regime in Guangdong, which was in very difficult financial difficulties.
In order to support Huang Shaohu and Li Zongren in completely pacifying Guangxi, Li Jishen resolutely sent troops to assist them, saying: "Huang Shaohu and Li Zongren support the revolutionary government and are rare armed comrades, and we should unite and support them in order to speed up the reunification of the two provinces, send troops to the Northern Expedition at an early date, and pacify the Central Plains, so as to fulfill the wishes of the premier for many years." ”
In order to promote the reunification of Guangxi and Guangdong, Li Jishen consulted with Huang Shaohu and Li Zongren many times, and finally made them submit to the leadership of the Guangdong revolutionary government.
At 9:30 on March 12, 1925, Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of the great democratic revolution, died of illness in Beijing at the age of 59. At this time, Guangzhou had become a new source of revolution, and the vigorous Great Revolution had also entered a climax.
On July 1, the Revolutionary Government of Guangzhou was reorganized from the Grand Marshal's Office into the National Government, and then the army under its jurisdiction was unified into the National Revolutionary Army, with Li Jishen as the commander of the Fourth Army, under the jurisdiction of the 10th Division, the 11th Division, the 12th Division, the 13th Division, and the independent regiment of Ye Ting.
On March 19, 1926, the National Revolutionary Government officially announced the reunification of the two provinces.
Northern Expeditionary Army
On May 5, the Guangxi Army was officially reorganized into the Seventh Army of the National Revolutionary Army, and Li Zongren served as the commander of the Seventh Army.
On June 1, Huang Shaohu was inaugurated as chairman of the Guangxi Provincial Council appointed by the revolutionary government, and Guangxi was officially subordinated to the Guangdong Revolutionary Government and became a province under the jurisdiction of the Guangdong Revolutionary Government. This not only completely relieved the revolutionary government of its worries about the Northern Expedition, but also expanded the territory and strength of the revolutionary government and strongly promoted the Northern Expedition.
After the reunification of the two provinces, the call of the Northern Expedition was sung into the clouds for a while, and the two sides jointly sent troops to assist Tang Shengzhi in Hunan province in the Battle of Xiang. A brigade of Zhong Zupei, a pioneer unit in Guangxi, and the Ye Ting Independent Regiment of the Guangdong Vanguard Went to Shonan to participate in the war, and the prelude to the Northern Expedition began.
The Northern Expeditionary Army consisted of 8 corps, with the Ye Ting Independent Regiment under Li Jishen's Fourth Army as the vanguard of the Northern Expeditionary Army, and with the assistance of the Communist Party of China, it was invincible all the way, successively capturing Hunan and retaking Wuhan. At Tingsi Bridge and He Sheng Bridge, Wu Peifu's army was defeated, and his prestige was Xuanhe, and he was known as the "Iron Army".
At the same time, the Seventh Army, commanded by Li Zongren, passed through the Xianggui Corridor and directly attacked Hengyang, fighting alongside the Fourth Army.
The Northern Expedition War was a major event in China's modern history, and the realization of the reunification of the two provinces created important conditions for the Northern Expedition.
Since the establishment of the League, Sun Yat-sen has hoped to use the two Guangdong provinces as a base area, and then push the revolution throughout the country and build an independent, unified, democratic, rich and strong China. The northern expedition he had dreamed of basing himself in Guangdong and Guangxi had finally begun a year after his death.