After the establishment of the anti-fascist alliance, the United States, as an ally, sent a lot of aid to China and appointed U.S. Lieutenant General Stilwell as chief of staff in the Chinese theater. Chiang Kai-shek held a grand welcome ceremony for Stilwell in Chongqing, and Stilwell was also impressed by Chiang Kai-shek's enthusiasm. But just over two years later, Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek tore their faces, and Stilwell blackmailed Chiang Kai-shek with his resignation, giving him the nickname "peanut rice" in his personal letters; and Chiang Kai-shek asked the United States several times within a week to remove Stilwell. So, what happened to these two people that caused the relationship to deteriorate?
Chiang Kai-shek with Stilwell
First of all, Chiang Kai-shek's cover-up and connivance of the chaos in the Nationalist army annoyed Stilwell. Before coming to China, Stilwell had learned about the shortage of materials in the Chinese army and the serious corruption of Kuomintang officers, but after witnessing it with his own eyes, he found that the corruption of Kuomintang officers had exceeded his imagination -- not only embezzling military salaries, but even basic clothes and grain. Stilwell strictly demanded that Chiang Kai-shek dismiss or imprison these corrupt officers, but Chiang Kai-shek first prevaricated and then had to remove some of them from their posts at Stilwell's repeated requests. But it wasn't long before these people were reinstated elsewhere. This has happened more than once.
If Chiang Kai-shek's connivance with the corruption of the troops only made Stilwell dissatisfied, then Chiang Kai-shek's passive resistance deepened this sentiment. When Stilwell first arrived in China, Chiang Kai-shek constantly stressed at military meetings that "one Chinese division cannot defeat one Japanese regiment, and three Chinese divisions cannot defeat a Japanese division," and used this as an excuse to passively defend and refuse to launch an attack. Stilwell was still deeply impressed at first, but as the Nationalist army equipped with a large number of American equipment, the firepower was greatly enhanced, but Chiang Kai-shek was still that set of arguments, which made Stilwell see through that this was just an excuse for Chiang Kai-shek to preserve his strength for future civil wars, so he became more and more dissatisfied with him.
Skinny soldiers of the Nationalist Army persecuted by corrupt officers
After this, Chiang Kai-shek ignored the tight battle on the front line and ordered Hu Zongnan to lead hundreds of thousands of troops to surround Yan'an. Stilwell put the overall situation first and advised Chiang Kai-shek to lift the siege of Yan'an, but was refused. An enraged Stilwell directly denounced Chiang Kai-shek in his diary as "stubborn stupid donkey, self-righteous, as difficult as ever!" "
And some of Stilwell's words and deeds also made Chiang Kai-shek very unaccustomed. Stilwell always proposed in various private occasions to give American assistance to the Communist armed forces; he installed a large number of American advisers in many Nationalist troops, restrained some Nationalist officers, and even bypassed Chiang Kai-shek to punish some Nationalist officers. To put it bluntly, Chiang Kai-shek had no intention of resisting Japan, and Stilwell was also suspected of undermining the independence of the Chinese army, so the relationship between the two people naturally did not improve. At this time, although the relationship between the two was bad, they still maintained a superficial peace until the Battle of Yuxianggui.
Stilwell awarded the National Army soldiers the medal
In the Summer of 1944, at the Battle of Yuxianggui, the nationalist army of 2 million troops collapsed under the attack of more than 500,000 Japanese troops, losing four provincial capitals, 136 cities, and 200,000 square kilometers of land. In mid-to-late 1944, the Allies achieved major victories around the world, and only the Chinese theater was defeated. Stilwell could not sit still, he first bypassed Chiang Kai-shek, directly contacted our Party in Yan'an, and sent a small amount of aid. Second, he went directly to President Roosevelt and demanded that all officers of the Kuomintang army at the regimental level and above be removed from their posts and that American officers should take over the Kuomintang army. These two actions directly led to Chiang Kai-shek's anger, and he also tit-for-tat demanded that Roosevelt remove Stilwell from his post.
Stilwell in a general's uniform
In the face of Chiang Kai-shek's request, Roosevelt first expressed his attitude by promoting Stilwell to the future, but he could not resist Chiang Kai-shek's stalking and had to agree to his request. It was only since then that the status of the Chiang Kai-shek regime in the minds of the Americans has plummeted, so that it was eventually abandoned by the Americans, relying on changes in the international situation to get back on the old ship of the Americans, but this is also a later story.