In 1951, when the korean battlefield was in full swing, the remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's army on Dachen Island suddenly began to frequently attack the eastern coast of Zhejiang, although they were all repelled, but caused the local passenger ships to stop sailing for a long time. Most of these "landing commandos" were sea bandits, re-equipped and trained. Taiwan newspapers published information that the person who came to Dachen Island to take up the post of commander-in-chief was "General Qin Dongchang."
On the mainland side, I went through the roster of generals of Chiang Kai-shek's army and found no one. Later, I learned that this Qin Dongchang was Hu Zongnan, a general of the Nationalist Army.
Speaking of Hu Zongnan, we all know that he is the graduate of the Whampoa Military Academy, who is most valued by Chiang Kai-shek, and was the first among his Huangpu classmates to be promoted to division commander, corps commander, and commander of the group army, until he was promoted to commander of the theater, and the rank of lieutenant general was added. The speed of promotion is second to none among Whampoa students. In the Huangpu department, the instructor who sat in the high position of the military circle was Chen Cheng, and the student was Hu Zongnan. In Chiang Kai-shek's eyes, Hu Zongnan was not only a military and political all-rounder, but also a student who was the most capable of dealing with the Communist Party.
Not to mention the Northern Expedition, from the perspective of fighting the Red Army, Hu Zongnan is really not ordinary.
Hu Zongnan's first confrontation with the Red Army was the fourth encirclement and suppression of Eyuwan in the autumn of 1932. At that time, the Red Fourth Front was ready to advance westward under the siege of Chiang Kai-shek's superior forces, and the troops of the Central Army who came to encircle them were Huang Jie's 2nd Division, Yu Jishi's 88th Division, and Hu Zongnan's 1st Division, under chiang Kai-shek's personal supervision, together with Xu Xiangqian, commander of the Red Fourth Front, Chen Geng, commander of the 12th Division, and Cai Shenxi, commander of the Red 25th Army, staged a battle of the same window between the first generation of Huangpu, and Chen Geng was wounded at this time and transferred to Shanghai. Cai Shenxi was not only a classmate of The Huangpu Phase I with Hu Zongnan, Huang Jie, and Yu Jishi, but also the same team as The three brigade commanders of Hu Zongnan's 1st Division, Li Tiejun, Yuan Pu, and Ding Delong. In the Battle of Hekou Town, the Red 25th Army desperately covered the breakthrough of the main force, and the commander Cai Shenxi was killed in battle, and the Red Army suffered heavy losses.
Cai Shenxi is a famous general of the Four Fronts Army, and was one of the 36 military experts of our army in 1994.
The main force of the Red Fourth Front broke through in a bloody battle and left the Eyu-Anhui base area from then on. In this campaign, Hu Zongnan was active in battle, and pursued him with the "First Division of the World". This chase is 3,000 miles, during which after the battles of Xinji, Nanhuatang, Manchuanguan, and Huxian County, Shaanxi, Hu Zongnan caught up with Xu Qiangqian four times and was freed four times, all the way to Daba Mountain at the junction of Sichuan and Shaanxi.
After several fierce battles, Hu Zongnan looked at this taciturn old classmate Xu Xiangqian with astonishment, at this time the four fronts of the army were hungry and cold, there was no food and ammunition, the Daba Mountain was already frozen and snowy, the pursuit of the army was imminent, and it seemed that it was about to fall into a desperate situation. Xu Xiangqian stunned Hu Zongnan, who was catching up: he ordered the whole army to carry a bundle of straw each, light it, tie it into a coat to protect it from the cold, spread it on the ice and snow to facilitate walking, sprinkle it on the ground to serve as a road sign for the rear team, and in one fell swoop, more than 14,000 people crossed the Daba Mountain into the river.
Because Tian Songyao, the Sichuan army, refused to enter the central army, Hu Zongnan could only stop. The 1st Division was exhausted after a long pursuit, and the Shaanxi army in Hanzhong was very unhappy with the Central Army, and it was said that it should return to Eyuwan at this time. But Hu Zongnan's urgent telegram made Chiang Kai-shek praise.
Hu Zongnan suggested that the 1st Division should neither retreat to the Central Plains nor compete with the Shaanxi army for territory in Hanzhong, but would enter Longnan. If the Sichuan army is defeated by the Red Army, it is bound to ask the central army to help suppress it, and the 1st Division can enter Sichuan nearby; if the Red Army is defeated by the Sichuan army, it is likely to enter Gansu westward and develop to Xinjiang in order to contact the Soviet Union, at which time it can intercept the nearest attack (this judgment is confirmed by the later westward advance of the Red West Road Army). More importantly, Longnan's control of the throat of Gansu, Shaanxi, Ningqing, and Qingqing could open up the situation for the central army to enter the hinterland of the Great Northwest to intimidate the Sichuan Army, the Shaanxi Army, and the Qinghai Majia Army.
The "Bashan Emergency Telegram" made Chiang Kai-shek even more attached importance to Hu Zongnan, and many disciples in Huangpu had such a strategic vision and took the initiative to plot for him, especially there were very few students who took the initiative to go to the northwest to suffer hardships. After Hu Zongnan entered Tianshui, Jiang specially allocated 2 aircraft for the 1st Division to use, not to mention other military supplies. On the one hand, Hu Zongnan expanded its strength on a large scale, turning the 1st Division into a super-large organization of the 4th Brigade and the 13th Regiment; on the other hand, he immersed himself in studying the geographical conditions of the northwest, running schools and building roads in the local area, and establishing a reputation. Hu Zongnan has always shown a simple image, and when Fan Changjiang, a reporter from the Ta Kung Pao, visited, he saw that Hu Zongnan had a poor diet, so he lived in a ruined temple, and did not light a stove for warmth in cold weather.
As Hu Zongnan expected, the Sichuan army was indeed defeated by Xu Xiangqian, at this time the Long March of the Central Red Army entered northwest Sichuan, preparing to join the Red Fourth Front, and Chiang Kai-shek mobilized other central troops to enter Sichuan under the command of Hu Zongnan. It was also during this period that a battalion commander of the 1st Division met a woman in Guangyuan, who was sentenced after marriage for shooting and killing his wife, and this person was Zhang Lingfu.
Hu Zongnan's 1st Division preemptively occupied Songpan before the Four Fronts, because the locals were sparsely populated, extremely short of food, tens of thousands of horses were miserable, and began to reduce their personnel in large quantities, and they could only grab grain to fill their hunger and kill horses to survive. Hu Zongnan's troops were still like this, and the situation of the Red Army was even more imaginable. This is also one of the few garrison experiences of the Central Military Department in high-altitude areas. This bitter meal hu zongnan survived, the hubu central army stationed, closed the passage from northwest Sichuan to Gannan, and the Chiang kai-shek army that surrounded the Red Army came one after another, forcing the Red Army to go only to the extremely bad Songpan grassland.
Hu Zongnan's superiority over the Red Army continued until 1936. After the three main forces of the Red Army met the division, Hu Zongnan's troops quickly surrounded it, the Red Army had no way to retreat, and the three fronts joined forces for the first time and fought a hard battle at the mountain castle, and finally annihilated the Liao Ang Brigade of the 1st Division, which prevented Hu Zongnan's aggressive attack. This time, Hu Zongnan's opponents were Lin Biao, commander of the Red First Army in the huangpu phase IV, Chen Geng, who had been transferred to the Red Army, and one of his future nemesis, Peng Dehuai, the former commander-in-chief of the Red Army who was two years younger than him.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Hu Zongnan's troops were responsible for guarding the yellow river defenses, but the main goal was to blockade the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region, and with the vigorous support of Chiang Kai-shek, by the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the southern part of Hu Zongnan had developed into a huge military group with nearly 400,000 troops, which was the strategic reserve of Chiang Kai-shek's army. In the northwest, all areas except the provinces of Ning and Qingdao and parts of Xinjiang were controlled, from which the nickname of the King of the Northwest was derived. East of Tongguan, Hu people spread throughout western Henan, southern Jin, and northern China. These were the capitals of the Hu Zongnan clique in the civil war.
The occupation of Yan'an in March 1947 was the culmination of Hu Zongnan's military career. At that time, Hu Zongnan's secretary and underground party member Xiong Xianghui had already followed Hu to the forward command post of Luochuan before the attack was launched. At the critical juncture, it was impossible to master the radio or the means of secret writing, so he could only risk exposure and reported Yan'an through the Xi'an intelligence station by writing letters. Xiong Xianghui went to the United States to study two months later, and then it was up to General Peng Da and the King of the Northwest to be short and long militarily.
Before the start of the Yan'an Defense War, Peng Dehuai served as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and chief of the general staff, and took the initiative to ask for troops to defend Yan'an. At this time, there were only the 1st and 2nd columns transferred from Jin Sui in the border area, as well as the teaching brigade and the new 4th brigade composed of several regiments transferred back from Jin-Cha-Ji, Taihang, and Jiluyu in 1943, with a full strength of less than 30,000 troops, and the hundred thousand or so troops against Hu Zongnan, in the eyes of the Chinese people at that time, there was almost no suspense about victory or defeat. But in just one year, Hu Zongnan couldn't stay in Yan'an, and Huangpu Jiaozi really couldn't beat Peng Dehuai, who was born in the old line.
If you only look at the strength and equipment, this battle does not have to be fought.
The Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region has few troops, either because it cannot be mobilized from other base areas or because the development of the armed forces is too slow, but there is only one reason, that is, northern Shaanxi is short of grain and cannot feed more troops. Chairman Mao had planned to transfer Chen Geng's troops from southern Jin to northern Shaanxi, but he gave up due to a lack of grain. In 1947, the spring drought and autumn floods in northern Shaanxi, coupled with the fact that northern Shaanxi had become a battlefield, the already barren arable land was largely barren, resulting in grain production in the border areas in 1947 being less than half of the previous year, and often relying on black beans and elm leaves to survive. The population of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region is only 1.5 million, the number of victims is 250,000, the Northwest Field Corps has not recruited troops in northern Shaanxi for seven months, and the military food and resources depend on the support of He Long's Jinsui Border Region. In the telegrams that General Manager Peng reported to the Central Military Commission, grain was always mentioned. Xiye turned to northern Shaanxi, winning battles such as fighting Panlong, Fighting Qingjian and Yiwa, fighting a draw such as attacking Longdong, losing battles against Yulin and Xifu, and especially moving to the outside world, all of which were related to grain from the enemy or taking grain on the spot.
Hu Zongnan had a set of political problems, and after invading northern Shaanxi, he issued a proclamation that the land that the peasants had already received remained unchanged. This was much smarter than the counterattack of other Kuomintang troops with homecoming regiments. Hu Zongnan realized that the peasant problem was fundamental, and he knew the importance of the people's will, but he had no way to solve it and did not have the ability to deal with the land issue. For example, if the Kuomintang general complained that Peng Dehuai was not in accordance with common sense in fighting, he was reprimanded on the spot by General Manager Peng: You think you have a lot of soldiers, don't say that you have more than 100,000 people, every mountain, every river, every village in northern Shaanxi, where there is no one of us, we all know if you pull the bolt of the gun. Do the math yourself, how many people do I have?
Chairman Mao, as for his part, was resolute but not the Yellow River, and quarreled with Ren Bishi many times for this reason. Although Yan'an was an empty city, after all, it was the red capital of more than ten years, and the blow to the morale of the people at that time was quite large. Hu Zongnan's original plan was that even if it could not be eliminated, he would drive the CPC head organs to Hedong, but he did not expect that Chairman Mao would rather lead hundreds of former party members to drill ravines and move around, but would also resolutely stay in northern Shaanxi. Not only did they not leave, but after the large armies of northern Shaanxi and Hu Zongnan went around in circles and left Yan'an to achieve three victories in three wars, the Xinhua Radio immediately broadcast the news, stating that Chairman Mao himself and the CPC Central Committee had been in northern Shaanxi. This made it difficult for Hu Zongnan to ride the tiger, he could not fight and fight, and he could not go now, the main force was firmly sucked in northern Shaanxi, and he was unable to reinforce the Central Plains battlefield, at that time, the mobile strength of Chiang Kai-shek's army had begun to be stretched.
This is the vision and boldness to suppress the situation at a crucial moment, and the good mass foundation in the Shaanxi Arctic is the confidence; throughout his life Chairman Mao, he always believed that Marxism-Leninism could emerge from the ravines, and always believed that the soldiers and the people were the basis of victory, and for this reason he did not hesitate to take risks and make difficulties. Changing to hu Zongnan's principal, he can't bear this pain, and he doesn't have this guts, this is the gap.
Jiang Jun was ill, and Hu Zongnan was militarily difficult to make a big difference.
Hu Zongnan was limited by Chiang Kai-shek's vision and pattern, and in terms of employing people, he took "Huang, Zhejiang, Lu, and Yi" as the standard, and reused officers from Huangpu who came from his principal. "Zhejiang" in the Hu Zongnan system mainly refers to staff, especially secret agents and confidential departments, almost all of whom are Hu Zongnan's fellow villagers. However, in the use of high-level military officers, they do not value the identity of fellow villagers, Hu Zongnan believes that Zhejiang people have skills in business, and it is not possible to lead soldiers to fight, especially not to suffer hardships. For example, he once ridiculed: Yu Jishi can also fight? Yu Jishi was Jiang's bodyguard commander and led the 74th Army. After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, none of the commanders of the 6 group armies under Hu's command were Zhejiang. The commanders of the two main forces of the later reorganized army, Dong Zhao, was from Shaanxi, Liu Jie was from Hunan, and among the commanders of the reorganized division were only a few Zhejiang generals, including Zhong Song. Compared with chen cheng and Tang Enbo's system, Hu Zongnan has a pragmatic side.
In fact, everything can not be absolute, Zhong Song is very capable of fighting, once led the entire 36th Division out of the surprise, walked the desert to bypass the Northwest Field Army's blockade line, suddenly appeared under Yulin City, the Northwest Field Army had to withdraw. The main force of the Battle of Shajiadian was annihilated, and Zhong Song led a few people out of the siege. After the 36th Division was rebuilt, it made a breakthrough in the Battle of Xifu, causing heavy casualties to the Northwest Field Army. The 36th Division was encircled for the second time, and Zhong Song broke out of the encirclement circle again, and was called "Zhong Song who could not die" by Peng Dehuai.
As for this "one", it was too important in Hu Zongnan's mind, the 1st Division was his starting unit, and the establishment, treatment and equipment were beyond the reach of others. Unexpectedly, at the beginning of the civil war, the reorganized 1st Brigade of the entire 1st Division was eaten by Chen Geng in southern Jin. Lieutenant General Huang Zhengcheng, who had studied in Germany, wanted to appease him a few words after being captured, but huang Zhengcheng was arrogant and arrogant, saying that you did not follow the rules of the war, and took advantage of the fact that our army did not launch a sneak attack at night to win. Chen Geng was immediately annoyed: You coordinated with the infantry artillery in Shangchen Village to beat me all day, what nonsense are you talking about?
The destruction of the entire 1st Brigade dealt a heavy blow to Hu Zongnan. At the Whampoa Military Academy, Hu Zongnan and Chen Geng were the backbone figures of the Sun Wen Doctrine Society and the Young Soldiers' Federation, respectively, and the two sides often argued and moved their hands, Chen Geng could not beat Li Xianzhou, the great Han of Shandong, so he chased after Hu Zongnan, who was short and small, and the two did not hurt and were angry, he was a few years younger than Hu Zongnan. Chen Geng captured Hu Bu's radio station director in Jinnan, deciphered and mastered many secrets of the other side, and Chen Geng was so happy that he could not control himself: Old Brother Hu, Old Brother Hu...
Hu Zongnan was favored by Chiang Kai-shek and rebuilt very quickly after the loss of his troops. During the attack on Yan'an, Hu Zongnan had ordered the generals of various departments to reward 10 million yuan for the advanced city. The entire 90th Division and the Nishino Teaching Brigade fought fiercely for several days, paying a lot of casualties, at this time in the forefront, looking to be the first to enter Yan'an, but they were ordered to stop advancing and make way for the entire 1st Division. Hu Zongnan wanted to give the honor of capturing Yan'an to the entire 1st Division, but Hu Zongnan was too eccentric about this "one", and Chen Wu, the commander of the 90th Division, was extremely dissatisfied, believing that Hu Zongnan did not know the way to lead troops and was unfair. Chen Wu stood on the hill, watching the entire 1st Division and the 90th Division crowding the road and grabbing the road, and teased: If Peng Dehuai had more soldiers, at this time, he would have to make a big joke outside Yan'an City.
The honor of the troops should be played out, and the direct result of this drama can only cause contradictions between subordinates and lose the initiative and enthusiasm of cooperating with friends and neighbors, Panlong is the supply base of the Hu Army, and the entire 167th Brigade of the 1st Division is guarding Panlong. When May arrived, the soldiers of the Northwest Field Army not only had their stomachs full, but also wore tattered winter clothes, and after Peng Dehuai grabbed the fighter, the whole army shouted the slogan of "laying down the dragon and wearing summer clothes" and went south. The entire 90th Division, which went north, found that there was a People's Liberation Army on the opposite mountain beam, and the division commander Chen Wu said: That is a small unit of the People's Liberation Army, don't care, don't report it, our task is to arrive in Suide on time, and the whole 1st Division can't deal with this communist army. Chen Wu was emotional about the entire 1st Division, and he didn't even have the idea of reconnaissance.
Moving south was the entire main force of the Northwest Field Corps, and at this moment Peng Dehuai's headquarters was only one kilometer away from the entire 90th Division. Panlong was conquered, the 167th Brigade was completely destroyed, the brigade commander Li Kungang was captured, and the Northwest Field Army captured a total of 40,000 sets of military uniforms, 12,000 bags of flour, and 1 million rounds of ammunition. This supply was like a timely rain for the Northwest Field Army, and the first was to have grain to eat. The second was to change into summer clothes, and the third was to replenish ammunition, and in the whole year of 1947, the ammunition consumption of the Northwest Field Army was only 4.4 million rounds.
In March 1947, 10 million French dollars was not a small amount, and the monthly salary standard of the Kuomintang army at that time was 450,000 for lieutenant generals, 185,000 for lieutenants, 20,000 for first class soldiers, and 15,000 for second class soldiers. By October, Qingjian was besieged, and Hubu reinforcements could not arrive, and Hu Zongnan airdropped 3 billion French dollars to the entire 76th Division of the defenders. In the past six months, the depreciation of the legal currency has not been large, and although the military salary has risen 4 times, this is still a huge amount. But it was useless, there were no ordinary people in the city, and they couldn't even buy a big cake. Liao Ang did not want to send the money to his subordinates, worried that the officers and soldiers would have no intention of defending the city when they had money, and they could not leave it to the Platon Army, so they had to burn all the money with their own hands under the watchful eyes of the chief of staff, and then tie up their hands and capture it.
In terms of operational command, Hu Zongnan's troops and the People's Liberation Army are indeed not at the same level; during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, due to the needs of guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines, the Eighth Route Army stipulated that, in addition to the unified deployment of important military operations by the Central Military Commission and the general headquarters, decentralized command should be carried out, and great emphasis was placed on the subjective initiative of commanders, especially when fighter planes or operational passivity appeared, they should dare to act arbitrarily. The Kuomintang army was different, regarding the authority of the general as more important than anything else, and Hu Zongnan was ambitious, praising himself as a famous general in Huangpu, and when the officials became bigger, they often deviated from reality. In the Battle of Yiwa, where the situation in the northwest battlefield took a fundamental turn, Liu Jie, who was reinforcing Yichuan, had already found that the People's Liberation Army was setting up an ambush and requested a diversion, and there were three roads from Wazi Street to Yichuan, and at this time there was no hesitation to adopt the opinions of the front-line commanders, but Hu Zongnan insisted on going his own way, forcing Liu Jie to go into the encirclement, and in desperation, Liu Jie sighed: The battle is over. Then the whole army was destroyed.
From abandoning Yan'an to Hu Zongnan's retreat, for more than a year, the Hu Zongnan clique, which had a large number of troops and was well-equipped, was defeated by Peng Dehuai with tens of thousands of troops, creating a spectacle in the history of the Liberation War. Hu Zongnan's loss is not unjust, people laugh at him as a straw bale, which can be seen from the intensity of the war to resist US aggression and aid Korea and Peng Dehuai's command practice later, there are several people in the world who dare to pat their chests and say that they can win the battle against General Peng Da.
After Hu Zongnan's defeat and retreat to the Qinling area, he negotiated with Song Xilian that the two units would abandon the Sichuan joint army, retreat to the Yunnan-Burma border via Xichang, and retreat to the overseas area to preserve their strength when the situation was unfavorable, and as a result, they were reprimanded by Chiang Kai-shek. When his old classmate and old rival Chen Geng first liberated Yunnan and then entered Xichang, Hu Zongnan could not take away a single soldier, and the once-prominent Northwest King flew alone to Dachen Island to be with pirates, it is said that the name Qin Dongchang was given by Chiang Kai-shek, Qin refers to the Three Qins, generally referring to the northwest, Dongchang is hoping that he can rise again in the east, which is also considered to be well-intentioned. A large military clique has also flourished and its demise has also been neglected.
The author of this article: Xu Dulu, "This is the war" to join the author, without the author himself and "this is the war" permission, any media, self-media shall not be reprinted, violators will be investigated for legal responsibility, readers welcome to forward.
About the author of the public account: Wang Zhengxing, a former officer of a field unit of the People's Liberation Army, has served in infantry detachments, headquarters, logistics departments and other units, is committed to the study of war history and tactics, and has a unique understanding of military tactics and non-war operations. His book "This is War" was recommended in two issues in May and June 2014 by Phoenix TV's "Eight Minutes of Open Volume" column. His public account name is also "This is war", welcome to pay attention