Everyone knows that the reason why Chiang Kai-shek was able to go from a wandering gangster on the beach to the president of the Republic of China was because of the Whampoa Military Academy.
The reason why Chiang Kai-shek was able to become the president of the Whampoa Military Academy was inseparable from the recommendation of one person, that is, Li Liejun, an elder of the Kuomintang.
Li Liejun, born in 1882 in Jiujiang, Jiangxi, his father had participated in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, and when he was a child, he often told him the story of the heroic resistance against imperialism and the Qing army, so Li Liejun received an education in anti-imperialist and anti-feudal ideas from an early age.
Li Liejun learned martial arts from an early age, his body was strong, and he penetrated the history of the scriptures, was familiar with hundreds of schools, and was also good at calligraphy and poetry, which can be described as both literature and martial arts, and Sun Yat-sen once commented on him: "On the horse Nengwu, down the Horse can be written, and it is a rare contemporary Confucian general." ”
In 1901, Li Liejun was selected to study at the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School, and during his time in Japan, he became acquainted with Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and others, and joined the League.
After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, Li Liejun was appointed commander of the heavy artillery unit of the rebel army, and led his army to fight in the north and south, first going south to save Jiangxi, then going north to Ding'an, and finally rushing to the aid of Wuchang, making great contributions to the Xinhai Revolution.
In the early period of the Republic of China, Li Liejun not only held heavy troops and held important official positions, but also was an anti-Yuan "professional household". He served as the governor of Anhui, the governor of Jiangxi, and the commander-in-chief of the five provinces of the united forces, and has always stood at the forefront of the confrontation against Yuan Shikai's Beiyang Army, "second revolution", the war to protect the Law, the war to protect the country, and so on, Li Liejun is an indispensable and important force for Sun Yat-sen.
Later, at Sun Yat-sen's memorial service, there was a pair of bangs, and the upper link was: "Twenty years of revolutionary hard work, full of inverted Yuan, the only Li who relied on each other in a hundred battles." This "Li" refers to Li Liejun.
(Photo: Li Liejun on the right)
In 1924, Sun Yat-sen decided to establish the Whampoa Military Academy, who would serve as the president, in fact, there were many candidates, such as Tan Yanmin, Cheng Qian, Li Liejun, all of whom were elders of the party and state, and their seniority and status were above Chiang Kai-shek, but Li Liejun strongly recommended Chiang Kai-shek to Sun Yat-sen, which made Chiang Kai-shek's later glory.
In 1928, Due to his ill health, Li Liejun gradually faded out of the center of power and returned to his hometown in Jiangxi to recuperate. However, when the September 18 Incident broke out, the Chinese army retreated without a fight and surrendered the northeast land to the Japanese, And Li Liejun was indignant and sent several telegrams to Chiang Kai-shek, hoping that he could actively resist Japan, and even personally ran to Lushan to meet Chiang Kai-shek and painfully accuse him of the nationality's death. However, Chiang Kai-shek turned a deaf ear to his opinion.
In 1934, when Chiang Kai-shek launched the fifth "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the Red Army, and at this time, the Japanese were infiltrating north China along the line of the Great Wall, and Li Liejun was indignant and indignant, and wrote a poem: "Looking back at the vast sky, the waves are rolling in." Blind men operate giant ships, as if they are arrogant. ”
In the end, Li Liejun saw that Chiang Kai-shek was indifferent, and he was more than half a hundred years old, so he had to personally go out on horseback, regardless of his sick body, and went to the Chahar front many times to inspire the troops there to heroically resist the Japanese.
What is even more touching is that in order to resist Japan, Li Liejun also sent his five sons to the battlefield.
Li Liejun has a total of seven sons, and the names are very interesting, namely: Li Ganpeng, Li Ganju, Li Ganxiong, Li Ganji, Li Ganhua, Li Ganhua, Li Ganxiao, Li Ganluo, which means that ten thousand horses gallop and horses are successful.
Except for the eldest son, who was practicing medicine in Hong Kong, and the younger son, who was too young to join the army, the other five sons were all sent to join the army by Li Liejun, two of whom were studying, and also interrupted their studies.
The incident of Li Liejun sending his five sons to serve as soldiers was a sensation, and even Chiang Kai-shek personally sent a plaque with the inscription "Elder of the Party and the State, Five Sons Congrong."
During the period of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, although Li Liejun was bedridden for a long time, he still insisted on reading the newspaper every day to understand the situation of the War of Resistance, and often published articles in the newspaper to encourage the Chinese people to fight bravely and go to the difficult times together.
It was not until after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War on August 15, 1945, that Li Liejun finally breathed a sigh of relief and died in Chongqing in February 1946 at the age of 64.
After Li Liejun's death, the Nationalist government held a state funeral for him and held a grand memorial service, and Zhou Gong, Dong Biwu, and others who were in Chongqing at the time also went to mourn and express their respect for this patriot.