On November 30, 1950, the Central Committee appointed Liu Bocheng as the president of the Military Academy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. At that time, the civil war had ended, and in order to transform our army into a modern and strong army, it was necessary to conduct systematic modern military training for senior and middle-level commanders.
The first problem Liu Bocheng faced was to find a teacher for the students. Although the People's Liberation Army fought many beautiful battles and eventually defeated the enemy, objectively speaking, the army at that time lacked talents who understood modern military. On the contrary, many of the defeated enemy troops have studied abroad and received systematic and modern military training.
At the beginning of the establishment of the military academy, Liu Bocheng did not care about his previous suspicions and boldly invited many high-ranking generals of the Nationalist army who had revolted, surrendered, or even been captured to serve as instructors. Initially, there were 600 former National Army officers working at the Military Academy, representing 70 per cent of the total number of instructors. One of them was Liu Zongkuan, acting chief of staff of the Kuomintang Southwest Military and Political Governor's Office.
Friends who have watched the TV series "Bright Sword" should remember the classic scene: Chang Naichao, the commander of the captured 7th Division of the Nationalist Army, went to the Nanjing Military Academy as an instructor, and at the beginning Li Yunlong was very unconvinced, and he often mischief in class, which made Chang Naichao extremely embarrassed.
Art originates from life, and such a phenomenon is real in history. The defeated general suddenly became his own teacher, and he had to teach himself to fight, which was very unconvincing. The cadets are all middle- and senior generals of the People's Liberation Army who have experienced hundreds of battles, and their thinking is difficult to change for a while, and they will more or less discriminate against the defeated generals, and Liu Zongkuan has also faced the same embarrassing situation as "Chang Naichao".
There is a gap between teachers and students, and the teaching work is naturally not done well. To this end, Liu Bocheng often did ideological work for the trainees, and also put forward serious criticisms for those students who were arrogant and arrogant and did not respect the instructors.
At a party committee meeting, Liu Bocheng particularly stressed: "Comrade Liu Zongkuan made the first contribution to the liberation of the southwest and marched into Tibet, and I adopted many of his valuable opinions. At this time, the staff and cadets of the military academy suddenly realized that this lieutenant general of the national army turned out to be a great hero.
Liu Bocheng
Why does Liu Bocheng call a Kuomintang lieutenant general his own? What kind of contributions did he make, which can be evaluated by Liu Bocheng as "the first merit of liberating the southwest"? Today we will share the legendary life of Liu Zongkuan.
Liu Zongkuan was born in 1905 to an ordinary peasant family in Dongliujiazhuang, Pucheng County, Shaanxi Province. There is a group called the "Mid-Autumn Festival" in Ganbei Village, Sunzhen, which is more than 20 miles away, and the leader is Yang Hucheng. They specialize in fighting the rich and the poor, resisting donations and taxes, and fighting against bandits and bullies, and have a small reputation in the local area. Liu Zongkuan has regarded Yang Hucheng as a hero since childhood.
In 1924, Liu Zongkuan graduated from the Shaanxi Provincial Second Normal School. With the ambition of serving the country and saving the people, he was very dissatisfied with the rule of the Beiyang warlords, and decided to throw himself into the pen and resigned to Yang Hucheng as a clerk. At that time, Yang Hucheng's department was already the commander-in-chief of the former enemy of the Nationalist Army, and was selecting young talents from the army to be sent to the Whampoa Military Academy for training. Liu Zongkuan had a cultural foundation and was lucky enough to be selected and later enrolled in the third phase of the Whampoa Military Academy.
After graduating from the military academy, Liu Zongkuan returned to the army to serve as Yang Hucheng's aide-de-camp. When Liu Zongkuan returned to the army, he was at the time of the famous "Two Tigers Guarding Chang'an" in history. The Henan warlord Liu Zhenhua, with the support of Wu Peifu, led 100,000 troops to besiege Xi'an, and at that time there were less than 10,000 people in the city, li huchen and Yang Hucheng.
The disparity in strength was 10 times, and the battle was extremely fierce, but the defenders held out for 8 months until Feng Yuxiang waved his division south to break the siege. It was in this extremely difficult environment that Liu Zongkuan, as an aide-de-camp, always followed Yang Hucheng's side, saddled before and after the horse, life and death were together, and the two formed a very deep relationship.
Yang Hucheng attached great importance to Liu Zongkuan, promoting him all the way to the positions of regimental commander, deputy brigade commander, chief of staff, etc., and also sent him to Nanjing Army University for further study in 1934.
When Yang Hucheng and Zhang Xueliang launched the Xi'an Incident, Liu Zongkuan was still studying in Nanjing. He remained held hostage by the Nanjing authorities until the Xi'an Incident was peacefully resolved and released.
In August 1937, Liu Zongkuan graduated from the military academy with the first place, and the old Jiang wanted to send him to the Tang Enbo Department. At that time, Yang Hucheng had been forced by Lao Jiang to "go abroad for investigation", and in addition to being inexplicably detained before, Liu Zongkuan had no good feelings for Lao Jiang. Liu Zongkuan refused the appointment of chiang kai-shek and returned to the old unit as chief of staff of the Shaanxi military district.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Yang Hucheng applied several times to return to China to fight the War of Resistance without a response, so he returned to China on his own, and was immediately put under house arrest by Old Chiang. The troops he led were gradually divided and annexed by Lao Jiang, and the northwest region became the domain of Hu Zongnan.
One day in 1939, Hu Zongnan appointed Liu Zongkuan as the commander of the provisional 15th Division. This unit originally belonged to the Yang Hucheng system, and was preparing to go to the anti-Japanese front when it was detained and reorganized by Hu Zongnan. Liu Zongkuan knew very well in his heart that Hu Zongnan's purpose was to use his connections in Yang Hucheng's department to transform and control this force.
Liu Zongkuan was not willing to be controlled by Hu Zongnan, and often contradicted some of Hu's personnel arrangements, and the contradictions between the two gradually deepened. Once, Liu Zongkuan discovered that a close regimental commander appointed by Hu Zongnan was engaged in smuggling, so he detained him. Unexpectedly, this person beat a rake and falsely accused Liu Zongkuan of corruption, and Hu Zongnan also deliberately fabricated rumors that Liu was Yang Hucheng's nephew and escorted him to Chongqing.
Liu Zongkuan
Liu Zongkuan thought to himself, you local officials are doing something wrong, and someone should always uphold justice at the highest level, right? However, just by virtue of the "nephew of Yang Hucheng", he can make his head fall to the ground. Old Jiang thought of cutting the grass and removing the roots, and finally approved the words "all shots" on the official documents of the people involved in the case.
Liu Zongkuan's wife, Cui Dongya, rushed to Chongqing, found Liu's friend Han Liancheng, and asked him to rescue him. Han Liancheng found Feng Yuxiang, and he intervened to save Liu Zongkuan's life, but Liu was still sentenced to 13 years in prison. Through the operation of a friend, he was able to seek medical parole and teach at the Chongqing Army University in the name of "transferring to labor", and was finally exempted from the remaining sentence by Lu Da.
In order to rescue Liu Zongkuan, in addition to Han Liancheng, Liu's teacher, Han Zhaolu, who was serving as a member of the National Suffragette Association, and Guo Zeshen, also contributed a lot. Under their influence, After his release from prison, Liu Zongkuan joined the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party (also known as the Third Party) and joined the democracy movement.
Liu Zongkuan began to contact some CCP figures, and he also met with Zhou Enlai, Ye Jianying and others. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Mao Zedong went deep into the Tiger's Den to Chongqing for peace talks, regardless of personal danger. This made Liu Zongkuan extremely impressed by the CPC's line of national salvation and the mind of the CPC leaders.
However, the old Chiang Kai-shek still plays the trick of "duplicity" and provokes a civil war in disregard of the voices of the people of the whole country for peace. This made Liu Zongkuan even more disappointed and bitter about the Kuomintang, and he secretly decided that after the exemption procedures were completed and the guarantors would not be implicated, he would rush to the Liberated Areas to participate in the revolution.
At this time, Xu Peigen, the education chief of Lu University, recommended Liu Zongkuan to serve as the chief of staff of the major general of the Chongqing camp. It turned out that Zhang Qun, the director of the camp, asked Xu Bacon to find a staff chief, and Liu Zongkuan, who had been the first graduate of Lu University, naturally became the first choice.
At first, Liu Zongkuan did not want to take office, he was bent on going to the Liberated Areas. After Xu Peigen repeatedly persuaded him, he reported the matter to Guo Zeshen, the head of the Peasants' and Workers' Party in Chongqing. After consulting the Chinese communists, Guo Zeshen believed that Liu Zongkuan's stay in Chongqing would play a greater role than going to the Liberated Areas, because the old Chiang Kai-shek was waging a civil war, and staying inside the enemy could obtain some intelligence.
So Liu Zongkuan began his own years of lurking, in order to facilitate the work, he left and right, "befriended" many characters who were usually very hated, and gradually gained a foothold in the enemy camp.
At a meeting in February 1947, Liu Zongkuan heard that the authorities were preparing to secretly seal the CCP's Sichuan Provincial Committee. He immediately reported the situation to Guo Zeshen, who in turn informed the CPC, and the Sichuan Provincial Party Committee immediately made preparations.
On the 28th, more than 100 military and police officers of the Chongqing Police Command suddenly investigated and punished the CPC delegation and the eighth route army office, but they did not find any valuable materials. Soon, the Eighth Route Army office and other institutions withdrew to Yan'an, and the information provided by Liu Zongkuan allowed the CCP to avoid a loss.
The former site of the Eighth Route Army's office in Chongqing
A few days later, when Liu Zongkuan went to his office, he accidentally overheard a conversation between Xiao Yisu, the chief of staff of the camp, and Xu Yuanju, the head of the secret service, which mentioned Guo Zeshen's name. Liu Zongkuan realized that the authorities were ready to attack Guo and immediately informed him to evacuate overnight. Sure enough, the next day, the agents came to the door, but they pounced again. Xu Yuanju naturally said to himself in the office: "Fuck, how can Guo Zeshen disappear?" ”
Before Guo Zeshen left, he specifically told Liu Zongkuan that he must stick to his post, and then he would send someone to contact him. At this time, Liu Zongkuan was like a broken kite completely losing contact with the organization, and the information he received could not be passed on, which made him extremely depressed.
Until May 1949, the People's Liberation Army sent Fang Xianzhi and Huang Kexiao to Chongqing to contact Liu Zongkuan. Fang and Liu are good friends and relatives, and they almost talk about everything. After the meeting, Fang opened the door and said that his task was to obtain the deployment of the Kuomintang troops in the southwest region. Liu Zongkuan smiled and said, "I have already prepared information, and I have been waiting for this day for a long time." ”
At that time, the People's Liberation Army had already crossed the Yangtze River, and the Kuomintang army still had more than 1.5 million people left, forming two backbone groups headed by Bai Chongxi and Hu Zongnan. Bai Chongxi, Yu Hanmou and others plotted the joint defense of Xiang and Guangdong in an attempt to prevent the People's Liberation Army from entering Liangguang. At the same time, Hu Zongnan occupied dangerous terrain such as Qinling Mountain and Daba Mountain to resist the Entry of the People's Liberation Army into Sichuan. In vain, they tried to contact warlords in Yungui and other regions, divide the southwest, and stubbornly resist to the end.
In this regard, the CPC Central Committee formulated a strategy of "great detour and great encirclement": The Two Wilds and Four Corps left Guangdong from Gannan and then attacked Yunnan from Guangxi to block the enemy's escape passage to the outside world. After the liberation of Guangzhou, Siye launched the Guangxi Campaign to encircle Bai Chongxi's forces, and at Yiye in Baoji, hu Zongnan's clique was retained in the Qinling area, and Erye took the opportunity to go straight out of Guizhou via western Hunan and western Hubei, cutting off the passage for Hu Zongnan's clique to retreat to Yunnan.
This strategy can disperse and annihilate the enemy within the territory, but there are certain risks. The main force of Erye had to pass between Hu Zongnan and Bai Chongxi and quickly insert into the eastern Sichuan region. Once it was strongly resisted in the eastern Sichuan region, it was attacked by Hu and Bai, and the victory or defeat was unpredictable. To this end, the central authorities were anxious to find out the deployment of the enemy in the southwest region, and at the same time they also wanted to create the illusion of entering Sichuan from the north of Sichuan and transfer the main force of the enemy army in Sichuan to the north of Sichuan.
At that time, Liu Zongkuan had been promoted to lieutenant general and served as deputy chief of staff of the Southwest Military and Political Governor's Office. As a result of the absence of the Chief of Staff, he effectively acted as Chief of Staff, and the army deployment plan was developed by him. After learning about the deployment of the enemy forces, the central authorities verified the correctness of the strategy of "great detour and great encirclement.".
When Liu Zongkuan formulated the tactical plan, he deliberately left an opening in the southeastern Sichuan region. Both geographically and by name, this area belonged to Song Xilian's Suijing Office in the Sichuan-Qianxiang-Hubei Border Region. However, Liu Zongkuan did not clarify his defensive duties in the plan, Song Xilian wanted to manage but had no basis, and the local troops of the Sichuan Army were unwilling to listen to his dispatches. Therefore, in fact, the southeastern Sichuan region did not send a single soldier or a pawn, but was only garrisoned by a local security regiment with weak combat effectiveness.
The People's Liberation Army advanced into the Great Southwest
At this time, the northern army led by He Long was creating the illusion of a large-scale attack in the northern Sichuan region. To this end, Chiang Kai-shek held a high-level meeting in Chongqing to judge the next move of the Plakmen.
Liu Zongkuan had already drawn up a judgment on the situation that confused old Chiang Kai-shek, and he analyzed: The eastern Sichuan region is not conducive to the movement of large corps, and there is no sign of the movement of large troops of the People's Liberation Army. The northern Sichuan region has convenient transportation, and Lanzhou has the activities of the People's Liberation Army Corps. The CCP will inevitably follow the example of Deng Aifa Shu during the Three Kingdoms period and insert itself from northern Sichuan straight into the western Sichuan Plain.
However, Liu Zongkuan did not intend to report on his own, but found Hu Zongnan's deputy chief of staff Shen Ce and explained the situation to him in detail. Shen Ce was naturally very happy to accept such an opportunity to perform, and it was easier for him to gain the trust of Lao Jiang and Hu Zongnan, and he would not let Liu Zongkuan attract attention.
Shen Ce made a generous statement at the meeting, and his views coincided with the ideas of the old Jiang. Lao Jiang decided to shift the focus of defense to northern Sichuan and transferred the Luo Guangwen clique, which was originally stationed in Chongqing and Bishan, to northwestern Sichuan.
The Luo Guangwen Group had made a long journey to the north and west of Sichuan, and before the deployment was completed, the main force of the People's Liberation Army's Erye had already advanced to western Hunan and western Hubei. The situation in the eastern Sichuan region suddenly became tense, and the Luo Guangwen Group was ordered to return to the eastern part of Sichuan. This made Luo Guangwen's troops exhausted, their combat effectiveness greatly reduced, and they had just returned to the baima mountain area in eastern Sichuan before they could fully unfold, and they were crushed by the People's Liberation Army and annihilated most of them.
The gateway to eastern Sichuan opened, and the Plake Soldiers' Peak pointed directly to Chongqing, but Old Jiang was still not satisfied. While deploying and strengthening Chongqing's defense forces, he ordered the urgent dispatch of 800 vehicles to transfer Hu Zongnan's ace First Army to Chongqing in an attempt to fight a decisive battle with the People's Liberation Army.
This was an extremely secret plan that only a few high-ranking generals, including Hu Zongnan, knew about. But by coincidence, Liu Zongkuan inadvertently learned of this information. On the afternoon that Old Jiang gave the order, Qiu Yuan, commander of the Fourth Supply District, hurried to the road and collided with Liu Zongkuan.
The two usually have a good relationship, Liu Zongkuan asked, "Brother Qiu Yuan, are you in a hurry to burn your eyebrows?" ”
Qiu Yuan complained: "The old man asked me to mobilize 800 cars in 10 hours, where do you say I went to find it all at once?" ”
Liu Zongkuan asked, "With so many cars being transferred, is it necessary to evacuate Chongqing?" ”
Qiu Yuan whispered, "It is to transfer Hu Zongnan's First Army." ”
The situation was urgent, and Liu Zongkuan thought that he must immediately pass this information to the People's Liberation Army. Unfortunately, huang Kexiao, a traffic officer, had just gone to the Liberated Areas to deliver intelligence, and the secret radio station sent by Erye was still on the road.
In a hurry, Fang Xianzhi remembered a man named Wang Kunshan, an underground intelligence officer sent by Erye to lurk in the Chongqing Garrison Headquarters, who had worked with Fang Xianzhi. According to the regulations on intelligence work, Wang Kunshan belongs to another front, and they should not have horizontal contact.
Liu Bocheng (wearing glasses) and Deng Xiaoping (wearing leather clothes) examined during the march
However, the situation was urgent, and he could only go to Wang Kunshan in violation of regulations. After Wang Kunshan learned of the intelligence, he also felt very important and decided to personally go out of the city to send information. In order to provide cover for Wang Kunshan, Liu Zongkuan obtained a blank certificate and asked Wang Kunshan to disguise himself as a captain and officer and leave the city with a pass from the Southwest Military and Political Governor's Office.
In the end, Wang Kunshan successfully passed through the checkpoint to the front position of the People's Liberation Army, and he was captured as a prisoner by the SOLDIER soldiers. After repeated explanations, Wang Kunshan was eventually sent to the headquarters of the 12th Army of the People's Liberation Army, and the commander wang Jinshan personally received him. Subsequently, Wang Jinshan reported the situation to Liu Bocheng, who ordered the main force of the three corps to advance rapidly into Chongqing.
On November 28, hu Zongnan's first unit of the First Army had just arrived on the outskirts of Chongqing, but was defeated by the People's Liberation Army. Old Chiang's plan to defend Chongqing was completely shattered, and he could only flee from Chongqing to Chengdu. Two days later, Chongqing was liberated.
After the withdrawal of the Nationalist army, there was a short vacuum in Chongqing, when there were still many lurking agents left in the city, and the environment was very dangerous. After Liu Zongkuan passed on the last piece of information, he took his family into hiding.
At this time, Liu Bocheng was also very concerned about Liu Zongkuan's safety, and ordered the troops entering the city on the front line to find this person. Eventually, the People's Liberation Army took Liu Zongkuan back to the city in a jeep. According to Zou Fengchun, an intelligence officer in Erye, Erno originally planned to arrive in Chongqing before the Spring Festival, but he did not expect to be two months ahead of schedule.
After the liberation of the Great Southwest, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping also specially received Liu Zongkuan. Liu Bocheng has praised Liu Zongkuan many times: "The role played by the liberation of the southwest is better than that of 100,000 male soldiers, which can be called the first merit."
Liu Zongkuan was hired as a senior staff officer of the Erye Command, and was later invited by Liu Bocheng to work at the Nanjing Military Academy. At first, everyone did not know Liu Zongkuan's true identity, because inertial thinking was biased against him. After Liu Bocheng revealed his identity, everyone looked at him with admiration.
After liberation, Liu Zongkuan worked in the Peasants' and Workers' Party for a long time and also served as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He has always had a desire to join the CCP, and he has applied to the organization many times to join the party. But because of his long-term work in the Peasants' and Workers' Party, the organization believed that his stay outside the Party was more conducive to consolidating the united front.
In July 1992, Liu Zongkuan died of illness. Taking into account his special contributions and his usual performance, the organization posthumously recognized him as a party member according to his wishes during his lifetime.
Liu Zongkuan during his work at the Military Academy
There is a passage on the Internet called "No One in the World Understands the Communist Party", which is a ridicule of the Kuomintang being infiltrated everywhere. During the war, countless red agents lurked in enemy camps and obtained a large amount of intelligence, which greatly affected the course of the war.
But why do high-ranking intelligence officers, often senior generals from within the enemy, give up their generous treatment and move to another camp? Who can truly save China, who represents the light, who is more popular, I believe that their hearts have been repeatedly measured.
Rather than saying that "no one in the world understands the commons" is a joke, it is a true portrayal of the human heart. What the people want, what the victory wants. When most people make a choice in their hearts, the winner or loser is already decided.
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