On December 9, 1949, Lu Han, director of the Yunnan Pacification Office of the Kuomintang and chairman of the provincial government, announced the uprising in Kunming.
When Lu Han announced the uprising, Chiang Kai-shek was still in Chengdu. Considering that he had released Zhang Qun after his uprising, Lu Han immediately called Liu Wenhui, Pan Wenhua, Deng Xihou and other Sichuan generals who were still in Chengdu, hoping that they could capture Chiang Kai-shek alive during the uprising.
But unexpectedly, the telegram was intercepted by Chiang Kai-shek shortly after it was sent. When Chiang Kai-shek heard the news, he didn't dare to stay in Chengdu.
Photo | Chiang Kai-shek and Hu Zongnan
html Late at night on November 10, Chiang Kai-shek took a plane in a hurry and fled Chengdu. At the door of the special plane "China and the United States", Chiang Kai-shek tightly held Hu Zongnan 's hand and said three words:
"See you in Taiwan."
Most of the senior Kuomintang generals present were from Huangpu, and they couldn't help crying when they saw this situation. Chiang Kai-shek escaped by himself, but left them in this dire pit. What's more interesting is that among these senior generals who bid farewell to Chiang Kai-shek, most of them later chose to revolt.
Just the second day after Chiang Kai-shek fled Chengdu, Guo Ruo-gui, commander of the 22nd Corps of the Kuomintang and commander of the 72nd Army, led his troops to revolt in Luzhou, destroying Chiang Kai-shek's plan to hoard heavy troops in the southwest and intend to stick to it.
Of course, what Chiang Kai-shek unexpectedly was that Guo Ruogui joined the Communist Party of China as early as 1928, lurked in the Kuomintang army for 22 years, ranked at the center, sent out a large amount of confidential intelligence, and led an uprising at the critical moment of the War of Liberation.
It was not until April 1980 that Guo Rugui wrote a letter to of the Central Organization Department of , declaring his past revolutionary experience, reflecting his wish to join the party for many years. With the approval of the Central Committee, "Guo Rugui is allowed to join the party". The following year, the Party Committee of the Chengdu Military Region also praised Guo Rugui as an outstanding Communist Party member in the entire military region.
pic | Guo Rugui
On the day Guo Rugui announced the uprising, the Third and Fifth Corps of the Second Field Army advanced into East Sichuan and southern Sichuan, cutting off the retreat of the Kuomintang army. At that time, the main force of Hu Zongnan's army was still trapped by the 18th Corps led by Mr. He on the front line of Qinling . It means that the hundreds of thousands of troops of Hu Zongnan's group gathered on the front line of Chengdu were surrounded by our Second Field Army. With just one order, it could be divided and encircled and annihilated.
Faced with such a situation, even if Hu Zongnan himself has the ability to understand the world, he is powerless.
is unable to fight again
11 On December 22, 949, Hu Zongnan held a military meeting in Xinjin, and senior generals above the military attended the meeting.
The atmosphere of the entire meeting seemed very depressing, and Hu Zongnan himself sighed. Although he still had several armies of hundreds of thousands of troops in his hand, everyone knew very well that in such a situation, even if he wanted to fight, he would not be able to fight again.
However, at the entire meeting, no one dared to take the blame and put forward the "alternative" proposal. Hu Zongnan also tried to cheer everyone up:
"We still have five or six corpses, so it's okay to make a breakthrough."
At this moment, Li Zhen , who was then the commander of the 18th Corps of the Kuomintang Army, Stand up and frankly state to everyone:
"There is not a big confidence in breaking out. At this critical moment, it is better to gather all the generals above the regiment or above the division and send them away by plane. The remaining troops broke out in companies as units, and then gather at the designated location."
Everyone focused their eyes on Li Zhen. Their eyes were very dazzling, which made Li Zhen a little confused for a moment.
On the surface, this seems to be a feasible solution. Now hundreds of thousands of troops are surrounded and shrinking into a group, and they can only be passively beaten and cannot be expanded at all. If the troops can be divided into small groups, there is still a possibility of breaking through. After all, in military terms, no matter how dense an encirclement is, there will be gaps.
Picture | Hu Zongnan
But after Li Zhen finished speaking, Hu Zongnan just sat in place and sighed. He had never thought of this method. However, when he first proposed it, it was rejected by Chiang Kai-shek mercilessly. After all, with the degree of looseness within the Kuomintang army, it is divided into small companies. It may be possible to break out, but it is hard to say that it can not be gathered together. Chiang Kai-shek also hoped that these hundreds of thousands of troops would be able to delay him.
As Chiang Kai-shek's confidant, Hu Zongnan naturally knew his ideas and simply did not point them out. He had long been sure to pay attention that as long as the war was unfavorable, he would immediately slip away by plane, and these hundreds of thousands of troops could just cover him. are all senior Kuomintang generals present, and they all know very well, just keep silent.
In this situation, Li Zhen could only curse in his heart.
Hu Zongnan ignored Li Zhen's suggestion, but formulated a breakthrough plan on his own and ordered the corps and commanders to go down separately to implement it.
After Li Zhen returned to the Corps headquarters, he discussed with his subordinates and discussed it, but found that no matter what path he chose, he would be a dead end in the end. Although the situation had deteriorated to this point, everyone still did not propose an uprising. Chief of Staff of the 18th Corps of the Kuomintang He Canglang even directly said to Li Zhen:
"You can't revolt, it's hard for the Communist Party to deal with."
Li Zhen had no choice but to curse in his heart. He called Zhou Shiying, the commander of the 90th Army, and wanted to discuss a countermeasure, but he didn't expect that Zhou Shiying would also be the first to curse. It was a slippery head. In front of Li Zhen, he neither talked about uprising nor followed the breakthrough plan, but wanted to escape:
"Just wait until Mr. Hu flew away, we will detain the plane at Guanghan Airport and escape to Hong Kong."
Zhou Shiying's 90th Army was ordered to guard Guanghan Airport. At that time, there were 9 planes at the airport. Even if Hu Zongnan took one, there were still 8 planes. It was completely feasible to escape. Li Zhen had already started to fantasize that after he fled to Hong Kong, he could live a peaceful and stable life in his apartment.
What Li Zhen did not expect was that Zhou Shiying's words were completely used to make excuses for himself.
Zhou Shiying is from Wuxing, Zhejiang and graduated from the Central Military Academy. According to Chiang Kai-shek's habit of employing people, Zhou Shiying is the direct descendant of his direct descendant, so how could he escape at will?
The next day, Zhou Shiying changed his face. Not only did he refuse to detain the plane, but he also stubbornly said:
"We will fight to the last soldier."
In fact, anyone with a discerning eye can see that the so-called breakthrough plan is a cover. Hu Zongnan used hundreds of thousands of troops as a shield for him, and slipped away alone.
On December 23, Hu Zongnan did not say hello to anyone and flew to Sanya, Hainan alone.
Although Hu Zongnan barely flew to Xichang afterwards, afterwards, several corpses in his hands had chosen to revolt, and Hu Zongnan had no opera at this time.
Luo Guangwen and Chen Kefei After Hu Zongnan left, he did not obediently execute Hu Zongnan's orders, but chose to contact the People's Liberation Army. On December 24 and 25, Luo Guangwen and Chen Kefei led the 15th Corps and the 20th Corps to announce the uprising in Pi County, Sichuan.
Figure | Entering the southwest
As for Pei Changhui, as early as July 1949, he had the idea of an uprising when he led his troops to Sichuan-Shaanxi Highway . Because he did not meet the conditions for the uprising, he had to give up temporarily. The 18th Corps of the Chinese People's Liberation Army sent a liaison officer to tell Pei Changhui clearly:
"When you are sure of doing things, don't suffer losses in a hurry."
Although Pei Changhui himself is trusted by Hu Zongnan, after losing Guangyuan and Jiange, Pei Changhui has always been worried that he will be taken as a scapegoat by Hu Zongnan.
It was not until Hu Zongnan left on December 23 that Pei Changhui found an opportunity to hand over the planned uprising telegram to Chen Mingshao, the liaison officer of the First Field Army, who came, and ordered his subordinate troops to stop all actions and revolt on the spot that night.
At this time, the Kuomintang army entrenched in the southwest was only two corpses of Li Wen and Li Zhen.
The sudden "guest"
Li Wen is a senior general of the Kuomintang army who graduated from the first phase of Huangpu. He is loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. As early as early as 1949, when Fu Zuoyi led the Beiping Uprising, Li Wen, as the deputy commander of the North China Suppression Headquarters, firmly opposed it. Even after seeing the situation was hopeless, Li Wen still refused to follow the uprising and was sent to Nanjing by Fu Zuoyi. Later, he served as the commander of the Fifth Corps of the Kuomintang Army.
At the critical moment of history, Li Wen made the wrong choices several times.
The difference between Li Wen is that Li Zhen is a general from the Guangdong clan, so he is naturally uncomfortable with Chiang Kai-shek's reuse. Li Zhen also has different views on some of Chiang Kai-shek's behaviors. In April 1927, Chiang Kai-shek launched the April 12 counter-revolutionary coup. Li Zhen did not choose to follow, but secretly gave help to the Communist Party members in the army.
When Chiang Kai-shek arrived in Chengdu through Chongqing, he summoned Li Zhen and encouraged him, hoping that he could support himself at critical moments.
pic | Ye Jianying
But what Chiang Kai-shek didn't know was that Li Zhen and Ye Jianying had a close relationship in their early years. They were both from Guangdong and had a very close relationship. Li Zhen respected this brother who was both a teacher and a friend.
In the winter of 1949, when Li Zhen led the 18th Corps of the Kuomintang Army to be surrounded by the Second Field Army, Ye Jianying specially sent his younger brother to Hong Kong to bring a message to Li Zhen's wife and asked her to pass on the message to Li Zhen:
"If you want to revolt, you will revolt in time, and there will be no chance afterwards."
Li Zhen did consider revolting at a critical moment, but the attitudes of Li Wen, Zhou Shiying and others forced him to be more cautious.
According to the breakout plan formulated by Hu Zongnan, Li Zhen's 18th Corps and Li Wen's 5th Corps cooperated with each other. After setting off from Jianyang , they worked together to attack the breakout westward. Before leaving, Hu Zongnan handed over the task of commanding the two corpses to Li Wen.
On the afternoon of December 23, Li Wen convened two senior generals above the corps, including Li Zhen, to meet at the Air Force Command outside the South Gate of Chengdu.
At the beginning, Li Zhen tentatively put forward his thoughts:
"It is better to concentrate the main forces of the two corpses in Chengdu, build fortifications, and send people to negotiate with Liu Bocheng. If there is no agreement, it will fight again."
Li Zhen's words showed signs and was immediately interrupted by Li Wen. Most generals, including Zhou Shiying, stood there "hula" and defensive Li Zhen. The atmosphere in the venue was a little awkward for a while. Li Zhen did not dare to speak again, so he had to agree to go back and arrange the situation according to the breakthrough plan formulated before the war.
Although most generals are on Li Wen's side, it is not absolute. At least a few people hold the same views as Li Zhen.
Li Zhen remembers that just at the meeting, Xiao Jian, who was then the chief of staff of the 30th Army, proposed:
"If you are in harmony, I have a way."
Li Zhen secretly called Xiao Jian and asked him what he thought. Xiao Jian knew that Li Zhen was actively seeking contact with the People's Liberation Army, so he did not hide it and said to him directly:
html l0 "Guo Xunqi was my classmate at the University of Lu, and he had contact with the Second Field Army."
pic | Guo Xunqi
Guo Xunqi was a famous general of the Sichuan Army. He was captured by our army in the battle of Xiangyang. Under the influence of Liu Bocheng, he was willing to return to the southwest to fight for the uprising of the former Sichuan Army generals, and successively fought for the uprising of Pan Wenhua, Deng Xihou and other generals.
Li Zhen asked Xiao Jian to contact him and met Guo Xunqi secretly. Guo Xunqi conveyed the principles of the People's Liberation Army:
"The Communist Party's policy of "no doubts are required, and the policy of "making meritorious and rewarding meritorious" is to keep the word. I am a realistic example!"
By this time, Li Zhen completely eliminated his concerns and actively contacted his generals, preparing to revolt at the right time.
However, although Li Zhen is the nominal commander of the 18th Corps, among the armies under his command, only the 65th Army is his direct confidant.
The Second Field Army marched into the southwest middle, and Li Zhen's regiment suffered losses and his generals were defeated. The 65th Army originally had two divisions under his command. As a result, the army headquarters and the 160th Division were completely wiped out. Although the 65th Army barely maintained the air of one army, there was actually only one 187th Division left, which was not fully combative.
The only thing that is certain is that there is no problem with the uprising of the 65th Army.
. Li Zhen’s regiment also has the 1st Army, the 57th Army and the 90th Army, which is very difficult to fight for.
After Li Wen formulated a breakthrough plan, the 1st Army and the 57th Army were directly taken away by him into the Fifth Corps.
The commander of the 1st Army Chen Ju Brigade, graduated from the fifth phase of Huangpu, and Hu Zongnan's confidant, is not easy to fight for. In fact, during the breakout on December 24, Chen Ju Brigade's first army was the vanguard of the entire corps. It was not until it was surrounded by our army and could not be defeated that Chen Ju Brigade was forced to send people to contact the People's Liberation Army to surrender.
It is said that when Chen Ju Brigade convened a speech by the cadres above the camp at the Military Headquarters and announced the decision to surrender, almost all the officers and soldiers present could not help crying.
Feng Long, the commander of the 57th Army, was born in gendarmerie . Later, after the gendarmerie troops were reorganized, he was admitted to the Central Military Academy. He stayed in the school to teach for a period of time, but he did not intend to go to the battlefield and later became a general under Hu Zongnan.
Like Li Wen, Feng Long was also particularly loyal to Chiang Kai-shek and Hu Zongnan. After Fu Zuoyi's uprising in Peking in 1949, Feng Long returned to Nanjing with Li Wen and Shi Jue and became the commander of the 57th Army. After the Battle of Crossing the River , the 57th Army was also defeated all the way, with no combat power left. Like the First Army, he was forced to choose to surrender.
was originally affiliated with the 90th Army under the jurisdiction of Li Zhen’s regiment. Commander Zhou Shiying also clearly opposed the uprising. He has already discussed it before and will not talk about it here. The army was under two divisions. The 61st Division later revolted with Li Zhen. The 53rd Division broke through with Li Wen's regiment, and most of them were wiped out.
Originally belonged to the 36th Army of Li Wen's Fifth Corps. The commander Zhu Guangji graduated from the fourth class of Huangpu. This person's attitude has been repeated several times.
When Li Wen's Corps' headquarters held a meeting, Zhu Guangji was also one of the Kuomintang generals who clearly opposed seeking peace. But when Li Zhen later privately convened the generals of the corps to discuss the uprising, Zhu Guangji pretended to agree to the uprising in order to evade Li Zhen, and sent the deputy chief of staff and the deputy commander of the 123rd Division to accept the order to revolt.
The result is that Zhu Guangji led his troops to break through, and most of his troops were wiped out by our army.
Although there were many difficulties in uprising, on December 27, Li Zhen still led all 65th Army of the 18th Corps, one division of the 90th Army and part of the 30th Army, a total of more than 24,000 troops to announce the uprising in Chengdu.
Unexpected episode
In the early morning of December 25, 1949, the underground party of the Communist Party of China sent people to Li Zhen’s army to contact the army. The two sides agreed to discuss the uprising in Jiajiachang, Jianyang, east of Chengdu.
Li Zhen did not dare to neglect and immediately took people to the headquarters of the 30th Division stationed in Chengdu city, and contacted the 94th Regiment of the 32nd Division of the 11th Army of the People's Liberation Army on the other side of the river. Considering that the uprising was of great importance, Li Zhen emphasized on the phone:
"I hope to see the commander of your army Liu Bocheng..."
pic | Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping
However, Li Zhen did not expect that Commander Liu Bocheng was busy with all kinds of things and was in Chongqing at this moment, busy deploying troops to chase and annihilate Li Wen's corps. How could he have the time to see him?
Li Zhen came to the 94th Division of the 32nd Division across the river with anxiety, glanced at the PLA officers present, and immediately became furious:
"You don't keep your promise, I want to see Liu Bocheng."
No wonder Li Zhen was angry. In fact, the person in charge of this contact was Tu Xuezhong, deputy commander of the 32nd Division of the 11th Army of the People's Liberation Army, and Tian Shifan, commander of the 94th Regiment. Because they were all young, Li Zhen had an illusion that he had been deceived.
"Can these people agree to fulfill the conditions they offer?"
Tu Xuezhong understood Li Zhen's knot and thought that it was not a big deal to keep a stalemate like this, and he still had to ask his superiors to come forward to solve this problem.
reported it layer by layer, and finally went straight to the Second Field Command. After receiving the report, Liu Bocheng instructed Li Da to come forward in person after repeated consideration.Through the dedicated line, Li Da spoke directly with Li Zhen on the front line. During the phone, Li Da once again explained to Li Zhen our army's policy of not mercy on the past of the uprising personnel.
pic | Li Da
Li Zhen was confused on the other end of the phone, Li Da is from Meixian, Shaanxi, and speaks Shaanxi dialect Li Zhen can only listen to a rough idea. He knew that the person on the other side of the phone was not Liu Bocheng, but judging from the tone, the level should be not low.
Under Li Da's comfort, Li Zhen's emotions were in a relationship. After hanging up the phone, Li Zhen asked Tu Xuezhong curiously:
"Who is Li Da?"
Tu Xuezhong told him:
"I am the chief of staff of our Second Field Army."
"It turns out to be General Li Da." Li Zhen was suddenly a little happy.
Of course Li Zhen has heard of Li Da’s name. After all, the two armies are facing each other. If you don’t even know the name of the other senior general, then this intelligence work will be too unfamiliar.
As the chief of staff of the Second Field Army, Li Da should almost be considered a senior general of the People's Liberation Army second only to Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping.
When Li Zhen thought of this, he no longer hesitated.
What is interesting is that although Li Zhen took the initiative to contact our army to revolt, he was one step slower than Li Wen.
On December 26, the Second Field Army approached Chengdu, and Li Wen led a corps of more than 50,000 troops to break through. As a result, a melee, the Fifth Corps of the Kuomintang Army was almost wiped out except for a small number of them. In the end, he had no choice but to announce his surrender.
On the second day after Li Wen announced his surrender, The People's Liberation Army sent representatives to Li Zhen's 18th Corps to announce the order for adaptation, which was warmly welcomed along the way, which shows the general trend and the will of the people.
It is also worth mentioning that before evacuating, Hu Zongnan ordered Li Zhen to destroy the military supplies in Chengdu, but Li Zhen refused and registered the remaining supplies. After the uprising, Li Zhen directly handed over the batch of supplies to the People's Liberation Army.
This open and honest attitude has won Liu Bocheng's praise.
pic | Li Zhen
After the successful uprising, Li Zhen still stayed in the army and served as the second deputy commander of the East Sichuan Military Region and the deputy director of the Senior Secretary Office of the Southwest Military Region. In his later years, he wrote many autobiography and memoirs, which became the most precious historical material of that era.
In the winter of 1980, Li Zhen, who was over 80 years old, applied for a five-year visa to visit relatives in the United States, but Li Zhen only stayed in the United States for half a year before returning to his motherland. Faced with the inquiries from people around him, Li Zhen admitted:
"Although Liangyuan is good, it is not a place of long-term love. I can't lose my job, I can't live without my motherland, and I miss the Communist Party of China that led me to the Avenue of Light."
Li Zhen died in 1988 at the age of 88.
