After Feng Yuxiang joined the Beiyang Army in the late Qing Dynasty, he gradually distinguished himself in the army. Especially with the help of Beiyang veteran Lu Jianzhang, Feng Yuxiang was promoted all the way.

There were two Northwest armies in the history of the Republic of China. One was the Northwest Army controlled by Feng Yuxiang, which was called the Great Northwest Army; the other was the Northwest Army under the command of Yang Hucheng, which was called the Little Northwest Army. Among them, Yang Hucheng was also affiliated with Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army.

After joining the Beiyang Army in the late Qing Dynasty, Feng Yuxiang gradually showed his prominence in the army. Especially with the help of Beiyang veteran Lu Jianzhang (Feng Yuxiang married Lu Jianzhang's niece), Feng Yuxiang was promoted all the way. During the Xinhai period, as a battalion commander, he participated in the Luanzhou Uprising , but after its failure, he was not greatly affected by it. Later, his unit expanded in Henan and formed the 16th Mixed Brigade, which became the basis for Feng Yuxiang's career. Later, Feng Yuxiang's unit was upgraded to a division, and he also served as the governor of Shaanxi and Henan.

In October 1924, during the Second Zhili-Fengtian War, Feng Yuxiang, who served as the commander of the Zhili Third Route Army, returned to Beijing from the front and launched the Beijing coup. The Zhili Clan collapsed. Feng Yuxiang and Zhang Zuolin jointly took control of the power. However, Feng Yuxiang's rapid expansion, with hundreds of thousands of people, aroused the dissatisfaction of the surrounding warlords. Zhang Zuolin, Wu Peifu, Yan Xishan and others attacked Feng's department one after another. At that time, Feng's department called itself the National Army, and suffered losses. heavy. Feng Zeng obtained the position of Northwest Frontier Defense Supervisor from the Beijing government in January 1925. After the Battle of Nankou in April 1926, the entire army marched westward and occupied the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region. The concept of the Northwest Army was thus formed. In addition, at that time, Feng Yuxiang had already announced that he would go to the Soviet Union for inspection, and his subordinates were responsible for the strategic shift of the entire army.

In the Battle of Nankou, although Feng Yuxiang's troops failed, the basic strength still existed, which guaranteed the westward advance. Furthermore, in the Battle of Nankou, Wu Peifu, Zhang Zongchang, Zhang Zuolin and Yan Xishan gathered an army of 500,000 to besiege the National Army. To some extent, they also played a supporting role in the Northern Expedition that started in May.

In May 1926, the National Government in Guangzhou launched the Northern Expedition. In September, Feng Yuxiang returned from the Soviet Union, and his old ministries moved closer to him. The Northwest Army pledged its allegiance in Jiuyuan, Inner Mongolia. It first entered the Guanzhong to relieve the siege of Xi'an (Li Hucheng and Yang Hucheng had been trapped for a year), and then left the Tongguan east. It contained Zhang Zuolin's hundreds of thousands of troops, allowing the southern National Army to Calmly deal with Wu Peifu, and Sun Chuanfang. After the Northern Expedition, the number of the Northwest Army reached nearly 500,000, including about 200,000 direct descendants. At that time, it was recognized that Feng Yuxiang had the greatest contribution to the victory of the Northern Expedition.

Feng Yuxiang was good at running the army. The combat effectiveness of the Northwest Army was second to none at the time, so it was also feared by Chiang Kai-shek . At the disarmament conference, the Northwest Army bore the brunt and was attacked first by Chiang Kai-shek. This was also the direct reason for Feng and Chiang's rebellion. Subsequently, the two clashed twice, but both ended in Feng Yuxiang's defeat. Especially after the Central Plains War , the Northwest Army collapsed completely, causing the so-called Great Northwest Army to cease to exist.

In the Central Plains War, Yan Xishan's Jin Army and Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi 's Gui clique were allied with the Northwest Army. After the war, these two factions were still able to survive. Why was Feng Yuxiang's Northwest Army alone? Is the army disintegrated? Let’s briefly analyze it.

First of all, Feng Yuxiang's political ability is not enough. Compared with Yan Xishan and Li Zongren, although Feng Yuxiang is very capable in military training, he is still a little behind in politics. As far as Chiang Kai-shek's war is concerned, the first thing is that he was ignorant in the choice of allies. Before the Northern Expedition, Yan Xishan colluded with the Beiyang warlord to besiege Feng Yuxiang. When the Northern Expedition was determined, he threw himself into the camp of the National Revolutionary Army, a complete opportunist. During the first anti-Chiang campaign, Yan Xishan invited Feng Yuxiang to Shanxi for talks. The generals of the Northwest Army persuaded Feng not to go. But Feng Yuxiang remained unmoved and was placed under house arrest by Yan Xishan. Before the Central Plains War, Feng's subordinates firmly opposed cooperation with Yan Xishan, but Feng Yuxiang insisted on going his own way. General Han Fukju was slapped more than a dozen times by Feng Yuxiang for his objections, and was forced to kneel down outside the house and face the wall to reflect on his fault.In fact, during the war, Yan Xishan blindly conserved his strength and let Feng Bu rush to the front. He promised to provide food and wages to the Northwest Army, but failed to do so. Finally, seeing the unfavorable situation, he escaped from his shell and surrendered to Chiang Kai-shek's Central Committee to save himself. Feng Yuxiang worked the hardest in this war and suffered the worst fate. This was partly related to his lack of political acumen.

Furthermore, the rapid disintegration of the Northwest Army was related to their failure to maintain a stable rear. Since the northwest was barren and it was difficult to support hundreds of thousands of troops, Feng Yuxiang decided to go all out to seize the rich lands of the Central Plains and create a living space for the northwest army. In this regard, the subordinates suggested that it is best not to fall out with Chiang Kai-shek too early. You can first defeat Yan Xishan, who is not strong, and give the Northwest Army a chance to breathe before making plans. But Feng Yuxiang believed Yan Xishan's promise to provide him with logistical support, and still wanted to deal with Chiang Kai-shek first, which was a bit like catching the thief and the king. Someone else from my subordinates suggested that it would be better to leave more direct troops to guard the northwest, so as to have a way out. But Feng Yuxiang rejected this suggestion, and with the determination to only succeed and not fail, he fought with Chiang Kai-shek. In the end, when the logistics failed and the army was defeated, Yang Hucheng rebelled and occupied Tongguan. The Northwest Army lost ground, which was also a reason for its disintegration.

The above two points are the political and military reasons for the failure of the Northwest Army. In fact, these are the superficial reasons for the economic difficulties faced by the Northwest Army. The biggest reason why the Northwest Army desperately went to war with Chiang Kai-shek was to occupy wealthy territory in order to survive. The northwest is already barren, and it coincides with a drought. Many places have no harvests and cannot support hundreds of thousands of troops. Before the Great War in the Central Plains, the Northwest Army harvested everything they could and could only collect more than 20 million yuan, which was only enough to feed the Northwest Army for a year. Not only were everything edible taken away, but even the seeds were not spared. The Northwest Army's own combat effectiveness is not bad, but the equipment is really poor. Not to mention weapons, even military uniforms cannot be guaranteed. Some soldiers simply sew military uniforms out of flour bags. The reason why Feng Yuxiang did not take the suggestion made by his subordinates to stay behind was also related to the actual situation in the northwest at that time. If this battle was not fought, the northwest army would probably be starved. Since it is necessary to hit him, then give him a good beating. There is no need for so-called escape options.

So we see that during the war, due to economic scarcity, not only the soldiers at the grassroots level could not bear the temptation, because the most basic food problems were difficult to guarantee, but also some senior generals were defeated by Chiang Kai-shek's silver bullet . In a sense, the failure of the Northwest Army on the battlefield was not due to bullets but to the opponent's silver bullet.

Regarding the reasons for the collapse of the Northwest Army, let’s talk about the impact of the internal problems of the Northwest Army on its collapse. First of all, the Northwest Army is not monolithic, and there are differences between internal and external groups. His core is the backbone of the Sixteenth Mixed Brigade, such as Song Zheyuan, Liu Yufen and other five tiger generals, as well as the Thirteen Taibao who were later promoted from the army: Han Fukju, Sun Lianzhong, Tong Linge and others, as well as those who were recruited from the periphery , such as Yang Hucheng, , Sun Yue, , etc. It's okay when the situation is good, but once the situation is unfavorable, the contradictions will become apparent or even intensified. This became more concentrated after the Central Plains War. This was also an important reason for the collapse of the Northwest Army.

Finally, there are also Feng Yuxiang’s personal reasons. Feng Yuxiang is good at training troops, and he is also very kind to ordinary soldiers, but he treats his generals in a different way. He adopted the feudal patriarchal approach in the army. He still beat, scolded, and punished his generals, even those who commanded the army, with kneeling. As mentioned before about Han Fukju, Ji Hongchang once said that once on the phone he made Feng Yuxiang unhappy, so he ordered him to kneel down, and after a while asked him if he had knelt down. Ji Hongchang replied and knelt down before continuing the call. Feng Yuxiang treats the army as a family, with himself as the head of the family and his subordinates as children, and maintains governance through education and playing the emotional card. This may be useful in the early stages of starting a business, but when the business has a certain foundation, this method will show its shortcomings.Once a person has a certain status, his pursuit of himself will be higher, especially mentally. No one can accept strict mental control like Feng Yuxiang's.

The above reasons prevented the Northwest Army from being able to maintain basic integrity after the failure of the Central Plains War like the Jin Army and Gui Army , and eventually disintegrated.

After the collapse of the Northwest Army, the western region was divided among several forces. The rest of the army was also divided, and most of them were combined by Song Zheyuan to form the 29th Army. Others were Han Fuju from Shandong and Yang Hucheng from Shaanxi. The others, except for Sun Lianzhong, Shiyousan, etc., had no influence. In the following time, they were each active on their own stage, producing national heroes such as Tong Linge and Zhang Zizhong, and Song Zheyuan, Sun Lianzhong, etc. were also able to persist in the war of resistance. But there are also many traitors and scum, such as Shiyousan and others.

In 1930, Sun Lianzhong's Fifth Route Army of the Northwest Army was incorporated by Chiang Kai-shek into the 26th Route Army, and was immediately transferred to the front line of Jiangxi's "encirclement and suppression" campaign. December 14, 1931. The 26th Route Army, led by Ji Zhentong, Dong Zhentang and others, launched the Ningdu Uprising and was reorganized into the Fifth Army of the Red Army. They served as defenders during the Long March of China, and are famous iron defenders in the history of our army's war. In the end, they fell under the Qilian Mountain , composing an unyielding and tragic scene with their lives.