During the Northern Expedition in 1928, the National Revolutionary Army conquered and captured Shaanxi in one fell swoop. However, the prevailing banditry in Shaanxi also gave Feng Yuxiang a headache.

In the Northern Expedition of 1928, the National Revolutionary Army broke through and captured Shaanxi in one fell swoop. However, the prevailing banditry in Shaanxi also gave Feng Yuxiang a headache.

At this time, Song Zheyuan was sent to the front line to suppress bandits. Under his leadership, the revolutionary army captured the largest bandit den in Shaanxi in one fell swoop, killing more than 2,000 bandits and capturing more than 5,000 prisoners.

Since ancient times, when facing prisoners, generals have always incorporated them into their own army, or educated them first and then dismissed them.

But this time Song Zheyuan said: "I would rather bear the eternal crime than kill these 5,000 prisoners!" In this way, more than 5,000 prisoners were massacred, and Song Zheyuan's reputation was greatly affected.

Why did Song Zheyuan insist on killing more than 5,000 people regardless of his own reputation?

Picture丨Song Zheyuan

killed 5,000 captives

On September 8, 1928, in front of the Guandi Temple in Fengxiang County, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, people gathered from all directions to watch the excitement. The open space in front of the Guandi Temple was for a while It was a sea of ​​people. The common people gathered together, with happy smiles on their faces, and they clapped their hands and shouted "good" from time to time.

Perhaps looking from a distance, uninformed people would think that the common people were watching some wonderful performance, or participating in an interesting temple fair, which is why they had so much fun. But in fact, what they were surrounded by was a bloody murder scene, and what came from the bursts of applause and laughter were endless screams.

If you look closely, you will find that among the crowds, there is a huge execution platform, with a total of 50 executioners standing on it, each executioner holding a huge machete in his hand. In order to ensure the efficiency of execution, these executioners are all carefully selected senior machete team members.

Picture丨Execution

They were like an assembly line operation. They raised the knife and dropped it, then pushed the body into the pit, and a human life disappeared from this world.

So who was killed? Why did the people applaud when they saw the murder scene?

This seemingly absurd thing starts from the Northern Expedition and the various contradictions that existed before it.

In early 1928, various warlords in Shaanxi Province united to boycott Feng Yuxiang, and as a result, a large-scale battle broke out with the Northwest Army. In this battle, Dang Yukun led his eight thousand bandits to actively participate in the war and fight Feng Yuxiang.

The relationship between Dang Yukun and Feng Yuxiang is very deep. Logically speaking, he should have been a subordinate of Feng Yuxiang. Born in 1887, he was originally a swordsman who wandered around the Guanzhong area in Guanzhong. During a fight with the officers and soldiers of the Qing Dynasty, he became lame in one leg, so he was nicknamed "The Party Kidnapper".

Picture丨Dang Yukun

Later, Dang Guaizi joined the revolutionary army, fell under the banner of the then leader of the Jingguo Army, Guo Jian, and became the commander of the third detachment of the Jingguo Army, and he became a little man with some dignity. . has also made some achievements in leading troops to fight.

Later, in 1921, Feng Yuxiang shot Guo Jian, causing the Yingguo army to collapse. Party Yukun lost his boss, so he had no choice but to pretend to submit to Feng Yuxiang, and then stayed in Liquan, Shaanxi Province with his soldiers, and gradually evolved into local bandits with Fengxiang.

As we all know, the cost of the army is not small. In order to maintain the strength of his men, Dang Yukun and his men made a living by extorting and robbing local wealthy families. In addition to robbery, he also continuously sent people to steal local ancient tombs and stole countless properties.

Picture丨Tomb Robbers

At that time, almost all the ancient tombs in that area were dug up by Dang Yukun's people. They sold the unearthed antiques, and many of them were sold to foreigners.'s behavior not only caused huge damage to those historical tombs, but also caused my country's precious historical cultural relics to flow abroad, causing immeasurable losses. He deserves to be punished for his crime.

In addition to being cruel in his methods, Dang Yukun also has a very bad temper, and his ruthlessness in doing things is outrageous. On weekdays, gangsters often sacrifice human lives for petty gains. For example, during robbery, he would kill people if he disagreed. Many people died at the point of his gun because they were unwilling to give him money.

In addition to robbing property, party kidnappers also rob people. He often recruits strong men from the common people to expand his army and strengthen his power. In this way, under his single-handed construction, Fengxiang City quickly became his bandit den. After development, the number of bandits under his command reached more than 8,000.

Picture丨Bandits

For his large bandit army, Dang Yukun released the title as "The First Division of the Third Army of the National Alliance Army", and he was the division commander of the army. But despite the name of the National Alliance Army, Dang Yukun refused to obey Feng Yuxiang's deployment. He did one thing on the surface and did another behind the scenes, playing tricks that were both overt and underhanded.

At the beginning of the Northern Expedition, Feng Yuxiang ordered Dang Yukun to go to Wuhan to participate in the war, but he only pretended to do so and sent a small team of troops to Wuhan. has also arranged its main force in its hometown of Baoji. Its ambition to reap the benefits is clearly revealed.

In this way, a rift gradually formed between Dang Yukun and Feng Yuxiang. In addition, as mentioned above, the subsequent joint anti-Feng war and Dang Yukun's many evil deeds in the local area created a quarrel between the two. The more it tears, the bigger it gets. So as soon as the National Revolutionary Army captured Shaanxi, Feng Yuxiang sent Song Zheyuan to Fengxiang to suppress the bandits without stopping.

Picture | Bandit Suppression

Fengxiang Bandit Suppression War

Due to its very special geographical location, Fengxiang City has a high terrain and stands in the mountains. It has the momentum of "one man can guard the gate, and ten thousand men can't open it". It is easy to defend but difficult to attack. This battle was destined to be a tough battle from the beginning. If there were no brave and resourceful generals, there would be a high probability that it would not be possible to conquer.

The Shaanxi government has failed to suppress bandits several times before, which is the best example. Feng Yuxiang naturally thought of this, so he directly picked Song Zheyuan, who hated evil and was brave and good at fighting.

But it has to be said that even if it was led by Song Zheyuan, this battle against Fengxiang was very difficult and tragic.

At the beginning of the battle, Song Zheyuan did not take these little eight thousand bandits to heart. He just led his 30,000 troops to fight the enemy with the most basic siege.

Picture丨Battle

Soon he discovered that Fengxiang City was called "Wo Niu City" for a reason. The terrain of this city is like a bull with its horns raised and ready to attack. It is really difficult to attack by force. During this process, Song Zheyuan's troops suffered heavy casualties before the bandits in the city made much effort.

This battle started in May 1928, but it was not possible to break through the city until August 1928. The casualties of Song Zheyuan's troops have reached more than 6,000.

Such a situation shocked Song Zheyuan and made him angry at the same time. He began to change his attitude and take this battle seriously. It didn't take long for him to come up with a good idea.

That is to first stage a feint attack on the main battlefield of the enemy and ourselves to attract the attention of the enemy's main force, and then use our own strength advantage to send a large number of soldiers to launch an attack in a private house two hundred meters away from the city. Dig a tunnel. This tunnel will lead all the way to the bottom of Fengxiang City. After it is dug, it will be used to place the gunpowder used to blow up the city.

Picture丨Song Zheyuan

In this way, the two sides were in a stalemate on the surface. The bandits in the city relied on their geographical advantages and did not take Song Zheyuan seriously. However, the excavation of the secret passage did not stop for a moment. Song Zheyuan's people dug for more than half a month and finally found the place. Song Zheyuan ordered people to dig a large pit at the end of the tunnel and filled it with explosives for seven coffins.

Finally, at ten o'clock in the morning on September 5, 1928, as he pressed the switch to detonate the explosives, a loud bang echoed in the sky. A large area of ​​Phoenix City's ground collapsed, and Dang Yukun and his men in the city were also caught off guard.

Taking advantage of the city wall being blown open, Song Zheyuan led the army to take advantage of the situation. After experiencing some difficult street fighting in the city, Song Zheyuan's army won the battle, successfully occupied the entire Fengxiang City, and captured more than 5,000 prisoners.

In addition, when Song Zheyuan's men searched the city, they also seized hundreds of boxes of precious cultural relics from Dang Yukun's lair. These cultural relics were obtained by Dang Yukun from robbing tombs over the years. In order to protect these cultural relics, Song Zheyuan ordered them to be transported to Xi'an City for subsequent proper disposal.

Picture丨Vicious bandits

After that, the problem Song Zheyuan had to face was how to deal with the more than 5,000 prisoners of war. According to past practice, when it comes to dealing with prisoners of war, most of them are to collect and transform them, and then recruit them into their own team. Even if it is not good, they will educate them and then release them directly.

However, this time, Song Zheyuan did not intend to follow the historical method, but would rather bear the eternal infamy and kill all 5,000 prisoners of war. So there is the confusing scene at the beginning of the article.

These bandits once dominated the mountains under the leadership of Dang Yukun, doing all kinds of evil, harming the people, plundering the people's wealth, and the people suffered greatly. That’s why the people were so happy and applauded when they saw them being beheaded one by one and thrown into the pit.

Picture丨Kill them all

However, the person who was most stressed about killing the prisoners of war was Song Zheyuan. You must know that no matter how bad the captured bandits were, they still had more than 5,000 living lives, but Song Zheyuan ordered them all to be killed at once.

This is really inhumane and too cruel, and it will also break the old rules between warlords, making enemy soldiers afraid to surrender in future wars. The combination of various factors will make it difficult for Song Zheyuan to escape the infamy of future generations after he killed the captives.

But Song Zheyuan focused on the benefits of killing the prisoners. That is to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys and frighten the world. mentioned in the previous article that bandits are everywhere in Shaanxi, and bandit dens of various sizes are almost everywhere, and Dang Yukun is the most powerful among all the bandits.

Picture丨Song Zheyuan

will annihilate all this force. If no one is left behind, the deterrent effect will be huge. On the one hand, can prevent some of the careerists from colluding with each other again, and on the other hand, it can allow other bandits in Shaanxi to see Song Zheyuan's skills, so its benefits are immeasurable.

Under such circumstances, Song Zheyuan resolutely gave up his reputation and chose a more practical side. After that, the news that more than 5,000 remaining members of Dang Yukun were framed and killed spread throughout Shaanxi and even China. Other bandits in Shaanxi began to wash their hands and abandon the dark side.

It didn’t take long for Shaanxi, which was once a smoky city, to become clean and tidy. These are all due to Song Zheyuan's thunderous skills.

So who is Song Zheyuan? Why does Feng Yuxiang trust him so much?

Picture丨Song Zheyuan

Song Zheyuan's growth experience

In 1885, Song Zheyuan was born in a poor scholar's family in Zhaohongdu Village, Shandong Province. Although his family was poor, his father Song Xiangji was talented, knowledgeable and knowledgeable. Therefore, Song Zheyuan lived in an environment full of books since he was a child, learned a lot of knowledge, and gradually grew into a learned and wise person.

In addition to knowledge and learning, Song Zheyuan also learned from his father the loyalty to the country and the people, and the courage to serve the country with blood.He began his journey of devotion in his youth.

In the social background at that time, private schools and knowledge were in most cases the exclusive preserve of the rich. There were many poor children who, although they were very eager for knowledge, did not have the opportunity to go to school.

considers that he has been reading and literate since he was a child, so he can make some contributions to these children. Song Zheyuan began to establish a private school when he was 17 years old, giving free lessons to local poor children, teaching them reading, writing, and learning history, and persisted for five full years. In the past five years, Song Zheyuan has taught more than half of the school-age children in his hometown, and he is highly respected in the village for this.

Picture丨Private school

In addition, Song Zheyuan also had very outstanding leadership skills when he was young. When other children were playing house, he began to gather children from the same village to learn martial arts using tree branches and sticks.

directed everyone to practice steps, learn fighting moves, arrange troops in a decent manner, and manage the entire team in an orderly manner, implementing rewards and punishments for merits and demerits one by one, and achieving strict rewards and punishments. Although

was a team formed by children, in the eyes of adults at the time, it was quite a bit of fun. But what I have to admit is that the Boy Scouts led by Song Zheyuan have the appearance of a small army in terms of momentum and management.

In 1907, Song Zheyuan was admitted to the Suiying Military Preparation School of the Sixth Town of the Beiyang Army with excellent results. and learned a lot of armament knowledge and strategic thinking here, and greatly improved his combat skills.

Picture丨After graduating from

, he joined Feng Yuxiang in 1911. Because of his military foresight and outstanding talents, Feng Yuxiang admired him very much and promoted him along the way. By 1925, Song Zheyuan became an army lieutenant general.

Song Zheyuan was a very patriotic person. On the third day after the September 18th Incident broke out, he led his 29th Army to send an anti-Japanese message to the whole country. In this anti-Japanese message, Song Zheyuan said: " Zheyuan and other soldiers are responsible for protecting the country, and Jin and his troops are on standby. They would rather die in battle than be slaves to the subjugation of the country, and vow to avenge the national humiliation! "

Picture丨I will not be a slave to the subjugation of the country

Such an impassioned statement, especially The phrase "I would rather die in battle than be a slave to the country's subjugation" vividly expresses Song Zheyuan's patriotic integrity. In the Battle of Xifengkou, Song Zheyuan led the 29th Army to fight to the death with the Japanese army, despite the huge disparity in armament between the 29th Army and the Japanese army. However, under the desperate resistance of Song Zheyuan and the soldiers, the Japanese suffered their first major defeat in China.

At that time, a Japanese newspaper said: " Since Emperor Meiji started his army, the reputation of the imperial army has been lost outside Xifengkou." At this point, we can see the great contribution Song Zheyuan made in the Anti-Japanese War.

Picture 丨 Fighting bravely

Conclusion

Later generations' evaluation of Song Zheyuan was just as he imagined, with mixed praise and criticism.

Some people criticized him as a cold-blooded murderer, while others praised him as a Chinese tiger general who was dedicated to serving the country and the people. no one is perfect. In this regard, we should look at Song Zheyuan from a comprehensive and objective perspective, and look at his merits and demerits as well as his gains and losses.