When the title was conferred in 1955, Zhang Zongxun was awarded the rank of general, which surprised many people.
You must know that Su Yuxiao Jinguang, who was at the same level as him back then, was a general, Wang Shusheng, who did not have his high qualifications, was also a general, and even Xu Guangda, who had been his subordinate during the war years, was also a general, why was Zhang Zongxun awarded the rank of general?
For this, we may be able to find the reason from the evaluation given to him by ***.
Zhang Zongxun's qualifications are very deep, in 1925, at the age of 17, he was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy, and in 1927, he participated in the Autumn Harvest Uprising with ***, and he was already a company commander at that time.
When the Red Army fought the Xiangjiang River during the Red Army's Long March, Zhang Zongxun was already the commander of the Red Fourth Division, and the enemy set up three blockade lines at that time, and Zhang Zongxun led the Red Fourth Division to fight with the enemy for three days and three nights, and he tore open a big gap and completely controlled the situation on the Xiangjiang River, which provided favorable conditions for our army to cross the river.
In the subsequent battle to capture Zunyi, he was seriously wounded and almost died, after which he was assigned to the ** recuperation company until the end of the Long March.
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the Red Army was reorganized into the Eighth Route Army, and Zhang Zongxun was appointed as the commander of the 358 Brigade of the 120th Division.
By 1943, Zhang Zongxun's 358 Brigade was already an elite force with more than 10,000 people, and even praised him for being much more generous than when he was in Jinggangshan, and became the leader of the ten thousand armies.
It can be said that according to the merits of the agrarian revolution period and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhang Zongxun can definitely be rated as a general after that.
However, during the Liberation War, his two key mistakes in the Battle of Datong Jining made everyone question his military command ability, which also indirectly led to him not being rated as a general later.
After Japan's surrender in 1945, the situation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party became tense, and in Shanxi, Datong became the key point of contention between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
On July 31, 1946, Zhang Zongxun, then deputy commander of the Jinsui Military Region, led 50 regiments to attack Datong.
After more than a month of bloody battles, the obstacles on the periphery of Datong were basically cleared, and our army pointed directly at Datong City.
But at this time, Jin Suijun asked Chiang Kai-shek for help, and Chiang Kai-shek ordered Fu Zuoyi to come to the rescue.
Fu Zuoyi is a person who knows the art of war very well, and he believes through analysis that if he directly assists Datong, the People's Liberation Army must have been prepared, so he decided not to directly send troops to Datong, but to send strange troops to attack Jining, so as to directly threaten Zhangjiakou, the capital of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, to encircle Wei to rescue Zhao, and force the People's Liberation Army attacking Datong to come back to help.
Jining is very important to our army, ** When he learned that Fu Zuoyi was going to attack Jining, he issued an order to strictly defend and not give up, otherwise discipline would be enforced.
In response to this situation, Zhang Zongxun had to leave a part of the troops to continue to attack Datong, and then led 8 brigades to quickly return to help, and then launched a big battle in Jining, and soon more than 13,000 people led by Dong Qiwu were surrounded by our army.
But Zhang Zongxun made a major mistake at this time, he thought that the troops had been fighting for a day, and our army was very large, so he decided to rest for a day, and it was precisely this day that gave Dong Qiwu the opportunity to counterattack.
This was Zhang Zongxun's first mistake, which gave Dong Qiwu's military department a chance to breathe.
Unexpectedly, Zhang Zongxun made a second mistake in the future.
After Dong Qiwu's troops got a chance to breathe, they reorganized their troops and began to attack Jining, but at this time our army still had an advantage and still had a chance to completely annihilate the enemy army.
At this time, Guo Jingyun led the 101st Division to reinforce Dong Qiwu, and Zhang Zongxun heard that Guo Jingyun came to the rescue, so he ordered to stop the attack on Dong Qiwu, and then organized troops to fight Guo Jingyun's aid, and in the end Dong Qiwu's troops were not annihilated, Guo Jingyun's troops were not annihilated, Zhang Zongxun's belly was attacked by the enemy, and finally lost Jining.
The loss of Jining made our army very passive, Fu Zuoyi's morale increased greatly and then attacked Datong, at this time the advantage of our army was completely gone, seeing this situation, Yang Chengwu, who was attacking Datong, had to retreat.
In this way, the Battle of Datong Jining ended in the defeat of our army.
In the subsequent War of Liberation, although Zhang Zongxun made many military exploits, this matter was an untiring knot in his combat career after all.
In 1955, Zhang Zongxun was awarded the rank of general, which was not unrelated to the failure of the Battle of Jining in Datong.
**The evaluation of him is even more to the point,** said himThe strength is steady and generous, and the disadvantage is that it can't be powerful when it should be.
And what *** refers to is not powerful, I personally think it refers to the Battle of Datong Jining.
During the war years, he forgot his life, took the lead in the soldiers, and fought bravely and well; in the era of peace, he assiduously studied modern military science, devoted his whole life to the building of our army, and made indelible contributions to the socialist construction and army building of our country.
In 1998, General Zhang Zongxun died of illness in Beijing at the age of 91.