Town's smile on the plane was hard to suppress, he hadn't been so happy in a long time. This trip to Tokyo was mainly for his body, but what made him happiest was that he was finally able to leave Taiwan.
However, as fate would have it, he passed away in the operating room on June 29 of the same year.
The Kuomintang were deeply shocked and mourned by the death of Tang Enbo, but why was Chiang Kai-shek so mean to one of the top ten generals? What kind of contradictions are hidden behind their relationship?
In the Kuomintang, Tang Enbo's performance was undoubtedly outstanding. Although when he first joined the Kuomintang, his ability was not outstanding, and he did not have many significant achievements, but Jiang Zhongzheng took a fancy to him and let him start in the thirties of the last century, and has been fighting in the front line of the pursuit of **, in order to repay Jiang Zhongzheng's great kindness.
Tang Enbo showed the bloody nature of the Chinese in the early stage of the Anti-Japanese War, and his achievements are worthy of recognition from any point of view. Although he was a rare talent in the eyes of Chiang Kai-shek, his performance in the Battle of Taierzhuang, the Battle of Xuzhou and the Battle of Wuhan was indeed appreciated.
During the Sino-Japanese War, despite the severity of the situation, Tang Enbo still adhered to his three-light policy. His actions aroused strong resentment in the places he passed, and some people even said that if the war was lost in 1944, China would lose nearly 200,000 square kilometers of land.
After the defeat, he was chased by the Japanese on his way to escape, and he was also attacked by the local people in many places.
Tang Enbo's military uniform had long been forgotten by the common people, and their anger at him was even greater than that of the Japanese invaders. In order to survive, Towneburgh took off his military uniform and fled for his life disguised as a dirty man.
Although Japan won the battle, it surrendered the following year due to excessive losses. Although Tang Enbo had small achievements in the anti-Japanese resistance, there was still a certain gap between him and the real Kuomintang anti-Japanese generals, and his ability was not one out of ten thousand.
Why, then, was Tang Enbo valued by Chiang Kai-shek and became his confidant?
Tang Enbo, born in Wuyi, Zhejiang Province in 1899, has a solid family background, a local landlord and young master, and became a village tyrant under doting when he was young, and a famous gangster in the county, no one dares to teach.
His parents arranged for him to have a wife, Ma Aqian, and he had a son. At the age of 16, he was overindulged and committed a human **.
Tang Enbo's family could not protect him, and in order to survive, he had to abandon his wife and children, wander abroad, and become a working boy from a landlord and young master, relying on his own strength to make a living.
During these difficult days, he met Dong Weixiang, the first noble man in his life, a wealthy businessman in Zhejiang. Dong Weixiang took a fancy to his strength, made him his bodyguard, and took him to Japan to do business, and even handed over Japan's business to him to take care of.
In this way, Towneburgh became a wealthy merchant again. Later, in Japan, he met a second nobleman, Wang Jingbai, who was also his wife.
Tang Enbo is not a well-known person, but he is the favorite of the righteous queen of Kuomintang general Chen Yi. He seized the opportunity and pursued her desperately, hoping that she would help him get into the Japanese military academy.
Chen Yi, who was persuaded by soft words, first made Tang Enbo an auditor of the military academy, and then because of his efforts, he was officially arranged to enter the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer School. As a result, Tang Enbo has gone from an ordinary gangster to a soldier with education and connections.
Some people may ask, isn't he married and has children?
How could Miss Wang agree to his pursuit? It turned out that Tang Enbo had never revealed his family situation to Wang Jingbai, let alone that he had already married a wife and had children. In Tang Enbo's eyes, although the family's small-footed wife gave birth to a child, what is this child compared to the current future?
So, when Tang Enbo graduated in 1926, he proposed to Wang Jingbai and tied the knot under Chen Yi's arrangement. After that, Chen Yi fully recommended this son-in-law to join the Kuomintang for important positions, and arranged for him to meet Chiang Kai-shek, making him the right-hand man of the commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army.
In this way, with the determination to dare to abandon the past, Townenburg completely achieved a class change.
Town's path to promotion was not over, and after his first meeting with Chiang Kai-shek, he quickly became his confidant. Chiang Kai-shek was a man who did not trust others easily, and it was difficult for even the most capable Kuomintang officers to win his attention except for his cronies.
However, the main reason why Tang Enbo was able to win Chiang Kai-shek's favor was that the two had similar experiences. They were both from Zhejiang, and they both studied at the same prestigious university in Japan, and Chiang Kai-shek naturally had trust in Tang Enbo.
However, this trust did not last for 20 years before it turned into contempt.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Tang Enbo once faced the powerful enemy Japan with a heroic posture and made many achievements for the country. However, with the surrender of Japan, Towne's dream of victory became as illusory as a mirror.
After the outbreak of the full-scale civil war, Tang Enbo volunteered to take on the important responsibility of the director of Jinsui District, and he firmly believed that he could easily defeat those who were weak and fled more than ten years ago.
He thinks that he is completely sure of defeating **, even if the opponent is Su Yu, who is known as the god of war. However, it turned out that Towneberg's strength was far less prominent than his position.
The Battle of Yuxianggui is a clear example, even if his troops are stronger, it is difficult to take any advantage in the face of Su Yu, the god of war. Town's defeat reminds us not to underestimate our opponents, let alone be fooled by our own status and strength.
The real strength does not come from the position, but from the strength itself.
On the battlefield full of flames, Su Yu's excellent command was like a tiger descending from the mountain, which made Tang Enbo frightened and retreated in defeat after defeat. In a total of seven fierce battles, Tang Enbo was defeated, losing more than half of his troops, and he was even more embarrassed than Meng Shu facing Zhuge Liang during the Three Kingdoms period.
It stands to reason that such a fiasco should have made Tang Enbo face the punishment of dismissal, but Chiang Kai-shek thought that the victory of the Liberation War was in his hands, and this defeat was nothing, so he did not give Tang Enbo a heavy punishment, but still put him in an important position, and even let him take on an important decisive battle with Huaye in May 1947.
Chiang Kai-shek's surprise was that after many crushing defeats, Tang Enbo's morale was low, and even if he fought side by side with Zhang Lingfu, one of Chiang Kai-shek's trump cards, it was difficult to regain his self-confidence.
Although judging from Chiang Kai-shek's forces, it was almost impossible to lose in the decisive battle with Huaye, and Zhang Lingfu was in charge. However, after the battle began, Zhang Lingfu's stubbornness and solitary army penetrated deeply, resulting in him being surrounded by our troops at Menglianggu.
At this time, Tang Enbo, because he could not get rid of the shadow of defeat, made the team disconnected from Zhang Lingfu, and eventually led to the annihilation of Zhang Lingfu's army, and even he himself died in Menglianggu.
This fiasco is similar to Zhao Kuo's paper talk during the Warring States Period. When Tang Enbo fled back to Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Kai-shek was furious. Although Zhang Lingfu was the main reason for this fiasco, Chiang Kai-shek still beat Tang Enbo in front of the generals and completely dismissed him from his post.
Although the beating was nothing to Town, he could not afford to be dismissed. So he immediately went to his mentor Chen Yi and asked Chen Yi to intercede with Chiang Kai-shek.
Chen Yi's love for Tang Enbo was beyond words, and even regardless of his own face, he found a pair of Kuomintang veterans to intercede for Tang Enbo, and finally let Tang Enbo be entrusted with important tasks again.
1.Tang Enbo was once a veteran of the Kuomintang, but after his dismissal, he began to gain a new understanding of the situation. Chen Yi was pleasantly surprised, because he was also a veteran of the Kuomintang, but he was able to see the situation of the Liberation War earlier than Chiang Kai-shek.
As early as 1948, Chen Yi already believed that the Kuomintang would be defeated, and hoped to reduce the impact on the people and surrender as soon as possible. So when he heard that Tang Enbo wanted to join the Communist Party, he was very happy.
2.Tang Enbo was once a veteran of the Kuomintang, but after his dismissal, he began to gain a new understanding of the situation. Chen Yi was pleasantly surprised, because he was also a veteran of the Kuomintang, but he was able to see the situation of the Liberation War earlier than Chiang Kai-shek.
As early as 1948, Chen Yi already believed that the Kuomintang would be defeated, and hoped to reduce the impact on the people and surrender as soon as possible. So when he heard that Tang Enbo wanted to join the Communist Party, he was very happy.
However, Chen Yi was not convinced of Tang Enbo's ideas, and it was not until January 1949 that he sent someone to persuade Tang Enbo to join the Communist Party. However, although Chen Yi has been fighting for half his life, he has not been able to see Tang Enbo's villain face clearly.
Although Tang Enbo was privately dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek, he chose to disobey the yin and yang and remain unmoved by the Communists. However, in order to clear his shame, he chose to report his mentor Chen Yi and sacrifice Chen Yi.
Chen Yi learned that he had been betrayed with the help of the underground party, but he did not want to believe it, and it was not until he was arrested by Kuomintang agents that he realized that he had mistaken Tang Enbo.
Tang Enbo betrayed his old mentor Chen Yi and was killed by Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan on June 18, 1950. After betraying Chen Yi, Tang Enbo once returned to his original position, but the good times did not last long, after all, the time had come to April 1949.
By that time, the scales of victory had clearly tended in favor of the Communists, and Chiang Kai-shek was still unwilling to face the reality, and even ordered Tang Enbo to hold on to Shanghai again. Chiang Kai-shek believed that although Tang Enbo could not ensure victory in Shanghai, with the manpower and materials of Shanghai, it was more than enough to hold out for half a year.
So, on May 12, 1949, the Battle of Songhu officially began, and Tang Enbo was ready to retreat.
Chiang Kai-shek expected that Shanghai could be defended for half a year, and in the end, under the excellent command of Tang Enbo, it only held out for 16 days, but Tang Enbo's defeat did not end there. Nanjing, Shanghai, Fuzhou, Xiamen, if Chiang Kai-shek fled all the way to Taiwan, then Tang Enbo was defeated all the way to Taiwan.
Finally, in the Battle of Kinmen, after he fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek, he had a premonition that Chiang Kai-shek would not let him go easily, and immediately spent a huge amount of money to buy a mansion in Japan, ready to evacuate Taiwan at any time.
In March 1950, he attempted to flee back to Japan with his family, but was intercepted by the military police. A month later, Chen Yi was killed by Chiang Kai-shek, and Tang Enbo pleaded to stay alive, but was unable to do so.
His wife, Wang Jingbai, severed ties with him because of Tang Enbo's behavior and went to the United States with the children. In 1954, he was diagnosed with duodenal cancer and sent to Japan for surgery in May, but the second operation failed and died of massive bleeding.
After hearing the news of the death of his former cronies, Chiang Kai-shek smiled coldly and said: "Tang Enbo's life can be said to be legendary, from abandoning his original wife to reporting his old teacher, from the defeat of the Battle of Yuxianggui to the later often defeated general, but more importantly, such a person with no ability and merit can become Chiang Kai-shek's cronies and hold the position of general in the Kuomintang, which shows how poor Chiang Kai-shek's ability to see people is." ”