In the Northern Expedition in 1928, the National Revolutionary Army broke through and took Shaanxi in one fell swoop, but the banditry prevailing on the border of 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 took the largest bandit den in Shaanxi in one fell swoop, killing more than 2,000 bandits and capturing more than 5,000 prisoners. From ancient times to the present, in the face of captives, the practice of generals is to incorporate them into their own army, or to educate them first and then disband. But this time Song Zheyuan said: "I'd rather bear the eternal charges and kill these 5,000 captives!" In this way, more than 5,000 captives were collectively killed, and Song Zheyuan's reputation was greatly affected. Why did Song Zheyuan insist on killing more than 5,000 people regardless of his reputation? 
On September 8, 1928, in front of the Guandi Temple in Fengxiang County, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, people gathered from all over the world to see the excitement. The common people gathered around, with happy smiles on their faces, and from time to time they clapped their hands and shouted "yes". Perhaps from a distance, uninformed people will think that this is a wonderful performance by the common people, or participating in an interesting temple fair, so that they will have so much fun. But in fact, there was a bloody murder scene around them, and from this burst of applause and laughter came endless screams. If you look closer, you will find that in the midst of the crowd is a huge execution table, on which a total of 50 executioners stand, each holding a huge machete in his hand. In order to ensure the efficiency of the execution, these executioners are carefully selected senior members of the machete team. 
Figure丨ExecutionThey were like assembly line operations, with knives in their hands, and then pushed the corpse into the pit, and a human life disappeared into this world. So who is this killing? Why did the common people applaud when they saw the murderous scene? This seemingly ridiculous thing has to start from the Northern Expedition and the various contradictions that existed before. At the beginning of 1928, various warlords in Shaanxi Province united to resist 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 battle and fought with Feng Yuxiang. The relationship between this party Yukun and Feng Yuxiang is very deep, and it stands to reason that he should have been Feng Yuxiang's subordinate. Born in 1887, he was originally a swordsman wandering around Guanzhong, but he was lame in a fight with Qing Dynasty officers and soldiers, so he was nicknamed "Party Kidnapper". 
Picture丨Dang YukunLater, the party kidnappers joined the revolutionary army, came under the banner of Guo Jian, the leader of Jing ** at that time, and became the commander of the third detachment of Jing **, which can be regarded as a small person with some heads. He also has some attainments in leading troops to fight. Later, in 1921, Feng Yuxiang shot Guo Jian, which caused Jing ** to fall apart. Dang Yukun lost his boss, so he had no choice but to pretend to submit to Feng Yuxiang, and then took his soldiers to stay in Liquan, Shaanxi, and slowly 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 subordinates, Dang Yukun and his subordinates make a living by extorting and robbing local wealthy families. And in addition to robbery, he also constantly sent people to steal local tombs and stole countless belongings. 
At the time of the tomb robbery, almost all the ancient tombs in the area were dug up by Dang Yukun's people, and they sold the excavated antiques, many of which were sold to foreigners. Such an act not only caused huge damage to those historical tombs, but also caused China's precious historical and cultural flows abroad, causing immeasurable losses, and its crime should be punished. In addition to the cruelty of his methods, Dang Yukun is also very short-tempered, and his ruthlessness in doing things is outrageous. On weekdays, party abductors often kill people for the sake of some petty profits. For example, during robbery, he would kill people if he didn't agree with him, and many people died at his guns because they didn't want to give him money. In addition to looting property, the party abductor will also rob people, and he often recruits strong men among the common people to expand his army and strengthen his power. In this way, under his single-handedness, Fengxiang City soon became his bandit den, and after development, the number of bandits under him reached more than 8,000. 
Figure丨BanditsFor his own bandit army, Dang Yukun released the title of "The First Division of the Third Army of the National ** Army", and he was the division commander of the army. But although he is in the name of the national ** army, Dang Yukun refuses to obey Feng Yuxiang's deployment, and he plays the tricks of yang and yin on the surface. At the beginning of the Northern Expedition, Feng Yuxiang ordered Dang Yukun to participate in the war in Wuhan, but he only pretended to be a showman and sent a small team of men to Wuhan. And arranged his main force in the Baoji lair, and his wolf ambition to reap the benefits of the fisherman was clearly revealed. In this way, the bond between Dang Yukun and Feng Yuxiang gradually became close, coupled with the joint anti-Feng war mentioned above, and Dang Yukun's many evils in the local area, the gap between the two is getting bigger and bigger. Therefore, as soon as the National Revolutionary Army took Shaanxi, Feng Yuxiang sent Song Zheyuan to Fengxiang to suppress the bandits. 
Figure丨Suppress banditsDue to the geographical location is very special, Fengxiang City is high, and stands in the mountains, quite has the momentum of "one husband is the pass, ten thousand people are not open", easy to defend and difficult to attack. This is also destined to be a tough battle from the beginning, if there are no brave and resourceful generals, then there is a high probability that it will not be able to be captured. Previously, Shaanxi's first several times of suppressing bandits have returned in vain, which is the best example. Feng Yuxiang naturally thought of this, so he directly picked Song Zheyuan, who was jealous and hateful, brave and good at fighting. But I have to say that even if it was led by Song Zheyuan, this Fengxiang battle was also very difficult and tragic. At the beginning of the battle, Song Zheyuan did not take this little eight thousand bandits to heart. He only led his army of 30,000 to fight the enemy with the most basic siege attack. 
Soon after the battle, he found out that Fengxiang City was called "Lying Cow City", which was not unreasonable. The topography of this city is like an ox with arched horns ready to attack, and it is really difficult to attack. In this process, the bandits in the city did not spend much effort, and Song Zheyuan's troops suffered heavy casualties. The battle, which began in May 1928, was not breached until August 1928. And the casualties of Song Zheyuan's troops have reached more than 6,000. Song was shocked and angry at the same time, and he began to change his attitude and take the battle seriously. It didn't take long for him to come up with a good idea. That is to first make a fake feint on the main battlefield of the enemy and us, so as to attract the attention of the enemy's main force, and then give full play to their superiority in strength, send a large number of soldiers, and dig a tunnel in a private house 200 meters away from the city. This tunnel will lead all the way to the bottom of Fengxiang City, and after it is dug, it will be used to place the gunpowder that will bomb the city. 
Figure 丨Song Zheyuan is like this, the two sides are at a stalemate on the surface, and the bandits in the city rely on their geographical advantages and do not take Song Zheyuan in their eyes. But the excavation of the secret passage did not stop for a moment, and Song Zheyuan's people dug for more than half a month, and finally dug the place. Song Zheyuan ordered someone to dig a big 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 of the ** medicine, a loud bang resounded in the sky. A large area of the ground in Phoenix City collapsed, and Dang Yukun and his subordinates in the city were also caught off guard. Taking advantage of the fact that the city wall was blown up, Song Zheyuan led the army to take advantage of the situation. After a difficult street battle 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 subordinates searched the city, they also seized hundreds of boxes of precious cultural relics in Dang Yukun's lair, which were all obtained by Dang Yukun's tomb robbing 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. 
After the vicious bandits, the problem that Song Zheyuan had to face was how to deal with the more than 5,000 prisoners of war. According to the past practice, in the handling of prisoners of war, most of them were incorporated and reformed, and then pulled into their own ranks, no matter how poor they were, they were educated, and then directly released. However, this time, Song Zheyuan did not intend to follow the historical method, but would rather bear the infamy of the ages and kill all the 5,000 prisoners of war. So there is the confusing scene at the beginning of the article. These bandits, under the leadership of Dang Yukun, once dominated the mountains, did all kinds of evil, harmed the people, looted the people's fat and ointment, and the people suffered greatly. That's why when they watched them being killed one by one and thrown into the pit, the common people were so happy and applauded. 
Figure丨 Kill all the prisoners of war, and the person with the most pressure should be Song Zheyuan. You must know that no matter how bad the captured bandits were, they were more than 5,000 lives, but Song Zheyuan ordered them all to be killed at once. This is inhumane and cruel, and it will also break the old rules among the warlords, so that the enemy soldiers will not dare to surrender in future battles. The combination of various factors will make it difficult for Song Zheyuan, who killed the captives, to escape the infamy of future generations. But Song Zheyuan's eyes were on the benefits of killing the captives. That is to kill chickens and set an example to the monkeys, and to deter the Quartet. As mentioned above, bandits in Shaanxi are blooming everywhere, and bandit dens of all sizes are almost everywhere, and Dang Yukun is the most powerful of all bandits.
Figure 丨Song Zheyuan annihilated all this force, and if he didn't leave a single force, the deterrent effect would inevitably be huge. First, it can prevent some of these careerists from colluding again and acting in embarrassment, and second, it can make other bandits in Shaanxi see Song Zheyuan's tricks, so its benefits are also immeasurable. Under such circumstances, Song Zheyuan resolutely gave up his reputation and chose a more practical side. Since then, the news that more than 5,000 members of Dang Yukun have been killed has spread throughout Shaanxi and even China. It didn't take long for Shaanxi, which was once smoky and smoky, to become clear. All of this is thanks to Song Zheyuan's thunderous wrist. So who is Song Zheyuan? Why did Feng Yuxiang trust him so much?
Song Zheyuan In 1885, Song Zheyuan was born in Shandong Province, a poor family of scholars in Zhao Hongdu Village. Although his family is poor, his father, Song Xiangji, is talented, well-versed in ancient and modern times, and very knowledgeable. Therefore, Song Zheyuan has 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, as well as the courage to serve the country with blood. He began his path of devotion at a young age. At that time, private schools and knowledge were in most cases the preserve of the wealthy, and there were many poor children who did not have the opportunity to go to school, although they were very hungry for knowledge. Considering that I have been reading and writing since childhood, I can make some contribution to these children. When Song Zheyuan was 17 years old, he began to set up a private school, teaching local poor children for free, teaching them to read, write, and learn history, and persisted for five 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 township.
In addition, Song Zheyuan when he was young also had outstanding leadership skills. When the other children were at home, he began to gather the children of his village to learn martial arts with branches and sticks. He commanded everyone to practice the pace, learn the tactics of fighting, arrange the troops in a decent manner, and manage the entire team in an orderly manner, and implemented the rewards and punishments for merits and demerits one by one, so that the rewards and punishments were strict. Even though it was a team formed by children, it was quite a bit of fun in the eyes of adults at the time. But I have to admit that the boy scouts led by Song Zheyuan, both in terms of momentum and management, have a small army. In 1907, Song Zheyuan was admitted to the Sixth Town of the Beiyang Army with excellent results. He also learned a lot of armament knowledge and strategic thinking here, and greatly improved his combat skills.
Figure丨LearningAfter graduating, he joined Feng Yuxiang in 1911, because of his military foresight and outstanding talent, Feng Yuxiang admired him very much, and promoted all the way. By 1925, Song Zheyuan became a lieutenant general. Song Zheyuan is a very patriotic person, on the third day after the outbreak of the 918 incident, he led his 29th Army to send an anti-Japanese telegram to the whole country, in this anti-Japanese telegram, Song Zheyuan said:"Zheyuan and other soldiers are responsible for protecting the country, and Jin led his subordinates to stand by, and would rather be a ghost who died in battle than a slave to the country, and swear to be ashamed of the country! ”
The generous statement of not being a slave to the country, especially the sentence "I would rather die in battle than be a slave to the country", expresses Song Zheyuan's patriotic integrity vividly. In the Battle of Xifengkou, Song Zheyuan led the 29th Army to fight to the death against the Japanese army, although the 29th Army and the Japanese army had a huge disparity in armament strength. But under the desperate resistance of Song Zheyuan and the soldiers, the Japanese devils fought their first big defeat in China. At that time, a Japanese newspaper said:"Since the Meiji Emperor raised his army, the honor of the imperial army has been lost outside the Kimine Pass. ”So far, we can see Song Zheyuan's great contributions in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
The evaluation of Song Zheyuan by later generations, as he himself imagined, was mixed. Some people criticize him as a cold-blooded and ruthless murderous demon, and some people praise him as a Chinese tiger general who is dedicated to 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, gains and losses.