"Advocating force and recovering the Han nationality, scholars should not sit and talk, and should study military affairs to deal with the current situation. "This is the concept adhered to by the famous general Xue Yue. In war-torn China, the young Xue Yue firmly believed that force was the key to solving problems.
He is a controversial figure, during the agrarian revolution, he followed Chiang Kai-shek to round up the Red Army many times and brutalize our party people, especially during the Red Army's Long March, Xue Yue has always followed the ** Red Army and was trusted by Chiang Kai-shek.
However, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Xue Yue participated in many battles, such as the Battle of Songhu, the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Changsha, etc., and achieved many victories, becoming the Chinese general with the largest number of Japanese annihilations and becoming a real national hero.
In the case of the Kuomintang army's disadvantageous frontal battle, Xue Yue's outstanding performance made Chiang Kai-shek pay more attention to him.
Xue Yue had been loyal to Chiang Kai-shek for a long time, but soon after the defeat in Taiwan, his home was raided by Chiang Kai-shek, and decades later, the house he lived in was also repossessed by the relevant departments of Taiwan.
What kind of changes did the relationship between Xue Yue and Chiang Kai-shek go through? What caused their old friendship to break down, so much so that Chiang Kai-shek desperately confiscated Xue Yue's home?
What happened to Xue Yue in his later years? These secrets about the late years of the famous anti-Japanese general Xue Yue will be told from the time he was born. In the past, Xue Yue embarked on the wrong path in order to support Jiang **, which may be the beginning of his tragedy.
In the context of the corruption of the Qing Dynasty, Xue Yue's father, Xue Haohan, deeply felt the crisis of the country, so he named his son Xue Yangyue, in order to inspire him to practice martial arts diligently like Yue Fei, and serve the country when he grew up.
When Xue Yue was growing up, he gradually developed admiration for the national hero Yue Fei, and he realized that just admiring Yue Fei was not enough to express his ambition, so he decisively renamed himself Xue Yue, saying that he also wanted to become a hero like Yue Fei.
In 1918, in order to solve the problem of local warlords in Fujian, Sun Yat-sen organized a revolutionary army to aid the Fujian and Guangdong army.
In the next two years or so, Xue Yue actively participated in the battle, charged ahead, and achieved a lot of combat exploits, so his military rank was promoted very quickly and was appreciated by his superiors.
In order to restore the effectiveness of the "Provisional Constitution of China", Sun Yat-sen decided to launch the second ** movement, and he pinned his hopes on the support of the warlord Chen Jiongming. At that time, he lived in the Great ** Mansion in Guangzhou, and Xue Yue, as the commander of the first battalion of the ** Mansion Guard Regiment, undertook the task of protecting Sun Yat-sen's safety.
Xue Yue admired Sun Yat-sen very much, regarded him as his revolutionary role model, and tried his best to protect him. On the evening of June 15, Xue Yue, through several days of reconnaissance, discovered that Chen Jiongming might have staged a mutiny, and immediately notified Sun Yat-sen, so that he could evacuate to the Yongfeng ship in advance.
However, Chen Jiongming launched a rebellion in the middle of the night, and more than a thousand rebels came straight to the ** mansion. In order to protect Sun Yat-sen's safe retreat, Xue Yue and more than 800 soldiers of the guard regiment stayed behind the ** palace, and arranged for someone to escort Song Qingling to the Yongfeng ship to meet Sun Yat-sen.
The Yongfeng ship faced an enemy far outnumbered by his own, and Xue Yue was fearless, and he commanded his team to take advantage of the terrain to engage the enemy fiercely. In the three days of fierce fighting, the enemy army failed to capture the ** mansion.
Upon learning of the successful transfer of Sun Yat-sen and his wife, Xue Yue led the remaining more than 200 soldiers to successfully break through the siege and march towards Shaoguan. Later, Xue Yue's heroic performance and excellent command and adaptability were informed by his subordinates of Sun Yat-sen, which left a deep impression on Sun Yat-sen.
Since then, Xue Yue's military talents have been fully utilized. His performance was particularly prominent during the Eastern Crusade, and after the death of Sun Yat-sen, he was appreciated by Chiang Kai-shek.
In the Northern Expedition, in the face of the strong city wall guarded by Sun Chuanfang's troops, the revolutionary army could not be attacked for a long time, and the morale was low, but the third regiment of the first division led by Xue Yue personally fought tenaciously and did not flinch.
When the Northern Expedition was about to be victorious, Chiang Kai-shek launched a counter-revolutionary coup d'état on April 12, 1927. Prior to this, he had discovered that there were left-leaning tendencies within Xue Yue's First Division, and in order to avoid possible danger, he transferred the First Division out of Shanghai and dismissed Xue Yue from his post.
Xue Yue went south to seek refuge with the warlord Li Jishen in Guangzhou, which also laid the groundwork for the relationship between the two in the future. Although Xue Yue still adhered to Sun Yat-sen's Three People's Doctrine, he resolutely opposed our party's revolution, and even participated in the suppression of the Nanchang Uprising and the Guangzhou Uprising, personally instructed his subordinates to kill a large number of our party members, and embarked on the road of no return.
In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek served as the commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army again after a brief absence, and continued the Northern Expedition with Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, Li Zongren and other local powerful factions, and finally defeated the Feng warlord Zhang Zuolin, ending the rule of the Beiyang warlords in China.
Xue Yue once thought that following Chiang Kai-shek would definitely make a difference, so he decided to take refuge in him again. However, after returning to Chiang Kai-shek's side, Xue Yue was repeatedly excluded by He Yingqin, Minister of Military Affairs.
He had opposed Chiang several times, but it was not very effective. In desperation, Xue Yue went to Kowloon, Hong Kong to live idlely. A few years later, he realized that he couldn't just spend his life idle, especially after the outbreak of the 918 incident, his love for the country became even stronger.
Xue Yue had a premonition that a large-scale war would break out between China and Japan sooner or later, and in order to gain an advantage on the battlefield in the future, he planned to go to Germany for further study and learn advanced military command techniques.
However, at this time, in the face of the crisis of the fall of the Northeast, Chiang Kai-shek still stubbornly adhered to the policy of securing the outside world before securing the interior, and carried out many encirclement and suppression of the Red Army in the ** Soviet area, but all of them ended in failure, which made Chiang Kai-shek very depressed.
Xue Yue's wife had a good relationship with Chiang Kai-shek's wife, Song Meiling, so Song Meiling took the initiative to recommend Xue Yue to Chiang Kai-shek, and said: "It is best to recruit Xue Boling to suppress the Communists." ”
Soong Meiling and Chiang Kai-shek heard that Xue Yue was brave and good at fighting, and decided to invite him to help encircle and suppress the Red Army. After Xue Yue learned the news, he decided to postpone his plan to go to Germany and rushed to Nanchang to camp.
After talking with Chiang Kai-shek, he was given the post of deputy commander-in-chief of the Third Route Army to assist Chen Cheng in deploying the fifth encirclement and suppression. As a result, our army was defeated in the fifth anti-encirclement campaign, and the Red Army was forced to go on a long march.
The Battle of Xiangjiang was a key battle on the Long March, and the strength of the Red Army was sharply reduced from more than 80,000 to more than 30,000, and the Kuomintang army under the personal command of Xue Yue was the main force of this battle.
Xue Yue, pursuing the Red Army all the way, faithfully carried out Chiang Kai-shek's instructions, and ruthlessly attacked the local warlord forces along the way, among which the Guizhou warlord Wang Jialie's forces were almost wiped out.
Although the Red Army successfully arrived in northern Shaanxi under the correct command of ***, the strength of the local warlords in the southwest and other places was greatly damaged, and Chiang Kai-shek's trust and reliance on Xue Yue also increased.
However, Xue Yue was not a descendant of Whampoa, nor was he a native of Chiang Kai-shek's Zhejiang, so it was only a matter of time before he was alienated. But he is still known as the "God of War in the Heavenly Furnace" and a national hero.
On August 13, 1937, the Japanese army attacked Shanghai, and Chiang Kai-shek, as the main source of national revenue, sent more than 800,000 Kuomintang troops to defend, and Xue Yue was among them.
In the Battle of Songhu, although the Japanese army's equipment and combat quality were superior to those of the Kuomintang army, the positions of the Kuomintang army were constantly occupied by the Japanese army, and the situation was very grim. In order to hold on to Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek urgently transferred Xue Yue, who was serving in the southwest as director of the Yunnan-Guizhou Pacification Office and chairman of Guizhou Province, to the front line and served as commander-in-chief of the 19th Group Army.
Xue Yue has been waiting for the opportunity to resist the country, as soon as he arrived at the Anting battlefield in Shanghai, he immediately studied the military deployment of China and Japan, and found that the Japanese army not only had the cooperation of the army and the air force, but also participated in the battle at the mouth of the Yangtze River, which made it difficult to preserve the front-line positions of the Kuomintang army, and would lead to great **.
Therefore, Xue Yue immediately ordered the troops to change the first-line positions to echelon configuration, and establish a deep defense line, echoing from the north to the south, and intersecting with the Japanese army's positions, so that the Japanese army's artillery strike intensity was greatly reduced, thereby reducing the ** of our army.
Xue Yue, a famous anti-Japanese general, is good at using artillery flexibly, shelling the Japanese army, counter-charging, and showing superb military talent. In Shanghai, he held out for three months, shattering Japan's three-month rally of destroying China.
In the Battle of Wanjialing, he commanded ** to encircle and annihilate the main force of the Japanese army, and wiped out 1More than 50,000 people, this was an important victory in the Battle of Wuhan, which enhanced the confidence of our people in resisting Japan.
In the Battle of Changsha, he resisted the Japanese attack with his excellent command ability, demonstrated his military wisdom and bravery, and won wide praise.
Since ancient times, whoever can own Henan and Hunan will get the world. Now that we have lost Henan, if we lose Hunan again, China is in danger of extinction.
I decided to stick to Changsha and hope that the chairman would approve it. If Hunan wins, it will be a blessing for the country and the chairman; If defeated, I will kill myself to thank my countrymen. ”
Chiang Kai-shek, under the persuasion of Soong Meiling and Chen Cheng, put Xue Yue in charge of the defense of Changsha. Xue Yue emphasized battlefield discipline, stabilized the morale of the army, formulated effective tactics, successfully held Changsha and dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army.
After the victory in the Battle of Changsha, Chiang Kai-shek relied on Xue Yue so much that he awarded him the Order of the Blue Sky and the White Sun. Truman also awarded Xue Yue the Medal of Freedom in recognition of his contributions to the anti-fascist war.
Xue Yue was the Chinese general who eliminated the largest number of Japanese troops during the Anti-Japanese War and became a famous anti-Japanese national hero. However, after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, Xue Yue went to the road of supporting Chiang.
Xue Yue, the heroic general, in his twilight years, carried the shadow of sadness and death. After Japan's surrender, Chiang Kai-shek seemed to have regained his previous self-confidence, with more than 4 million ** and the support of the American army, and he firmly believed that the day of reunification of China was near.
However, his old habit of cronyism grew again. At this time, the commanders of the five main forces of the Kuomintang were all his cronies, and Xue Yue was aware of this, but he still chose to follow Chiang Kai-shek for the sake of the reunification of the country, but he did not realize that he had embarked on a wrong path from the beginning.
In June 1946, Chiang Kai-shek launched a civil war, and Xue Yue served as the director of the Xuzhou Pacification Office, and although he realized that his power had weakened, he still responded positively, commanding troops to launch attacks on the liberated areas of northern Jiangsu and southern Lunan.
However, due to the lack of preparation of our army, coupled with Xue Yue's flexible command, three months later, the Kuomintang army was victorious in the Battle of Huaiyin, which Chiang Kai-shek took for granted.
Xue Yue was stripped of real power in the subsequent defeat and only got an idle position, and although he was dissatisfied with it, he could not change it. After that, although Xue Yue was interested in helping Chiang Kai-shek command the battle, he was never reused, and it was not until after the founding of New China that the defeat of the Kuomintang army was irretrievable, and Chiang Kai-shek remembered him again and put him in charge of the defense of Hainan Island.
Although Xue Yue lost his enthusiasm for the war, he still decided to assist Chiang Kai-shek and established the "Boling Defense Line" in Hainan. But in the face of the rout of the Kuomintang army, his efforts could not change the outcome.
In 1950, Xue Yue fled to Taiwan, and Chiang Kai-shek, believing that his subordinates' incompetence had led to failure, treated Xue Yue coldly, causing him to gradually withdraw from the political scene. A year later, when the situation stabilized, Chiang Kai-shek began to hold him accountable, treating his henchmen and fellow villagers well, while severely criticizing Bai Chongxi and Xue Yue, who were not related to him.
One day in late 1950, Chiang Kai-shek harshly criticized Xue Yue in his diary, accusing him of dereliction of duty and inaction during the civil war, and calling him ungrateful.
A few months later, Chiang Kai-shek even sent someone to raid Xue Yue's home on the grounds that Xue Yue had colluded with Li Zongren, which made Xue Yue very disappointed.
Xue Yue's life was made even more difficult because he was randomly assigned an idle post by Chiang Kai-shek and had to be sent to be monitored. However, when *** began to make public ** remarks about the motherland, Xue Yue couldn't bear it anymore, and he attacked *** many times in private
However, ** retaliated against this and revoked the idle post that Chiang Kai-shek had given Xue Yue, so that Xue Yue had no income ** and his life became increasingly poor. The rent for Xue Yue's housing originally provided by Taiwan's "Design Committee for the Liberation of the Mainland" was also revoked, making Xue Yue have to pay the rent himself, but in the face of high rent, Xue Yue quickly used up his savings.
General Xue Yue was sued by the Bank of Taiwan for failing to pay the rent, and finally lost the case and was expelled from his original residence. Penniless, he lived in a cramped bungalow, and his condition worsened.
On May 3, 1998, the former famous anti-Japanese general, 103-year-old General Xue Yue, passed away in a simple bungalow, which is deeply regrettable. Unlike Chiang Kai-shek's cold reception of Xue Yue, our party has always remembered General Xue Yue's contribution to the fight against Japan.
On the 60th anniversary of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, his name was included in the "Anti-Japanese Heroes" of ** TV station. In his hometown, the local ** also repaired and protected his former residence to commemorate this anti-Japanese national hero.
The existence of Xue Yue's former residence in Xiaopingshi Village, Jiufeng Town, Lechang, Guangdong Province, proves that Chiang Kai-shek's defeat was not only due to his lack of popularity, but also because he was selfish and neglected talents.
The tragic experience of General Xue Yue in his later years was only a microcosm of the high-ranking Kuomintang generals who fled to Taiwan.