At around 11 p.m. on February 13, 1962, Hu Zongnan, who was sleeping, suddenly raised his left arm and screamed several times.
The escort on the side immediately asked"Mr. Hu! What's wrong with you, Mr. Hu? ”
He asked several times, but received no response.
When the doctor arrived, he found that Hu Zongnan's raised left arm was stiff and could not be bent, and then quickly rescued him, but in the end he was unable to return to the sky.
At around 3 a.m. the next day, Hu Zongnan stopped breathing and died at the age of 66.
Regarding Hu Zongnan's death, his son Hu Weishan said: "My father was desolate in his old age, and he had long had the idea of seeking death, and now it can be regarded as a relief." ”
Why did Hu Weishan, the son of Hu Zongnan, say this, and what is the deep meaning in it? Why did Hu Zongnan make such a strange move before he died? In this issue, let's talk about the last tragic years of the "King of the Northwest" Hu Zongnan.
[Become the "King of the Northwest" with unlimited scenery].
Hu Zongnan was born in 1896 in Zhenhai County, Zhejiang Province (now Beilun District, Ningbo), his father was the shopkeeper of a pharmacy, and although the family was not particularly poor, it was also very poor.
Fortunately, Hu Zongnan himself is talented, intelligent, diligent and studious, from primary school to middle school, he almost never scored the top three in every exam. And for his son, Hu Zongnan's father also has high hopes.
Unfortunately, due to the poor management of his family's Chinese medicine shop, Hu Zongnan dropped out of school after finishing junior high school because he couldn't afford the tuition, and he went to work as a history teacher in a primary school in his hometown.
Hu Zongnan, who has great ambitions and is inspired to make a difference, is not satisfied with this, in his spare time, he still insists on reading a wide range of books, constantly improving himself, and waiting for the opportunity.
Soon after, the Japanese invasion and warlord melee filled the whole of China. As the so-called "heroes emerge in troubled times", Hu Zongnan knows that the opportunity he dreamed of is coming.
In 1924, Mr. Sun Yat-sen began to establish the Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou, and after hearing the news, Hu Zongnan decisively gave up his position as a teacher and decided to go south to apply for the Whampoa examination.
This is the first batch of enrollment at the Whampoa Military Academy, and the selection is very strict, and Wen Taowu must be proficient in everything. For Hu Zongnan, who has been gifted and intelligent since he was a child, cultural and military theories are naturally not a problem, but when he took the exam with confidence, he was eliminated in the physical examination.
The reason is because Hu Zongnan is less than 1.6 meters tall and does not meet the application conditions.
This reason made Hu Zongnan very frustrated, as the so-called parents of the body, and the height problem can be decided by himself? The more Hu Zongnan thought about it, the more angry he became, so he went to find the examiner who eliminated him and theorized.
I saw that as soon as Hu Zongnan saw the examiner, he asked: ".Why didn't you let me join the revolution because of my height? When does it take height to fight? Isn't Mr. Sun Yat-sen also more than 1.6 meters, so didn't he still founded a military academy and did a great career?
Hu Zongnan's remarks happened to be heard by Liao Zhongkai, who came down to inspect, and Liao Zhongkai was greatly shocked by Hu Zongnan's revolutionary rhetoric, and he thought that this person would definitely do something in the future.
So he immediately ordered that Hu Zongnan, who was short in stature, be allowed to pass the selection.
In this way, after passing the physical examination, Hu Zongnan got the opportunity to continue to participate in the selection of cultural classes. In the end, he passed the exam as he wished, became the first student of the Whampoa Military Academy, and began his military career since then.
After Hu Zongnan entered the Whampoa Military Academy, he actively participated in various activities held by the school and met many big figures, including Chiang Kai-shek, the principal of the Whampoa Military Academy at that time.
Through observation and inquiry, Hu Zongnan learned that Chiang Kai-shek was not only his fellow countryman, but also had the habit of running on the playground every morning. So Hu Zongnan went to the playground at the same time every day, created a chance encounter, and then stepped forward to talk, and gradually became familiar in front of Lao Jiang.
WhileWhat made Hu Zongnan really a confidant of Chiang Kai-shek was the "Cotton Lake Encounter" in March 1925.
At that time, Chen Jiongming's rebel group Lin Hu led 20,000 people to besiege the Whampoa Student Army, and the first regiment of the Whampoa Army Student Corps was only more than 1,000 people.
Seeing Lin Hu leading many people straight in, less than ten meters away from the command post of the Huangpu Army, everyone's hearts couldn't help but pinch up.
At this time, Chiang Kai-shek in the command post was holding a gun in his hand, ready to die with the other side.
At such a critical juncture, Hu Zongnan suddenly held a machine gun in his hand, led several students to shoot wildly at the enemy, and finally sacrificed his life to save Chiang Kai-shek's life, and also allowed Chiang Kai-shek to successfully resolve the crisis.
Afterwards, Chiang Kai-shek was greatly grateful to Hu Zongnan for his feat and promoted him to captain platoon commander.
And Hu Zongnan also began to become a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek, following Chiang Kai-shek's side to conquer the south and the north.
In the Northern Expedition, Hu Zongnan made plans and defeated the elite troops of Sun Chuanfang's division and retreated, creating a model of defeating the strong with the weak; In the Jiang-Gui War, Hu Zongnan relied on his outstanding performance to sweep away political enemies for Lao Chiang, and successfully made Bai Chongxi and Li Zongren's troops have no chance to ......
In this way, Hu Zongnan was promoted and reused by Chiang Kai-shek by virtue of his battlefield practice again and again.
In September 1930, Hu Zongnan was already a lieutenant general and commander of the First Division, and he was also the fastest promoted among the graduates of the Whampoa Military Academy during the same period.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek disobeyed the yin and the yin, and on the surface he established a united front with our army, but behind the scenes, he passively resisted Japan and was wary of our party everywhere. By October 1938, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression had entered a phase of stalemate, with Wuhan and Guangzhou losing one after another, and Chiang Kai-shek set his sights on the northwest and southwest.
Chongqing in the southwest has now become the most important place, and now there is only the northwest left, so who should hold on to the northwest? Chiang Kai-shek immediately thought of Hu Zongnan, who had followed him from birth to death for many years, so he appointed him commander-in-chief of the 34th Group Army, stationed in Xi'an, guarding the northwest.
For a time, Hu Zongnan sat in the great northwest, had food, money and guns, and his fame and military strength expanded rapidly, and he soon became the "king of the northwest" who held military and political power.
[Fought with *** many times, and suffered heavy losses one after another].
After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Kuomintang deliberately provoked disputes, and the War of Liberation began.
Hu Zongnan, who held military and political power, once again became Chiang Kai-shek's first vanguard.
The time came to February 1947, when the Kuomintang and the Communist Party had been fighting for eight months, and due to the successive defeats of the previous all-out offensives, Chiang Kai-shek decided to adjust his strategy and take Shandong and Shaanxi as the key offensive areas.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Hu Zongnan did not make any great achievements, so many people pointed fingers behind his back, saying that he was a vain and did not meet the status of a general. Therefore, for this battle in northern Shaanxi, Hu Zongnan volunteered, eager to prove his strength in this operation.
After obtaining Chiang Kai-shek's consent, Hu Zongnan soon sent 250,000 troops to launch a key attack on the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningbo base area, and formulated a plan of "blitzkrieg Yan'an", hoping to take advantage of this to wipe out the first one.
At that time, the main strength of our army was distributed in Shandong and the northeast battlefield, and there were only more than 20,000 people in charge of the Yan'an border defense.
But it was this poorly equipped 20,000 troops that later defeated Hu Zongnan's 250,000 army and lost face, because the commander of this army was none other than General Peng, who was known as the "Great General".
What's going on here? Let's move on.
At that time, considering that the difference between the strength of the enemy and us was too great, and in a short period of time, the main force of our army could not withdraw from the Shandong and Northeast battlefields to support, so it was decided to take the initiative to evacuate Yan'an first and retain our vital forces to reduce losses.
So, in March 1947, before Hu Zongnan's army arrived, the People's Liberation Army withdrew from Yan'an.
To this end, Hu Zongnan achieved the "brilliant results" of "taking Yan'an without a fight". In this regard, the Kuomintang side also hyped up a lot of hype, hoping to use this "victory" to boost the morale of the army and save the face of successive defeats since the all-out offensive.
Hu Zongnan, who was immersed in the joy of victory, would know that he had just fallen into the "trap" of **. Because of the best battle, he never cares about the gains and losses of a city and a pool, but pays attention to recuperating and recuperating, and then destroys the enemy's living force in one fell swoop.
After giving up Yan'an, ** launched his next plan.
On the evening of March 17, 1947, ** ordered a unit to pretend to be a retreating corps and secretly pass under Hu Zongnan's nose. Seeing this, Hu Zongnan led the main force to chase towards this "large corps", but who knew that the main force of our army had already prepared an ambush in the middle, and it only took a few hours to annihilate all the lone 31st brigades.
After the victory in the first battle, ** repeated the old trick, and once again ordered a unit to disguise itself as a large corps and retreat along the Xianyu Highway in the direction of Qingjian County.
When Hu Zongnan heard the news, he again sent 70,000 troops to follow him. After a few days of chasing and arriving in Qingjian County, he found that only a small army was being pursued, and Hu Zongnan, who learned of the plan, immediately turned back to the west.
However, at this time, our army had already laid an ambush on the Yangma River in the middle of the way, so in just 6 hours, our army annihilated more than 4,700 people of the enemy's 125 brigade, and captured the brigade commander Mai Zongyu.
There is an old Chinese saying that there are only three things, but Hu Zongnan fell for the third time. Under the same strategy, Hu Zongnan once again sent a large army to follow, and *** also took the opportunity to capture Hu Zongnan's logistics supply Panlong.
These "three battles and three victories" enabled our army to annihilate more than 14,000 enemy troops with losses less than one-tenth of the enemy's.
In particular, the first battle of Panlong not only eliminated more than 6,700 people of the enemy's 167th Brigade, but also captured 6 mountain guns, more than 1,000 mules and horses, 40,000 sets of military uniforms and 120,000 bags of flour have fully guaranteed our logistical supply.
These successive failures made Hu Zongnan's strength questioned by the best sides, and Chiang Kai-shek began to be extremely disappointed in him. At that time, many people also teased that to deal with a mediocre talent like Hu Zongnan, ** only needs one move.
And the "three battles and three victories" is just a small prelude, and Mr. Peng's real defeat of Hu Zongnan is still to come.
In the Battle of Yulin on July 28, 1947, Hu Zongnan was fooled again and fell into an ambush by our army in Shajiadian. After the enemy entered the ambush circle, Mr. Peng immediately ordered a full-scale attack, and finally fought fiercely for a day, annihilating more than 6,000 people of the enemy's 36th Division.
The victory in the first battle of Shajiadian completely reversed the defeat in the northwest.
also made Hu Zongnan slump from then on and began to go downhill.
Later, Mr. Peng proposed the tactic of "beating wolf cubs and catching old wolves", luring Hu Zongnan's main force out of Xi'an in the name of attacking Yichuan. Hu Zongnan was fooled again and ordered Liu Huan to lead the reorganization of the 29th Army to support Yichuan quickly.
And Liu Jian has dealt with our army many times, and knows that Mr. Peng is good at "besieging the city and sending reinforcements", and vaguely feels that he has set up a pocket formation. So Liu Jian made a request to Hu Zongnan, hoping to suspend the plan to rescue Yichuan.
But at this time, Hu Zongnan had already hated ***, and he wanted to win him too much to prove himself, so he rejected Liu Huan's opinion and forced him to move forward to Yichuan.
Sure enough, the integrated 29th Army encountered an ambush by our army at Wazi Street, and in a short period of time, 30,000 troops were annihilated. Subsequently, our army took advantage of the victory to capture Yichuan and achieved a major victory.
The First Battle of Yichuan caused a great shock within the Kuomintang, and Chiang Kai-shek was even more angry and scolded"Hu Zongnan is a mediocre talent, and the loss of Yichuan is the biggest loss and the most meaningless loss! ”
After this war, Hu Zongnan was removed from his post and retained as a punishment.
However, the military and political power of the Northwest Army was still in the hands of Hu Zongnan.
From this point, we can see the absurd principle of Lao Jiang's "rather use slaves than talents".
And Hu Zongnan is not useless, he successfully gained the upper hand in the "Xifu Longdong Victory", and this is also the biggest mistake in Mr. Peng's military career, Xiye lost as many as 150 thousand.
This serendipitous victory made Hu Zongnan complacent, but he soon suffered a devastating blow.
On August 15, 1948, ** launched the Libei Campaign and ate Hu Zongnan's 3 integrated divisions; In the subsequent winter campaign, more than 30,000 people of Hu Zongnan's 76th Army were annihilated.
In the Battle of Fumei from July 10 to 14, 1949, ** and Hu Zongnan fought a large corps again, which was also the last battle between the two. In this battle, Hu Zongnan's 4 main armies totaled 430,000 people were wiped out again.
Since then, Hu Zongnan's main force has been completely lost, and he can no longer compete with the PLA.
[In his later years, his family was lost and widowed].
As early as when Hu Zongnan was trapped in Xi'an, Chiang Kai-shek called many times, asking him to lead the remnants to move to Sanya as soon as possible. However, at this time, Hu Zongnan, who had lost his troops and lost his generals, how could he still have the face to see Chairman Jiang again? Chiang Kai-shek sent fighter planes to meet Hu Zongnan many times, but Hu Du has always been stubborn and unwilling to leave.
But now that the general trend has gone, he can't help it, so the group pushed Hu Zongnan onto the plane stiffly. After that, Hu Zongnan and his entourage first flew to Sanya, and after staying here for seven or eight days, they flew to Taiwan.
And with the take-off of the last plane of the Kuomintang to escape from the mainland, it meant that Chiang Kai-shek was completely defeated in the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
At this time, the "King of the Northwest", who was sitting on hundreds of thousands of troops, only had 6 military and political entourages left around him.
What made Hu Zongnan's heart hurt even more was that after coming to Taipei, Chiang Kai-shek did not meet him, a former confidant. This made Hu Zongnan gradually feel the heat and coldness of the world. With such a big gap, it may not be acceptable to anyone, right?
According to Hu Zongnan's son Hu Weishan's recollection, Hu Zongnan mentioned many times in his later years that he wanted to jump into the sea for a hundred years, because he felt that flying to Taiwan was really forced and lost face. Later, under Zhang Zhengda's repeated persuasion, he dispelled this idea.
Later, Hu Zongnan was dismissed from the post of "Southwest Military and Political Chief's Office", and only served as a strategic adviser, with nothing to do every day, but to go to the Hualien seashore to recuperate.
But what should come will always come, Hu Zongnan, who lives in seclusion in Hualien, has not escaped the fate of being **.
At that time, which side launched the movement of "reporting collusion" and "purging derelict dignitaries", Hu Zongnan, who had superior forces but was defeated again and again, naturally became the first target to be targeted.
So, starting in May 1950, headed by Li Mengbiao of the "Supervisory Yuan", together with 46 other "Supervisory Commissioners", began to jointly launch the ** against Hu Zongnan.
Li Mengbiao and others held that Hu Zongnan had lost the northwest and then the southwest, and had also buried the last Kuomintang military group on the mainland.
Not only that, Li Mengbiao and others also printed dozens of copies of the first article, which were sent to some newspapers and periodicals in Taiwan and Hong Kong for public publication, with a huge and menacing momentum.
For a time, Hu Zongnan's mistaken army caused a stir, and everyone sprinkled their anger at Hu Zongnan's defeat and flight to Taiwan.
To tell the truth, Li Mengbiao's ** for Hu Zongnan is also true, after all, the fall of the southwest and northwest, Hu Zongnan does have an unshirkable responsibility. As Lao Jiang's most powerful favorite minister, although Hu Zongnan had been defeated in successive battles before, no one dared to openly attack him for more than 20 years. Now that this incident has just fled, there is naturally an element of Lao Jiang's acquiescence behind it.
In fact, Hu Zongnan himself may not know until he dies that after the fall of Xichang, Lao Jiang did not want to take him to Taiwan at first, but wanted to let him live and die with Xichang, let him live or die, be killed and captured. Later, Hu Zongnan's friend Guo Jiqiao repeatedly interceded, which made Chiang Kai-shek change his mind and reluctantly sent fighter planes to Xichang to pick up Hu Zongnan.
It can be seen that Chiang Kai-shek has long had no expectations for Hu Zongnan.
But in the end, since it has come and come, it is natural that the capital crime can be avoided and the living crime cannot be escaped. So Chiang Kai-shek acquiesced to the "Supervision Yuan" violently ** Hu Zongnan, and Hu Zongnan also knew that this must be the meaning of Chairman Chiang, so he chose to remain silent in the face of **.
Perhaps considering that Hu Zongnan had followed him for more than 20 years, even if he had no merit and hard work, Chiang Kai-shek finally decided to let Hu Zongnan go and exempt him from punishment.
It's just that although the ** incident has passed, Chiang Kai-shek's favor for him is gone. What awaits Hu Zongnan is the cold eyes and snow hiding for more than ten years.
Hu Zongnan had a simple style and no assets in his family, but now the loss of political power has put Hu Zongnan's family in a difficult situation, and their lives are so poor that they don't even have a refrigerator at home, and the family is very bleak.
Hu Zongnan's son Hu Weishan once said publicly: ".I remember when I was a child, my father would often take me to climb the mountain, and every time I went to the mountain, he would scream hoarsely by himself. At that time, I was young and didn't understand what he had been through, but when I grew up, I understood my father's unsatisfactory career, and maybe for him, death was a relief. ”
Yes, in the eyes of his son, his father hated him for not dying early.
Hu Zongnan's son Hu Weishan.
Due to long-term depression, Hu Zongnan suddenly suffered a heart attack in the early morning of February 14, 1962, and died at the age of 66.
The night before Hu Zongnan died, he raised his left arm and screamed several times, and his behavior was very strange and shocking.
Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that he died of depression.
[Conclusion].
Looking back on Hu Zongnan's life, it is not without merit.
As a high-ranking general of the Kuomintang, he was modest, simple, and loyal, and indeed an approachable and good officer. But as a military general, he did not have extraordinary courage and exquisite and meticulous combat ability.
Zhi Da is talented, obviously only has the talent of a division commander, but he was pushed to such a high position by Chiang Kai-shek, facing the top general *** marshal, how could Hu Zongnan be undefeated? And Hu Zongnan's old age was cold, depressed all day long, and his life was indeed desolate, as his son Hu Weishan said, the roar before death was not a relief.