In 1955, Wei Lihuang returned to the mainland, personally greeted and entertained.
Although he had always maintained contact with our army, on the eve of the founding of New China, he neither chose to stay on the mainland nor fled to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek, but chose to go to Hong Kong.
It was not until 6 years later that we finally returned to the mainland at our sincere invitation. So, why has Wei Lihuang's return to the mainland been so valued by us? Why did he choose to go to Hong Kong in the first place instead of staying on the mainland or going to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek?
Born in 1897, Wei Lihuang followed Sun Yat-sen into the revolution at an early age, and his seniority in the Kuomintang and his ability to fight earned him a high position during the Chiang Kai-shek period.
However, Chiang Kai-shek had always been wary of this prestigious veteran of the revolution, especially since Wei Lihuang was not his direct descendant, which made him both want to take advantage of it and not want to trust it completely.
Therefore, although Wei Lihuang was known as the "Five Tiger Generals", within the Kuomintang, his power was not high.
During the early reign of the Kuomintang, Wei Lihuang was sent to the northwest to deal with our army. At that time, his relationship with our party was not harmonious, and some members of our party were even hostile to him.
However, in the aftermath of the Xi'an incident, imprisoned Wei Lihuang's fears for the future reached a peak, and he felt that it would be difficult to survive the turmoil. However, amazingly, he miraculously survived.
This experience made Wei Lihuang deeply reflect on his mistakes and began to respect our party.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wei Lihuang resolutely supported the cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and was deeply dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek's first position, which naturally caused Chiang Kai-shek's rejection and caused his position in the Kuomintang to be unstable.
In addition to this proposition, Wei Lihuang also maintained friendly relations with many members of our party and even offered help privately. For example, **and**Every time he passes through Wei Lihuang's territory, Wei Lihuang will set up a special banquet to entertain him, and the two have a very personal relationship.
In April 1938, Wei Lihuang also accepted the invitation of *** to make a special detour to visit Yan'an, and stayed in the Yan'an area for three days. **Personally set up a luncheon to entertain him, drink and talk with him, and even take a group photo.
The trip to Yan'an gave Wei Lihuang a new understanding of the Chinese Communist Party, and he even began to explore how to join the Communist Party. After Chiang Kai-shek learned of this situation, his attitude towards Wei Lihuang became more and more cold.
Although Wei Lihuang's status was special and Chiang Kai-shek did not find conclusive evidence, his dislike and suppression of Wei Lihuang was real.
In 1941, because of the defeat in the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain, Chiang Kai-shek dismissed Wei Lihuang from his official position, and even cut him to the rank of general, and let him go to Xi'an to serve as the chief of staff of the Northwest Battalion.
Wei Lihuang understood in his heart the reason why Chiang Kai-shek did this, so he was deeply disappointed in Chiang Kai-shek. Soon after he arrived in Xi'an, he returned directly to Chengdu.
As a result of his arrangement, many of his relatives and friends have moved to live in Chengdu, where he has retired to take care of his mother. In this regard, ** also sent a special letter to Wei Lihuang to comfort him: "You are affected by us. ”
Compared with Chiang Kai-shek, such an attitude is simply a difference between heaven and earth, which also makes Wei Lihuang have a good impression of us. So, in the later period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, what did Wei Lihuang do?
Did he join our party?
In 1955, Wei Lihuang returned to the mainland, ** and ** personally greeted him, accompanied by six marshals. Under Chiang Kai-shek's suppression and arrangement, this figure, known as the "** Five Tiger Generals", lived idlely during the war, which made Wei Lihuang deeply dissatisfied.
So, how did Wei Lihuang return to the battlefield? What changes has he undergone in his relationship with our party? In the autumn of 1943, Chiang Kai-shek invited Wei Lihuang to Chongqing, restored him to the rank of general, and appointed him commander of the Chinese Expeditionary Force.
This position seemed important, but in reality, such an arrangement only allowed Wei Lihuang to move away from the power center of the Kuomintang and be sent directly to fight abroad.
Although Wei Lihuang was not too happy about such an arrangement, he did not resist it, because he understood that this was defending the country. Wei Lihuang had no intention of continuing to argue with Chiang Kai-shek.
However, to his surprise, his expedition turned out to be internationally famous. When Wei Lihuang organized the expeditionary force to carry out large-scale **, it happened to be photographed by an American reporter, who put ** into "Time Magazine" and successfully published it, making Wei Lihuang famous all over the world for a while.
After completing the task, Wei Lihuang seemed to have regained the feeling of fighting on the battlefield back then. After returning to China, he resolutely opposed Chiang Kai-shek's decision to let him stay in western Yunnan and not allow him to go to the front.
Over the next two months, he repeatedly pleaded to be transferred to the front, but Chiang Kai-shek ignored them. In fact, at this time Japan had been defeated, and Chiang Kai-shek had already acquired a large number of new ** through the United States and was preparing for a civil war.
Therefore, Wei Lihuang, a person who was originally close to us, Chiang Kai-shek naturally did not want to use him anymore and wanted to marginalize him as much as possible.
Although Chiang Kai-shek's position on Wei Lihuang was clear, after the defeat of the struggle, Wei Lihuang had to accept Chiang Kai-shek's arrangement to serve as the deputy commander of the army of the Western Yunnan Garrison Command.
This position sounds imposing, but in reality, Wei Lihuang's power is very limited, and his daily work is basically to communicate with former colleagues and foreign colleagues he knows.
It was during these exchanges that Wei Lihuang received an invitation from the United States to conduct military inspections in the United States and Europe.
Chiang Kai-shek saw the opportunity presented by this event, and he had the support of the United States behind him. Wei Lihuang was friends with many high-ranking American generals and received invitations in 1947, so it was feasible to use his relationship with the United States to win over the United States.
Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek approved Wei Lihuang's application to go to the United States and hoped that he would further strengthen relations with the United States. However, Chiang Kai-shek's attitude towards Wei Lihuang was very bad, and Wei Lihuang did not care about his demands at all.
He went to Europe and the United States just to reference and learn. Although he has military commanders around him, he will avoid them to deal with important matters.
At the time of the post, Wei Lihuang, through his wife's aunt and nephew-in-law Wang Dezhao, found the leaders of our students studying in France who had close ties with our party, established contacts, and clearly expressed his thoughts that Chiang Kai-shek's attitude towards the civil war was inconsistent and his support for our party.
We very much agree with Wei Lihuang's position and encourage him to be ready to contribute to the interests of the country and the people.
After returning from Europe and the United States, Wei Lihuang had already prepared plans for an uprising. At the same time, there was a golden opportunity within the Kuomintang that enabled Wei Lihuang to realize his plan.
So, after returning to China, what method did Wei Lihuang use to carry out the uprising? Later, why didn't he stay on the mainland, but moved to Hong Kong?
In 1955, Wei Lihuang returned to the mainland, **and** went to greet him in person, and ** even set up a banquet to entertain him. Due to the exclusion within the Kuomintang, after Chiang Kai-shek revealed obvious intentions for civil war, Wei Lihuang secretly contacted our party, hoping to work hand in hand with our party.
We warmly welcome Wei Lihuang's defection, after all, we have been connected for many years, and it is naturally best for him to join our camp. However, about Wei Lihuang's uprising, did it succeed or fail?
Why did he go to Hong Kong instead of staying on the mainland? Soon after Wei Lihuang returned to China, Chen Cheng in the northeast was defeated by the fierce attack of our army, and he lost all his soldiers in a battle, so Chiang Kai-shek had to choose new people to go to the northeast.
By this time, we had already entrenched ourselves in the northeast, and it would be a difficult task for them to resist our offensive.
After careful consideration, Chiang Kai-shek decided to transfer Wei Lihuang to the northeast, hoping that he would turn things around in the northeast. This move was partly due to Wei Lihuang's military prowess, and partly because in the hands of Chiang Kai-shek, there were not many candidates willing to take over this thorny Northeast issue.
For Wei Lihuang, this transfer may not have been ideal, although he had more convenient access to our army, but Chiang Kai-shek undoubtedly arranged for someone to contain him.
Although there is no clear record of the exact arrangement, it was indeed difficult for Wei Lihuang to fully command all the armies during his time in the northeast, so the likelihood of an uprising was greatly reduced.
Although a head-to-head confrontation is no longer possible, the choice of passive resistance still has its strategy. General Wei Lihuang deployed all his troops and horses in Shenyang, and no matter how the foreign enemy raged and how the outside world urged, he never moved.
Chiang Kai-shek was greatly dissatisfied with this move, but for Wei Lihuang, on the one hand, he did not want a civil war to break out and did not want to engage our army. On the other hand, he is also well versed in the quantity and quality of the northeast region, and it is difficult to confront our army, which has grown stronger.
As an important city in Northeast China, if Shenyang can't keep it, Wei Lihuang will leave irreparable regrets. On the contrary, if he chooses to send troops to rescue other places, but it leads to a total rout of the Kuomintang in the northeast, he will bear great responsibility.
Later, the main force of Shenyang ** was completely wiped out by our army in just six days, which also proved that Wei Lihuang's judgment was correct, and Chiang Kai-shek's strategy would not work in the northeast.
In 1948, Chiang Kai-shek personally flew to Shenyang because of the deterioration of the situation in Northeast China, lectured the ** in the Northeast, accused them of passively avoiding the war, and personally took over the command of the ** in the Northeast.
However, the situation in the Northeast at this time is irreparable, and a large number of ** are ready for an uprising, and some have even carried out an uprising. The strength of our army is too strong, and the situation in the northeast is irreversible.
In October 1948, the day before the fall of Shenyang, Wei Lihuang secretly left the northeast. However, upon his return to Shanghai, he was detained by Chiang Kai-shek under house arrest.
At that time, the Kuomintang had reached the point where it was exhausted, Chiang Kai-shek left the mess on the mainland and fled to Taiwan, and Li Zongren was forced to become the new **. He didn't care about this matter, but just ordered the removal of the people who were monitoring Wei Lihuang.
In order to protect his life and property, Wei Lihuang thought about it repeatedly, and finally decided to go to Hong Kong to avoid the limelight first. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, we also sent a special congratulatory telegram to Wei Lihuang and hoped that he would return to live on the mainland.
When Wei Lihuang found out that his name was on the list of Kuomintang war criminals, he felt a little worried, fearing that he would be imprisoned when he returned to the mainland.
However, ** assured him that as a friend who had met in Taiyuan, he welcomed Wei Lihuang home and encouraged him to return to the mainland.
Eventually, Wei Lihuang returned to the mainland in 1955 and was warmly welcomed by *** and ***. He was elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress and succeeded Long Yun as vice chairman of the National Defense Committee.
Wei Lihuang fought all his life for the country and the people, but died early due to physical reasons at the age of 64. He dedicated his life to protecting the land he loved so much, and finally passed away in his homeland, fulfilling his last wish.