Liu Zhiqi is one of the more unique generals. The battlefield performance of this person's life, before and after judging the two people, Liu Zhi in the early stage, brave and good at fighting, repeatedly made military exploits, and was known as the "victorious general" in the army; In the later period, Liu Zhi was repeatedly defeated, criticized and contemptuously called "a pig". How did Liu Zhi degenerate step by step from a victorious general to "a pig", and what did he go through?
During the warlord melee period, Liu Zhi can be called a famous general on the battlefield: during the Eastern Expedition to Chen Jiongming, he went into battle shirtless in the face of crisis and became famous in the first battle; During the Northern Expedition to Sun Chuanfang, he led his troops to rescue Longtan, turned the tide, and saved the fate of the Gui family; When he "encircled and suppressed" the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Red Army, he took it step by step, combining advance and suppression, and forced the Red Fourth Front Army to withdraw from Hubei, Henan, and Anhui; In the Jiang-Gui War, he attacked Wuhan by waterway, and broke the famous generals Tao Jun and Hu Zongduo of the Gui Army; During the Central Plains War, he fought fiercely in central Henan, and played the prestige of "victorious general".
Such a famous general, in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, but degenerated into a "long-legged general" known for being good at escaping, and during the War of Liberation, Liu Zhi "went to the next level" and became "a pig stationed in Xuzhou" in Qiu Qingquan's mouth. Why did Liu Zhi have such a battlefield performance that was like two people before and after? The reason is actually quite simple: this time and that time. Liu Zhi's ability is only suitable for the level of warlord melee, and he can only deal with the old army, and when facing the Japanese army with strong combat effectiveness and the well-organized People's Liberation Army, he is unable to support it.
One: Liu Zhi's ability to win many battles in the warlord melee relied on his understanding of the old army.
Liu Zhi, whose name is Jingfu, was born on June 30, 1892 in Miaobei Village, Ji'an County, Jiangxi Province. Liu Zhi's family was poor, when he was a child, his father had a dispute with the landlord's family, was beaten to death, his mother was forced to make a living, remarried the owner of the firecracker shop, not long after, the owner of the firecracker shop died of illness, Liu's mother remarried again and retired Huang Xiaoshan.
His mother remarried three times and twice, his father and stepfather died one after another, and the young Liu Zhi tasted the bitterness of the world. When Liu Zhi grew up, his stepfather Huang Xiaoshan took him on a trip to Japan, just in time for the strike movement organized by Chinese students, and Liu Zhi's dream of studying abroad suddenly came to naught. After returning to China, Liu Zhi was admitted to the Hunan Army Primary School, and after graduation, he was promoted to the Wuchang Army Middle School.
After the Xinhai Revolution, Liu Zhi was admitted to the gendarmerie and worked as an errand in Nanchang, during which he participated in the Second Revolution, and after the failure of the Second Revolution, Liu Zhi was admitted to the Infantry Department of the Baoding Military Academy and became a cadet in the second phase. After being admitted to the Baoding Military Academy, Liu Zhi was full of pride, and the Baoding Military Academy had the reputation of "the cradle of famous generals", and he undoubtedly had a bright future in the army as a top student of this military academy.
The ideal is very plump, the reality is very skinny, Liu Zhi graduated from the Baoding Military Academy, and immediately experienced the cruelty and ruthlessness of reality. After graduating from the Baoding Military Academy, Liu Zhi was assigned to the Kaiping Patrol Battalion in eastern Hebei as a trainee platoon commander, Liu Zhi is a southerner, the language, customs and northerners are very different, and he was discriminated against in the Kaiping Patrol Battalion.
Soon, Liu Zhi went south to Guangdong, first as a captain and staff officer in Cen Chunxuan's Guardian Headquarters, and then as a company commander in Zhu Peide's Department of the Yunnan Army. In 1921, Liu Zhi was appreciated by Chen Jiongming and was transferred to the Guangdong Army as a major adjutant. In 1922, Chen Jiongming betrayed Sun Yat-sen, Liu Zhi left Chen Jiongming's troops and returned to Guangdong, and was sent to Xu Chongzhi's East Road Thief Army Headquarters as a lieutenant colonel staff officer and captain of the guards.
In just five or six years, Liu Zhi successively served in the Eastern Jiangxi Patrol Battalion, the Guard, the Yunnan Army, the Jiangxi Army, and the Guangdong Army, with ups and downs, shuttling among the various warlord teams, and having a deep understanding of the characteristics of these old armies, which was his biggest capital in the warlord melee in the future.
The experience of being excluded many times made Liu Zhi understand a truth, if you want to survive in the army, there is only one way: form a gang. After the establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy, Liu Zhi was nominated by He Yingqin to serve as a tactical instructor and chief of staff. With He Yingqin's rise step by step, Liu Zhi's status is also rising.
In 1924, Liu Zhi was promoted to lieutenant colonel battalion commander, in 1925, he was promoted to colonel regiment commander, and in 1926, he was promoted to the commander of the second division of teaching, stationed in Guangzhou. After becoming the commander of the division, Liu Zhi vigorously promoted Jiang Dingwen, Chen Jiji and other Baoding Military Academy classmates, and gradually formed a powerful Baoding group. In the Zhongshan ship incident in July 1926, Liu Zhi actively responded to Lao Jiang and vigorously purged our party members in the Second Division, winning the trust of Lao Jiang in one fell swoop.
At this time, Liu Zhi had his own Baoding group militarily, and politically had Lao Jiang's trust as the backstage, and he was tied up with He Yingqin as a backer among his colleagues, plus he knew the characteristics of other warlord troops well, and he was already ready for everything, only owing Dongfeng, waiting to kill the Quartet on the battlefield.
In December 1928, Tang Shengzhi telegraphed against Chiang in Henan, and the Chiang-Tang War broke out. Tang Shengzhi's opposition to Chiang triggered a series of chain reactions, and warlords such as Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, and He Jian watched the fire from across the strait, eager to try, just waiting to take advantage of the old Jiang. Liu Zhi had just defeated Zhang Zongchang at this time and garrisoned Jinan. Lao Jiang gave Liu Zhi an order: if he can, he will fight, and if he can't, he will simply return to Nanjing to preserve his strength.
In the face of Lao Jiang's worries, Liu Zhi only smiled slightly, he knew Tang Shengzhi's army situation well, and had already thought of a strategy to break the enemy. Tang Shengzhi was originally just a local separatist force in Hunan, and after taking refuge in the Northern Expedition, he developed and grew after taking refuge in the national **, and in the Tang-Gui War, Tang Shengzhi was defeated by Bai Chongxi and was forced to go to the wilderness, and his Hunan army was also pocketed by the Gui family.
After the outbreak of the Jiang-Gui War, the old Jiang Qi used Tang Shengzhi to recruit the old department of the Anxiang army, and the Gui warlords who were strong outside and capable in the middle collapsed instantly, and Tang Shengzhi took charge of the old department and re-emerged. Lao Jiang was not at ease with Tang Shengzhi, sent his troops to the Henan front, and plotted to transfer Tang Shengzhi from the army to Nanjing to take up an idle post.
Tang Shengzhi knew this, so he secretly conspired with Shi Yousan against Jiang. All of this was seen by Liu Zhi: Tang Shengzhi's troops are mothers if they have milk, they can follow Tang Shengzhi, they can also take refuge in the Gui family, and naturally they can also take refuge in Liu Zhi.
Liu Zhi adopted a three-pronged strategy, on the one hand, he used a lot of money to buy Tang Shengzhi's subordinates, and on the other hand, he instigated a division of the Shaanxi Army to attack Tang Shengzhi from behind. Tang Shengzhi has only been in charge of the army for a short year, can he withstand such an offensive? Soon he was defeated.
Tang Shengzhi was quickly defeated by Liu Zhi, Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang and others did not dare to act rashly, and Lao Jiang struck while the iron was hot, saying that Zhang Xueliang would send troops against Tang. Shi Yousan was originally a wall-riding faction, and when he saw that Tang Shengzhi was unlucky, he immediately "abandoned the darkness and turned to the light", and raised the anti-Tang banner high, and the Tang army was defeated, Tang Shengzhi abandoned the troops and absconded in disguise. At this point, the war between Chiang and Tang came to an end.
In the subsequent Central Plains War, Liu Zhi once again exerted his might, breaking the troops of Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan, and since then he has become a victorious general and a lucky general in the army. Liu Zhi was able to win many battles in the warlord melee because of his in-depth knowledge of these warlord forces, which were in the twilight of Qin and Chu and were loosely organized.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in the face of the well-organized and well-equipped Japanese army, Liu Zhi's tricks were useless, and his performance was naturally a mess.
2: In the War of Resistance Against Japan, Liu Zhi's weaknesses were completely exposed, and he became a defeated general from then on
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Liu Zhi successively served as the deputy commander of the First Theater and the commander-in-chief of the Second Group Army, the commander-in-chief of the Chongqing garrison, and the commander of the Fifth Theater.
In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, Liu Zhi served as the deputy commander of the First Theater of Operations, and led his troops to garrison Baoding and guard the Pinghan Railway. After the loss of Beiping and Tianjin, the Japanese army marched south in three ways and forced North China. Liu Zhi sat in Baoding and strategized, he arranged three lines of defense in Liangxiang, Gu'an, Mentougou and other places, and the three miscellaneous armies of Sun Lianzhong, Wan Fulin and Sun Dianying were stationed respectively, and the main force of the ** army was stuck in Zhuozhou and Baoding, waiting for the best opportunity to meet the Japanese army.
Liu Zhi's command method is actually the same as dealing with the warlord troops, with the main force of the ** army as the rear hand, first use the miscellaneous army to drag the other party, both consume the miscellaneous army and consume the enemy, kill two birds with one stone, and wait until the miscellaneous army is almost done, Liu Zhi then leads the elite of the ** army to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop.
It's a pity that Japan is not a warlord army, and the course of the battle was unexpected by Liu Zhi. It only took one day for the Japanese army to crush the Wan Fulin division in Gu'an, and after that, the Japanese army suddenly made a detour from Gu'an, penetrated directly into Baoding, and advanced to Liu Zhi's headquarters. Liu Zhi was so frightened that he hurriedly led the main force of the ** army to flee south along Ping'an Road, and Sun Lianzhong, Sun Dianying and others also retreated along Taihang Mountain. The three lines of defense deployed by Liu Zhi have completely become a laughing stock.
Afterwards, Liu Zhi handed over his military power and was transferred to Luoyang as the director of the Recruit Supervision and Training Office. In 1939, Liu Zhi was transferred to the commander of the Chongqing garrison, and in Chongqing, he was once again accused by thousands of people and became a sinner of the nation.
Chongqing is the capital of the people, located in the rear, Liu Zhi, the commander of the garrison, basically has nothing to do except for occasionally dealing with the bombing of Japanese planes. The pampered life made Liu Zhi completely degenerate, and he began to change his ways to make money. In 1939, Liu Zhi established the air defense force under the banner of strengthening the air defense force, and the air defense force actually did not have many newcomers, most of them were concurrently served by the soldiers of the Chongqing Garrison Command, and most of the military salaries issued by the national ** to the air defense force fell into Liu Zhi's pocket.
In June 1941, the Japanese army launched a carpet bombing of Chongqing, and some citizens of Chongqing were not prepared enough to evacuate after receiving the air defense alarm, and rushed into the public air defense tunnel in the city.
This tunnel can only accommodate 5,000 people in peacetime, and tens of thousands of people poured in at once, and they were suddenly overwhelmed, with the continuous bombing of the Japanese army, the temperature in the tunnel is getting higher and higher, and the citizens in the tunnel are full of fever, lack of oxygen, and dizziness, and fall into a chaos. The Japanese bombing lasted for 10 hours, and nearly 10,000 citizens died in the tunnel because of the severe lack of oxygen, which was the "Chongqing Tunnel**" that shocked China and the world
* After the incident, Liu Zhi was sent to a military court, but under the mediation of He Yingqin, Liu Zhi was only removed from his post and was not punished in any way.
In January 1944, Li Zongren stepped down as commander of the Fifth Theater of Operations, and Lao Chiang sent Liu Zhi from Chongqing to Laohekou to replace Li Zongren. As soon as Liu Zhi took office in the Fifth War Zone, the Japanese army captured Laohekou, and Liu Zhi once again played the true character of a long-legged general, leading his troops to retreat to Caodian, relying on the danger of the Han River to survive.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Liu Zhi exposed his Achilles' heel: his tactics were seriously backward. In the face of the Japanese army with strong combat effectiveness, Liu Zhi still used the same set of tactics when the warlords were fighting, first using the miscellaneous army to defend frontally, and then using the ** army to attack, but unfortunately the combat effectiveness of the Japanese army exceeded Liu Zhi's imagination, they acted quickly and well-organized, and when fighting with the Japanese army, Liu Zhi often did not react, and the Japanese army had already attacked under his nose, so his response strategy was often only one: escape. Since then, the victorious general has become an escape general, and the lucky general has become a mourning star.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Liu Zhi not only fought against Japan and was repeatedly defeated, but also created the "Chongqing Tunnel" when he was the commander of the Chongqing garrison, killing nearly 10,000 civilians, which can be called a sinner of the nation. However, relying on the trust of He Yingqin and Patron and Lao Jiang, Liu Zhi's status was not affected at all, but he was promoted to the commander of the Fifth Theater, and the corruption of the national ** can be seen.
Three: In the face of the People's Liberation Army, which has super combat effectiveness, Liu Zhi frequently made fools, won the nickname of "a pig", and completely became a pig general
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Liu Zhi was appointed by Lao Chiang as the director of the Zhengzhou Pacification Office, and commanded the troops of the First and Fifth Theaters to attack the liberated areas north along the Pinghan Road. In September 1946, Liu Zhi gathered ten divisions and 100,000 local troops, totaling 300,000 troops, to besiege the Central Plains Field Army.
On September 6, under the unified command of Commander *** and Political Commissar Deng, Nakano launched the Battle of Dingtao, completely annihilated the enemy's reorganized Third Division, captured Lieutenant General Zhao Xitian alive, and smashed Liu Zhi's conspiracy in one fell swoop. After the war, Zhao Xitian's wife accused Liu Zhi of not saving him when he saw death, and sued Liu Zhi to the Ministry of National Defense in Nanjing.
After repeated scandals in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, Lao Jiang finally couldn't bear Liu Zhi anymore and pushed it to the end, it seems that Liu Zhi's military career is coming to an end, but the strange thing is that two years later, Lao Jiang suddenly used Liu Zhi again.
In June 1948, Lao Jiang rejected Du Yuming's strategy of "preemptive strike in Xuzhou and Bengbu", transferred Du Yuming to the northeast, commanded the withdrawal of troops from Huludao, and handed over the important task of presiding over Xuzhou's military affairs to Liu Zhi.
It is difficult to understand why Lao Jiang suddenly used Liu Zhi, who had been out of the army for two years since he was removed from his post after the Battle of Dingtao, and Liu Zhi's performance in the early days of the Liberation War was very poor, and he was not an indispensable person like Du Yuming.
For Lao Jiang's arrangement, even Ms. Song Meiling couldn't stand it, she once persuaded Lao Jiang: "You use Liu Zhi, there is a lot of gossip outside, I'm afraid it's not appropriate for him to come out to command the battle again, right?" ”
Lao Jiang sighed and said, "Liu Zhi is really not good at fighting, but he is obedient, tell me, who among the generals is more obedient than Liu Zhi?" ”
"Obedience" is the first principle of Lao Jiang's use of generals, and the generals of Lao Jiang's lineage, such as Du Yuming, Liu Zhi, Gu Zhutong, Hu Zongnan, and others, are all "obedient" generals who obey his words, and for Lao Jiang, who likes to dictate to the battle, "obedience" is far more important than "being able to fight", which is why Wang Yaowu, Sun Liren, and others, who are brave and good at fighting, can only watch from the wall for most of the time of the Liberation War.
After learning that Liu Zhi was going to take up the post of general manager of Xuzhou, Qiu Qingquan looked disdainful, and he said to his colleagues: "Xuzhou is the north gate of Nanjing, and the chairman of the committee should appoint a tiger to garrison in the future." Even if you don't send a tiger, at least you should send a dog, but the chairman sent a pig, and I don't think this north gate can be guarded. The former victorious general is now ridiculed as "a pig", I don't know how Liu Zhi feels.
After Liu Zhi came to Xuzhou, he quickly "repaid" Lao Jiang's trust with a series of sassy operations. At the beginning of the battle, he ordered Huang Baitao to lead his troops to Xuzhou, and when Huang Baitao marched to Xin'an Town, he ordered Huang Baitao to stop marching and wait for the 44th Army to return.
In this way, Huang Baitao waited in Xin'an Town for two days, and fell into the encirclement of our East China Field Army, with a fierce battle in Shuangduiji, Huang Baitao's group was wiped out, and Liu Zhi's operation not only buried Huang Baitao, who could fight well, but also buried the 25th Army with strong combat effectiveness.
When Du Yuming rushed to the front line in Xuzhou from the northeast, Huang Baitao's group had been surrounded, and even if Du Yuming had three heads and six arms, it was difficult to recover the defeat. With a series of riotous operations by Lao Jiang, the Huang Wei Group and the Du Yuming Group were completely annihilated one after another, the main force in the Huaihai area was lost, and the Jiang dynasty also sounded the death knell.
Liu Zhi's degradation from a victorious general to a pig seems accidental, but in fact it is inevitable. Liu Zhi's military quality is very poor, he can win the battle in the warlord melee, mainly relying on political offensives, to the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation, political offensives are useless, Liu Zhi's lame military quality is completely exposed, General Pig, General Long Legs is the true embodiment of his battlefield ability.
After the liberation of the country, Liu Zhi first settled in Hong Kong, but was forced to move to Indonesia because he was blackmailed by his former subordinates. In order to make ends meet, Liu Zhi found a job as a middle school teacher, and his life was very poor. Later, Lao Chiang recalled Liu Zhi to Taiwan and let him take up some idle positions that only received a salary and did not work, so that Liu Zhi could enjoy his old age in peace. I have to say that Lao Jiang is indeed good to this descendant general.