In 1949, the fate of the Chinese people was turned upside down under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. The People's Liberation Army won a decisive victory in the contest with the Kuomintang army and established New China.
This event played a groundbreaking role in the development of Chinese history. Although the defeat was the result of a concerted effort by history, from a military point of view, Chiang Kai-shek, as the actual military commander, undoubtedly bore great responsibility.
In 1936, when an American journalist interviewed him in Yan'an, he asked him what he thought of Chiang Kai-shek as a soldier. ** Chiang Kai-shek, a poor layman as a tactician, was perhaps slightly better in terms of strategy.
He relied too much on the high morale and fighting spirit of his soldiers, and in the Battle of Wuhan, he used Napoleonic tactics to attack enemy fortifications, which resulted in the total crushing of his own troops.
In the summer of 1926, **met in Guangzhou**, they talked about the situation of the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army. The Whampoa Military Academy was established by Sun Yat-sen in Guangzhou, and after the establishment of the Nationalist Army, the names of the local armies were changed to the National Revolutionary Army.
The First Army, formed by Whampoa students, was commanded by Chiang Kai-shek. On July 9, 1926, the National Revolutionary Army officially launched the Northern Expedition, with 8 armies. Although the ideological understanding of everyone was not completely unanimous at that time, they all joined the revolutionary army, and their goal was to overthrow the warlords and achieve national reunification.
In the early days of the Northern Expedition, the National Revolutionary Army achieved a series of victories, they divided into three routes, defeated Wu Peifu's army, occupied a number of cities, and fought a decisive battle with Wu Peifu's main force at Tingsi Bridge and Hesheng Bridge in Hubei.
The army also defeated Sun Chuanfang in Jiangxi and Jiangsu. In August 1926, Wu Peifu's direct army suffered a crushing defeat in southern Hunan, and the rest retreated to Wuhan.
At that time, Wuhan concentrated three divisions under Wu Peifu's direct line. ** The siege operation in which Chiang Kai-shek commanded a division was actually supposed to be the Battle of Wuchang. After entering the Hubei War, the National Revolutionary Army basically won successive battles, especially in the Battle of Wuhan, successively attacked Hankou and Hanyang, and the only thing that was more difficult to conquer was Wuchang City.
The city of Wuchang has strong walls and moats, with snake mountains overlooking the city, and the flat terrain outside the city makes it easy to defend and difficult to attack. In the city, Wu Peifu's direct army was stationed with more than 10,000 people, which made Wuchang City impregnable.
However, for Wuchangcheng, Chiang Kai-shek initially hoped for a strategy of quick victory.
In 1926, the Northern Expeditionary Army went on a heroic expedition, but suffered setbacks in the battle to capture Wuchang. On August 31, the Northern Expeditionary Army pursued the victory and reached the city of Wuchang, but because the siege stairs were not long enough, the soldiers became live targets.
In desperation, Li Zongren ordered a retreat. Having learned the lessons of their previous defeat, the Northern Expeditionary Army attacked Wuchang again on 3 September with a long ladder, but this time they underestimated the weight of the long ladder.
Each one is about two zhang long and weighs more than 100 catties, and it must be connected by two to build a bamboo ladder about three or four zhang long. During the siege of the city, the brave team advanced, but on the snake mountain in the city, the defenders' artillery bombarded fiercely, and the soldiers could not lift the long ladder weighing more than 100 catties, so they had to retreat.
On the evening of September 3, Chiang Kai-shek personally rushed to the Yujiawan railway station to direct the operation, and ordered the capture of Wuchang within 48 hours. However, he did not take into account the actual situation when giving the order, and in addition to offering a large bounty, he did not solve the problem of siege equipment.
FigAt about 3 o'clock in the morning of September 5, the Northern Expeditionary Army launched another attack on Wuchang City, but it was still unable to break through the defenders in the city.
Chiang Kai-shek realized that Wuchang was easy to defend and difficult to attack after making great sacrifices, and Sun Chuanfang formed a five-province coalition army to enter Jiangxi one after another, so he ordered the main force of the Northern Expeditionary Army to be transferred to Jiangxi, and took advantage of Sun Chuanfang's unstable foothold to defeat them one step ahead of them, and adopted a siege strategy for Wuchang City.
After more than 40 days of siege, the Northern Expeditionary Army finally successfully captured the city of Wuchang. However, Chiang Kai-shek did not fully learn from this defeat. The Northern Expeditionary Army, which entered the Jiangxi battlefield, still faced many difficulties, and again made command errors in the later Battle of Nanchang.
**Yes** talked about the situation after Chiang Kai-shek led the Northern Expeditionary Army to Jiangxi: "In Nanchang, he repeated that mistake again. He attacked the city defended by Sun Chuanfang and refused to wait for reinforcements and used his first division.
Sun Chuanfang retreated, allowing Chiang Kai-shek to enter part of the city, and then counterattacked, driving Chiang's army into a trap between the city walls and the river. Chiang's army was wiped out. Chiang Kai-shek had three divisions, the 1st, 2nd and 21st Divisions, but he only used the first division.
** (now Chief of Staff of the Red Army in the Eastern Crusade) commanded the 21st Division at that time. Chiang's stupidity disgusted Ye and he left his command soon after. ”
After the Northern Expeditionary Army confronted Wu Peifu in Wuchang, Chiang Kai-shek led the main force of the Northern Expeditionary Army into Jiangxi, and this order was issued in a very timely manner. At that time, Sun Chuanfang's army was not ready, and the Northern Expeditionary Army won victory after victory in Jiangxi.
However, Chiang Kai-shek made a mistake when he noticed that despite the successive victories of the Northern Expeditionary Army, Sun Chuanfang's army still controlled Nanchang, Jiujiang, and key points along the Nanxun Railway.
He hurriedly issued an order: "Capture Nanchang in a week, arrive at Jiujiang within ten days, contact Hubei Province, and then join Zhongzhou." The idea was good, but he ignored the reality that the main forces of the Northern Expeditionary Army had not yet fully arrived, and Sun Chuanfang still had a military advantage.
On September 19, the Northern Expeditionary Army, under Chiang Kai-shek's unrealistic orders, attacked Nanchang. After two days of fierce fighting, the defending enemy was completely annihilated. However, Sun Chuanfang convened a military meeting in Jiujiang and demanded that Nanchang be recaptured at all costs.
Three days later, under the supervision of Sun Chuanfang, the Northern Expeditionary Army paid heavy sacrifices and failed to hold Nanchang. Despite the gains and losses of Nanchang, Chiang Kai-shek did not give up the idea of completely seizing Nanchang.
However, he completely ignored the objective facts and was interfered by Sun Chuanfang, so that the second battle of Nanchang was still a failure. On October 4, Chiang Kai-shek ordered an attack on Nanchang.
This time, although the Northern Expeditionary Army adopted the strategy and tactics of step-by-step and achieved certain advantages in the process of attacking, Sun Chuanfang hoarded heavy troops here in order to hold Nanchang.
More critically, Chiang Kai-shek did not pay attention to controlling the Nanxun Railway in time during the siege, which led to Sun Chuanfang being able to send a steady stream of reinforcements.
In the duel between Sun Chuanfang's Northern Expeditionary Army and the defenders of Nanchang City, Chiang Kai-shek had to order the withdrawal of the siege of Nanchang. This defeat caused Chiang Kai-shek's prestige to plummet, and he was greatly frustrated in several exchanges with the Soviet military adviser Gallen.
His frustration led him to even threaten to commit suicide, but eventually recovered his emotions with Gallon's comfort. With the assistance of Soviet advisers, he remobilized his army, captured Jiujiang, and the Chinese Communist Party launched an armed workers' uprising in Shanghai, which made Sun Chuanfang realize that the defeat was assured, and he fled back to Nanjing.
** Chiang Kai-shek was not a qualified tactician, but he was perhaps better as a strategist. Because in Chiang Kai-shek's semi-colonial and semi-feudal period in China, his military thinking not only inherited traditional Chinese culture, but also integrated the bourgeois military thinking of Europe and the United States and other countries.
He emphasized the importance of national defense, believing that there would be no country without national defense, and his set of ideas laid the foundation for the later War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, especially when Japan's military strength was strong, he paid more attention to the construction of the strategic rear, and clearly put forward the policy of defensive national defense, and built the whole society into a fighting body.
Chiang Kai-shek believed that army building was the core of nation-building, and paid special attention to army building. He put forward the theory of educating soldiers and super-educating cadres, believing that generals fighting wars are fighting generals, so he established the first army officer school, the army university and the military branch school, and personally served as the president.
He also established officer training corps to strengthen the education of officers, based on military tasks in different periods. At the same time, he also paid attention to the modernization of the armed forces, introduced technical arms from European and American countries, and established a wartime joint logistics system to facilitate the supply of various services and arms.
In addition, he also organized the navy and air force, and put forward the slogan of "three points military, seven points political" to cooperate with military construction.
* The orders are made by geniuses, but they are carried out by fools. ”
Chiang Kai-shek's strategy in the early days of the civil war was supposed to be a quick victory, and it was not a wrong decision. He knew very well that there were many factions in the Kuomintang, and the protracted war was not good for him. Therefore, he formulated detailed tactical guidance, such as maintaining the marching speed based on the strength of the first brigade, and strictly adhering to tactical principles, such as the deployment of avant-garde and flanker guards.
In addition, he also has specific tactical guidance, such as "pocket tactics", "anti-pocket tactics", "strong wall clearing", "active attack", "attack in defense", "attack in defense", etc.
However, these mechanized orders could not cope with the rapidly changing battlefield, and due to the underdeveloped communications, the battlefield situation was ever-changing, even if Chiang Kai-shek gave instructions and issued orders based on reports from the front, the situation may have changed by the time the orders were issued, and the commander of the division sometimes knew that Chiang's orders were wrong for fear of being judged by military law.
Guo Rugui and Li Zongren have said that due to limited communication technology and the rapid change of battlefield conditions, although Chiang Kai-shek would guide the army according to the reports from the front, in practice the orders issued were often outdated.
Some military commanders feared being court-martialed, and even if they knew that the order was wrong, they did so. Because of this problem, the generals of the ** system generally knew that Chiang's orders often led to failure.
However, they are afraid that not carrying out orders will lead to bigger problems. Therefore, they chose to put Chiang Kai-shek under direct command, and in case of defeat, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief would be responsible.
In such cases, the strategy of the Kuomintang army was often not the best, and the capabilities of the generals were also limited. Although generals such as Hu Zongnan and Liu Zhi made a difference on the battlefield, under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, their talents gradually disappeared.
During the War of Liberation, the only Kuomintang general who could be mentioned was Du Yuming, whom Chiang Kai-shek had high hopes for and served as a firefighting captain in the three major battles.
On August 3, 1948, Chiang Kai-shek held a military conference in Nanjing, and he was bitter about his generals: "Why can't you have a little ability to be independent. ”
In order to respond to the call of the principal, Du Yuming put forward a campaign plan, hoping to concentrate the main force in East China and the Central Plains Field Army, strike at the enemy, restore Shandong, contain the first bandit in Central China, and prevent it from being transferred to the east.
This plan seemed feasible at the time, but when Du Yuming went to Gu Zhutong for approval with the plan, he was met with a cold reception, and Gu Zhutong did not dare to approve the plan.
At this time, Chiang Kai-shek suddenly changed his mind, saw the crisis in Jinzhou, and stopped Du Yuming and asked him not to implement this plan. In this way, under the repeated deliberations of Chiang Kai-shek and Gu Zhutong, hundreds of thousands of Kuomintang troops in Xuzhou stopped in place and could not move, missing important fighters.
Chiang Kai-shek's personal ** led to the defeat of the Kuomintang army, and Du Yuming had a deep understanding of this. He believed that Chiang could not concentrate on the overall situation, and only relied on a report from the official residence and subjective and arbitrary instructions every day to command, resulting in the inability of the commander of the forward troops to comply, and even the crime of disobeying orders.
In addition, the various feudal factions in the Chiang clique constrained each other, only cared about the small collective, did not care about the whole, only wanted to save themselves, and did not care about the overall situation.
This kind of contradictory struggle ran through the entire process of the Kuomintang army's operations.