In 1938, in the aftermath of the Wenxi fire in Changsha, the people punished the three local leaders, Xu Kun and Wen Chongfu, by shooting them in public.
However, despite this, their subjugation still could not calm the dissatisfaction of the society with the trial of the case. The reason for this is that it is widely believed that Zhang Zhizhong, chairman of Hunan Province, as the chief responsible person, should also be responsible for this.
However, this red man under Chiang Kai-shek escaped punishment because of Chiang's extrajudicial mercy. Zhang Zhizhong was a man who knew how to repay his kindness, and he remembered Chiang's kindness to him deeply.
Unexpectedly, however, eleven years later, their position changed ......
Zhang Zhizhong, born in 1890, after graduating from the Baoding Military Academy, he defected to Mr. Sun Yat-sen in Guangzhou, went through hardships, and finally came to run after the establishment of the Whampoa Military Academy, and was appreciated and reused by Chiang Kai-shek, becoming a hot figure in the Kuomintang.
It can be said that Chiang Kai-shek was Zhang Zhizhong's Bole on the road of life, and he was full of gratitude and willingly followed him. However, with the rupture of relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, Zhang Zhizhong recognized Chiang Kai-shek's long-hidden true colors.
What was once a "red general" is now a white executioner with blood on his hands. Zhang Zhizhong was in a dilemma, on the one hand, because of his kindness to Chiang Kai-shek, even if he risked his life, it was not enough to repay him; On the other hand, he was friendly with the Communists, and if he assisted Chiang Kai-shek in his ** against the Communists, he would have a bad conscience for the rest of his life.
After a fierce inner struggle, Zhang Zhizhong made an either/or decision: he would neither obey Chiang Kai-shek's order to "suppress the Communists" nor betray his convictions.
Therefore, he chose jobs such as military education, far from the political center, to ensure that he was not implicated. However, this also means that he is completely denied military exploits and future opportunities.
Although Chiang Kai-shek knew that Chang had "pro-Communist" tendencies, he did not expect that Chang would rather sacrifice his future than stick to his principles. Perhaps because of his past friendships, or perhaps for other reasons, Chiang still gave Zhang Zhizhong the important task of putting him in charge of personnel work within the Kuomintang.
As a result, Zhang Zhizhong became the only senior Kuomintang general who did not fight against the Red Army that year, which was also Chiang's acquiescence to him in a sense. Their relationship is very complicated, they are both mentor and apprentice, friends, comrades and allies.
After the Xi'an Incident, Zhang Zhizhong, in order to ensure Chiang Kai-shek's safety and promote reconciliation between the two parties, resolutely fought against the main fighting faction in the Kuomintang, and finally contributed to the peaceful settlement of the incident, so that the Kuomintang and the Communist Party could unite together to resist Japan.
After the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhang Zhizhong successively served as the commander of the Songhu garrison and the fourth commander of the Ninth Group Army, responsible for directing the bloody battle with the Japanese army in Shanghai. However, due to Chiang Kai-shek's hope for diplomatic mediation by the foreign powers, Zhang Zhizhong lost many opportunities to strike first.
As the Japanese army continued to increase its troops in Shanghai, the battle situation in the Battle of Songhu became more and more sluggish, and finally forced Zhang Zhizhong to resign with hatred.
1.The relationship between Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Zhizhong became suspicious because of one thing. In 1938, in the name of the "Scorched Earth War of Resistance", the national ** created a Changsha Wenxi fire incident that shocked China and foreign countries.
The fire reduced the city of Changsha to rubble and killed a large number of citizens. Zhang Zhizhong, who was the chairman of Hunan Province at the time, was the main person in charge of ordering the fire, and due to a misjudgment of the situation, the fire broke out ahead of schedule, causing serious losses to people and property.
Although Zhang Zhizhong could not escape the blame, Chiang Kai-shek only gave him a punishment that could not be lighter, and put the main responsibility on several other Changsha **. However, after the limelight passed, Chiang Kai-shek placed Zhang Zhizhong in an important post.
This shows Chiang Kai-shek's special preference for Zhang Zhizhong. 2.After the Battle of Huaihai, the Kuomintang was gone, and Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi joined forces to force Chiang Kai-shek to go into the wilderness and try to start peace talks with the CCP.
But Chiang Kai-shek, who "retired" to his hometown in Xikou, did not give up power, and he still had influence in Nanjing, so he secretly controlled the political situation within the Kuomintang. Zhang Zhizhong, on the other hand, had a friendly relationship with the Communist Party and was always committed to achieving an armistice and peace between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, such as in the Chongqing negotiations in the early days of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.
As the war of liberation progressed, Zhang Zhizhong realized that in order to achieve peace, Chiang Kai-shek must be removed as the greatest obstacle. However, his deep relationship with Chiang Kai-shek led him to retreat to the next best thing and tried to persuade him to go abroad.
On March 3, 1949, Zhang Zhizhong visited Chiang Kai-shek, but the other party knew his intentions and insisted that he would not go into exile and only wanted to live in his freely chosen hometown. Zhang Zhizhong had no choice but to swallow the matter for the time being.
Although Chiang Kai-shek's attitude eventually softened, he still did not make clear his intention for peace talks. Zhang Zhizhong's second visit to Xikou was when he showed Chiang Kai-shek the draft peace talks and hoped to find out his true views.
To his surprise, Chiang Kai-shek had no obvious resistance to the peace talks, and after reading them, he readily expressed his support and reminded Zhang Zhizhong to be careful. Although Zhang Zhizhong's first visit was fruitless, his second effort was met with a positive response.
Mr. Wenbai, you can be regarded as an old friend of our Communists. When I was in Chongqing, thanks to your love, I have never been able to repay it. Today you are here, please be sure to let me do the friendship of the landlord!
But I'm afraid I'll only be able to serve you home-cooked meals, so don't be surprised. Zhang Zhizhong was relieved to hear that *** was still so cordial, and he was full of expectations for the peace talks.
Despite this, ** still insisted on his opinion: "Regardless of the outcome of the peace talks, the PLA must cross the river." Hearing this, Zhang Zhixin was a little apprehensive, and he tried to find out the attitude of the Communist Party towards Chiang Kai-shek from ***.
He said: "Chiang Kai-shek has gone into the wilderness, and he told me privately that if peace is achieved through negotiations, he is willing to spend the rest of his life in his hometown and never set foot in ** again." Smiling, he knew his old rival.
After years of struggle, Chiang Kai-shek was now willing to withdraw completely, and he doubted this, but it was inconvenient to point it out to his face, so he kept silent. However, Zhang Zhizhong mistakenly thought that he was satisfied with this, so he further said: "In order to ensure the smooth progress of the peace talks between the two parties, I hope that Mr. Mao will be merciful and not write the issue of 'war criminals' into the terms of the peace talks." ”
Hearing this, ** frowned, because as early as March 26, he had already proposed to Nanjing, asking them to proceed on the basis of the eight conditions for peace talks he had proposed.
The first of these conditions was to "punish war criminals", and Chiang Kai-shek, as the number one war criminal, had the blood of countless communists on his hands. Although Zhang Zhizhong's words were very tactful, he still heard what he meant, he was actually interceding for Chiang Kai-shek, hoping that our party would be lenient.
The conditions proposed by Zhang Zhizhong were quite strict at that time, but after thinking about the overall situation for a long time, he still decided to deal with leniency, which fully demonstrated his broad-mindedness.
At the dinner table at noon that day, it was agreed that the names of war criminals would not be mentioned in the peace clause, but the right to pursue them would be reserved, and individual war criminals could be treated leniently according to the circumstances.
This is enough to see ***'s respect for Zhang Zhizhong. Although he did not fully meet the demands of the other side, he still made some concessions to save face for Chiang Kai-shek and other important Kuomintang military and political figures.
However, Chiang Kai-shek did not appreciate it, and when he learned of the content of the agreement, he flew into a rage and exposed him"Fake peace"The true face. Chiang Kai-shek thought that Zhang Zhizhong was there"Crossing the river"with"Troop reorganization"It made great concessions to the Communist Party on issues and was nothing short of a one-sided capitulation.
Li Zongren also refused to sign a peace agreement because of his strong opposition to the PLA crossing the river. Therefore, Zhang Zhizhong became the target of everyone shouting and beating the Jiang and Li factions in Nanjing.
Considering that Zhang Zhizhong might be assassinated by spies after he returned, ** persuaded him and the delegation to stay in Beiping temporarily.
During his time in Beiping, Zhang Zhizhong's thinking underwent a major change. He profoundly realized that the Kuomintang was hopeless, and finally decided to break with the Kuomintang reactionaries led by Chiang Kai-shek and devote himself to serving the people under the leadership of the Communist Party.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he continued to make contributions to national construction and the great cause of cross-strait reunification.