In October 1934, when the Red Army was forced to march on the Long March, Lao Chiang and his advisers analyzed the whereabouts of the Red Army. The strategists suggested that the Red Army might cross the Jinsha River from Yunnan to the north.
However, Lao Jiang didn't care about this, and even ridiculed that this was Shi Dakai's dead end, absolutely impossible. However, later events proved the strategists right, and the Red Army did choose this path to the north.
So, who is this precise strategist?
Yang Yongtai, then the secretary general of Lao Jiang Xingying, was known as "Toxic Zhuge ", his incomparable wisdom and resourcefulness were deeply appreciated by Lao Jiang and praised as "contemporary Wolong". As early as 1911, after the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, he had just graduated from Peking University and realized the turmoil in the world.
He actively opposed Yuan Shikai's restoration, and when General Cai raised troops against Chiang, he showed his talent with his resourceful help.
Yang Yongtai had insight into the current situation of Yunnan's vast land and sparse population, and knew that it was difficult to compete with the Beiyang warlords by relying only on the strength of famous generals. In order to succeed in the crusade against Yuan Shikai, he actively called for the unity of the whole country, and this idea proved to be correct.
Yang Yongtai immediately got in touch with the moderates of the Kuomintang and pushed the armies of the two Guangxi provinces to go north to jointly crusade against Chiang. With his outstanding talents, Yang Yongtai was appointed as the Minister of Finance of Guangdong and even became the chairman of Guangdong Province.
However, Chiang Kai-shek at that time was still just an unknown little person.
Yang Yongtai has always cherished the dream of helping the people through the world, and during his tenure, he has implemented a series of livelihood reforms, which have been praised by the local people. However, as the situation changed, he was forced to leave his post.
It was not until the end of Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition in 1928 that he regained the opportunity to display his talents. After being introduced, he became acquainted with Chiang Kai-shek, and the two hit it off because of their common strategic concept of "seeking reunification at home and then going all out to the outside world".
From then on, Yang Yongtai became a member of Chiang Kai-shek's think tank, and all decisions were carried out according to his recommendations. During the Central Plains War in 1930, Yang Yongtai actively formulated a strategy for Chiang Kai-shek to divide the warlords in various places, successfully dismantled the anti-Chiang alliance, and helped Chiang Kai-shek achieve formal reunification of China.
As a result, Chiang Kai-shek's trust in Yang Yongtai grew day by day.
During the five encirclements and suppression of the Red Army, Yang Yongtai successfully forced the Red Army to a dead end. How did he do it? After summing up the lessons learned from the previous failures of encirclement and suppression, Yang Yongtai keenly discovered the crux of the problem, that is, the reason why the Red Army was able to win repeated victories was precisely because it had established close ties with the local people and won their support.
Therefore, he put forward the general policy of "suppressing bandits" of "three parts military and seven points political," and weakened the combat effectiveness of the Red Army to the greatest extent through a series of political means, and then launched an offensive with the army.
Lao Jiang deeply felt that Yang Yongtai's strategy was clever.
Yang Yongtai once suggested that by smearing the Red Army and portraying the Red Army as "an image of doing all kinds of evil," the goal of severing the Red Army from the local people could be achieved. However, his approach did not work, because the people close to the Soviet zone did not buy it.
As a result, Yang Yongtai formulated the regulations for protecting the armor of the company and the people, encouraging the people to expose the Red Army, and if they concealed it and did not report it, the people in the vicinity would be implicated. As a result, many people did not dare to contact the Red Army in order to survive, and the situation of the Red Army became even more difficult.
On this basis, Lao Chiang formulated an inhumane policy and inflicted significant damage on the Soviet districts.
Although these measures hindered the development of the Red Army to a certain extent, coupled with the improper command of Li De and Bogu, the Red Army fell into a desperate situation and was forced to start the Long March.
But what is little known is that at the beginning of the Long March, Yang Yongtai's conspiracy almost inflicted heavy losses on our army. It turned out that when the Red Army embarked on the road of the Long March, Chiang Kai-shek did not relax his vigilance, he immediately found someone to analyze the route that the Red Army might take, and after the fifth "encirclement and suppression", he was full of confidence.
His subordinate generals also expressed their opinions and put forward their own ideas.
Some speculate that the Red Army may have marched west to Hunan and the Red.
The 2nd and 6th Army Corps converged, or crossed the Yangtze River from Sichuan to the north to join the Red Fourth Front Army, or even went south to Guangdong, seeking help from the Soviet Union by sea.
Chiang Kai-shek thought that these speculations were all possible, and made preparations in advance, ordering the troops to build forts along the way to stop the advance of the Red Army. However, Yang Yongtai was the only one who put forward a different view, arguing that it was very likely that the Red Army would cross the Jinsha River from Yunnan to the north.
It turned out that the main force of the ** Red Army was still in Jiangxi, thousands of miles away from Yunnan, and there were many warlords and ** armies along the way, so it was theoretically impossible to take this road.
What's more, 70 years ago, the Taiping Army Shi Dakai crossed the river from this road, and encountered the Qing army on the front line of the Dadu River, and the whole army was annihilated. Lao Chiang believed that even if he took 10,000 steps back, the Red Army would not be stupid enough to follow the old path of Shi Dakai.
Therefore, Lao Chiang did not take Yang Yongtai's suggestion as the focus of defense. But in the end, the Red Army did indeed go north from this road.
As to why Yang Yongtai was able to accurately foresee this route, there is no way to know. However, even if he was as outstanding as Yang Yongtai, because he was deeply favored by Lao Chiang, he caused a lot of discussion within the top echelons of the Kuomintang, and in the end, in order to maintain unity, Lao Chiang had to let him go to Hubei to serve as the provincial ** chairman.
Although Yang Yongtai was reluctant to do this, he could not change the status quo in the face of the struggle between the Kuomintang factions. During his reign in Hubei, on October 25, 1936, Yang Yongtai was unfortunately assassinated at the age of 51.
The news of his death caused a huge shock at the time, and Lao Chiang ordered a thorough investigation, but in the end there was no clear conclusion, and it can only be said that Yang Yongtai's appearance touched the interests of some Kuomintang insiders, and his death was also an inevitable result.
Yang Yongtai's resourcefulness played a key role in improving Lao Chiang's command ability, but now his departure has made Lao Chiang's command ability even more vulnerable, which is undoubtedly an excellent opportunity for our army.