After withdrawing from Fuchikou, the 18th Division was reorganized near Baoan through Daye, and the post of division commander was assigned to Luo Guangwen, commander of the 42nd Brigade of the 14th Division.
In view of the fact that the troops were too large and the morale of the army was unstable, after Luo Guangwen took office, he reorganized all the troops into a regiment, appointed Yuan Nanshan as the regiment commander, Huang Fuyin as the commander of the 1st battalion, and continued to fight at the front, while the rest of the officers and soldiers were driven to the rear to sort out and replenish.
However, the 18th Division was such a regiment, and in the later battles, the same mountains and rivers were discolored, and they held on to Daye City for seven days, killing and wounding a large number of Japanese troopsOn the way to retreat, after falling into the encirclement, he wittily and bravely highlighted the enemy's encirclement;In Tongcheng County, it also covered the safe transfer of the headquarters of the Tangenbo Corps, thus winning more honors for the 18th Division, the 54th Army, and even the Civil Engineering Department.
When the 18th Division and the 199th Division were placed under the command of the 18th Army, after a year and a half of combat practice, the National Military Commission took into account that the existing establishment of the 1st Division, 2nd Brigade and 4th Regiment of our army was no longer suitable for the needs of the war against Japan.
Therefore, it was decided that each division should be adjusted to 3 infantry regiments and 1 field supplementary regiment, and the brigade-level command structure should be abolished. In order to place the abolished brigade commanders, a new post of infantry commander was created.
Luo Guangwen's family photo **From the Internet.
The composition of officers above the regimental level of the 18th Division is as follows:
Luo Guangwen, who graduated from the Japanese non-commissioned officer school, served as a major general;
The deputy division commander of the major general was Li Qinruo, a first-term student of Whampoa and a staff officer of Chiang Kai-shek's chamberlain.
Zhao Xiukun, who was born in the seventh phase of Huangpu and graduated from the 12th class of Lu University, served as the chief of staff of the major general.
Li Wenlun, who was born in the seventh phase of Whampoa and graduated from the 14th class of Lu University, served as the colonel infantry commander.
Tang Qikun, who was born as a Japanese non-commissioned officer, served as the colonel of the 52nd Regiment.
Zhang Difang, who was born in the army, served as the colonel of the 53rd Regiment;
Huangpu Seventh Raw Skin Xuanyou served as the colonel of the 54th Regiment.
The head of the field supplementary regiment was concurrently served by Zhao Xiukun.
At this time, the commander of the 199th Division was replaced by Song Ruike, and the former division commander Luo Shujia was promoted to the deputy commander of the 18th Army. The division has three regiments, each regiment number and its commander are: Zhang Ziyun, commander of the 595th Regiment, Luo Guoliang, commander of the 596th Regiment, and Tang Lishi, commander of the 597th Regiment.
The 18th Army and the 11th Division also underwent a lot of personnel adjustments.
Army Commander Huang Wei was transferred to the director of the 6th branch of the Military Academy only three months after accepting the new 23rd Division and the 43rd Division into the 18th Army series, and the post of army commander was taken over by Peng Shan, commander of the 11th Division.
As a result, the 18th Army officially entered the Pengshan era, and the commander of the 11th Division was replaced by Deputy Division Commander Ye Peigao.
At the end of September 1938, Peng Shan led the remaining troops of the 11th Division to leave the battlefield and arrived in Xiushui County, Jiangxi Province on October 1.
There, the unit received two batches of recruits one after another: the first batch was the recruits of the Jin Lisan Supplementary Regiment, and the second batch was the 2nd Regiment of the 5th Supplementary Training Division of the Military Administration Office.
Peng Shan allocated them to the 31st and 33rd Brigades respectively, but due to the heavy losses in northern Jiangxi before, the 11th Division was still seriously deficient, and Peng Shan had to take the following two measures to continue to replenish the troops:
The first is to reorganize the first supplementary regiment of the Xunrao Division into a supplementary regiment of the 11th Division, and appoint Lan Xiaosheng, the former chief of staff of the Xunrao Division, as the commander of the supplementary regiment, so that he can continue to recruit new recruits in the local area with the advantage of being familiar with the locality
The second is to report directly to Chen Cheng, the first commander of the 18th Army, and ask for help.
At this time, Chen Cheng served as the commander of the Ninth Theater, and although directing the combat operations in the theater was his most important task, of course, he would not let his descendants have the dilemma of insufficient soldiers, so he allocated the strength of the three Hubei Security Corps to Peng Shan.
On 20 October, after receiving about 4,000 troops from the three Hubei Security Regiments, the 11th Division basically returned to the level before the Battle of Songhu in terms of troop quotas. The next task is to train new recruits and build another strong force.
Just when the division was receiving the 4,000 men and horses allocated by Chen Cheng, the Nationalist Military Commission had already made a decision to abandon Wuhan, and the battle was nearing its end, and on October 25, Wuhan fell. This is still under the jurisdiction of the 9th War Zone, and no matter what happens, Chen Cheng can take care of it.
When Peng Shan was ordered to bring the troops to the designated area, he suddenly received the news of his father's death and had to leave the army temporarily, and handed over the training and management affairs to the deputy division commander Ye Peigao, and from then on, Ye Peigao presided over the division as the commander of the 11th Division.
Ye Peigao is a wise and brave general, not only familiar with combat theory, in the previous times when leading his troops to fight with the Japanese army, he is known for daring to fight well, fought many skillful battles, and knows how to build a good army of recruits with almost no military skills and tactical literacy.
At present, there are too many new recruits, the combat effectiveness is low, and the thinking of the personnel is extremely confused, which is very similar to the situation on the Songhu battlefield.
Therefore, he decided to adopt the practice he had done in Huizhou six months ago, separating new recruits, veterans, officers with combat experience, and officers without combat experience, and opening various training classes according to the different conditions of different types of personnel, so that they could receive different training contents on the basis of maintaining the same training intensity.
Then, officers and key elements who had already met the training requirements were ordered to guide the training of recruits, and combined training of recruits and veterans was carried out in a timely manner, and through these measures, the combat effectiveness of the 11th Division was rapidly improved.
Just as Ye Pei's training work was in full swing, in December, the Japanese army seemed to have signs of attacking Nanchang, and then, the 11th Division received an order to go to Nanchang and prepare to join the operation.
Ye Peigao, deputy division commander, immediately stopped the unit's training and carried out pre-war education, and then immediately led the team to set off from Wengjiang and advance all the way to Nanchang.
On the way to the troops, he asked officers at all levels to pay attention to the tactical guidance of the soldiers, and the various basic military skills of the recruits were also taught by the veterans on the way.
But what Ye Peigao didn't expect was that when the troops arrived in Changsha, the order to participate in the Nanchang combat operation was suddenly canceled.
This is undoubtedly a great thing for a unit that has not yet been trained, and it gives the troops a certain buffer time, so when the troops stopped in the area of Yuelu Mountain on the outskirts of Changsha City in accordance with the order, he immediately continued the training of the troops.
Old photos of the Kuomintang army training **From the Internet.
In the course of the training, Ye Peigao personally went to all regiments and companies to guide the training of the troops, and asked the regiment commanders to personally educate the officers and men of their units, especially the officers, on the "history and traditions of the 11th Division" to strengthen team spirit and enhance combat effectiveness.
Most of the officers and men of the 11th Division were recruited from the divisional districts, the supplementary training office, and the security regiment, and they not only lacked strict training and had uneven quality, but also had the bad habits of the security forces and the supplementary troops.
Although initial results have been achieved in the early stage of training, it is far from Ye Peigao's requirements. Now, in order to strengthen training, unify ideological style, and strictly observe discipline, the General Staff Office has drawn up a plan, and Ye Peigao has summoned all cadres at and above the company level to personally preach the content requirements and implementation essentials of the training plan.
He stressed that officers at the grassroots level should show the courage and wisdom to fight a war, get a good grasp of the training of the whole division, and strive to raise the combat effectiveness of the troops within 1 or 2 months.
Before the end of the meeting, Ye Peigao announced the establishment of the 11th Division Teaching Brigade, and he concurrently served as the captain of the brigade to show that he was personally responsible for the teaching brigade.
During this period, the composition of the 11th Division also underwent significant changes. This change is the same as the change in the establishment structure of the 199th and 18th Divisions described above, and follows a principle.
The order for the adjustment of the troop structure was issued in January 1939. After the readjustment, the composition of the division's main command personnel is: division commander Peng Shan, deputy division commander Ye Peigao, chief of staff Peng Zhancun, infantry commander Yin Zuogan, commander of the 31st Regiment Luo Xianda, commander of the 32nd Regiment Lin Yingdong, and commander of the 33rd Regiment Cao Jinlun.
In May 1939, Peng Shan returned to the army after his father's funeral and officially became the commander of the 18th Army. The vacancy of the commander of the 11th Division was filled by Ye Peigao.
After Peng Shan took over the 18th Army, the 67th Division, the 43rd Division, and the newly formed 23rd Division walked out of the army together, and the 18th and 199th Divisions joined in. At the same time, the 18th Army ceased to be under the jurisdiction of the 9th Theater Commander's Department and became a mobile unit under the direct jurisdiction of the Military Commission.
After a series of adjustments, it seems that the 18th Army can enter a period of relative calm and rearm for war with peace of mind. However, it was precisely the 18th Division, the core of the 11th Army, that went wrong.
The problem lies with Ye Peigao, not because of the person himself, but because he served as the commander of the 11th Division, which caused widespread resistance from the officers of the division.
It stands to reason that with Ye Peigao's military exploits and prestige, he is completely competent; But in the eyes of civil engineering officers, officers who have not graduated from Whampoa can only do deputy positions, and the 11th Division cannot be an exception.
Ye Peigao was born in 1903 in Wenchang County, Guangdong Province. After graduating from the Army University in October 1931, he and more than a dozen classmates of the same period went to the 18th Army Cadre Tutorial School in Fuhe, Jiangxi Province, as a lieutenant colonel captain of the cadet corps.
In the cram school, his main task is to train the platoon and company commanders in the cadet corps to carry out tactical operations and new ** applications.
Soon, Ye Peigao was first promoted to colonel captain, and then transferred to the colonel of the 52nd Division and the colonel of the Operations Section of the General Headquarters of the 3rd Route Army.
In July 1933, after Huang Wei, commander of the 31st Brigade of the 11th Division, who had a close relationship with Ye Peigao, was promoted to division commander, he recommended Ye Peigao to serve as the chief of staff of the division's major general, which was the beginning of Ye Peigao's official joining the Kuomintang ace army.
After that, he fought with the 11th Division for six years. In April 1937, after graduating from the Lu University workshop, Ye Peigao was reappointed as the commander of the 33rd Brigade of the 11th Division. In May of the same year, he was officially awarded the rank of Major General of the Army.
In terms of qualifications, in addition to not graduating from the Whampoa Military Academy, Ye Peigao has a very deep relationship with the Department of Civil Engineering, and entered the 18th Army Cram School after graduating from the Army University, and has a close relationship with Huang Wei, so it is reasonable to serve as the commander of the 11th Division.
Thus, when the officers of the 11th Division first resisted him as division commander, he could easily defuse it. However, with Hu Lian, who returned from the 67th Division to the 11th Division as the deputy division commander, it was very serious to mobilize Huangpu graduates to boycott Ye Peigao.
It is probably not true to say that Hu Lian coveted the position of division commander and drove Ye Peigao away, so that he could take over as the commander of the 11th Division.
Although Hu Lian was born in the 11th Division, during the Battle of Songhu, he served as the commander of the 66th Regiment of the division and led his troops to fight in Luodian and made great contributions, but he was promoted to the 67th Division as a brigade commander for only one year, which is not long.
Therefore, Hu Lian's drive away Ye Peigao, who has greater credit, will be beneficial to his future development, and may barely make sense.
Resisting Ye Peigao as division commander will have a serious impact on the combat effectiveness of the 11th Division. Peng Shan will definitely not stay out of the situation, and he cannot let this situation develop, he will leave his deputy who has served as the division for a long time, and continue to serve as the division commander, no matter which aspect is advantageous.
However, things did not turn out as he thought. The mood of resisting Ye Peigao has been spreading among the officer corps of the division, and the matter is getting bigger and bigger, and even Chen Cheng has to come forward in person to try to convince the officers and men of the division to accept the facts, but without success.
In April 1940, Ye Peigao was transferred from the 11th Division and was taken over by Fang Jing, the commander of the 13th Division of the Huangpu Second Phase, and this personnel dispute came to an end.
After Ye Peigao left the 11th Division, he only spent his days as an attached officer at the military headquarters of the 18th Army. About half a year later, that is, in early October of the same year, Huang Wei was transferred from the director of the education department of the military academy to the commander of the 54th Army, and thought that Ye Peigao was unwilling to be in the 18th Army, so he extended a helping hand and asked Ye Peigao to be the chief of staff of the 54th Army. Ye Peigao was overjoyed, and immediately went to Yunnan to take up his post after applying for transfer.
Since then, Ye Peigao has provided advice to Huang Wei and made a lot of contributions to efforts to improve the combat effectiveness of the troops. In November 1942, Zheng Tingfeng, the former commander of the 198th Division, was transferred, and upon the recommendation of Army Commander Huang Wei, Ye Peigao succeeded him as the commander of the division and regained military power.
At the time of the reshuffle of the 18th Army, the 11th Division had completed the task of retraining, and how did the 18th Division and the 199th Division, which had just been returned to the gate wall of the 18th Army, retrain?Do they have the combat power to match the 11th division?
Because, the training situation of these two divisions is much the same, and the 18th division is briefly explained as an example.
After Luo Guangwen, commander of the 18th Division, followed Chen Cheng's order to bring the remnants to the new station in Yiyang, Hunan, he immediately reorganized the personnel of the division and accepted new recruits to fill the vacancies.
The daily operations of the division headquarters and the supervision and training of the troops directly under it are under the responsibility of Chief of Staff Zhao Xiukun;Luo Guangwen was in charge of the personnel rectification and training of each regiment, and he walked barefoot in straw shoes all day long, running around the training grounds of each regiment, and he had to inquire about the transfer of personnel above the company commander level, and personally assessed the cadres.
Old photos of the Kuomintang army training **From the Internet.
The former cadres of the 18th Division were prone to prostitution and gambling, and discipline was lax, so he strictly rectified it, and once personally shot a major and a military doctor who gambled. When the troops marched from Changsha to Yiyang, a soldier took civilian belongings privately, and he also ordered him to be shot, and asked him to cross the corpse on the road, and write on a white piece of paper "Ring for those who steal civilian property", which greatly changed the atmosphere of the troops.
Because of the effective measures taken by Luo Guangwen, the 18th Division had strict discipline and good training progress, and it quickly regained its combat effectiveness.
During the training in Yiyang, due to Luo Guangwen's iron-fisted policy, there were two cases that caused a sensation in the whole army.
First, Luo Guangwen has never attached importance to political work cadres, believing that they should also be constrained by military commanders, but Xiong Yimou, director of the division's political department, who was born in the sixth phase of Huangpu, believes that he is an old political worker and is directly under the jurisdiction of the political department of the military commission, and believes that the division's political department and the division headquarters are parallel organs.
When the troops moved from Yiyang to Changde, Luo Guangwen discussed with Chief of Staff Zhao Xiukun that the marching order was deliberately not issued to the Political Department, and when the Political Department found out, the whole division had already arrived in Changde.
Xiong Yimou was furious because of this, and took his concubine (a member of the political work team) to the headquarters of the commander of the Ninth Theater in Changsha to complain.
After Luo Guangwen learned the news, he immediately sent a telegram to the military headquarters asking the military headquarters to "punish" Xiong's "absconding," but the military headquarters did not consider it and approved it as usual.
Luo Guangwen asked Chief of Staff Zhao Xiukun to deal with it, and Zhao Xiukun immediately sent a male member of the political work team who was dissatisfied with Xiong in the Political Department, and lent him his own private ***, asking him to go to Changsha to arrest Xiong Yimou, thinking that in this way, Xiong felt embarrassed and did not dare to return to the 18th Division to settle the matter.
Who knows, as soon as Xiong Yimou heard the reason for the situation and saw that it was his subordinate, he stretched out his hand to beat him and chased him out. The young and vigorous members of the political workers sent to the bear shot him, wounding him in the chest.
This incident aroused the public indignation of the political workers of the Ninth War Zone, who presented their bloody clothes and held a meeting to demand that the Military Commission punish Luo Guangwen, and the matter became so big that Luo Guangwen had to send Zhao Xiukun to Changsha to mediate.
Liu Keshu, who was then the director of the Political Department of the Ninth Theater Commander's Department, served as Chen Cheng's secretary, and Chen Cheng also served as the head of the Political Department.
After the official document arrived at the military headquarters, Huo Yuzhang, the commander of the 54th Army, did not go down in order to take care of Luo Guangwen's emotions. However, since then, no one in the old political workers dared to serve in the division again, and since then, a precedent has been set for the 18th Division to appoint and adjust the political workers on its own.
On another occasion, when a wounded soldier hospital crossed the border and harassed the people in the city, the merchants sent representatives to the headquarters of the 18th Division to meet Luo Guangwen and ask him to send a team to quell the chaos.
Luo Guangwen handed over this task to Zhao Xiukun again, and Zhao Xiukun sent Liu Yinsu, the adjutant director, to lead a platoon of troops to handle the matter.
Seeing that some troops were intervening, the wounded soldiers fled one after another, and Liu Yinsu, the platoon commander, ordered the soldiers to shoot, and the order on the street was chaotic for a while. After Liu returned to the team, he reported that the wounded soldiers grabbed the gun, so he was killed.
However, Chen Zhu of the wounded soldier hospital was shot dead and wounded soldier **, and the bullet holes were all in the back. This case also aroused public indignation among wounded soldiers across the country, and a telegram was sent to the whole country, insisting that they be punished.
Luo Guangwen and Zhao Xiukun plotted to put all the fault on Liu Yinsu's head and secretly fled, and the Chongqing Wounded Soldiers General Office offended Chen Cheng because of his concerns, and reported to Liu Yinsu for a perfunctory "wanted punishment".