Reading guide:In the 1955 award, the founding generals included four ranks: general, general, lieutenant general, and major general, of which the general had the highest requirements, and at least the following five points could be elected.
Clause. 1. During the Red Army, at least one of the divisional or above positions; Clause.
2. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he held a position at or above the brigade level of the Eighth Route Army, or a position at or above the division level of the New Fourth Army; Clause.
3. Generals who served in regular positions at or above the corps level during the War of Liberation.
The first three requirements are actually not high, and many founding generals can meet them. First of all, at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as the head of the eight major departments of the General Headquarters, the commander of other general departments directly under the ** Military Commission, and the commander of all branches of the armed forces, and so on, and secondly, he was a member of the National Defense Commission when he was conferred the title.
Xiao Ke, the head of the generals, was awarded the rank of general because he was not a member of the National Defense Committee and had to balance the number of representatives from all sides in various periods, so he was finally not elected to the list of generals.
In addition to Xiao Ke, there is another person who meets the above five conditions, this person served as the commander of the Red 12th Army during the Red Army, the commander of the 358 Brigade of the 120th Division during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the deputy commander of the First Field Army during the War of Liberation, the deputy commander and acting commander of the Northwest Military Region, and the deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army after the founding of New China, and was elected as a member of the first National Defense Committee in 1954.
In 1955, *** and *** submitted to ** in the initial list of awards, there were a total of 15 candidates for generals, and Zhang Zongxun ranked 10th, even if the number of generals was later reduced to 10, Zhang Zongxun, who ranked 10th, should also be on the list, so why did he miss the general in the end and was only awarded the rank of general?
Zhang Zongxun has high qualifications, he graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy, participated in the Northern Expedition, and began to follow *** to participate in the Autumn Harvest Uprising from September 1927, serving as a staff officer of the first regiment of the uprising troops.
After the failure of the Autumn Harvest Uprising, ** decided to lead the remaining troops to Jinggangshan to open up a revolutionary base area, in order to strengthen the leadership of the troops, in Sanwan Village, Yongxin County, ** reorganized the remaining 700 people of the Workers' and Peasants' Revolutionary Army into a regiment, under the jurisdiction of seven companies, Zhang Zongxun served as the deputy company commander of the special service company (** was the party representative of the special service company).
At that time, Zhang Zongxun's main task was not to fight, but to select elite soldiers in the special service company to form a guard platoon, which was specially responsible for the personal security work. Since then, Zhang Zongxun has had the reputation of "the first chief of guard" in the army.
Regarding Zhang Zongxun's loss of generals, many people believe that the fundamental reason is the command failure of the Jining Datong Campaign.
In July 1946, Zhang Zongxun commanded the troops of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region and the Jinsui Field Army, and launched an attack on Datong and Jining controlled by Fu Zuoyi.
However, due to Zhang Zongxun's command error, he failed to concentrate his forces and give full play to the numerical superiority of our army, but instead divided his troops to attack Dong Qiwu and Guo Jingyun's troops, resulting in our army not only failing to capture Datong, but also losing Zhangjiakou, the central city of the border region. For a long time after that, our army was in a passive position in North China.
Although Zhang Zong's command made a mistake in the Battle of Jining Datong, the defeat of one battle was not enough to affect the evaluation of military ranks. For example, the defeat of the Siping Campaign that year brought far more adverse effects than the Jining Datong Campaign, but the later campaign commanders were not too affected when they conferred the title.
In fact, the main reason why Zhang Zongxun was excluded from the list of generals at the last moment was to consider the balance between the Red First Army and the Red Second Front Army.
At that time, there were no controversial people in the list of generals, and seven of them were from the Red First Army, including Su Yu, Huang Kecheng, Chen Geng, Tan Zheng, Xiao Jinguang, and **Zhang Yunyi, of which Su Yu, Huang Kecheng and Zhang Yunyi were also representatives of the New Fourth Army. Xu Haidong was the representative of the Red Army in northern Shaanxi, and Wang Shusheng was the representative of the Red Fourth Front Army, but there was a lack of representative generals of the Red Second Front Army.
If Zhang Zongxun is re-elected as a general, then the Red First Front Army will have five seats, which will be very unfair to the Red Second Front Army. So considering the balance problem, the last general must come from the Red Second Front.
Although Xiao Ke is also the Red Second Front, he was born in the Red Sixth Army, and he merged with the Red Second Army after the Long March, and he cannot represent the Red Second Army, so only Xu Guangda, who has been in the Red Second Army, is the most suitable.
Originally, Xu Guangda's rank was somewhat reluctant to be awarded the rank of general, but in addition to representing the Red Second Front Army, he was also the commander of the armored corps. And Zhang Zongxun, who was originally ranked 10th among generals, could only be relegated to the rank of general.