Chapter 7 06. Arrangement and Sichuan Army

On this day, Liu Xiang and Liu Wenhui, the two largest local powers in Sichuan, sent people to send the Sichuan Army's drawdown plan. The two agreed to shrink the Sichuan Army into 15 divisions, of which Liu Xiang and Liu Wenhui's divisions were each organized into 5 divisions. , Deng Xihou, Tian Songyao, Liu Cunhou, and Li Qixiang each formed a total of 5 divisions. The symbolic significance of this scheme is far greater than its practical significance.But after all, it is a symbol, showing that local powerful factions have moved on the issue of disarmament, expressing goodwill and obedience to the central government.

Disarmament, called reorganization and dispatch at the time, was a major event that Chiang Kai-shek always cared about.The political intentions in the formation are obvious. The Northeast Army, Northwest Army, Jin Army, Sichuan Army, Guangdong Army, Guangxi Army, Hunan Army, Yunnan Army, and Guizhou Army...Although, these armies can all play the blue sky and white day of the Nationalist Government overnight. The flag is to show that it belongs to the central government, but everyone understands that it is not an easy task to direct the gun.Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek wants to give those local powerful factions who seem to be at odds with the central government a bottom-up salary through arrangement, and completely destroy their capital for bargaining with him or even fighting with him.

In addition, there are considerations of the national economy and the people's livelihood in the arrangement.There is a saying in China that "eat food to serve as a soldier". In the era of war and chaos, many poor people served as soldiers for nothing else but to have food to eat. As for the military salary, they could not get it at all.Since the soldiers owe their salaries, the soldiers will not be demobilized even after the battle is over, but will become "eating soldiers". Moreover, since the end of the Qing Dynasty, wars have continued frequently, and these soldiers with extremely poor combat effectiveness have instead become generals and marshals. Ace in hand.Some experts believe that by 1929, the total number of Chinese troops was about 2 million, compared with about 400,000 in the Qing Dynasty and about 1.2 million in 1922.This amount is beyond the financial resources of the country.For example, in 1928, there were about 240,000 troops under Chiang Kai-shek's lineage, and the annual military expenditure was about 360 million yuan, while the annual fiscal revenue of the Nanjing government (after debts were paid off) was only 300 million yuan.In addition, although the armies of the local warlords were not directly burdened by Nanking, they withheld taxes that would have gone into the central government's revenue.Therefore, without reducing the army, the Government will not be able to carry out the social and economic reconstruction of the country.

The need for an army is generally recognized.So on January 1, 1929——on a very symbolic day, the National Revolutionary Army Reorganization Conference was held in Nanjing.At the reorganization meeting, China's four largest warlords—Chiang Kai-shek, Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan, Li Zongren, and others—agreed to reduce the national army to 800,000, limit military spending to 41 percent of government revenue, and establish a Unified command structure. However, compared with good wishes, realistic negotiations always appear difficult and gloomy.The reorganization plan formulated by the General Assembly determined that there were 8 deployment areas nationwide, and Chiang Kai-shek's direct troops controlled 4 deployment areas in the name of divisional deployment, namely the Central Committee, the Navy, the first and the sixth deployment areas, and Chiang Kai-shek insisted that the Whampoa army is the best-trained and commanded army in China, and the army with poor combat effectiveness should be demobilized first, and asked the local warlords to make greater sacrifices than himself.

Feng, Yan, Gui and other departments found themselves in Jiang's trap.Feng Yuxiang, Li Zongren and even Yan Xishan, if they do not have the vision of making partial sacrifices for the benefit of the country, it may be to underestimate them. However, these heroes in troubled times who have been beaten from artillery fire have never Will sit back and watch others use grandiose excuses to eliminate the reality of dissidents.They did not feel that Chiang Kai-shek was more qualified and entitled to take direction and act as a leader.Therefore, after they applauded the principle of army formation at the end of January 1929, they hurriedly left the formation meeting, determined to fight Chiang in order to maintain their military and political status.Two months later, the Central Plains War kicked off.

The Great War in the Central Plains involved the four giants of Jiang, Gui, Feng, and Yan. No, to be precise, it also included the war of the five giants of Zhang Xueliang from the Feng family, while a large number of small warlords were watching.With Chiang Kai-shek's victory in Nanjing, they had to obey the central government and began to disarm. In the modern history of China, there have been no major warlords in Sichuan. If you compare Liu Xiang and Liu Wenhui with the warlords of Feng, Gui, and Yan, it is completely insignificant.Sichuan is located in the hinterland of China, with thousands of miles of fertile fields, and has been known as the land of abundance since ancient times.Its north and west are adjacent to today's Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, and Tibet respectively. At that time, there was no strong military force that could threaten Sichuan; but the situation in its south and east was completely different. The Guangxi warlords, even the local forces in Yunnan, also posed a serious threat to Sichuan.Therefore, in the first 20 years of the 20th century, Sichuan, the most affluent place in Southwest China, was often ruled and plundered by foreign warlords, especially the Yunnan warlords.Liu Xiang expelled the warlords of the Yunnan faction and played the banner of "people from Sichuan governing Sichuan", and became the number one powerful figure in Sichuan.

Liu Xiang received a traditional Chinese private school education when he was a teenager. He joined the army in 1906 and was admitted to the Sichuan Armed Forces Academy, and later to the Sichuan Army Training Institute and the Sichuan Army Crash Academy. After graduating in 1909, he began his military career.He was fierce, brave in battle, made many military exploits, and was constantly promoted. During the Dharma Protection War in 1918, Liu Xiang was promoted to the commander of the First Division of the Sichuan Army and became a major general in the Sichuan Army. In 1920, Liu Xiang and other Sichuan warlords expelled the Yunnan-Dian warlords and declared Sichuan to be self-governing. In 1921, Liu Xiang was elected by the Sichuan army as the commander-in-chief of the Sichuan armies, and was elected by the Sichuan Provincial Assembly as the governor of Sichuan.So far, Liu Xiang has developed from a professional soldier to the supreme ruler of Sichuan.After that, he first defeated the army of Xiong Kewu, the veteran of 1911 from Sichuan, and then defeated Yang Sen and Yuan Zuming in the melee of warlords, consolidating his rule in Sichuan.

Liu Wenhui is of the same family as Liu Xiang. Although he is four years younger than Liu Xiang, he is Liu Xiang's cousin in terms of seniority. In 1914, he was admitted to the second phase of Baoding Military Academy. After graduating in 1916, he returned to Sichuan. He served successively in the Sichuan Army as staff officer, battalion commander, regiment commander, mixed brigade commander, and division commander of the Ninth Division. At the end of 1926, Liu Wenhui changed banners with the various departments of the Sichuan Army, and was appointed by the Nationalist Government as the commander of the 24th Army of the National Revolutionary Army. Soon he also served as the commander-in-chief of the Sichuan-Kang border defense, and became a giant of the Sichuan Army. In September 1928, Liu Wenhui and Liu Xiang held a meeting in Zizhong, and Liu Wenhui was elected chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Government. In October, the Nanjing government officially announced the appointment.In ten years, Liu Wenhui continued to defeat his opponents, and his troops grew to as many as 120,000.

So far, the warlord pattern of the Sichuan clique with the two main forces and the coexistence of various forces has formed. The Sichuan Army's drawdown plan on September 11 is a manifestation of this pattern. A week later, the September 18th Incident broke out, and the drawdown of the Sichuan Army was settled. Later, on the second day after the July 7th Incident broke out, Liu Xiang sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, asking for a war of resistance, and said: "In the war of resistance, Sichuan can send 300,000 troops, provide 5 million strong men, and supply tens of thousands of shi of food." Back to Chengdu Later, according to the deployment of the Nanjing government, Liu Xiang formed two columns and walked out of Sichuan to fight against Japan in two ways. On New Year's Day in 1938, Liu Xiangte published a New Year's Day congratulatory speech entitled "Sichuan in the Long War of Resistance", reaffirming Sichuan's determination to support the War of Resistance. On January 7, Liu Xiang wrote two lines of ancient poems when he was waving his hair to send Xing: "I miss my relatives and tears fall to the cold of Wujiang, and it is difficult to hope that the soul of the emperor will return to Shu."On a certain day, he wrote on a piece of paper the last two lines of Du Fu's "Shu Prime Minister" poem: "Death before leaving the teacher will make the hero burst into tears." On January 20, 1938, Liu Xiang died of illness in Wuhan with the regret of not being able to kill the enemy and serve the country.At the end of his life, this patriotic soldier still encouraged the Sichuan army to fight to the end, to win glory for the nation and for Sichuan: "If the enemy army does not withdraw from the border, the Sichuan army will never return home!"

Among the Kuomintang troops, the Sichuan Army was one of the most heroic units in the Anti-Japanese War. Countless Sichuan Army soldiers died in the anti-Japanese battlefield.In the Battle of Songhu and in the Battle of Taierzhuang, the Sichuan Army stood firm.It was this army with straw sandals, poor equipment, no knowledge of advanced equipment such as tanks, and should have been "organized" that made the greatest sacrifice for the nation's war of resistance.