Chapter 36 36. Yan Xishan, Feng Yuxiang and Chiang Kai-shek fight

After the end of the Northern Expedition, Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang of the original direct lineage were wiped out. Zhang Zuolin was killed by the Japanese when he returned to the outside of the customs. The new warlord who dominates the situation. "Sharing adversity is easy, enjoying wealth and honor is difficult." The four newly-emerged families soon had sharp contradictions in the distribution of land after the war.It turned out that the Northwest Army had been trapped in the barren land of the Northwest for a long time, and they were eager to develop outwards. As Feng Yuxiang said: "We don't even have a Haikou, so it is really inconvenient to buy some military equipment from abroad." In the later period of the Northern Expedition, Feng Yuxiang He sent Lu Zhonglin to command Han Fuju and other troops to repel the Feng army in Hebei and made great contributions to Pingjin. Therefore, Feng Yuxiang believed that Hebei and Pingjin should be assigned to the Northwest Army in terms of rewards for meritorious service.

In this regard, Yan Xishan and Chiang Kai-shek disagreed, Yan Xishan also wanted to develop outward, and he was also determined to win this territory; Chiang Kai-shek believed that the Northwest Army's expansion was too fast, which would affect his leadership position, so he wanted to provoke and use Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan's rivalry. contradictions between.The funny thing is that Feng Yuxiang has always been worried that others will say that he is fighting for power and profit. Although he wanted to win this land, he didn't say so clearly, so Chiang Kai-shek took advantage of the situation and assigned Hebei and Pingjin to Yan Xishan. The reason was that Feng Yuxiang already had The territory of the six provinces of Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and Qinghai, while Yan Xishan only has the four provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Cha, and Sui, so it should be balanced; moreover, the powers in Pingjin and Tianjin have deep influence and complicated relationships. He is upright and not good at diplomacy, so it is better to hand it over to Yan Xishan.

Feng Yuxiang suffered a dumb loss, but it was inconvenient for him to object on the spot, because in the previous period, the relationship between Feng Yuxiang and Chiang Kai-shek was very hot. Chiang Kai-shek promised to help the Northwest Army solve the economic difficulties, and Feng Yuxiang publicly expressed his respect for Chiang Kai-shek. support.Nominally speaking, Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yuxiang were still brothers who had just changed their genealogy. Especially after the Northern Expedition ended, Feng Yuxiang even wanted to cast a bronze statue for Chiang Kai-shek in Zhengzhou in order to express his support for Chiang Kai-shek (after unsuccessful dissuasion).

Having said that, it is normal for brothers to turn their faces and deny others, let alone such "brothers by chance".After losing Hebei and Pingjin, Feng Yuxiang gave a speech to his troops, saying, "The territory should be small, the army should be small, and the work should be good." To put it bluntly, he complained about this matter. Immediately afterwards, various factions held a national meeting on the formation and deployment of troops in Nanjing in January 1929. Feng Yuxiang was very active in this regard. Those without guns will be dispatched; those with training will be organized, and those without training will be dispatched; those with revolutionary achievements will be organized, and those without revolutionary achievements will be sent." According to this principle, Feng Yuxiang proposed a plan, that is, the first and second armies (that is, Chiang Kai-shek, Feng Yuxiang ) each formed twelve divisions, the third and fourth armies (i.e. Yan Xishan and Li Zongren) each formed eight divisions, and other armies that did not belong to the respective armies formed a total of eight divisions.

Feng Yuxiang originally thought that the Northwest Army "has the largest number of soldiers, the best quality, the best training, and the greatest combat exploits", so it should form a few more divisions, but it is not very good to surpass Chiang Kai-shek, so he planned to level the first and second armies He thought he could control the unity of Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yuxiang and control other aspects...but Feng Yuxiang's thinking was too naive. As the nominal leader after the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek certainly could not tolerate the strength of other factions surpassing or paralleling it, and Yan Xishan would not be easily suppressed by Feng Yuxiang, so he also proposed a plan, that is, first, second, The third and fourth armies each formed eleven divisions, and another eleven divisions were set up in a central deployment area.This plan is essentially to "carry Jiang over Feng", because the eleven divisions in the "Central Arrangement Area" are controlled by Chiang Kai-shek.Chiang Kai-shek was very satisfied with this plan, and the Guangxi faction of Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, who had the least influence, saw that they were on an equal footing with Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan, so of course they agreed with both hands.

Feng Yuxiang saw that his plan was opposed by everyone, so he "plained sick" and stopped attending the official meeting.Once, Feng Yuxiang was talking with his subordinates, when Kong Xiangxi came to visit suddenly, Feng Yuxiang quickly got into the quilt, covered himself in sweat and pretended to groan.After the news got out, those who knew the inside story secretly laughed that Feng Yuxiang was actually suffering from a "heart disease"!Later, Feng Yuxiang simply left Nanjing and went to Baiquan Village, Hui County, Northern Henan Province to "recover his illness".

When the conflict between Jiang and Feng had not yet been fully disclosed, the Guangxi faction of Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, and Huang Shaohong turned against the Chiang Kai-shek clique because of the competition for the territory in Hunan. As a result, the "Jianggui War" in early 1929 was triggered.Before entering the army, Chiang Kai-shek, on the condition of the Chief Executive and the territory of the two lakes, wooed Feng Yuxiang to go south to attack the Guangxi faction, and Feng Yuxiang played the trick of "stabbing the tiger in Bianzhuang". On the one hand, he secretly promised Li Zongren to send troops to help, on the other hand, he promised When Chiang Kai-shek went south to attack, he was actually sitting on the mountain and watching the tigers fight.

However, the development of the "Jianggui War" was beyond everyone's expectations. Due to the sudden defection of the Guangxi general Li Mingrui, the troops of Li Zongren and others were quickly defeated, and the Jiang army captured Wuhan with lightning speed.At this time, Feng Yuxiang's speculation failed and he became self-defeating. Not only did he lose the opportunity to seize Wuhan, but even Han Fuju, his general who was urged to go south by him, was secretly bought by Chiang Kai-shek. Seeing that his plot was seen through by Chiang Kai-shek, Feng Yuxiang simply tore off his veil, decided to fight against Chiang with arms, and appointed himself the commander-in-chief of the Northwest Road of the Army to protect the party and China.At the time of the war, Feng Yuxiang believed that the Northwest Army's front line was stretched too long. In order to prevent the enemy from being attacked, Feng Yuxiang decided to shrink his troops, abandon the Shandong and Henan territories, and withdraw all the troops westward, concentrating in western Henan and Shaanxi for orders.In Feng Yuxiang's words, this is called "after the fist is retracted, the fight is more powerful".

However, some of Feng Yuxiang's generals did not understand this strategy. Because of the years of famine in Shaanxi and the hardships of life, they had tasted this hardship before, so they were unwilling to return to the barren northwest.Under Chiang Kai-shek's wooing and division, Han Fuju, Shi Yousan and the peripheral troops of the Northwest Army Liu Zhenhua, Yang Hucheng, Ma Hongkui and other troops rebelled against Feng and Jiang, which greatly damaged Feng Yuxiang's army and was defeated without a battle.In desperation, Feng Yuxiang had no choice but to electrify and go to the field and claimed to go to Huashan to study. In fact, he was retreating to advance, avoiding war and defending himself, which made Jiang Jun lose the pretext for attacking. (Note: During the Battle of Nankou in 1926, Han Fuju and Shi Yousan briefly defected to Yan Xishan due to the defeat of the Northwest Army, which was quite despised by the generals of the Northwest Army. This vote to Jiang is also related to this.)

Feng Yuxiang's resignation was not approved by Chiang Kai-shek. He insisted that Feng Yuxiang must leave the army and travel abroad before the war could end. Under such circumstances, Yan Xishan jumped out and expressed his willingness to be a peacemaker and mediate for the two sides.Chiang Kai-shek did not comment on this, but Feng Yuxiang responded positively, so Yan Xishan went to Yuncheng to take Feng Yuxiang to Taiyuan, and then resettled him in his hometown of Wutai County (a few miles away from Yan Xishan's hometown, Hebian Village) ). After Li Zongren and Feng Yuxiang failed successively, Yan Xishan's actions attracted quite a lot of attention.According to Zhou Dai, the artillery commander under Yan Xishan, Yan Xishan often talked about the general situation of the country with his senior generals and staff during this period, saying, "Although Chiang Kai-shek occupies the south of the Yangtze River, his internal affairs are very unstable. People like Wang Jingwei and Hu Hanmin hated There are many people in Chiang, and Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi hate him even more"; he also said, "Yuan Shikai is the most powerful, and I have dealt with it. Chiang Kai-shek is not as good as Yuan Shikai"; Yan Xishan also said that "Hanyang Arsenal can only manufacture light weapons, but we can also manufacture heavy weapons such as artillery" (at that time Taiyuan Arsenal could mass-produce mortars and portable machine guns, that is, submachine guns).Yan Xishan's words vaguely revealed his plan to compete in the Central Plains.

With Yan Xishan's qualifications, he is of course much older than Feng Yuxiang, Chiang Kai-shek, and Li Zongren. During the Revolution of 1911, he had already become the governor of Shanxi, and he was only 30 years old.During Yuan Shikai's period, Yan Xishan kept a low profile, trembling, and did not achieve much. It was not until Yuan Shikai's death that Yan Xishan really took control of the military and political power in Shanxi and became the tumbler among the local warlords.Compared with Feng Yuxiang, Yan Xishan was more tactful and more scheming. For example, when the meeting was held, Yan Xishan pretended to be sick in advance, and he did not attack until Feng Yuxiang and others had played a good card, which took a lot of advantage.Afterwards, Yan Xishan proudly said to his subordinates, "We did the right thing in the belated way", "I will go when they are divided, and both sides need me at that time, so that's fine." Because of this, Yan Xishan invited Feng Yuxiang to Jin Dynasty not only to please Feng Yuxiang, but also to "hold Feng's self-respect".After Feng Yuxiang arrived in Shanxi, he was actually put under house arrest by Yan Xishan in a disguised form, but Yan Xishan declared to the outside world that he would go abroad with Feng Yuxiang to investigate and eliminate the disaster of war.Chiang Kai-shek was very surprised after receiving the call, and hurriedly asked Yan Xishan to stay, but only asked Feng Yuxiang to go abroad alone.As a result, Yan Xishan raised his status a lot, and was almost on an equal footing with Chiang Kai-shek. Although Chiang Kai-shek was a few years younger than Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan, he was not easy to deal with.Although Chiang Kai-shek allocated Pingjin to Yan Xishan before, Chiang Kai-shek quickly sent Song Ziwen to Beiping to divide the national tax and local tax. Yan Xishan had no choice but to withdraw the Shanxi personnel from the Pingjin taxation agency on the condition that the Ministry of Finance pay the Jin army in Beijing and Tianjin. item.However, the Ministry of Finance stopped paying after one month. Yan Xishan shouted that he had been fooled, so he applied to the Ministry of Finance to issue provincial government bonds as compensation on the pretext that the Shanxi Provincial Bank had advanced 30 million yuan as military expenses during the Northern Expedition. Unexpectedly, Chiang Kai-shek quickly rejected it. . Yan Xishan was so angry that he slapped the table angrily and said: "I used to think that Chiang Kai-shek could still get along with him, but unexpectedly he eliminated dissidents in this way, and now he has forced me to do it!" This huge sum of money, we did this wrong. Now Jiang wants to use economic means to trap us, we are not wrong, he dare not use soldiers to attack us, he can only trap us financially.” Like Yan Xishan For those who want to make plans, Chiang Kai-shek's actions greatly stimulated him, so he strengthened his determination to oppose Chiang. While Feng Yuxiang was under house arrest by Yan Xishan, the Northwest Army had no leader, and some generals began to communicate with Chiang Kai-shek, and even conspired to attack Shanxi. He also expressed his willingness to cooperate with him and discuss Chiang together.Of course Feng Yuxiang couldn't wish for this, and then he returned to Tongguan in early March 1930, ready to start a war against Jiang. Lu Zhonglin and other generals under Feng Yuxiang had planned to attack Shanxi, but Feng Yuxiang's return and change caught them off guard.The Northwest Army and the Jin Army had a lot of enmity in history. For example, in the Nankou War in early 1926, the Northwest Army (called the National Army at the time) was defeated by Zhang Zuolin's Feng army and Wu Peifu's direct army, and Yan Xishan took the opportunity to attack them. In the latter part of the Northern Expedition, when the Jin army and the Feng army were fighting hard at Fangshun Bridge in Baoding, Feng Yuxiang suddenly ordered the Han Fuju troops on the front line to withdraw to Shijiazhuang, almost encircling the Jin army.Therefore, the generals on both sides have antagonism of mutual distrust. After Feng Yuxiang announced that he would unite with Yan Xishan to fight against Chiang, most of his generals remained silent, because they believed that the Northwest Army had repeatedly suffered from Yan Xishan's losses and was deceived by Yan Xishan, so it would be better to overthrow Yan Xishan. Sun Liangcheng, Feng Yuxiang's most trusted general, also complained after the meeting: "I don't think Mr. (referring to Feng Yuxiang) has any awareness at all. We have been victimized by Yan Laoxi for these years, why should we work with him?" The general resistance of the generals of the Northwest Army to the plan of "Uniting Yan and Fighting Chiang" is not only due to historical enmity, but more importantly, they have a good understanding of the capabilities and characteristics of Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan: Feng Yuxiang can only fight, and is completely amateur about politics; Yan, on the other hand, was a money shop owner, who could only calculate small accounts, but could not achieve major events; even if he united Yan against Chiang, he won military victory, but there was no way to do it politically.Just as one of Lu Zhonglin's staff said: "If we cooperate with Yan, the victory will not be able to cross the Yangtze River. If Jiang retreats to the south of the Yangtze River and sticks to the danger, there will be problems between Yan and Feng. At that time, the Northwest Army is still in a disadvantageous position. If we lose the battle, it will be even more unimaginable, and it is even impossible to seek the situation of retreating to Guanzhong to protect ourselves." However, Feng Yuxiang was very optimistic about this. He once said to his staff: "In this move, in terms of military affairs, the second, third, and fourth armies will jointly deal with one of Chiang Kai-shek's armies, and other armies rejected by Chiang will also lean towards us. Our military strength has an overwhelming advantage; and from a political point of view, Mr. Wang Jingwei has expressed cooperation with us, the Central Committee of the Xishan Conference has also cooperated with us, and Zhang Xueliang said that he is also very good, which shows that we are more supportive than Chiang Kai-shek. Victory must belong to us." Besides, Feng Yuxiang secretly believed that as long as Chiang Kai-shek was eliminated, Yan Xishan would not be difficult to deal with (Feng Yuxiang often called Yan Xishan a "coward" in private), and then not only the North would return It is not impossible for the Northwest Army to rule the world. What's ridiculous is that Yan Xishan had the same calculation.When his subordinates reminded him of Feng Yuxiang's repeated defections and what he had done in Fangshunqiao, Baoding, Yan Xishan waved his hand and said, "You can't always look at the past. You must know that Chiang Kai-shek tried to punish Feng Yuxiang several times. Feng Yuxiang hated Chiang Kai-shek very much." Yes. Now I want him to fight Chiang Kai-shek with me. This is what he wishes for, and he will definitely do his best. Moreover, he is very greedy for small profits in front of him. As long as we can satisfy his desire materially, how can we make trouble halfway? Heart. Although he is very cunning, he may make trouble after defeating Chiang Kai-shek, but he is a rough man with no vision, and I have my own way to deal with him." After Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan officially joined hands, other anti-Chiang forces also moved closer, such as Li Zongren's Guangxi faction and Zhang Fakui's Cantonese army who were defeated by Chiang Kai-shek before, as well as Wang Jingwei's group who failed in political power struggle with Chiang, and even Zhang Xueliang's Northeast Army also had messengers.At the beginning of the war, there was a lot of opposition to Chiang from all sides, and the lineup was also very strong. However, the offensives launched by the Guangxi and Guangdong armies in Hunan quickly failed, and they were overwhelmed. The battle between the front line and the Jiang army also had its own outcome, and neither of them gained an overwhelming advantage. After several battles, the loss of soldiers and the consumption of weapons and ammunition of the Northwest Army increased significantly, and the replenishment promised by Yan Xishan was delayed.Under such circumstances, Jiang's army became stronger and stronger, defeating the Jin army on the Jinpu line and regaining Jinan; and the Northwest Army's August offensive on the Longhai line was also blocked due to the rainy season, and the situation on both sides changed.At this time, Zhang Xueliang sent a telegram to support Jiang on September 18, and the Northeast Army entered the customs in a large scale. The failure of Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang was irreversible. With the defeat already decided, Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang had no choice but to go to the field on October 8, and the entire Central Plains War ended in early November.The Central Plains War was a civil war in China's modern history that was second only to the War of Liberation in scale. It lasted 7 months, mobilized more than 1.1 million troops, spent 500 million yuan in military expenditures, and killed 300,000 people. The war spread to more than 20 provinces. After the war, Yan Xishan announced that he would go abroad for investigation, but he only hid in Dalian for a period of time so that he could return to his hometown in Shanxi the next year; Feng Yuxiang never went abroad, but the Northwest Army he had operated for more than 20 years was disintegrated in this war : Sun Lianzhong, Ji Hongchang, Liang Guanying and other ministries voted for Jiang; Zhang Zizhong, Liu Ruming, Zhao Dengyu and other ministries and three friends who had defected with Han Fuju voted for Zhang Xueliang; Han Fuju had already established his own family before... Feng Yuxiang's failure was not accidental.As Xu Yongchang, the former Nationalist Army, said, Feng Yuxiang's troops were initially known as the "Five Tiger Generals", namely Zhang Zhijiang, Li Mingzhong, Lu Zhonglin, Shi Jingting, and Song Zheyuan. The 16th mixed brigade was the battalion commander.But later, there were "Five Tiger Generals" who appeared, namely Han Fuju, Shi Yousan, Sun Liangcheng, Sun Lianzhong, and Zhang Weixi, all of whom were soldiers of the 16th Mixed Brigade.Zhang Shusheng, Feng Yuxiang's old friend and the director of communications of the Northwest Army, also said: "Mr. Feng is a baby chicken that must be hatched by himself before laying eggs." The senior generals are often vacated, causing command chaos. In addition, the Northwest Army led by Feng Yuxiang is like a feudal fortress. Feng Yuxiang is the head of the family. His style is arbitrary and lacks democracy. However, Feng Yuxiang still treated them like his nephews, refusing to give them due respect and courtesy, and they didn't even have the freedom to smoke a cigarette in front of him.Therefore, some senior generals felt too restrained and began to find another way out. After this heavy blow, Feng Yuxiang fell into a slump and no longer had a chance to make a comeback; Chiang Kai-shek used this war to expand his territory and greatly improved his domestic prestige; Zhang Xueliang, another profiteer, also took the opportunity to return to the pass and Yan Xishan regained control of the Beijing-Tianjin area; Yan Xishan's Jin army also split into Shang Zhen and Fu Zuoyi factions, and their strength was weakened.In a word, the Central Plains War was actually another major reshuffle after the Northern Expedition.