Chapter 47 don't say don't know

The numerous snowflakes have dressed up the mountain city of Chongqing as wrapped in silver.When nature enters winter, people are usually able to calm down and review some past events. It was after New Years in 1945.In a small three-story bungalow in De'anli, Zengjiayan, Chongqing, the fire was raging, and Chiang Kai-shek, wearing a camel-velvet robe with a silk surface, was sitting in an easy chair and reading a report forwarded by Yang Shaojiong, a member of the Central Legislative Council. Yu Chengwan, the city guard of Changde, complained. Chiang Kai-shek read it over and over again in the quiet air, and after putting it down slowly, he wiped his eyes lightly with a handkerchief, and his eye circles were moist.

"Alas—" he let out a long sigh. Soong Meiling came in with a bowl of porridge and saw that Chiang Kai-shek's eye sockets were red, so she asked, "Darling, what are you looking at that makes you so sad?" "It's about the Battle of Changde," Chiang Kai-shek said hoarsely, "I didn't know that Yu Shijian was so brave and tenacious. What a hero." He paused, and said regretfully, "It seems that I blamed him wrongly." .” Song Meiling handed over the porridge, "Yu Shijian?" She was very familiar with the generals of the national army, but the name seemed a little strange to her.

"Master of the 57th Division, you should know him. He graduated from the first phase of Whampoa and is my student." Chiang Kai-shek took a sip of snow fungus and said. "Oh, is that the Cantonese? He's short, he doesn't talk much, and he's not sociable." Soong Meiling remembered. "Yes, that's him. He hasn't fought many battles, but he has read a lot, and he is a bit like a master." Chiang Kai-shek added. "Then what happened to him?" "Oh, I won't mention it! I won't mention it!" Chiang Kai-shek shook his head and said, "It's all caused by the Japanese. If the Japanese hadn't taken advantage of my meeting in Cairo to hold a few Chinese soldiers holding the white flag on the wall of Changde Fake photo of surrender, embarrassing me in front of Roosevelt, why did I get so angry?"

"If you make mistakes, you must correct them. Now is the time for employing people!" Song Meiling reminded Chiang Kai-shek. "Yes, I want to use Shi Jian again." Chiang Kai-shek nodded. Following the imperial order of the Chairman, Yu Jishi took Yu Chengwan to Zengjiayan De'an in a special car from the attendant's office, and Chiang Kai-shek hosted a dinner at home for this meritorious minister who was wrongly blamed by him. Immediately, Chiang Kai-shek personally ordered Yu Chengwan to be released from prison and restored to his military post and rank.Soon, he was appointed as the deputy commander of the reorganized 74th Division (formerly the 74th Army).

It is true that Chiang Kai-shek said that Yu Chengwan should be reused.After the Anti-Japanese War, the 74th Division was equipped with all American weapons and was trained by US military consultants. It was called the main force among the five main forces of the Kuomintang army.After the capital was moved back to Nanjing, the division was stationed at Xiaolingwei and guarded Gyeonggi, known as the "Yulin Army". In April 1947, during the War of Liberation, Zhang Lingfu, the commander of the 74th Division, believed that he was strong and strong. In order to grab the lead, he led his troops to advance aggressively, 30 miles away from the friendly army.After being hit head-on by the East China Field Army of the People's Liberation Army, they thought that heavy troops of the People's Liberation Army had gathered near Tanbu, so they immediately deployed to retreat to Menglianggu and Duozhuang in the south.When retreating to the Menglianggu area, Zhang Lingfu saw the complex terrain and wanted to stick there.Chief of Staff Wei Zhenyue disagreed, and suggested: "This is an isolated mountain, which is a taboo for military strategists, and it is not easy to stick to it." Li Yunliang, deputy chief of staff, suggested: "Junzuo, although this is an isolated mountain, the terrain is dangerous. Resurrection from death, and survival from danger." Zhang Lingfu, who had always been overconfident, accepted the suggestion of the deputy chief of staff and immediately ordered the troops to camp in Menglianggu, which was surrounded by mountains and mountains.

Mengliang Gu, located in the Yimeng mountainous area in the middle of Shandong Province, is surrounded by continuous mountains and ravines, with 72 Gus adorning it.Although the positions occupied by the 74th Division of the Kuomintang are dangerous, they are all rocky and mountainous, and it is impossible to build fortifications. Personnel, horses, and luggage are densely packed in various hills and valleys.The East China Field Army saw that Zhang Lingfu had become a turtle in the urn, and believed that the time was ripe for the complete annihilation and reorganization of the 74th Division, so they surrounded the division with 5 columns in the narrow strip centered on Menglianggu, divided the two wings at the same time, and waited to wipe it out. The column and the local armed forces in southern Shandong blocked the reinforcements of the Kuomintang troops respectively.

On the night of May 15th, the East China Field Army launched a general offensive and bombarded the Menglianggu Mountains with powerful artillery fire.Although there are only a few hills left in the 74th Division, it still resists stubbornly.At 2 o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, the whole line collapsed, and all divisions, brigades, regiments, and battalions lost communication.Seeing that the defeat was decided, Zhang Lingfu committed suicide.At this time, the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army rushed to the entrance of the cave, and the guards in the cave still wanted to resist. The People's Liberation Army fought back with submachine guns and grenades, and attacked in.So far, the reorganized 74 divisions have all been wiped out.

The magnificent "Hu Ben" was not destroyed in the hands of the Japanese, but in the hands of the People's Liberation Army in the civil war. Yu Chengwan was lucky.On the eve of the Battle of Menglianggu, he was transferred to the commander of the Eastern Guangdong Division, and then went to Yunnan to serve as the commander of the 26th Army of the National Army and the commander of the bandit suppression in eastern Yunnan. There are many theories about Yu Chengwan's whereabouts. The more reliable one is that he responded to the Luhan Uprising in Yunnan. At that time, the strength and configuration of the Kuomintang in Yunnan were: (1) The 6th Training Command, Commander Li Mi, Deputy Commanders Yu Chengwan, Cao Tiange, and Fu Kejun. (2) The 8th Army, commander Li Mi, of which the commander of the 170th Division was Sun Jinxian, who was the commander of the 170th Regiment of the 57th Division during the Battle of Changde. (3) The 26th Army, Commander Yu Chengwan.

At the end of 1949, Zhang Qun, the chief executive of the Kuomintang, arrived in Kunming and conveyed Chiang Kai-shek's intention to ask Li Mi, Yu Chengwan, Long Zehui and others to attend training in Chengdu.After the plane arrived in Kunming, provincial chairman Lu Han and party, government and military officials greeted him at the airport.Ma Rui, the vice chairman of the province, sent them to the place where they stayed. As soon as they entered the door, before they sat down, he said: "This house is very good, but the people who live there are unlucky, and they are often locked up."

Sure enough, the next day Lu Han sent out a telegram uprising and detained Zhang Qun, Li Mi, Yu Chengwan and others. On December 15th, Li Mi's 8th Army attacked Kunming.Lu Han instigated Li Mi to ask Li's wife to go to Dabanqiao to persuade the 8th Army to stop fighting, but as soon as Li's wife arrived at Dabanqiao, she told all the troops, fight harder!The harder the fight, the faster Bingren (Li Mi) will come out!So the Eighth Army stepped up its attack.Lu Han had no choice but to let Li Mi go. At dawn on the 19th, the 26th Army and the 8th Army besieged Kunming at the same time.As of the evening of the 20th, the fighting situation became more tense, and the sound of gunfire continued throughout the night.Lu Han had no choice but to let Yu Chengwan go.Said to release Yu Chengwan, Shi Butian, the commander of the 193rd Division of the 26th Army who was detained in Kunming, tied his hands and tied two grenades around his waist. The 26th Army ceasefire.After the ceasefire was achieved, Yu Chengwan and others were sent out of the city by car.Lu Han also gave Yu Chengwan four trucks of silver dollars to comfort the officers and soldiers of the 26th Army.

After the 26th Army retreated to Xuanliang, Yu Chengwan convened a meeting of officers above the regiment leader to discuss the issue of responding to the Luhan Uprising.Most of the leaders expressed their opposition, so Yu Chengwan dropped the matter. In January 1950, Gu Zhutong invited Tang Yao, Li Mi, and Yu Chengwan to fly to Taiwan to discuss military aircraft. On the evening of January 5, Gu took Tang, Li, and Yu to see Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang praised Tang Yao, Chief of Staff of the Army Department, who had not been detained by Lu Han, and reprimanded Li Mi and Yu Chengwan.Jiang asked Yu Chengwan, "How much money did Lu Han give you?" Yu replied hesitantly, "40,000 silver dollars." Jiang said nonchalantly, "I gave Lu Han a lot of money, why only give you a little? Knowing that Lu Han will eventually turn against him, you should give him a little more money." On January 14, Gu Zhutong took Li Mi and Tang Yao to fly to Mengzi, Yunnan, the temporary assembly place of the 8th and 26th armies, and Yu Chengwan came to the future.Since then, no one has mentioned Yu Chengwan. According to rumors, some said that he went to the Golden Triangle on the Myanmar-Thailand border to buy heroin; He was assassinated by Chiang Kai-shek's military spies in 2010, and was shot several times, bleeding all over the ground... In order to obtain an authoritative explanation, I called and sent letters to Taishan County Political Consultative Conference, Overseas Chinese Federation and other organizations repeatedly to inquire about Yu Chengwan's whereabouts and whereabouts in his later years, but no one knew.Not only did they not know Yu Chengwan, they also didn't know the "Hu Ben" troops in the history of the Anti-Japanese War and the thrilling war that took place in Changde. I am quite disappointed. I am disappointed not only that no one knows Yu Chengwan, no one knows "Hu Ben", no one knows the battle of Changde... In fact, this is not surprising.I read this passage in a magazine: In 1988, American pilots of the Chinese and American air forces who had made special contributions to China during the Anti-Japanese War organized a sightseeing group of more than 50 people to visit mainland China.This tour is informal and tentative.Brigadier General Thomas, the pilot at that time, was promoted to the commander of the US Air Force Transportation Department in the 1950s, so he was elected as the head of the mission during this trip. On the evening of May 20, the plane of the sightseeing group landed at an airport in Southwest China.Captain Thomas was very excited, rushed out of the cabin door first, and waved his hat frequently to the crowd below... He was about to warmly hug the Chinese official who came to greet him, but he was stopped politely by the official's entourage: "Sir, You are mistaken. We are here to welcome a Japanese business delegation." A small misunderstanding made Captain Thomas a little embarrassed.After waiting for a while, the Chinese personnel who picked up the plane arrived. They are the branch leaders of the "Whampoa Military Academy Alumni Association" under the name of the local CPPCC.Toms was a little displeased, because it seemed that the standard for receiving Japanese was much higher than that of his sightseeing group.Americans have always ignored red tape, but this time they were particularly unconvinced by the Japanese. That night, the "Whampoa Military Academy Alumni Association" held a banquet at the Spring City Restaurant to clean up the dust for the sightseeing group.After the guests were seated, the waitress approached the person in charge of the classmate association to discuss something. The person in charge of the classmate association was very tough at first, and the waiter called out a man in a suit and leather shoes. Soon, the host and the "suit" quarreled.In the end, the person in charge of the classmate association obviously couldn't do what he wanted, so he returned to Thomas and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, sir, do you mind if we change places?" "Of course. But..." Thomas was puzzled, as if he wanted to hear an explanation.So the interpreter said that the students' association had already set up a banquet in advance, but a Japanese businessman wanted to hold a thank-you banquet, and the price offered was much higher, so the manager of the store asked the students' association to change the location or change the time. Furious, Thomas jumped up and grabbed the manager, opened his wallet, and threw out a wad of hard currency dollars. The translator told him, "This is $6,000, set the highest standard!" On May 24, leaders of relevant departments of the local government received all members of the sightseeing group.The atmosphere was cordial and friendly, but the leader had absolutely no knowledge of the history of the Chinese and American Air Forces. It can be said that he knew nothing. Before the tour group came to China, several newspapers in the United States reported on it, but the local Chinese news circles were extremely indifferent to them, and the reason may still not be understood. His enthusiasm was met with such a cold reception, and Thomas' self-esteem was hurt. He hung all the commemorative medals he won in China's Anti-Japanese War, including the first-class Blue Sky and White Sun Baoding Medal awarded by Chiang Kai-shek, on his chest. Go out on the street and see if anyone knows you. But it's a pity that he walked a long circle around the downtown area, and no one came to talk to him, let alone welcome him like a hero.Suddenly, several young people came up to meet him. The eyes of this old American man lit up, but before he could cheer up, he heard the other party ask in "pidgin" English: "Hello, is there any dollar exchange?" Impulsive, he really wanted to find a tavern and get drunk! On the flight back to the United States, Thomas silently remembered what General Chennault said: People can forget Stilwell and Chennault, but they will never forget the "Flying Tigers" and the Chinese and American Air Forces.Because, that is a death monument made of blood and soul! Now he knew that was not the case. This text was later defended by someone, saying it was not true.I also think it shouldn't be like this.But it is true that many of us forget a lot of history that should not be forgotten. Everyone forgets something all the time, and that's normal.Otherwise, how can the human brain store so many symbols and imprints?But I think there are some things that cannot be forgotten, and that is the spirit of one's own nation. This is the soul of man!