Chapter 7 warlord melee

Sichuan is located in the hinterland of southwest China, on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.Located in the area of ​​Tong (Jiang), Nan (Jiang) and Ba (Central) in the north and northeast of Sichuan, the mountains are high and the terrain is dangerous. Bazhong is slightly lower, but it is also between 360 and 1,200 meters.There are mostly deep mountains and old forests here, with many mountains and little land, and thin soil layers. In addition to the high altitude and cold climate, the average snow accumulation period is five months, which is extremely unfavorable to the growth of crops.It mainly produces corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, and the output is not high.Tong, Nan, and Ba are extremely poor economically, and the road traffic is also extremely backward. The counties are connected by rugged dirt roads. Except for some mountain paths that have been walked out for production and life, it is full of vastness and endless greenery. rolling hills.Several rivers, such as Tongjiang River, Nanjiang River, and Ba River, flow among the mountains of Tong, Nan, and Ba. These rivers are often rapids, and only some sections of the river can be used for boating and bamboo rafting.Under the harsh natural environment and near-primitive production level, the people here are also subjected to extremely harsh exploitation by warlords, landlords, and gentry, and their lives are extremely difficult.

The west of Sichuan is the affluent Chengdu Plain, which is known as the "Tianfu" and is the granary of Sichuan.The unique geographical and natural environment makes it a place where successive rulers competed for management.At that time, Zhuge Liang's small imperial court of Shu Han relied on Sichuan's favorable terrain, the inaccessibility of external forces and its rich products, and it survived for decades. The terrain of Sichuan is difficult, easy to defend and difficult to attack. Since ancient times, there has been a saying that "the world is in chaos before Shu is in chaos, and the world is governed after Shu".Due to the special geographical environment and rich products, warlords and careerists, large and small, regard Sichuan as a big stage to display their ambitions.

In the early years of the Republic of China, the newly established government of the Republic of China had no time or power to care for others. If you have milk, you are a mother, and if you have a gun, you are a king.In addition to these organized warlords, hundreds of large and small bandit warlords without establishment and designation also appeared in Sichuan.These gangs of warlords have turned up and down and joined forces. Today they can call each other brothers and pledge each other, and tomorrow they can fight each other with swords and guns.As for crossing rivers and demolishing bridges, removing ladders from houses, throwing stones into a well, and intrigues, they are even better at it.For more than 20 years after the Revolution of 1911, these warlords fought against each other, fought against each other, fought against each other.

In 1918, Xiong Kewu, who ruled Sichuan in the name of the commander-in-chief of the Sichuan Yasukuni Army, decided to allocate local taxes according to the area where each army was stationed in order to meet the needs of the warlords' troops. The defense zone system is thus formed.Because the armies have been stationed for a long time, they not only extract food and salaries in the defense area, but also interfere in political affairs, appoint officials, pre-levy taxes, print and distribute currency, issue public debt, run their own newspapers, manufacture weapons, support their own self-respect, and conduct their own affairs. The defense area has become a warlord. "Independent Kingdom".In order to develop their own power, expand the defense area, and strive for hegemony in Sichuan, these warlords continued to intensify their melee.During the 21 years from 1912 to 1933, there were more than 470 melees between warlords and warlords in Sichuan, most of which occurred after the formation of the defense zone system.

In the second half of 1926, facing the victory of the Northern Expedition, the Sichuan warlords weighed the current situation and decided to adapt to the times. They sent representatives to the Northern Expedition one after another to express their willingness to recognize the Nationalist Government, and the army accepted the reorganization.Yang Sen, Liu Xiang, Lai Xinhui, Liu Chengxun, Liu Wenhui, Deng Xihou, Tian Songyao and other warlords transformed themselves and became the commanders of the National Revolutionary Army one after another, still commanding the original troops.Although these Sichuan warlords all had the brand name of the National Revolutionary Army, Chiang Kai-shek only gave them a designation, and did not give them salaries or supplies. To support the tens of thousands of troops in their hands, they still lived by occupying land as king and squeezing the people in the defense zone.At that time, there were more than 70 kinds of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes on the peasants, and the various exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes pushed the poor people to the brink of death.In order to quickly collect money, the warlords began to pre-levy the land tax collected once a year. Tian Songyao went from three to twenty a year, and Deng Xihou collected it from 1931 to 1961.The warlords' excessive taxation led to an increase of more than 30 times the tax amount of the common people.In addition to warlords, there are rich landlords, bandits and bullies.All these evil forces added up to oppress the common people to the point of sucking the marrow. The local song sang:

The head of the regiment Baozheng came to transfer the money, just like the ink pen of the king of hell. At the beginning of the card, he played barefoot, and his life was shortened in the middle of the night. It was hung and beaten again, which made the poor scream. The warlord combs, the gentry combs. The township security guard shaved with a long knife, and the collection committee came to peel the skin. In order to compete for interests, these large and small warlords in Sichuan are like a group of fighting cocks, fighting with each other endlessly.But there is a clear principle between them: Sichuan is the Sichuan of Sichuan people, and Sichuan is their big wharf. Brothers can compete with each other, but they absolutely do not allow external forces to get involved. In their jargon, it is called "the meat is rotten in in the pot".Once an external force attempts to occupy Sichuan, the group of fighting cocks will immediately hug each other and point their guns outward.Although they have been beaten badly for more than 20 years, they have also made a lot of money in this big pot.If it is allowed to be occupied by other provincial forces, it is tantamount to letting others "take the pot", and no one can get it.Therefore, keeping the territory of Sichuan from being controlled by outsiders is the highest political principle they pursue.The Sichuan warlords therefore became the most difficult local forces for Chiang Kai-shek to deal with. When the Red Army entered Sichuan at the end of December 1932, it was the time when the two largest warlords in Sichuan, Liu Xiang and Liu Wenhui, were fighting.

Liu Wenhui did it himself.A native of Dayi, Sichuan, he is the uncle and brother of Liu Xiang's father. He is the youngest among the five brothers, known as "Liu Yao's father".In fact, Liu Wenhui is five years younger than Liu Xiang, but he is Liu Xiang's cousin in terms of seniority.Liu Wenhui joined the army after graduating from the Artillery Department of the Baoding Military Academy in 1916. In the Sichuan Army, he successively served as the staff officer of the second division, the battalion commander and regiment commander of the third division.Under Liu Xiang's care, Liu Wenhui was promoted all the way to the commander of the First Mixed Brigade of the Sichuan Army, stationed in Yibin, and took over the military and political power here.In the following warlord melee, Liu Wenhui's power gradually became stronger. In 1922, he was promoted to the commander of the Ninth Division of the Sichuan Army. After defeating Yang Sen, Liu Wenhui obtained the name of Sichuan Deputy. In 1927, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Liu Wenhui as the commander of the 24th Army of the National Revolutionary Army. , In 1928, he became the chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Government, and remained in office after the reorganization in 1931.At this time Liu Wenhui had seven divisions and more than 20 brigades with a total of 140,000 troops, and owned a total of 81 counties in Chengdu, southern Sichuan, and western Sichuan.Thirty-three-year-old Liu Wenhui has achieved great ambitions in his youth, but he is not satisfied with a corner of western Sichuan, and wants to unify the whole Sichuan by force.Standing in his way of unification is his nephew Liu Xiang.

Liu Xiang, also known as Yuanxun, styled Fucheng, was born in Dayi, Sichuan. In 1905, Liu Xiang was admitted to the Sichuan Army Training Institute, and in early 1908, he was promoted to the Sichuan Army Crash School. After graduating in 1909, he entered the 33rd Mixed Association (Brigade) of the New Army and embarked on the road of military service.Liu Xiang has a simple and honest face, doesn't speak much, loves to read and think about problems, and doesn't usually participate in the partying and drinking of his colleagues, which makes him look a little different among the warlords.Sichuan, where the warlords fought, provided Liu Xiang with a stage to display his skills. Liu Xiang stood out from many warlords.In the chaos in Sichuan, every time he experienced a change, he was promoted to a higher level. He became a battalion commander at the age of 22, a regiment commander at the age of 23, and a brigade commander at the age of 26. On December 27, 1917, He was awarded the title of Lieutenant General of the Army by the Beiyang Government at the time. In 1918, he served as the commander of the Second Division, governing the seven counties of Yongchuan, Rongchang, Tongliang, Dazu, Bishan, Hechuan, and Wusheng. Since then, Liu Xiang has his own fixed territory.In order to expand his power, Liu Xiang organized a military training team and an officer training center in his army. He told the officers in the training center that he would "unify Sichuan and aspire to the Central Plains" in the future, showing his political ambitions. In December 1926, the National Government appointed Liu Xiang as the commander of the 21st Army of the National Revolutionary Army.He occupied Chongqing, the most prosperous and affluent place in Sichuan, for a long time, and controlled the passage of the Yangtze River into Hubei, becoming one of the four major warlords in Sichuan.

When personal power continues to grow, Liu Xiang also hopes to unify Sichuan.He understands that it is not enough to rely on individuals to fight alone, and must rely on external support.He made a serious analysis of China's overall situation, spotted Chiang Kai-shek's market, determined to take refuge in Chiang Kai-shek, and publicly played the slogan "Support Chiang Kai-shek". After Chiang Kai-shek launched the "April 12" counter-revolutionary coup in 1927, Liu Xiang immediately issued a telegram to support Chiang and oppose the Communist Party, calling the Communist Party an "alien party" and that "measures should be taken to jointly sanction it." On December 20, 1927, the National Government reorganized the Sichuan Army, and Liu Xiang was appointed by Jiang as the commander-in-chief of the Sixth Route, commanding the 20th and 21st armies. In 1929, the war between Jiangui and Guizhou broke out. Liu Xiang sent Tang Shizun to lead his army eastward along the Yangtze River to support Jiang's army and force the Guangxi clique to withdraw from Wuhan. During the war between Jiang, Yan, and Feng Zhongyuan in 1930, Liu Xiang immediately expressed his support for Jiang after learning through a secret report that Zhang Xueliang would stand on Jiang's side.Liu Xiang voted peaches, and Jiang returned Li.In the face of the Sichuan warlords' scuffle, Jiang maintained fairness on the surface, but secretly gave Liu Xiang strong support.

Compared with Liu Xiang, Liu Wenhui did the opposite. He bet his treasure on anti-Chiang. It is Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi hooking up.Liu Xiang, Liu Wenhui, and his nephew are trying to squeeze and attack each other, trying to weaken, disintegrate, and crush each other, so as to achieve their own goal of controlling Sichuan.The grudge between the two continued, during which an arms deal ignited the flame of hatred between them. In 1931, Liu Wenhui bought weapons and aircraft spare parts from Britain, Japan and other countries with a huge sum of two million yuan. After setting sail from Shanghai, he entered Chuanjiang from Yichang.This is Liu Xiang's sphere of influence. Liu Wenhui's arms were detained by Wang Lingji, commander of Liu Xiang's Third Division, in Wanxian Port.Hearing the news, Liu Wenhui was angry and impatient, and negotiated with Liu Xiang many times, but Liu Xiang refused to return it under various pretexts.Liu Wenhui had no choice but to go to Chongqing to negotiate with Liu Xiang face to face, but Liu Xiang refused.

You are not benevolent and I am not righteous. Liu Wenhui took revenge by digging at Liu Xiang's wall. In May 1931, Liu Xiang's mother died. Liu Wenhui went to Chongqing in the name of condolences. He bought Liu Xiang's teachers Fan Shaozeng and Chen Lanting respectively for 300,000 yuan and 150,000 yuan, and agreed that Fan and Chen would betray him.Fan Shaozeng was worried that the matter was not confidential, and told Liu Xiang the truth. Liu Xiang returned the bribe to Fan on the spot as a reward, while Chen Lanting, who had been kept secret, was dismissed by Liu Xiang for investigation and became a prisoner.Liu Wenhui's 450,000 oceans were in vain.One move failed, Liu Wenhui made another move, ordering his brother Liu Wencai to send an assassin named Hu Wenpeng to Chongqing to assassinate Liu Xiang.Hu Wenpeng sneaked into Liu Xiang's house, waiting for an opportunity to assassinate.Unexpectedly, Liu Xiang was surrounded by a cloud of guards. Even if he came in and out of the house, there were a total of twelve guards around him at every step, and a shift was guarding the door of the bedroom when he slept at night.Hu Wenpeng had no way to start.The kid hid in the tree for three days and three nights, but never found a chance to use his cell phone.Hu Wenpeng, who was trapped in the tree, suffered a lot. First, he was starving because he had nothing to eat;On the fourth day, Hu Wenpeng fainted from hunger and fell from the tree.The guards patrolling the yard heard a "boom", a large living man fell from the tree, and immediately pushed him to the ground.After interrogation, things quickly came to light.Liu Wenhui simply stopped doing two things and ordered the troops stationed in Jiangjin to cut off the food source in Chongqing.Liu Wenhui and Liu Xiang changed from fighting openly and secretly to being irreconcilable, the contradictions were completely intensified, and armed conflicts between the two sides continued. At the end of 1932, when the Red Army entered Sichuan, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Liu Xiang to stop the infighting and immediately "suppress the Communists", but Liu Xiang repeatedly resisted orders.The dignitaries, local tyrants and evil gentry in Sichuan also persuaded Liu Xiang to "suppress the Communist Party" first, but Liu Xiang still ignored it. Articles published in the ninth and tenth issues of "Guowen Weekly" in March 1935 revealed the inside story of Liu Xiang first "Anchuan" and then "suppressing the Communist Party": But at that time, the red bandits not only occupied Tong, Nan, and Ba, but also took advantage of the momentum to sweep across the northwestern Sichuan, and both northern and western Sichuan were shaking.The momentum of the bandits is growing vigorously.That's why the urgent question of "suppress Chi or Anchuan first?" caught the attention of all people in Sichuan.The generals under the banner of the 21st Army, the politicians involved in secrecy, and general public opinion all said that the suppression of the Red Army should precede Yaskawa.The reason is that if Anchuan is suppressed first and then Chichi is suppressed, it is afraid of repeating the mistake that the central government was eager to crusade against Feng and Yan, so that Zhu and Mao were able to sit in Jiangxi.But Liu Xiang's view is the opposite. He believes that although the red bandits are rampant, they cannot withstand the iron fist of the 21st Army. Compared with Liu Wenhui, who has long been entrenched in western Sichuan and is growing up day by day In the end, the red bandit is only a disease of ringworm and scabies, and Wen Hui is a confidant's disease. Since there is an opportunity to solve him, how can he miss it?Besides, Liu Wenhui, who was not defeated, was watching behind him. If he sent troops to suppress Chi, how could he avoid worries?He finally stood alone and resolutely asked Yaskawa first. In May 1932, Liu Xiang and Jiang's chief of secret agents stationed in Chongqing had drawn up a "Anchuan Bandit Suppression Plan". Remove its chairman." In short, it is to expel Liu Wenhui's forces and unify the whole of Sichuan by force.Chiang Kai-shek was also extremely troubled by the Sichuan warlords' melee for decades. He hoped that there would be someone he could control to unify Sichuan. Chiang immediately sent a secret message to Liu Xiang: If he can be sure to solve Liu Wenhui in a short period of time, he can do it cheaply. . With Chiang Kai-shek's backing, Liu Xiang became more courageous. On June 4, 1932, the Military Commission of Chiang Kai-shek's National Government announced that Liu Xiang was the commander-in-chief of the Seventh Route Army and the commander of the Army's Twenty-first Army.At this time, Liu Xiang's defense area was nearly 30 counties and cities, and he occupied the western Hubei defense area. He had six divisions under his jurisdiction and became the most powerful warlord in Sichuan. On October 1, 1932, Liu Xiang ordered the Luo Zezhou Department stationed in Wusheng to launch an attack on Liu Wenhui's Lin Yungen Department stationed in Nanchong, which opened the prelude to the "two Liu" melee. On October 23, Liu Xiang sent a telegram accusing Liu Wenhui of being capricious. On the 24th, a large-scale war between Liu Xiang and Liu Wenhui began in Yongchuan, Jiangjin. This was the last and largest warlord civil war in Sichuan history.Liu Xiang also recruited Tian Songyao, Deng Xihou and other warlords to take chestnuts for him.All of a sudden, the entire territory of Sichuan was in flames of war, and thousands of lives were devastated.Liu Wenhui was unable to defeat Liu Xiang's attack by many people. The situation was unfavorable. In order to seek an opportunity to move, Liu Wenhui took the initiative to make peace with Liu Xiang. On December 21, the two sides signed a truce. Liu Wenhui blamed Deng Xihou for his failure, and decided to take Deng Xihou into surgery.Unexpectedly, the subordinates between Liu and Deng were unwilling to kill themselves, and the war was procrastinated. The two confronted each other for more than a month without any progress. Liu Xiang and Liu Wenhui negotiated peace also to find another opportunity. On May 26, 1933, Liu Xiang, Deng Xihou and others held the so-called "Anchuan Conference" in Lezhi to form the "Anchuan Army". The two agreed to join forces to eliminate Liu Wenhui.Soon, Tian Songyao also joined the Anchuan Army. From June 6, the "Er Liu" fought again, which was known as the "Chengdu Metropolitan War" in history.Liu Xiang attacked on the battlefield and bought and wooed. Deng Xihou and Tian Songyao attacked from both sides.In order to protect himself, Liu Wenhui asked his elder brother Liu Wenyuan to persuade Liu Xiang not to fry beans, and at the same time sent Liu Xiang a telegram to admit his mistake and supported him to unify Sichuan. On December 31, 1933, Liu Xiang presided over a meeting in Neijiang, Sichuan, and set up a "rehabilitation committee", ordering Liu Wenhui's troops to withdraw from western Sichuan and retreat to the desolate and barren Xikang.This largest warlord melee in Sichuan history has been fought for more than a year, and Liu Wenhui finally bowed his head and surrendered.Liu Xiang finally missed the love of his uncle and nephew, and left the land of Chuankang for Liu Wenhui to settle down.