Speaking of the warlord melee of the Republic of China, there is a figure Yan Xishan that must be mentioned. No matter how the wind and clouds are outside, Shanxi is still the boss of Yan Xishan. Yan Xishan was a man with many shortcomings, unreliable military ability, and a special love of superstition. How did such a seemingly incompetent figure become the "King of Shanxi" and even Old Jiang couldn't do it? The main thing is to rely on two points, the first is the hometown, and the second is the economy.
There is an interesting story about Yan Xishan's love of superstition. After the Battle of the Central Plains, because Zhang Xueliang led the powerful Northeast Army to participate in the battle, the warlords led by Yan Xishan and Feng Yuxiang failed. After descending the wilderness, Yan Xishan also "looked at the sky at night" and said, "See? This star (Sirius) is Chiang Kai-shek, that star (broomstick star) is Wang Jingwei, and I Yan someone is this star (Wenchang star). "It is estimated that we don't understand this thing now and really don't know what it means." Sirius and Broomstick are both fierce, and this Wenchang star is Ji. Of course, this Wang Jingwei is a broom star, and I think it is still very right.
In addition to superstition, it is also particularly speculative. When he first saw Yuan Shikai gain power, he pledged allegiance to Yuan Shikai and gave up the identity of sun yat-sen's alliance. Later, seeing that Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition was in full swing, he resolutely decided to reorganize it into the National Revolutionary Army. As long as you are in charge of Shanxi, whether you are Beiyang or the Kuomintang, I don't care. So why did he not fall in Shanxi? It mainly relied on Shanxi's economy and his Jin Sui army. Shanxi's economy mainly relies on coal produced in Shanxi and Jin merchants. Don't look at the fact that Shanxi is now an inland province, and it is no match for the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. At that time, Shanxi was a national model province. There are also two major mountains in Shanxi, The Taihang and Lüliang Mountains, as well as the Yellow River, which have become natural barriers, and Shanxi has been able to develop steadily. What's more, Shanxi has an arsenal. At that time, China was poor and two hundred, and zuo Zongtang, Zhang Zhidong, and Li Hongzhang's military and civilian industries were almost corrupted by Cixi, and they lost jia wu and declared war on eleven countries. In the Republic of China period, warlords were fighting each other and the powers embargoed heavy weapons on China, so the military industry was very difficult. The Shanxi Arsenal met the needs of the Jin Sui Army, which made the early Jin Sui Army more powerful.
The representative figure of the Jin Sui Army was Fu Zuoyi. This is the role of Yan Xishan's fellow villagers. Yan Xishan is a native of Wutai County, Shanxi, so he is particularly attracted to Shanxi people. Therefore, Shanxi people like Fu Zuoyi are particularly valued in Shanxi. And Fu Zuoyi's name is more like thunder. The great victory of the Bailing Temple and the Battle of Zhuozhou reflected the good level of attack and defense. Looking at the Battle of Taiyuan, the Jin Sui Army equipment knew how rich Yan Xishan was.
Yan Xishan had several special forces. The first was the Submachine Gun Regiment. As the name suggests, this regiment has a Thompson submachine gun in each hand, or made in the Shanxi Arsenal. In addition to three companies, each battalion was accompanied by a heavy machine gun company. It played a major role in the street battles of the Taiyuan Defense War. In addition to the submachine gun regiment, there was also a heavy machine gunnery division. The role is to replenish maneuvering when there is insufficient firepower.
▲ Then there is the mortar division, the whole division is equipped with heavy mortars, such as 120 mm, 150 mm mortars.
There is also a powerful name Flying Thunder Regiment, which is equipped with a large number of explosive packs that can be thrown, and the power is huge at close range. The five armies guarding Taiyuan also possessed a large number of mountain artillery, field artillery, and heavy machine guns, which were incomparable to the Eighth Route Army of that year, and even some units of the Central Army could not be compared.