In the 1920s, Li Zongren, Huang Shaohu, and Bai Chongxi rose up and eliminated the old warlords Lu Rongting, Shen Hongying, and others, and unified Guangxi in one fell swoop. Later, he organized 20,000 troops of the New Gui clan to participate in the Northern Expedition, and made many military achievements, and was known as the "Three Masters of Guangxi". Li, Huang, and Bai were all military academy graduates who had received military education in modern times, and they could not only lead soldiers to fight, but also had certain political and military strategies, and could be called all-rounders of literature and martial arts.
But among the three, Li Zongren only graduated from the Guangxi Army Accelerated School (formerly known as the Guangxi Army Primary School), with the lowest education. In addition to attending the Army Primary School and Li Wei's alumni, Huang and Bai also attended the Wuchang Army Reserve Officer School (that is, the Army Middle School) and the Baoding Army Officer School, both of which were much higher in education than Li. In addition, Li Zongren's political strategy is inferior to Huang Shaoren's; his military strategy is weaker than Bai Chongxi's, so why do Huang and Bai dare to obey Li Zongren?
Li Zongren was the earliest and the strongest
The birthplace of the new Gui clan was Yulin and Wuzhou, and its starting capital was Li Zongren's "Dinggui Army" and Huang Shaohun and Bai Chongxi's "Thief Army". As early as 1921, when Sun Yat-sen ordered Chen Jiongming to enter Guangxi, Li Zongren, who was then the commander of the Lin Hu Department of the Gui Army, took advantage of the failure of the old Gui clan and led his two battalions and several companies of several companies to retreat into the 60,000 mountains on the border of Guangdong and Guangdong, and these thousand people and horses were the initial capital of the new Gui clan.
In May 1922, Chen Jiongming, commander-in-chief of the Guangdong Army and commander-in-chief of the Guizhou Army, plotted to sentence Sun Yat-sen to withdraw the Guangdong Army into Guangdong, and Li Zongren took the opportunity to lead his troops into Yulin, divided the five subordinates of Yulin (Yulin, Beiliu, Luchuan, Bobai, and Xingye), recruited troops, and reorganized the army into the earliest base area of the new Gui clan. When Huang Shaohu and others were wandering and helpless, they also went to Yulin first to surrender to Li Zongren for an early rest.
Li Zongren ruled the army
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Won the hearts and minds of the people
As early as when the Cantonese army entered Guizhou and Li Zongren led his troops into the 60,000 mountains, he warned his officers and men that this time when they entered the mountains, they did not go up the mountains and fall into the grass and become bandits, but only went to the mountains to take refuge temporarily. At that time, the life of the troops was extremely difficult, and some people suggested that with these thousands of armed forces, they would "go out and do business for a few trips", but Li Zongren resolutely refused. Soon, in order to survive, Li Bu defected to chen jiongming of the Cantonese army, and when ordered to "name" Hengxian County, he affirmed two military disciplines: (1) The army is not allowed to occupy civilian houses; (2) The army is fair to the merchants and civilians, and it is strictly forbidden to force the purchase and sale.
In order to ensure that military discipline could be effectively enforced, Li Zongren sent people to patrol the streets and found that a soldier was suspected of stealing the clothes of the masses, and actually shot the soldier for the sake of rectifying military discipline. "Since this rectification, the whole army has suddenly taken a serious shape. The order is forbidden, and Qiu does not commit any crime. Everywhere they went, the military and the people were at peace with each other. Later, after Li Bu entered Yulin, it was even more strict military discipline, and the five subordinate yulin under his jurisdiction, Rong County and Gui County, a total of 7 counties, were called the only pure land in Guangxi Province, and guangxi rich merchants and merchants on the border of Guangxi and Guangdong moved here.
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Zongren
Handling things fairly has won the hearts of the military
When Li Zongren handled the conflict of interests within the Gui clan, he was always able to fully take into account the interests of all parties. During the yulin period, in addition to his two battalions, Li Zongren also had the collapsed troops of He Wulian, Wu Tingyi Company, Yu Zuobai Company, and Lu Chaolian, as well as the troops of Huang Shaohu and Bai Chongxi. In order to coordinate the relationship between these troops from all sides, Li Zongren always gave priority to the interests of the troops who joined the army.
For example, in the promotion of cadres, after Li led his troops into Yulin, the unit was organized into two detachments, and the two detachment commanders (equivalent to regimental commanders) He Wu and Li Shiyu, who were promoted, were the leaders of the defeated troops who later defected. Li Zongren paid great attention to the coordination between the newly joined troops and the basic battalion. The adjustment of the gun was always drawn from his basic battalion, and the supplement was often first supplemented by Lu Chao, Yu Zuobai, Wu Tingyi and other newly participated troops. ”
Li Zongren is both selfless and tolerant
Li Zongren was also extremely strict with his loyal generals. For example, He Wu, who defected in the early days, always had a good personal relationship with Li Zongren, and had long followed the conquest and was loyal, but in 1924, when he attacked Lu Rongting, He Wu, as the commander of the column, did not listen to the dispatch of Bai Chongxi, the commander-in-chief of the former enemy. Li Zongren said to He Wu: "Our personal friendship is a personal relationship, and military orders are military orders. If I do not act for personal gain, I will not be able to maintain military orders in the future. You have to be removed this time. In the end, He Wu was sent back to his hometown to farm.
As early as the Sixty Thousand Mountains period, Li Zongren showed a character and temperament that was difficult for ordinary people to reach. At that time, among the routs that had just defected to Li Zongren, about two companies of troops had absconded out of the mountain in the dark of night, and some people advocated sending troops to pursue them, but Li Zongren vigorously opposed them, believing that since they wanted to leave, they did not need to stay. Later, Huang Shaohu also led his troops to leave, and secretly took away a considerable part of Li Zongren's troops, and he still adopted this attitude.
For Huang Shaohu's department, he was magnanimous and had great grace in front
Before Huang Shaohu's troops defected to Li Zongren, because they had defected to the Guiyue army, they were regarded as "anti-bone boys" by the guangxi departments, and they faced the fate of being wiped out or surrounded at any time. When they were in desperate situations, Li Zongren took them in so that they could rest and replenish, and they were of great kindness. However, the two armies had been in partnership for less than a year, but Huang Shaohu was not willing to sit in Yulin and decided to send troops to Wuzhou to seek another development. This was already somewhat ungrateful, and what was even more intolerable was that when the Huangbu left, they not only took away all the troops of the unit, but also took away the 5 battalions under Li Zongren.
At that time, Li Zongren only had a total of 8 battalions of about 3,000 people, although two battalions later returned halfway, but there were still 3 battalions of thousands of people who were pulled away by Huang, this typical digging of the wall made Li Zongren's subordinates very angry, and firmly advocated sending troops to pursue. However, Li Zongren was able to deal with this matter calmly, "Where I am the same person, if I am with others, I will stay, and if I am not, I will go, and each person can make his own choice." Because of Li Zongren's own calm attitude, the temporarily indignant subordinates gradually calmed down, and there was no result of the merger of the two arms.
It was precisely because of Li Zongren's kindness to Huang Shaoren that Huang Shaoren cooperated with Li again after capturing the Wuzhou area, and after capturing Nanning, the two departments merged into one, formed the Dinggui Thief Alliance and promoted Li Zongren as the commander-in-chief of the coalition army, and he himself was willing to take up the vice post. The establishment of the General Headquarters of the Dinggui Thief Coalition Army finally established the position of Li, Huang and Bai in the new Gui clique.
It can be seen from this that the reason why Li Zongren was able to become the number one in the New Gui clique was determined by his personal strengths and the role he played in the process of starting a family in the New Gui clan and unifying Guangxi, and it was the result of Huang Shaohu and others being convinced of him.