History has its own life, it is like a person, both easy-going and self-respecting. ——Yu Qiuyu
From April 21 to June 2, 1949, the Chinese People's Liberation Army forcibly crossed the Yangtze River and launched a large-scale strategic offensive against the Kuomintang, and finally, the People's Liberation Army occupied the major cities of Nanjing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Wuhan, which is known as the Battle of Crossing the River. But why such a beautiful record, its commander is even few people know. What is the reason for this? Originally, due to the special status of the military commander, he was the first to enter Nanjing during the Liberation War, but after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was not only not awarded a title, but almost died. He is Wu Huawen.
Wu Huawen, whose ancestral home was Ye County, Shandong, moved with his father to Mengcheng County in the third year of the Qing Dynasty. He went to primary school, which shows that his family is good, because in that era, food and clothing were a problem, and reading was a very extravagant thing. He then joined the Northwest Army and became Feng Yuxiang's service soldier, because of his intelligence and agility, Feng Yuxiang was very optimistic about him, so he sent him to the Beiyang Army Academy to continue his studies. The result was unsatisfactory, and after Studying, Feng Yuxiang actually turned to Han Fuqu and became the leader of the Senior Teaching Group.
Feng Yuxiang
During the Republic of China period, warlords were fighting each other, and it was not uncommon, wu Huawen was later taken in by Jiang Ruiyuan, and the regimental commander became a brigade commander. During the War of Resistance Against Japan, he fought against the Japanese army many times, seriously damaging the Japanese army. However, due to the civil war policy at that time, Wu Huawen also destroyed many generals of our army. In December 1942, Wu Huawen was seduced by the Japanese Kou and, in the name of losing to the Japanese army, asked the nationalist top brass if he could surrender to the Japanese army.
Wu Huawen (2nd from left) and Liu Yufen (3rd from left) meet with the Japanese Kou
Many of Feng Yuxiang's old departments were as determined as he was, so the Nationalist Army never really wanted to reuse him. Therefore, Wu Huawen was instructed to preserve their own strength as long as they did not join the Communist army. Wu Huawen took the chicken feathers as an arrow, and believed that the Nationalist army was signaling him to surrender to the Japanese, wu Huawen became a puppet army, and also became the commander of the third army of the puppet army.
Wu Huawen was also more fateful, and it did not take long to defect to the Japanese Kou, and the Japanese Kou was defeated. Wu Huawen again defected to Jiang Ruiyuan and became a national army. I did not think that the good times would not last long, and since the victory of the People's Liberation Army, the Nationalist army has been declining day by day. In the Battle of Jinan, Wu Huawen began to want to turn to the dark again, he contacted our army and said that he wanted to lead more than 20,000 subordinates to revolt, the only drawback of the uprising was that it did not successfully detain Jiang Ruiyuan, and the rest were considered to be very successful. If Jiang Ruiyuan can be detained, it can be regarded as a meritorious deed.
Later, the Nationalist army refused to sign a peace agreement, and our army launched the Battle of crossing the river, Wu Huawen was familiar with it, led the 35th Army to march directly to Nanjing, fought bravely, and then planted the Chinese flag on the city of Nanjing, and successfully occupied Nanjing. Common sense is that this meritorious achievement is remarkable, and it is bound to be praised and widely circulated, but Wu Huawen's popularity is not high, perhaps because of his past reasons.
Battle of the River Crossing
After this battle, for just over a year, the 35th Army was abolished because of disputes among the troops. The 35th Army was like a shooting star, flashing hurriedly, but at the moment of glowing, it was incomparably brilliant and left a very deep impression. Wu Huawen has since transferred to Zhejiang. At the 1955 conferment ceremony, Wu Huawen was not awarded the title because of the incomparable officers who were on duty, and Wu Huawen was not. Later, the Shandong masses sent representatives to Shanghai to petition for Wu Huawen's killing to punish him for his past crimes of brutalizing the people of Shandong, but was later stopped by Chen Yi, then commander of the East China Military Region and mayor of Shanghai.
In 1962, Wu Huawen died in Shanghai at the age of 58.