Guide:
In September 1929, two columns of the Red Fourth Army and the Xiang'e-Ganbian Red Army Detachment Shenglihui Division, according to the instructions of the superiors, the two units were combined to rebuild the Red 5th Army, under the jurisdiction of five columns (equivalent to the division level), the column under the brigade (equivalent to the regimental level), with Peng Zong as the commander.
As the predecessor of the Red 3rd Army, the Red 5th Army made great achievements in the history of the Chinese revolution, and when the grand title was awarded in 1955, many generals who came out of the Red 5th Army became founding generals.
For example, Zhou Yucheng, who was the commander of the 13th Brigade of the 5th Column (equivalent to the regimental commander), was a founding lieutenant general; Li Shouxuan, who was the squadron leader and captain of the 12th brigade of the 5th Column, was a founding lieutenant general. Huang Kecheng, who served as the political commissar of the 8th Brigade of the 5th Column, became the founding general.
It can be seen from this that if a general at the level of a brigade commander during the Red 5 Army period lived to the rank of grand title after the founding of New China, he would basically be awarded the rank of founding lieutenant general to founding general, but one of them was Huang Kecheng's partner and served as the captain of the 8th brigade of the 5th Column (equivalent to the regimental commander), but after the founding of New China, he became a small village chief.
This person's name was Zhang Tao, born in a poor family in Qiyang, Hunan, and in his early years, in order to live, he joined the Hunan warlord Tang Shengzhi as a soldier. In 1926, he participated in the Northern Expedition with the troops. The Northern Expeditionary Army entered Hunan from Guangzhou and then invaded Hubei from Hunan, and everywhere it went along the way, it was supported by the masses and people from all walks of life.
Along the way, the people sent water and food to the troops, which made Zhang Tao feel the pride of fighting for the people for the first time. In order to repay the support of the people, in the subsequent battles, Zhang Tao showed more heroic and active, and made great contributions to the troops many times. After the Northern Expeditionary Army conquered Wuchang, Zhang Tao, who was appreciated by his superiors because of his bravery in battle, was escorted to the 4th Regiment Of the 2nd Division of the 36th Army for rotation training.
During the training of the teaching team, Zhang Tao, who was ideologically progressive and young and promising, attracted the attention of Huang Kecheng, the political instructor of the 4th Regiment at the time. As a Communist Party member, Huang Kecheng decided to develop Zhang Tao and take him to the revolutionary road. Under the influence of Huang Kecheng, Zhang Tao gradually accepted the communist ideology and actively moved closer to the party organization.
In 1930, Huang Kecheng was arranged by the organization to report to the Red 5 Army and serve as the political commissar of the 8th Brigade. Before taking office, he deliberately went to Wuhan to mobilize Zhang Tao, who was already a junior officer in the old army, to go to the Red 5 Army to participate in the revolution. Arriving in the Red 5 Army, Zhang Tao, who had many years of experience in leading soldiers to fight, was welcomed by Peng Zong and others, and was appointed as the captain of the 8th Brigade, partnering with Huang Kecheng to command the troops to fight.
After joining the Red Army, Zhang Tao's excellent military command ability was immediately reflected, and under his leadership, the 8th Brigade attacked and defended, becoming the main force of the 5th Column and even the Red 5th Army. In the siege of Changsha, the 8th Brigade was used as the main force by its superiors and was responsible for the frontal attack.
After the battle began, Zhang Tao was not afraid of danger, personally went to the front line, led the troops to launch a series of charge, the result was unfortunately shot and wounded, due to serious injuries, after the war can only be sent to the rear for recuperation, so he and his leader and partner Huang Kecheng separated. Since then, the two have embarked on different paths in life.
After recovering from his wounds, Zhang Tao stayed in Pingjiang to fight guerrillas, and soon pulled up a guerrilla force. In 1932, according to the orders of the superiors, the guerrillas were merged into the Red 16th Army, and Zhang Tao became the deputy commander. Soon after, the independent 3rd Division of the Xiang'e-Gansu Military Region was established, with Zhang Tao as the division commander, leading his troops to carry out guerrilla warfare and anti-encirclement and suppression battles in the southeastern Hubei region.
In more than a year of fighting, Zhang Tao gave full play to the combat characteristics of the Red Army, conducted guerrilla operations with the enemy, and faced several encirclements and suppressions by the enemy, the independent 3rd Division was not only not destroyed, but developed and expanded. Zhang Tao's reputation in southeastern Hubei is also getting louder and louder.
In July 1933, after research, the superiors decided to expand the independent 3rd Division led by Zhang Tao into the Red 17th Army, with a total of more than 3,000 people in the whole army, divided into three divisions, with Zhang Tao as the commander and Fang Buzhou as the political commissar. At that time, in the southeastern Hubei region, the Red 17th Army could be described as "strong and strong", and the local reactionary warlords were powerless to fight, and the military careers of Zhang Tao and others also reached their peak.
The invincibility of the Red 17th Army greatly annoyed the old Chiang Kai-shek sitting in Nanjing, and in October 1933, he mobilized the strength of 7 brigades and launched a siege and suppression of the Red 17th Army. In the face of the menacing enemy, Zhang Tao did not face the enemy head-on, but led the enemy's nose to fight a guerrilla attack, gradually dragging the enemy army down. When the enemy was exhausted, he led his troops to shoot a rifle at Mushigang, annihilating more than 1,000 enemy people in one fell swoop.
However, after this great victory, Zhang Tao made the mistake of light enemy, he one-sidedly believed that the enemy's encirclement and suppression troops had been defeated and would no longer pose a threat to the Red 17th Army in the short term, so he led his army to rest in Mushigang for 7 days. It was precisely by taking advantage of these 7 days that the enemy dispatched troops to complete the encirclement of the Red 17Th Army.
Faced with the enemy's heavy encirclement, Zhang Tao woke up like a dream and immediately ordered his troops to break through, only to be ambushed by the enemy who was ambushed in Wang Wenyi at night Chinese New Year's Eve, and the entire army suffered almost all casualties. In addition to Zhang Tao, Fang Buzhou and other military leaders who broke through, only one deputy platoon commander Wang Yixun (later became a major general in the founding of the country) led a small number of soldiers to break through.
Originally, victory or defeat was a common affair of soldiers, and a mistake on the battlefield could not explain all the problems. However, Zhang Tao was worried about being punished by the organization after the war, so he did not say goodbye and broke away from the team. Due to the search and round-up of the reactionaries, he could only wander around Henan and Hubei, and in order to resist the Japanese invaders during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhang Tao, who had a patriotic heart, joined the old Chiang Kai-shek Army as a battalion commander.
In the early days of the founding of New China, zhang Tao, discouraged, saw the People's Liberation Army breaking through with the support of the people, and returned to his hometown in Henan and became a farmer in anonymity. Later, due to his active performance during the land reform, he was elected as the village chief by the village, and then he continued to work in the rural area until his death.
Conclusion:
In the tide of revolution, many people did not persist and chose to leave halfway or defect to the enemy, Zhang Tao is one of them. The reason for this is that the ideological will is weak, the revolutionary conviction is not firm, and the craving is greedy and afraid of death at the crucial moment.
True revolutionaries can abandon everything for the independence of the nation and the happiness of the people, and sacrifice all that they have for the sake of faith. With their own words and deeds, they have interpreted the pride and grand ambition of the poor and the lowly, the rich and the noble, and the mighty and indomitable, and have practiced the spirit of sacrificing oneself to profit from the life and death of the country and avoiding it because of misfortunes and blessings.