Author: Shen Du
In ancient times, the troops guarding the imperial palace were often called the Royal Forest Army, which was usually strong in combat and absolutely reliable. Later, although the title of Royal Forest Army was not given, the capital guard division of Chiang Kai-shek's army in charge of the security task in Nanjing was still privately called the Royal Forest Army.
This capital guard division can be said to be the concubine of the concubines, with 13,000 people in the whole division and all American equipment, and the old Chiang often goes to inspect, personally inquires about the promotion of officers, and the funds are also sufficient, so this unit has become a fragrant feast, and many people have squeezed their heads and want to go to the capital division. In October 1948, the Capital Division and the 102nd Division and other units formed the 45th Army, and the capital division was renamed the 97th Division (for consistency, hereinafter referred to as the Capital Division), still responsible for the garrison in Nanjing.
After the establishment of the 45th Army, Zhao Xia, the former commander of the Capital Division, was promoted to the commander of the 45th Army, and the seat of the commander of the Capital Division was vacated. Like sharks smelling blood, many important officers began to dot up and down, trying to arrange their own people to be the commanders of the capital division. However, after Xiao Jiang knew about this, he directly found Old Jiang and strongly recommended a person: Wang Yanqing.
Wang Yanqing, born in 1910 in Yongxing, Hunan, graduated from the Army University, participated in the Battle of Songhu and the Expeditionary Force during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and served as the deputy commander of the 87th Army, which was reorganized from the 208th Division of the Youth Army. Old Jiang brought Wang Yanqing to talk, and he was extremely appreciative of Wang Yanqing's image and temperament, knowledge and personality, after all, there were no decent people in Jiang Jun's ranks at that time. In addition, Wang Yanqing was born in the 208th Division of the Youth Army, which can be regarded as a hardcore unit and is relatively reliable.
Xiao Jiang once recruited a large number of young people to fight for his life
However, after Wang Yanqing took office, he was very dissatisfied with the corruption within Jiang Jun, and from time to time he complained. After this situation was learned by the Nanjing underground organization, it felt that it was an object that could be won. Lu Ping was sent to contact Wang Yanqing. Under the guidance of other underground party members, Lu Ping quickly hooked up with Wang Yanqing. After all, Wang Yanqing had received a progressive education, and he had been fed up with Jiang Jun's dark incompetence for so many years. I appreciated our propositions introduced by Lu Ping, and privately said that Chiang's failure was inevitable.
However, Wang Yanqing did not take a stand on the uprising, because he was a student of old Jiang and promoted by Xiao Jiang, so it can be said that the father and son of the Jiang family had teacher-student feelings for him, plus the grace of knowing the encounter, if they betrayed them, would not it be a favor to take revenge, and they would be indebted to private morality. Lu Ping and Wang Yanqing talked many times, and even fought to be red-faced, and they were moved by Wang Yanqing's reasoning, so that he understood that he could not damage the great righteousness for the sake of personal morality. Wang Yanqing was slowly persuaded to agree to the uprising.
Young Wang Yanqing
In order to facilitate communication, Lu Ping asked Wang Yanqing to arrange for himself to work at the headquarters of the Capital Division. In March 1949, the Nanjing underground organization reported the uprising of the Capital Division to the Third Field Army and provided the division's radio codebook. Lu Ping conveyed the opinion of the Third Field Army to Wang Yanqing, asking the Capital Division not only to give way to the open river, but also to send troops to block the retreat of other Chiang Kai-shek troops and blockade the airfield.
Just as the two sides were preparing for the uprising, Wang Yanqing, who had no underground work experience, made three mistakes. First, when he held a meeting of officers at and above the divisional company level, he said something that Chiang Kai-shek's army was bound to fail and that there was no point in resisting the People's Liberation Army; second, he sent chief of staff Zhao Changran to persuade the airport gendarmerie to cooperate with the uprising, and as a result, Zhao Changran accidentally leaked the uprising plan; third, because he did not know the call sign of Sanye Radio, Wang Yanqing asked Lu Ping by telephone about the radio call sign, and was monitored by the secret agents of the military command.
Our army mobilized at the riverside
On the morning of March 23, 1949, Zhang Yaoming, commander of the Nanjing Capital Garrison District, suddenly convened a meeting of officers above the 45th military camp, first removing the commander Zhao Xia, and then beating Wang Yanqing without naming names. After the meeting, Zhang Yaoming asked Wang Yanqing to talk to him the next day. On the morning of the 24th, as soon as Wang Yanqing saw Zhang Yaoming, Zhang Yaoming scolded with his head covered, "You are not a person." It turned out that someone had reported to Zhang Yaoming that Wang Yanqing was complaining and that Zhao Changran had leaked the plan of the uprising. Wang Yanqing calmly responded, asking Zhang Yaoming to come up with evidence, there were no witnesses and no video, and it was obvious that a small report alone could not take down a division commander, not to mention that Wang Yanqing was a red man under Xiao Jiang. Zhang Yaoming had no choice, so he put Wang Yanqing under house arrest at his headquarters and then left.
Shortly after Zhang Yaoming left, Qin Yizhi, deputy commander of the garrison district, came to the headquarters, and he and Wang Yanqing were both from the Youth Army. Wang Yanqing hurriedly complained to Qin, and Qin Yizhi seemed to understand Wang Yanqing very well, and coupled with Wang Yanqing's deep background, he asked Wang Yanqing to return to the capital to wait for instructions. After Leaving the headquarters, Wang Yanqing first went home to comfort his wife, and then immediately returned to the division headquarters to discuss the uprising with several close associates. Wang Yanqing understood that they could not wait for the People's Liberation Army to revolt when it crossed the river, and that he might be sent to court-martial tomorrow.
Qin Yizhi once joined our side, but for some reason he left the party and later became Xiao Jiang's concubine
After consultation, Wang Yanqing decided to lead his troops across the river that night, but only a few of his cronies knew that crossing the river was an uprising, and most people only knew that it was crossing the river to carry out the sweeping task. That night, the 1st regiment and the 2nd regiment of the capital division crossed the river one after another, and the 3rd regiment could not contact Wang Yanqing before crossing the river, and actually called the 45th Army headquarters to inquire about crossing the river, and soon, Zhang Yaoming learned of this matter and realized that Wang Yanqing was going to revolt. He immediately ordered the printing and distribution of leaflets stating that Wang Yanqing had defected to our army, and that the other officers and men would not be blamed for their mistakes and that Wang Yanqing's heads would be brought back with them a heavy reward.
When the planes dropped leaflets on the capital division of the uprising, many soldiers of chiang kai-shek who did not know whether they were in the uprising knew the situation. Many soldiers did not understand our army, and they were also worried about being wiped out by the pursuing soldiers, so they turned around and ran back. Except for the first regimental commander, Yang Zhengzhou, who was a close associate of Wang Yanqing, the other 2 regimental commanders all fled back to Jiangnan. After Wang Yanqing and others crossed the river, they made contact with the Sanye troops, and after counting the number of people, only more than 100 people followed Wang Yanqing in the uprising.
Although most of the officers and men of the Capital Division did not cross the river, the news of Wang Yanqing's surrender made the Father and Son of the Jiang family angry: Who would have thought that the commander of the Capital Division, who was most trusted by the Jiang family, would revolt? At first, Jiang Shi still wanted to hide the news, but the paper package could not hold the fire, so he had to vaguely say that a certain unit in the suburbs of Nanjing was unstable.
Although the uprising of the capital division cannot be said to be very successful, the surrender of such a most trusted unit still caused a shock to the whole of Chiang Kai-shek's army, and the people's hearts and minds fluctuated, and Xiao Jiang was also reprimanded by old Chiang many times because of improper recommendation.
Zhao Changran, who had previously accidentally revealed the plans for the uprising, did not follow Wang Yanqing across the river and was imprisoned in Nanjing, where he was not rescued until the liberation of Nanjing. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Wang Yan worked mainly in the military academy, and was awarded the rank of colonel in 1955, and died in 1992 at the age of 82.
[Deeply cultivate the history of war, carry forward positive energy, soldiers say that all parties are welcome to submit articles, private messages will be restored]