General Ni Zhiliang is the core founder of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Region and the Red Fourth Front Army, and his revolutionary qualifications are very profound, and he also personally brought out two generals, Chen Geng, Wang Shusheng, and Xu Shiyou, and other fifteen generals, which can be described as outstanding achievements, but what is unexpected is that he was only awarded the rank of lieutenant general later.
Ni Zhiliang's early experience was more twists and turns, he was born in a poor peasant family, suffered a lot of hardships in life, at the age of 17, in order to mix a mouthful of food, he signed up for the warlord army, successively served as a squad and platoon leader. In 1925, he was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy, and after graduation, he applied to join the Communist Party and became a member of the Red Revolution.
In 1927, after the Kuomintang and the Communist Party parted ways, Ni Zhiliang was ordered by the higher-level party committee to follow Ye Shuai to launch the Guangzhou Uprising, but unfortunately, because of a series of special reasons, the uprising eventually failed, most of the officers and soldiers died on the battlefield or were captured by the enemy, Ni Zhiliang was lucky, successfully escaped the enemy's pursuit, in early 1928, he went north to the Hubei and Henan border areas to engage in democracy movement activities, and soon relied on excellent organizational skills to pull up a red guerrilla force, between 1929 and 1930, He commanded troops to fight against the Kuomintang army through guerrilla warfare on several occasions and achieved remarkable results.
It is worth mentioning that Xu Shuai was only assigned to Hubei, Henan and Anhui in late 1929 to make a revolution, Ni Zhiliang is his "old-timer" after the founding of the People's Republic of China, when the Central Military Commission revised the history of the Red Fourth Front Army, he also used Ni Zhiliang's memoirs as a reference, which is enough to show that his position in the Red Revolution is pivotal!
In 1930, the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Red Army was formally established, and General Ni was immediately transferred to the First Division of the First Army as a regiment commander, and in 1931, the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Red Army was reorganized into the Red Fourth Front Army, and General Ni was immediately promoted to division commander. In 1934, he left the front-line command post and transferred to the rear cultural and educational department, after the end of the Long March, he entered the Red Army University to study, and in late 1937, he was assigned to the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army as chief of staff, with the same rank as Liu Shuai and Deng Gong.
In the middle of 1939, General Ni was recalled to work in Yan'an, and participated in the subsequent "Rectification Movement" and "Seventh National Congress". After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was assigned to Korea to engage in diplomatic work, during which he established a deep friendship with Kim Il Sung, in addition to assisting General Peng Lao in commanding the second and third battles, severely attacking the United Nations army, and showing the majesty and courage of the volunteers. In 1953, he was recalled to China to recuperate, and in 1955, he received the rank of lieutenant general, and concurrently served as deputy director of the Supervision Department of the Military Commission, and in 1960, he retired due to illness, and five years later he died of illness at the age of 65.
There have been many theories in the historical circles as to why Ni Zhiliang was only awarded the rank of lieutenant general, and some scholars have put forward many hypotheses and opinions, among which there are three points that are generally recognized, one of which is that Ni Zhiliang made a mistake of principle, he was originally from a warlord army, and he was somewhat tainted with some bad habits; soon after joining the people's armed forces, he was warned and punished by his superiors for beating and scolding and corporal punishment of soldiers.
But Ni Zhiliang did not reflect on this, repentance, in 1931, he even because the guards did a small thing wrong and pulled out a gun, which caused a very bad impact, the matter later once to the headquarters of the Red Fourth Front Army, aroused the anger of Xu Shuai and Chen Changhao, Xu and Chen immediately issued a military order requiring Ni Zhiliang to apologize to the guards, which calmed down the incident.
Second, Ni Zhiliang's highlight moments were basically concentrated during the Agrarian Revolution and the first half of the Anti-Japanese War, after 1939, he no longer commanded the troops to fight, but began to engage in some civilian work, and he did not make any military achievements for ten consecutive years, so that he was surpassed by rising stars such as Chen Geng and Wang Shusheng.
Finally, and most importantly, Ni Zhiliang was suspected of being involved in conspiracy activities, and the story has to start in late 1935, when the Red Front Army and the Red Fourth Front Army went through a lot of hardships and finally succeeded in meeting in Xikang. After Chairman Mao became aware of Zhang Guotao's conspiracy, he immediately led the First Front Army to the north and disengaged from the Fourth Front Army, just in case.
Zhang Guotao was very angry about this, so he held an internal work meeting in the Fourth Front Army to discuss whether to "tear the skin" with the First Front Army. Ni Zhiliang happened to participate in the meeting at that time and made a brief speech at the meeting, and later this incident was included in Ni Zhiliang's file, becoming a "black history" that can never be erased from his political resume, which in turn affected his award, resulting in him only getting the rank of lieutenant general!