Li Zongren
Born in Xixiang Village (西鄉村), Guilin, Guangxi Province to a teacher father, Li Beiying (李培英) as the second eldest in a family of five boys and three girls. Li joined the Tongmenghui in 1910. Guangxi Province also was general Li Xiucheng of Taiping Rebellion homeland and same family name with Li.
Schooled under Cai E, Li graduated from the Guilin Military Cadre Training School and became a platoon commander in the formidable force of Lu Rongting's subordinate Lin Hu in 1916, then served in the northern expedition during 1918 in Hunan, his bravery earned him a promotion to battalion commander.
Li Zongren accompanied Lin Hu and Lu Rongting into Guangdong and led the rear guard when the Old Guangxi Clique forces retreated before Chen Jiongming's attack. Most of Lin Hu's officers were former bandits and militia recruited earlier by Lin from the Zhuang areas of Guangdong. They defected to the Guangdong forces, taking their units with them. Li Zongren his battalion, shrunk to about one thousand men "sank into the grasses." Li, intending to become more than a bandit, began building a personal military machine of professional units of soldiers that were the equal of any number of bandits or Zhuang irregulars that Lu Rongting drew on in his war to re-establish his power in Guangxi.
Li joined the Kuomintang in 1923, when he already controlled a considerable numbers of troops in northern Guangxi. Having wiped out the bandits, local warlords, and remnant forces of the north, he joined Huang Shaohong and Bai Chongxi in the spring of 1924 to form the new Guangxi Clique and create the Guangxi Pacification Army. Li Zongren was the Commander in Chief, Huang Shaohong the deputy Commander, and Bai Chongxi the Chief-of-Staff. By August they had defeated Lu Rongting and driven other contenders out of the province. Li Zongren was military governor of Guangxi from 1924-25, and from 1925 to 1949, Guangxi remained under Li Zongren's influence.
Li went on to be the commanding general of the Seventh Army in the Northern Expedition and captured Wuhan in 1927. Appointed commander of the 4th Army Group, composed of the Guangxi Army and other provincial forces amounting to 16 corps and six independent divisions. In April, 1928, Li Zongren, with Bai Chongxi led the Fourth Army group to advance on Beijing, capturing Handan, Baoding, and Shijiazhuang, by June 1. Zhang Zuolin withdrew from Beijing on June 3, and Li's army seized Beijing and Tianjin.
At the end of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek began to agitate to reorganize the army in a military conference in 1929, the fact that it would alter the existing territorial influences among the cliques in the party quickly aggravated the relationships between the central government and the regional powers. Li Zongren, and the New Guangxi clique were the first to break off relations with Chiang in March 1929. This effectively started the confrontation which lead to the Central Plains War. After the Guangxi Army captured Yueyang, Chiang's forces cut them off from behind. The Guangxi Army was eventually forced to withdraw back to Guangxi.
Following defeat in that civil war, Guangxi allied with Chen Jitang after he became chairman of the government of Guangdong in 1931, and turned against Chiang Kai-shek. Another civil war would have broken out if there had been no September 18 Incident, which prompted all sides to unite against the Empire of Japan.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), Li participated in several battles including the Battle of Tai'erzhuang, Battle of Xuzhou, Battle of Wuhan, Battle of Suixian-Zaoyang, 1939-40 Winter Offensive, Battle of Zaoyang-Yichang, Central Hopei Operation, and Battle of South Henan. From 1943 to 1945 Li was made Director of the Generalissimo's Headquarters.
According to Jonathan D. Spence, Li was one of Chiang Kai-shek's best generals and "fought a brilliant battle (at Xuzhou), luring the Imperial Japanese Army into a trap and killing as many as 30,000 of its combat troops" in 1938.
Editor: Feng Hui
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