Early Life and Career
Zhang Fakui was born in 1896 in Shixing County, Guangdong province. He entered a private learning facility at a young age and went to Guangzhou to became an apprentice before join the local militia. He entered elementary military academy in Guangdong in 1912 and then went to Wuhan's military high school. He served as Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's personal bodyguard and was appointed as a battalion commander of the newly created 4th corps of the National Revolutionary Army. In 1923 he joined the campaign to dislodge Cantonese warlord Chen Jiongming from power, he was promoted to regiment, brigade and division commander. During the Northern Expedition, He led the 4th corps defeated Wu Peifu's warlord armies in Central China. The 4th corps became known as the Iron Army, Zhang was lauded by the public as hero of the iron army. When Chiang Kai-shek unleashed his forces against the communists in the Shanghai Massacre on April 12, 1927, Zhang stayed with Wang Jingwei's Wuhan government. He was awarded to command both 4th and 11th corps. In the same month both KMT governments launched separate campaigns against the northern warlords, Zhang again scored a major victory against Marshal Zhang Zuolin's Fengtian clique in Henan province. He was then promoted as commander-in-chief of the 4th area army and prepared to attack Nanjing. When Wang Jingwei and Chiang Kai Shek reconciled in July 1927 many communist officers under his command mutinied, resulting in the Nanchang Uprising. Zhang's army defeated the communists and chased the mutineers across into Fujian and then returned to his home province. While in Guangdong, he drove out the New Guangxi clique and again supported Wang Jingwei over Chiang Kai Shek. The remaining communists in his army used the confusion to launch the Guangzhou Uprising, while Zhang immediately quelled with three divisions. However he was blamed for the fiasco and resigned his command. Before the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War, he participated in a series of local conflicts into order to stop the growing influence of Chiang Kai-hek's Nationalist Government into his province and was an active member during the Central Plains War against the Nanjing Government. In 1936, he and Chiang reconciled and he was appointed as commander-in-chief of Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Anhui, and Fujian border regions, to eradicate communist activities in those places.
Read more about this topic: Zhang Fakui
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“Make-believe is the avenue to much of the young child’s early understanding. He sorts out impressions and tries out ideas that are foundational to his later realistic comprehension. This private world sometimes is a quiet, solitary
world. More often it is a noisy, busy, crowded place where language grows, and social skills develop, and where perseverance and attention-span expand.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“A woman’s whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world: it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul on the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless—for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.”
—Washington Irving (1783–1859)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)