I'm from the northeast. I'll just say my opinion, which is of course the general view of historians.
Writing Zhang Xueliang's 9 18 paper must proceed from the historical background of China at that time. That is Zhang Xueliang's famous sentence: "China must be unified to resist Japan", and China without reunification cannot resist Japan.
At first, the Kuomintang hoped to give up the Northeast Territory in exchange for Japanese support for the China Revolution. In this case, Zhang and his son once again defended China.
China has been exhausted and unable to defend its territory, while the Northeast has become the fat meat in the eyes of the Soviet Union and Japan. The Japanese demand for Northeast China is to declare independence and help Japan fully invade China.
At that time, all the warlords in China had the background of imperialist support. In fact, the melee between warlords in China has much to do with the interests of imperialism in China, which also highlights that China is actually a semi-colonial country. The background of Zhang's prosperity is Japan. However, Japan demanded the independence of Northeast China, and Zhang always insisted on defending the territory of China, indifferent, and was finally killed by Japan.
On the issue of pro-China and pro-Japan, the senior generals of the Northeast Army at that time were very powerful. Pro-Japanese relations were closely related to the reality of China at that time and their personal interests. Zhang has been in the middle, not to say. Zhang Xueliang belongs to the obvious pro-China faction.
After Zhang was killed, Zhang Xueliang succeeded to the throne urgently. After stabilizing the northeast form, he sent out obituaries abroad, and announced that the northeast changed its flag to China. Some people say that Zhang Xueliang did this to avenge his father. But the most important thing is patriotism.
Because people of insight in China and Japan knew very well at that time that it was unwise for a small country of Japan to invade China in an all-round way, and Zhang and his son also understood this, so they dared to confront Japan for many years. Therefore, if you want to avenge your father, you can declare the independence of Northeast China, promote Japan's invasion of China, and kill the Japanese by the hand of China people, while Northeast China can wait and die, eyeing up.
And Zhang Xueliang's choice of Yizhi to come to China is the embodiment of his patriotic feelings, because his choice is tantamount to announcing that he will be completely anti-Japanese. Once the powerful Japanese army comes, there are strong enemies in front, no reinforcements behind, and internal infighting, the Northeast Army (Ma Pingchuan in the Northeast Plain) will die!
However, if Northeast China had not chosen to change its flag and stand on China's side at that time, it would be a sovereign and independent country now, and it would be regarded as an important area to suppress China's rise by imperialism.
As you can see, the Japanese army arrived as scheduled, and the Northeast Army could not organize effective resistance. There are many reasons why the Northeast Army did not resist. Here are some important ones, in order of importance:
First, military hard power varies greatly. According to the death ratio of Chinese and Japanese soldiers in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression of 6:/kloc-0:, the fighting capacity of more than 200,000 Northeast Army is not as good as that of 30,000 Japanese Army, let alone millions of Japanese Army! Moreover, it was a fledgling and prosperous Japanese army. Moreover, when 9 18 broke out, 200,000 Northeast Army was in the customs, and there were about 50,000 Northeast Army outside the customs, which were not the main forces. There is actually no possibility of resistance.
Second, military soft power is also very different. As I said just now, many senior generals of the Northeast Army were pro-Japanese, which was related to the weakness of China's armed forces against Japan at that time and their own economic and political interests. Within the Northeast Army, the issue of pro-China and pro-Japan is debated endlessly, with distinct factions and sharp contradictions. Finally, the pro-Japanese faction Zhang Zongchang led the Japanese army into Shandong, and the May 3rd massacre broke out. Pro-China Guo Songling defected and was killed, while pro-Japanese Zhang Xueliang killed Yang Chang's parents. It can be seen that the internal contradictions of the Northeast Army are very deep, and there may be more Japanese soldiers than anti-Japanese. Moreover, the Northeast Army at that time was very corrupt, and senior officers became billionaires, greatly reducing the combat effectiveness of the army. The Japanese, on the other hand, are not corrupt and United.
Third, without China's protection, there would be no reinforcements for the Northeast War of Resistance. At that time, China was poor and weak, semi-colonial and semi-feudal, and unable to defend the territory of Northeast China. It is a meaningless sacrifice to fight on the endless plains with a thin Northeast Army. As early as the May 3rd Massacre, Chiang Kai-shek wrote the famous "resolute non-resistance" in his diary. Chiang Kai-shek's "resolute non-resistance" has always been "resolutely pursued", and it was not until the Xi Incident and Zhang Xueliang's persuasion that he gave up his consistent "resolute". After 9 18, Ma Zhanshan formed the Northeast Volunteer Army, namely the March Volunteer Army and the Northeast Anti-Japanese Coalition formed by the Soviet Union. They fought alone for 14 years, and the sacrifice was very painful. I didn't see half of China's reinforcements! Finally, the Soviets helped liberate it.
Fourth, the Northeast Army was not accepted by China's political circles. At that time, there were factions and non-factions on the political stage in Shanhaiguan, China, and the contradiction between factions and non-factions was also very sharp. Naturally, the Northeast Army belongs to the non-clique, and it is bound to be excluded when entering the customs, which is another important reason for the pro-Japanese officers in Northeast China to be pro-Japanese. In China's political arena at that time, the only survival rule of non-clique was to support troops and respect themselves. That is to say, if the Northeast Army fought hard against Japan and finally escaped into the customs, then I am afraid there would be no such living space in the customs. Therefore, in order to protect ourselves, we can only save our strength and avoid the loss of fighting with Japan.
To sum up the above four points, the most fundamental reason is that China is poor and weak, semi-colonial and semi-feudal, and unable to defend its territory. Even if Zhang Xueliang gives you the northeast territory, you can't protect it. Japan is stronger than its economic and military strength, but its weakness lies in its small size, while China is stronger than its vast territory and large population. Japan's full-scale invasion of China is unwise and may not necessarily win. However, people of insight in Japan who put forward this view at that time were suppressed, persecuted and even killed by the fanatical Japanese military government.
Or should we, as Zhang Xueliang put it at the beginning of the article, "China must be unified in order to resist Japan"? Only by establishing a national United front and uniting the people of China can we offset the weakness of China's national strength to a certain extent, reduce the warlord's mentality of avoiding war and protecting himself, minimize the possibility of China's army mutinying as a Japanese puppet army in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and increase the possibility of China people persisting in the long-term war of resistance to victory.
Therefore, Zhang and his son, who have been dealing with the Japanese alone for many years, should say that they know the Japanese best and the advantages and disadvantages of the Japanese best. Zhang Xueliang's Xi 'an incident established a national united front and ended the warlord regime in China 100. The warlord faction in 100 was an expert in civil war, a layman in foreign war, confused at home and grovelled at abroad. Zhang Xueliang, on the other hand, is willing to lay a flag for the anti-Japanese war, use his life to help safeguard the dignity of the national anti-Japanese leaders, save the fate of the soldiers of the Northeast Army with his own responsibility, and return to Nanjing with Chiang Kai-shek without hesitation. What an eternal hero! National model!
Zhang Xueliang's historical contribution to China mainly includes three aspects:
First, ensure that the Northeast belongs to China territory. Without him, today's Northeast will become an anti-China base of imperialism, and its role should be far stronger than that of Taiwan Province Province and South Korea.
Second, establish a national united front and end the warlord regime of China 100.
Third, this is the achievement of Zhang and his son, that is, establishing and retaining the largest industrial base in China in the northeast. The rise of Changchun and Harbin at that time was the original version of Shenzhen now. It took more than ten years to develop from a small town with tens of thousands of people to ten major cities in China.
1945, the industrial output value of Kuomintang-controlled areas was only one seventeenth of that of Manchukuo. At that time, railways, highways, steel, coal, oil and gas, power generation, machinery manufacturing and integrated circuit production in Northeast China accounted for more than 50% of the country. Moreover, during the Republic of China, after the so-called golden decade, 85% of the industries and almost all the patent rights in the Kuomintang-controlled areas were monopolized by foreign capital, and there were almost no national industries and national R&D. ..
In the early days of the founding of New China, the industrial output value of Northeast China accounted for 85% of the whole country. The old industrial base in Northeast China has made immortal contributions to the economic construction of New China in the first 50 years. Until 1990, Liaoning Province was still the largest economic province in China, with the highest tax payment in China. Up to now, Heilongjiang and Jilin are still the largest grain producing and exporting provinces in China. Without the industrial base in Northeast China, China may not have the confidence of reform and opening up and the ability to develop Guangdong. India, for example, is afraid of reform and opening up because of its weak national industry.
On the other hand, if the Northeast falls, the new China will not only lose its North Gate, Beidacang and the most important industrial base, but also become impoverished after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In turn, the Northeast will become an important base for the Soviet Union and the United States to contain the rise of China. It's hard to say what China is like now.