Feng Zhanhai

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Feng Zhanhai, 冯占海, or Feng Chan-hai (1899-1963) was one of the leaders of the volunteer armies resisting the Japanese and the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria. Feng was born on November 6th, 1899. At eighteen he joined the Dongbei Army, and later entered a military school graduating in 1921. After he graduated, he was successively a platoon leader, company commander, and battalion commander. At the time of the Mukden Incident and invasion of Manchuria he was a colonel commanding a regiment of the Kirin Guards Division.

After the Mukden Incident, he opposed the Northeast border defense headquarters surrender to the Japanese forces, and commanded his troops on September 19 to withdraw from the Jilin provincial capital, and sent his troops during October to oppose the Japanese, fighting near Binxian.

In at the end of January, 1932, Feng joined Ting Chao, Li Du, Xing Zhanqing, Zhao Yi to form the Jilin Self-Defense Army, and was chosen for assistant deputy commander and commanded troops in the defense of Harbin. After Gen. Ting Chao's beaten forces retired from Harbin to the northeast down the Sungari River, to join the Lower Sungari garrison of Gen. Li Du. Feng Zhanhai withdrew to the west and raised a sizeable force of 15,000 men in western Jilin province.

In response the Japanese and Manchukoans launched two campaigns to clear Feng's force out of the countryside. From June to July 1932 the Feng Chan-hai Subjugation Operation cleared the districts of Shuangcheng, Acheng, Yushu, Wuchang, and Shulan of Feng's Anti Japanese forces. This resulted in forcing Feng to retreat to the west. In September 1932 during the Second Feng Chan-hai Subjugation Operation a force of 7,000 Manchukuoans cornered the now 10,000 men Volunteer force "bandits" of Feng Chan-hai retreating from the previous attack. Although surrounded, over half the guerrillas were able to slip through the encirclement and make good their escape to Jehol.

Later Feng's force joined in opposing the invasion of Jehol, and was forced to draw back into the area inside the Great Wall. Subsequently he participated in Feng Yuxiang's Anti Japanese Allied Army, against Japan and their Mongol allied forces in Chahar, as its Fourth Route Army commander in chief. Following the dispersal of that force by Chiang Kai-shek, his force was formed into the 91st Division which Feng commanded until July 1938 when the Division suffered heavy casualties during the battle of Wuhan. He later left the army, went to Hong Kong to engage in business. In 1949 he returned to China assuming directorship of the Jilin Provincial Sports Committee. He also served in various government offices. Feng died on September 14, 1963.

See also