Chapter 53 Take advantage of the victory to liberate Ningxia

Lanzhou was liberated, and the main force of Qingma was wiped out, leaving Ningma completely isolated.Ma Hongkui hastily withdrew the so-called "Lanzhou Aid Corps" which was closely monitored by our Sixty-Fourth Army, in order to protect his old home, in an attempt to prevent our army from marching towards Ningxia by virtue of Ningxia's peculiar and complex natural terrain. Most of Ningxia is a desert grassland, only the Yinchuan Plain in the Yellow River irrigation area is densely populated and quite affluent.There are mountains on the east and west sides of here. The Yellow River flows from Lanzhou to Ningxia to the north and passes through its waist obliquely, forming an alluvial plain in the middle. This is Xitao, the famous "Hetao" area in the Yellow River Basin. , It is tantamount to mastering the lifeline of the entire Ningxia.

According to this favorable terrain, Ma Hongkui arranged three lines of defense. The 20th Cavalry Regiment guarded Tongxin, the 81st Army guarded Jingyuan, and the newly established 15th Cavalry Brigade guarded Jingtai, forming the first line of defense; the Helan Army guarded the center. Ning, the main force of the 81st Army guards the central defenders, forming the second line of defense; the 128th Army and part of the 11th Army defend Jinji, Wuzhong, and Lingwu, forming the third line of defense; the main force of the 11th Army guards the Yinchuan base camp.Although Ma Hongkui was timid and indecisive when he sent troops to aid Lanzhou, but he was meticulously arranged to defend his hometown Ningxia, and spared no effort, completely exposing his feudal warlord nature of separatism and domination.

In fact, after the main force of Qingma was wiped out, Ningma was completely isolated and helpless, and had become a shackle. It was only a matter of time before our army liberated Ningxia.However, in order to prevent the rabbits of "Casting the South of the Yangtze River" from being bombarded, according to the spirit of the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Party and Mr. Peng's instructions, we want to strive for the peaceful liberation of Ningxia as much as possible.According to the report of the Liaison Minister Zhen Hua, there is a well-known doctor of traditional Chinese medicine in Lanzhou City, named Guo Nanpu, who is an upper-level progressive person in the Islamic circle in the Northwest region. He is in his seventies.He participated in the "Tongmenghui" organized by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in his early years, and had friendship with Yu Youren, Shen Junru, Fu Zuoyi, Deng Baoshan, Ma Hongkui, Ma Hongbin, Ma Zijian and other famous people.He supported our party's idea of ​​uniting and resisting Japan. He once supported the "Xi'an Incident" and contributed to the rescue of our West Road Red Army. With his special status, he has contributed to the rescue of my arrested underground party members and progressive youths, and he is very popular among the Hui compatriots. If he can be invited to do some work for the peaceful liberation of Ningxia, it may be useful.Commander Yang and I thought this opinion was very good, so we reported it to Mr. Peng immediately, and visited Mr. Guo Nanpu according to Mr. Peng's instructions, conveyed Mr. Peng's greetings to him, and said to him: "Mr. Guo, you are a respected person in Northwest China. Old man, we know what you are like. You did a lot of useful work for the people in the past, and the people are grateful to you. Now that you are liberated, you must take care of your health and contribute to the construction of the Great Northwest."

Mr. Guo was very grateful to Mr. Peng and the head of the Corps for their respect and sincere care for him, and expressed his thanks again and again.Afterwards, we went to visit him two or three times to get closer; then we talked to him about the current situation in the Northwest battlefield and our hope to liberate Ningxia peacefully like Beiping.Mr. Guo immediately said generously: "I would like to tell them (referring to Ningma) the Communist Party's affection for returning home and its policy towards the Kuomintang army. I want them to learn from General Fu Zuoyi and take the 'Peking Way' of peaceful liberation. We considered that he was more than seventy years old, and now he was in a war environment, and the journey north to Yinchuan was far away, and he was afraid that he would not be able to withstand the long-distance bumps and fatigue, but he firmly said: "It is impossible to write a letter or send someone to such a big event. I have to persuade him face to face in person, time is not waiting for me, I have to leave immediately." We hurriedly reported Mr. Guo's wishes to Mr. Peng, Mr. Peng agreed to let him go to Yinchuan in person, and instructed us to make proper arrangements and ensure Mr. Guo's safe and healthy.On September 6th, several comrades including Lin Yisheng sent by the Liaison Department accompanied the "Peace Delegation to Ningxia" headed by Mr. Guo Nanpu and drove to Yinchuan.Before leaving, Commander Yang and I went to see him off in person, and asked Mr. Guo again: "If Ningxia has the sincerity of a peaceful settlement, because we are all on the way to march, and it is inconvenient to contact, you can call Mr. Peng of Lanzhou directly and call Comrades Zeng Siyu, Wang Zhao, and Fu Chongbi, who are in charge of our Sixty-Fourth Army, will cooperate with Mr. Guo."

We know very well that peace negotiations must be supported by military pressure, otherwise it will be difficult to achieve results.Therefore, on September 2, the right echelon of the 63rd Army set out from Lanzhou and marched northward along the Lanning Highway. The agency led the 65th Army (serving as a reserve force) to march toward Ningxia along the south bank of the Yellow River; on September 12, the 64th Army, which had been staying in Guyuan and Haiyuan to monitor Ningma, also advanced toward Ningxia along the Pingliang and Zhongning highways. Caused the army to suppress the situation.The Sixty-Three Army was in full swing, and successively liberated important places such as Jingyuan, Daladi, Hejiaji, Xingrenbao, and Jingtai. Fleeing into Zhongwei; the vanguard of the army defied the storm, hunger and thirst, and marched tenaciously, wading through the desert for hundreds of miles, and approached Zhongwei from the west on the 17th.The Sixty-Fourth Army also chased and annihilated the fleeing enemy to the north with the momentum of sweeping the fallen leaves, and successively liberated important places such as Tongxin City, Dahonggou, and Mingsha Prefecture. The enemy Helan Army stationed in Zhongning was originally the so-called "aided Lan" The miscellaneous troops that were urgently needed to be improvised broke up before our army could attack. On the 14th, the 64th Army entered and occupied Zhongning, threatening Zhongwei from the east.

After Mr. Guo Nanpu led the "peace delegation" to Yinchuan by car, he first persuaded Ma Hongkui and his son Ma Dunjing (commander of the Kuomintang Corps in Ningxia) to revolt, but they stubbornly refused; The goal is to persuade Ma Hongbin.Although Ma Hongbin is Ma Hongkui's cousin and holds the position of deputy chief of the Northwest Military and Political Chief Office of the Kuomintang, but he has few soldiers and horses and has to be controlled by Ma Hongkui, and there are many conflicts between cousins ​​on weekdays. Therefore, under Guo Lao's persuasion , and the army was pressing down on the border, they immediately acquiesced to accept our army's peace conditions, because at present Ma Hongkui and his son still hold the military and political power, and they have to wait for the opportunity before they can act.

On September 19, Ma Chunjing, the commander of the 81st Army and the son of Ma Hongbin, who retreated to the Zhongwei area, was instructed by his father and Mr. Guo Nanpu to personally lead people to Zhongning to join our 64th Army. Army commander Zeng Siyu, deputy political commissar Fu Chongbi and Zheng Weishan, commander of the 63rd Army negotiated and expressed their acceptance of the conditions for the peaceful liberation of Ningxia, and led their troops to stage an uprising.Our Sixty-Fourth Army entered and occupied Zhongwei on the 20th, and took advantage of the victory to advance. With the close cooperation of the Northwest Independent First and Second Divisions advancing westward from the trilateral area, they captured Qingtongxia, Jinji, Wuzhong, and Lingwu successively. In other important places, the 128th Army and the 11th Army, the main force of Ma Hongkui's troops, were wiped out, and they approached Yinchuan.At the same time, the 63rd Army also crossed the Yellow River north from Shikongbao, and approached Yinchuan along the west bank of the Yellow River.Seeing that the situation was over, Ma Hongkui and his son Ma Dunjing fled by plane one after another. The Ma family army had no leader and fell into chaos.

On September 23, Ma Hongbin, in his capacity as the highest military and political officer in Ningxia, convened a meeting of various military and political officials stationed in Ningxia (including Ma Hongkui's remnant troops) and pointed out that there was only an uprising and there was no way out.Forced by the situation and following the general trend, everyone unanimously agreed to send Lu Zhongliang, Lieutenant General of the 128th Army, Ma Guangtian, Lieutenant General of the Ningxia Security Command, and Ma Tingxiu, Secretary-General of the Ningxia Provincial Government of the Kuomintang, as representatives. Lu Zhongliang was the plenipotentiary representative. Go to the headquarters of our Corps in Zhongning to negotiate.Commander Yang, myself, Deputy Commander Ge Yanchun, Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff Geng Biao, Deputy Political Commissar and Director of the Political Department Pan Zili and other leaders of the corps received them in person, and further demonstrated the great righteousness by proposing five agreements for the peaceful liberation of Ningxia (draft) ).Lu Zhongliang was overjoyed when he saw the content of the agreement, and he was very grateful. They did not expect the Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army to be so magnanimous, without any clauses to punish them, and to completely guarantee the safety of the lives and property of all their officers and soldiers. He immediately expressed his complete acceptance of the terms proposed by our army.At 2 o'clock in the afternoon that day, Commander Yang and I represented the People's Liberation Army, and Lu Zhongliang and other three represented Ningxia, and successively signed the "Agreement on the Peaceful Resolution of the Ningxia Issue".

According to the agreement, our army was supposed to enter Yinchuan City on September 25th, but Ma Hongkui's remnant troops broke up on their own when they learned that Ma Hongbin and other military and political officials had electrified an uprising.The stragglers took the opportunity to loot everywhere in and out of Yinchuan City, harassing and causing trouble, and disturbed the social order of the whole city.Ma Hongbin was unable to control the situation, and before the negotiators returned, he urgently sent a telegram to Mr. Peng: "Ningxia's army has collapsed, officials cannot manage troops, and robberies are happening everywhere. Please order Commander Yang to send troops to Ningxia as soon as possible." Ning, I request our Corps to send troops into Yinchuan City as soon as possible.Mr. Peng sent a telegram to order us to send a division into Yinchuan City first to maintain social order and stabilize people's hearts.

On the evening of the 23rd, the 572nd Regiment, the forerunner of the 191st Division of the 64th Army, was ordered to cross the Yellow River from the Rencun Ferry in the rain all night and landed on the west bank. welcome.They immediately took the forty cars brought by the representatives and drove straight into Yinchuan City.Entering the city at midnight, the troops quickly spread out to the whole city, and soon controlled Yinchuan City, and Yinchuan was declared liberated. At noon on the 24th, the 64th Army led the main force of the 191st Division. Amidst the warm welcome of the masses, they marched into Yinchuan City in a mighty manner and took over Ma Hongkui's military and political institutions, banks, post offices, power plants and other important units. Social order was quickly stabilized.

On the morning of the 26th, our Corps held a grand entrance ceremony in Yinchuan City. People of all ethnic groups in the city put up lanterns and decorated the streets to welcome them.Ma Hongbin and Mr. Guo Nanpu led a total of more than 700 people, including military officials from Ningxia Province of the Kuomintang, representatives of Hui and Han people from all walks of life in Yinchuan City and nearby counties, and students from primary and secondary schools, to warmly welcome them outside the South Gate.When our army's tanks, towed artillery vehicles, and trucks carrying heavily armed troops marched majestically from the south gate into the market, and passed through the crowds lined up to welcome the crowd, the sound of gongs, drums, firecrackers, military music, and cheers merged into one. , resounding through the sky, celebrating the rebirth of the ancient city of "South of the Great Wall". At the same time, on September 22, the chairman of the puppet "Simon Self-Government" and the reactionary leader Demchukdongrup (King De, leader of the Xilingrad League) was forced to flee. Chairman Dali Zaya (Da Wang, Alashan Banner Zasak) and members of the puppet government Bai Haifeng (Executive Member of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang, Commander of the New Third Division), He Zhaolin (Member of the Mongolian and Tibetan Committee of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang), Ba Wenjun (former Sui Secretary-General of the Mongolian Political Council) and other four people immediately jointly issued an uprising telegram, and sent five people including Luo Ruiguang, the deputy captain of the Alashan Banner Security Corps, to Yinchuan to report to Commander Yang and me that the "Simon Autonomous Government" forced out the reactionary King De, After electrifying the uprising, our army is welcome to enter Alxa Banner. On the 29th, the Corps sent the 564th Regiment of the 188th Division of the 63rd Army to cross Helan Mountain and enter Bayant City in Alxa Banner. They were led by Dali Zaya. The banner government officials and local people warmly welcomed.So far, the entire territory of Ningxia has been declared liberated, and the Hui, Mongolian, and Han people have been reborn since then.Our Nineteenth Corps began to march into Ningxia on September 5, and liberated the entire territory of Ningxia in less than a month.In this battle, a total of four enemy armies and two columns were wiped out, with more than 70,000 people. Among them, more than 33,000 enemy people rebelled, surrendered and captured. Except for a few killed, most of the rest collapsed on their own. Yinchuan is a famous city and an important military town on the frontier of our country. It is known as the orchard city of "Jiangnan on the frontier". However, Yinchuan has experienced countless wars and famines in history, especially during the rule of the Kuomintang Ma Hongkui. The oppression and exploitation of Yinchuan, the arrest of soldiers and husbands for many years, forced the people to flee the ancient city to make a living in other provinces or live in the desert wasteland, turning Yinchuan into a land of "no wind, three feet of dust, rain, mud without legs, smelly pits everywhere, mosquitoes and flies". group of dilapidated cities.At that time, there was a folk song describing the city of Yinchuan as it became smaller and smaller: "One road has two buildings, one policeman looks at both ends, and one park has two monkeys; the yamen spanks, and the whole city listens to it." Although this ballad is somewhat exaggerated, it is actually The street is similar, there are only a few shops on a short street in Yinchuan City; and the industry is pitiful, except for a small repair shop and a small power plant built by the 15th Route Army, there are only a few shops in the city. Small handicraft workshops for ceramics, felt and rice milling.According to our statistics at the beginning of liberation, the city's population was only 36,000 people left. On the contrary, Ma Hongkui is extremely extravagant. The so-called "Ningxia Provincial Government" is just an old government office like a dilapidated temple. The "General's Mansion" and the "Family Temple" where he sacrificed to his ancestors have high walls and cornices, carved beams and painted buildings, resplendent and resplendent, just like a palace or a famous temple.There is not a single theater or cinema in the whole city of Yinchuan, but both the "General's Mansion" and his "Family Temple" have large stages, and they often sing operas for his family and minions to have fun.It can be seen that Ma Hongkui, the overlord of Ningxia, exploited the people cruelly. He really squeezed the people and enriched himself. Immediately after our Corps entered Yinchuan City, a military control committee headed by Commander Yang was formed, and Ma Hongbin was appointed as the deputy director. Fleeing outside the Helan Mountains or desert areas, most of them quickly handed down their guns and surrendered, and the social order quickly stabilized.In order to commend Mr. Guo Nanpu for his contribution to the peaceful liberation of Zhongwei and Yinchuan, and to accelerate the liberation of the whole territory of Ningxia, I specially wrote the four characters "Peaceful Old Man" and cut it into a large silk banner. According to the arrangement of the central government, Mr. Guo was invited to Beijing to participate in the first National People's Political Consultative Conference.Chairman Mao and other party and state leaders met him in Huairen Hall and gave him high honors, which had a great influence on the Hui compatriots in Northwest China. At the same time as our 19th Corps marched into Ningxia, the 1st Corps marched into Qinghai and liberated Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, on September 5.The Second Corps and the First Corps marched in two directions to the Hexi Corridor in Gansu, joined forces in Zhangye, surrounded and wiped out most of the two enemy armies, then took advantage of the victory and marched westward, pointing directly at the Xinjiang border, annihilating more than 30,000 people from Ma Bufang's troops along the way. On September 19, General Dong Qiwu, the deputy director of the Northwest Military and Political Office of the Kuomintang and the chairman of Suiyuan Province, led his troops to revolt by telegram, and Suiyuan Province was peacefully liberated.In late September, our 1st and 2nd Corps advanced into Xinjiang. The Kuomintang army stationed in Xinjiang was led by General Tao Zhiyue to electrify an uprising. The Xinjiang Provincial Government headed by Mr. Paul Han also telegraphed to accept the leadership of the soon-to-be established Central People's Government in Beijing. On October 20, our army entered Urumqi, and Xinjiang declared a peaceful liberation.At this point, the entire Northwest was completely liberated, and the Kuomintang reactionaries' plan to keep the Northwest as its last counter-revolutionary base on the mainland was completely bankrupt. In the northwest battlefield, our army won the decisive battle in less than two months; then took advantage of the victory to quickly sweep away the remnants of the enemy, and liberated all the five northwestern provinces.Our army has achieved the greatest and fastest victory at the least cost, thus creating a miracle in military history.This victory is the victory of Mao Zedong's military thought. This decisive battle fully embodies Chairman Mao's thought of "despising the enemy strategically and attaching importance to the enemy tactically" in terms of operational command, fully embodies the principle of using the enemy's contradictions and defeating the enemy one by one, and fully embodies the characteristics and characteristics of targeting the enemy. Changes in the situation determine the high flexibility of combat methods; it also fully reflects the extreme importance of actively launching political offensives, turning enemies into friends, and winning in peaceful ways while conducting military offensives.Chairman Mao's foresight and foresight, Mr. Peng's careful planning, wit and decisiveness, and the close relationship and mutual trust between the generals are always worthy of our memory and reference.