Chapter 61 3. Tang Enbo's crazy preparations

In May 1949, Shanghai was already in chaos. People can see Tang Enbo's garrison headquarters, which is even more busy.Under Chiang Kai-shek's slogan "Defend Greater Shanghai", Tang Enbo launched frantic preparations for the war. Chiang Kai-shek believed that as long as he fought in Shanghai for 6 months to 1 year, he waited for changes in the international situation, and then turned the civil war into an international war to make money in the Third World War. Chiang Kai-shek held three consecutive speeches by officers above the regiment commander on Fuxing Island, which greatly encouraged General Tang Enbo, the commander of the Zhejiang-Shanghai-Hangzhou garrison.

Tang Enbo said confidently to his subordinates: "The president instructed us to be determined to stick to Shanghai for 6 months. Shanghai is an international city, which is very important. As long as we can keep Shanghai for half a year, the United States will come to our aid. At that time, if the third If World War I breaks out, the problems of the Communist International can be solved as a whole. The problems of China can also be solved together.” Chiang Kai-shek was not the only one who had this kind of thinking at the time. Even Chiang Kai-shek's old rival and acting President Li Zongren said in a speech at the combat training class in April 1949: "The United States will never stand by and watch us fail."

When the People's Liberation Army approached Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek still had the shameful idea of ​​using the Japanese army. In January 1949, the National Government acquitted Okamura Ningz.Even the great executioner, whose hands were stained with Chinese blood, was surprised.He originally thought that as long as he was not beheaded and could be sentenced to life, he would be lucky. In April, the national government repatriated more than 430 Japanese war criminals. According to Chiang Kai-shek's explanation in his speech on Fuxing Island: "This time, a group of Japanese war criminals were sent to the Allied Forces Headquarters in Tokyo for management because Shanghai is about to fight. Some of you don't understand the general situation, and you have some discussions. You should have a long-term perspective on this matter. You know, for the anti-communist and anti-Russian , Japan will still be our ally in the future.”

What Chiang Kai-shek said was only half right. In fact, he was determined to learn from Wu Sangui and attract Japan to China to help fight the civil war. This is supported by facts. Not long after he spoke, the Ministry of National Defense ordered Cao Shicheng, chief of staff of the Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou Garrison Headquarters, to go to Tokyo as a member of the delegation of the Japanese Army. Before leaving, Cao Shicheng said to He Chengfang, the leader of the fifth inspection team of the Ministry of National Defense: "I went to Japan this time to recruit some Japanese soldiers."

Before our army crossed the river, Du Yuesheng, the so-called "sea man" and the leader of the Qinghong Gang, came forward to launch a Shanghai "internationalization" campaign with Shanghai's gentry and businessmen.The main purpose of this campaign is to make Shanghai an "undefended" city.Local order is maintained by foreign troops. Therefore, it is reasonable for the Party Central Committee to be cautious about liberating Shanghai.There is indeed a danger of U.S. imperialist intervention. Mao Zedong also warned Chiang Kai-shek: "If you eat the food that comes, your stomach will hurt."

Tang Enbo was very loyal to Chiang Kai-shek. He once said to his subordinates: "The president asked us to fight hard. As long as we persist for half a year, the Americans will come." Adhering to Chiang Kai-shek's will, Tang Enbo decided to build a solid modern fortification in the Songhu area since January 1949. The fortification design is based on Yan Xishan's position in Taiyuan. It should be said that this fortification design is quite ingenious. Before the battle in Shanghai in early May, the fortifications had been basically completed.He built a large number of reinforced concrete blockhouses around Shanghai, and each blockhouse was connected to form a powerful firepower network.

The entire defensive position in Shanghai is composed of three parts: the main position, the peripheral position and the core position in the urban area. Main position: In Puxi, from Shizilin in the north, to the south via Luodian, Hongqiao, Longhua Town to the Huangpu River; in Pudong, from Gaoqiao in the north to Gaoxing, Qingning Temple, Yangsi Town to the Huangpu River in the south. The frontier of the main front is generally 3 to 6 kilometers away from the urban area, and there are densely packed bunker groups in the depth, and each bunker group is at least half a squad or one squad.There are traffic trench connections between the main bunker groups; some buildings are also used as resistance points.There are many permanent and semi-permanent fortifications.

Peripheral positions: on the Puxi side, the lines of Liuhe, Jiading, Qibao Towns, and Huajing Towns; on the Pudong side, the lines of Chuansha and Beicai Towns. The core position in the urban area: it is to use tall and solid buildings, combined with street blockhouse fortifications, to form resistance strongholds. Those selected at that time were: International Hotel south of Suzhou River, HSBC Bank, Customs Building, Wing On Company, Daxin Company, Mebaike Road Catholic Church, Barker Apartment, Lyceum Grand Theater, Petain Apartment, City Hall, Ten Liupu German Warehouse, Paramount Ballroom, Queen's Theatre, Dahu Hotel, Hartong Apartment; Broadway, Beizhan Street, National Defense Hospital, Former Garrison Command Building on the north side of Suzhou River; Postal Worker Apartment, Continental Bank, Fourth Bank There are 32 places including warehouses and Tilanqiao Prison.

International Hotel and Broadway serve as two command centers in the north and the north of Suzhou River respectively. Tang Enbo was satisfied with the formation of such a fortification position, and he boasted: "The fortifications he built in Shanghai are unbreakable and indestructible steel positions, and he wants to make Shanghai 'Second Stalingrad'." He even said very precisely: "Shanghai is 33.3% stronger than Stalingrad." Just as Tang Enbo shouted in Shanghai that "Shanghai is 33.3% stronger than Stalingrad", General Su Yu, the deputy commander of the Third Field Army, was studying the battle plan for attacking Shanghai with Chief of Staff Zhang Zhen in the ancient city of Suzhou.

The intelligence personnel reported these words to Su Yu, Su Yu smiled slightly, and said lightly: "I wonder if this General Tang remembers that he escaped disguised as a cook?" Chief of Staff Zhang Zhen went on to say: "At that time, General Tang Chen had 500,000 soldiers and 120,000 against the Japanese. In less than half a month, he was beaten to pieces." Su Yu said: "It's really General 'Tang'. This 'King of the Central Plains' turned into thin soup and slipped away along his 'fortifications'." The incident Su Yu mentioned happened in 1944, when the Kuomintang gained the upper hand in the frontal battlefield of the entire Anti-Japanese War.

Tang Enbo is the deputy commander-in-chief of the first war zone, but he gained the upper hand in the struggle for power with the commander-in-chief Jiang Dingwen. He sits in the Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan and Anhui regions and calls himself the "king of the Central Plains". In those years and months, there were serious military disasters and natural disasters, which made the land of the Central Plains empty.Moreover, there are often hungry corpses by the roadside, which are eaten by wild dogs, and no one collects them.But in order to stop the advance of the Japanese chariots, he was ingenious and dug ditches to block the vehicles.From near Zhengzhou in the north, to Zhoujiakou in the south, and to Kaifeng in the east, two double-track deep ditches were dug, winding thousands of miles. These fortifications were all driven away from the people within a hundred miles of the deep ditch, and they brought their own dry food and tools to dig day and night.Ancestral halls, temples and even private houses along the way were all demolished. He also pursued the method of killing and establishing power.Under the glass plate of his writing desk, he wrote two sentences of his predecessors in his own handwriting: "There must be a heart of a Bodhisattva, and there must be a butcher's method" as a motto. In April 1944, Okamura Ningci, the commander of the Japanese Garrison in North China, implemented the large-scale "No. 1" combat plan and launched the Henan, Hunan, and Guangxi wars.The Central Plains War is the first stage of this battle. Focusing on Zhengzhou and Luoyang, the Japanese army has about five to six divisions and an armored brigade, with a total strength of less than 120,000 troops; while Tang Enbo and Jiang Dingwen now have 500,000 troops, four times the Japanese army. But Tangbu collapsed at the touch of a button.At that time, some local armed forces in western Henan had feuded with Tang, and also took the opportunity to attack Tang's department, which made the officers and soldiers frightened when they heard the guns.Once, Tang Enbo's guards were surrounded by local armed forces and quickly disarmed. The radio station at the headquarters was lost. Tang himself escaped disguised as a cook, with pot ashes on his face and greasy clothes all over his body. When the Japanese army captured Linru County, they only sent six or seven tanks to search with lights and one army to intercept. At this time, Tangbu had two armies in their hands, and both were equipped with anti-tank guns. Did not let go, looked at the light and fled.His thousands of miles of "defense fortifications" are useless.Throughout the Central Plains campaign, the Tang Department ended with the defeat of the whole army. This time Tang Enbo worked hard to defend Greater Shanghai. The army in the Songhu area, before the Battle of Jiangfang, consisted of 52nd Army, 75th Army, and 37th Army, a total of 3 armies.At the same time, there are traffic police corps, 2 security police brigades, a gendarmerie regiment, 2-3 armor regiments, more than 3 artillery regiments, 4 engineering regiments, a navy fleet, and 4 air force brigades. After Nanjing was captured, the Jiangfang troops withdrew to Shanghai, including 54th Army, 21st Army, 51st Army, and 123rd Army, a total of 4 armies, 2 divisions including 99th Division and 204th Division. In March, Tang Enbo newly established the 12th Army, and in April, established the Temporary First Army. In this way, Tang Enbo had a total of 9 armies in Shanghai.Tang Enbo claimed to have an army of 300,000, but it was actually about 200,000. The equipment of these troops is first-class. The 54th Army is completely equipped with American equipment, and it has the strongest combat effectiveness among the armies in Shanghai. The 52nd Army, 75th Army, 37th Army, 21st Army, and 99th Division are also equipped with semi-American weapons and have considerable combat effectiveness. Among them, more than half of the 37th Army is the "Youth Army". These people have long been educated to be loyal to the party and the country, and soldiers with stubborn thinking. Traffic police, gendarmerie, and security police forces are mostly equipped with short-range automatic weapons and have strong combat effectiveness. Although they are not suitable for field combat, they are very threatening for street fighting. In addition, there is the cooperation of special forces.The first is the cooperation of artillery.Together with the withdrawn artillery regiments, Tangbu has 5 artillery regiments, with a total of more than 500 artillery pieces of various sizes and calibers, including more than 130 heavy artillery pieces above howitzers. The front of the position is equipped with an average of 5 guns per kilometer on the front.This constitutes the first firepower net. Next is the Air Force.The Air Force has increased from the original 2 brigades to 4 brigades, and the number of aircraft has increased from 86 to more than 140. These planes are divided into three batches every day, bombing in turn around the clock, in coordination with the ground forces.It is also equipped with a large number of flares to prevent our army from attacking at night.There are also more than 100 armored vehicles and chariots each, used as a reserve team. Tang Enbo regarded "killing" as the main means of punishing officers and soldiers and establishing military prestige. To save the situation, he formulated a series of killing policies. The most powerful one at that time was his "Ten Battle Orders": (1) Those who disobey orders and retreat before the battle shall be killed; (2) those who are weak-willed and collaborate with the enemy and betray the country shall be killed; (3) those who leave their posts without permission shall be killed; (5) Those who spread rumors to confuse the public and disturb the morale of the army will be killed; (6) Those who do not respect confidentiality and leak military aircraft will be killed; (9) Those who do not spare weapons and ammunition and deduct military pay, shall be killed; (10) Those who violate military discipline and are negligent and negligent, shall be killed. This is Tang Enbo's brilliant move.In addition, when the war was imminent, he set up "military prostitute camps" in various troops ingeniously to stimulate the fighting spirit of officers and soldiers.In short, he tried every trick to defend Shanghai and be loyal to his master Chiang Kai-shek. The soldiers were bleeding, but Commander Nie Fengzhi was ordered not to allow artillery to bombard the building.Someone patted the table and asked: "Mr. Nie, we are fighting a war, not acting. Why are we not allowed to fire? Is the life of the soldiers more important? Or the bungalows of the bourgeoisie?"