Chapter 35 9. Inventory

The Siping defense battle was a relatively large-scale defensive battle that our army first set a precedent for, under special conditions, in order to implement the instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on cooperating with the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in the negotiation struggle.From April 17 to May 18, 1946, the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army went through 32 days and nights of bloody battles, highly developed the heroic and tenacious fighting spirit of the people's soldiers, and resisted the fierce attack of 9 divisions of the Kuomintang Army with aircraft and tanks. , killing and wounding more than 10,000 enemy troops, effectively delaying the Kuomintang army's occupation of Siping Street, Changchun and other cities, defending the North Manchurian area, and defeating the spirit of the Kuomintang ace troops, but it also lost more than 8,000 fighting backbones.

The Siping Defense War is a large-scale urban defense war launched by the Party Central Committee based on the national strategic situation and in order to meet the needs of peace negotiation struggles.Due to the disparity in the strength of the enemy and ourselves, coupled with the continuous expansion of the defensive front, the troops were completely trapped in a passive situation of confronting the enemy, unable to organize forces to use our army's strengths to annihilate the enemy in motion, and the entire battle was finally defeated. Many years later, when people reflected on this period of history, General Han Xianchu made a more objective and detailed analysis: "The Siping defense battle was a city defense war formed under specific historical conditions. Although more than 10,000 enemies were killed and injured The results of the battle have blocked the enemy's attack, but when our army is in a disadvantaged situation, we pay too much attention to the gains and losses of a city and a place, and it is strategically wrong to fight against the enemy under unfavorable conditions. Our army uses Quite a number of troops fought on such a long front for such a long time with a shallow defense depth and in a state where their strength and firepower were not at their fingertips. The troops fought quite bitterly, and some even lost their vitality. They fought very bravely and gained combat experience and lessons, but at the cost of more than 8,000 casualties. Because our army retreated decisively and got rid of strategic passiveness, it once again avoided a decisive battle under unfavorable conditions. After the negative education of the Siping defense war and the great retreat, the illusion of peace was completely eliminated, and it had a positive impact on the unity of thought of the entire party and army in the Northeast on the issue of peace and war and the construction of base areas." (Han Xianchu: "Northeast China" The battlefield and the decisive battle of Liaoshen", collected in "The decisive battle of Liaoshen") This conclusion can be said to be the consensus of all the veterans who participated in the Siping defense battle that year.

However, during the entire campaign, all the soldiers of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army faced an unprecedentedly powerful enemy. They were brave and tenacious, and fought hard and bloody. Including peripheral operations, a total of more than 16,000 enemies were wiped out, a large number of enemies were consumed, the enemy's arrogance was hit, Chiang Kai-shek's plan to seize the Northeast was disrupted, and time was won for the construction of the rear base area, and later the People's Liberation Army's Northeast Battlefield combat takes the stress off.The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out in this regard: Our army sticks to Siping for a month and fights against 10 enemy divisions, which shows the high tenacity and heroic spirit of the people's army. This struggle is of historical significance.

In the "Summary of Important Battles in the First Year of Appeasement", the Department of History and Political Affairs of the National Defense Ministry of the Kuomintang stated in the review of the "Siping Offensive War" (Siping Defense War) that "...although we won the final decisive battle in Siping, it has been postponed for more than two months. , so that the enemy was able to leave the battlefield calmly, but failed to break through the main force of the enemy.