Chapter 161 3. Liu Deng issued an order to forcibly cross the Yellow River

While the Liu Deng Field Army was preparing to carry out Mao Zedong's instruction to cross the Yellow River, Chief Liu Deng was still considering where to break through the Yellow River in the command room. Where to break through the Yellow River is a question that Liu Deng concentrated on.Chief of Staff Li Da recalled: "At this time, our headquarters already had 'air superiority', that is, the intelligence department already had the communication equipment left behind when the US military observation team withdrew from Taihang, and trained a group of skilled reporting agents. The intelligence office can almost intercept the telegrams of the enemy's troops above the division level. They are even familiar with the fingerings of the enemy's radio operators. As long as they listen to the signal, they can tell which unit's operator is the number It was issued." (Li Da: "The Prelude to the Strategic Offensive")

By intercepting the enemy's telegrams, we have clearly figured out the enemy's deployment on the south bank of the Yellow River.The "Qingzi No. 1 Bulletin" issued by the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army Headquarters on June 18 stated: "After the return of the Yellow River, Liu Ruming of the 4th Appeasement District of the Jiang Army immediately transferred the 74th Brigade, 181st Brigade, and 68th Division of the 55th Division. The 81st Brigade and the 119th Brigade consisted of 4 brigades, serving as defense for the river. The defense line from Kaifeng to Dong'a was about 500 Li, and the defense was weak, and some areas had to conduct guerrilla defense." Liu Ruming's department is the old Northwest Army, not Chiang Kai-shek's direct line .These troops were incomplete and weak in combat effectiveness, so it was listless to ask them to guard the Yellow River. They built a small bunker every mile on the south bank of the Yellow River, and asked ordinary people to stand guard for them.Liu Ruming himself lives in Zhengzhou and never goes to the front line.Even Chiang Kai-shek didn't expect that our army would attack. He still placed the main force in southern Shandong and wanted to fight Huaye.When Liu Deng's main force was moving from Anyang to southwestern Shandong, he ordered Wang Zhonglian to counterattack from Xinxiang to Anyang, which was the opposite of our army.

Having mastered the enemy's situation, Liu Deng successively issued orders on June 20 and 26 to forcibly cross the Yellow River and implement the Battle of Southwest Shandong.Determined to cross the Yellow River with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th columns from Zhangqiu Town (now Taiqian County, Henan) to Linpuji (now Shandong Juancheng) 150 kilometers.First eliminate the two divisions of the Liu Ruming Group, and then seek to wipe out the enemy in the movement. The specific deployment is: use the 1st Independent Brigade of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region to cross the river secretly, and then cross the river in the south bank of the Yellow River from Daimiao to Sunkou. 1. Cross the river at Weishan, Zhangtang, and Linlou's ferries, and together with the 1st Independent Brigade, wipe out the enemies of Yuncheng.The 2nd Independent Brigade originally in Henan joined the 6th Zongdu River in the section from Jiuchengji to Linpuji, and the 6th Zongdu crossed the river from Lijiaqiao, Yuzhuang, and Dazhang villages in the southeast of Puxian County. The 2nd vertical crossed the river from Sunkou and Linlou to assist the 1st vertical in combat. 3 The vertical is the general reserve team, crossing the river to expand the results according to the situation.

On June 23, Liu Deng led four main columns to secretly dispatch from the Anyang area to southwestern Shandong.In order to ensure the secrecy and suddenness of crossing the river, Liu Deng ordered the Taihang and Southern Hebei troops to launch a feint attack in northern Henan, and the Henan, Anhui and Soviet military regions attacked south of Kaifeng to divert the attention of the Kuomintang army.The troops moved day and night, and the planes of the Kuomintang army patrolled the Yellow River every day, but they did not find any traces of our army's actions. On the 30th, Liu Deng's headquarters arrived at Shouzhang Town (now part of Yanggu, Shandong), and the troops also arrived at the scheduled crossing point.