Chapter 287 5. Why Huang Botao’s Corps Withdrew Westward Before the Battle

The Huang Botao Corps, established in August 1948, has three armies under its jurisdiction, the 25th Army, the 63rd Army, and the 64th Army. In early November, the 100th Army and the 44th Army were also placed under the command of the 7th Army.In this way, when the Huaihai Campaign was launched, Huang Botao's Corps actually had 5 armies, a total of 10 divisions, and about 150,000 people. When our East China Field Army surrounded Huang Botao's corps on November 6, Huang Botao began to retreat westward on the 7th.This is tantamount to changing the battle plan after the battle is fought, which is a taboo for military strategists.Why?So what?

After September 1948, Huang Botao's corps gathered in Xin'an Town, east of Xuzhou.Huang Botao deeply felt that his corps was far away from Xuzhou and was isolated, so it was easy to be annihilated by the People's Liberation Army.Therefore, he once proposed to Liu Zhi that all the corps should be gathered around Xuzhou to avoid being defeated by the People's Liberation Army.He believes that the Xuzhou Kuomintang troops are distributed along the Longhai Railway, with a vast battle front, and there are PLA troops in all directions.He proposed that the only way to be safe is to follow Napoleon's regimental concentration method and concentrate troops around Xuzhou.

On November 3, Huang Botao expressed his opinions to Liu Zhi again, advocating that "taking Xuzhou as the center, gather all the corps to prepare for war in the east, west, south, and north directions, carry out deep trenches and high fortifications, and connect the corps to each other." tactics". When Gu Zhutong decided to assemble the corps to Xuzhou on November 5, Huang Botao hurried back to Xin'an Town that night and immediately deployed to retreat westward.But at this time, Huang Botao received an order from Liu Zhi, asking him to cover the westward retreat of the 44th Army of the 9th Appeasement Area of ​​the Kuomintang, which was originally scheduled to retreat from the sea.Therefore, it was not until the morning of November 7 that Huang Botao's corps began to withdraw from Xin'an Town in the chaos and moved closer to Xuzhou.

Huang Botao's original deployment to the west was to order the bridging troops to build a parallel pontoon bridge in the north of the railway to connect the roads on both sides of the canal; the 25th Army sent a part to occupy Niushan, cover the 44th Army's retreat first, and then act as a guard against the east; 100 The army occupied the artillery vehicles, guarded the north, and covered the 63rd Army, 64th Army, and 44th Army to pass through the canal. But at this time our army had launched an attack, the enemy felt that the situation was urgent, each army had its own plans, and Huang Botao's deployment could not be carried out.Under such circumstances, Huang Botao had to change the original deployment, and changed it to: the 25th Army first occupied Niushan with part of it, covering the retreat of the 44th Army; Then followed up; the 63rd Army crossed the canal from Yaowan and retreated to Nianzhuang; the 64th Army first passed the iron bridge of the canal to support the 63rd Army to cross the river; Bayiji and Daxu's family were transferred. On the morning of the 7th, the entire Corps began to withdraw westward in the order of the 100th Army, the 64th Army, the Corps Headquarters, the 25th Army, and the 44th Army (the Army began to arrive at the city head east of Xin'an Town on the 6th). The 63rd Army retreated from Xin'an Town to Yaowan in the southwest.

On the way from Xin'an Town to Xuzhou, there is the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.Only one railway bridge can pass through the canal in this area, and all the boats along the river were sunk into the bottom of the river or hidden downstream by the local people. In addition to the 63rd Army, Huang Botao's Corps, with more than 100,000 people from the other 4 armies, plus the local personnel of the Kuomintang, passed through the same bridge, which was extremely crowded.These Kuomintang officers and soldiers each wanted to flee. Many people were squeezed into the water, and some were trampled to death on the bridge. Some troops even used machine guns to open the way in order to snatch the canal.

Until the 9th, except for the 63rd Army deployed in Yaowan to cross the river, the other 4 armies crossed the canal one after another.Huang Botao ordered the two remaining regiments in the east of the river to hold the bridgehead to prevent our army from pursuing, and ordered to pour gasoline on the bridge to burn down the iron bridge.In the afternoon of the same day, Huang Botao's corps entered the Nianzhuang area west of the canal.