Chapter 313 12. Captured the "impregnable" city of Tianjin in 29 hours

At 10 o'clock in the morning on January 14, 1949, with Liu Yalou's order, thousands of artillery pieces of the People's Liberation Army roared at the same time.With the "rumbling" roar of thunder-like cannons, the whole Tianjin was shaken and trembled.Tens of thousands of shells roared towards the enemy's positions, shattering fortifications and obstacles such as bunkers, deer villages, and barbed wire fences. The Tianjin Kuomintang defenders had only 4 artillery battalions. Under the fierce suppression of the powerful artillery fire of the People's Liberation Army, they had no ability to fight back at all.The two planes that came to help at Chen Changjie's request were hit by anti-aircraft guns of the People's Liberation Army as soon as they flew over the PLA position, and fell down from the sky dragging black smoke.

After an hour of artillery bombardment, all the Kuomintang military fortifications and obstacles around the breakthrough were smashed into a mess. The Kuomintang soldiers who were stunned by the fierce artillery fire clasped their heads tightly with their hands, and huddled in the bunkers and shelters. come out.Accompanied by a burst of loud charge horns, the People's Liberation Army launched a charge from the east, west, and south to the 11 previously selected breakthroughs at the same time.Under the cover of artillery and tanks, engineers quickly cleared the remaining landmines, deer villages, and power grids. The commandos followed closely behind, and the People's Liberation Army rushed to Tianjin City like a flood that broke a bank.

Chen Changjie originally wanted to use Tianjin's moat as a talisman.Since Tianjin was surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, in order to prevent the People's Liberation Army from approaching its fortifications, Chen Changjie ordered the South Canal to be connected to the moat, so that the water from the canal flowed into the moat, with a water depth of more than 3 meters.Before launching an attack, the People's Liberation Army was most worried about how to pass through this wide and deep moat.When the commando soldiers rushed to the moat with a long springboard, they were pleasantly surprised to find that the moat was covered with a thick layer of ice.This greatly exceeded the expectations of both the enemy and us.

It turned out that before the People's Liberation Army launched a general offensive, the People's Liberation Army managed to block the water flowing to the moat.In order to maintain the water depth of the moat, Chen Changjie tried every means to fill it with water.Every time he releases water, the People's Liberation Army blocks it.Due to the cold weather, once the water flows in, it will form a layer of ice. In this way, the ice on the surface of the moat will become thicker and thicker. When the People's Liberation Army launches a general offensive, the thick ice on the moat will be enough to pass pedestrians, thus greatly speeding up the movement of the People's Liberation Army. attack speed.

Not long after, the eastern position guarded by the enemy's 86th Army has been broken through in many places.Liu Yunhan sent reinforcements to counterattack in an attempt to restore the position, but failed.Immediately afterwards, the People's Liberation Army broke through the reserve positions of the 62nd Army. Chen Changjie learned on the phone that the east and west gates had been breached one after another. Come.In addition to entering from the east and west sides, the People's Liberation Army in the south of the city also launched an attack on the city wall, and fierce battles broke out at every breakthrough.So the two sides engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and then Jiang Jun's tanks were dispatched in the urban area.The People's Liberation Army responded violently with anti-tank artillery. At 11:15, Wang Yulong, the flag bearer, took the lead and immediately planted a red flag in the west city of Tianjin.The red flag is flying in the air, and the red flag is inspiring the soldiers to fight bravely!

The first column, which was responsible for the main attack task, the left-wing main attack division was commanded by division commander He Dongsheng, and the right-wing main attack division was commanded by division Changjiang Yonghui, and they marched towards the urban area separately.Street battles and barricade battles were raging. The sounds of rifles, machine guns, cannons, and tanks mingled together. Jiang's army sprayed crossfire from the blockhouses in the middle of the street, blocked the roads, dropped grenades from tall buildings, and threw explosives from windows. , in an attempt to create a three-dimensional blockade to resist the advance of the People's Liberation Army.However, their attempt failed!The People's Liberation Army that rushed into the urban area formed a tactical formation of 3 people and 1 team, and 4 teams and 1 team. They alternately covered, interspersed and divided, and fought house-by-house and street-by-street.The general offensive started at 10:00 a.m., and until dusk, the left-wing main offensive force of the 1st column had entered the downtown area.Cao Lihuai, the deputy commander of the column, also entered the urban area to personally command.He came to He Dongsheng's command post in a tank, and then the two generals drove through the troops and headed straight for the city center!

When night fell, Jiang's army in the urban area was suppressed by the People's Liberation Army's various attacking troops. They moved closer to Jintang Bridge, trampling on each other, shooting blindly, and became a mess.The People's Liberation Army, the main attacking division of the left wing, set up flat-fire guns, first destroyed the enemy's bridgehead blockhouse, and then killed a division commander of the enemy. After a fierce struggle, Jintang Bridge was occupied.As a result, the two columns on the West Road and the two columns on the East Road successfully joined forces at Jintang Bridge as originally planned.So far, Jiang Jun in Tianjin has been cut off in the middle, and the position is divided into several pieces, falling into a state of extreme chaos.

At 8 o'clock in the morning on the 15th, the 2nd Battalion of the right-wing main attacking division launched an attack on the building of the enemy's garrison headquarters. The building of the garrison headquarters was quickly captured.The command center of the enemy chief Chen Changjie is not upstairs, but in the basement.At that time, Chen Changjie was reporting the battle situation to Fu Zuoyi by wireless phone.This was the first time Chen Changjie and Fu Zuoyi talked directly after Tianjin was besieged.This call was because Fu took the initiative to call after hearing the news that the People's Liberation Army had broken into Tianjin on the radio.When Chen Changjie was saying that the communist army had entered the compound of the garrison headquarters, three soldiers of the People's Liberation Army had already rushed into the basement. They shouted loudly: "Don't move! Raise your hands!" Standing up from the chair, he said, "We hand in our guns! We hand in our guns!" Then he issued an order to all the defending Jiang troops to "hand in their guns and surrender".

The Battle of Tianjin took only 29 hours from the beginning of the general attack at 10:00 am on January 14 to the end. A total of 1 garrison headquarters, 2 military headquarters, 10 entire divisions and some special forces of the defenders were wiped out. More than 130,000 people were killed and wounded, and 26 general-level officers were captured, including the police commander Chen Changjie, deputy commander Qiu Zongding, commander of the 86th Army Liu Yunhan, commander of the 62nd Army Lin Weichou and others; captured There are more than 1,100 guns of various types, more than 3,500 light and heavy machine guns, more than 54,000 rifles, and more than 800 vehicles.

Due to the annihilation of the Tianjin defenders, Hou Jingru, the commander of the 17th Corps stationed in Tanggu, had no intention of fighting again.Under his repeated entreaties, Chiang Kai-shek sent a large number of ships, and on January 16, more than 30,000 people from the headquarters of the 17th Corps and the 87th Army stationed in Tanggu were evacuated from the sea.So far, there is only a lonely city of Beiping where Fu Zuoyi is stationed in the Pingjin area.