Chapter 330 12. Shanghai Escape

The vanguard division of the 23rd Army of the Sanye 7th Corps entered the city on May 24. The main force of the 20th Army of the 9th Corps also crossed the Huangpu River westward from the Longhua area of ​​Gaochang Temple on the night of the 24th. At 1:00 midnight, the armies from all walks of life joined forces at the racetrack hall in the city center and occupied most of the urban area. At 10 a.m. on the 25th, they had fully controlled the urban area south of the Suzhou Creek, occupied three bridges on the Suzhou Creek, and invaded the Hebei area.So far, the enemies of Suzhou and Hebei are extremely chaotic and panic-stricken.

Under the powerful political offensive of the People's Liberation Army, Liu Changyi, the deputy commander of the Songhu garrison who was in charge of commanding the remnant enemy's operations, led more than 40,000 troops from the remnants of the 21st Army, 51st Army, and 123rd Army under his command on the 25th and 26th. surrendered to the People's Liberation Army. On the evening of the 25th, the onslaught continued across the board, and the East and West Corps launched a general attack on the Wusong Fortress. The 10th Corps went straight to Wusong, and the 9th Corps forcibly crossed the Suzhou Creek and pointed to the Yangshupu area of ​​Jiangwan, so as to jointly wipe out the main force of the enemy. From the evening of the 25th to the morning of the 26th, the 26th Army successively captured Zhenru, Dachang, Jiangwan, Jiangwan Station, the Kuomintang Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou Garrison Command, Songhu Garrison Command and many other important strongholds and the vast urban area.On the Pudong side, the 31st and 30th armies all wiped out the enemies in the Gaoqiao area on the morning of the 26th.

In Puxi, the 29th and 25th armies occupied the Shizilin Fort at 2:00 am on the 26th, captured Baoshan County and Wusong Town at 4:00 am, and captured more than 13,000 enemies. The 33rd Army captured Yangxing. The 27th Army was surrendered on the afternoon of the 27th, and the last batch of the enemy's 230th Division who surrendered was all in Yangshupu.So far, Shanghai, the largest city in China, has been completely liberated, and the Songhu operation has ended successfully. Chiang Kai-shek and Tang Enbo, who kept saying that they would stick to the Great Shanghai for 6 months and "co-exist and perish" with Shanghai, never imagined that the People's Liberation Army took less than ten days to capture the outer positions of Shanghai and rushed from some areas out of the city.They panicked. Chiang Kai-shek hurriedly fled from Fuxing Island to a warship outside Wusongkou. Tang Enbo also transferred the Beijing-Shanghai-Hangzhou Garrison Command to a warship moored at Wusongkou on the afternoon of May 24, ready to escape at any time.

Seeing that Shanghai could no longer be defended, Chiang Kai-shek instructed Tang Enbo to find a way to withdraw his direct troops from Shanghai in order to preserve the few remaining forces. Therefore, Tang Enbo secretly instructed the various armies and special forces units of his descendants to quietly transfer to Wusongkou Wharf, preparing to board the ship and retreat.As of May 26, the 12th, 52nd, and 54th armies belonging to Chiang Kai-shek's direct line had boarded ships and evacuated Shanghai, except for the 37th army which was divided by the People's Liberation Army on the north bank of the Suzhou River and had not received an order to retreat.

In order to cover the retreat of the lineage troops, Tang Enbo played tricks and sent some miscellaneous troops to the front line to take over the defense of the lineage troops who were expected to retreat. On the night of May 24th, in the name of adjusting the deployment, Tang Enbo ordered the 21st Army of the non-direct line to switch defenses with the 52nd Army of the direct line. The 21st Army was ordered to take over the defense of the 52nd Army in the Yuepu and Yangxing areas before dawn the next day. During the defense process, the 21st Army passed by Jiangwan and Wusong Road, and saw a sea of ​​people, vehicles and materials piled up like a mountain, and the order was very chaotic.Although they knew that the situation was tense, they did not realize that Tang Enbo and the 52nd Army were about to flee, so they carried out Tang Enbo's orders very seriously. After arriving at the front line, they reinforced the fortifications overnight.

It wasn't until 8:00 the next day that the commander of the 21st Army, Wang Kejun, learned of Tang Enbo's escape plan, and hurriedly called the divisions and regiment leaders of the 21st Army to gather at the military headquarters in the name of a meeting, and then left the troops and took these cronies with him. boarded the ship and fled.At this time, the officers and soldiers of the 21st Army on the front line were still kept in the dark, and they were still resisting in vain.It wasn't until Tang Enbo sent Gao Can Zhou Pingzhong, who served as liaison with the 21st Army, to the regiments to persuade them to surrender, that these officers and soldiers knew that Tang Enbo and their army commanders, division commanders, and regiment leaders had abandoned them and fled.They cursed angrily, then stopped resisting, and under the contact of Zhou Pingzhong, they surrendered to the People's Liberation Army collectively.

Regarding the panic and chaos of the retreating troops of the direct descendants of Jiang's army, we can see it from the partial situation of the 291st Division of the 54th Army. At noon on May 25th, the 291st Division was ordered to embark from the Dachang position in Puxi to the Zhanghuabang Wharf between Jiangwan and Wusong, and was ordered to arrive before 8:00 pm. After receiving the order, Wu Shiying, the commander of the 291st Division, immediately gathered his regiment commanders and battalion commanders, and said to them: "The situation is urgent now, and we are leaving immediately. According to the orders of the superiors, only officers above the battalion commander and above will be rescued in the position." , The troops are ignored. The troops that can be taken away must be lightly packed. The mules, horses, ammunition, luggage, etc. that cannot be taken away should be destroyed, so as not to be used by the communist army. The faster the troops move, the better."

After receiving the order, these regiment and battalion commanders immediately went back to assemble their troops and rushed towards Zhanghuabang Wharf.As the road along the way was congested by vehicles, supplies and disorderly troops, many officers and soldiers of the 291st Division were scattered and lost a lot on the way. He Xuanye, head of the 873rd Regiment of the 291st Division, was fleeing with his troops. He saw houses burning everywhere in the suburbs of the city, and the scattered officers and soldiers were like ants on a hot pot.He Xuanye simply abandoned the troops, rushed towards the pier with the deputy head of the regiment and several battalion commanders and led a guard squad. After squeezing for more than 2 hours, they finally ran to the pier.At this time, the Zhanghuabang Wharf was already under the control of the artillery fire of the People's Liberation Army, and many ships sailed outside Wusongkou to avoid the shelling.He Xuanye and the others only found one landing craft with a malfunctioning machine, no matter what happens, they swarmed on board with more than a thousand rout soldiers and forced the boat to sail.As a result, the landing craft ran aground when it reached Wusongkou.He Xuanye and others failed to escape in the end, and they all became prisoners of the People's Liberation Army.

After Chiang Kai-shek learned that Shanghai was completely liberated, he flew from Dinghai to Gangshan, Taiwan by plane on May 28, and then transferred to Shoushan, Kaohsiung.