Chapter 7 5. Recover Yan'an and attack in an all-round way

When the war entered 1948, the balance of power between the enemy and us had changed a lot compared to the past.Because only in the second half of 1947, our army wiped out a total of 750,000 enemy troops, and the total number of Kuomintang troops has dropped to 3.65 million, of which the regular army has 279 brigades and 1.81 million people.Since many of these regular troops were organized by the original local security teams, their combat effectiveness has been greatly weakened, and they are in a passive position in the entire battle situation.Chiang Kai-shek had to change the original key offensive to partitioned defense, dividing the combat area into 20 appeasement zones, and defending the point line.And the main force will be formed into several mobile corps to deal with our army's attack.At this time, our total strength has reached 2.49 million, including 1.32 million in 50 columns of the field army.In particular, our liberated areas have not only expanded, but have also been connected into one piece. The Central Plains liberated areas have already taken large areas of the Jianghuai River and Han Rivers as their own battlefields. We can draw up combat plans according to our own intentions, and we have changed the passive situation of being on the defensive in the past. , are and will continue to actively attack the enemy.

According to the unified plan of the Central Military Commission, in the first half of 1948, the policy of directing the war to the Kuomintang ruled areas was still implemented, and the main battlefield of our army was still the Central Plains area.Under the unified arrangement of the Central Military Commission, the main forces of Liu and Deng's armies were transferred out of the Dabie Mountains. Xie Fuzhi's Four Columns and Nine Columns will form a powerful corps, and with the cooperation of other troops, a great battle in the Central Plains will be launched. In March 1948, the Central Military Commission decided that the four columns of the East China Field Army commanded by Chen Shiju and Tang Liang, together with the two columns of the Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu Field Army commanded by Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi, would capture Luoyang, an important town in Zhongzhou, and wipe out the rescuers. reinforcements.Luoyang, the ancient capital, has permanent fortifications, and the defenders are the 206th Division of the Youth Army known as the Jiang family's "Royal Forest Army".Our army completed the siege on March 9, launched an attack on the 11th, and conquered Luoyang on the 14th, wiped out more than 20,000 enemy defenders, and captured the enemy's 206th division commander Qiu Xingxiang alive.Chiang Kai-shek urgently ordered all the troops to surround Luoyang. Our army withdrew from Luoyang three days after occupying Luoyang, allowing Jiang's army to save an empty city. On April 5, our army killed another carbine, and then conquered Luoyang, and wiped out more than 4,600 enemy troops.Since then, the ancient capital Luoyang has always been in the hands of the people.

In order to take the initiative to destroy the enemy's vital forces and to consolidate the liberated areas of the Central Plains with a population of 30 million, our army fought consecutively in the Battle of Wan (ie Nanyang), the Battle of Wan East, the Battle of East Henan (also known as the Battle of Kaifeng, Suiqi), Lao ( Hekou) Xiang (Yang) battle. On June 22, Kaifeng, another important town in the Central Plains, was conquered. Three days later, they voluntarily withdrew from Kaifeng and surrounded and wiped out the Shounian Corps in the enemy area with four columns of troops, capturing Shounian, the commander of the Corps, alive. On July 16, the military towns of Xiangyang and Fancheng were conquered, and Kang Ze, the commander of the enemy's 15th theater and the famous spy leader of the Kuomintang, was captured alive. In the six months from February to July 1948 in the Central Plains, a total of 170,000 regular enemy troops were wiped out, and more than 100,000 local armed forces were liberated. A large number of towns were liberated, and the Central Plains liberated areas were consolidated. The battles in Kaifeng and Xiangyang gained a wealth of experience in tackling tough problems, which laid a good foundation for the next bigger battle.

On the Northwest battlefield, after nearly a year of combat, the Northwest Field Army has grown to 75,000 people, and has wiped out 71,000 enemies. The initiative on the battlefield can be transferred to outside battles.After careful planning, Peng Dehuai decided to go south to central Shaanxi, first hit Yichuan, and then return to Yan'an. On February 22, 1948, our army launched an offensive to Yichuan and was ready to annihilate the reinforcements.When Hu Zongnan learned that Yichuan was besieged, he immediately ordered Liu Kan, the commander of the 29th Army, to lead his troops to help, and our army prepared bags like iron barrels for Liu Kan. On March 1, our army launched a general attack on the enemy army. The enemy's 29th army was wiped out by us, and Liu Kan committed suicide. On March 2, our army attacked Yichuan again, and the 24th Brigade reorganized by the defenders was completely wiped out by me.The Yichuan campaign wiped out more than 29,000 people in Jiang's army, killed and captured 9 general-level officers, and changed the situation in the Northwest battlefield. Mao Zedong specially wrote "Comment on the Great Victory in the Northwest and On the New Army Reorganization Movement of the People's Liberation Army" for this purpose, Said that "on the Northwest battlefield, this is the first big victory."

After the Battle of Yichuan, Peng Dehuai pretended to attack Luochuan to confuse the enemy, but he led his main force westward to attack the Xifu area (referring to the area between the Jinghe River and the Weihe River west of Xi'an, including today's Baoji, Xianyang, Fengxiang, etc.) and occupied the Many counties surrounded Baoji, an important rear base of the enemy.Peng Dehuai's move is not only to occupy Xifu and destroy the enemy's vital forces, but also to put the enemy in northern Shaanxi in a helpless predicament, so that the enemy will "retreat without fighting."Sure enough, the development of the war was completely within Peng Dehuai's expectations. Long before our army captured Baoji on April 26, the 17th Division of the Yan'an garrison enemy reorganized saw its impending doom and fled south on the 21st. , Our army regained Yan'an, the revolutionary holy land that had been occupied by the enemy for one year, one month and three days, without firing a single shot.From February to May, our Northwest Field Army wiped out a total of more than 53,000 enemy troops, recovered Yan'an, destroyed the logistics base in Baoji, and expanded and consolidated the liberated areas.Since then, Chiang Kai-shek and Hu Zongnan's dream of erasing the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region from the map was completely shattered.

At the same time as the great victory in northern Shaanxi, there were frequent reports of success on the battlefield in North China.Our Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Field Army successfully carried out the Battle of Chanan and Suidong, annihilating more than 18,000 enemies, including the temporary 31st Division, which was hated by the people and had long been loyal to the Japanese invaders.However, the most encouraging victories on the North China battlefield during this period were on the Shanxi battlefield.Under the command of Deputy Commander Xu Qianqian, the Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu Military Region carried out the Linfen Campaign in southern Shanxi.Linfen is an important military town in southern Shanxi. The garrison is composed of the main forces of Yan Xishan's department and Hu Zong's south, and has built a very strong fortification.In particular, the city wall of Linfen is 15 meters high, 25-30 meters wide at the bottom, and 10 meters wide at the top, and there are moats with a width of more than ten meters and a depth of more than ten meters, which is an extremely difficult line of defense to break through.From March 7th, our army began to attack Linfen.The enemy ordered to stand firm and even released poison gas. Chiang Kai-shek sent planes from Xi'an, Tianjin, and Taiyuan to help in the battle.Our army fought very hard. It took 72 days to dig dozens of tunnels to break the city. Finally, the two tunnels used to bomb the city were each 110 meters long. One contained 6,000 kilograms of yellow explosives and the other contained 12,000 kilograms of black explosives. The city wall was blasted, the defenders were annihilated, and Liang Peihuang, deputy commander-in-chief of the enemy's Sixth Army, was captured alive.

During the entire War of Liberation, attacking the cities held by the enemy was one of the most important combat tasks. At that time, almost all cities had tall walls, and there were a large number of fortifications built by the enemy without exception.At that time, the main method used by our army to break through the city and destroy the enemy's fortifications was to use explosives to blast.Therefore, the experience of Linfen siege battle provides a useful reference for our army's siege operations in the future.The 23rd Brigade of the Eighth Column, which was the main attacker in the battle of Linfen, was named the glorious "Linfen Brigade" by the Central Military Commission. The "Linfen Brigade" is still an iron army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.The Battle of Linfen was a fierce siege battle, which wiped out 25,000 enemy troops, and our army suffered as many as 15,000 casualties.This battle removed the enemy's last stronghold in the southern Shanxi area, connecting the Taiyue liberated area and the Luliang liberated area, and brought the entire southern Shanxi area under the control of our army.

While achieving great victory in southern Shanxi, our North China Corps and troops from the four military regions of Taiyue, Taihang, Luliang, and Beiyue launched the Battle of Central Jin, and waved to Yan Xishan, the local emperor who had ruled Shanxi for many years and then director of the Taiyuan Appeasement Office of the Kuomintang. There was a heavy punch.During the one-month battle that began in early June, after several consecutive battles, a total of more than 100,000 enemies were wiped out, including the 72nd Division of Yan Xishan's personal trainer and thousands of Japanese invaders retained by Yan Xishan. The "Tenth Corps" formed, liberated 14 counties, captured Zhao Chengshou, the commander-in-chief of the enemy field army, and killed the Japanese war criminal appointed by Yan Xishan as the deputy commander-in-chief of the field army. (formerly known as Yuanquanxin).As a result of the Battle of Jinzhong, Taiyuan was surrounded by our army on all sides, basically becoming an isolated city.

By the fall of 1948, the War of Liberation had entered its third year.Although our army lost a total of 800,000 troops in the first two years of fighting, 1 million peasants in the liberated areas enthusiastically joined the army, and 800,000 captured and surrendered Jiang soldiers (called liberation fighters at the time) turned around. Muzzle, join our army, so the total strength of our army has reached 2.8 million, including 1.49 million regular troops.In particular, there are more than 40,000 guerrillas in our party in various parts of the south. They are a surprise soldier for our army to liberate the south in the future.As for the Kuomintang army, although there are still 3.65 million troops, including 1.98 million regular troops, but because Jiang's army has been attacked many times by our army, many newly formed and newly recruited soldiers accounted for it, and its combat effectiveness has been greatly reduced.Judging from the comparison of the strength of the two sides, the ratio of the enemy and us has changed from 3.4:1 at the beginning of the war to 1.3:1 today.From the point of view of weapons and equipment, although our army is inferior to the Jiang army armed with American equipment, it has been greatly improved compared with the past, with more than 1,100 heavy artillery.More importantly, our army has not only greatly enriched its experience in large-scale mobile warfare during the two-year battle, but also has experience in fighting fortified battles in large and medium-sized cities.After carrying out the new type of whole army, the combat effectiveness has been greatly improved.Our party's liberated areas are not only expanding day by day, but also have carried out land reform in many areas, so they have become more consolidated, and the enthusiasm of the majority of peasants who have recovered to join the army and support them is unprecedentedly high.The Kuomintang-controlled area was not only plagued by continuous military failures, but also intensified internal conflicts, finances were gradually collapsing, public grievances were boiling, and the Chiang Kai-shek clique was in a precarious state.

The changes in the domestic situation and the upsurge of the people's revolutionary sentiments herald the arrival of a new era of revolutionary war, the time for our military to organize a large-scale strategic decisive battle has arrived, and the time to overthrow Chiang Kai-shek and establish a new China is at hand.