Chapter 25 4. Battle of Nanman

The confrontation between the two sides in the Northeast is relatively quiet, and local fighting still exists. In August 1946, Du Yuming ordered Zheng Dongguo to command the 13th Army, 93rd Army, and 71st Army to attack our Rehe area.Due to the large difference in the strength of the enemy and our troops, our army voluntarily withdrew. The enemy's 13th army occupied Chengde on August 29, and the enemy's 93rd army occupied Chifeng on October 4.After Chengde and Chifeng were occupied, the main lines of communication between our army and the pass were basically controlled by the enemy.

Du Yuming believed that the north was basically stable, and he formulated the strategy of "attacking from the south and defending from the north, first south and then north". The goal is to eat up the entire Northeast step by step.Therefore, during this period, he put his troops and energy into South Manchuria. Beginning in mid-October 1946, Du Yuming mobilized 8 divisions to launch an attack on our southern Manchurian base in three routes, in an attempt to eliminate our main force in southern Manchuria.Its main offensive spearheads were Anton (now Dandong) and Kuandian area. At this time, the main person in charge of our South Manchuria area was Xiao Hua, commander and political commissar of our Liaodong Military Region, and secretary of the Liaodong Provincial Party Committee.

In order to repel the enemy's attack, our Liaodong Military Region, under the leadership of Xiao Hua, made a careful deployment. In order to avoid the area where the enemy is strongest and continue to maintain the connection between South Manchuria and North Manchuria, it was decided to secure the base in the eastern mountainous area and abandon Anton, and concentrate its forces to annihilate the enemy during the campaign.Therefore, in addition to arranging a small number of troops from the Four Columns to protect the transfer of the military region, the troops from the Three Columns, Four Columns, and the Liaonan Independent First Division were all used to block the enemy. On October 19, the Northeast Bureau approved the plan of the Liaodong Military Region, and said in a telegram: "If the enemy concentrates a large force to attack Andong, our army should take the initiative to prepare to abandon Andong, and we must not be beaten passively." We should still concentrate our forces to find scattered small groups of enemies and annihilate them one by one. From now on, the victory in the Northeast will mainly depend on this method of warfare and the thorough adherence to rural guerrilla warfare and mass work.”

Also on October 19, the 52nd Army of the Kuomintang Army took the lead in attacking from Benxi to Andong.After two days of blocking, my four verticals took the initiative to retreat.The enemy's second division entered Anton on 25 October.The enemy's 25th Division is equipped with American motorized equipment. The division commander Li Zhengyi was in the Yunnan Army (the 52nd Army, the 60th Army, and the 93rd Army were all Yunnan Army, and they were all sent to the Northeast by ship from Vietnam's coastal defense. In the middle, they are good at long-distance raids and outflanking, and are known as "thousand-mile horses".At this time, Li Zhengyi led his troops to make a big detour, and the army went deep alone, keeping a distance from other troops.

The Xinkailing area west of Kuandian is a good place for ambushes.Xiao Hua and Cheng Shicai decided to fight a battle of annihilation here, so they mobilized the strength of 8 regiments and set up a pocket formation. On October 30, the enemy's 25th Division approached Xinkailing, and our 4th Column and 11th Division met with it.Since there are many hills here, the battle could not be ended quickly. After two days of fierce fighting, Du Yuming sent planes to drop ammunition for support and sent reinforcements from 3 divisions. On November 2, before the enemy's reinforcements arrived, our four verticals launched a fierce attack, and finally wiped out more than 8,000 people from the enemy's 25th Division, and captured the enemy's division commander Li Zhengyi and deputy division commander Duan Peide.Our army also paid the price of nearly 2,000 casualties in the battle.

The Battle of Xinkailing was the most beautiful battle our army fought in South Manchuria in the past year, and it was also the first time in the Northeast Liberation War that an entire division of the enemy was wiped out. The troops participating in the battle were praised by Mao Zedong.