Chapter 65 5. One hundred thousand enemies were wiped out in a big "melee battle"

On October 26th, Liao Yaoxiang and his various troops were in a mess, and most of the officers at all levels made their own decisions, rushing here and there.Under such special circumstances, it has been difficult for the East Field Headquarters to issue specific combat orders to each unit.Lin Biao decided that the nine columns of the Liao Yaoxiang Corps, namely the first column, the second column, the third column, the fifth column, the sixth column, the seventh column, the eighth column, the nine column and the ten column, which had surrounded and penetrated into the Liao Yaoxiang Corps, would all attack the enemy in the encirclement. The headquarters delegated command to the various columns, and the columns could then be delegated to the divisions. Wherever there were enemies, they would fight, and wherever there were gunshots, they would fight. On the night of October 26, Lin Biao issued the following order to the columns:

(1) Tonight, tomorrow, and the day after that, all units should take the initiative to find the enemy to attack and annihilate. (2) The main force should be concentrated to defeat the enemy one by one. It is best to encircle one division with three divisions and wipe out one regiment with two or three regiments. (3) Each group of enemies should be seized, surrounded first, and after a few hours of preparations, they should launch an attack, and immediately launch a charge against the retreating enemy. Under Lin Biao's order, nearly 400,000 troops of our army launched a war of encirclement and annihilation against 100,000 enemy troops in dozens of small villages called this shack and that shack. This is a rare "melee" in the history of war.Because our army intersects the enemy from all directions, the two sides are twisted together, not only the enemy and ourselves intersect, but even we intersect, there are both encirclement and breakout, and anti-encirclement and anti-breakout.Wei Lihuang sent a plane from Shenyang, but the air force on the plane did not dare to drop bombs or fire machine guns, because they could neither communicate with the ground nor tell which side the troops on the ground belonged to.It's not that the enemy didn't want to break out of the siege, and Liao Yaoxiang had no choice but to ask the troops he had contacted to rush towards Shenyang with all his might, trying to get a part of it out.

However, since our army rushed towards the enemy from all directions, the enemy was really unable to organize a team to carry out a structured attack, and could only rush in without confidence. In the face of our army's superior force, the result could only be partly defeated. Our army ate them up, and took them as prisoners in large numbers. In this annihilation battle in the form of melee, there were many results that are difficult to see on the general battlefield: There are two platoons of the 48th Regiment of the Sixth Column and Sixteenth Division. While shouting "Give up your guns and don't kill, surrender!" A "gate of liberation", and then shouted to the enemy, telling the enemy that anyone who puts down their weapons and passes through this "gate of liberation" is considered liberated.In a short time, more than 2,000 people passed through it.Once registered, there were the designations of the five armies and nine divisions of the Liao Yaoxiang Corps.

During the battle at night, a company of our army saw a large group of people in front of them, and the other party asked loudly: "Which part are you from?" The naughty soldier in our army said: "From the New Sixth Army." The other party said: " Well, we are members of the New First Army, but we have found you." As soon as we approached, the opponents all became prisoners of our army. Also at night, a cook of our army delivered meals to the troops and shouted: "The second battalion is ready for dinner." It actually attracted a second battalion of the nearby enemy.Of course, the second battalion was all prisoners.

Hou Xiantang, chief of the five-column operations section, took two correspondents from the division back to the column headquarters, and encountered a battalion of enemies on the way.It is not easy to fight three people against one battalion, so Hou Xiantang simply shouted to the enemy to surrender.The enemy in this battalion really put down their weapons.Three people captured more than 400 prisoners from the Artillery Battalion of the 169th Division of the New Sixth Army. When the Fifth Column and Fourteenth Division were chasing the enemy, the enemy scattered and fled.Commander Peng Feilong ordered the people directly under the division to also arrest the prisoners, so the "eight major members" of the government officials, correspondents, buglemen, barbers, and cooks were all dispatched, and those who did not have guns carried a stick.In this way, more than 70 government officials with or without guns and the "eight members" captured more than 800 prisoners.

There was a cooking class, and on the way back from delivering the food, there were more than 200 prisoners "picked up" by the way. When the enemy's new 22nd Division broke through the siege, it rushed to the entrance of the Eighth Column Command of our army located between the front and rear peaks in a daze.At this time, there was only one guard squad, one communication unit, and one reconnaissance unit in the Eighth Column Headquarters, and the rest were government staff.As a result, even Commander Duan Suquan and Political Commissar Qiu Huizuo took up their pistols and went into battle. They not only defeated the enemy, but also captured more than 600 prisoners.

After this battle, a newly edited allegorical saying appeared in the Northeast Field Army: "The prisoners of the Battle of Liaoxi—the more and more they took." Regarding the situation on October 27, 1948, Yang Kun, Liao Yaoxiang's chief of staff, recalled the following: As the saying goes: "The army is defeated like a mountain." For the Kuomintang army, this statement is not false at all. At dawn on October 27, 1948, when the marching column we were retreating along the way (the newly formed 22nd Division 64th Regiment, the Corps Headquarters and its directly subordinate team, the newly formed Sixth Army Corps and its directly subordinate team, the new When the main force of the 22nd Division, etc.) was cut off, isolated, and surrounded separately by the People's Liberation Army, the panic, confusion, and fleeing situation were simply indescribable.At that time, Liao Yaoxiang, Li Tao and I were also running around among these scurrying people.It was a rather large open area, and there were at least 3,000 people surrounded by the open area.There are also baggage, luggage, mules, carts, cars, etc.When gunshots were fired in the east, the crowd ran west; when gunshots fired in the west, the crowd ran eastward.

A few of us first stood on both sides of the car door and drove the car.After a bumpy ride, he came down again and ran along.Running around, I only heard gunshots from all directions, but no PLA personnel approached.So several of us shouted to the crowd running around: "Don't run away, let's organize! Help us break out of the encirclement, if you want officials, you need money!" "The commander and army commander are here, you go out with protection, and guarantee that you will be promoted and rewarded!"...We Shouting at the top of their lungs, these people still ignored them and ran away as usual.We couldn't recognize their official ranks or positions, let alone call their names, which made us helpless.Later, the crowd gradually dispersed and became scarcer, leaving only a few of us with our heads covered and turned away, not knowing what to do.Finally I said: "The three of us all have entourages. The goal of running together is too big. It is better to separate and run separately, so as not to die together." The two of them agreed, so they separated and went their separate ways. party.However, the PLA has a large number of people, and there are large and small villages everywhere, and the people in the liberated areas have been organized.Even though we hid in hiding, stayed in the daytime, marched at night in the Battle of Liaoshen, or disguised ourselves as ordinary people, we couldn't escape.At most, they spent seven or eight days, and at least for a few hours, and they were all found out one by one as prisoners.All the senior generals of the Liaoxi Corps, except Pan Yukun, commander of the new First Army, and Long Tianwu, commander of the new Third Army, escaped, and the rest will be together in the PLA Officer Teaching Corps.

In the early morning of October 28, the battle of encirclement and annihilation basically ended.The vast majority of our army's commanders and fighters have been fighting continuously for more than forty hours.If you add the rapid march before the battle, many people have not rested for several days. There are many people who can't even hold their chopsticks steadily when eating, and fall asleep while holding the bowl. However, after only a short rest, the soldiers received new orders.Because the complete victory of this battle has made the enemies of Shenyang feel the disaster, they are preparing to flee.The Central Military Commission ordered Dongye to act immediately to destroy the enemy in Shenyang.According to the order of the Central Committee, the Dongye Headquarters made the following deployments: the first and second verticals advanced to Xinmin and intercepted the enemy from the west; The final retreat; the third, fifth, sixth, and tenth verticals have fought the hardest in the past few days, and they stayed to clean up the battlefield, clean up, and take in prisoners.The Four Columns and Ten Columns that were still blocking the enemy on the Tashan battlefield no longer needed to fight, and retreated to rest (during the process of encircling and annihilating the Liao Yaoxiang Corps, Huludao’s Hou Jingru Dongjin Corps also attacked our Tashan line according to Chiang Kai-shek’s order, but they were all defeated. Our Dongye Second Corps retreated. After the Liao Corps was wiped out, our army withdrew from Tashan).

While cleaning the battlefield and cleaning up the prisoners, our army saw the embarrassment of the senior Kuomintang army generals: Liao Yaoxiang, who had studied in France, wore a felt hat, rags, sacks on his shoulders, and drove a donkey. Hu Qingxiang" (Liao Yaoxiang's Hunan accent made him pretend to be a southerner) was arrested; Li Tao, who had studied at West Point Military Academy in the United States, was carrying a ripped noodle bag and wearing a women's long gown. "Wang Yuxiang" was arrested.The other two army commanders, Xiang Fengwu, were found out wearing ordinary clothes among the captives. Only Zheng Tingji was captured when he led a special agent company to break through, so he hadn't put on makeup yet and was still wearing military uniforms.

Including the Liao Yaoxiang Corps, the second of the "five main forces" of the Kuomintang army (the New First Army and the New Sixth Army), from the commander to the soldiers, there are a total of more than 100,000 people in 5 armies, 12 divisions, and so on. Most of the troops wiped out by our Northeast Field Army were captured.This battle was not only the largest battle of annihilation ever fought by the Northeast Field Army, but also decisive for the liberation of the entire Northeast. Victory, great encouragement.The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out in a congratulatory message to the Northeast Field Army: Congratulations on your great victory in annihilating the 5 armies and 12 divisions of the main force of the Northeast enemy in the western Liaoning area.In the Northeast, our army won three major victories in Jinzhou, Changchun, and Liaoxi within two weeks, causing the enemy to lose 26 entire divisions with a total of about 300,000 troops, which made a great contribution to the national war situation.Shang Wang encouraged the whole army to make persistent efforts to fight for the complete annihilation of the Northeast bandit army and the liberation of Shenyang.