Chapter 53 5. The successful breakout of the Fifth Theater Command

The breakout of the army in the final stage of the fifth theater of Xuzhou was an important part of the battle of Xuzhou.It is also another embodiment of the wisdom of Commander Li Zongren.After five months of bloody fighting, the Chinese army inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese invading army in the Xuzhou area.The victory of the Xuzhou Battle allowed the Chinese people to survive the most difficult and crucial year of the War of Resistance.This year is a hurdle for the Chinese people's war of resistance. If you climb up and persevere, there will be hope for China's war of resistance. Otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous.

China's 600,000 elites persisted in the combat area of ​​Xuzhou Fifth Theater for 5 months, not only gaining time, but also winning.When the Japanese army encircled Xuzhou with 300,000 elite troops equipped with aircraft and ground armored troops, the Chinese army put up a tenacious resistance. Unable to break the Japanese offensive, they carried out a strategic shift in a relatively orderly manner, so that the 500,000 troops could be safely and safely Successfully jumping out of the enemy's encirclement, this cannot but be said to be another victory for the decision-making of the fifth theater.

On May 16, 1938, among the Chinese troops participating in the Battle of Xuzhou, except Liu Ruming's 68th Army and Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army, which confronted the Japanese army on the front line and covered the retreat of various armies, the rest of the armies had basically disengaged from the battle. , and some have already reached the safe zone.Therefore, Li Zongren, the commander-in-chief of the fifth theater, decided to abandon Xuzhou.He led a total of more than 1,000 people including staff from the Minister’s Department, the Secret Service Battalion, personnel from various agencies of the central government in Xuzhou, several journalists, and a field service group, and they took a train to the south. Then retreat westward from Su County.

Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Lin Wei, Liu Fei and other officers boarded the train, feeling a lot more at ease.In the past few months, it can be said that they have worked hard for the battle in the Xuzhou theater, and they have fulfilled their responsibilities as officers.They both belong to the core figures of the main combat faction in China's upper military circles. Although they have different views on many issues, they have confidence and determination in China's protracted war of resistance. They all advocate exchanging space for time rather than aggression with Japan. The practice of the army accomplishing its merits in one battle.It is not advisable to fight recklessly in positional warfare, so they updated their plans for the battle against Japan as much as possible on the Xuzhou battlefield, summed up the experience and lessons of the Songhu Battle and the Nanjing Defense War, and compared the defensive position of positional warfare with the offensive of mobile warfare, and The combination of guerrilla warfare, harassment and other methods proposed by the CCP successfully won the Linyi and Taierzhuang battles.

In the entire Xuzhou battle, the most successful tactic was to defend the point and fight for aid.This was the case with Yu Xuezhong's 51st Army in the Huaihe River. With the reinforcement of Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army, they repelled the Japanese attacking from the south.In the defense of Linyi, Pang Bingxun first defended to the death, and then General Zhang Zizhong sent reinforcements quickly.This is especially true in Taierzhuang. Sun Lianzhong's army fought hard in Taierzhuang, killing the spirit of the Jigu Division, and then Tang Enbo's army attacked from the outside.The chief and staff of the fifth war zone worked hard and designed carefully. On the Xuzhou battlefield, they displayed their talents and completely reversed the situation of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

A group of them sat on the train going south, feeling relaxed. The Battle of Xuzhou was over. As long as the 500,000 elite troops could escape the encirclement, the Battle of Xuzhou would be considered a successful conclusion.Bai Chongxi was not worried about the breakout of the troops. He said with a smile, "I don't think the problem is big. China is vast, and 300,000 Japanese troops cannot encircle it. An army can pass through the gap at any time."Li Zongren was still a little worried. He agreed with Bai Chongxi, but the maneuverability of the Japanese army must not be underestimated. Their mechanized troops are fast. On this vast plain, it is very dangerous for an army to be bitten.He asked the radio station to contact the various troops around the clock to keep abreast of the situation of the troops breaking out of the encirclement.

The train on which the Chief of the Fifth War Zone took traveled southward for less than an hour before stopping. There was a violent explosion in front of the railway.The people in the car felt a little nervous, thinking that the Japanese army was coming.The train crew reported that it was not the Japanese army, but its own engineering unit that had blown up the railway bridge in front of it. Li Zongren heard that the railway bridge in front of him was blown up by his engineers, and his face showed surprise. What should we do? Can the non-combatants of more than a thousand people go out?What are these engineers and soldiers doing for food? What a fool.The people who came to report said that the engineering troops had consulted for instructions, and they all thought that the train from the Minister's Ministry had passed, so they blew up the bridge.

Li Zongren had no choice but to mobilize more than a dozen large trucks to come over. The luggage and food must be pulled by the trucks, and let the entourage carry them on their backs. I don't think anyone can go far.Everyone on the train got off the train, and some people were quite happy when they heard that they were going to walk, thinking it was a very romantic thing.Later they learned that marching on foot has endless suffering. They didn't dare to stay, and walked southward overnight, until the next morning they arrived at a small village more than 10 miles north of Su County.At this time, Su County had been occupied by the Japanese army, but the Japanese army did not dare to dispatch at will, because Tang Enbo's 20th Army Corps also came to this place.

Tang Enbo's army couldn't go west, so they turned around and went south.Li Zongren didn't want the army of the officer's department to drag this elite army down, so he ordered Tang Enbo to leave quickly. The army of more than a thousand people in the officer's department was small, so it was easy to hide on the vast ground and move around easily.The enemy's terrain is unfamiliar and it is difficult to capture small troops. Li Zongren broke up with Tang Enbo's army in the north of Su County, and led more than 1,000 people from the Minister's Department to continue southeast.For the sake of safety, he telegraphed the 7th Army on the march to send troops from Anhui to the vicinity of 30 miles south of Su County.

The Japanese army besieged Xuzhou from all sides, but Xuzhou was an empty city. Except for a small number of wounded soldiers and some citizens, they got nothing.The Japanese North China Front Army was disappointed. They paid the price of tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers' lives in the Xuzhou area, but what they got was an empty city with nothing.Major General Hashimoto Group of the senior staff sent by the Japanese base camp told the emperor and the army that although our army cut off the retreat of the Chinese army from the west of Xuzhou with the main force and surrounded the Xuzhou area like an iron barrel, the total The Chinese army of 50 divisions suddenly jumped out of our army's encirclement from the southwest in mid-May, and the results were unexpected!

In the Xuzhou area, Li Zongren, the commander-in-chief of the fifth war zone, staged a modern version of an empty city plan for 300,000 elite Japanese soldiers.When the enemy's 300,000 troops were about to close, Li Zongren formed his troops calmly, with great determination to fight the Japanese army.The advancing Japanese army was very happy, and they kept adjusting their deployment, thinking that the Chinese army would surely die.Unexpectedly, Li Zongren let his 500,000 elite troops fly away without a trace overnight. Japan's Prime Minister Sugiyama did not believe this was true at all. No matter how capable the Chinese army is, it is impossible for it to disappear overnight. It is a team of 500,000 people.He ordered Xuzhou's participating troops to expand the search area, even if they dug three feet into the ground, they had to find out the Chinese troops who were hiding.The order of the Japanese Army Minister Lu made the Japanese Air Force and cavalry busy. They searched on the ground and in the air for hundreds of miles around Xuzhou. The breakout team of Li Zongren's military and political organs was followed by enemy planes from the very beginning.That day, when they were burying pots and making food in a village, a Japanese reconnaissance plane flew over, circled twice, and then flew away as if nothing had happened.Chief Li Zongren seemed to feel something, he couldn't explain it clearly, anyway, he felt something was wrong.So he forcibly ordered the team to move, and everyone disagreed, saying that the rice had just been cooked, and they had to wait until the rice was eaten before leaving.Li Zongren firmly disagreed, and he left first with his belt on.The chief is gone, who dare not go?Everyone had to follow along. Li Zongren's team walked out of the village only two or three miles away, when they heard rumbling explosions behind them, and all the staff of the agency immediately hid in the wheat fields and ditches.The village where they buried the pot to make food just now was full of smoke, a sea of ​​flames, and was almost razed to the ground. More than 20 planes flew over their heads after completing their bombing missions. God!Officials all said that Li Zongren was a blessed man with the will of God.Li Zongren shook his head and smiled wryly, I am not as godlike as you say.It's just a feeling. Of course, this feeling comes from years of experience in military life, coupled with analysis and judgment of the enemy's situation. His analytical judgment was correct.Since the Xuzhou breakout, the Japanese Army Headquarters was also looking for Li Zongren. They kept monitoring the radio, listening to Chinese broadcasts, and interrogating some wounded officers captured in Xuzhou.Judging from various information and intelligence analysis, Li Zongren has not returned to the rear, and it is impossible for him to leave so soon.In a war zone, his commander has at least a thousand people. These non-combatants cannot run fast, and they have to deal with the affairs of the entire theater before they can leave. This team should be behind the breakout troops. It is meaningful to find the whereabouts of Li Zongren’s commander-in-chief of the fifth war zone. If the Chinese army in Xuzhou area cannot be wiped out, if Li Zongren’s commander-in-chief can be wiped out, then this may have a greater impact than the elimination of the Chinese army in Xuzhou area some.Based on such considerations, the Japanese army took the search for Li Zongren's chief department in the fifth theater as a key point of deployment. The command of the commander of the fifth war zone should be like this. They can be said to be safe from danger on the way to break out of the siege, and they are not afraid of danger, and they behave very calmly.The Japanese Air Force did its best. They followed Li Zongren's breakout route and searched extensively. Whenever there was any suspicious situation, they bombed or strafed indiscriminately.Once the troops camped in a village, and the Japanese planes followed. After they circled over the village, they swooped down and fired round after round.Bai Chongxi and Liu Fei were hiding by the door of a farmhouse, and they could see the cap badges of the pilots of the enemy plane when they looked up, and the enemy plane fired at the courtyard, splashing mud and dust all over their bodies. Due to the wanton rampage of the Japanese Air Force, they had no choice but to travel day and night for safety.Marching at night, all the way was exhausted, the road was muddy, and the entourage suffered a lot, and all of them walked to and fro. The team of more than 1,000 people stretched for more than 1 mile.Suddenly, the secret service battalion reported that a Japanese cavalry team of hundreds of people was coming. The situation was very dangerous. They immediately avoided the main road and hid in the wheat field.At dawn, they camped in the wild, and a group of bombers flew from the sky.More than a thousand people huffed and ran into the wheat field again, lying on the ground without daring to move.Li Zongren looked up at the sky, if these bombers were really coming towards them, then we would all be turned into coke today.In the words of Li Zongren, more than a thousand people of my generation will have no human beings.Fortunately, the plane did not come to bomb them, and they did not find the crowd on the ground in the sky. Li Zongren's breakout force traveled for about seven days and nights. They shuttled through enemy-occupied areas and finally arrived in Fuyang County, Anhui Province.Lin Wei, Liu Fei and other senior generals went to Luohe via Zhoukou and returned to Wuhan to prepare for the defense deployment of Greater Wuhan. Li Zongren set up a headquarters in Fuyang City, responsible for accommodating the participating troops who broke out from Xuzhou, reorganized those small and scattered troops, sent them to designated areas for rest and training, and then sent them to Wuhan to participate in the later Wuhan defense. war. The Battle of Xuzhou ended here. Li Zongren stood in the office of the Fuyang headquarters, staring at the Xuzhou combat map that accompanied him for five months. The sound of rumbling artillery echoed in his ears. For more than 150 days and nights, he deeply cherished his best memories. Burning it into my mind, I kept chanting: Xuzhou, Xuzhou. Xuzhou is a city of heroes.She stood upright at the most dangerous moment for the Chinese nation. Xuzhou is a tragic city. She is a steel Great Wall built by the Chinese nation with flesh and blood. Xuzhou is a microcosm of the Chinese nation. Xuzhou is a witness of the Chinese nation. Xuzhou is the glory and pride of the Chinese nation.