Chapter 71 Liu Shaoqi's big hand in Yan'an: big strides forward and backward

The top-level negotiations in Chongqing did not dispel the cloud of civil war hanging over the land of China.If Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, two figures who control China's destiny, met at the beginning of their meeting, out of their own considerations, both of them still had the will to avoid civil war and conclude peace to varying degrees, then after this face-to-face The competition has deepened their understanding of each other, and both sides are soberly aware that China's problems cannot be solved only by negotiating the table. Therefore, the Chinese political arena at this time presents two completely different and extremely incongruous pictures in front of the world at the same time.On the one hand, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek were chatting and laughing, exchanging words; on the other hand, both sides were stepping up military operations, trying to increase their persuasion at the negotiating table.

The so-called "shake hands on stage, kick feet off stage". Chongqing is dispatching troops and generals. Yan'an is also actively preparing for war. During the Chongqing negotiations, Liu Shaoqi was the acting chairman of the Party Central Committee in Yan'an. Before Mao Zedong left, he held many Politburo meetings and even had a long talk with Liu Shaoqi all night. The two people understood each other's thoughts. Yan'an and Chongqing, two fronts, Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong cooperated quite tacitly. In mid-September, the struggle on the negotiating table in Chongqing entered a fierce stage, and the smell of gunpowder became more and more intense.

During a meeting, Chiang Kai-shek said to Zhou Enlai: "Pan told Runzhi that if you want to make peace, you should make peace according to this condition. If not, please ask him to return to Yan'an and lead troops to fight." Mao Zedong was not soft-boned. When he met Chiang Kai-shek the next day, he countered his attack cleverly and unequivocally: "I can't beat you now. But I can deal with you in the same way as I used to deal with the Japanese. You take advantage of it." Line, I occupy the area, surround the city with the countryside, what do you think?" The way of civil and military affairs, one piece and one relaxation, there are advances and retreats on the negotiating table.Both Mao and Jiang knew this very well.Thus, on September 17, Chiang Kai-shek invited Mao Zedong and Hurley to have lunch, and Hurley met with representatives of the KMT and the Communist Party respectively to persuade the two parties to compromise.

Mao Zedong in Chongqing was mentally exhausted.Liu Shaoqi in Yan'an was not at ease either. For several days, he had been thinking about how to solve Mao Zedong's problems and let him take the initiative at the negotiating table. He looked around China's 9.6 million square kilometers of land over and over again.Finally, Liu Shaoqi's mind became more and more clear about a grand national strategic idea - to develop to the north and defend to the south. First of all, Liu Shaoqi dredged up relations with the Soviet Union through a series of successful diplomacy. On September 14, representatives of the Northeast Soviet Army, accompanied by Zeng Kelin, commander of the 16th Army Division of the Hebei Reliao Army of the Eighth Route Army who entered Shenyang earlier, and then the Shenyang Garrison Command, arrived in Yan'an to discuss the Northeast issue with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.The Soviet Union agreed not to restrict the development of the Communist Party in the Northeast, provided that it did not violate its treaty with the Kuomintang.

Secondly, judging from the positions of the Kuomintang and Communist armies after the war, the north is also conducive to our development. Since the Northeast was lost by Chiang Kai-shek in the "September 18th" Incident, the Kuomintang has no soldiers there, and it is difficult for it to control this area quickly.On the contrary, the Communist Party has established the Jireliao base area at the junction of North China and Northeast China.In addition, there is the Northeast Anti-Japanese Coalition Army led by the Communist Party in the Northeast. They fought the Japanese invaders for a long time and arduously. They have a relatively large influence and a certain mass base there.These are favorable conditions for the CCP to fight for the Northeast.

However, in the south, especially in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Liu Shaoqi has also thought about it carefully, that is Chiang Kai-shek's confidant area, and he will never leave any gaps.After Japan surrendered, Chiang Kai-shek joined forces with Japan and the puppet to seize the strategically important areas in the south of the Yangtze River, which is proof of the frustration of the Chinese Communist Party's "development to the south" strategy in the later period of the Anti-Japanese War. The situation is very clear.A situation favorable to the development of the Communist Party has emerged in the Northeast. The North is beckoning to the Communist Party, but the South is showing a red light, telling you that this road is dead.

Liu Shaoqi asked Mao Zedong in Chongqing for opinions on the issues he was thinking about in the fastest way. Mao Zedong got this plan, and his tense spirit suddenly relaxed. At the negotiation meeting in Chongqing, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai took the lead in making concessions.Proposed: With regard to the number of troops, the CCP only requires 1/7 of the total number of the national army, which is a concession of 5 divisions compared with the plan proposed on September 3. Regarding the issue of liberated areas, in order to show the CCP’s peace and sincerity, the CCP is willing to give up 8 liberated areas in the south of the Yangtze River , Withdraw all troops from the eight areas south of the Yellow River in Hainan Island, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Southern Jiangsu, Southern Anhui, Hubei, Hunan, and Henan to northern Jiangsu, southern Anhui, and the north of the Longhai Line.

The negotiation venue, which had been stalemate for a period of time, had room for maneuver again because of the concessions made by the Yan'an side, and there were friendly laughter again. At the same time that Mao Zedong publicly announced the major concessions made by the Chinese Communist Party in Chongqing, Liu Shaoqi secretly conveyed to the party in Yan'an the "Instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Concerning Current Tasks and the Strategic Policy and Deployment of Defense to the South and Development to the North", announcing with confidence : As long as we can control the Northeast and Recha provinces, and have the national liberated areas and the people of the whole country cooperate in the struggle, the victory of the Chinese people can be guaranteed.

In order to realize this "national grand strategy", the method Liu Shaoqi adopted was to make great strides forward and retreat. First, the main force of Shandong was transferred to Northeast and Eastern Hebei, and then 100,000 main forces of the New Fourth Army in East China were transferred to Eastern Hebei and Shandong, and finally the main force of the New Fourth Army in Jiangnan was moved to Jiangbei. This method not only accelerated the process of the CCP's army entering the northeast, but also adopted a defensive posture against the south, covering the development of the north.

Military mobilization shifted defense step by step, interlocking with each other, which not only avoided the danger of being defeated by each, but also skillfully combined the open retreat of the south with the secret attack of the north.As for the political gains, it is even more huge. It not only allowed us to win the initiative at the negotiating table, but also won the praise and hearts of the people at home and abroad. "Get out of the way and occupy the hatchback", the history of Mao Zedong's tactics against Chiang Kai-shek is sometimes very teasing. As mentioned earlier, during the negotiations in Chongqing, Mao Zedong responded to Chiang Kai-shek’s provocations with the following words:

"Fight now, I really can't beat you. But I can deal with you in the same way as I dealt with the Japanese. You occupy the point line, I occupy the area, and surround the city with the countryside. What do you think?" On the surface, Mao Zedong's words seemed to be angry or joking, but in fact, what Mao Zedong said was the truth. It's a pity that Chiang Kai-shek was so arrogant at the time that he didn't listen to Mao Zedong's words, let alone pay attention to them.But what he never imagined was that when fighting for the Northeast, Mao Zedong really used the tactics that he had told him during the Chongqing negotiations, and made him fall down a big stumble here. On October 11, 1945, Mao Zedong returned to Yan'an safely.Yan'an Airport was crowded with more than 20,000 people from all walks of life. For more than a month after Mao Zedong returned to Yan'an, due to his physical condition, he still left most of the work to Liu Shaoqi, but he paid close attention to the Northeast issue.In Mao Zedong's view, if the CCP could control the Northeast, it would be able to connect the Northeast and the liberated areas of North China, get rid of the long-standing situation of being divided and surrounded by the Kuomintang, and have a strategic rear with sufficient troops and materials.Just as he put forward on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China at the Seventh National Congress: the four northeastern provinces are very important.From the perspective of our party and the recent and future prospects of the Chinese revolution, if we lose all our present bases, as long as we have the Northeast, then the Chinese revolution will have a solid foundation.Of course, the other base areas have not been lost, and we have the Northeast, and the foundation of the Chinese revolution has been further consolidated. The strategic significance of controlling the Northeast is clear at a glance for the Chinese revolution and the Chinese Communist Party.It is precisely because of this that Liu Shaoqi has a national grand strategy of "developing to the north and defending to the south". For the Northeast, Chiang Kai-shek is not careless.Seizing the Northeast and "accepting" the Northeast has long been listed by him as "one of the most important goals and most urgent tasks of the National Revolution." Due to the early days of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek's main force was far in the southwest, and there was no soldier in the northeast.In order to make up for his disadvantage of not having a single soldier in the Northeast, he spared no effort to part with others. During the Sino-Soviet negotiations, he accepted many conditions proposed by the Soviet Union concerning the sovereignty of the Northeast in exchange for the promise of the Soviet Army, and returned the Northeast to the Kuomintang army after withdrawing. . Because Chiang Kai-shek thought this way: the Northeast, he has the guarantee of the treaty, and completely excludes the Communist Party from the door. With the cooperation of the Japanese and puppets, they occupied it first.By that time, all peaches in the country will have the surname "Jiang". He didn't expect that the Communist Party's thinking and actions would not lag behind him at all. When he was in the south of the Yangtze River, the Communist Party's power had penetrated deep into the Northeast, and it was ready to monopolize the Northeast. After October, the Kuomintang government adopted a very tough two-handed strategy in response to the CCP’s army going north and the Soviet army’s friendly attitude towards it: First, the United States and Chiang Kai-shek jointly exerted pressure on the Soviet Union in diplomacy, forcing it to fulfill the Sino-Soviet treaty, and promised to hand over the big city and the Changchun Railway to the Kuomintang. The second is to use American warships and planes in the military to send the Kuomintang troops to Qinhuangdao, Shenyang, Changchun and other strategic places by sea and air. The development of the situation made Mao Zedong have a foreboding of the difficulty of the struggle in the Northeast.After repeated deliberation and consideration, he decided to adjust his strategy and take a long-term view, changing "monopolizing the Northeast" to "establishing a base." On December 28, Mao Zedong drafted an instruction for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to the Northeast Bureau - "Establishing a Solid Northeast Base Area", pointing out the policy of "get out of the way and occupy the hatchback". "Get out of the way" is to take the initiative to withdraw from the big cities and traffic lines, and hand over the points and lines to the Kuomintang. "Occupying the hatchback" means occupying cities and vast villages that are far from the Kuomintang's occupation center, winning over the masses, establishing base areas, and consolidating the "face". A year later, Mao Zedong's tactics were bearing fruit.On the surface, Chiang Kai-shek's attack succeeded, but because his front line was too long, the Communist Party seized its weakness.Since the Communist Party built four solid bases in the northeast, East Manchuria, West Manchuria, South Manchuria, and North Manchuria, it divided and encircled the points and lines occupied by Chiang Kai-shek. "Get out of the way and occupy the hatchback" is a high-level summary of what Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek said during the Chongqing negotiations.After the failure of the Shenyang Battle, I wonder if Chiang Kai-shek has reviewed the big mistake he made by ignoring Mao Zedong too much.