Chapter 77 Using Mushroom Tactics to Lead Hu Zongnan's "Armed Parade"

On April 2, Mao Zedong drafted a telegram to Peng Dehuai during the march, saying: "Our army must adopt a frontal and two-wing ambush deployment to be effective in annihilating the enemy. Qinghuabian's attack on the enemy's 31st Brigade is the result of an ambush on three sides." After Mr. Peng received the telegram, he replied to express his dissent: "Since the Battle of Qinghuabian, the enemy has been extremely cautious. They do not take the main road and flat river, but only take the small road to climb the mountain; they do not set up camps on houses, but camp in the open; Impossible, any one-sided attack on the enemy will become a frontal attack. The enemy's millet-roller-style tactics reduce my chances of destroying the enemy. I must be patient and wear him out for a long time, consume him, force him to disperse, and look for weaknesses."

Mao Zedong was very inspired after reading this telegram. After careful thinking, he called Peng Dehuai on April 15: "If more than 20,000 of us want to destroy more than 200,000 enemies, we must have a correct combat policy. The first is to adopt the 'mushroom' tactic, relying on you as the mushroom heart, leading the enemy, mushrooming the enemy, and letting the enemy circle around , When he is tired and hungry, look for an opportunity to annihilate it. Annihilate a few regiments a month, and after a year, the situation will improve." With the telegrams coming and going, Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai reached a high degree of unity in the combat policy of the Northwest battlefield-"mushroom tactics".

Mushroom is originally a kind of edible fungus of Basidiomycetes Agaricaceae.People often take its homonym, and extend it to intentionally entangle, waste time, and promote consumption.Mao Zedong took his quotations, and used the good mass conditions, favorable terrain, and specific enemy-our situation in the course of the battle to deal with the enemy, wear the enemy to exhaustion, and then wipe them out with confidence. "Mushroom Tactics". Once the policy was determined, Peng Dehuai began to implement it. After the Qinghuabian battle, Hu Zongnan was so angry that his seven orifices were full of smoke. In order to retaliate, he mobilized 100,000 people and divided his troops into three groups to find the main force of our army for a decisive battle.Peng Dehuai took his time and used a small number of troops to "mushroom" the enemy's main force, while the main force moved to Yulin to rest.

In this way, the 100,000 enemy troops, attracted by our small army, went east and west, south and north, and carried out the "armed parade" slowly and with great difficulty, climbing up and down the mountains and valleys. Climb down, turn around several times, and walk more than 400 miles in a few days, but miss everywhere.The enemy troops were exhausted and demoralized.There is a jingle quietly popular among soldiers: "Officer Hu opens his mouth, and his legs run away; Officer Hu farts, and his breath runs away." This situation shows that the time has come to destroy the enemy.Peng Dehuai asked his troops to set up a battlefield in Yangmahe, surrounded the enemy's 135th Brigade on April 14, wiped out more than 4,700 people in the 135th Brigade in just two hours, and the brigade commander Mai Zongyu was captured.

From May 2nd to 4th, the Northwest Field Army took down the enemy guarding Panlong and reorganized the 167th Brigade.Panlong is an important supply point for Hu Jun. Li Kungang, the commander of the 167th brigade, is a general appreciated by Hu, known as one of the "Four King Kong".Originally Hu Zongnan thought that sending him to guard Panlong would be safe, but under Peng Dehuai's fierce attack, the whole army was wiped out in three days. This time Peng Dehuai gained a lot. He seized more than 40,000 sets of military uniforms, more than 10,000 bags of flour, more than 1,000 mules and horses, 6 mountain guns, and a lot of weapons and ammunition, which greatly armed the Northwest Field Army, which was in short supply.

Within one and a half months after evacuating Yan'an, Peng Dehuai won three battles and three victories in Qinghuabian, Yangmahe, and Panlong.Mao Zedong laughed, and the common people had their bottom line. The troops gathered in the Ansai area, and Peng Dehuai decided to hold a victory celebration here, and the venue of the victory celebration was Mawangtan. Mawang Beach is a river beach in the south of Zhenwu Cave. The Ansai County Party Committee sent migrant workers to build a rostrum on the river beach. The troops set off from the station early in the morning and rushed to Zhenwu Cave. The Battle of Beaulieu was victorious. The commanders and soldiers wore new clothes, shaved their heads, shaved their faces, and added new guns and bullets. The team is mighty and majestic, full of vigor.

The masses came from the surrounding valleys, and the furthest ones traveled a hundred miles.They rode donkeys, mules, and old horses, dragging their children and children, as if visiting relatives, or attending a temple fair, wearing red and green, and bringing eggs, red dates, walnuts, military shoes... Lanterns, slogans and The pennant, the trophies displayed in front of the stage, and all kinds of weapons beside it are all trophies.There are mountain guns, mortars, anti-aircraft machine guns, Czech machine guns, Maxim machine guns, and Sten submachine guns. When Wang Zhen announced the opening of the meeting and the Deputy Commander of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia-Shanxi-Sui Joint Defense Force delivered his opening speech, Zhou Enlai stepped onto the rostrum on behalf of the CPC Central Committee:

"Folks and comrades, since the abandonment of Yan'an, our Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, our Chairman Mao, has stayed in northern Shaanxi to fight together with the soldiers and civilians in the border areas." There was a burst of thunderous applause and fanatical cheers immediately at the venue. Chairman Mao is still in northern Shaanxi. The news is earth-shattering and inspiring.After evacuating from Yan'an, there have been rumors that the Communist Party is no longer in northern Shaanxi, and Mao Zedong left the people of northern Shaanxi who raised him to cross the Yellow River.That said, none of this is true.Then, as long as the Central Committee of the Communist Party and Chairman Mao Zedong are still in northern Shaanxi, this is the backbone, the backing, and a heavy blow to Chiang Kai-shek.

After the victory ceremony, the "mushrooms" continued to bloom... Mao Zedong commanded Liu Deng's army to leap thousands of miles into the Dabie Mountains, and put a knife in Chiang Kai-shek's chest. The series of victories in the Northwest battlefield became more and more significant to Mao Zedong. On April 18, Mao Zedong added the following two paragraphs in his own handwriting to the Xinhua News Agency editorial commenting on the complete annihilation of Hu Jun’s 135th Brigade by the Northwest Liberation Army: "It can be predicted that within two or three months from April, Jiang's army will change from offensive to defensive, and the People's Liberation Army will change from defensive to offensive." "The development of historical events is so unexpected. Chiang Kai-shek's occupation of Yan'an will mark the With the demise of Chiang Kai-shek, the abandonment of Yan'an by the People's Liberation Army will mark the victory of the Chinese people."

Chiang Kai-shek opened fire in northern Shaanxi and the Shandong liberated areas. On the battlefield in northern Shaanxi, Hu Zongnan was firmly held back by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China headed by Mao Zedong. On the Shandong battlefield, Mao Zedong also devoted a lot of effort.When the situation in the northern Shaanxi battlefield improved, he focused his main attention here.In order to grasp the enemy's situation in a timely manner, Mao Zedong ordered Chen Yi and Su Yu to report the changes in the enemy's situation every day or every two days, especially the daily changes of the enemy's front-line armies to report to the Central Military Commission by urgent telegram.Under the guidance of Mao Zedong, on the battlefield in Shandong, Chen Yi and Su Yu did not let Chiang Kai-shek take advantage of it. In the battle of Meng Lianggu, one of Chiang Kai-shek's five main forces, the "ace division" - reorganized all 74 divisions and part of 83 divisions A total of 320,000 were annihilated, and Jiang's "protégé", Zhang Lingfu, commander of the 74th Division, was also killed.

In April 1947, great changes had taken place in the battlefield situation across the country.Mao Zedong made a vivid analogy to the situation at that time with gestures. "When Chiang Kai-shek stretched out his two fists (referring to northern Shaanxi and Shandong), his chest (referring to the Central Plains) was exposed. Therefore, our strategy is to hold these two fists tightly and aim at his chest. Make a knife!" Mao Zedong's knife was Liu Deng's army advancing into the Central Plains. The hinterland of the Central Plains has always been a battleground for military strategists.In Chinese history, whoever wants to win China must seize the Central Plains, which is the so-called "Central Plains Rivalry".Today, who wins the deer determines the fate of the war. In June 1946, when Chiang Kai-shek wanted to launch a civil war, the first thing he wanted to destroy was the Communist Party's Central Plains Liberated Area.After the People's Liberation Army broke through the Central Plains, Mao Zedong called Zheng Weisan and Li Xiannian to propose the mission of the Central Plains Liberation Army. The first stage is to "contain a large number of reactionary troops on the outside and help our troops on the inside to win"!The second stage is "Our internal troops cross the Huai River to the south, join the Central Plains army, and seize the lines of Xinyang, Dabie Mountains, and Anqing." It can be seen that Liu Deng's march to the Central Plains has long been a central part of Mao Zedong's strategic deployment. Before and after the Yan'an evacuation, Mao Zedong grabbed Chiang Kai-shek's "two fists" and stabbed him in the chest with a clear idea.Mao Zedong had been biding his time.The telegrams with Liu Deng and Chen Su were discussed from January to June, and they were all planning to deal a severe blow to Chiang Kai-shek. After several months of discussion and deliberation, the time finally came. Mao Zedong did not miss this historic opportunity. Day and night in June 1947, Liu Deng's army began to forcefully cross the Yellow River with more than 130,000 people in seven columns and more than 120 wooden boats. In charge of the river defense were the 56th and 68th Divisions reorganized by the Kuomintang. Facing the brave crossing of the PLA, they only bluffed and stubbornly resisted, turned around and ran away, and all those who did not have time to escape were wiped out.The myth that Chiang Kai-shek boasted that the natural danger of the Yellow River is equal to a million troops was shattered. After the enemy fled on the south bank of the Yellow River, Liu Deng's army took advantage of the victory to attack Yuncheng and Dingtao in southwestern Shandong, and succeeded one by one. When the news of Liu Deng's army's victory in the south crossing reached Chiang Kai-shek's mansion, Chiang Kai-shek was holding a banquet to send off American Ambassador Stuart Leighton. When he heard the news, his face turned pale and he couldn't speak. Leighton Stuart exclaimed, "This is simply a frightening event, no less than the breach of the French Maginot Line back then!" At this moment, Leighton Stuart didn't know that something that terrified him was yet to come: The purpose of Liu Deng's army is to enter the Dabie Mountains and conquer the Central Plains!