In June 1946, a full-scale civil war broke out, Chiang Kai-shek attacked the liberated areas of East China with heavy troops, and by November, although the Central China Field Army had won seven victories in seven battles between the Soviet Union and China, Heze, Lianghuai, and the Soviet Union in East China had lost one after another, and the situation was very grim.
In order to solve the passive situation of fighting their own battles and not being able to concentrate superior forces to annihilate the enemy, Su Yu decided to combine the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army with the Central China Field Army after repeated studies and reports.
In October, the Kuomintang dispatched troops and sent 25 and a half brigades under the command of Xue Yue, director of the Xuzhou Pacification Office, to attack the liberated areas of southern China and central China in four directions. According to the judgment of the enemy, the enemy's strategic intention is to mobilize the main force of our northern Jiangsu to aid Shandong, so as to solve the problem of northern Jiangsu first, and then concentrate on the decisive battle of Shandong.
*, Su Yu decided to concentrate his forces to fight the enemy north of Suqian first, but which one to fight first? Where to fight? They did serious research.
The enemies who invaded Subei were mainly Hu Lian's integrated 11th Division and Dai Zhiqi's integrated 69th Division. The 11th Division was one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang and showed strong combat effectiveness in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Dai Zhiqi, the new commander of the 69th Division, was anxious to ask Chiang Kai-shek for credit, and the troops advanced recklessly, which was conducive to the encirclement and annihilation of our army. To this end, Su Yu decided to concentrate the forces of the main forces of Shanye and Huaye, a total of 24 regiments, and first kill the enemy's 69th Division in the area of Lailongan and Xiaodian north of Suqian.
On December 13, the enemy's 11th and 69th divisions moved from Suqian to attack Shuyang. With the 69th Division as the left flank, it attacked Xin'an Town; With the 11th Division as the right flank, he attacked Shuyang. In response to the enemy's situation, Su Yu ordered the Ninth Column to block the 11th Division in the area of Lailongan; with the 1st Column and 8th Division as the left flank; With the 2nd Column and the 7th Division as the right flank, the 69th Division was encircled and annihilated.
On the 15th, the units of our army covertly arrived at the attack position. On the same day, the enemy's 11th Division attacked in the direction of Shuyang, but was stubbornly blocked by our Ninth Column on the front line of Lailongan and Shaodian, and was unable to advance. The 11th Division was dragged by the Ninth Column, lengthening the gap between it and the 69th Division, creating an opportunity for our army to divide and intersperse.
On the night of the 15th, our 8th Division occupied Fengshan, interspersed with the Gaojiawa and Cailin areas south of Fengshan, and the 9th Column approached Renhewei, the headquarters of the 69th Division. Dai Zhiqi found that he was surrounded, and he was very panicked, and asked Hu Lian for help again and again. At the same time, he ordered to recapture Fengshan at any cost and open up a retreat to the south.
There was also an unexpected episode in the process of interspersing in the 1st column that night, that is, the two regiments of the 3rd Brigade interspersed very quickly, and when they received the order to stop, they had already penetrated deep into the enemy's hinterland and could not retreat. When they found out that Caojiaji was the headquarters of the enemy's 11th Division through the prisoners, they took the initiative to attack, broke into Caojiaji in one fell swoop, and captured more than 600 people below the commander of the enemy's engineer battalion. It was only a few hundred meters away from Hu Lian's headquarters, and the 11th Division didn't know how many ** came, so they hurriedly organized a counterattack. Our troops fought until dusk before withdrawing from the battle and moving closer to the main force of a column. The enemy did not know the situation and did not dare to pursue.
The battle on the 16th was unprecedentedly brutal, and the enemy mobilized about two regiments of troops, with the cooperation of aircraft and artillery fire, to launch several attacks on the Fengshan position of our 8th Division. The 8th Division fought bravely and tenaciously, repelled many enemy attacks in one day, and held the Fengshan position. The 1st Column also occupied Gaojiawa, Santai Mountain and other places at the same time, cutting off the retreat of the 69th Division to Suqian and the connection with the 11th Division; The main forces of the 2nd Column, 9th Column, and 7th Division attacked from different directions, and together with the 1st Column, they formed a blocking front against the 11th Division, and completed the division and encirclement of the main force of the reorganized 69th Division.
On the 17th, Hu Lian commanded the 11th Division to attack fiercely at the positions of Gaojiawa and Santaishan, in an attempt to relieve the siege of the 69th Division. The 69th Division in the encirclement was also desperately breaking out, being attacked from three sides, and the situation was extremely critical. At the critical moment, the 1st Column threw all the reserves into battle, and the enemy's 11th Division was suddenly attacked by fierce attacks on the flank, caught off guard, and retreated on all fronts. The first column immediately turned back, held the scattered enemy of the 69th Division that rushed out, and annihilated them in the field.
At dusk, the 8th Division launched an attack on the enemy at Xiaodian, breaking through the enemy's defensive position in only 25 minutes, and completely annihilating the enemy that night. The remnants of the 69th Division shrank to the location of the division headquarters and tried to hold on to it.
Late at night on the 17th, Su Yu telegraphed and ordered the Ninth Column to take down Renhe and Wei at all costs, so as not to give the enemy a chance to breathe.
On the 18th, Dai Zhiqi had reached the end of the mountain and water in Renhe, and used the walkie-talkie to ask Hu Lian for help. Hu Lian commanded the 11th Division to go all out to the north, but under the stubborn defense of our army, little progress was made.
The 2nd Column, 9th Column, 7th Division and other units of our army are dividing and encircling and annihilating the enemy in Wei, Liwei, and Luozhuang. In order to get rid of the fate of the annihilation of the whole army, the remnants of the 69th Division tried to break through, but they all failed in the face of our superior forces.
At 22 o'clock on the 18th, the general attack of our army on Renhe and Wei began, and under the cover of artillery fire and machine guns, a breakthrough was quickly made and the battle for houses with the enemy began. Dai Zhiqi and the remnants of the division resisted stubbornly in the northeast corner of the village. At midnight, Dai Zhiqi knew that the tide was turning, and after shouting slogans, he committed suicide with a gun to make his final allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek. Deputy division commander Rao Shaowei and others were taken prisoner. At the same time, all units participating in the battle worked closely together to eliminate the remnants of the 69th Division that were surrounded in Miaozhuang, Luozhuang and other villages.
In the fierce battle until the 19th, our army completely annihilated the headquarters of the 69th Division and 3 and a half brigades at the cost of more than 8,000 peopleMore than 10,000 people, including 1 captured enemyMore than 30,000 people won the first victory since the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army met.
*, Su Yu originally planned to take advantage of the victory to annihilate the 11th Division, but Hu Lian commanded the troops to retreat to the favorable terrain south of the canal and hold on, so as not to give our army a chance to divide and encircle and annihilate. After continuous fighting, our army also needed to rest, so Chen and Su ordered to withdraw from the battle, and the Battle of Subei ended victoriously.
During this period, the 6th and 7th Divisions of the Central China Field Army fought bloody battles in the direction of Lianshui, blocking the enemy's reorganized 74th Division and other units in the area south of the Liutang River, ensuring the victory of the Subei operation.
Su Yu called the Battle of Subei a turning point in the East China Theater. The victory in this campaign was the beginning of our army's shift from passivity to initiative, and it was the beginning of concentrating forces to fight a war of annihilation, and it played a key role in the development of the war situation in the future.
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