Among the founding generals of China, there was a special general, who had a strong elegant temperament, was a normal graduate, gentle and polite. However, he was also an outstanding soldier, flexible and ingenious in his use of soldiers.
* The general once commented on him: "The more you come out, the more you fight, the better you fight."
Liu Deng's army leaped thousands of miles into Dabie Mountain, carried out external combat missions, and played a big chess step to seize the Central Plains. **and** the Military Commission hoped to direct the war to the Kuomintang area and give me a respite from the inside.
However, after crossing many obstacles such as the Longhai Road and the Yellow Flood Area, Liu Deng's army was besieged by Chiang Kai-shek's heavy troops and was in a very critical situation. ** Impatient, he constantly ordered the East China Field Army to cooperate, but because the five columns had been dispersed, the effect was not ideal.
In order to solve this problem, Su Yuhe** proposed the establishment of the Huaye West Corps, and recommended Chen Shiyu as the commander and Tang Liang as the political commissar. However, ** was a little hesitant about this suggestion, because he already had the best candidate, that is, Su Yu, the campaign commander of the entire Huaye army.
** Three orders and five reaffirmations, requiring Su Yu to lead artillery to southwest Lu, unify the command of the five columns, and appoint him as the commander of the Huaye West Corps, Chen Shiyu as the deputy commander, and Tang Liang as the director of the Political Department.
** It has been emphasized many times that only when Su Yu goes in person, Liu Deng's army can hope to win when it goes south. After receiving the telegram order, Su Yu felt the trust of ***, and at the same time, he was well aware of the heavy responsibility on his shoulders.
After the analysis of the intentions of the first and the current situation of Huaye, he believes that the main battlefield has been transferred to the Central Plains, and the Huaye Command is sound, if he is the only one who goes, he can only take a small number of cadres, if he can also go together, the entire Huaye Command can all go, making the command operation more beneficial.
Therefore, he suggested that ** go with him, and send Wang Bicheng's sixth column to the western front and stay in Shandong.
II. 7. The 93rd Column formed the Eastern Corps to carry out internal combat missions.
** agreed to Su Yu's suggestion, and under this premise, the eleventh column of the Shanxi-Hebei-Luyu Field Army was assigned to Su Yu's command, and so far, the Huaye Western Front Corps has increased by seven columns.
When Su Yu and ** led the army to advance into southwest Lu, Chiang Kai-shek launched another fierce attack on Liu Deng's army, which made *** very worried. So he called Su Yu to inquire about the battle plan of the Huaye Western Front Corps.
After careful consideration, Su Yu called back and said that in order to relieve the siege of Liu Deng's army, it was necessary to delay the southward march of the Kuomintang army. The specific plan was that the Western Corps should operate on the line between southwest Lu and Longhai, and if necessary, send a part of it to advance to the south of the road and raid Jinpu, so that Xuzhou would feel the pressure.
In this way, the area of operation of the Western Front Corps had to be extended to the south of the Longhai Road. Su Yu's consideration was very thorough, and he greatly appreciated it, and expanded the combat scope of the Huaye Western Front Corps to the south of the Yellow River, north of the Huai River, west of the canal, and east of the Pinghan Road.
In the face of Liu Deng's predicament, the urging and expectation of ** made Su Yu deeply aware that a major victory must be achieved. On the way to the army, he began to conceive a battle plan.
The first plan is more conservative, first rendezvous with Chen Shiyu and Tang Liang's troops before deployment, although the waiting time is longer, but it is relatively safe. The second plan was more radical, and without waiting for the rendezvous, let Chen Shiyu and Tang Liang's troops lure the Kuomintang army to an appropriate location to encircle and annihilate it, and at the same time pinn down the enemy's 5th army.
Su Yuhe** led the sixth and tenth columns to quickly support. However, due to the fact that the pre-war conference could not be held in time, the operational coordination of the second option may be affected, and the risk is extremely high.
In the north and south areas of Shatuji, Su Yu and ** discussed many times, but they could not decide on a plan of action. At the urging of ***, Su Yu decided to adopt a second combat plan and adjust the issue of operational coordination in a timely manner during the campaign.
The Kuomintang army in southwest Lu had the 68th Division, the 55th Division, the 84th Division, and the 5th Army, and Su Yu quickly deployed five columns. Under the lure of the Huaye Western Front Corps, the Kuomintang army took the 5th Army as the center, the 57th Division as the left flank, the 84th Division as the right flank, and the rest of the troops to attack northward in response.
How to break the protective shell of the 5th Army? Su Yu discovered the weakness of the 57th Division and concentrated the superior forces of the three columns of the 8th, 3rd and 6th columns to attack the 57th Division.
When the commander of the 57th Division found out that the big thing was not good, it was too late, and the main attack force of Huaye surrounded it.
Su Yu only took three days, the Battle of Shatuji was successfully concluded, more than 9,500 people of the enemy's 57th Division were successfully annihilated, the Kuomintang army saw that the situation was not good, and the 5th Army and the 84th Division immediately chose to retreat.
Su Yu finally handed in a satisfactory answer to ***, and at the same time relieved the pressure on Liu Deng's army. After that, Su Yu began a long and arduous journey, not only to rescue Liu Deng, but also to change the situation of the Central Plains.
However, the situation in the Central Plains reached a stalemate, and Su Yu stated for the first time that since he moved to the Central Plains in September 1947, he succeeded in annihilating Chiang Kai-shek's more than 70,000 men in only three months.
However, a real war of annihilation was never fought. On the one hand, it is because he advocates the strategic policy of "only fighting small wars, not big wars" and "burying oneself in the establishment of Henan, Anhui and Soviet base areas", and on the other hand, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized heavy troops to the Central Plains, which made it difficult to find fighters.
** once said: "Chinese history tells us that whoever wants to unify China must control the Central Plains." In order to ensure the Central Plains, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized a total of 660,000 people from three strategic groups, namely Gu Zhutong in Xuzhou, Bai Chongxi in Jiujiang and Hu Zongnan in Xi'an, to the Central Plains.
Although our side controlled the three-way army on the battlefield in the Central Plains, due to the dispersion of men and horses from all sides, it was difficult to win in a single battle, and at the same time, the assembly time was too long, and it was easy to miss the fighters.
Coupled with the close cooperation and rapid response of the Kuomintang army, our army was sometimes unable to even conduct a small and medium-sized war of annihilation. To make matters worse, Liu Deng's army was besieged on Dabie Mountain, and the situation was very grim.
Only by annihilating dozens of enemy brigades can a base area be established, but without a large-scale war of annihilation, it will be difficult to destroy the enemy on a large scale and thus consolidate the base area in the Central Plains.
As a result, the battle situation in the Central Plains was at a stalemate, which deeply troubled Su Yu. He believed that the inferiority of our army's strength was the fundamental reason for the stalemate in the Central Plains, and that Chiang Kai-shek was able to launch campaigns in local areas on this basis alone.
There was a clear gap between Su Yu and Chiang Kai-shek in the distribution of forces, and the PLA could not quickly assemble due to the dispersion of its forces, so it was unable to defeat the Kuomintang army in one sitting. However, Su Yu believed that as long as our army could gain numerical and technological superiority and conduct several large-scale battles of annihilation, it would be able to achieve a decisive victory in the Central Plains.
After thinking deeply, he wrote a report in December 1927, proposing to adopt the tactic of "gathering and dividing" and concentrating troops to fight. However, just as he was about to send the telegram, he hesitated, because the day before, ** had specially sent a telegram ordering Huaye to continue the medium-sized campaign.
Moreover, his thoughts may affect the direction of the entire battle. Although Su Yu did not send the telegram in the end after thinking about it repeatedly, he still continued to think and carefully verify it.
During this period, Liu Deng's army was besieged in Dabie Mountain and had to divide his troops into battle.
The three columns led by ** fought an arduous guerrilla war with the Kuomintang in the Central Plains, and ** led the remaining troops to move to western Henan. This risky operation cost them dearly, from 12The strength of 40,000 was sharply reduced to 580,000 people.
At this critical moment, Su Yu was ordered to unify the command of the Western Front Corps and Chen Geng's troops, and successfully encircled and annihilated the enemy's 3rd Division, which made him see the possibility of the PLA concentrating forces to fight in the Central Plains.
With this successful experience, Su Yu immediately reported his suggestion to ***, suggesting that the three armies adopt the tactics of gathering and dividing suddenly, and annihilate the enemy army flexibly and maneuverably.
The specific operation of this tactic is that if our side engages the enemy in one area, and the adjacent areas can support or contain the enemy's reinforcements in time, then it is possible to successfully annihilate the enemy's army.
After this battle, our troops will be dispersed to other areas to facilitate the next battle. In general, the battle situation of ** is favorable to our army, so we will concentrate our forces on **.
Su Yu resolutely said that if two or three wars of annihilation can be obtained in accordance with this method, then the situation in the Central Plains can be improved. At this time, ** had already conceived a strategy to break the deadlock in the Central Plains, that is, to transfer a part of the main army from the north of the Yangtze River to the south and directly attack Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters, forcing Chiang Kai-shek to transfer part of the main army back to the Central Plains to protect himself, which was to "encircle Wei and save Zhao".
However, this assumption was the opposite of Su Yu's vision, and instead of being concentrated, the three-way army became more dispersed. Su Yu once again put forward his opinion, which aroused ***'s interest.
In December 1947, at the Yangjiagou ** work conference in northern Shaanxi, ** turned the idea of crossing the Yangtze River south into a decision, and won the support of **.
* Take the initiative to request to lead Chen Su's army to carry out the strategic task of southward expansion. In order to smoothly implement this plan, it was decided that Su Yu would first lead the Western Front Corps.
I. 4. The Sixth Column formed the First Corps, which was the first to cross the Yangtze River and march south in the summer or autumn of 1948.
Then, the first. III.
8. The 10th Column formed the 3rd Corps, which continued to cross the river and move south in 1949.
Mao Gong received Su Yu's belated telegram at this time, and he read it carefully and circled the main points. After that, he handed the report to Zhou, Ren, Chen and others. Su Yu's proposal was novel and unique, but Mao Gong never easily changed his determination, let alone easily gave up on changing his decision due to disagreement.
After unanimous deliberation among Zhou, Ren, and Chen, they decided to follow Mao Gong's decision. In January 1948, Mao Gong realized that the problem of Dabie Mountain had not been solved, so he officially notified Su Yu and ordered him to take the three main columns of Huaye to cross the Yangtze River.
The military order was like a mountain, and Su Yu had no choice but to think about how to carry out this order. However, when Su Yu put forward the plan and proposal for concentrating Huaye's troops, he still hoped that Mao Gong would consider it carefully.
Su Yu proposed the tactic of "gathering and dividing" and suggested that the situation in the Central Plains should be changed by fighting several annihilation battles in a short period of time. Although his telegram failed to change the original plan, this tactic aroused ***'s interest.
In February 1948, ** agreed with Su Yu's plan to cross the river, and instructed the Huaye Third Corps to carry out a war of annihilation in accordance with Su Yu's suggestion. This was a rare opportunity, and Su Yu immediately reported the battle plan of the three armies.
Su Yu proposed to fight south, but he still decided to carry out the mission of going south. As he prepared to head south, he thought about his own ideas. He believed that fighting a few battles of annihilation in the Central Plains would better destroy Chiang Kai-shek's main forces than defeat them on other battlefields.
Although the crossing of the river by Huaye's three main columns would allow Chiang Kai-shek to send troops back to the defense, he expected which divisions Chiang Kai-shek would send south. However, these four divisions did not necessarily transfer Chiang Kai-shek's strong forces, such as the enemy's 7th, 48th, 11th and 5th armies.
These four units were the backbone of Chiang Kai-shek's work in the Central Plains, and if the main forces of Huaye could not move them, the stalemate in the Central Plains would still exist. Thinking of this, Su Yu felt a huge pressure, and it was not until late at night that he decided to leave all the three main columns behind.
On April 18, Su Yu again put forward the proposal of fighting several wars of annihilation in the Central Plains.
Su Yu had a far-sighted view and put forward unique countermeasures against Chiang Kai-shek's rear and the troops south of the Yangtze River. He suggested that multiple guerrillas could be sent to Chiang Kai-shek's deep rear to contain the enemy, and at the same time, he also envisaged three large-scale wars of annihilation, including encirclement and reinforcements, an attack on Jinan, and an attack on Xuzhou.
Su Yu's strategy caused *** to think deeply, and he immediately telegraphed Su Yu and ** to ** for a meeting. At the meeting, Su Yu elaborated on his ideas, clear thinking, and fluent language, which made *** deeply admired, and finally adopted his opinion.
However, three goals were set for Su Yu: within 4 to 8 months, the 5th Army, one of Chiang Kai-shek's five main forces, must be annihilated; At the same time, it was necessary to annihilate Chiang Kai-shek's more than five or six regular brigades; Finally, complete the preparations for crossing the river.
In order to accomplish the almost demanding task, ** provided Su Yu with three special measures: first, let Su Yu become the leader of the East China Field Army, serving as acting commander and political commissar; the second is to order other field armies to assist Su Yu and Huaye in the battle; The third is to send the commander-in-chief of the whole army to the East China Field Army to mobilize everyone to adopt it"Catch big fish"in order to annihilate the 5th Army.
This deeply touched Su Yu, and he vowed to fight this battle well and live up to the expectations of *** for him. In the ensuing battle, everything developed according to Su Yu's vision.
The three battles he had envisioned before were also realized one by one. First of all, in the Battle of Eastern Henan, Su Yu basically disabled the enemy's 5th Army in the shortest possible time, and it was still very far from the 8-month deadline for annihilating the 5th Army.
Next is the Battle of Jinan, which took only eight days and nights to conquer Jinan, which is shorter than the estimated time of Su Yu and ***, annihilating more than 100,000 defenders and capturing 23 Kuomintang generals alive.
Finally, the most famous battle of Huaihai.
Comrade Su Yu made the first contribution. "Su Yu directly stated the importance of fighting the Great Annihilation War three times, and overfulfilled the agreement with ***, showing the great wisdom of an extraordinary soldier.