In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and the million-strong Soviet Red Army swept through the Kwantung Army, the Japanese surrendered, and the puppet state of Manchukuo collapsed. Since most of the Kuomintang troops were still in the rear at this time, there was an embarrassing situation of temporary domination vacuum in the northeast at this time.
In order to reap the fruits of victory, Chiang Kai-shek sent people to conclude a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, and at the same time invited Yan'an to send people to Chongqing for peace talks, so as to buy time for his own deployment of troops.
In the face of the sudden changes in the situation in the Northeast and Chiang Kai-shek's "smokescreen", Yan'an's *** also felt a little at a loss. However, at that time, there were anti-Japanese armed forces led by our party in the entire northern, central, and eastern regions, and compared with the Kuomintang troops that were eating hard in the rear, our side obviously had the convenience of being close to the water and getting the moon first.
Northeast China is an extremely important strategic area, with a vast land and abundant resources, and with regard to the large amount of military supplies left behind by the Eastern Army, whoever controls the Northeast may gain the initiative to dominate the ups and downs of China's destiny in the 20 th century. Therefore, the seizure of the Northeast is destined to become an inevitable trend of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
At this moment, a God-given opportunity has been placed in front of us, and God does not take it, but suffers the blame. How could a far-sighted leader let go of this opportunity?
On the afternoon of September 14, Wangjiaping, Yan'an. The Communist Party of China is holding a meeting of the Politburo to discuss the strategic position of the Northeast and the issue of advancing into the Northeast. The meeting was attended by leaders such as Zhang Wentian, Ren Bishi, and others. At this meeting, under the chairmanship of the chairman of the Communist Party of China, after in-depth discussions, everyone's understanding of striving for control of the northeast was quickly unified.
As a result, a new strategic policy of "developing to the north and defending to the south" came into being. **Call *** and *** for immediate consent to this policy.
According to this policy, the Chinese Communist Party has made several major decisions on the struggle for the northeast in order to open up the northeast base area and form a favorable situation for dealing with a full-scale civil war.
And put it into practice as quickly as possible:First, the Northeast Bureau of the Communist Party of China was established to strengthen the overall leadership of the party, government and military work in the northeast region; Second, a large number of capable leading cadres will be dispatched to the northeast to carry out work; Third, it is necessary to organize and command a large number of troops drawn from the liberated areas to advance by sea and land, day and night, and march to the northeast.
* A total of more than 100,000 troops were dispatched from the major liberated areas to the northeast, including the Third Division of the New Fourth Army and the Seventh Division of the Shandong Military Region.
In order to victoriously accomplish the glorious mission entrusted by the Central Military Commission and to save the people of Northeast China from suffering from misery, the commanders and fighters of the Seventh Brigade overcame countless difficulties and hardships, crossed mountains and mountains, crossed the five provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei, Rehe, and Liaoning after several tosses, and finally arrived in the Jiangjiatun area in the western part of Jinzhou on November 24 after more than two months of arduous marching and traveling more than 1,500 kilometers. As a result, the strategic task of seizing the northeast one step ahead of the main force of the Kuomintang was successfully completed.
After hearing that the various departments of the liberated areas arrived in the northeast, they excitedly said at the meeting of the Politburo: "This operation is another long march of thousands of miles!" ”
The 100,000-strong army flocked into the northeast from all directions, and without unified command and action, it would not be possible to form the maximum combat effectiveness.
Therefore, the CCP has set up a temporary military command organ, the Northeast Military Region Command, in the northeast. Soon after, the Chinese Communist Party made a decision that all the troops entering the Northeast and the Northeast People's Self-Defense Army, which had been renamed from the Anti-Japanese Allied Army, would be unified and combined into the Northeast People's Autonomous Army. The Autonomous Army has ** as the commander-in-chief, Peng Zhen as the first political commissar, and ** as the second political commissar.
After the reorganization, the Northeast People's Autonomous Army had a total of 21 divisions (brigades), divided into 10 military regions, and the primary task of these military regions after their establishment was to establish political power in their respective jurisdictions and eliminate the remnants of the Japanese puppets and bandits before the Kuomintang army came.
After the formation of the Northeast People's Autonomous Army, Chiang Kai-shek also seized the time and dispatched troops to the northeast day and night. In early November, when the Northeast People's Autonomous Army was first established, the Kuomintang army was the first.
Ten. 3. The 52nd Army landed and assembled at Qinhuangdao and began a large-scale attack on the Northeast People's Autonomous Army, which had moved to Shanhaiguan.
Shanhaiguan, by the mountains and rivers, to the north is the mountain, there are Lang Temple and Jiaoshan; Seven or eight kilometers to the south is the Bohai Sea, the terrain is flat, and there are only a few hilly areas; To the west is Qinhuangdao, where there is a large stone river about 300 meters wide, which runs through the north and south. As an important pass of the Great Wall, Shanhaiguan is also known as "the first pass in the world".
For thousands of years, with the rise and fall of dynasties, there have been fierce battles around this dangerous pass.
In October 1945, a new war was brewing in this ancient place of conquest. Obviously, if the Kuomintang and the Communist Party want to seize the northeast, they must also seize Shanhaiguan.
Whoever controls Shanhaiguan means controlling the throat and gateway of the customs into the northeast.
Among the first troops of the enemy and us to go to Shanhaiguan, the 19th Brigade of the Jireliao Military Region and the 64th Regiment of its 22nd Brigade near Hebei were the first to arrive at Shanhaiguan in late October.
On October 30, the 13th Army of the Kuomintang Army sent representatives to the 19th Brigade in a jeep. One of the Kuomintang representatives was very arrogant and said to the officers and soldiers in a domineering manner:
You immediately withdraw from Shanhaiguan and let ** go out of the customs to receive the Northeast. ”
Where did you go when you fought the Japs? We have taken the Shanhaiguan from the devils, why should we give it to you? ”
The fighters shouted, not buying his account at all.
It's an ultimatum! ”
What ultimatum is not ultimatum, our Eighth Route Army in eastern Hebei is not easy to mess with! ”
As a result, Zhang Heming, the commander of the 19th Brigade, was so angry that he left all the guns and cars sent to the door by the 13th Army of the Kuomintang Army, gave them a lecture, and told them to walk back.
This annoyed one person - Du Yuming, the commander of the Northeast Security of the Kuomintang Army, and he immediately ordered: "Clean up the Eighth Route Army and take over the Northeast!" ”
In this way, in front of the ancient Xiongguan, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party fought the first battle to seize the northeast.
At this time, the situation between the enemy and us was extremely grim, and the 19th Brigade and the 64th Regiment of the 22nd Brigade of the Jireliao Military Region, which were guarding Shanhaiguan, had only a few thousand people, and most of them were new recruits. Compared with the 60,000 or 70,000 Kuomintang troops, this is quite a huge disparity in strength.
At the beginning of the battle, Yang Guofu, commander of the Shandong Seventh Division and commander of the Seventh Division of the Bohai Naval Region, Long Shujin, deputy division commander, and Yan Jie, chief of staff, composed of the main force of the Bohai Naval Region.
3. Under the leadership of Xu Binzhou, director of the Political Department, he rushed to Shanhaiguan. Even so, there is still a huge gap of 1:6 between the forces of the enemy and us in Shanhaiguan.
Fortunately, the Shandong Seventh Division is a unit with extremely strong combat effectiveness.
In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, after the "July Seven" Incident in 1937, the Communist Party of China launched the Heitieshan Uprising and the Hebei-Shandong Border Uprising in the northeast of Shandong and the Hebei-Shandong border area respectively, and established anti-Japanese armed forces, which later developed into the troops of the Qinghe Military Region and the Hebei-Shandong Border Region.
In the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the anti-Japanese armed forces in these two regions continued to grow and develop, waged an arduous struggle against the Japanese, puppet and recalcitrant troops, opened up and established the anti-Japanese base area in the plain of Qinghe District, and wrote a brilliant chapter for the victory of the national War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and merged into the main force of the Bohai Naval Region in January 1944.
In the long-term brutal struggle, they have accumulated rich combat experience, and are especially good at explosives, and the officers and men are as handy at fiddling with explosives as women with pots and pans. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, this strong brigade used earthen artillery to bomb pillboxes and railways, which made the Japanese army tremble and change their color.
On August 19, 1945, with the approval of the ** Military Commission, the Shandong Military Region will be the regiment directly under the Bohai Military Region.
II. The 4th and 5th Army Divisions were combined into the Seventh Division of the Shandong People's Liberation Army.
Now, they are facing the regular army of the Kuomintang.
Ten. 3. In the 52nd Army, earthen artillery and earthen explosives packs came in handy again.
As soon as the Shandong Seventh Division arrived at Shanhaiguan, it was in the area of Shihe Bridge in Shanhaiguan with the Kuomintang.
Ten. 3. The 52nd Army was fired. For two consecutive nights, in front of the ancient Xiongguan, artillery roared and flames soared into the sky, and more than 100 enemy soldiers were killed and wounded by the soldiers of the Seventh Division.
That night, the Seventh Division sent a small detachment to quietly infiltrate a village on the side of the Qinyu Highway, where a company of the 89th Division of the 13th Army of the Kuomintang Army was stationed. This company's attack on Shanhaiguan during the day was frustrated, and the soldiers saw the bayonets of the Eighth Route Army dangling in front of their eyes in their sleep.
In fact, it was not a dream, the team suddenly appeared on the kang where they were sleeping, and the sound of gunshots and grenades suddenly woke up the dreamer, and in only ten minutes, the company was all reimbursed, but the company had a long life and fled alone.
Taking advantage of the victory, the detachment penetrated deep into the position of the enemy's 13th Army, and ran back after indiscriminately firing a burst of guns. It's lively now, the enemy's situation is unknown, and the interior is in a mess in the dark night, and it wasn't until dawn that I found out that the fights were all my own family, and I didn't find a single one in the pile of dead people."
This defeat made Du Yuming realize that the strength of the opposite side was not weak, so he used US ships to continuously transfer troops to Shanhaiguan, and under the cover of aircraft, launched a series of crazy attacks on the defensive positions of the Shandong Seventh Division.
In the face of the black pressure of the Kuomintang regular army, ** ordered: "The Seventh Division will dig fortifications on the spot and fight the enemy!" ”
This is not their strong point for the Seventh Division. During the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the officers and men were accustomed to fighting the enemy when they were tired and fighting with each other, and fighting all of them were mobile warfare and guerrilla warfare. Coupled with the huge disparity between the enemy's and our forces, the earthen guns and artillery are obviously a little powerless against the enemy's all-American weapons and equipment.
Sure enough, after the battle began, although the officers and men fought back vigorously, they were still unable to reverse the unfavorable situation of the battle.
On November 15, the enemy captured the Nine Gates, and the enemy outflanked the rear of the 7th Division. If the retreat route is cut off and the sea and mountains are turned away, the 7th Division is very likely to incur the danger of annihilation of the entire army.
In a hurry, Yang Guofu, the commander of the Seventh Division, was so anxious that he had a toothache.
This senior general of the Eighth Route Army, who came out of the anti-Japanese flames in Shandong, commanded the battle with great wit, and never suffered defeat, and this time he was a little unbearable.
Facing the tide of enemies, he and the deputy division commander Long Shujin and the chief of staff Yan Jie.
3. Xu Binzhou, director of the Political Department, Zhang Heming, commander of the 19th Brigade, and others hurriedly discussed. There are endless debates about whether to withdraw or not, and it is difficult to reach an agreement.
In the end, Yang Guofu made up his mind, sighed a long time, and resolutely ordered: "Withdraw, if you don't withdraw, you can only break through to the south, and you won't be able to break through the Kanto!" ”
At dawn the next day, the Shandong 7th Division and the 19th Brigade of Jireliao abandoned Shanhaiguan and retreated in the direction of Suizhong. At this point, the battle to defend Shanhaiguan, which lasted for half a month, ended successfully.
The Battle of Shanhaiguan fired the first shot of the struggle between the Communist Party of China and Chiang Kai-shek for the Northeast. The Northeast People's Autonomous Army, with the strength of the 7th Division and the 19th Brigade, a total of 6 regiments, held Shanhaiguan, stubbornly resisted the strong attack of the two Kuomintang armies for more than half a month, annihilated and captured more than 1,000 Kuomintang troops, smashed Chiang Kai-shek's plot to quickly seize the northeast by land, and covered the safe advance of some follow-up troops and local cadres.
At the beginning of December 1945, the troops and cadres who had been ordered to be transferred north from all the liberated areas of the country had arrived in the northeast.
On the basis of the operational experience and lessons learned in the previous stage, on 25 December, the Northeast People's Autonomous Army held a meeting of cadres at and above the battalion level in Fuxin, at which the commander-in-chief put forward the operational guidelines of "forbearance, waiting, and ruthlessness," as well as the tactical principles of the "three-three system" and "one point and two sides." At the same time, the troops were trained to make use of their strong points and avoid their weaknesses, master the skills of night combat and close combat, and effectively strike at the enemy.
Accordingly, the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Division of the New Fourth Army was ordered to advance to the Faku and Kangping areas to take up mobile combat missions, and under the direct leadership of the headquarters of the Northeast People's Autonomous Army, it took advantage of the war break to reorganize and train the troops, mobilize the masses on the spot, and conduct tactical training in "one point, two sides" and "three or three systems," so as to be ready to counterattack the offensive of the Kuomintang army at any time.
The 7th Brigade of the 3rd Division, which had just arrived in the black soil of Northeast China, was warmly welcomed by the Northeast Bureau of the Communist Party of China. This led to a small episode.
One day, the representative team of the 7th Brigade and the representative team of the Northeast Bureau of the Communist Party of China played a friendly basketball match. Who knew that in the game, while fighting, the 7th Brigade team fouled, but did not obey the referee's decision, and the two sides quarreled, and as a result, the game turned into a beating.
Two days later, at this time, Gao Gang, deputy secretary of the Northeast Bureau, was also present and hurriedly went up to dissuade him, but the red-eyed members of the Seventh Brigade team did not even let him go, and Gao Gang received two slaps in a row.
The deputy secretary of the dignified Northeast Bureau was slapped in public by a small soldier, no matter in any era or place, this is a major event with a bad impact, at least the soldier who did it will be shot.
Huang Kecheng, commander of the Third Division of the New Fourth Army, soon learned about the beating incident of the Seventh Brigade, and was furious, and immediately ordered several soldiers who were fighting to be tied up and escorted to the Northeast Bureau to ask Gao Gang for guilt.
The people were sent, and Gao Gang's anger disappeared. He touched his still red and swollen face and said, "Let it go, these soldiers even dare to fight me, and it will definitely be good to fight." ”
There are two reasons why Gao Gang is not to blame in the past: one is to show generosity in front of the guest army, which is conducive to maintaining unity, on the contrary, if you kill people as soon as they come, it will seriously hit the morale of the army; The second is that the Third Division of the New Fourth Army is a well-known lion force, and the Seventh Brigade is even more old-fashioned.
The subsequent battles really verified Gao Gang's words, and the officers and men of the Seventh Brigade were all good on the northeast battlefield, and their combat effectiveness was so strong that the brother troops were admired and the Kuomintang troops were terrified.
In February 1946, the Kuomintang Army, with Jinzhou as its main rear, divided its troops into three routes and marched north along the Beining Road, in an attempt to use the railway line as a cage to expel and compress the activity space of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army (changed from the Northeast People's Self-Defense Army to its current name in January 1946) and create conditions for the complete takeover of Northeast China.
Chiang Kai-shek's menacing attitude also just proves that he has no sincere intention for peace talks, and deliberately wants to form a situation in which "there is a small fight inside the customs and a big fight outside the border."
In the face of the Kuomintang army, which was heavily armed with American weapons, ** remained silent, only instructed the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Division and the 1st Division of the Shandong Military Region to be ready for battle at any time while ordering the collection of any intelligence about the enemy.
On February 10, the 265th and 265th Regiments of the 89th Division of the 13th Kuomintang Army marched to Xiushuihezi, southwest of Faku County. Previously, the 13th Army "easily" recovered Shanhaiguan and made the "first contribution" of exiting the customs, and was personally commended by Chiang Kai-shek, so it was so complacent that it dared to go out alone away from the main force.
The enemy of Xiushui Hezi has only two battalions in total, and it is also a fully equipped Chiang Kai-shek descendant unit, which is equivalent to a small and delicious meat for **. **Immediate decision:Destroy the enemies of Xiushui Hezi
Xiushui Hezi is located on the side of the highway from Zhangwu to Faku County in Liaoning Province, is a small market town with more than 500 households, and is named after a small river called Xiushui River in the east of the village. The terrain here is flat and the traffic is convenient, which is one of the key points along Bac Ninh Road.
On the morning of 11 February, one battalion of the enemy's 266th Regiment advanced to Tuanshanzi, 15 kilometers northeast of Xiushui Hezi, in an attempt to occupy Faku. Peng Mingzhi, commander of the 7th Brigade, decided after consulting the "former commander-in-chief" to destroy the enemy first, and then expand the results of the battle to Xiushui Hezi. He ordered the 1st Battalion of the 19th Regiment to attack from the front, and the 20th Regiment to attack on the flank of Tuanshanzi.
The enemy was suddenly hit with a heavy blow, panicked, and fled back to Xiushui Hezi.
* After hearing about it, it was immediately decided to annihilate the enemy on the spot in Xiushui Hezi.
At dawn on 12 February, in the snow, the 7th Brigade and its fraternal units entered the predetermined area of attack on time. According to the unified deployment, the 19th Regiment of the 7th Brigade attacked from the southwest to the northeast, the 21st Regiment assisted from the southeast to the west, and the 20th Regiment and the 1st Security Regiment served as the blocking and reinforcement tasks in the direction of Xinmin and Xinlitun; The 2nd Regiment of the 1st Shandong Division attacked from north to south, the 1st Regiment assisted from northwest to southeast, and the 3rd Regiment was the reserve to block the enemy reinforced by Zhangwu and intercept the enemy who broke through Xiushui Hezi.
At this point, the enemy of Xiushui Hezi fell into the heavy siege of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army.
At this time, because the enemy was all assembled in Xiushui Hezi Village and was on garrison, in order to prevent the troops from rushing into battle, Peng Mingzhi's report to the "former general" was approved, and the time for launching a general attack on the enemy in Xiushui Hezi was postponed to the evening of the 13th.
At 10 o'clock in the evening of the 13th, the Xiushui Hezi Annihilation Battle finally began. The sound of machine guns and rumbling cannons were intertwined, and the enemy took out all the American weapons and equipment that were "pressed at the bottom of the box" to resist stubbornly, and the fire reflected the red snow.
In the middle of the night, the attacking troops attacked the village one after another, and engaged in street battles with the defenders street by street.
During the attack, the commanders and fighters of the 19th Regiment took the lead and showed their true heroic qualities. Chen Debiao, squad leader of the third company of the regiment, was the first to climb the wall and climb to the roof to cover the advance of the troops, and then rushed into the enemy group alone and captured two American machine guns.
When the 3rd Company soldier Ding Debang attacked an enemy fire point, he charged at the front. With the help of flares, he first discovered the gun hole of the enemy's dark fort, and immediately moved forward with a clever move in the rain of bullets, and in the blink of an eye, he leaned in, stuffed the grenade into the gun hole, and with a loud bang, the obstacles to the advance of his comrades turned into a pile of rubble.
The first company assault squad was suppressed by the enemy's fierce artillery fire during the attack, most of the soldiers in the squad died, and the deputy squad leader Zhang Wenxiang was shot in the left eye, bleeding nonstop, and the platoon commander ordered him to retreat from the line of fire, but he resolutely refused, saying that he still had an eye, and resolutely demanded a bloody battle with the enemy to the end.
Later, after repeated persuasion by his instructor, he agreed to stay with the guards of the newly captured cannon. Heroic deeds like this are countless in the siege and annihilation of Xiushui Hezi.
In the course of the battle of Xiushui Hezi, a regiment of the Second Division of the 52nd Army of the Kuomintang Army came to reinforce and entered the area of Taipingzhuang.
In the early morning of the next day, the last enemy in Xiushui Hezi who tried to break through was annihilated by the 7th Brigade and the brother troops, and the gunfire that had been sounding all night finally fell down.
A whole regiment was annihilated in Xiushui Hezi! Du Yuming learned the news while lying on the hospital bed.
He was full of ambition and wanted to show his "ambitions" on the battlefield in the northeast, but his body was not strong, his back hurt, and he was examined by the doctor to have kidney problems.
When he heard that a ball was "eaten" by ** for nothing, his heart ached, and his originally sallow face became even more gray. After learning from the pain, Du Yuming deeply felt that the troops in the northeast were far from enough to suppress the first troops, so he sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek overnight, stating that "the first army is strong, and it is required to increase the troops in the northeast as soon as possible."
In the battle of Xiushui Hezi, a total of more than 1,500 people from 5 enemy battalions were annihilated, and a large amount of ** equipment was captured. This battle was the first battle of annihilation fought by the troops of the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army since they left the customs, dealt a blow to the arrogance of the Kuomintang army, and temporarily stopped the military offensive.
At the same time, the Northeast Democratic Alliance's ability to coordinate operations has been tempered, which has boosted the morale of officers and men. The Chinese Communists praised the good fighting of this battle and pointed out: It is very happy to annihilate the five stubborn battalions at the Xiushui River, and if we can fight two or three more such battles under the attack of the stubborn enemy, the Kuomintang will not be able to fail to recognize my position in the northeast and hold peace talks with me.