In March 1940, Comrade ** pointed out in a reply to *** that the future of our army lies in the Central Plains. Seven years later, Liu Deng's army was like a sharp sword, straight into the Central Plains.
After the three armies joined forces, the situation in the Central Plains underwent earth-shaking changes, and the victory of the national battlefield was also laid.
What's so magical about the Central Plains? How was such a foresight made? This is a piece of land that must be fought for by soldiers and treasures of feng shui. In August 1947, ** led 120,000 people of the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Field Army to the rear of the enemy in the Central Plains.
Chiang Kai-shek was puzzled by this, because it meant that the army would leave its rear base and go deep into enemy territory, facing a heavy siege. In Lao Jiang's view, they were doomed to have no way out.
Since ancient times, it has been taboo to go deep alone, and no matter how brave you are, you will eventually be defeated on the battlefield. However, a few months later, the tide of the war was reversed, and Chiang Kai-shek deeply regretted it.
The Kuomintang army fell into total passivity.
The foresight of the comrade is amazing, as early as the beginning of 1940, he reached the point where the way out of our army lies in the Central Plains. Instead of calling him a great military strategist, it is better to call him a miraculous prophet.
He deserves our commendation for his foresight. In March of that year, the Eighth Route Army, under the leadership of **, successfully smashed the first wave of ** climax launched by the Kuomintang.
In order to prevent the future, Comrade ** immediately sent a telegram to ***, proposing to transfer the 344 Brigade to the Henan-Anhui Soviet base area to assist Peng Xuefeng in developing the base area.
Henan-Anhui Soviet Border District, located in the central and eastern part of China, has a special geographical location and has often been used as a battleground for soldiers in history. ** Comrade once said: "If you want to take the Central Plains, you must first control Dabie Mountain." ”
Dabie Mountain is located at the junction of Henan and Hubei, the terrain is dangerous, the geographical position is superior, it is the strategic commanding height, it can overlook the Central Plains, control Ninghan, rush Nanjing, and force Wuhan. Therefore, opening up the Henan-Anhui-Suzhou region and mastering the Dabie Mountains is to lay the foundation for taking the Central Plains in the future.
The seizure of Dabie Mountain is a key point for the PLA to chase the Central Plains. In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, Dabie Mountain, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack, became the core point for the defense of Wuhan.
The Japanese army had tried to conquer this mountainous and densely forested place, but because they got lost, lost contact, and were cut off from supplies, they had to disperse their forces to attack Wuhan from the north and south sides of the Dabie Mountains.
The squadron took advantage of the terrain to defend the dangerous points, arranged heavy troops and fortifications, dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army, and won the time to defend Wuhan.
However, it is a pity that after the Battle of Wuhan, Li Zongren seized the opportunity, and he left the backbone of the Gui family in the Dabie Mountain to build a base.
Before the end of the Anti-Japanese War, this Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area has undergone many crazy sweeps, but it has always been standing. Many years later, Comrade ** once again set his sights on the Dabie Mountains, and this day became a decisive moment.
In 1946, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek could not wait to gather heavy troops to besiege the liberated areas of the Central Plains, which opened the prelude to a full-scale civil war. In the first year of the War of Liberation, due to the disparity between the forces of the enemy and us, the area of the liberated areas was greatly reduced, and our army persevered in the midst of difficulties.
However, a year later, the situation has changed, and ** finally saw an opportunity to switch from defense to offense. At this time, the strength of the enemy's troops had declined, and the offensive had passed its peak, while our army had basically survived the most difficult stage, and its number had increased by nearly hundreds of thousands.
In addition, Chiang Kai-shek had established the "Yellow River Defense Line" and focused his forces on attacking the liberated areas of Shandong and northern Shaanxi, making the rear of the enemy in the Central Plains an empty area. In addition, the situation in the battlefields of northern Shaanxi and Shandong at that time was not optimistic, and Chiang Kai-shek wanted to further deplete the combat strength of the liberated areas, and it was difficult for our army to fight for a long time.
Comrade** had a far-sighted view and decided to transfer troops south to the Central Plains in order to mobilize the enemy's troops to return to help, reduce the pressure on the battlefields in northern Shaanxi and Shandong, and lead the war to the enemy area, so as to realize the strategic change from defense to offense.
It's a brilliant decision, and the whole situation is alive! In order to achieve this goal, it was decided that Liu Deng's army, which had been resting for half a year, would take on the important task of going south to the Yellow River through the Central Plains, and put forward the possibility of a strategic assault on Dabie Mountain.
However, Dabie Mountain is a key area for Comrade ***, but it is also necessary to judge the situation in the dynamics, because the battlefield is ever-changing, and one point cannot be fixed.
In June 1947, Liu Deng's army crossed the Yellow River, opening the prelude to the People's Liberation Army's pursuit of the Central Plains. On July 23, 1947, Liu Deng's army had crossed the Yellow River and launched the Southwest Lu Campaign.
Suddenly, a **telegram disrupted their original plans. **Comrade instructed: Liu Deng's army gave up the rear base area and advanced directly into Dabie Mountain! It was a bold decision that caught people off guard.
Liu Deng did not set Dabie Mountain as the target of the army at first, but chose to steadily expand to the Central Plains in the base areas of Henan, Anhui, Suzhou, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan. If you turn to the Dabie Mountains, you will face the risk of going deep behind enemy lines alone, and you will be far away from the base area to fight.
In addition, after the two armies jointly resisted Japan, they were well aware of the important position of Dabie Mountain. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek would definitely send troops to attack with heavy troops. This means that the trip will come at a great cost.
Therefore, Liu and Deng were not willing to take risks. However, as the situation worsened, they had to make decisions. At this time, Chiang Kai-shek, who had woken up from the light enemy, immediately urgently transferred 17 and a half brigades from northern Shaanxi, Shandong, and other places to rush to the southwest of Shandong.
For a time, Liu Deng's army was in a very unfavorable situation.
Chiang Kai-shek attempted to drown Liu Deng's army in the Yellow River by breaking the embankment and opening the dam, and let Chen Geng and Xie Fuzhi's corps advance into western Henan, so as to contain the enemy and reduce the pressure on northern Shaanxi.
Liu and Deng finally decided to ignore the difficulties and start the southward rush on the evening of August 7. Along the way, they faced the front blockade and the pursuit, but with the spirit of courage, they successfully crossed the Huai River on the 27th and entered the Dabie Mountain.
As the saying goes, the brave wins when they meet on a narrow road.
The gods and ghosts are unpredictable, and there seems to be someone to help. The last group of Liu Deng's army successfully crossed the river, just in time to catch up with the enemy, but they were blocked by the Huai River on the opposite bank. Upon hearing this, Chiang Kai-shek was furious, because the loss of Dabie Mountain meant that the rear of the Yangtze River would be threatened.
So he quickly mobilized 23 brigades into Dabie Mountain, trying to pursue and annihilate Liu Deng's army. However, by virtue of the topography of Dabie Mountain, our army withstood round after round of enemy attacks.
At the same time, our army also captured dozens of county towns and established base areas.
In the Henan-Anhui region, the East China Field Army led by Su Yu fought continuously, successfully mobilized part of the enemy forces in Shandong and Dabie Mountains, and restored and expanded the Henan-Anhui Soviet region.
This series of military operations made the three-way armies of Liu Deng, Chen Xie, and Chen Su form a "pin" shape in the Central Plains, so that Chiang Kai-shek had to give up the plan of attacking the liberated areas, and hurriedly mobilized heavy troops to return to the Central Plains to besiege the three-way army.
In this process, the position of Dabie Mountain is particularly important. Chiang Kai-shek even invited Bai Chongxi, the "little Zhuge ", to take command, hoping to reverse the defeat through his military wisdom.
However, there has always been a contradiction between Bai Chongxi and Chiang Kai-shek, and Chiang Kai-shek once shelved Bai Chongxi in order to prevent the rise of the Gui faction. Let him return to military power this time, it can be said that he was really forced to be helpless.
However, Bai Chongxi had shown himself unreliable on the issue of Gui forces, which forced Chiang Kai-shek to increase his forces to ensure the success of the siege.
Faced with 33 brigades, hundreds of thousands of people, and nearly one-third of the Kuomintang troops, Dabie Mountain fell into a desperate situation. No matter how heroic Liu Deng's army was, it was difficult to resist this pressure of troops.
In addition, the Dabie Mountains lack rear support, the terrain is steep, the population is sparse, and our army lacks sufficient materials and suitable water and soil, so the attrition is serious, and it cannot match it.
In order to alleviate the pressure on Dabie Mountain, ** decided to dispatch the two armies of Chen Su and Chen Xie to launch an offensive to attract reinforcements from the Kuomintang army. However, Lao Jiang was unmoved, and he was determined to fight to the death with Dabie Mountain.
** Advocate the use of the strategy of "avoiding war", that is, divide the troops into two routes, all the way north to the north of the Huai River, and all the way to stay in the Dabie Mountains to disperse the enemy's forces, constantly change positions, create illusions, and delay time with the enemy.
At the same time, the other two armies also cooperated with Liu Deng and launched an attack to annihilate the enemy army and contain the enemy army in Dabie Mountain. In the strategy of advancing into the Central Plains, the sharp knife led by Liu Deng that pierced the heart of the enemy played a key and dangerous role.
Seven months after the army moved to battle in Dabie Mountain, although its personnel were reduced from more than 120,000 to less than 60,000, it still continued to fight.
With tremendous sacrifices, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has successfully opened up a brand-new battlefield. This change has enabled our armed forces to change from passive to active and enter a comprehensive stage. The coordinated operations of the three armies in the Central Plains region made this the main battlefield.
In order to carry out large-scale mobile operations, in the spring of 1948, Liu Deng's army led the main force to leave Dabie Mountain and began to conduct mobile operations in the Central Plains. At this time, the PLA in the Central Plains had only 350,000 troops, while the Kuomintang army had 660,000.
However, with incomparable might, our army successively conquered Luoyang, Wanxi, eastern Henan, Xiangfan and other strongholds, and broke the enemy's defense line in one fell swoop. It was not until this moment that we truly achieved the great victory of the Central Plains.
At the beginning, our army also marveled at why it was so easy to win! The key is that we have taken control of the Dabie Mountains and cut off the supply of the enemy's rear. Soon after the end of the Eastern Henan Campaign, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party ushered in the decisive battle of Huaihai, which laid the foundation for the battle of crossing the river.
In the end, under the joint attack of Nakano and Huaye, the PLA completely annihilated more than 550,000 enemy troops and achieved a brilliant victory. Then, a million heroes crossed the Yangtze River and swept the southwest, like a bamboo......When we look back at the end of the victory, this contest of disparity in strength has already predicted the outcome of victory and defeat.
At the outbreak of the Liberation War, the Kuomintang army had 4.3 million soldiers, advanced American-style equipment and received millions of Japanese equipment, and also controlled most of the railways and highways.
In contrast, the PLA has only 1.27 million troops, and most of its equipment is infantry ** and small-caliber artillery captured during the Anti-Japanese War. Such a huge gap made Chiang Kai-shek threaten from the beginning that it would only take six months at most to take the liberated areas.
His strategy is to occupy important locations first, master the lines of communication, and then gradually destroy the living space of the first place from point to line and from line to surface.
Chiang Kai-shek and his think tank were good at strategizing, but they always ignored one thing: the belonging of the human heart. In the campaign to advance into the Central Plains, although the Kuomintang had the advantage in troops, the strategic initiative was in the hands of the CCP.
The key to the overall situation lies in Liu Deng's army, which is not afraid of sacrifice and firepower. **and*** were ready for total annihilation when they headed south. This unit exchanged its own sacrifice for a turning point in the Central Plains battlefield, and also bought respite for other battlefields.
The Communists gave priority to valuable victories and sacrificed their lives.
At a time when Chiang Kai-shek and Bai Chongxi were still suspicious and competing with each other, our People's Liberation Army (PLA) was already working closely together and was active in the vast land of the Central Plains. ** Once recalled their great deeds of marching into Dabie Mountain.
He said that the tide of revolution had swept across the Central Plains, and that it would be an incomparably glorious task for their army to be ahead of it, albeit with sacrifices.
For *** and ***, they have gone through countless battles in their lives, big and small. However, the leap into Dabie Mountain must be the most far-reaching one. This was not only because it marked a turning point in the War of Liberation, but also because of its incomparable spirit and fighting will, an advantage that Chiang Kai-shek could never match.
From a military point of view, Chiang Kai-shek had a chance to stop Liu Deng's army from moving south. When *** and *** led the army to force the crossing of the Yellow River, Chiang Kai-shek made the mistake of underestimating the enemy.
He did not expect that Liu Deng's army would still be able to move forward bravely and cross the Yellow River despite the enemy's pursuit in front and rear. Therefore, he underestimated the courage and determination of the People's Liberation Army and sent only a small number of troops to intercept it.
As a result, these people failed to prevent Liu Deng from crossing the Yellow River. In addition, if Chiang Kai-shek had taken control of Dabie Mountain earlier, he would not have given the Communists an opportunity. In this way, the Kuomintang army could establish a barrier on the north side of the Yangtze River defense line to prevent the PLA from moving south, and could support the troops in Shandong and northern Shaanxi to the east.
Perhaps the ultimate victor is not yet known, but history cannot be rewritten, and the reasons can only be explored from the thoughts and opinions of Chiang Kai-shek and ***. Why did the Kuomintang fail miserably despite its superior conditions?
The answer may lie in the genius stroke of Liu Deng's army leaping into Dabie Mountain, which is also an outstanding art of war command in the history of Chinese warfare. This incident fully demonstrated the wisdom and courage of ***.
Under the leadership of outstanding leaders, a heroic and combative army will emerge to unite the masses of the people closely. This is a "magic weapon" that the Kuomintang's thousands of troops and horses cannot match.