On April 30, 1948, Su Yu arrived in Fuping, and the purpose of this visit was mainly to tell ** the reason for not bringing troops south. **Not a person who can be easily persuaded, but this time,** not only accepted Su Yu's opinion, but also ordered Su Yu to serve as the commander of Huaye and concurrently serve as the political commissar, and in the future, all the work of Huaye will be responsible for Su Yu alone. However, Su Yu was very modest, and repeatedly pushed and conceded, and finally only served as the acting commander and acting political commissar of Huaye.
* After agreeing to Su Yu's suggestion to stay in the Central Plains to fight a large-scale war of annihilation, he also put forward a condition for him, that is, Su Yu would annihilate 50,000 to 100,000 enemy troops within 4 to 8 months. At that time, Huaye's main force in the Central Plains was only 100,000 people in total, which means that the number of enemies to be destroyed should reach half or even all of his own body, and this task was not easy to complete.
At that time, ** also gave Su Yu a task, that is, to annihilate Qiu Qingquan's corps entrenched in southwest Lu. Hua Ye and Qiu Qingquan's corps are old rivals, and they are very familiar with each otherSu Yu searched for a long time, but did not look for the flaws in Qiu Qingquan's corps, and he believed that although the Fifth Army of Qiu Qingquan's corps was not as good as the integrated 74th Division and the integrated 11th Division, it was also one of the five main forces.
In this case, Su Yu felt that he would not fight Qiu Qingquan's corps for the time being, and he thought that Hua Ye did not have such a big appetite at this time. At this time, Su Yu set his sights on Kaifeng, which was the provincial capital of the Kuomintang in Henan at that time, which was of great significance both in a political and military sense.
On June 17, 1948, Su Yu ordered Chen Shiyu and Tang Liang to lead the three columns of Huaye and the eight vertical Kaifeng City to launch a fierce attack. At that time, the Kuomintang army always thought that Huaye was going to fight in southwest Lu and Qiu Qingquan's corps, so there were not many defenders in Kaifeng, and they were caught off guard. Before the war, Huaye carried out a new-style army reorganization movement in Puyang for a month, and conducted special training for tackling tough battles. In the course of training, most of the officers and men have learned to throw small explosive packets with their hands, and they can form demolition squads and platoons at any time to blast the enemy's large number of sub-fortsLater it was developed to the point that it was possible to attack enemy pillboxes with mortars, 60 guns, grenadiers.
On June 19, Huaye cleared the outlying strongholds of Kaifeng and began to attack the city. However, at this time, Su Yu was no longer in a hurry, he led Huaye Qianzhi and three columns to Cao County, Minquan and other places, preparing to ambush the Kuomintang troops who came to reinforce them. In order to cooperate with the Huaye operation, the Military Commission ordered Chen Geng's corps to attack Zhengzhou and try to prevent the enemy's 18th Army from reinforcing Kaifeng. Other troops in Zhongye, as well as the Huaye Shandong Corps led by Xu Shiyou, also attacked.
On June 22, Huaye completely annihilated the enemy in Kaifeng, killed Li Zhongxin, commander of the reorganized 66th Division, and shot down two enemy planes. When Kaifeng was lost, the so-called National Congress meeting was being held in Nanjing, and after hearing the news of the loss of Kaifeng, the participants were very alarmed, especially the Kuomintang representatives of Henan Province, and a group of people surrounded Chiang Kai-shek and made a big noise, demanding that Chiang Kai-shek recover Kaifeng, the capital of Henan Province, as soon as possible.
Chiang Kai-shek also knew the importance of Kaifeng, so he ordered all corps to step up their march to Kaifeng to recover Kaifeng, and at this time, Su Yu had already opened a big net in Kaifeng waiting for them. Chiang Kai-shek ordered Qiu Qingquan's corps and Hu Lian's corps to speed up their advance to Kaifeng, and on the other hand, he reorganized a new corps with the reorganized 75th Division, the reorganized 72nd Division, and the newly reorganized 21st Brigade, with Ou Shounian, deputy commander of the 6th Appeasement Zone, as the commander of the corps, located on the left flank of Qiu Qingquan's corps.
Su Yu still wanted to fight Qiu Qingquan's corps at first, but Su Yu carefully analyzed the strength of Qiu Qingquan's corpsAt that time, Qiu Qingquan's corps had three integrated divisions (corps), namely the 5th Division, the 70th Division, and the 83rd Division, of which the 5th Division was the Fifth Army, which was one of the five main forces, and its combat effectiveness was very strong. In order to gain the certainty of victory, Su Yu decided not to fight Qiu Qingquan's corps first, but to fight the slightly weaker Ou Shounian corps.
On June 26, Su Yu ordered Chen Shiyu and Tang Liang to lead the Huaye Third Column and the Eighth Column to withdraw from Kaifeng, attracting Qiu Qingquan's corps to pursue, and blocking Qiu Qingquan's corps from coming to reinforce when the main force surrounded and annihilated the Shounian Corps in the district. If Ou Shounian had rushed forward with Qiu Qingquan at that time, he might not have been surrounded by Su Yu.
It's a pity that Ou Shou began to use his brains, and when he led his troops to Sui County and Qi County, he began to hesitateHe felt that Su Yu would definitely not have any good intentions when he took the initiative to let Kaifeng out, and it was very likely that he would annihilate Qiu Qingquan's corps at the front. But what he never dreamed of was that Su Yu's chosen prey was not Qiu Qingquan, but him.
On June 27, Su Yu decisively seized the fighter plane and commanded the Huaye troops to insert themselves into the middle of the two corps to encircle and annihilate the Ou Shounian Corps. At the beginning of the Suiqi Campaign, Su Yu commanded the troops to carry out continuous assaults on the District Shounian CorpsWithout giving it time to shrink and expand its defense, the Ou Shounian Corps was soon scattered by various units in Huaye, and the command system was completely paralyzed.
Chiang Kai-shek felt extremely uneasy when the Ou Shou Nian Corps was surrounded and commanded, and he ordered the other corps to immediately rush to the rescue of the Ou Shou Nian Corps. At that time, the Kuomintang army had five main corps in the Central Plains, namely Qiu Qingquan's corps, Hu Lian's corps, Wu Shaozhou's corps, Huang Baitao's corps, and Ou Shounian's corps. After the Ou Shounian Corps was besieged, Hu Lian's Corps and Wu Shaozhou's Corps were pinned down by Zhongye, leaving only Huang Baitao's Corps.
Huang Baitao is a miscellaneous army, but his ability is very strong, he is also one of the few non-corrupt generals in the Kuomintang army, when he first became the commander of the 25th Army (integrated 25), he lived with the soldiers every day, and was deeply loved by the grassroots soldiers, so his troops were very strong in combat. In the Kuomintang army, many miscellaneous generals have the habit of preserving their strength, but Huang Baitao is not like this, he will rush to the forefront in every battle, and he takes the overall situation into account, and Chiang Kai-shek also values him, so he will regard him as his confidant.
At this time, not only did Huang Baitao's corps come to reinforce and pursue the three columns of Huaye, but the Qiu Qingquan corps of the eighth column also came to reinforce, and Su Yu had to order the three columns and the eight columns to block Qiu Qingquan's corps.
At this time, Su Yu used the strength of one corps of the Huaye West Corps to fight the three main corps of the Kuomintang army, which can be said to be one enemy and three, Huang Baitao did not expect that Su Yu would have such courage to dare to circle him and fight him.
In the early morning of July 2, 1948, the Huaye Assault Group attacked the corps headquarters of Ou Shounian and captured Ou Shounian. The District Shounian Corps was already in chaos, and the integrated 75th Division could not defeat a brigade. Ou Shounian had a relationship with Su Yu, so after Ou Shounian was captured, Su Yu made a special trip to visit him, and Ou Shounian said to him: "You have too much appetite, sooner or later you will suffer a big loss." ”
However, Su Yu couldn't take care of so much at this time, and he took out part of the troops that blocked Qiu Qingquan's corps and launched a fierce attack on Huang Baitao's corps, which came to stir up the situation, but had traveled a long distance and had not gained a firm foothold。In the early morning of July 3, 1948, that is, the day after Ou Shounian was captured, Huang Baitao's corps was surrounded again, and Chiang Kai-shek was also stunned.
On the evening of July 5, Su Yu prepared to launch another attack on Huang Baitao, clear the defenders on the periphery of Emperor Qiudian, and completely annihilate Huang Baitao's corps. Huang Baitao ignored the advice of the chief of staff and personally drove the tank to lead two battalions to charge, and was wounded in the course of the battle.
Huang Baitao's move inspired the besieged Kuomintang officers and soldiers to recapture four or five villages in one night. At this time, Qiu Qingquan, under the pressure of Chiang Kai-shek, had to increase reinforcements, and finally broke through Huaye's blocking forces, and also threatened the safety of Huaye's flank, at this time Hu Lian's corps had also arrived. On 6 July, Su Yu had to order the troops to retreat.
In the process of retreating, there was a certain amount of chaos in Huaye, Huang Baitao, Qiu Qingquan, and Hu Lian chased all the way to the edge of the Yellow River, and the number of prisoners was as high as more than 3,500. But judging from the results of the entire Eastern Henan Campaign, this battle was an unprecedented victory, Huaye annihilated 94,000 enemies at the cost of **33,000 people, and also liberated a large area of land.
In the Eastern Henan Campaign, Su Yu attracted hundreds of thousands of troops from the Kuomintang army, resulting in the weakening of the Kuomintang army's defense in other areas. Huaye Shandong Corps, Nakano took advantage of the enemy's main force to mix with Su Yu's corps, conquered Yanzhou and Xiangfan, and captured a lot.
This campaign,The number of participants, the length of the duration, the intensity of the battle, the thrill, and the complexity all exceeded any of Huaye's previous battles。This campaign showed that the PLA could not only destroy a large number of enemies on the inner line, but also compete for medium-sized cities on the communication line on the outer line, and continuously annihilate the mobile corps of the Kuomintang army. Su Yu's ability to control the operations of the large corps was further strengthened through this campaign.