The reason for writing this article is that when the author consulted the relevant materials of the Menglianggu Battle, he found a rather strange record.
In the "Biography of the Senior General of the Chinese People's Liberation Army: The Biography of Chen Shiyu", when the Menglianggu Battle was recorded, Chen Shiyu's participation in the war was only nine and a half lines. The length is extremely short.
You must know that General Chen Shiyu's identity at that time was the chief of staff of the East China Field Army.
Even if the position of the chief of staff during the Liberation War was not as important as it is now, he was also an important commander second only to **, Su Yu, and **.
First of all, let's talk a little about the difference between a deputy commander and a chief of staff. During the civil war, both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party had a deputy commander in charge of operations, and generally speaking, he assisted the commander in overall command. If there is an important operational direction, then the commander will ask the deputy commander to lead a part of the troops to carry out the task of taking charge of the army.
It is the duty of the chief of staff not to let the deputy commander directly carry out operational planning, troop deployment, and so on.
The basic duty of the chief of staff is to understand and grasp the enemy's situation, plan the battle plan according to the battlefield situation, put forward two or more plans for the commander to decide, and after the commander decides which plan to use, the chief of staff will then command the army below to implement it.
From the point of view of the division of duties, the role of the chief of staff in the war is far greater than that of the deputy commander.
The author has always held a view in the past, a unit does not have a good commander, as long as there is a good chief of staff, no matter how bad it is, it can be justified; But if there is only a good commander and no good chief of staff, it will be very difficult to do, unless the commander is particularly good enough to do the work of chief of staff at the same time. The law behind it is that it is easy to be compatible from the chief of staff upwards, but it is difficult to be compatible from the commander downwards. This is a digression, so I won't go into too much detail.
The author thinks it's strange, and that's it.
Biography of Senior Generals of the Chinese People's Liberation Army" is an official historical document approved by the Central Military Commission, and the records in the book are the most authoritative identification. All other books published to the public, as long as they involve high-ranking generals of our army, must be based on this book, as long as their age, party age, rank, experience, and major events are involved.
In the battle of Menglianggu fought by Huaye, the deeds of the chief of staff were only nine and a half lines.
Why? It must have been because Chen Shiyu was not present at the time, or was not deeply involved in the command.
With this question in mind, the author revisited the history of the Chinese Field War and the memoirs of General Chen Shiyu, and unexpectedly discovered a larger problem: In many major battles of the East China Field Army, Chen Shenzuo was not at the headquarters and did not perform his duties as chief of staff.
For example, in the Battle of Laiwu, he commanded a half-column in Linyi in the early stage to camouflage the main force and drag the enemy on the southern front. Su Yu led a large army to the northern front to fight Li Xianzhou's group. In the later period, there was a large transfer of troops, and Chen Shiyu returned to the northern front, still commanding several columns in the front to besiege, not at the headquarters.
Another example is the Battle of Menglianggu, in the early stage, Chen Shiyu took several columns to fight the Tai'an Siege, trying to tear up the ** formation, but it was unsuccessful, and Chen Shiyu returned to the Huaye Command in the hinterland of Yimeng. However, the preliminary battle plan had already been formulated by Su Yu, and Chen Shiyu did not participate in any further opinions after he returned.
Therefore, "Chen Biography" records 9 and a half lines very objectively, there is really nothing to say, and 6 of these 9 and a half lines are about the Battle of Tai'an.
Later, in the Eastern Henan Campaign, it was clear that Chen Shiyu and Tang Liang's corps had converged with the main force of Huaye, and it was Zhang Zhen, deputy chief of staff, who was responsible for assisting in the command at the headquarters.
and the most famous Su Yu and Zhang Zhen's night talk incident, Su Yu and deputy chief of staff Zhang Zhen discussed the ultimate combat plan for the Huaihai Campaign, and after the discussion, they directly reported to the Military Commission, and only informed Chen Shenzuo afterwards. Chen was at the forward command headquarters at that time and commanded the columns to besiege Huang Baitao.
In so many important battles, Chen Shenzuo "coincidentally" was not in office.
Once or twice is considered occasional, and many times when it is not there, then it cannot be explained by coincidence, but deliberately arranged.
Who deliberately arranged it, and the author doesn't sell it. Su Yu, including Chen Shiyu himself, may even have ***'s acquiescence.
What do you mean by that?
Let's first review the origin of Chen Shiyu, chief of staff.
Chen Shiyu initially took over Song Shilun's class, and Song Shilun served as the chief of staff in the Shandong Field Army, but he failed to fight well in several consecutive battles, and the mountain field command organ was under considerable pressure, so he had to send Chen Shiyu over to save the scene quickly. This happened in October 1946.
Two months later, the two field armies of Shandong and Central China joined forces to fight the Subei Campaign and the Lunan Campaign.
Although these two battles were very beautiful battles of annihilation, and the results were extremely fruitful, the process was stumbling.
The first battle, the Battle of Subei. The two field armies of Central China and Shandong both had their own opinions, Central China wanted to fight in northern Jiangsu, and Shandong wanted to fight in southern Shandong, and each had its own plans. Su Yu saw that the fighter plane was fleeting, and without doing the work of the Shandong Field Army (** was his superior, he couldn't do it), he had to run to the headquarters of the Shandong Field Army with a bare pole, holding the order of "let Su Yu be in charge of command", and commanded a group of fierce generals in the mountains and fields to fight the Subei Campaign.
However, Su Yu's style of play was not in the right way with the style of the Shandong Field Army, and Central China was accustomed to mobile combat and concentrated troops, while the mountains were accustomed to attacking fortified positions and were not good at capturing fighters in motion. Su Yu and Chen Shiyu's conducting styles diverged at that time.
Of course, I don't think this is a difference in personal sentiment, and I have great respect for the founding fathers such as Su and Chen, and I don't think they will have personal emotional confrontation because of differences in work opinions.
In the second battle, the Battle of Lunan, the differences officially expanded.
After the battle in Subei, Su Yu continued to insist on staying in northern Jiangsu to fight. However, the hinterland of Yimeng, Shandong Province was repeatedly harassed by **, and Chen Shiyu insisted on returning to Lunan to fight. Without asking for instructions, Chen Shiyu directly sent a telegram to ***, comparing the pros and cons of the two combat plans of fighting northern Jiangsu and southern Lunan.
In order to increase his weight, Chen Shiyu pulled in Tang Liang, then director of the Political Department of Shanye.
* was very unhappy when he found out, and complained: "You have a radio station, you can send a report, and you sue *** for my complaint." ”
* Later, the tone was set, and in a desperate effort to give up northern Jiangsu, it was necessary to protect Lunan first, repel the ** attack, and then develop to the south not too late.
In fact, this is not a big problem, and each field army has its own geographical divisions, and it is understandable that there is controversy. The real divergence is in military philosophy. This aspect is difficult to detect without careful observation.
From a deep historical perspective, we can easily observe a phenomenon that the great annihilation battles commanded by Su Yu during the War of Liberation were almost all completed during the movement, and the Laiwu Battle was also won in chaos after forcing the enemy out of the city. The rest, such as the Subei Campaign, the Menglianggu Campaign, the Shatuji Campaign, the Eastern Henan Campaign, and the Huaihai First Phase Siege of Huang Baitao, most of them were field battles.
The western front of the Eastern Henan Campaign was fought, and he gave up immediately after conquering Kaifeng, which was to use Kaifeng to attract Qiu Qingquan's Fifth Army.
Although the Battle of Jinan was a tough battle, everyone should see that Su Yu had an army of 320,000 and only used 140,000 to attack the city, leaving 180,000 people? Halfway to prepare for reinforcements, reinforcement is the real focus of his campaign design, but because Xu Shiyou broke the city too quickly, he didn't dare to go north to rescue, which caused Su Yu's plan to come to naught.
Mobile operations and avoiding the shortcomings of our army's weak ability to attack tough positions are Su Yu's core operational concepts.
The two phases of the Lunan Campaign were all battles. Because Chen Shiyu commanded in the center, ** also agreed with his style of play. In the second battle of Zaozhuang, Tao Yong led the 1st Division of Central China to attack the unfavorable position, which aggravated the difference between the concepts of the two armies. Chen Shiyu believes that it is not possible to lack the necessary ability to tackle tough problems.
The Battle of Lunan was victorious, and the layman could not see the problem, but the insider was deeply worried.
Who are the insiders referring to? **Su Yu, Chen Shiyu.
After the merger of the Shandong and Central China field armies, Su Yu was extremely trusted and recognized, and it was clear that he was specifically responsible for military command as deputy commander.
There are thousands of people in the family, and there is one person in charge. The East China Field Army can only have one way of playing, and can only have one concept.
Either continue to adhere to the concept of attacking and seizing land, or continue to follow Su Yu's style of sports warfare in Central China.
Since ** recognizes Su Yu, it is equivalent to recognizing Su Yu's style of play. ** After Huaye became an army, he respected Su Yu's opinions and deployments very much, and supported him in adopting sports tactics. It's not a matter of personal preference, and it's not anyone's business. In a general situation where the enemy is strong and we are weak, it is not conducive to us to attack and seize land, because the consumption is too great, and it is not easy to defend the land. Taking the Lunan Battle as an example, after Yixian and Zaozhuang were taken, they did not hold on for too long.
Then Chen Shiyu was very embarrassed. As chief of staff, he had to plan an operational plan under the theoretical system of mobile warfare and provide Su Yu with a plan that could be used for reference. Admiral Chen doesn't seem to be good at that.
How to deal with this? Recall? They did not derelict their duties, on the contrary, they commanded the operation very well, and the generals of the Huaye column admired Chen Shiyu very much. Transferring to other places is also not appropriate.
The shape is forbidden, ** Su Yu came up with a more ingenious way. Every time there was a big battle, Chen Shiyu was sent out to take charge of himself and command several columns to fight on the front line. It's his strength, he has the prestige, he has the ability, he can control the field, and he can play to his strengths.
Especially when Su Yu transferred troops in July, the three columns of the Chen Tang Corps, the third column, the eighth column, and the tenth column, were all old Shandong troops, especially the third column, the eighth division of the Lunan Military Region, and the most skilled troops in Huaye. It can be seen that Chen Shiyu has been given enough face and asked him to command the troops he is most familiar with and adopt the most familiar tactics. When Luoyang was liberated, the first to enter the city was the troops of the three columns, which were later named "Luoyang Battalion".
This is a relatively ingenious state that can be accepted by Chen Su Chen.
Chen Shiyu's Tang Liang Corps showed great might in the Central Plains, and the two big cities with the longest history and extremely heavy weight in Henan, Luoyang and Kaifeng, were all taken by Chen Shiyu.
Su Yu was also able to avoid embarrassment and resistance, and carried out military planning without distraction, and was compatible with the chief of staff as a deputy commander.
Later, he was forced to have no choice, he couldn't always be compatible like this, he was too tired, and promoted Zhang Zhen, deputy commander of the second column, to serve as the deputy chief of staff of Huaye. In the battles of eastern Henan and Huaihai, Zhang Zhen actually performed the post of chief of staff as deputy chief of staff, and he did a very good job.
Speaking of which, I guess everyone can understand it. War is not so simple, and who has changed their status and who has ideological differences with whom is far from being explained by so-called conspiracy theories.
Only by fully and objectively standing on the perspective of history and basing ourselves on abundant historical materials can we have a superficial understanding of the basic laws of war.
If you want to be more profound, it depends on talent.