In January 1947, the Central China Field Army and the Shandong Field Army were formally merged into the East China Field Army, marking that the two field armies officially passed the run-in period and became a complete combat force.
The Central China Field Army was formally formed in November 1946, and at the beginning of its formation, it had four columns, and since 1946, the Central China Field Army has suffered a fierce attack by the Kuomintang Army.
Although the Shanye and Central China Field Army both belonged to the battle sequence of the New Fourth Army, they were divided into troops for a long time and were not familiar with each other's situation at all, which brought great difficulties to the cooperation between the two armies, and more importantly, the Kuomintang Army would not let go of such an opportunity at all; in December 1946, Xue Yue, director of the Xuzhou Sui Administration, commanded 25 brigades to divide into three routes, from the direction of Lianghuai, Suqian, and Dongtai, approaching the liberated area of Shandong, and seeking an opportunity to fight a decisive battle with our main force.
This was obviously an extremely unfavorable operation for our army, and once it was lost, the situation of the entire war of liberation would undergo a great change, and at the request of his superiors, Su Yu, commander of the Central China Field Army, had to be ordered to command the troops in Central China and the mountains to fight this battle well, and the difficulty was not ordinarily great, especially as expounded in General Su Yu's later memoirs, it was difficult for the various units to cooperate and coordinate with each other, and they were not familiar with the geographical environment and the troops under command, so that they were very nervous.
On December 13, 1946, Dai Zhiqi, who dispatched the left flank through Suqian, formed a lone army in depth, although the department only had one brigade and one regiment under its jurisdiction at that time, but it was also equipped with one brigade and one brigade of the 67th Division, which was a complete and integrated division, with a strength of nearly 30,000 people, so our army was determined to mobilize the 1st and 2nd columns of the mountains and fields and the division to cooperate with the 9th column of the Central China Field Army for the siege.
Even if everything was arranged for the operation, fighting in an unfamiliar area still brought great difficulties to the Central China Field Army, especially the 11th Integrated Division led by Hu Lian on the right at that time, which was a fully organized unit at that time, one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang Army, and its combat effectiveness was particularly strong.
After the battle began, Dai Zhiqi's integrated 69th Division, which was responsible for the frontal blockade by the 9th Column of the Central China Field Army and the 7th Division, was relatively weak, so as soon as the battle began, Dai Zhiqi continued to send messages to Hu Lian to reorganize the 11th Division to help, and at this time, the 1st Column and the 8th Division of the Mountains and Fields had already attacked the junction of the enemy's left and right flanks, and forced back the 11th Division, and the 2nd Column cooperated with the Huaye 9th Column responsible for blocking the attack, forming a tight encirclement of Dai Zhiqi, after two days of fierce fighting, Dai Zhiqi's division was reorganized into the 69th Division 2The total annihilation of 70,000 troops created a successful example of the two major field armies cooperating in combat.
In fact, there was an unsuccessful side to this battle, that is, after the annihilation of Dai Zhiqi's integrated 69th Division, he returned to the division to prepare to fight Hu Lian's integrated 11th Division, but due to Hu Lian's cunning and cunning, and our army's cooperation was indeed omission, so Hu Lian escaped, but Dai Zhiqi's integrated division was annihilated by our army, and it also became the largest number of enemies destroyed by our army since the beginning of the Liberation War, especially the cooperation between the two major field armies became closer and closer, and then in the Lunan Battle in January 1947, Ma Liwu reorganized the 26th Division and Zhou Yuying reorganized the 51st Division and a fast column 530,000 people were completely annihilated, marking the formal formation of the combat effectiveness of the East China Field Army.