In early 1950, nearly 100,000 People's Liberation Army (PLA) was urgently assembled in southern China, and under the leadership of Han Xianchu and Li Zuopeng, they planned to launch a final offensive against the Kuomintang. In order to keep the only important chips left in his hands, Chiang Kai-shek also made sufficient preparations, dispatched Xue Yue, a famous anti-Japanese general, as commander-in-chief, and was full of strength to fight our army to the death, and even released a harsh word: "This battle will forever block the PLA on the mainland." ”
At this time, in the office of the Central Military Commission, a heated discussion was underway. After analyzing the local situation and the situation of our army, Ye Jianying proposed that the original battle plan for May 2 should be postponed to June. Chairman Mao and others also unanimously held that launching this campaign would be extremely unfavorable to our army without adequate preparations, and that it would be enough to strive to accomplish this goal in 1950.
Only Han Xianchu alone put forward a different opinion, he believed that this battle should be sooner rather than later, otherwise it would be feared to change over time. At present, the meteorological conditions and other aspects are completely in line with the operation, and it is the best time to fight. To this end, he also issued a military order to the Central Military Commission to complete this combat task.
On March 5, 1950, our army divided the troops into three groups, with Ye Jianying, Deng Hua, Han Xianchu and other commanders as commanders, and launched an attack on the Kuomintang. On May 1, the War of Liberation was successfully concluded under the victorious sweep of our army. When Chairman Mao analyzed the current situation a few months later, he sighed indignantly: "If this place were to be liberated two months later, it would most likely become a second Taiwan." Why did Chairman Mao express such an exclamation? If this place is not liberated in time, what will our country face? Let us break through the fog of history and explore the truth of that year!
This place, where Chiang Kai-shek had high hopes and was valued by Chairman Mao at the same time, was Hainan Island in the south of China. Why is it important? We have to start with the War of Liberation.
In 1946, Chiang Kai-shek openly tore up the "Double Tenth Agreement" and launched a long-planned civil war. What Chiang Kai-shek did not expect was that the Kuomintang army, which boasted of being well-equipped, well-trained, and supported by US imperialism, was defeated and retreated by the army led by our Party when it had exhausted its superiority, and even in April 1949, it had to abandon the capital Nanjing, and fled south in an attempt to make a final dying struggle.
With no advantage on the mainland, Chiang Kai-shek hit the idea on the surrounding islands. At that time, in addition to Taiwan Island, Hainan Island was also a retreat prepared by Chiang Kai-shek. According to his small calculation in his heart, as long as he holds this area of Hainan, with its unique geographical advantages, and then echoes with Taiwan, it will be enough to pose a big enough threat to our party's army on the mainland. And in the future, if there is really a third world war, this will also be the best springboard for him to counterattack the mainland.
For this reason, Chiang Kai-shek made a big fuss on Hainan Island. In order to ensure the normal implementation of the plan, he specially sent Xue Yuezhen to guard Hainan. Who is Xue Yue? It is not an exaggeration to compare him to the contemporary Tiger Hou Xu Chu. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he held shanghai for more than three months, smashing the "arrogant plan of the Japanese Kou to destroy China in three months." In the Battle of Changsha, with his outstanding military ability, he annihilated more than 100,000 Japanese troops in one fell swoop, became famous in world war, and was named "Anti-Japanese God of War" by the Chinese people.
However, this time, Xue Yue, who had made great achievements in battle, also planted a fierce heel when facing our army. Xue Yue reorganized the Kuomintang's 10 armies on Hainan Island into 5 corps, of which the 32nd Army was the main force to defend eastern Hainan, the 62nd Army and the Instructor to defend northern Hainan, the 64th Army to defend the western part of Hainan, the 3rd Division of the Hainan Garrison Division and the 63rd Army to garrison southern Hainan, and five divisions were selected from each region as reserves.
In addition, he also deployed 50 naval vessels and 45 aircraft of the Air Force in the northern part of Hainan Island to prevent our army from landing. In this way, a three-dimensional defensive line was constructed by the three armed forces of the navy, army and air force. Xue Yue also named it after his own character, calling this line of defense the "Boling Line" and boasting to his subordinates with pride: This line of defense is impregnable, and the People's Liberation Army does not want to cross from here.
In the face of such a hard bone, how should our army deal with it? In fact, as early as the end of 1949, with the liberation of Guangzhou, the Kuomintang had no foothold on the mainland, and our army began to gather troops in south China, preparing to take advantage of the situation to liberate Hainan Island in one fell swoop. But at this moment, the central authorities issued an urgent order: "The plan to liberate Hainan is delayed." "What is the reason for this? Let's start with a battle!
Originally, in October, our army launched a large-scale sea-crossing offensive operation on Kinmen Island, but due to the lack of relevant combat experience of the commanders and fighters at that time, coupled with the lack of equipment superiority of our army, more than 9,000 people in 3 regiments were completely destroyed, which was also a rare and tragic defeat in the history of our People's Liberation Army.
Since then, our army, whether it is a general or a commander or a fighter, has been more or less afraid of the sea crossing operation. It was precisely because of this that the central government took this into account, and the military deployment on Hainan Island was stronger than that of Kinmen, and from a cautious point of view, it could only decide to suspend the operation, so it scheduled the battle plan until February 1950.
Marshal Ye Jianying, who was in charge of liberating Southern China at that time, after analyzing in detail the relevant arrangements of the Kuomintang on Hainan Island and taking into account the fact that our army lacked ships and was not familiar with naval warfare, out of the concept of reducing losses and winning the battle, proposed that the plan for the February offensive be postponed and that the final offensive be launched after the preparations were made.
Just as the decision was about to be decided, Han Xianchu, commander of the 40th Army of the Fourth Field Army of the People's Liberation Army, stood up. He believes that since there are no mountains that cannot be climbed, there must be no seas that cannot be crossed, and we do not know the sea conditions, and the fishermen there must know best.
After consulting with local fishermen in the coastal areas of South China, he received strong information: every year from the first month to the Qingming Dynasty, the Qiongzhou Strait will blow north winds or northeast winds, which is the best time to cross the sea. Riding on this "east wind", even a small sailing boat can cross to the other side of the strait overnight. If the sea breeze reverses during the rainy season in April, it will be difficult to cross the sea.
He also learned from fishermen that in Hainan's Lingao Cape, there are plenty of sandy beaches for sailing boats to dock at will. Therefore, Han Xianchu proposed that the liberation of Hainan should be sooner rather than later, and now is the best time.
But at this time there is a big problem facing our army. As early as the end of 1949, Chairman Mao had issued instructions: The operation of crossing the sea must be able to be concentrated, carrying at least one army at a time, and each person needs to carry three to five days of grain, and after the successful crossing of the sea, it is necessary to ensure the establishment of a solid beachhead position.
That is to say, according to Chairman Mao's instructions, our army must prepare at least 1,000 ships to ensure the completion of the goal of carrying one army at a time. However, at that time, our army had just lost the Battle of Kinmen, and some of the remaining ships were also damaged to varying degrees.
When the Kuomintang was retreating, it either robbed or destroyed the ships along the coast, fundamentally cutting off our army's way across the sea. At this time, our army had only 400 unpowered wooden sailing ships. Han Xianchu realized that if there were not enough ships, the results of the sea crossing operation would be greatly reduced, and even the mistakes of the Battle of Kinmen would be repeated.
To this end, Han Xianchu and other commanders and fighters also made sufficient preparations. First, people were sent to hong Kong to purchase ships, but due to the interference of the Kuomintang agents scattered on the mainland, they finally bought back some simple items such as seasickness medicine and compasses.
At a time when there was no way out, Chairman Mao gave instructions that if we could not buy a ship, we could start from the perspective of modifying the machine and build it ourselves. Han Xianchu and others were inspired to immediately dismantle the engines of the 10-wheeled truck seized by the Kuomintang and install them on wooden sailing ships, so that a simple motorized sailing ship would become.
In order to solve the problem of "warships," Chairman Mao also installed field artillery, combat defense artillery, mountain artillery, and heavy machine guns on the ships, and the problem of gunboats was also solved. In this way, through means such as modification, our army gathered from east to west and spent two months transforming hundreds of warships. But despite this, the ship was not enough, and at this moment, a person appeared and solved the problem.
On this day, a fisherman secretly reported to our army that there were more than 400 large ships looted by the Kuomintang troops near Weizhou Island, and Han Xianchu hurriedly sent people to investigate, and found that there were only more than 500 people stationed there. So without stopping, he directly started fighting, and it took only a short time to completely annihilate the enemy and retake more than 400 large ships. At this point, our army has assembled nearly 2,000 warships, and the battle can be started.
However, after all the preparations were in place, the Central Military Commission was still not at ease, and ordered that the time for the sea crossing operation must be carried out after full preparations were made, and this task could be completed before the end of 1950. Han Xianchu argued on the basis of reason, repeatedly stressing that our army could not miss this windy season, and even issued a military order to the chiefs on the spot. After careful analysis, the Central Military Commission and the Guangdong Military Region finally agreed to send the first troops on March 5 to smuggle them into Hainan Island in wooden boats.
On the eve of the implementation of the plan, the appearance of a single person directly accelerated the process of landing on the island and greatly helped the People's Liberation Army to liberate Hainan. Who is this person?
That night, Fu Zhenzhong of the Qiongya Column sneaked into the headquarters of the People's Liberation Army with the operational deployment map of the Nationalist army on Hainan Island, told Han Xianchu and others about the island's deployment information, and relayed Feng Baiju's relevant suggestions for breaking through the Boling defense line. This sudden intelligence, like a shot in the arm, greatly encouraged the officers and men of our army, and Han Xianchu quickly made arrangements, divided the four field generals of our army into three groups of troops, and officially began to attack Hainan.
On March 5, 1950, the 1st Battalion of the 40th Army smuggled the Qiongzhou Strait from the Leizhou Peninsula. After taking the lead in annihilating a battalion of the enemy army, he rendezvoused with the Qiongya column and successfully found out the situation of coastal defense, which provided great convenience for later operations. On the 26th, a reinforced regiment of the 40th Army smuggled in for the second time, quickly broke through the enemy's encirclement, opened a defensive gap, and then met with the first group of troops, stabilizing the military strength of our army on Hainan Island.
The two successful smuggling also gave Han Xianchu great confidence, and he immediately issued an order for the whole army to cross the sea. On April 16, Han Xianchu put on a battle, and at the sound of an order, more than 300 wooden boats crossed the Qiongzhou Strait, and until the early morning of the next day, the 40th Army took the lead in landing, and it took only 3 hours to destroy the enemy's defensive positions, and then continued to launch a large-scale attack on the enemy.
By the 30th, our army had liberated Yulin, Sanya, Haikou and other places in one fell swoop, and Xue Yue's self-proclaimed unbreakable Boling defense line was completely destroyed by our army in less than half a month. By May 1, the entire territory of Hainan Island was liberated. In this battle, our army annihilated more than 60,000 enemy troops at the cost of sacrificing 4,500 people, and less than half of the remnants of the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan.
The liberation of Hainan Island was the first victory won by our army in a sea-crossing operation, and at the same time completely smashed Chiang Kai-shek's plan to use Hainan as a springboard for counterattacking the mainland. Looking back again at this battle that has gone down in history, whether it is from the enemy's firepower allocation or material support, the degree of difficulty of our army can be said to be unprecedented, but in the end, this hard bone was gnawed away, and the tenacious fighting spirit of our generals and soldiers, as well as the courage and courage of commander and fighter Han Xianchu.
The significance of this battle is even more unprecedented. Not long after the liberation of Hainan Island, the Korean War broke out, and the US military crossed the 38th Line, bombed China's Dandong region, once burned the war to the Yalu River, and also sent the Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait to threaten China's southern region.
In order to resist the United States and aid Korea, the People's Liberation Army in South China also quickly moved north to fight in The DPRK. Later, when analyzing the current situation, Chairman Mao mentioned Hainan Island, not only taking a breath of cold air: "If hainan is liberated in a few more months at night according to the original plan, it may face greater difficulties, and it is very likely that Hainan Island will become the second Taiwan."
Just think, if it were not for Han Xianchu's original bravery and decisiveness, and without the reasoning and struggle at that time, the situation in Hainan in the future might have been different. We cannot imagine the consequences of that time, because history never assumes. History has given us a wonderful opportunity to guarantee the integrity of the land. It has also proved once again that only by conforming to the trend of history can we turn our hearts and minds and achieve good results.
The strength and prosperity of our country are inseparable from the bloody struggle of our army's officers and men, and also from the correct policy decisions of the party and the state. This battle leaves us with too much reflection and reference. The liberation of Hainan Island not only liberated the last piece of territory in the central and southern regions of the mainland, but also provided valuable experience for the upcoming liberation of Taiwan.
Today we are no longer the poor And White China at that time, the shortage of war readiness materials has become history, our treasure island Taiwan was not recovered because of the Korean War, this time, we will never repeat the same mistakes, the reunification of the motherland, let us wait and see!