In fact, the Soviet-Chinese campaign was fought for more than forty days in a row, and Su Yu took into account that Huaye was in urgent need of rest, and in order to be able to transfer troops to fight on the outside line in the follow-up, he could not continue to fight at this stage, so he reported it to the Central Military Commission, first cultivated for a period of time, and waited for the fighters, and the Central Military Commission also agreed.
At this time, the enemy and enemy situation in the East China battlefield was such that Chen Yi's mountains and fields were in the Shuyang area. Su Yu is in the Area of Huangqiao.
At this time, the enemy situation in Huaibei was changing rapidly. The enemy's Seventh Army, the reorganized Seventy-fourth Division, and the Twenty-eighth Army launched an attack on Siyang and Lianghuai.
Lianghuai (Huai'an, Huaiyin) was the capital of central China and the rear of the Soviet front, and the position was extremely important, Su Yu "attacked Wei and saved Zhao" in the Battle of Suzhong, trying his best to defend Shao Bo, but also to protect Lianghuai.
The central authorities ordered Su Yu to "lead the main force to open two Huaihuai at once", and upon receiving the telegram order, Su Yu immediately gathered his troops and traveled north day and night.
Huaye's starting point is about 500 miles away from Lianghuai, along the way is full of water network areas, during the Battle of Suzhong, Su Yu was able to rush to Huai'an day and night, that is because there were only two people, he and the guards, and now tens of thousands of horses, and heavy rain, it is not easy to even find a boat, and the march naturally cannot be fast. In the end, only the Fifth Brigade, as the vanguard, arrived first and took part in the defense of the city.
Before Huaye's main force arrived, the main force of Shanye led by Chen Yi was defending Huaiyin.
Previously, Yamano had already touched a hard nail and suffered a defeat in Sixian County. In the Battle of Sixian County, the Eighth Division of the "Little Tiger in the Sleeve of General Chen Lao" suffered 2,000 casualties, and the expected war of annihilation turned into a war of attrition, and Sixian was not able to win, and the morale of the whole army was greatly affected.
On September 18, 1946, Zhang Lingfu personally went to the front line to supervise the battle, and at midnight sent a battalion to sneak in lightly and penetrate from the junction of the Fifth Brigade and the Ninth Column of the Mountain Field, thus attacking the south gate of Huaiyin in one fell swoop, forming a situation of internal and external cooperation with the main attacking forces outside the city.
On September 19, Su Yu's mountain field was forced to withdraw from Huaiyin, at which time Su Yu led hua ye's main force to arrive, but to no avail. Zhang Lingfu continued to advance south, and three days later the 74th Division captured Huai'an.
Su Yu analyzed that sticking to the two Huai, the enemy is strong and we are weak, and confronting the enemy hard will inevitably bring huge casualties and do not conform to our army's strategic policy; moreover, Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division is in the limelight, and sticking to it may not necessarily change the situation, so it is better to withdraw the two Huai and seek an opportunity to annihilate the enemy in a mobile war.
The situation in central China changed drastically, and the situation in central China became more and more unfavorable to our army; Xue Yue attacked from the north, Li Mo'an from the south, and the north and south combined, forming a semi-encirclement of the mountains and the wilderness, and Suzhong completely became the rear of the enemy. Chen Su's main force was compressed in a narrow area east of the canal, such as Muyang, Lianshui, Yancheng, and Dongtai, and Su Yu found that at present, the mountains and fields, which were gathered together, already had the necessary strength for the large corps to fight, which was exactly what he wanted, and suggested that Chen Yi concentrate on Huaye and concentrate on fighting in the mountains to change the current situation. The relevant telegram was sent to Yan'an, and Mao Zedong replied that Shanye and Huaye would be merged and temporarily called the Headquarters of the East China Field Army, with Chen Yi appointed commander and political commissar and Su Yu as deputy commander.
At this time, the battlefield situation in central China was: Zaozhuang, with Ma Liwu as the main force, Feng Zhi'an's 33rd Army cooperating with aircraft tanks to directly attack Linyi, Ye Fei leading the seventh column to block the attack; Suqian, with Hu Lian and Dai Zhiqi as the main force, rushed to Xinyi and Lianghuai; Zhang Lingfu sharpened his knife again after the failure of the first attack on Lianshui; Li Mo'an's reorganized Sixty-fifth Division, the Eighty-third Division, and the Twenty-fifth Division, a total of six brigades, attacked from Dongtai to Yancheng and Funing, and Su Yu analyzed that if he returned directly to Shandong, the enemy would also follow him back to Shandong. Su Beiping bai lost it for no reason, not to mention, Shandong will also be besieged, so Su Yu decided to fight a battle in the transfer.
So in the face of a four-way attack, who to choose to knock the mountain and shock the tiger? Su Yu chose the Suqian road, because Suqian was preparing to block the connection between Shandong and northern Jiangsu on the Longhai line, which was the greatest threat to our army, and at the same time, the enemy had just arrived on this road and had not yet fought with our army, the enemy did not know the depth of our army, the other three roads like Ma Liwu were fighting with Ye Fei, Zhang Lingfu was also frustrated in Lianshui, and Li Mo'an was not to mention the beaten head bag.
Since the strategic objectives were determined, the tactical deployment was followed, first of all, to concentrate the troops, Su Yu concentrated 24 regiments, including Ye Fei, to attack the enemy in Suqian, and prepared 28 regiments to monitor or block the enemy troops in the other three directions.
At this time, on December 14, the enemy continued to attack our army. Out of Suqian, Hu Lian and Dai Zhiqi divided into two ways, and the troops were more dispersed. We judge: First, among the four enemies attacking East China, the enemies on the three roads of Dongtai, Lianghuai, and Yizao will have more worries because they have been attacked by our army, and the speed of attack will not be too fast. The enemy, on the other hand, saw that our main forces were deployed in the areas north of Yancheng, Lianshui, and Longhai Road, and may concentrate their forces to attack Shuyang and Xin'an. Second, the enemy's integrated Eleventh Division (also attached to the Fifteenth Artillery Regiment and a battalion of the Twenty-fifth Regiment), well-equipped and arrogant, may venture forward. Dai Zhiqi, the new commander of the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division, is a member of the Central Committee of the Three Youth Leagues and a die-hard anti-communist element, and the division has been dealt a devastating blow by us (two of its brigades have been annihilated). Third, the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division was reorganized by three brigades of different formations (the Reserve Third Brigade of the Fifty-seventh Division, the Forty-first Brigade of the Twenty-sixth Division, and the Sixtieth And Ninety-second Brigade of the Reorganized Sixty-ninth Division), with many internal contradictions and weak combat effectiveness;
The reorganized 11th Division had just been transferred from his district and was not familiar with the terrain of northern Jiangsu. Fourth, there are several small highlands on both sides of the highway north of Suqian, the terrain in the northeast of Suqian is open, the villages are small and dense, the houses are not strong, and the canals, the Liutang River, and the Shu River run through them, which cannot be involved in vain, which is conducive to our division and encirclement and annihilation of the enemy.
At this time, the main force of our Shandong Field Army and the first part of the Central China Field Army had entered a mobile position, and could reach the starting area of the attack within two days and launch a surprise attack on the enemy's two flanks, causing the superiority of the campaign and annihilating the enemy in the movement. If this battle can be fought well, we can change from passive to active, and we can encircle and annihilate the enemy in Lianshui in the south, annihilate the enemy in Lunan in the north, and cooperate with the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army to threaten Xuzhou and mobilize the enemy to seek annihilation and return to the enemy.
On the same day, we made up our minds, that is, with the strength of twenty-four regiments, divided by one unit to cut off the connection between the enemy's integrated Sixty-ninth Division and the integrated Eleventh Division, and to block the integrated Eleventh Division, we concentrated three times the enemy's strength, first encircled and annihilated the unstable reorganized Sixty-ninth Division in the triangle area of Suqian, Shuyang, and Xin'an, and then, depending on the development of the battle situation, and then transferred our forces to annihilate the integrated Eleventh Division with the First Division (eight regiments) heading north.
We ordered all the troops to advance covertly that night: the First Column and the Eighth Division advanced as originally planned to assemble in the area north of Xindianzi, southwest of Xin'an Town, as originally planned; the Fifth Brigade of the Seventh Division advanced to Xibaowei (Suqian North) at dawn on the fifteenth day, and prepared to cross the Shu River in the west and take control of the suxin Highway (Shanwu) town area; the Second Column advanced to the Hanji and Taishanji areas at dawn on the fifteenth; the Ninth Column held its positions in Wuhuading, Yehaizi, lailong'an, and other established positions, delayed the enemy's advance, and covered the main force; the First Division marched north day and night. Prepare for war.
In order to respond to the operations in the direction of Su, Shu, and Xin, we used the strength of twenty-eight regiments to monitor and block the other three enemy lines: (1) With the strength of the thirteen regiments of the Sixth Division, the Sixth Brigade of the Tenth Column, and the Nineteenth Brigade of the Seventh Division, we monitored and blocked the reorganized Seventy-fourth Division and the reorganized Twenty-fifth Division of the enemy attacking from Huaiyin in the Lianshui area to ensure the safety of the main force on the flank of the main force in the north of Su. (2) With the strength of the 31st Brigade of the 7th Column, the 30th Brigade of the 10th Column, and the 13th Brigade, a total of ten regiments, monitor and block the enemy's attack on Yancheng from Dongtai and Xinghua. In the above two directions, Comrade Tan Zhenlin led a command post to be in charge of the northern suburbs of Lianshui City. (3) On the Lunan side, with the strength of the Tenth Division and five regiments of the Coastal Guard Brigade, located east of Yi county, in coordination with the local armed forces of Lunan, resolutely blocked the enemy who attacked from the east of Taierzhuang, Yixian and Zaozhuang, and secured the Linyi and Tancheng areas. We immediately reported this determination and deployment to the Central Military Commission at noon on the fourteenth day, and reported that I had returned north according to the instructions of the Central Military Commission and commanded the operation in the direction of Sushu with Comrade Chen Yi. The Fifteenth Japanese Military Commission repeated: "The determination and deployment are very good, and the war situation is expected to be telegraphed at any time."
Throughout the day of December 14, the first unit of the 3rd Brigade of the Enemy's reorganized 69th Division attacked the position south of Wuhuading along the north side of the road, and after being counterattacked by a part of our Ninth Column, it retracted back to the town of Zhangshan. The enemy's 60th Brigade advanced to the areas of Luozhuang and Bojiahu. The enemy's Forty-first Brigade advanced to Shaodian and attacked Ye Haizi with one force, which was blocked by a part of our Ninth Column. The headquarters of the enemy's reorganized 69th Division led the 267th Regiment (belonging to the 92nd Brigade) into Renhewei. At the same time, the 118th Brigade of the enemy's reorganized 11th Division attacked our positions of Xiaopaifang and Lailong'an, but was repelled by a part of our Ninth Column, and the enemy division headquarters led the 18th Brigade into the Caojiaji area. At this point, the entire sixty-ninth division of the enemy's first echelon and the main force of the reorganized eleventh division have been fanned out, with a frontal and depth of about twenty-five kilometers, and its rear supply is only a little bit.
The appearance of this adventurous posture of the enemy shows that the enemy has not yet been aware of the action of the main force of our army, and is anxious to seize shuyang and Xin'an towns at the scheduled time, which is a very good time for our army to split its combat formation and annihilate each one. In order to make the pre-war preparations of the main attacking forces more adequate, to maintain the greatest suddenness of the campaign launched, and to give the enemy an unexpected attack, we postponed the launching of the campaign until the evening of the fifteenth. In order to first seek to annihilate the weaker reserve Third Brigade on the left wing of the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division, and then annihilate the main force of the division, we have made further adjustments to the operational arrangements and further clarified the tasks of each unit: (1) The main force of the Ninth Column continues to hold the positions of Wuhuading, Yehaizi, and Lailong'an, to absorb the enemy, to ensure that the main force of our army has reached a siege against the enemy, and then to cooperate with the main force to attack the enemy's reorganized Sixty-ninth Division; (ii) to encircle and annihilate the Fengshan, Xiaodianzi, and Fifth Brigades of the Seventh Division, respectively. After the completion of the mission, the enemy reserves the Third Brigade in the area of The Town of Shanshan, attacks from west to east, and coordinates with its friendly neighbors to gather and annihilate the main force of the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division; (iii) the main force of the First Column is wedged into the depth of the enemy between Xiaodianzi and Jing'ertou, cutting off the connection between the retreat route of the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division to Suqian and the integrated Eleventh Division; (iv) Attacking from the east to the west with the Second Column, coordinating with the First Column, severing the connection between the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division and the reorganized Eleventh Division, and participating in the annihilation of the besieged enemy. In this deployment, first, the weak enemy was attacked, and the spearhead was first directed at the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division, which had weak combat effectiveness. The second is to secretly engage the enemy, make a surprise attack, and annihilate the enemy while he is in motion and when his foothold is unstable. The third is to surround on all sides, attack on both sides, intersperse and divide, and annihilate each.
On the morning of the nineteenth, the enemy's Forty-first Brigade, which was trapped in Miaozhuang, broke through to the north and south in two groups, and all but more than three hundred people escaped were annihilated by us. At this point, the entire army of the enemy's reorganized Sixty-ninth Division was destroyed, and we annihilated more than 21,000 enemy troops, and the battle was over. On the eighteenth day, the Central Military Commission and Comrade Mao Zedong sent a telegram to "celebrate the great victory on the Sushu front and hope to pass on orders and rewards to all meritorious soldiers." On the 20th, he called again and pointed out: "Annihilating more than 20,000 enemies is beneficial to the overall situation, and it is very good and very comforting." ”
During this period, our army fighting in the direction of Lunan, Lianshui, and Yancheng all actively struck at the enemy and effectively contained, coordinated, and guaranteed operations in the Sushu area. Among them, the Battle of Lianshui was fought very hard. Lianshui City is one hundred and thirty kilometers away from Suqian and eighty kilometers away from Shuyang, on the east side of the Huaiyin-Shuyang Highway, if the enemy of Huaiyin is moving north to Shuyang, Lianshui our army can attack the enemy's flank at any time, which makes the enemy not the first to capture Lianshui City before it can advance north. The enemy of this attack was the reorganized Seventy-fourth Division of Chiang Kai-shek's Ace Army. The enemy began to attack us on December 3, and our army fought bloodily and held out for thirteen days. Due to a momentary error in the judgment of our battlefield commander, the enemy exploited the loophole in our defensive deployment. On the sixteenth day, the enemy invaded Lianshui City, and our army immediately withdrew. In this battle, I killed and wounded more than 4,000 enemy soldiers, and our army also suffered 4,000 casualties, and lost Lianshui City. Therefore, some people say that this is a defeat. It's not right, it's a war of attrition. Battle Lianshui did not have a dead mission, but a movement defense. Slow the enemy's advance and deplete the enemy's living power. As a result, the reorganized 74th Division was blocked by our army south of the Liutang River, unable to rescue the reorganized 69th Division, and guaranteed the battle of Subei from the southern front.
The Battle of Subei was also the opening battle and the first victory of the five major battles in the East China Battlefield (Subei, Lunan, Laiwu, Menglianggu, and Huaihai), and since then the Liberation War has ushered in a new climax. This battle created the "five firsts" miracle: for the first time, the tremendous people's strength in the early days of the Liberation War was displayed, for the first time Mao Zedong's military thinking of "concentrating forces to fight a movement war" was creatively developed, the first victory promoted the first turning point in the East China Theater, for the first time, the road to army building was explored for the first time, the road of "raising war with war," "fighting with war and teaching war," and "fighting a battle further" was explored, and for the first time, an example of a large-scale campaign to annihilate the enemy was created.