The Battle of Huaihai "Made the First Contribution"
This is Comrade Mao Zedong's evaluation of Su Yu
Su Yu once recalled
His life
Experienced two of the most stressful moments
The encirclement of Huang Baitao's corps was one of them
Late on the night of November 14, 1948, in a private house in Tushan Town, southwest of Pizhou, only 15 kilometers southeast of the Nianzhuang front, a meeting was underway, which Su Yu had convened to encircle and annihilate Huang Baitao's corps as soon as possible. At the meeting, Su Yu believed that Huaye should be changed from a mobile battle to a positional offensive battle, and proposed a new method of warfare.
Wen Ruimao, researcher of the Academy of Military Sciences of the people's liberation army of Chinese:
The meeting decided that the troops attacking the fortifications would be under the unified command of Tan Zhenlin and Wang Jian'an, and at the same time adopt the new tactics of "forced operations" and "first attacking the weak enemy, then attacking the strong enemy, attacking its head, and disrupting its deployment."
The day after the Tushan Conference, the sound of attacking artillery on the battlefield of Nianzhuang suddenly stopped, and the front of the position was silent. On the outskirts of the mill, preparations are being carried out in an intense and orderly manner. Su Yu wanted to let Hua Ye take it step by step, and bite by bite gnawed away Huang Baitao's hard bone.
The warriors worked in covert work at night, first digging out the horizontal fortifications, then digging them into kneeling, and finally deepening them into standing fortifications.
Xu Hong, former deputy director of the Armament Department of the Nanjing Military Region:
The use of such tactics can shorten the time of the charge, reduce the casualties of the troops, and also reduce the amount of ammunition covered by artillery fire.
After two days of silence, Huaye's five offensive columns once again launched a general attack on Nianzhuang.
Due to the enemy's desperate defense, the 6th and 13th columns responsible for the attack achieved certain results, but they still failed to break through the enemy's defense line.
The next day, two tanks suddenly appeared in the enemy position. This was a reconnaissance operation taken by Hua Yete to cooperate with the general offensive.
The enemy did not think much of the appearance of the tank, and they thought it was their own people, and they never thought that sitting in the tank was Liang Jinhua, commander of the 17th Division of the 6th Column of the People's Liberation Army.
As the chief officer of the main attack unit, Liang Jinhua saw the enemy fortifications clearly in the tanks and quickly selected a new breakthrough site. Before the reconnaissance was over, the tanks also destroyed an enemy bunker. Only then did the enemy suddenly realize.
During the battle, the special column tanks fired accurately at the enemy bunkers near the breakthrough, and cooperated with the infantry to throw explosives to destroy the enemy fortifications. Zhao Biguang, commander of the 150th Division of the 44th Army of the Kuomintang Army, saw the fire raging on the position and the corpses were strewn across the field, and led more than 1,500 people from the remnants of the 150th Division to surrender to the Platon Army. At dawn on the 18th, Wang Zejun, commander of the Kuomintang 44th Army, and more than 5,000 other people were captured.
At this time, the outer positions of Nianzhuang were lost one after another, and Huang Baitao only had more than 10,000 people left in the 25th Army and the 64th Army in more than a dozen villages.
Attacking the 25th Army from the north was the Huaye 4th Column, which used the communication trenches to secretly assemble and take the initiative to attack under night cover.
At the main enemy position, Daya Village, the commandos quickly reached the last wall.
Chen Li, researcher of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Chinese People's Liberation Army:
Gu Zhutong, chief of staff of the Kuomintang army, flew over Nianzhuangwei and spoke to Huang Baitao through the ground-air liaison radio, asking him to break through to the west.
The decisive battle reached the final stage. Late on the night of November 19, Su Yu again issued the order to launch a general offensive, and the 9th Column attacked from the south of Nianzhuang as the main attack column.
Two days earlier, the 73rd Regiment of the 25th Division of the 9th Column of Huaye had suffered heavy casualties at the South Gate. Originally, there was a stone bridge outside the south gate of the village, the north of the bridge was the enemy's main position, the south of the bridge was covered with a dark fort, and there were multiple heavy machine gun fire points on both sides of the bridge. Since the rush on the bridge is not feasible, it can only wade through the water. But how deep is the water in the trench?
Li Fangxing, a soldier of the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion, stepped forward and took the initiative to reconnoiter the water situation. Half an hour passed, and just when everyone thought that Li Fangxing might also be sacrificed at the front, a figure gradually became clear.
Jia Ping, deputy director of the Xuzhou Huaihai Battle Memorial Hall:
Li Fangxing handed over the dry grass he had caught from the river on the opposite bank to the company commander, proving that the trench could be crossed.
This is an extremely important piece of information, which means that the fighters can build pontoon bridges in the trenches so that commandos can quickly pass through the pontoon bridges. In order to ensure a successful next general offensive, the 73rd Regiment deliberately set aside two days for preparation and drills.
On the 19th, according to the established plan, the commando team did not take the stone bridge, but directly erected straw pontoon bridges on both sides of the stone bridge to force the crossing of the trench. The 73rd Regiment and fraternal troops seized the fighter, immediately crossed the first mound, and continued to expand the results of the battle.
Huang Baitao, who had already lost the red eye, played his last hole card - the Youth Commando. This unit, composed of the most reactionary and brutal armed agents in the corps, is not to be underestimated in combat. In front of the second polder wall, the 73rd and 74th regiments of Huaye came into contact with the enemy youth commando.
Nie Fengzhi, commander of the 9th Column, called on the 73rd Regiment to carry forward the brave and tenacious fighting style of the "Jinan First Regiment", and the morale of the commanders and fighters of the 73rd Regiment was greatly boosted, and they launched a fierce attack on the stubborn enemy, and the youth commando team was finally defeated.
Huang Baitao saw that the situation was not good, and fled with a small number of his entourage to the headquarters of the 64th Army at the compound Shangcun. Despite his discouragement, Huang Baitao refused to surrender and fled to an earthen house in The South of Youjiahu lake in the early morning of the next day and was killed.
On the night of November 22, With the strong cooperation of Nakano, The Hanano Columns finally won the final victory in the Battle of Mill Village. Su Yu later recalled that he had experienced two of the most tense moments in his life, and the encirclement and annihilation of Huang Baitao's corps was one of them.
Chen Jin, former deputy director of the Literature Research Office of the CPC Central Committee:
In the entire Huaihai Campaign, the siege and annihilation of Huang Baitao's corps was the most tragic battle, so it was called the Battle of the Bottom, the Battle of the Foundation, and the Key Battle, which changed the strategic posture of the entire Huaihai Campaign.
In today's Nianzhuangwei Battle Martyrs' Cemetery, the heroes are buried in the land where they fought bloody battles for the liberation of the people. In the south corner of the monument, there is also a "place where the ashes of General Su Yu were scattered", and as a member of the General Front Committee of the Huaihai Campaign, Su Yu, who was praised by Mao Zedong as saying that the Huaihai Campaign "made the first contribution", was buried in this way with the heroes of the Battle of Nianzhuang. Their great deeds will always be remembered by the sons and daughters of China, and their red genes and ideals and beliefs will surely be passed on in the red hot land of Nianzhuang, never stopping!
▌ Source: CCTV National Memory