On November 7, 1930, in Qiliping, Huang'an, Hubei Province, the Red Fourth Front was proclaimed, with Xu Shuai as the commander-in-chief, under the jurisdiction of the Red 4th Army and the Red 25th Army, that is, the Red 10th, 11th, 12th and 73rd Divisions, with a total of more than 30,000 people.
At this time, the Kuomintang surrounded the Eyu-Anhui Soviet region with the strength of 15 divisions and prepared for the third "encirclement and suppression." However, due to the fact that after the "918" incident, the whole country set off a huge anti-Japanese anti-Chiang Kai-shek rage, the contradictions within the Kuomintang deepened day by day, and Chiang Kai-shek's "encirclement and suppression" was delayed in being ready.
The Red Fourth Front decided to preemptively attack. Xu Shuai marched south and launched the Battle of Huang'an.
Huang'an City is an important stronghold closest to the central area of our base area on the southern front, and is surrounded by the base area and the guerrilla zone. The defending enemy was the 69th Division, which moved from western Henan to Huang'an in September, and its combat effectiveness was not very strong. However, Zhao Guanying, the commander of the 69th Division, who was the "ground snake" in Hubei, was treacherous and cunning. After he came to Huang'an City, he built the Ming Pillbox, so that Huang'an City had a more complete defense system. At the same time, the Enemy of Huang'an could also get the support of the enemy forces in the surrounding Songbu, Macheng, Huangpi and Xiaogan.
After careful consideration, Xu Shuai formulated a long-term siege, gradual weakening, and creating conditions to siege the city.
The first step in the campaign was to clear the perimeter and cut off the defending enemy from the outlying strongholds.
On the evening of November 10, the campaign was launched. Chen Geng's 12th Division 34th Regiment launched a fierce attack on the Xu family downwards and the 36th regiment on the Dongwang family. Zhao Guanying hurriedly sent 2 regiments out of the city for reinforcements on the 11th, but was repulsed by the 35th Regiment of the 12th Division and the 30th Regiment of the 10th Division. On the 14th, the 35th Regiment took over the attack of the 34th Regiment, and the 34th Regiment, under the leadership of Xu Shiyou, rushed to the area of Sanlidian south of Huang'an City to prevent the enemy from fleeing south.
Huang An's defenders did flee south, and the two pioneers arrived at Sanlidian and were ambushed by Xu Shiyou. Xu Shiyou led a large knife team to brave the rain of bullets and bullets to kill the enemy and use all his strength to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. Only to see that under the swing of the large knife, the enemy's flesh and blood flew everywhere, and the corpses were all over the field. The enemy was forced to retreat into the city at dusk.
At the same time, the 11th Division and the Huang'an Independent Regiment also removed the Taohua and Gaoqiaohe strongholds in the south of the city, and the 35th Regiment and the 386th Regiment of the 12th Division also captured the Lower Xu family and the Dongwang family respectively. By the 21st, more than 20,000 enemy defenders had been completely annihilated, and the first combat task had been completed.
Then came the second step of the campaign: the siege of the city to help.
Xu Shuai besieged the city with the 12th Division and the Huang'an Independent Regiment, and the 11th Division built a number of defensive positions on the YongjiaHe-Taohua line, with the 80th Regiment as the general reserve, forming a situation of tightening encirclement and attracting reinforcements.
In order to change the situation of the siege and restore contact with Songbu and Huangpi, Zhao Guanying sent all the 106 brigades to the south on the 22nd, in a vain attempt to reoccupy Taohua. Two battalions of the 34th Regiment and the 36th Regiment of Chen Geng's 12th Division stubbornly blocked guo's 91st line and crushed the enemy.
In order to lure the enemy away from the city and gather in the wilderness, Xu Shuai ordered the 12th Division to withdraw to the Wulidun and Steep Port River areas south of guo's 91st line to set up "pockets". On the 23rd, Zhao Guanying attacked south with 3 regiments of troops, and first entered the barrier mountain. Chen Geng commanded the 34th Regiment from the east, the 30th Regiment from the south, and the 35th Regiment from the west to attack the enemy, and the enemy was caught off guard and rushed left and right in the "pocket". After 2 hours of fighting, more than 1,000 enemy personnel were annihilated, more than 700 guns were surrendered, and 1 mortar was fired. The 12th Division took advantage of the tightening of the situation and surrounded the East Pass with 34 Regiments, the 35 Regiment approached the South Pass, the 36 Regiment captured the West Pass, and the Independent Regiment encircled the North Pass, forcing Zhao Guanying into the dangerous city of Jedi at once.
Zhao Guanying urgently called for help from the enemies of Songbu and Huangpi.
On December 7, 2 brigades of the 30th Division of Ge Zhenshan, the enemy of Songbu, reinforced north via the Yinjia River. The 33rd Regiment of the Red 11th Division, which was responsible for luring the enemy, attacked at the big and small peaks, and retreated while fighting, luring the enemy into the area of the barrier mountain, and counterattacking with the Red 30th Regiment and the 31st Regiment that were ambushed in advance, annihilating the enemy's vanguard regiment in one fell swoop and crushing the remaining 3 regiments.
On December 18, the enemy organized a total of 8 regiments of the 33rd Huangpi Division and the 30th Songbu Division to reinforce Huang'an for the second time. One route attacked Dafeng Mountain head-on, moved all the way back to the Dushan and Nianziwan highlands on the right side of the Red Army, and successively occupied Taohua and Wuyun Mountain. Before dawn on the 20th, the enemy troops on the road attacked the barrier mountain under the cover of superior fire.
Due to the negligence of the 5th Company of the 31st Regiment of the Red 11th Division, the position was breached, and the enemy took advantage of the situation to break into the vicinity of the headquarters of the Red 1st Division on the peak of the barrier mountain, and seriously threatened the safety of the headquarters of the Red Fourth Front, four or five miles away.
At the same time, Zhao Guanying of Huang'an City also began to organize a breakthrough.
At 4 p.m. on the 20th, the gunshots of the enemy reinforcements on both sides had reached the headquarters of the front army, and the reinforcements were getting closer and closer, and if the reinforcements and the defenders in the city met, the battle would be abandoned!
Xu Shuai was worthy of a generation of gods of war, and he immediately made a decision, while ordering the pistol battalion of the headquarters to prepare for battle, while rushing to the front line on horseback. Xu Shuai ordered: the 35th Regiment of the 12th Division, together with the 83rd Regiment, would encircle the enemy from the right flank, the 80th Regiment of the General Reserve Would detour to the enemy's left flank, and the 32nd Regiment, in coordination with the 81st Regiment and the Pistol Battalion, would counterattack from the front facing the enemy. In addition, the Red Guards and nearby masses were mobilized to participate in the counterattack.
The battle was fought very hard, and Xu Shuai was injured in his right shoulder. Due to the rapid attack of the two wings and the desperate counterattack of the frontal Red Army, after a half-day bloody battle, more than 1,000 enemy were annihilated and more than 800 people were captured, thus turning the tide of the war.
On the morning of the 21st, the Red Army pursued the victory in two ways and directly attacked Songbu and Huangpi. Huang An defended the enemy with no hope of breaking through, and the Red 12th Division and the Independent Regiment, which were besieging the city, carried out political disintegration work, and some of the defenders took advantage of the dark night to go out of the city and surrender.
The third stage of the campaign: siege of the city, annihilation of the defending 69th Division.
On December 22, the Red Army took advantage of the victory to attack Huang'an, Xu Shuai ordered the 35th Regiment of Chen Geng's 12th Division to take the lead in the attack, Xu Shiyou's 34th Regiment pretended to attack the East Gate, and the 36th Regiment prepared to block the breakthrough of the enemy on the banks of the Pouring Water River.
At 9 o'clock in the morning, a plane flew over Huang'an, where the weather was clear, and the defenders, thinking that the savior had arrived, ran out of the fortifications, cheered and shouted, and were busy greeting the airdrop. Did you not know that the plane that flew was the "Lenin" captured by the Red Army, and what was dropped was bombs and Propaganda materials of the Red Army? In an instant, the enemy was in chaos. The Huang'an Independent Regiment and the Red Guards seized the opportunity to occupy the Jiaozi Mountain in the northeast in one fell swoop, controlling the commanding heights of the whole city and kicking off the prelude to the general offensive.
At 10:00 p.m., under the cover of mortar and other firepower, Chen Geng commanded the 35th Regiment to sneak into the northwest corner of the city in one fell swoop, and then quickly developed into the city, and the enemy struggled desperately. Zhao Guanying organized the only little mobile troops into a "death squad" and ordered these ghosts to break through to the south gate. Zhao Guanying came to a "golden cicada shell", let a retinue dress up as him, rode his big white horse and ran outside, but he himself disguised as a soldier and absconded from the West Gate.
As soon as the enemy who broke through from the south gate left the city, he was violently attacked by Xu Shiyou's 34th Regiment under the personal command of Xu Shuai, and was forced to flee back into the city, and the Red Army took advantage of the situation to attack the city, and after fierce street battles, by midnight, the enemy troops in the city were completely annihilated. The enemy troops who broke out were also annihilated by the 36th and 32nd regiments on the banks of the Pouring River. Zhao Guanying, commander of the 69th Division, sneaked out of the West Gate and was captured alive under a bridge.
The Battle of Huang'an, which lasted 43 days and annihilated more than 15,000 enemy troops, consolidated the central area of the Eyu-Anhui base area and was the first major victory after the establishment of the Red Fourth Front.
Xu Shuai, who commanded the Battle of Huang'an, was only 30 years old at this time!