On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its unconditional surrender, and at this point, the fourteen-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression finally came to an end, and the people of Chinese finally ushered in peace. After Japan announced the end of its surrender, according to the international conventions at that time, the Japanese should surrender their weapons to the nearest Allied forces as soon as possible and hand over their weapons. But at this time, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to monopolize the fruits of the victory of the War of Resistance on his own, trying to prepare for the ensuing civil war.
Therefore, when the commander-in-chief of the Japanese army invading China signed the surrender ceremony, he once made a request to He Yingqin that there were still 300,000 Japanese troops in the Yangtze river and Yellow River valleys in central China, suggesting that they should not surrender and could continue to fight for them under the leadership of the Kuomintang. Although Chiang Kai-shek ostensibly did not agree to Okamura's request, he actually pardoned Okamura for his crimes and stipulated that the Japanese in central China could only surrender to the Kuomintang forces. Chiang Kai-shek also took this opportunity to march toward central China in a big way.
At that time, the New Fourth Army had already recovered most of the land in central China, but the Japanese in the Gaoyou area never surrendered to the New Fourth Army because of Chiang Kai-shek's orders, and even united with the Japanese puppet army in the Yangzhou area and used the fortifications to resist. Under such circumstances, in order to protect the fruits of the New Fourth Army's resistance to the Japanese in central China, the New Fourth Army could only fight back. As a result, Su Yu led the New Fourth Army to a final battle with the Japanese Kou. How was the battle? Today, the curator will take you to understand.
After Japan surrendered, some Japanese troops still occupied and refused to leave
Gaoyou area, the gateway of the Lianghuai region, is the northeast military center on the canal line, and has an important strategic location. After the Japanese occupation of Gaoyou in 1938, intricate fortifications were built here, using the local terrain to establish a layered defensive military system. At that time, there were nearly 1,100 Japanese Kou in Gaoyou City, plus more than 5,000 local puppet troops and police.
In order to eliminate these Japanese puppet armies and liberate the people in Gaoyou City, Su Yu, then deputy commander of the Central China Military Region, took on this task. In order to smash the Kuomintang conspiracy in time, Su Yu first adopted the form of peaceful negotiations for liberation, but the Japanese were not only stubborn, but also brutally killed the messenger. The Japanese in the Gaoyou area stubbornly resisted in disregard of the fact that the Japanese emperor had surrendered unconditionally.
Su Yu
At that time, our army sent personnel to the city to understand the reason, trying to minimize the damage on both sides, and in order to prevent the people of Gaoyou from being invaded by the war again. At that time, the New Fourth Army chose Zhao Yunxiang as a messenger. Zhao Yunxiang was once an officer of the New Fourth Army when he attacked Yancheng. Originally a puppet army in Yancheng, he had such an experience, so Zhao Yunxiang was more able to grasp the psychology of the puppet army and persuade it to surrender.
However, he did not think that the Japanese army could not enter the oil and salt, and even killed Zhao Yunxiang. This completely angered Su Yu. As a result, Su Yu applied to the Central Military Commission and others several times to attack Gaoyou by force, and then he was approved. However, just when the seventh and eighth columns were planned to take on the task of siege, the New Fourth Army headquarters ordered the main forces of the Central China Military Region to be dispatched to the north and return to the direction of the Jinpu Line for a breakout battle. As a result, the Battle of Gaoyou also had no troops.
Seeing the situation, Su Yu even analyzed in detail the stakes of the Battle of Gaoyou to the New Fourth Army Headquarters and expressed the necessity of conducting the Battle of Gaoyou. Under Su Yu's earnest words, the New Fourth Army finally decided to fight the Battle of Gaoyou. But how to fight has become a difficult problem.
The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
Gaoyou City is an ancient city with a long history, the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack. Coupled with the fact that the Japanese Kou built countless fortifications here, various machine gun fortifications and large pillboxes, as well as a moat more than seven meters wide outside the city, it was not easy to take Gaoyou Castle. In addition, the Japanese who were stationed in the city were very arrogant.
Even if it is a difficult bone to gnaw, but due to the situation, Su Yu must take GaoYoucheng, and it is difficult to say that Su Yu, who is known as the god of war, is not difficult. After receiving a clear call back from the central authorities, Su Yu immediately convened a meeting, and after discussion, decided that the campaign would be carried out in two stages, the first of which was to retake Shaobo, clear the enemies on the outskirts of Gaoyou, and encircle the Gaoyou area. Then he further besieged Gaoyou, causing the enemy to surrender.
According to the strategic deployment, the seventh column led by Ji Pengfei carried out the plan to attack Shao Bo in the south of Gaoyou, and then Tao Yong led the eighth column to take on the follow-up task to attack Gaoyou, and Su Yu personally sat in the eighth column for command. On December 19, 1945, the Battle of Gaoyou was officially launched.
Attacking the enemy both inside and outside, the military psychological double defense line was breached
After a night of fierce fighting, the Seventh Column quickly approached the Shaobo area, cleared all the strongholds of more than a dozen Japanese puppet troops stationed here, annihilated more than 100 Japanese troops and more than 4,000 puppet troops, and paid off all the enemy troops reinforcing Gaoyou. By 20 December, Gaoyou was completely surrounded by the Seventh and Eighth Columns, and the Japanese puppet army in the city, which had lost aid, began to reinforce the fortifications.
In the face of the enemy's strict defense, Su Yu still found a breakthrough through observation of the deployment of the enemy's troops. The Japanese in the city set up the Japanese headquarters near the East Gate, and the terrain outside the East Gate was relatively flat, making it easy to deploy firepower. Therefore, the East Gate was a key point of the Japanese defense.
Therefore, Su Yu made a plan and created an illusion that he would mobilize a large number of troops to attack the East Gate to contain the main firepower of the Japanese puppet army. Then at the same time, the sound of east and west, focusing on the north and south gates. In addition, there was also a unit arranged by Su Yu in the Northwest Army, and the firepower of the four directions attacked at the same time, echoing each other.
Because the walls of Gaoyou City are nine meters high, a strong attack will inevitably bring a lot of unnecessary casualties to our side, in order to avoid this situation, Su Yu thought of a clever trick. A few nights before the battle began, Su Yu had arranged for the soldiers of the troops to take advantage of the night to dig and build a communication trench at the city wall overnight, all the way to the front of the city wall tens of meters. Then the same nine-meter earthen wall was erected with sacks and bags, almost flush with the Gaoyou City Wall.
In order to play a good role in cover, this earthen wall took the shape of a half moon, and the soldiers climbed to the earthen wall to set up machine guns, so that the soldiers of our army were on the same level as the Japanese Kou and were no longer suppressed by the Geographical Position of the Japanese Kou. When the New Fourth Army outside the city stepped up its preparations for the siege, the people inside the city also responded.
They worked tirelessly to deliver supplies to the soldiers, and even some signed up for the battle, with a total of more than three thousand militiamen participating. The people also vacated their own houses for the soldiers of the New Fourth Army to live and use, and took out their own tables, chairs, and furniture for the troops to use for siege, and all this assistance was given by the people free of charge. It is precisely because of the support of the masses of the people that the soldiers of the New Fourth Army are even more confident and determined to return gaoyou to a peaceful life.
While military preparations were being carried out intensely, Su Yu did not relax his offensive. The so-called siege is to attack the heart first. Political offensives can often do more with less. Gaoyou City is now surrounded by our legions, there is no reinforcement, it is like a trapped beast, in this situation, the soldiers who believe in the Japanese Kou are undoubtedly uncomfortable in their hearts.
Every evening, the soldiers of the New Fourth Army would play "Homesick Song" outside the city, and under the strong rendering of the homesick atmosphere, many Japanese soldiers collapsed and cried, and the psychological defense line collapsed for a time. These were the ideas of the soldiers of the Enemy Works Department of the New Fourth Army, and not only that, while playing Japanese music, they also kept shouting to the soldiers in the city with loudspeakers, and read to them the surrender letter written by the Japanese Emperor to inform them of the real situation of the Japanese outside.
Even the Japanese soldiers in the New Fourth Army personally shouted and mobilized the soldiers in the city, and even more "drones" came to the sky above Gaoyou City with countless leaflets, and the leaflets wrote the words of conquering people's hearts, under such offensives, the Japanese soldiers in the city had long since lost the heart to fight, and only wanted to hurry back to their hometowns, not wanting to die so inexplicably.
After winning the last battle, Gaoyou was successfully liberated
It was the transformation of the Japanese warriors that made Su Yu understand that a good time had come to attack the city. So on the night of December 25, although the sky was still raining heavily, in Su Yu's view, this time was the time when the enemy's defense was most lax, and with Su Yu's order, the artillery regiment of the army began to attack Gaoyou City from three directions. The detachments of the Eighth Column, which had arrived ahead of schedule, also cooperated well in the direction of the south, north, and east gates and launched an attack.
Under the cover of the artillery fire of the team, the warriors carried the ladder to the foot of the city wall and climbed towards the city wall braving the enemy's artillery fire. Although there were constantly warriors who were hit by enemy bullets and fell, the next warrior immediately went up, lifeless, and constantly rushed towards the enemy's city wall.
The most difficult thing was the conquest of the East Gate. Because most of the enemy's deployed troops were at the East Gate, in the face of strong firepower, the warriors could not attack for a long time. Just as the two sides were in a stalemate, the situation in the northwest corner took a turn for the better. Under the cover of firepower, the warriors took advantage of the enemy's lack of defense, quietly climbed the city wall on the ladder, and then engaged in close combat with the enemy with bayonets, and countless warriors used their own blood to open a breakthrough in the enemy's city wall defense line.
It was precisely because of this gap that the soldiers braved their deaths to tear opened that the main force of our army was able to climb the city wall, so that the enemy had to transfer troops from the East Gate to the northwest corner for support, thus also alleviating the glue situation faced by the soldiers at the East Gate.
By the early morning of December 26, the entire Gaoyou City had been broken through by the New Fourth Army, and the soldiers of our army successfully came to the city and controlled the entire Gaoyou City. By the afternoon of the 26th, a large number of Japanese puppet troops in the city knew that they were unable to resist, surrendered their weapons and raised white flags. At that time, the supreme commander of the Japanese army in Gaoyou City, Yan Qi, also understood that the general situation was gone, and had no choice but to lead his troops to surrender to the New Fourth Army. A belated surrender ceremony was held on the same day.
Because the highest level of control of the Japanese army in Gaoyou City was only a big sa, Su Yu did not participate in this surrender ceremony, but arranged for Han Nianlong, director of the political department of the Eighth Column, to participate on his behalf and accept the surrender of the Japanese army. On December 26, 1945, Han Nianlong, a representative of the New Fourth Army, came to the headquarters of the Japanese army, marking the official beginning of the surrender ceremony.
Immediately after that, the Japanese army surrendered one after another, and Gaoyou City, which had been ruled by the Japanese for six years, was finally liberated. At the surrender ceremony, Han Nianlong and other representatives of the New Fourth Army sat together at a rectangular negotiating table, flanked by Han Nianlong's assistants and secretaries, and behind them were the soldiers of the New Fourth Army.
On the other side of the long table was the supreme commander of the Japanese army, Guan Yanqi, who, when he came to the table, first gave a deep military salute to Han Nianlong, and then handed over a "roster" to our army, which recorded in detail the names, guns, ordnance, and so on of all the soldiers of the Japanese army in Gaoyou, and then withdrew.
Immediately afterward, Han Nianlong read out all the rules and orders followed by the surrendering Japanese army, and then the surrender ceremony ended. Su Yu personally led the warriors to victory in this last battle, and of course his heart was also very eager to witness this scene with his own eyes. Although Su Yu did not attend the surrender ceremony in name, in fact he disguised himself as an ordinary warrior and sat next to him to observe the surrender ceremony before quietly returning to the barracks after the end.
Three days later, Su Yu received the surrendered Japanese officers in Gaoyou City, and when Guan Yanqi learned that the famous Changsheng general Su Yu was in front of him, he raised his saber above his head and bowed deeply to Su Yu to express his admiration for Su Yu. At this point, the last battle of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was finally over.
The Battle of Gaoyou largely smashed the conspiracy of the Kuomintang and the Japanese Kou, protected the fruits of our army's victory and battle achievements in central China, and also taught the Japanese a harsh lesson. After the liberation of Gaoyou, northern Jiangsu, Huainan, Huaibei and other liberated areas were united, getting rid of the situation of fighting alone in each region, and laying a certain foundation for the victory of the liberation war afterwards.