"A pot of raw rice!" This is Chairman Mao's definition of the Battle of Huaihai. Compared with the Liaoshen Campaign and the Pingjin Campaign, the Huaihai Campaign was indeed more difficult. At the beginning of the Liaoshen Campaign, the PLA's strength had reached 1 million, while the Kuomintang's troops were only 550,000, and the PLA had a huge advantage. Moreover, when the northeast region marches into the interior, the sea can only take Huludao and Yingkou, and the land route can only take Jinzhou. As long as these two points are looked at, the enemy is the turtle in the urn. The Pingjin Campaign, on the other hand, was a million-strong army of the Northeast Field Army and the North China Field Army against Fu Zuoyi's 520,000 Kuomintang troops, and the advantage was also very large. Moreover, Fu Zuoyi wanted to retreat, and the sea route could only take Tanggu, and the land route could only take the new security, so there was relatively no big strategic change to speak of. Only in the Huaihai Campaign, the enemy was 800,000 well-equipped troops of the Yan clan, while the Platon Army participated in the war only in the East China Field Army and the lightly armored Central Plains Field Army, a total of 600,000 soldiers, and the advantage of strength was on the other side. Moreover, due to the vast area of operation, there are several roads for the enemy to attack and retreat, which makes it difficult for people to figure out. Therefore, the Battle of Huaihai was more difficult than the other two battles.
Objectively speaking, the Victory of the Huaihai Campaign is not only due to the superiority of our People's Liberation Army in terms of command and will, but also a series of mistakes by the enemy. After being captured, Du Yuming, deputy commander of the enemy Xuzhou's "suppression general," once said about the problems on his side: lagging intelligence and mutual non-cooperation, of course, the most important thing is Chiang Kai-shek's "blind command."
Su Yu, the founding general, planned the Battle of Huaihai within a short period of time after the Battle of Jinan. At that time, Jinan's victory was too fast, so that Su Yu's plan to encircle jinan as the center of the siege point was frustrated. The Central Military Commission had hoped that Su Yu would cross the river south, but after judging the situation, he refused this request and told the Central Military Commission in detail about his train of thought. He believed that the decisive battle should be placed in Jiangbei, with Xuzhou as the center, and all the enemy's heavy army groups should be destroyed. As long as you eat it in the north of the river, there will be no big battle after crossing the river! The Central Military Commission finally agreed to Su Yu's request, and asked Liu Bocheng's Nakano and Huaye to cooperate to achieve the established strategic policy, after all, "he who wins the Central Plains wins the world."
On the part of the Kuomintang, seeing that the Liaoshen Campaign was already irreparable, it was only in a hurry that the planning of the Battle of Xu beng (i.e., the Battle of Huaihai) was launched. Moreover, as the number one person in Xuzhou, Liu Zhi was a useless straw bale, and his pre-war plan was very conservative, and he began to draw troops from many defense areas to concentrate. Therefore, from the very beginning, the initiative of the campaign was on the side of the People's Liberation Army.
On November 6, 1948, Hua Ye launched an attack on Huang Baitao's Nationalist 7th Corps. Huang Baitao quickly retreated in the direction of Xuzhou, but his actions were completely disorderly and full of mistakes, which eventually delayed the time. When Huang Baitao retreated to the area around Nianzhuang, he fell into the siege of the East China Field Army. On the other hand, Nakano conquered SuXian on the 16th, cut off the Xuben Railway, and isolated the Liu Zhi clique. Chiang Kai-shek realized that he could not point out Liu Zhi, so he sent Du Yuming, the "fire brigade leader". The curtain of the Battle of Huaihai was actually officially opened from this time.
After Du Yuming arrived in Xuzhou, he immediately made the next deployment. He believed that Huang Baitao should not be able to hold out, and drag Su Yu to death so that he could not move. And he himself led several heavy army groups in his hands, together with Huang Wei, who had withdrawn from Henan, to attack Liu Bocheng's Central Plains Field Army! In this way, not only is Nakano dangerous, but in order to rescue Nakano, Huaye will inevitably remove the encirclement that trapped Huang Baitao. If it is really fought in this way, the situation in the Huaihai Campaign will be a different picture, and it is likely that the PEOPLE's Liberation Army will fall into passivity. There are problems with timely strategic implementation, and at least the balance of power in the Central Plains battlefield can be maintained. In the Chinese art of war, this move has a name called "Wei Wei Save Zhao".
This plan was supported by most of the former commanders of the Kuomintang, such as Qiu Qingquan, who was known for his toughness. However, at the crucial moment, chiang kai-shek's old problem of being a little boyish was committed again. He cherished Huang Baitao and the Seventh Corps too much, believing that he should not risk their annihilation. He rejected Du Yuming's plan, but instead had xuzhou troops rush to Huang Baitao's aid. This is equivalent to sacrificing the flexibility of the battlefield to fight a hard-hitting position war. In this case, it will be difficult to predict whose hand the deer will die!
Du Yuming, as an excellent general, only has the right to execute and not the right to make decisions. Seeing that a good plan of his own was denied, he had no choice but to carry out Chiang Kai-shek's orders. This was the sorrow of his life, and it was also the sorrow of most of the Kuomintang generals.
Facts have proved that Chiang Kai-shek's move is a completely bad move. Xuzhou set out to aid Huang Baitao's troops, but it was difficult to move under the stubborn resistance of the East China Field Army. Chiang Kai-shek and Du Yuming constantly changed the mode of attack and adjusted the offensive deployment, but they were never able to break through the Huaye blocking position of 10 kilometers outside The Mill Village. After Huang Baitao's Seventh Corps was annihilated, the strength of the enemy and ourselves in the Huaihai battlefield changed drastically, and the kuomintang's superiority no longer existed. The Kuomintang's greatest chance of victory in the Battle of Huaihai was squandered by Chiang Kai-shek.
Huang Baitao had just been destroyed, and Huang Wei's 12th Corps was again surrounded by the Central Plains Field Army in Suxian County. At this time, Du Yuming also saw that the situation was irreversible, and hoped that with Qiu Qingquan, Li Mi's army would withdraw to the south to preserve its strength for the future decisive battle. Unsurprisingly, Chiang Kai-shek was reluctant to abandon Huang Wei's corps and continued to order Du Yuming to rescue him. As the most variable move in the Huaihai Campaign: Li Yannian and Liu Ruming's corps, they always watched from the sidelines and passively slackened the battle.
In order to preserve the strength in his hands, Du Yuming flew from Xuzhou to Nanming, and he wept bitterly to persuade Chiang Kai-shek to abandon Xuzhou and Huang Wei. After thinking about it, Chiang Kai-shek actually agreed, and Du Yuming was overjoyed and quickly returned to Xuzhou to organize a retreat. This move caught Su Yu off guard for a time. At that time, he only had 10 columns in his hand, which was simply not enough to intercept Du Yuming! Originally, according to this development, at least 300,000 Kuomintang troops were able to retreat safely.
However, on December 3, when Du Yuming's clique had just fled to Mengji, a handwritten letter from Chiang Kai-shek fell from the sky, ordering them to turn back and rescue Huang Wei! In desperation, Du Yuming summoned all the senior generals to discuss what to do. He circulated Chiang Kai-shek's letter downwards and said: "If we dare to be responsible, we will leave, and if we dare not be responsible, we will fight!" The intention of most generals is not to risk being dealt with by military law and obey the order to rescue Huang Wei. Du Yuming could only sigh and order the troops to turn around. So after retreating south for 3 days, Du Yuming's army went back to the road again, and was eventually besieged in the area of Chen Guanzhuang.
At this point, the strategic intentions of Su Yu, Liu Bocheng, and others were fully realized, and all the Kuomintang troops were besieged. About a month later, the Huang Wei and Du Yuming cliques were destroyed one after another, and the Battle of Huaihai ended with the victory of the People's Liberation Army.
Chiang Kai-shek made a similar mistake not only once. After Hu Zongnan began to attack Yan'an in 1947, he was reluctant to give up any city, a piece of land, or a concubine army. The result is that his power is more and more dispersed, and he cannot compete with the PLA at every point. Just as the so-called matter is a matter of chaos, Chiang Kai-shek was dragged into the abyss step by step by himself.
One of the most taboo things on the battlefield is that the top level does not know how to pretend to understand, and the layman commands the insider. Chiang Kai-shek was the one who was not capable of military ability and had to intervene in everything. As a politician, his wrists and power skills are still very good. But that's internal, not external. If we really want to talk about military strikes against foreign countries, Chiang Kai-shek's talent is far from enough.
War is constantly changing according to a law. Chiang Kai-shek was not only unable to distinguish between the important and the heavy, but also liked to interfere too much out of touch with reality, which eventually led to the defeat of the Kuomintang. Chairman Mao, on the other hand, was very lenient with his commanders and fighters, and apart from determining the line on major issues, he generally supported the other side's decisions and let them boldly do it. Employ people without doubt, this is the way to win!