On January 10, 1950, long before Chairman Mao's visit to the Soviet Union, a decision had already been made on the question of Hainan Island. According to the plan, Hainan Island should have been taken around the Spring Festival, but because of the defeat in the Battle of Kinmen, it became a lingering shadow of our army, leaving wounds in the hearts of many soldiers and generals. Four years of liberation wars have come, but this small Taiwan and Hainan Island have made everyone feel bad.
Battle of the Golden Gate
In the Battle of Kinmen, our army sent a total of more than 9,000 soldiers, most of whom died heroically, which was also a major loss in the Liberation War. Therefore, when facing Hainan Island, many generals are also afraid of repeating the same mistakes. Before the main force landed, Han Xianchu first arranged two small-scale island landing activities, but on the activity list, Han Xianchu saw that there were almost no chief officers, all of whom were deputy posts.
For a moment, Han Xianchu was furious and angrily said that he would take the lead with the main force. Why is everyone reluctant to participate in the liberation of Hainan Island? What difficulties did the Hainan Island Campaign face?
Battle-hardened, sensitive military instincts
On October 28, 1949, nearly 30,000 people of the People's Liberation Army were on the beach of Xiamen, staring angrily at Kinmen Island, which was only a few kilometers away, unable to do anything. Just three days earlier, more than 9,000 warriors had marched towards Kinmen Island in stormtrooper boats, most of whom had died there and never returned. The Battle of Kinmen also became the biggest defeat since the People's Liberation Army, a loss never seen in a fight against the Kuomintang. This time, however, it lost the strength of three regiments on this small Golden Gate Island.
Battle of Hainan
At this time, Kinmen Island no longer had the sound of gunfire three days ago, and everything was silent. These more than 30,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers who had been killed all the way from Shandong to Fujian stood on this Xiamen beach, remembering that three days ago, they watched more than 9,000 soldiers finally fight bloody battles to the point where only one person was left, but because they did not have the weapons and equipment to cross the sea, they lacked experience in naval warfare and were unable to return to heaven.
Today these warriors gathered here and fired 30,000 gunshots into the sky to pay tribute to the fallen brothers. These PLA soldiers all did not want to avenge their comrades as soon as possible, but it was difficult for qiao women to cook without rice, and even though the soldiers were eager to take revenge, the Battle of Kinmen also made everyone understand the difficulty and cruelty of the Battle of Crossing the Sea. Without the cover of the Air Force, there is not enough certainty, and the Platon Army does not have corresponding weapons and equipment, it is really difficult to find a breakthrough.
But just when everyone was overwhelmed by this new topic, Han Xianchu did not give up hope. Han Xianchu joined the guerrillas at a very young age, and at that time, Han Xianchu was not afraid of the sky. At that time, in order to help the main force to raise military salaries, he offended the local large landlords. Therefore, the landlord and the guard threatened to annihilate Han Xianchu's guerrilla group. This guerrilla force had just been established, most of them were local peasants, who had no experience in fighting at all, and when they heard that the guards were coming, they fled in all directions.
Only Han Xianchu did not run, not only did not run, but also did not let the captain run, under his encouragement, the team members plucked up the courage to fight with the guard, and finally beat the enemy away. Because of this incident, Han Xianchu was also appointed as the leader of the guerrilla group and joined the Communist Party.
After that, Han Xianchu's guerrilla unit was reorganized into the 224th Regiment of the Red 25th Army, and then accompanied the team to carry out the Long March of the Red Army, during which Han Xianchu made a lot of merits by virtue of his brave and strategic performance, and also made his own reputation in the army. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in full swing, Han Xianchu was also obliged to join the anti-Japanese contingent and rush to the Jiluyu Military Region to persist in the struggle against the enemy.
He has experienced wars of all sizes, made countless merits, and risen all the way in the army. After the victory of the War of Resistance, Han Xianchu went to the northeast and was appointed deputy commander of the fourth column of the Northeast People's Democratic Coalition Army to carry out work in the northeast. He has successively commanded and participated in many battles and made great contributions to the liberation of Northeast China. After that, he led his troops to fight everywhere.
The liberation of Hainan is fraught with difficulties
As early as after Siye entered Guangdong, preparations were already made to liberate Hainan Island. At that time, the mainland had basically completely completed liberation, and the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan. Like Hainan Island, Taiwan is across the sea from the mainland and is a base for Chiang Kai-shek's counter-offensive against the mainland, to which Chiang Kai-shek attaches particular importance.
As early as after the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Hainan Island was taken over by the Kuomintang. Especially in the later stages of the Liberation War, Chiang Kai-shek, who saw that the defeat had been decided, began to set up a defensive line on Hainan Island, trying to use it as his refuge and a springboard for counterattacking the mainland again. Chiang Kai-shek sent a large number of elite troops to garrison Hainan Island, and also sent The Kuomintang general Xue Yue to garrison Hainan Island.
After arriving on Hainan Island, Xue Yue reorganized the Kuomintang troops stationed on Hainan Island into 19 divisions, used the terrain of Hainan Island to build a set of dense roundabout defense system, and used sea and air forces to form an integrated defense line of "land, sea and air", called the "Boling Defense Line".
Battle of Hainan Island
In addition, at this time, all parts of the mainland have been basically liberated, and many PLA troops have begun to demobilize and participate in the construction process, and these fighters are still fighting here, and it is a particularly difficult naval battle. In order to solve this situation, our army did the ideological work of the soldiers at the first time, and arranged for the soldiers to practice maritime combat and conscientiously study maritime combat techniques.
Because many soldiers are from the north, even the first time they see the sea, the water is even less. To this end, the troops conducted a month-long assault training for the soldiers to help them overcome various problems such as water fear and seasickness. Because there is a big difference between maritime operations and land operations, it is necessary to be particularly cautious in the time of operations, which will be affected by many objective factors. Therefore, taking into account the trend of the tide, our army decided to postpone the operation to June.
However, this proposal was opposed by Han Xianchu. Han Xianchu and Xu Shiyou are both well-known fierce generals in the team, and they are both wise and courageous. Through visits to the surrounding fishermen, Han Xianchu learned that before the arrival of the monsoon season every year, that is, the period from the first month to the Qingming Dynasty, it is most conducive to going to sea.
Han Xianchu
Sometimes in a smooth situation, you can reach Hainan Island in one night. But as soon as the valley rainy season has passed, the south wind begins to rise, and when the time comes, the crossing of the sea becomes a headwind. For the PLA, which can only rely on manual rowing, the difficulty has increased too much. But it will take months to wait until the winds change, and it will be impossible to land on the island this year.
Han Xianchu argued on the basis of reason and successfully took Hainan Island
To this end, Han Xianchu also had a dispute with Deng Hua, who was then the first deputy commander of the Guangdong Military Region and the commander of the Fifteenth Corps. Because Han Xianchu insisted on launching a war before Gu Yu, and even stabbed this matter to the central authorities, but Deng Hua was sent by the central government to supervise Han Xianchu's battle plan, and once the plan failed, Deng Hua would also have to pay joint and several responsibility. For Han Xianchu's suggestion, Deng Hua could not make a decision for a long time.
Therefore, Han Xianchu called the central government: "If the Forty-third Army is not ready, then I am willing to personally lead the main force of the Forty Army to carry out the battle of crossing the sea." Han Xianchu naturally understood the weight of this military order, and also knew that at present, the four soldiers had already retreated in their hearts, but they could not waste this opportunity, and if they missed it, they would have to wait another year to liberate Hainan Island. Just as Han Xianchu predicted, after the outbreak of the Korean War, if the Hainan Liberation Campaign had not been fought at that time, I am afraid that the hainan island problem would have been the same as the Taiwan issue, delayed again and again, and missed the right time.
To this end, Han Xianchu first persuaded Lin Biao, the commander of the Four Fields, and then Lin Biao persuaded the leadership of the Central Military Commission, and under repeated requests, the central authorities also saw Han Xianchu's firm determination and finally agreed. So on April 10, the central government issued an order to forcibly cross the sea.
Before the large-scale landing, in order not to attract the attention of the enemy and accumulate certain experience, our army first arranged two small-scale landings. However, when the two batches of landing lists were submitted, Han Xianchu looked at it and saw that there was no name of the chief officer, all of them were deputy posts. Even a company instructor under the 40th Army shot himself and injured his leg, falsely claiming that the enemy had injured him. This made Han Xianchu very angry, and directly said that he would follow the troops to participate in the first batch of pioneer operations. After Han Xianchu set such an example, the other commanders had no choice but to harden their scalps.
On April 16, the Battle of Hainan Island officially began, because Han Xianchu had been training soldiers in advance, and 6 regiments of the 40th Army could land on the island at the first time, while the brother 43rd Division had only one and a half regiments. After the battle began, Han Xianchu led the first batch of tens of thousands of soldiers and set off for Hainan Island in more than 400 sailing ships.
Chairman Mao
The PLA soldiers took a sailboat in several ways to prepare to land from the Qiongzhou Strait, but just as the main force passed through the mainstream of the strait by the wind, the wind stopped. So the warriors continued to move forward by shaking the pulp by hand. Unexpectedly, after a while, the enemy dispatched the gunboats, and Han Xianchu ordered our army's "earthen gunboats" to meet the battle, and after a fierce battle throughout the night, our army finally broke through the blockade line. In the early morning of April 17, Han Xianchu led the main force to land first in the area of LingaoJiao.
At this time, Nie Rongzhen, who was in Beijing, also did not sleep all night, and when he learned that Han Xianchu had landed on the island, his hanging heart was considered to have landed. Because Nie Rongzhen knew that once Han Xianchu landed, then the victory belonged to us. Han Xianchu did not live up to expectations, and in just three days, he broke through the "Boling Defense Line" that Xue Yue had painstakingly operated for a year, and drove Xue Yue out of Hainan Island.
On May 1, the People's Liberation Army had completely smashed the defense system established by the Kuomintang and liberated the entire Hainan Island. Immediately after the end of the Battle of Hainan Island, the Korean War broke out. The US military has cut off the strait, and if it were not for Han Xianchu's insistence on advocating an early operation on Hainan Island, I am afraid that the liberation of Hainan Island would be far away. China is completely blocked on the mainland, without any access to the sea.
Korean
All his life, he bowed to exhaustion
After the outbreak of the Korean War, in order to defend the homeland, the central government decided to send volunteers to support Korea, this time Han Xianchu also served as deputy commander of the Chinese Volunteer Army, followed the volunteer army to the Korean battlefield, successively participated in the command of the first, second, third, and fourth battles, especially in the second campaign, personally sat in command of the 38th Army, in the case of the enemy and the enemy, so that the 38th Army broke through the siege and held our position, reversed the situation of the volunteer army on the Korean battlefield. As a result, the 38th Army won the title of "Long Live the Army".
At the 1955 awarding ceremony, the headquarters of the Central Military Commission tentatively designated Han Xianchu as a lieutenant general based on his seniority, but chairman Mao knew about it and said: Han Yougong, Zhongjin Shang. Chairman Mao has made a meritorious statement, and a large part of it comes from the Battle of Hainan Island.
After the founding of New China and the end of the war, Han Xianchu was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Central and Southern Military Region. Because he had been on the battlefield for a long time, Han Xianchu was really not accustomed to the life of the military organs, so he applied to Chairman Mao to go to the Fuzhou Military Region. Because although Chiang Kai-shek defeated and retreated to Taiwan, the thief's heart was not dead, and he still thought that he could one day counterattack the mainland, and he also constantly sent troops to harass China's southeast coastal areas.
After all, Han Xianchu has a wealth of experience in naval warfare, whether it is the Battle of Hainan Island or the Korean War, there is a good precedent. Therefore, Chairman Mao agreed to this request and arranged for Han Xianchu to go to the Fuzhou Military Region to sit down. In this way, from 1957 to 1973, a full sixteen years, Han Xianchu worked diligently in this post. Until the death of General Han Xianchu in 1986, before his death, Han Xianchu had been thinking about Taiwan and the reunification of the motherland.
Nowadays, Hainan Island has become a tourist attraction that the vast number of people are keen to yearn for, and we can enjoy all this because of General Han Xianchu's efforts at that time to overcome the public opinion and turn the tide, so that Hainan Island can avoid becoming a second Taiwan, so that Hainan Island can return to the embrace of the motherland as soon as possible! Tribute to General Han Xianchu!