Located in Suqian City, the Monument to the Revolutionary Martyrs of the Great War of Malingshan in Subei, inscribed by Marshal Chen Yi.
The Battle of Victory - Five Thoughts on the Battle of Subei (1)
Zhao Lianjun
From December 13 to 19, 1946, in the area north of suqian city, there was a great battle that was praised by Chairman Mao Zedong as "very good and very comforting.". This is the Battle of Subei, which was also called the Battle of Subei by Marshal Chen Yi (after that, the Battle of Subei was generally called the Battle of Subei). At that time, the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army concentrated their forces, and under the unified command of Chen Yi, commander and political commissar of the East China Field Army, and Su Yu, deputy commander, in the northern area of Suqian, in the southern part of Suqian, to the Liutang River, north to the Wuhuading of Maling Mountain, west to the banks of the Grand Canal, and in the east to Long'an and Shaodian, they completely annihilated in one fell swoop the 3 and a half brigades of the reorganized 69th Division of the Kuomintang Army and its division headquarters, creating an example of a complete annihilation of one reorganized division of the Kuomintang and more than 21,000 enemy troops in East China since the Liberation War.
Schematic diagram of the Battle of Subei (Part 15-19 December 1946)
First of all, let's briefly review the course of the Battle of Subei. On December 13, 1946, the reorganized 69th Division and the 11th Reorganized Division of the Kuomintang Army were attacked by Suqian according to the predetermined plan, the 69th Division of the left wing attacked in the direction of The Town of North Xin'an, and the 11th Division of the Right Wing attacked in the northeast direction, planning to attack our New Fourth Army along the Shuxin Highway on both sides. On the 14th, the reorganized 69th Division, which was advancing north along the Suxin Highway, attacked Wuhuading between Suqian and Xin'an Towns, and the main force attacked Shaodian, cooperating with the reorganized 11th Division to attack in the direction of Shuyang. The headquarters of the East China Field Army carried out a frontal blockade with the Ninth Column in Lailong'an, Shaodian, Wuhuading and other places, and the rest of the units entered the northwest of The town of Zhangshan and the towns of Xindian, Taishanji, and Qiaobei on the night of the 14th. At dusk on the 15th, the whole line launched an attack. After the First Column and the Eighth Division cut off the return road of the unsteady third brigade at the town of Zhangshan and Xiaodian, the first column crossed the Suxin Highway and wedged into the vicinity of Caojiaji to attack the headquarters of the reorganized Twenty-first Division, annihilating most of its engineer battalion and cavalry battalion, and entering only 200 or 300 meters from its division headquarters, making its division headquarters temporarily confused and unable to organize the reinforcement of the reorganized Sixty-ninth Division. The Eighth Division attacked Fengshan, fought fiercely all night, and lost three attacks, and at the critical moment when the sky was about to dawn, the commandos of the Twenty-third Regiment launched the fourth impact, and finally captured the peak of the peak of the Peak at the same time as a company of the Twenty-fourth Regiment, controlling the commanding heights of the entire battlefield and causing great chaos in the Kuomintang army position. The Fifth Brigade of our Seventh Division attacked the position northeast of the town of Zhangshan, while the 2nd Column attacked west from Hanji. On the 16th, the Nationalist army, with the strength of two regiments and the support of aircraft artillery, desperately fought for Fengshan Mountain, and the troops of the Eighth Division stubbornly held and repelled the enemy's continuous counterattack. That night, the units continued to penetrate deep into the Kuomintang army, completed the encirclement of the integrated Sixty-ninth Division, and cut off its contact with the integrated Eleventh Division. On the 18th, the Eighth Division captured Xiaodian and completely annihilated the 3rd Brigade. The reorganized Eleventh Division, aided by a brigade to the north, was blocked between Xiaodian and Caojiaji, and it was difficult to advance. The 60th Brigade, which reached the area of Lixu and Luozhuang east of Fengshan Mountain, was annihilated by the 7th Division and the 1st Column. It was night, and the 2nd and 9th Columns attacked renwei, the headquarters of the reorganized 69th Division, and completely annihilated the enemy, forcing its division commander Dai Zhiqi to commit suicide, and the deputy division commander Rao Shaowei was captured. On the morning of the 19th, the Forty-first Brigade, which was besieged by the first column in Miaozhuang, broke through in two ways, and all but more than 300 people escaped were annihilated. At this point, the battle was victorious. On the 18th, the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China sent a telegram: "Celebrate the great victory on the Sushu front, and hope to pass on orders and rewards to all meritorious soldiers." On the 20th, Mao Zedong personally drafted a telegram: "Annihilating the enemy of more than 20,000 is beneficial to the overall situation, and it is very good and very comforting." ”
After the victory in the Battle of Subei, Yan'an's "Liberation Daily" published an editorial on the front page, saying: "This is an unprecedented great victory in the Suwan Liberated Areas that surpassed the previous eleven great victories, and it is also an unprecedented great victory in the entire patriotic self-defense war since July this year." The victory in the Great Battle of Subei marked a turning point in the battlefield of East China and reversed the passive situation in the East China Battlefield; it dealt a great blow to the arrogance of the Kuomintang Chiang Kai-shek counter-revolutionary clique and boosted the morale of the soldiers and people in the Liberated Areas; and it had a major impact on smashing the "all-round offensive" of the Kuomintang troops against the Liberated Areas and striving for the liberation of the whole country.
To study and study the history of the Battle of Subei, the author has five aspects of thinking for everyone to refer to when studying the Battle of Subei.
First, the Battle of Subei is an inevitable battle
The development of history is not subject to the will of man. A few years ago, due to the influence of some erroneous views of history, some people believed that the War of Liberation was not a just war, but "one's own people beat their own people." This is a gross misreading of the nature of the war of liberation and a grossly unserious understanding. In fact, the War of Liberation was a war waged by Chinese the people's liberation army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and with the support of the broad masses of the people to overthrow the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang and liberate all of China, with the result that a new China was established in which the masses of the people were the masters of their own affairs, and in Chinese mainland fundamentally ended the history of the rule of a very small number of exploiters over the broad masses of working people and the history of imperialism, colonialism and feudalism enslaving the people of all nationalities in China. The War of Liberation is also known as the Third Civil Revolutionary War, also known as the Second Kuomintang-Communist Civil War. On the surface, unlike the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Chinese Communists and the Communists fought a national war, and both sides of the Kuomintang-Communist Civil War were yellow-skinned and black-eyed Chinese, but they were not "their own people beating their own people." This is because the Kuomintang counter-revolutionary ruling authorities represented by Chiang Kai-shek on one side of the war represent the interests of the big landlords and the comprador bourgeoisie and the imperialists; on the other side of the war, the Communist Party of China, represented by Mao Zedong, represents the fundamental interests of the oppressed and exploited broadest masses of Chinese people. Can one side be said to be the oppressor exploiter and the other the oppressed exploiter? Lenin famously said: "Revolution is a grand festival of the oppressed and exploited." Therefore, when we look at the problems and the nature of the war of liberation, we must have a clear political stand and a political attitude, we must stand on the stand of the broadest masses of the working people, we must not follow the crowd, and we cannot describe the war to liberate the broad masses of the toiling masses as "our own people beating our own people."
Besides, who initiated the War of Liberation, the Kuomintang-Communist Civil War? It was Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary clique. In essence, since the birth of the Communist Party of China, the reactionary rightists in the Kuomintang have been eager to put them to death and then hurry, and the Chiang Kai-shek Kuomintang authorities after April 12 have never relaxed their massacre of communists or the "encirclement and suppression" of the Chinese workers' and peasants' Red Army. During the period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek was forced by the unanimous voice of the whole people to resist the War of Resistance and had to implement the policy of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China to resist Japan. However, in the whole process of the national struggle, Chiang Kai-shek has never relaxed his class struggle against the Communist Party of China and the people's army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. During the entire national War of Resistance, the Kuomintang reactionaries set off three anti-communist upsurges. The Southern Anhui Incident, personally planned by Chiang Kai-shek, destroyed the headquarters of our New Fourth Army and slaughtered more than 7,000 officers and men of our New Fourth Army. In our place of Suqian, the Kuomintang recalcitrant army also carried out many "frictions" in a vain attempt to eliminate or squeeze out the troops of the New Fourth Army in our Suqian area. In particular, in February and March 1943, before the Japanese army carried out a major "sweep" of the anti-Japanese base area in Yanfu, it had first "swept up" the stubborn troops of Han Deloitte, chairman of the Kuomintang Jiangsu Provincial Government. In order to implement the policy of the anti-Japanese national united front, at the request of Han Deloitte, the Third Division of our New Fourth Army, after Han Deloitte guaranteed that the Japanese army would return to its original defensive area after the "sweeping" of the Japanese army was over, allowed the officers and men of Han Deloitte's department to transfer to our anti-Japanese base area for a temporary refuge, supply them with grain, receive funds, and cover their safe transfer to our Huaihai anti-Japanese base area. However, Han Deqin betrayed his faith and when the Japanese army 'swept up' was over, he led his troops to smuggle a canal from Huaihai District into northeastern Anhui, forcibly occupied jinsuo town and Shanzitou in Huaibei District, and openly declared that he would establish an anti-communist base on the shores of Hongze Lake. Our New Fourth Army was forced to counterattack and held the Battle of Shanzitou, capturing Han Deloitte.
After the Battle of Shanzitou in March 1943, Chen Yi (front left) sent Han Deloitte (front right) out of the country.
After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang reactionary authorities vainly attempted to swallow the fruits of victory alone, and on the one hand, they invited Chairman Mao Zedong to Chongqing for peace talks, and on the other hand, they dispatched troops to prepare to launch a new civil war and eliminate the troops of the New Fourth Army of the Eighth Route Army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. When Chiang Kai-shek thought that he was fully prepared, he tore off the mask of "peace" and launched an all-out attack on the liberated areas on June 26, 1946, starting from a large-scale attack on the Liberated Areas of china and our Central Plains, and the War of Liberation broke out in an all-round way. The East China Liberated Area became one of the focal points of its offensive.
The civil war policy of Chiang Kai-shek's counter-revolutionary clique was strongly supported by the US Government, which prides itself on being the "middleman" between the Kuomintang and the Communists. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the US Government gave a large amount of aid to Chiang Kai-shek by giving, giving, and selling surplus materials, and also tried its best to equip, train, and transport troops for Chiang Kai-shek, which greatly enriched Chiang Kai-shek's civil war capital. By June 1946, the United States had equipped 45 divisions of the Kuomintang army, trained 150,000 military personnel, and helped transport 540,000 Kuomintang troops to the front lines of the liberated areas of north and east China. In addition, the U.S. government also set up a military advisory group of 750 U.S. army members and 250 navy members in China, and also sent marines to land in China, occupy shanghai, Qingdao, Tianjin, Beiping, Qinhuangdao and other important cities, and defend the communication lines for the Kuomintang army in north China. From October 1945 to June 1946, the U.S. military directly or in coordination with the Kuomintang troops attacked the Liberated Areas more than 30 times. In fact, the United States is not at all the "middleman" who mediates in China's civil war, but the boss behind Chiang Kai-shek's civil war.
With the support of the US government, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the Kuomintang troops in the East China battlefield to "end the war in East China within three months" in a vain attempt to swallow up our East China Liberated Area in one gulp. By November, Chiang Kai-shek adhered to the reactionary policy of unifying China by force, brazenly convened a "National Congress" that was arranged by one hand, and became president. Although, under the resolute counterattack of our People's Liberation Army, his boast of "ending the war in East China within three months" had gone bankrupt, in order to create another so-called favorable military situation, he put pressure on the democratic and intermediate forces in order to implement his dictatorship, and then transferred 5 armies and about 16 brigades from the rear to the front line of the civil war to maintain his all-out offensive against the liberated areas. The focus of its offensive was still placed on the East China Battlefield, and the strength of 25 integrated divisions (armies) and 68 brigades (divisions) was invested, becoming the place with the largest number of troops invested in all battlefields in the country. From the end of November to the beginning of December, Chiang Kai-shek formulated a plan to "quickly end the war in northern Jiangsu." Under the command of Xue Yue, director of the Xuzhou Appeasement Office, the troops of 12 integrated divisions (armies) and 28 brigades (divisions) were concentrated to attack from Dongtai, Huaiyin, Suqian, Zaozhuang, and Yixian in four routes in an attempt to cut off the connection between Shandong and Central China, gather and annihilate the main force of the Central China Field Army, or force the Central China Field Army to retreat to the north of longhai Road.
Kuomintang agents learn assassination methods in the United States
The Chinese Communists are peace-loving and have made great efforts and sacrifices to this end. However, in the face of the rampant attack of the Kuomintang troops, in order to defend the hard-won peace, defend the liberated areas, and defend the interests of the broad masses of the people, the people's army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China can only choose to counterattack. On November 21, 1946, the third day after Zhou Enlai led the CPC delegation to return to Yan'an from Nanjing, Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Enlai held a meeting in Yan'an Zaoyuan to analyze the current situation and determine the future policy. They believe that Chiang Kai-shek's convening of a single-handed National Convention shows that the door to peace talks has been closed and that the situation of "fighting while talking" has changed. Mao Zedong said that Chiang Kai-shek's policy toward the Communist Party was to have no freedom and to eliminate it, and he would not allow the Communist Party to sign an alliance under the city while maintaining a single place. Therefore, "our policy is the policy of war, which is certain". Mao Zedong stressed: The key in the coming months will remain to annihilate the enemy's living forces, gradually expand the scale of the war of annihilation, fundamentally reverse the situation on the battlefield, and seize the initiative in the war. In response to the Kuomintang troops' plan to launch a large-scale attack on the Liberated Areas of Eastern China, the Party Central Committee and Mao Zedong chose to resolutely counterattack.
In the above narrative, the author explained the main background of the launch of the Subei Campaign for everyone, and actually explained the inevitability of the Subei Campaign. Why did this battle necessarily take place in the north of Suqian, and not in the other three places where the Kuomintang troops attacked our Liberated Areas of East China? This will be explained below.