In the final stage of the War of Liberation, our million field army, which crossed the Yangtze River, launched an attack on the Nationalist army from three directions. 3 Wild Battles of Huning and Hangzhou destroyed Tang Enbo's last central military lineage; 4 Wild launched a great pursuit of the southern front in Zhongnan, and fought a decisive battle with the main forces of Liangguang and Bai Chongxi in Hunan; while 2 Fields swept westward through the Great Southwest.
However, it should be said that among these 3-way armies, the largest number of annihilated enemies was Liu Deng's 2 fields with the smallest number, and at that time, counting the 4 wilds and He Lao's troops, the number was only 450,000. In less than two months, our army annihilated nearly 900,000 enemy troops, almost twice as much as Dongye annihilated the enemy in Liaoshen.
So what is the reason that in less than 2 months, 2 wilds can eliminate 900,000 national troops twice as many as themselves?
Comparison of the strength of the two sides before the war
After the Battle of the Crossing River, our army divided the direction of the Guannei liberation operation into three branch lines, Su Yu's 3 fields were responsible for the southeast and east China, Lin Zong's 4 fields were responsible for the 5 provinces of central and southern China plus Yunnan, and Liu Deng's 2 fields were southwest of the Qianyu River. It should be known that after crossing the river, Liu Deng's elite Chen Geng 4 Corps was reinforced to fight lin zong and Bai Chongxi, and in fact, the 3 corps of Chen Xilian and the 5 corps of Yang Yong were actually on hand. Before the Battle of the River Crossing, these two corps were 80,000-90,000 people, and after the battle, with the reduction of personnel, in fact, a corps was about 80,000 people.
In order to ensure the smooth development of the 2 fields in the southwest campaign, Liu Deng mentioned in the report of the Central Military Commission and the combat strength of the two corps to which he belonged:
We intend to replenish the existing 20,000 and 30,000 prisoners of new recruits in Shandong to 100,000 per corps, and others such as banknotes and clothes can be prepared by Beijing and Shanghai. The biggest problem was the problem of cadres; Erye did not have a single local cadre in his hands, and he drew a limited amount of cadres from eastern China (a group of students could be mobilized into Sichuan) to march into the southwest, which mainly relied on Chen Xilian's Third Corps and Yang Yong's Fifth Corps.
In the two strengthened corps, as well as the troops directly under Noji Liu Deng, the original 2 field troops in the southwest operation were about 230,000 people.
Because of the requisition of Chen Geng's 4 Corps, 4 Ye also returned the favor, and transferred the 42nd Army, 50th Army, and 47th Army that remained in Hunan, in addition to some of them to continue to maintain public order and suppress bandits in Hunan, mobilized 7 divisions (all of the 47th Army and the 50th Army, plus the 124th Division of the 42nd Army) a total of 100,000 people (equivalent to one corps) to Liu Deng.
Therefore, before the start of the Southwest Campaign, the troops who followed Liu Deng into the southwest were 330,000 people.
At the same time, in order to ensure that the Hu Zongnan clique, which was tied up in southern Shaanxi and Hanzhong, He Laozong led the headquarters of the 18th Corps (formerly the 1st Corps of North China) and the 7th Army of nearly 120,000 people under the command of 2 Ye, and also entered Sichuan from the north. Because the battle at that time was fully commanded by the Southwest Bureau, and Deng, Liu and He served as the first, second and third secretaries of the Southwest Bureau respectively, in fact, Mr. He was still nominally under the command of Liu Deng.
Therefore, the southwest troops under the command of Liu Deng before the Southwest Campaign were 450,000 people.
So, how many Southwestern troops are there?
Before the start of the Southwest Campaign, the southwest region was actually divided into four forces, the first shareholder was the Song Xilian Group (under the jurisdiction of the 14th and 20th Corps), who mainly blocked our army in Xiangxi and Wushan, the second was the Hu Zongnan Group under the jurisdiction of the 5th, 7th, and 18th Corps, which were mainly deployed in the Qinling and Hanzhong Defense Lines, the third was composed of Zhu Dingqing's 3rd Corps, Sun Yuanliang's 16th Corps, He Shaozhou's 19th Corps, and Guo Rugui's 22nd Corps, and the last was Liu Wenhui (24Th Army), Deng Xihou and other old Sichuan army forces.
These four forces have a total of 10 corps and 50 corps, and these armies are basically either newly trained or defeated by our army, and the number is about 700,000 people. In addition to these regular armies, there are a large number of local armed and security forces in Sichuan, Guizhou and western Hunan, which add up to at least 250,000 people. Thus the number of nationalist troops and their followers during the Southwest Campaign was about 950,000.
Even if the formation was broken, the nationalist army still occupied a 2:1 advantage in numbers. However, in less than two months, the Nationalist troops of these 10 corps were killed or wounded by our army 200,000 prisoners (190,000 prisoners), the uprising plus nearly 500,000 surrenders, and 200,000 local armed forces were annihilated.
Therefore, the 950,000 nationalist troops in the southwest, except for a few who fled to the border and in the mountains, were basically annihilated by our army.
The national army was defeated like a mountain
So why did these 950,000 national troops lose so much in less than two months that almost all of them were annihilated?
First of all, don't look at the number of people, but the combat effectiveness of these national armies is really pulling crotch.
In these nationalist armies, Sun Yuanliang's corps was hastily pulled up after Huaihai was crippled, and there was no shadow of the mobile corps period for a long time, and Zhu Dingqing's 3 corps was upgraded from the Hubei security forces, and the combat effectiveness was also the level of the militia regiment. In addition to Guo Rujie himself being an underground party, his 22nd Corps was also formed by recruits, and the 19th Corps still had combat effectiveness when Zhang Zhen was there, but after Zhang Zhen's uprising, the new 19th Corps was trained by He Shaozhou through the guizhou recruits, and there was no combat effectiveness at all.
In this place, it can also be seen that Hu Zongnan's 5th Corps (under the jurisdiction of the 1st, 27th, 36th, 69th, and 90th Armies), these armies are all Hu Zongnan's concubines, and the combat effectiveness is still guaranteed, but half a year ago in Guanzhong, these troops were severely damaged by the 1st Field led by Peng Zongzong in the battles of Xi'an and Southern Shaanxi, and the combat effectiveness was much worse than before. In addition to Hu Zongnan, Song Xilian's 14th and 20th Corps were quite effective in combat, but they were also severely damaged by Lin Zong in Hubei. The Ace 20th and 28th Armies suffered heavy losses, and it seemed that there were still 8 armies, but the total strength was less than 100,000 people. And Chen Kefei's 20th Corps, which was also under the command of Song Xilian, could also fight a little in the 2nd Army (the Ace of All American Weapons). Of the nearly 50 armies, 3-4 corps may still have a bit of combat effectiveness of the Nationalist army during the three major battles, and the rest are local troops that have already been feared by our army or have just been formed.
Therefore, the weak national army could not be compared with the experienced 2 fields and the well-equipped 4 fields, and the rout was only a matter of time.
Secondly, people's hearts are scattered and the general is out of harmony, and the old Jiang classic micro-manipulation sends assists.
For many national troops, the contingents in the southwest that are now in the southwest are all defeated armies that have not been formed, and they are either the remnants of our army that have been crushed by our army or the new recruits who have been temporarily put together, and their combat effectiveness is not strong. Moreover, Song Xilian also mentioned that the warlords in the southwest have always been indifferent to old Jiang, and it is better to retreat to the border with their concubines and continue to resist than to stick to it.
According to Song Xilian in his memoirs in his later years, "A Conspiracy Planned by Hu Zongnan and Me on the Eve of Liberation":
If Sichuan could not be defended, it would retreat to Xichang and Yunnan, and if necessary to the border between Yunnan and Burma, so as to preserve the 300,000 troops of the Kuomintang army. Hu Zongnan agreed and decided to ask Old Jiang for instructions.
Song Xilian's words also proved that the morale of the Nationalist army had dissipated at that time. These nationalist troops, who are in the southwest, still do not want to fight a decisive battle with our army in the southwest, but want to hold Tibet and Burma in preparation for receiving international assistance here and waiting for a counteroffensive.
But old Chiang Kai-shek had the opposite idea of them, and in his impression, sichuan, where the Japanese army could not penetrate at that time, how could our army enter Sichuan? Therefore, he held a military conference in Chengdu, hoping that the 900,000 nationalist troops would regroup and continue to rely on the natural dangers in the southwest to block our army, and to fight a great decisive battle with me:
The High Command believed that the mountains and roads in the Qinling Mountains, Eastern Sichuan, and Southeast Qiandong were dangerous, and the movement of the large corps was difficult. They can guard the natural danger and block our army from entering the river. The Sichuan Basin is the country of Tianfu and is rich in products, and they can hold the southwest and confront our army for a long time. (Decisive Battle: The Liberation War of the Southwest Central Plains 1945-1950) Liu Tong.
Therefore, Old Chiang Kai-shek's classic micro-exercises have allowed these troops to concentrate on a decisive battle with our army, and our army is worried that it will not find anyone to fight a decisive battle in the southwest. The decisive battle also caused the Xilian clique in western Hunan and northern Hubei to be annihilated by our army in the decisive battle. This also gave our army a quick "god assist" in eliminating the national army in the southwest.
Finally, the general trend has gone, and most of the generals of the national army have revolted.
If you look at the results of the Southwest War, it will be very interesting, our army only killed 8,000 enemy and captured 190,000 people, but the troops of the uprising reached 500,000.
In fact, as early as after the Battle of crossing the River, the clear-eyed people saw that old Chiang Kai-shek had exhausted his strength in Guannei and was looking for a way out, and they contacted our army through various channels, and the first to surrender were the local generals of the Sichuan Army who had a bad relationship with Old Chiang. In early December, Liu Wenhui (24th Army), chairman of Kang Province, Deng Xihou (95th Army), deputy director of the Southwest Military and Political Governor's Office, and Pan Wenhua revolted in Peng County, Sichuan. Immediately after Hu Zongnan's ace 89th Army also announced the uprising, on January 5, 1950, Luo Wenguang's 15th Corps and Chen Kefei's 20th Corps announced an uprising, followed by 60,000 people in the 41st, 47th, and 79th Armies of the 16th Corps, and the 18th Corps in Chengdu also successfully revolted on the battlefield.
In the end, even the 38th, 69th, 76th, and 98th Armies under the jurisdiction of Pei Changhui's 7th Corps, which was the ace of Hu Dongnan's concubines, no longer hesitated to declare an uprising, and the 3rd Corps and the 20th Army revolted in Jintang...
Therefore, under the general historical trend, the nationalist troops who have already been defeated are naturally unwilling to resist, and they have laid down their weapons to our army one after another under the influence of our army's generous policy of surrender. The chain phenomenon triggered by the first uprising allowed our army to occupy Chengdu, Chongqing and other places without bloodshed. It also accelerated the process of liberation of the southwest.
Yu Tian Jun said
Erye swept through the great southwest in less than 2 months, and the elimination of 900,000 nationalist troops, which was twice as numerous as his own, was indeed a miracle in the history of war, which was in addition to the fact that the nationalist army guarding the southwest was not strong in combat strength, and the old Chiang Kai-shek was gone. It is even more inseparable from the help of the brother troops 4 Ye and He Laozong's two-way troops, and after the war, Liu Deng also specially thanked them:
"The 47th Army, the 50th Army, the 42nd Army, the 1st and 2nd Divisions of Edu, and the engineering units of Shiye showed their exemplary work of bearing hardships, heroic struggle, and observing discipline in the battle in coordination with the entry into the river. One of the main reasons why the Southwest Campaign was able to be completed so quickly was the speed with which the Ichino Eighteenth Corps advanced under the leadership of Comrade He Long. ”
From this side, it can also reflect why our army can go from weak to strong and defeat the national army, on the one hand, it excludes dissidents and only knows how to fight among each other. On the other hand, there is sacrifice and fearless dedication, unity and cooperation in battle...
You can see which is stronger or weaker.
— The end —