The victory in the Battle of Huangqiao created another brilliant example of winning more with less; it dealt a good blow to the arrogance of the Kuomintang diehards, realized the meeting of the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army, laid the foundation for opening up the anti-Japanese revolutionary base areas in northern Jiangsu, and developed a new situation in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in Central China. As an extremely brilliant "well-fought" battle, how did the Decisive Battle of Huangqiao happen? Why did it win? What role did Su Yu, the specific planner and commander of this campaign, play in it? What "amazing" military skills are on display?
Su Yu
In 1940, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was in the middle of a confrontational phase, when the Kuomintang diehards were ready to defect to Japan, so they moved the center of anti-communist military friction from north China to central China. In order to oppose surrender and firmly resolve to resist the war, the New Fourth Army was ordered by the Party Central Committee to lead the main force to advance to northern Jiangsu. Han Deloitte, deputy commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Lusu Theater, launched five attacks on our army, and the New Fourth Army counterattacked out of forced self-defense, known in history as the Battle of Huangqiao.
On May 17, 1940, in order to deal with the enemy's and puppet "sweeping", our army advanced into the column to Guocun for repairs, and at the instigation of Han Deqin, Li Mingyang and Li Changjiang of the Taizhou Kuomintang Sulu-Anhui Border Guerrilla Corps mobilized a large number of troops to surround Guocun, and our army sent representatives to negotiate and was refused. On June 28, the other side began to launch an attack, under the leadership of Comrades Ye Fei and Guan Wenwei, our army rose up to meet the battle, and then there was a Suwan detachment to rescue at the same time, and finally in the form of internal and external attack, our army annihilated three regiments of the enemy and pursued them to the city of Taizhou. On July 3, after Commander-in-Chief Chen Yi arrived at Guo Village, he made it clear that the policy of destroying the enemy, opposing stubbornness, and uniting with Li would not change.
In order to promote their unity against Japan, they ordered the collection of troops, the release of all prisoners, the return of captured guns, and the army to march eastward and give way to Guo village and other places.
On July 8, the main force of the Jiangnan Headquarters of the New Fourth Army and the Advancing Column met at Suwanhui, and the Northern Jiangsu Command was officially established to prepare for the eastward march to The Yellow Bridge.
Under the rule of the Kuomintang He Keqian, the people of Huangqiao have been in dire straits and eagerly await liberation.
When the troops under the Northern Jiangsu Command marched eastward, Han Deqin once again ordered He Keqin and Chen Taiyun to attack the New Fourth Army from north to south. Our army relied on its extremely strong combat strength to defeat Chen Taiyun's two regiments in the area of Beixin Street, and after persuading them to remain neutral, they used the main force to deal with He Keqian, and on the 28th, with a fierce battle overnight, annihilated more than 2,000 people of He Keqian's main force, and officially liberated Huangqiao and the surrounding areas in the early morning of the 29th.
Huangqiao, as the center of the five counties, is the source of the Red Fourteenth Army and the main activity area, after the Anti-Japanese War, the underground party resumed activities, the mass base is better, so the Northern Jiangsu Command took this opportunity to establish an anti-Japanese base area with Huangqiao as the center. In order to prevent Han Deloitte from sending people to attack again, our army concentrated its main forces on the Yellow Bridge and its eastern front to rest and wait. After marching east to Huangqiao, Commander Chen Yi and Commander Su Yu carried out a lot of work in the localities, constantly publicizing the party's anti-Japanese ideas, mobilizing the masses to unite in the war of resistance, and then carrying out the work of a unified war of resistance with enlightened people in northern Jiangsu, which played a very good role in isolating Han Deloitte and calling on everyone to resist Japan together.
Su Yu and Chen Yi
On September 3, Han Deqin ignored our party's idea of unity and resistance against Japan, and once again sent two teams of men and horses to launch a tentative attack on the Huangqiao area. The Right Army's Second Li and Chen Taiyun abided by the previous agreement, maintained the center, and adopted a wait-and-see attitude; the 117th Division of the Left Route Army and the Sixth Independent Brigade attacked Yingxi, and our army heroically launched a counterattack, annihilating the other side's first brigade and two regiments, and in order to further expand the influence of the war situation, our army released all prisoners.
As an important water and land trade south wharf in northern Jiangsu, Jiangyan is a very excellent grain and salt distribution place.
Because of the defeat in previous battles, Han Deloitte began to blockade our army at Jiangyan, cutting off water and food.
On September 3, after repeated warnings were useless, our army decided to capture Jiangyan. The second and third columns were dispatched to attack from east to west, and after a night of fierce fighting, they successfully annihilated more than a thousand Kuomintang troops, and our army successfully entered Jiangyan. Comrade Chen Yi held a peace meeting, but Han Deqin refused to attend, and threatened: "If the New Fourth Army has the sincerity of cooperation, it should first withdraw from Jiangyan." In order not to give Han Deloitte any excuse to provoke friction, and in order to concentrate his forces against the incoming enemy, on September 30, Chen Yi decisively ordered the withdrawal from Jiangyan.
Han Deloitte
Our army took the initiative to retreat for the sake of righteousness, but Han Deqin had to advance inches, thinking that the New Fourth Army was weak and could be bullied, and personally led more than 30,000 people from 26 regiments to attack Huangqiao in an attempt to completely annihilate our army. At that time, the New Fourth Army was only more than 7,000 people, and the number of combatants was very different, so it was the key to see how to win this battle.
According to the consistent playing style of the Red Army, it was necessary to kill and wound the Rok army and then withdraw from the Yellow Bridge, and then wait for the recalcitrant army to pursue it before annihilating all the way. However, the water network in northern Jiangsu is dense, and there are many Japanese garrisons such as the Yangtze River and Jiaxing in the south, so the room for maneuver is too small. Some generals suggested holding the Yellow Bridge and then waiting for the opportunity to launch an active attack, but it was easy to fall into the "ox to the horn", and when it was difficult, Commander Su Yu said: First attack the Onda Brigade, take the Yellow Bridge as the axis, lure the enemy to go deeper, and break through. Three columns were deployed to defend the Yellow Bridge, and the first and second columns were waiting for a standby attack in the area of Gugaozhuang, Yanxuzhuang, and Henggang Bridge northwest of the Yellow Bridge, while at the same time telegraphing the Fifth Column of the Eighth Route Army in Jiangnan to go south to cooperate.
When the decisive battle came, Chen Yi sat in Yan Xuzhuang to control the overall situation, and Su Yu commanded the Huangqiao front. On October 4, 1940, the decisive battle of Huangqiao began, the Onda Brigade went south from Takahashi, and Ye Fei led a column to seize the favorable opportunity to cut the recalcitrant army into several sections, surround each one, and completely annihilate the brigade after three hours of fierce fighting. This side just won the victory, but the east gate of the Yellow Bridge had an enemy attack into the city, Comrade Tao Yong led the three columns to fight tenaciously, and then successfully repelled the stubborn army.
Chen Yi
After the enemy who attacked the Yellow Bridge was beaten out, the battlefield situation became more and more favorable to us, the first and second columns went south, and the three columns guarding the Yellow Bridge completed the encirclement of the enemy army, and after a night of bitter fighting, our army successfully annihilated the headquarters of the Eighty-ninth Army and most of the 349th Brigade, and Han Deloitte's ace Li Shouwei also died in the melee.
On the 6th, the Second Column pursued the enemy's independent reserve to Yingxi, annihilating most of the enemy army, at this point, the enemy army was completely destroyed, and on October 10, our army and the Eighth Route Army in the south successfully met the division.
Why, in the case of such a large gap in personnel, can our army still win the decisive battle of the Yellow Bridge? Where is the "strangeness" of Commander Su Yu's use of troops?
The first oddity was that the Onda Brigade, known as the "Mei Lanfang-style Troops", was selected for the first battle.
It was the most powerful unit, with about 3,000 men, all equipped with "medium-official" seven-nine rifles, and 9 Czech machine guns per company. Originally, in the case of a great disparity between the enemy and ourselves, the weakest should be chosen, but Commander Su Yu chose the strongest as the first target of annihilation, which can well weaken the morale of the enemy army, prompt other miscellaneous armies not to dare to act arbitrarily, and can also open the gap in the middle road with the trend, so that our army can form an encirclement of the enemy army. Han Deqin fought with the Red Army in his early years, and he knew that the Red Army always liked to fight the weak enemy first, so that the first to annihilate the strong enemy could surprise the other side, and it was easy to achieve the miracle effect of war.
In the end, everything was as first expected, and as soon as the "Mei Lanfang-style troops" took the stage, they were directly annihilated by our army.
Mei Lanfang's Troops Onda Brigade
The second odd, Odd, is on the swinging line.
Strategically, it is more victorious with less and tactically with more to win less; this is Su Yu's consistent use of military tactics. Obviously, this Battle of Huangqiao was very different from the past, and the gap in numbers meant that Su Yu needed to be very cautious in arranging the use of troops.
This time, only three columns were left to guard the Yellow Bridge, and all the other troops were used as assault forces.
It's very cleverly arranged. In addition to the east side of the Yellow Bridge as the key defensive object, the other three sides are logistics personnel standing guard and sentry, which is equivalent to the empty city plan, although the risk is very large, but the maximum extent of the control of the fighter. It turned out that Su Yu succeeded again, and after the enemy army entered from the east, he was quickly counterattacked.
Third, Odd uses the sound of gunfire as a contact signal.
In Commander Su Yu's battle plan, October 5 was the date of the general offensive, but when he received an urgent report that the enemy army had rushed to the rescue, it was decided to launch a general attack on the enemy army in advance. Because of the poor signal in wartime and the inconvenience of communication, it was difficult to directly issue orders to Ye Fei and Wang Bicheng, so Su Yu took the initiative and let a small part of the third column lure the enemy from the east of the Yellow Bridge, and after the enemy returned,
The thick sound of gunfire was the signal to contact the first and second columns.
On the battlefield, the sound of gunfire is the command and signal, so after hearing the gunshot, Ye Fei and Wang Bicheng marched according to the advance plan. Under such a premise, the encirclement situation can be considered to be formed, and most of the enemy army is annihilated by our army.
The fourth wonder is the precise control of the battle situation.
Su Yu once said,
Fighting wars relies on arithmetic, so he attaches great importance to quantitative analysis.
Taking the Onda Brigade as an example, advancing towards the Yellow Bridge in a long snake formation, Su Yu made an accurate calculation: When on the onda trip, if the two people are separated by 1.5 meters, more than 3,000 people must form a long snake array of at least four or five kilometers long, the Yellow Bridge is 7.5 kilometers away from the High Bridge, the vanguard troops reach 2.5 kilometers north of the Yellow Bridge, and the rear of the enemy army has crossed the High Bridge, and at this time it is just entering the area set up by our army, which should be the best time to attack. Sure enough, when Su Yu ordered the attack, the enemy was divided into multiple sections, and after only 3 hours of fierce fighting, the Onda Brigade was completely annihilated.
Fifth, Qi,000 generals in the column swung their swords into battle to kill the enemy.
The decisive battle of the Yellow Bridge is actually to take the Yellow Bridge as the axis, lure the enemy to go deeper, and break through each one. If you want to ensure the victory of the battle, the Yellow Bridge must not be captured by the enemy. Compared with the encirclement of the enemy, guarding the Yellow Bridge is obviously a chore, but Su Yu gave it to the Tao Yong Three Columns that he brought up with him, which shows Su Yu's selfless nature. When the enemy army broke in through the east gate of the Yellow Bridge, Tao Yong took off his shirts with his subordinates, brandished his knife and rushed out, so he drove the enemy out. With the wise command of Su Yu, Tao Yong and his people fighting hard, Huangqiao has always been in the hands of the New Fourth Army.
Sixth, Qi, on Su Yu's three successful predictions of the enemy's general attack on the Yellow Bridge.
At 11 o'clock on October 4, the enemy launched its first general offensive, and because reinforcements from Jiangnan arrived, the enemy's offensive plan was thwarted. According to the situation of the battle, Su Yu predicted that the second enemy attack time was at dusk on the 4th, unfortunately, it was just guessed correctly, so the enemy's second battle plan was disrupted again, and the third time the enemy launched an attack at dawn on the 5th, Su Yu once again foresaw it, took the initiative to attack in advance, and disrupted the enemy's pace. The enemy's three general offensives were not launched, and they were defused by Su Yu, which is enough to show that Su Yu's command and combat ability is very good.
In the decisive battle at The Yellow Bridge, Su Yu won a complete victory through the use of troops through the "Six Wonders," which was a good demonstration of his superior military ability; in the case of the obvious inferiority of our army, Su Yu was able to turn things around and create a victory; he was worthy of being an old revolutionary who could win the battle, and his superb command skills were very unforgettable.