On August 15, 1945, the Japanese Emperor issued an armistice edict declaring unconditional surrender, and the Japanese troops still entrenched in our country according to the regulations should also surrender their weapons nearby, but the Japanese puppet army of Gaoyou not only refused to surrender, but also transferred the Japanese troops originally stationed in Yangzhou to Gaoyou to continue to hold on, trying to resist stubbornly.
In this situation, Su Yu proposed three times to the Central Military Commission and the New Fourth Army Headquarters to conduct a war, and personally commanded, thus causing the famous "Battle of Gaoyou", which was also the last battle of China's War of Resistance Against Japan.
Looking at the entire Battle of Gaoyou, we can roughly divide it into two stages: "clearing the border" and "comprehensively besieging the city", and then we will look at them one by one.
Border clearance phase
The main goal of this stage was to uproot the Japanese strongholds set up outside Gaoyou City at that time, so that Gaoyou City was isolated and helpless.
Since the Gaoyou area has been occupied by the Japanese army for a long time and has been developed by the Japanese army into a complete "base", if our army blindly attacks the city, it will not only be harassed by the Japanese army around the stronghold, but even have the danger of being attacked by the rear.
On this point, we can see from the deployment of the Japanese army in the Gaoyou area at that time.
At that time, the Japanese army stationed the main force in Gaoyou City and its southern Shaobo, the former with a cumulative number of about 6,000 people, while the latter also stationed a Japanese squadron and a pseudo-army.
A rivalry had already formed between GaoYoucheng and Shao Bo, and it was entirely possible to launch support in time after one side was trapped and the other side was trapped.
In addition to the two major strongholds, the Japanese army also deployed Japanese patrols in some temples, highlands and roads outside Gaoyou City, and these people should not be underestimated.
After fully understanding the deployment of the Japanese army, Su Yu led the 7th Column of the Central China Field Army to launch a surprise attack on Shao Bo's Japanese puppet army on the evening of December 19, 1945.
The Japanese puppet army, which was in a hurry to resist the enemy, soon found that our army's firepower was strong on the east, west, and north sides of Shaobo, and they had no choice but to flee south, but they did not expect to enter the ambush of our army, and finally the fleeing troops were surrounded and annihilated by our army.
In addition, before the Japanese troops in Gaoyou City could react, our army had already cleared the surrounding temples and patrols on the roads, and soon surrounded Gaoyou City into an "isolated city".
The full siege phase
Su Yu did not command the troops to attack strongly, but instead used a series of strategies of "encircling points to attack and reinforce", "disturbing the hearts of the army", and "attacking the west with sound" to reduce the losses of our army's siege troops.
So what exactly does Su Yu do?
First, Su Yu led his troops to directly block the road between Gaoyou and Yangzhou, thus directly cutting off the retreat route of Gaoyou's Japanese puppet army, and also breaking their expectations that the Nationalist troops in Yangzhou would come to support.
Because once the Kuomintang troops came to support, it was tantamount to openly starting a war with our army, and Su Yu had nothing to fear under the condition of waiting for work.
Second, Su Yu ordered his subordinates to make a lot of slogans to persuade him to surrender, some of which were posted in conspicuous positions in the surrounding buildings, and some of which used microphone shouting, playing Japanese songs, distributing leaflets with kites and mortars, and even playing the "Homesick Song" that was very familiar to the Japanese soldiers, which effectively destroyed the morale of the soldiers in the city.
Third, after the formal launch of the attack, Su Yu first sent a unit to the East Gate to attack to attract the attention of the other side, and then concentrated the main force to attack the South Gate and the Northwest Gate, and the recalcitrant Japanese army was also preparing to fight our army to the death at the East Gate, but did not expect that the other gates were successfully breached, and our army troops had already attacked behind them with guns, forcing them to surrender in situ.
After all the Japanese puppet troops were captured by our party's troops, the leader of the Japanese army, Iwasaki Daisa, still played a small trick with our army, hoping to retain the light weapons of the troops on the one hand, and on the other hand, hoping to go to Nanjing to surrender. Iwasaki Daisami had no hope of escaping, and eventually had to hold a surrender ceremony to our army on the spot in the county seat of Gaoyou County.
Although the resistance of the Japanese puppet army did not change the result of our army's occupation of Gaoyou, throughout the whole process, the Japanese puppet army can be said to be "a former soldier and a later gong", but in the end it was subdued by our army's troops by force.
So what was the strength of the Japanese army before the war?
In fact, the answer is very simple: the strength of the Japanese army does not lie in the emperor, but in the Chinese National Government, in Chiang Kai-shek.
As early as after the Japanese Emperor announced his surrender and the Japanese army's invasion of China was officially declared a failure, our Party had already tried to form a "coalition government" together with Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang, so as to avoid meaningless internal friction and to rescue the Chinese people from the turmoil of the war at an early date.
But what about Chiang Kai-shek?
What he wants is not a "coalition government," he wants monopolize the fruits of the victory of the War of Resistance, he wants a dictatorship.
It is precisely for this reason that as early as after Japan announced its surrender to the Allies, Chiang Kai-shek had already colluded with the Japanese side to try to induce all Japanese troops in China to surrender to the Kuomintang on the condition of sheltering the Japanese war criminal Okamura Ninji.
The implications of this are twofold:
The first was to bring all the advanced units of the Japanese army under the Kuomintang
The second was to assign all the land occupied by the Japanese army to the Kuomintang
Chiang Kai-shek had bad intentions, and Okamura Ningji was also afraid of being tried by the war criminals court, so he gladly agreed to Chiang Kai-shek's conditions.
At the behest of Okamura Ninji, the Japanese army, which was originally reluctant to surrender, resisted desperately in the face of the communist army, and sometimes even if it was occupied by our army, it would attack it again, which was unintentionally causing heavy casualties to our army.
After seeing this situation, Chiang Kai-shek intensified his efforts and directly demanded that the Communist troops be stationed in situ and not take the initiative to "harass" the Troops under the Japanese Army.
After the Xinhai Revolution, the picture of Yuan Shikai stealing the fruits of the revolution is still vividly remembered, so how can the leaders of our Party allow Chiang Kai-shek to carry out his dictatorial ambitions? The commander-in-chief of our army directly protested against the telegram sent to Chiang Kai-shek and put forward the demands of our Party.
All Japanese puppet armies surrounded by armies in the liberated areas should be surrendered by the troops of the People's Liberation Army; if the Japanese puppet armies surrounded by Kuomintang troops, they should be surrendered by the Kuomintang.
Our party's demands are reasonable and fair, but where can Chiang Kai-shek, who has been blinded by the desire for power, take care of them?
On the one hand, he let the Kuomintang troops frantically advance and accelerate their reorganization; on the other hand, he let the Japanese puppet army continue to resist in the face of our army, and called it "guarding local public order."
After our army saw such a despicable act of Chiang Kai-shek, it naturally began to absorb it on its own.
And just when our army proposed to the Japanese puppet army stationed in Gaoyou, it had been 4 months since the Japanese emperor announced his surrender, but even so, they were still unwilling to surrender to the New Fourth Army.
However, at that time, the Kuomintang Twenty-fifth Army had already reached the Yangzhou area, and once our army could not decisively complete the reorganization, the Kuomintang 25th Army would inevitably rush out and "insert a foot."
The geographical location of Gaoyou County itself is extremely important to our party, and once Gaoyou is sidelined, then the Suwan Liberated Area, which our party has worked so hard to run, will fall into disintegration in an instant.
It was also in such a special situation at that time that Su Yu led his troops to launch the Battle of Gaoyou.
After this battle, GaoyouCheng, which had been trapped for 6 years, was declared liberated, and it was also the most captured Japanese troops by the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army since the War of Resistance Against Japan.
The victory in this campaign not only boosted the morale of our army and dealt a blow to the arrogance of the Japanese puppet army, but also shattered the illusions of the Kuomintang reactionary army, which can be described as of great significance.
Although the Battle of Gaoyou was fought quite fiercely, Su Yu still adhered to the style and discipline of our party's army after the war, and instead of treating the prisoners harshly, he properly placed them, and thus won the respect of the enemy.
In the two phases of the entire Gaoyou Campaign, our army captured a total of 931 Japanese troops and 3942 puppet troops. At the ceremony of the surrender, Su Yu asked the surrendered representative Han Nianlong to openly announce the three military rules of our army:
First, the Japanese army could stay in place, but could not go out and harass the people;
Second, Japanese soldiers who died in battle can be cremated according to the original customs, and the ashes can be brought back to their homeland;
Third, wounded soldiers can be treated by our army.
Just as the so-called "one hand is a big stick, the other hand is a radish", Su Yu not only led our army to victory in the battle and conquered the Japanese soldiers from strength, but also completely impressed these Japanese troops from the heart with his broad mind.
Some people may feel that they do not have to be so kind to the enemy, but in fact, this is also a "propaganda strategy".
As far as our Party's troops are concerned, the most important thing is to complete the integration of the Japanese participating units as soon as possible and to liberate the masses from the turmoil of the war, so what General Su Yu has done is in line with our Party's program and tasks.
In addition, before the battle of Gaoyou began, neither the Japanese puppet army nor the Kuomintang government expected that the Japanese army would be defeated.
Because the army in Su Yu's hands was similar in number to the Japanese puppet army, it did not have the potential to crush it. Coupled with the repeated repairs of Gaoyou City by the Japanese army, it can already be called a war fortress.
Facts have proved that General Su Yu had both, and this classic "Gaoyou Campaign" also drew the final end to the War of Resistance Against Japan as the last battle between China and Japan.