The War of Liberation is an important war that has a bearing on the future destiny of China in modern times, and it is also a "decisive battle" for the Chinese People's Liberation Army under the leadership of the Communist Party to overthrow the rule of the Kuomintang and liberate all of China.
Liberation
In this four-year-long liberation campaign, the CPC's concept of serving the people won the hearts of the people, making the ranks of the soldiers of the Chinese People's Liberation Army continue to grow and develop, and they were unstoppable, and finally overthrew the corrupt and dark rule of the Kuomintang, ended the nearly hundred years of war and chaos, established a new China in which the people are the masters of their own affairs, and promoted a new situation of harmonious reunification in China.
In this important battle that has a bearing on the future destiny of the people, the PLA fighters fought very hard, and under the ideal and belief of devoting themselves to the liberation of all of China, they defeated and retreated the vulnerable Kuomintang army one after another, and the front was advanced quite smoothly.
However, things can never be so smooth, there is such a northern city, in the liberation war is extremely difficult to conquer, our army sent a total of three corps and two marshals to sit in command before finally taking the city, so the city is called the "most difficult city to fight" in the liberation war.
The PLA discusses tactics
So, where is the hardest city to beat? Why is it so hard to beat?
Before that, let's first understand the background of the era of the Liberation War to better understand the military strength and strategic distribution of the Communist Party and the Kuomintang.
In 1945, the War of Resistance Against Japan was a complete victory, and Japan announced its unconditional surrender. After resolving the issue of the critical moment concerning the survival of the country and the nation, the battle over how the Kuomintang and the Communist Party should distribute the fruits of the victory of the War of Resistance and who would take charge of China's political power began.
The Japanese surrendered
At this time, Chiang Kai-shek, who hated the Communist Party to the bone, had brutally encircled and killed the Communists long before the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and naturally would not give up the idea of "getting rid of the Communist Party and quickly" after the end of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and swallowing up the fruits of the War of Resistance alone.
However, due to the pressure of public opinion at home and abroad calling for peace, Chiang Kai-shek could not show his "killing intent" too obviously. In order to create the illusion of peace and to buy time for military deployment to start a civil war, Chiang Kai-shek pretended to be "enthusiastic" and sent three telegrams in a row to the communist high level, "sincerely inviting" Mao Zedong to Chongqing to discuss "peace talks."
Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek negotiating in Chongqing
The Communist Party also advocates the use of peace and recuperation to achieve China's development and progress, and at the same time takes the opportunity to expose the conspiracy mask of the Kuomintang. Therefore, the Communist Party cautiously went to Chongqing for negotiations, taking advantage of this opportunity to make timely preparations for self-defense counterattack and improvisation.
During the Chongqing negotiations, the Communists vigorously emphasized peace, worked hard to avoid civil war, always took into account the overall situation, and wanted the Chinese people who had just been liberated from the war to recuperate, so they constantly made concessions on many issues. But Chiang Kai-shek pressed forward step by step, inching forward. After forty-three days of arduous negotiations, the two sides finally signed the Double Tenth Agreement to achieve a common compact agreement for peaceful nation-building and the cessation of civil war.
Cartoon of the Chongqing negotiations
But soon, the Kuomintang began to rebel and betray its faith. During the Chongqing negotiations, the Kuomintang began to secretly print and distribute the "Handbook of Suppression of Bandits" and mobilized more than one million troops to deploy the anti-communist offensive route, launch an attack on the northern region where the Chinese Communists were located, and personally tore up the "Double Tenth Agreement" that had just been signed, officially opening the prelude to the civil war again.
However, the far-sighted Party Central Committee also made arrangements long ago, adopting the strategic principle of "developing to the north and defending to the south"; while defending, it promptly responded to the Kuomintang's reactionary civil war and actively counterattacked the Kuomintang troops, thus beginning a four-year war of liberation.
"Shanxi Overlord" Yan Xishan
By 1948, the Kuomintang and the Communists had reached a decisive juncture of survival, and at this time, the Communist army was in an unstoppable situation, and it was full of vigor and vigor to conquer Chiang Kai-shek's "key defense system" set up by Chiang Kai-shek one by one in large cities, especially after experiencing the three major battles of the Liaoshen Campaign, the Huaihai Campaign, and the Pingjin Campaign.
Taiyuan during the liberation period
However, in the process of the Communist Forces in North China sweeping through the Kuomintang forces in the northern region, they encountered a hard bone to gnaw on--Taiyuan, Shanxi. Taiyuan, Shanxi, is the provincial capital of the most important province in the north, with very rich coal mineral resources, providing important support for military heavy industry. Based on this, since the Republic of China period, Shanxi has been a large-scale heavy industry military base in the north except for the northeast region.
Yan Xishan
The warlord commander in charge of controlling Shanxi at that time was yan Xishan, the famous "overlord of Shanxi," who was appointed as the governor of Shanxi during Yuan Shikai's reign, and later during the reign of the Kuomintang, Yan Xishan, who was sitting on a powerful military force, "occupied the land as king" in Shanxi, taking the advantages and eliminating the disadvantages as the main point of administration, revitalizing traditional agriculture and animal husbandry such as water conservancy and silkworm animal husbandry, rectifying and developing Shanxi's economy and culture, and setting up a "defense regiment" to conduct military training for young and middle-aged people in order to maintain social order in Shanxi.
Yan Xishan (bottom left 1) with Chiang Kai-shek and other warlords
During the Northern Expedition, Yan Xishan secretly cultivated obscurity, actively expanded armaments, and set up arsenals. With the rich coal mineral resources of Shanxi, a large number of weapons and ammunition were manufactured and used to expand their power. As the Kuomintang's power continued to expand, Yan Xishan also judged the hour and sized up the situation, and became the commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army in the north and the chairman of the Shanxi Provincial Government under the National Government.
Battle of Taiyuan
During the Liberation War, soldiers led by General Xu Qianqian began the liberation journey of "sweeping through Shanxi", and all the way took the location of the two elite Yan Xishan troops in Linfen and Jinzhong. However, Taiyuan, where Yan Xishan's old lair is located, is not easy to fight. Under the long-term garrison and deployment of Yan Xishan's "Baojing Anmin", extremely strong fortifications were constructed here, and more than 5,000 blockhouses were established, and these bunkers were connected to the bunkers, and the unusually strong Zimu Fort was used to defend against any foreign attack.
Shanxi Bunker
Coupled with the help of yan xishan's arsenal established in Shanxi, Taiyuan, a base area that Yan Xishan painstakingly managed and has a strong defensive combat capability, must be extremely difficult to attack and cannot be easily taken. By the time Xu Qianqian's troops arrived here to carry out a tough battle, the People's Liberation Army was exhausted after a long battle, and the number was only about 90,000. On the other hand, Yan Xishan's elite troops stationed in Taiyuan actually reached more than 100,000, so the People's Liberation Army did not have any advantage in the first battle against Taiyuan.
At the same time, because the people in Taiyuan, Shanxi, had long lived under the closed rule of Yan Xishan, they did not care about the world and were very loyal to Yan Xishan, not knowing that the People's Liberation Army was the true teacher of justice. Therefore, it is not only difficult for the people of Shanxi to advance and retreat with our army, but also to resist the attack of the People's Liberation Army together with Yan Xishan.
What made the PLA soldiers feel even worse was that after a long period of continuous offensive and heavy work, General Xu Qianqian, who was overwhelmed and bowed to the fullest, actually became ill with overwork and directly fell ill. However, the pain of the disease still could not resist General Xu Qianqian's determination to insist on taking Taiyuan, and he insisted on commanding the battle even when he lay on a stretcher and died. At the same time, in order to blow up the fortification of the bunker, the PLA soldiers who were put aside their lives and deaths carried explosive packs and blew them up one after another to the bunkers, and the battle scenes were very tragic.
The People's Liberation Army bombs bunkers
At this time, the situation in the North China Battlefield also underwent tremendous changes, and the Pingjin Campaign that our army was brewing called for the encirclement of Fu Zuoyi and the prevention of his escape to the south. Therefore, our army temporarily demanded that Taiyuan be besieged but not attacked, and planned to wait until the Northeast Field Army entered the border to liberate Pingjin before assisting General Xu Qianqian in taking Taiyuan.
During the siege of Taiyuan, General Xu Qianqian and his subordinates were finally able to breathe and recuperate temporarily. Until the end of the Pingjin Campaign, the corps that had besieged Taiyuan for half a year, with the assistance of the North China Second Corps led by Yang Dezhi and the North China Third Corps led by Yang Chengwu, launched another attack on Taiyuan and began to gnaw on the "hard bone" of Taiyuan.
Xu Xiangqian was not in good health and was afraid of dragging down the combat command work, so he sincerely left Marshal Peng Dehuai and General Luo Ruiqing who came to convey the spirit of the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee to sit in the town, carrying more than 1,300 artillery pieces. Under the fierce encirclement and attack of the "top" lineup of our army and the fierce encirclement and attack of 400,000 troops, in less than four days, Taiyuan was finally captured and the whole city was liberated.
Artillery attacked Taiyuan
During this period, the Kuomintang defenders in Taiyuan City could only rely on Kuomintang aircraft to airdrop to maintain survival materials, and Yan Xishan, who had always been a shrewd judge, had long ago known that he had escaped by plane, and pushed the task of defending the city in Shanxi to his loyal subordinates.
Results of the War of Liberation
With the gradual deepening of the liberation war, PLA fighters marched south into the Nanjing capital where Chiang Kai-shek was located. Faced with a situation of overwhelming defeat, Chiang Kai-shek decided to once again propose "peace talks" to the Communists in order to gain a respite and seek a comeback.
Millions of heroes cross the river
Only this time, in the face of Chiang Kai-shek's pretending to seek peace, the CCP has long recognized Chiang Kai-shek's false mask and is no longer vainly conspiring with him. Under the order of Chairman Mao, insisting on carrying out the revolutionary liberation to the end, the People's Liberation Army "crossed the great river with a million heroes" and directly attacked the capital of Nanjing, where the Kuomintang was located, chiang kai-shek and his party had to retreat to Taiwan.