History is the memory of things that have been said and done. —Carl Baker
Everyone knows that the Battle of Huaihai was a strategic decisive battle that determined the life and death of both the Kuomintang and the Communists during the Liberation War, and the 600,000 troops of the People's Liberation Army defeated the 800,000 troops of the Kuomintang. The reason why the Kuomintang army suffered a crushing defeat in the face of superior numbers was due to many reasons. Today, let's talk about the problems existing within the Kuomintang army; there are many contradictions within the army, and it is simply impossible to coordinate operations well and to give full play to its due combat effectiveness; this is an important reason for the crushing defeat of the Kuomintang army in the Huaihai Campaign.
After the outbreak of the Battle of Huaihai, the Kuomintang Huang Baitao's 7th Corps was surrounded by the East China Field Army, although Huang Baitao was from a miscellaneous background, but he was deeply respected by Chiang Kai-shek, and the troops he led were Chiang Kai-shek's concubines, and they had made many achievements in the Battle of Eastern Henan. When Chiang Kai-shek learned that Huang Baitao's corps was under siege, he hurriedly ordered Du Yuming to lead Qiu Qingquan's 2nd Corps to break the siege. Qiu Qingquan's corps was well-armed, well-equipped, and had strong combat effectiveness, but Qiu Qingquan was not active in reinforcement operations, and the progress of all the armies was slow until the collapse of Huang Baitao's corps, which was still wandering in the area east of Xuzhou. In addition to the reason why Qiu Qingquan did this to preserve his strength and fear of being surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, it was also related to his contradictions with Huang Baitao. In 1948, during the Battle of Eastern Henan, Huang Baitao was commended by the Kuomintang Military Command for his active combat and awarded the Order of Qingtian And white sun; qiu Qingquan was punished for his ineffective combat, and Qiu Qingquan was discordant with Huang Baitao from then on. After the Battle of Huaihai began, in order to appease the besieged Huang Baitao, the Kuomintang army command awarded Huang Baitao the "Order of the Blue Sky and White Sun", and Qiu Qingquan was even more dissatisfied with Huang Baitao and refused to actively rescue him.
In the middle of the Battle of Huaihai, the 12th Corps was the main force of Chiang Kai-shek's concubine Chen Cheng, and at the beginning of its formation, the corps appointed Huang Wei as the commander of the corps and Hu Lian as the deputy commander. Although Huang Wei was also a backbone member of Chen Cheng's system, he had long been serving in military training and education in the rear, so Hu Lian was very dissatisfied, saying that he was sick and went to Shanghai, and Yang Botao, the commander of the 18th Army, the main force of the corps, also said that he was sick and returned to his hometown. Later, Huang Wei and several division commanders jointly invited Yang Botao back, and Hu Lian did not return to the front line at Chiang Kai-shek's order until the 12th Corps was surrounded. Within the corps, wu Shaozhou's main patron was He Yingqin, who belonged to a different faction from the other 3 corps. After the Huang Wei Corps was surrounded, the 85th Army was the first to disintegrate, the 11th Division of the Army revolted, and most of the rest of the troops surrendered, accelerating the disintegration and collapse of the Huang Wei Corps.
In Du Yuming's clique, although Qiu Qingquan's 2nd Corps and Li Mi's 13th Corps belonged to the he Yingqin faction of the Kuomintang, they had been full of contradictions after the battle began, and they could not carry out good coordinated operations, and once the battle was lost, they blamed each other, and Du Yuming could only reconcile from it from time to time. Later, Du Yuming's group was besieged, and Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi often clashed over the limited airdrop supply, even at the expense of fire. In short, in the Huaihai Campaign, although the Kuomintang army had a certain superiority in strength and equipment, there were always irreconcilable contradictions at all levels, from the Kuomintang supreme command to the units participating in the battle, and infighting and infighting abounded, and intensified, which seriously affected the decision-making of the command system of the Kuomintang army and the operations of the units participating in the battle. Under the influence of many contradictions, the Kuomintang army was always passive in the campaign, lost all its advantages, and eventually went to defeat.