In September 1948, Xu Shiyou commanded the Siege Group of the East China Field Army and captured the city of Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province, in eight days and eight nights.
This was the largest urban offensive battle in the Shandong battlefield in the Liberation War, and it was also the last major battle to completely annihilate the remnants of shandong and liberate the entire territory of Shandong. After this victory, even the Americans claimed that the battle had completely "shaken the foundations of Chiang Kai-shek's regime" and that "the communist army was strong enough to seize any city north of the Yangtze River." ”
The Battle of Jinan commanded by Xu Shiyou, how brilliant the victory was!
However, it was also in this battle that the PLA killed two division-level cadres in World War I, extremely rarely.
The first is Wang Jiwen, commander of the 8th Division of the Third Column of Huaye.
Wang Jiwen is a native of Huang'an County, Hubei Province. In 1930, at the age of 14, he joined the Red Army and participated in the Long March. Due to his youth, Wang Jiwen has always been a small warrior. He was a young general who fought in the War of Resistance. In the second year of the War of Resistance, he became a battalion commander and in the third year he was a regimental commander. In December 1945, he was seriously wounded once in the battle to liberate Tengxian County, and was promoted to deputy division commander in June of the following year, and was promoted to division commander half a year later. Wang Jiwen can fight and fight evil wars, which shows that it is not ordinary.
In the Battle of Jinan in September 1948, Wang Yaowu, chairman of the Kuomintang Shandong Province, commander of the Second Appeasement District, and a famous general of a generation, was on the defensive side of the city, and he guarded the outer city with 4 brigades and 3 brigades to defend the inner city. Xu Shiyou, commander of the East China Shandong Corps, was on the siege side, with five columns. The offensive and defensive forces (excluding reinforcements and reinforcements) reached 250,000.
The Battle of Jinan was divided into two parts: the offensive and defensive battles of the outer city and the offensive and defensive battles of the inner city.
On September 16, under the order of Xu Shiyou, the attack on the outer city was launched.
At dawn on September 21, the 3rd column of the Western Front Group, the 13th Column, and the Luzhong Column launched an attack on the commercial port. The 8th Division of the Third Column was responsible for frontal attacks. Soon, its assault troops entered the commercial port, and the division commander Wang Jiwen also entered the commercial port with his troops, and the battle was fierce.
At about 9:00 a.m., a signal soldier ran over and reported to the division headquarters: "The enemy's bunker fire in front is very fierce, and it is difficult for the 21st Regiment to advance." ”
Wang Jiwen was eating breakfast, immediately put down the bowl, and said, "I'll go and see." ”
As a result, he personally came to the line of fire in spite of the obstruction of others and discussed with Zhang Jingzong, the leader of the 21st Regiment, how to break the enemy. They came to the front together to check the terrain, but unexpectedly, an enemy shell flew over, "boom" an explosion, and both were unfortunately shot and seriously injured.
On the afternoon of the same day, Wang Jiwen died at the age of 32.
The next day, the officers and men of the 8th Division angrily launched a fierce attack on the enemy Wang Yaowu's Second Appeasement District Headquarters, and took the enemy headquarters in one fell swoop.
Wang Jiwen can be said to have sacrificed on the eve of the victory over the outer city, which is very deplorable. Sun Jixian, commander of the Third Column, and Ding Qiusheng, political commissar, both burst into tears when they learned the bad news.
Another division-level cadre who died in the Battle of Jinan was Xu Haishan, political commissar of the 37th Division of the 13th Column, who fought alongside the Three Columns.
Xu Haishan's sacrifice is even more deplorable.
Xu Haishan is also a native of Huang'an, Hubei Province, and is also from the old Red Army, unlike Wang Jiwen, who was in the Eighth Route Army during the War of Resistance, and he was in the New Fourth Army.
In the outer city attack of the Jinan Campaign, Xu Haishan's ten columns and Wang Jiwen's three columns were left and right neighbors. After Wang Jiwen's death, on the evening of September 23, the siege group continued to launch a general attack on the inner city.
The Thirteenth and Third Columns continued to attack side by side as siege groups on the Western Front.
The inner city was the last line of defense for the Jinan defenders, and the gains and losses of the inner city were related to Wang Yaowu's final fate. After the general offensive began, two battalions of the 37th Division attacked the head of the city, but the enemy counterattacked frantically, except for two companies protruding inside and outside the city, the rest were all sacrificed, and the breakthrough re-fell into the hands of the enemy.
That night, Xu Shiyou's siege forces were all frustrated and there was no breakthrough.
At this time, some people said: It has been seven days and seven nights of fighting, the troops have suffered heavy casualties, and they have been dragged until dawn, and the enemy planes have come even more unfavorably. However, Nie Fengzhi, commander of the Ninth Column who besieged the city on the Eastern Front, insisted on opposing it: it would be more difficult to withdraw the troops and fight again. So, Xu Shiyou punched down:
"Fight!"
At one o'clock in the morning of the 24th, the whole army launched another onslaught, and the Ninth Column first broke into the inner city. Subsequently, the 37th Division of the Thirteenth Column, under the two connections in the city, also attacked the inner city. However, no one expected that just as victory was about to come, tragedy happened again. Major General Gurry, then commander of the 37th Division, later recalled:
"(Morning) After 12:00, the division entered the inner city, and the friendly and neighboring troops also continued to enter the inner city from this breakthrough point to carry out the final battle to encircle and annihilate the defenders inside the city. The division command post had been opened inside the Kunshun Gate, and when Commissar Xu Haishan and I were preparing to move from the original command post to the inner city, a heavy bomber of a B-29 bomber blew up the small building of the command post, Political Commissar Xu Haishan and a staff officer were honorably sacrificed, and Gao Song and I were pressed under the bookcase, wounded, and excavated by the sappers at about 17:00 p.m. By this time, the battle in the inner city was basically over. ”
Xu Haishan was 6 years older than Wang Jiwen and was 38 years old at the time of his death.
In the War of Liberation, the number of division-level cadres sacrificed by the PLA was already very few. In 1948, a total of six generals of the division and above were killed, but in the Battle of Jinan, as many as two were killed. Therefore, the Battle of Jinan also became the only battle in the Liberation War in which two division-level cadres were sacrificed in one battle, and even the three major battles of Liaoshen, Huaihai and Pingjin did not occur in this situation.
The cruelty of the Battle of Jinan can also be seen from this.
(Xu Shiyou is former Vice Minister of Defense)