History has its own life, it is like a person, both easy-going and self-respecting. ——Yu Qiuyu
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the northeast became a key place that determined the direction of the domestic situation, and both the Kuomintang and the Communists invested great strength in striving to take the lead in seizing the entire territory of the northeast. Among them, there are three changes of marshals by Chiang Kai-shek.
First, the flying troops seized the northeast
After Japan's surrender and the collapse of puppet Manchukuo, the Soviets first took over the northeast, and then obeyed the Potsdam Proclamation announcing the handover of the northeast to the Nationalist government.
However, because the Kuomintang government had no enemy rear base in northern China, its main forces were all in the southwest, and some of them were as far away as Vietnam and Burma, and it was impossible to take over the northeast nearby. By transporting troops to the northeast by rail, and through the long communist anti-Japanese base areas, Chiang Kai-shek could only hope that American planes and navies would ask them to help transport troops to the northeast.
The advantages of the CPC's insistence on resisting Japan in North China, Shandong, and Central China were reflected, and the Central Committee was able to send a large number of cadres and troops to the northeast at the first time.
Luo Ronghuan, who had long led the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army in Shandong to persist in resisting Japan, personally led three batches of more than 60,000 people into the northeast for the sake of the overall situation in the northeast. Lin Biao was originally ordered to Shandong to replace Luo Ronghuan, but as a result, he had just walked from Yan'an to the middle of the road, and the central government ordered Lin Biao to directly change the route to the northeast and take charge of commanding our army in the northeast together with Luo Ronghuan.
The Third Division of the New Fourth Army, which was far away in Jiangsu, under the leadership of division commander Huang Kecheng, advanced from northern Jiangsu to the northeast, and the third division, which was basically on foot, was almost all on foot, and the Third Division, with more than 30,000 people, lost more than 3,000 personnel after reaching the northeast.
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Our army's troops entering the northeast in the early stage totaled more than 100,000 troops, and as many as 50,000 cadres. This is the basic disk before 1946.
Chiang Kai-shek appointed Du Yuming as the commander of the Northeast Security Command, and included as many as 6 armies in his command sequence, including the New First Army, the New Sixth Army, the Seventy-first Army and other ace units with strong combat effectiveness, with a total strength of 310,000 troops.
Seizing the opportunity of Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan's unstable foothold in the northeast, Du Yuming made a rapid march from north China to forcibly attack Shanhaiguan, and spent more than 10 days from Shanhaiguan to break through our army's defensive line and capture Jinzhou.
During this period, our northeastern troops were defeated and retreated one after another, and the Northeast Democratic United Army and the headquarters of the Northeast Military Region were forced to retreat to the north of the Songhua River, with Harbin as the base area. There are also bases in Southern Manchuria (in the mountainous areas along the border between Liaoning and Jilin) and Western Manchuria (near Inner Mongolia).
Du Yuming was satisfied, sent troops to capture major cities in the northeast, and took control of the main railways.
Second, Du Yuming won first and then lost
For most of the first half of 1946 and 1947, Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan faced great difficulties, and the defensive lines were broken everywhere.
Momentary frustration is not a concern. Lin and Luo promptly revised their strategies, adopted the political strategy and strategy of opening up the main road and occupying the two compartments, and focused their main energies on the rural areas, carrying out a land revolution, eliminating beards, and expanding the ranks.
Du Yuming seemed to have a biased understanding of the overall situation; instead of concentrating his forces on attacking Jiangbei boldly, he took advantage of Lin Luo's retreat to constantly occupy large and medium-sized cities in the northeast to satisfy Chiang Kai-shek's so-called international outlook and create an international image that the Kuomintang government was the only legitimate political power.
Unbeknownst to them, it was precisely such a strategic gap that enabled our army in the northeast to recuperate and breathe, and to continuously expand its strength, forming a base area with deep roots like Kannai, where a large number of peasants' children gained land, and we sincerely welcomed and supported our party's land policy and began to join the Northeast Democratic United Army.
On the contrary, the foundation of the Kuomintang regime could not be put down to the grass-roots level, but floated in the city. In the countryside, Du Yuming pursued a policy of supporting beards and disrupting the Communist regime, granting military ranks to a large number of Japanese and pseudo remnants and instigating them to confront the communist army.
Du Yuming also conducted a limited offensive operation, but except for the victory at the Siping Battle, there was no progress on the rest of the battlefield, and no losses were inflicted on the northern Manchuria region, that is, the core base of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army.
Lin Biao commanded all the units of our army in the northeast, and with the momentum of fighting from the south to the north, successively carried out three battles of Jiangnan and Sibao Linjiang, annihilated 40,000 to 50,000 nationalist troops, and effectively counterattacked Du Yuming's offensive.
By May 1947, after continuous conscription and army reorganization campaigns, our army in the northeast had grown to the size of 5 columns and 11 independent divisions, with the main field troops reaching more than 240,000 people, and the units of various military sub-districts also reached 220,000 people, totaling more than 460,000 people.
The nationalist army under Du Yuming's command, although it formally controlled most of the cities and railways south of the Songhua River, lost a total of 225,000 troops. Although it was expanded and replenished in time, it was no longer possible to maintain the offensive and could only stick to a few strongholds.
From May 1947 onwards, Lin Biao commanded the Zhulu army to launch an all-out attack south of the Songhua River.
In several bloody battles in Fulongquan, Sanshengyu, Huaide and Siping, the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army attacked along the Middle and Long Railway, conquering more than 40 cities and annihilating more than 80,000 Nationalist troops. The two strategic points of Changchun and Shenyang had been separated, and the Nationalist army was forced to hold the key points and was unable to launch a counterattack against Lin Biao.
In July 1947, Du Yuming, who had suffered from kidney disease, stepped down due to illness, and Chiang Kai-shek transferred Chen Cheng, chief of the general staff, to the northeast.
Du Yuming's defeat was due to a serious mistake in political strategy. In fact, this is also a deep-rooted problem of the Kuomintang, which does not attach importance to grasping the countryside, does not make efforts on the fundamental issue of land ownership, and views the peasants who account for the overwhelming majority of China purely from the perspective of a ruler.
Even militarily, Du Yuming made many mistakes, failed to grasp the situation in which the nationalist army was superior in strength at the beginning of entering the northeast, and pursued and fiercely attacked the Northeast Democratic United Army, so that Lin Luo could let go of the agrarian revolution and firmly take root in the vast countryside in the northeast.
Third, Chen Cheng, who is a tiger with a snake's tail
In August 1947, Chen Cheng took up his post in the northeast.
Chen Cheng's style of conduct is quite the essence of the old Chiang Kai-shek, and the first rule of governing the army and the government is to divide relatives and nepotism.
He placed all his cronies in important posts in the northeast armies, and most of the important commanders of the non-concubine clan were replaced.
For example, Chen Mingren, the commander of the Seventy-first Army, who made great contributions in the bloody battle of Siping, was dismissed by Chen Cheng because of his unwarranted crime of embezzling military grain.
The chairman of the Kuomintang Liaoning Province, the commander of the main force of the Fifty-second Army, and others were all replaced without reason.
This series of pit daddy operations made the northeast military and political system extremely dissatisfied with Chen Cheng, a Native of Zhejiang. After the defeat of the northeast, at the meeting of the puppet national congress, the deputies of the northeast even angrily proposed to kill Chen Cheng to thank the world.
In view of the deteriorating situation in the northeast, Chen Cheng put forward a strategic plan for sticking to the main points and expanding flexibly, that is, sticking to the backbone cities of Shenyang, Changchun, and Siping, and ensuring the Western Liaoning Corridor and the Middle and Long Roads, so that the Nationalist army would have a basis for advancing and retreating.
This plan seems to be stable and slightly offensive, but in fact, it is completely unaware of the other side and does not know itself, which is Chen Cheng's complete wishful thinking.
At that time, the strength of the Kuomintang and the Communists in the northeast had been reversed, Lin Biao's army had been expanded to 510,000 people, whether it was a regular army or a local armed force, it was a newly organized unit, Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan demanded in the conscription order that all Japanese pseudo veterans, habitual bandits, urban hooligans, old and weak personnel should not be enlisted in the army, mainly from the newly allocated peasants, urban students, and other young people with clean composition and full of spirit, coupled with the strong political work of our army, the new formation of troops is the revolutionary will to stick to. A man of great blood who has sworn to defend the land to the death.
On the other hand, although Chen Cheng relied on forced recruitment to re-expand the army to more than 580,000 people, there were not a few beards, Japanese and pseudo-remnant soldiers, and urban policemen among them, and the ideological foundation of the troops was very poor, and the will to fight was not resolute, which was no longer the state when the Nationalist army first entered the northeast. In the course of actual engagements, there are often situations in which a single-touch battle is about to collapse and a hard battle cannot be fought.
In response to Chen Cheng's big and improper strategy, Lin Biao first concentrated all his efforts to attack southwards, conquering Zhangwu in the northwest of Shenyang, and threatening the hinterland of the nationalist army in Shenyang.
Chen Cheng misestimated the strength of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army, took the initiative to send more than 100,000 troops, and attacked northwestern Liaoning in three ways, left, center, and right, in an attempt to find and annihilate the main force of Lin Luo.
Dongye was not afraid of Chen Cheng's attack, and in view of the fact that his three roads were unevenly armed, he chose to attack his weak side, surrounded the main force of the Nationalist army on the right side of the New Fifth Army regiment at Gongzhutun and wiped out all the troops below the commander of the army, Chen Linda.
This battle brought out the appearance of the northeast national army's strong foreign forces, and Chen Cheng, terrified, hurriedly withdrew his army back to Shenyang, and did not dare to take the initiative to attack again.
In the second half of 1947, the major cities in the northeast, except for Shenyang, Changchun, Jinzhou, Tieling, Fuxin and other major cities, were still in the hands of the nationalist army, and the rest of the vast areas were occupied by Lin Biao.
At the end of January 1948, Chen Cheng tried to throw the pot at the post-war summary meeting to throw the pot at the commander of the New Sixth Army and others, but was beaten in the face by the commanders of the various military forces, Chen Cheng was forced to claim that he was ill and fled back to Nanjing, and Chiang Kai-shek was in a hurry to appoint the general Wei Lihuang as the deputy director of the Northeast Expedition and the commander-in-chief of the Northeast Suppression Campaign, and was actually fully responsible for the military and political power in the Northeast.
4. Wei Lihuang's fanatical behavior
Although Wei Lihuang had old friendships with the commanders of the various corps in the northeast, Liao Yaoxiang, Zheng Dongguo, and other generals were all his subordinates when they were in the Anti-Japanese War Expeditionary Force, and there was no obstacle in commanding, but the overall situation in the northeast was already terminally ill at that time, and Wei Lihuang was purely driving ducks to the shelf, and basically there was no room for his fists and feet.
At that time, the Northeast Democratic United Army had been renamed the Northeast Field Army, with Lin Biao as commander and Luo Ronghuan as political commissar, and the army under his command had reached more than 700,000. Wei Lihuang's nationalist army was rehabilitated to 500,000 people after desperate conscription, but its main force was severely damaged many times, and the New First Army and the New Sixth Army, which were known as the five main forces, were already scarred and no longer able to attack.
As soon as Wei Lihuang took office, Dongye gave him a dismount, first capturing the important town of Liaoyang, then attacking Siping, and after a bloody battle, he took this sad land of Dongye.
Siping was touted by the Kuomintang as the Madrid of the East, and the fall of the city undoubtedly caused a knife in the hearts of Chiang Kai-shek and the Northeast Nationalist army.
Wei Lihuang faced dongye's powerful offensive, and did not dare to send troops to rescue him, watching Lin Biao attack the city everywhere.
In the first half of 1948, the Nationalist army was compressed in the three large cities of Shenyang, Jinzhou and Changchun, which were not connected to each other, leaving only one way to retreat to Guannei.
Chiang Kai-shek dispatched Wei Lihuang in the hope that he would be able to give play to the art of command during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and lead the Northeast Nationalist Army out of difficulties.
At first, Chiang Kai-shek wanted the Nationalist armies of Shen, Jin, and Chang to stay on hold, and wait for the international situation to change, especially the Intervention of the United States, and then transfer the large army in Guannei to rescue the northeast. However, the other battlefields in China were more and more miserable, and the international situation was always in the mirror, and chiang kai-shek listened to the advice of the American advisers and completely gave up the hope of sticking to the northeast, hoping that Wei Lihuang would bring his troops back to Guannei.
To withdraw from Guannei, the key point is to open up Jinzhou and Shanhaiguan to ensure the smooth flow of the Western Liaoning Corridor.
However, Wei Lihuang was afraid of the strength of Lin Biao's army, and he was always uncertain in the fundamental direction of walking and staying, field battles, or sticking to it, especially with Chiang Kai-shek's intentions.
Of course, in the face of the final strategic decisive battle situation in the northeast, Lin Biao did not see very clearly at first, and under the smooth situation along the way, Lin Biao wanted to first solve Changchun in the north, and then gradually push south, one by one to solve Wei Lihuang's various departments.
Fortunately, under the repeated study of the Northeast Bureau, coupled with Chairman Mao's stern attitude, Dongye must first attack Jinzhou, strangle the throat of the entry pass, and must not let the Northeast Nationalist Army flee back to Guannei and create pressure on the North China Battlefield or the East China Battlefield, Lin Biao finally changed his decision, conquered Jinzhou with all his might, and captured Fan Hanjie, the supreme commander of the Jinzhou Nationalist Army.
Although Chiang Kai-shek organized two major corps of east-west troops in the two directions of Huludao and Shenyang, he could not stand Wei Lihuang, the commander-in-chief, Yang Fengyin, and in the end, more than 100,000 troops of the two corps in the east and west were annihilated by Dongye, Liao Yaoxiang, commander of the western corps, was captured, and the northeast nationalist army lost the last mobile strength.
In November 1948, with the capture of Shenyang, the entire territory of Northeast China was liberated.
Chiang Kai-shek changed commanders three times, one at the beginning and one tail, and two generals, all of whom were the top masters in the Nationalist army. In particular, Du Yuming, in the early stage of the strategic posture, once caused great trouble to our army, objectively speaking, Du Yuming's command ability is quite good.
However, the ultimate reason for the failure of the three changes of commanders was that there was a major problem in the KUOMINTang's political strategy in the northeast; Chiang Kai-shek simply viewed the northeast as a military issue, did not know how to operate steadily in the northeast and occupy the people's hearts, but blindly used military means to solve political problems, which was the root cause of his failure.
From the military level, although the military qualities of Du, Chen, and Wei are all OK, they are not as far-reaching as Lin Biao's calculations, and the mobilization of troops and strategic planning are basically led by Lin Biao's nose. Moreover, the nationalist army attaches too much importance to the gains and losses of one city and one place, and is not good at winning in sports. The chance of success or failure has been divided in just one or two years.