In the Battle of Huaihai, first Huang Baitao's corps was completely annihilated, the corps commander Huang Baitao was killed, then Huang Wei's corps was destroyed, the corps commander Huang Wei was captured, and later even Du Yuming, deputy commander of Xuzhou's "Suppression General", was captured.
However, a strange situation occurred, when Li Mi's 13th Corps and the 2nd Corps commanded by Du Yuming were combined, and after the whole army was destroyed, Du Yuming was captured, but Li Mi fled, which was really strange, how did Li Mi, the commander of the 13th Corps, escape?
A native of Yingjiang County, Yunnan Province, Li Mi was born into a wealthy merchant family, and later relied on family connections, in 1924, at the age of 20, Li Mi served as a service soldier in the headquarters of the 7th Division of the Yunnan Army, and was later accepted as a righteous son by a public office in Shaoguan and was escorted to the Huangpu Phase IV.
In terms of dealing with people, Li Mi was very sleek, his road to the army was relatively smooth, he basically had no decent military achievements, as in 1940, he was promoted to the commander of the 1st Division of the 8th Army, and during the Anti-Japanese War, Li Mi's only commendable thing was that he was ordered to reinforce Yichang in the First World War.
It was April 1, 1941, the Japanese attacked, trying to occupy Yichang, Li Mi was ordered to reinforce, he commanded the artillery to fiercely bombard the Japanese-occupied Yichang airfield, when the airfield was full of Japanese aircraft, Li Mi destroyed 21, this battle made him famous.
The battle also earned him the praise of the commander Zheng Dongguo, who was promoted to deputy commander of the 8th Army and commander of the Suining Division in Zhijiang, Hunan, and on the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance, in June 1945, he was promoted to major general, and in November, he was sent to the front line of the civil war.
From July to October 1946, during this period, Li Mi led his troops to attack Zibo, Pingdu and Ye Counties, and was annihilated by the People's Liberation Army two battalions, and by December, Li Mi was reluctant to give up the Shahe and Weixian counties in his hands, resulting in a regiment surrounded by the PLA and completely annihilated, and the regimental commander was captured.
In may 1947, the 8th Army was reorganized into the 8th Division, Li Mi was appointed division commander, and less than a year later, in July 1948, Li Mi was promoted to commander of the 13th Corps.
After the Battle of Huaihai began, Huang Baitao's 7th Corps was surrounded in the Nianzhuang area, and Li Mi and Qiu Qingquan were ordered to go from the north and south sides of the Longhai Railway to relieve the siege.
After that, Li Mi seemed to be frightened by the People's Liberation Army, did not accept the task, and took his 13th Corps all the way to retreat, trying to quickly break away from the encirclement, and even on the way forward, he did not want to meet other Kuomintang troops, only to bow his head and flee for his life, and later moved out of Chiang Kai-shek, Li Mi obeyed the order to stop retreating.
Later, it turned out that Li Mi desperately seemed to be right to escape, he and Du Yuming joined forces in the Area of Chen Guanzhuang, a total of 30 troops, still surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, on January 7, 1949, When li Mi was breached by the headquarters, he fled hurriedly with his escort Wang Xin'an and put on the clothes of the wounded.
He disguised himself as a wounded man and pretended to be an identity to evade layers of interrogations, and later, with the help of Wang Xin'an's relatives, he opened a fake road and hid Li Mi in a sack to help him escape from the liberated areas, and Li Mi returned to Nanjing via Qingdao and escaped a disaster.