Modern China has experienced large and small aggression and anti-aggression struggles, and the Chinese people have united and finally succeeded in driving out the aggressors. In modern China, various parties have struggled with each other, and only the Communist Party and the Kuomintang are in a leading position in modern China. On October 1, 1949, the Communist Party announced the founding of New China, and the Kuomintang withdrew from the historical stage of Chinese politics. In the past few decades, the two parties have cooperated and coexisted to resist foreign aggression, but some of the actions of the Kuomintang in the later period have made Chinese people's hearts cold.
There were three famous battles in the battles between the Communists and the Kuomintang: the Liaoshen Campaign, the Huaihai Campaign, and the Pingjin Campaign. In these three battles, an American journalist once took many photos of the life of the Kuomintang army during the Battle of Huaihai, for example, soldiers watching officers eat meat, and some female soldiers crouching on the ground smoking cigarettes.
In this Huaihai campaign, the Communists had estimated that they would begin to eliminate the Chiang Kai-shek bandits every year, starting in 1948, and expected to completely defeat the Kuomintang within five years. The Battle of Huaihai ended on January 10, 1949, Chinese hundreds of thousands of casualties of the People's Liberation Army and about 550,000 casualties and prisoners of the Kuomintang army. The Battle of Huaihai was the second of the three major campaigns, and it was also the one in which the Chinese People's Liberation Army suffered the most sacrifices, annihilated the largest number of enemies, had the greatest political impact, and had the most complicated war style.
The Battle of Huaihai
In 1948, the domestic situation was becoming more and more unfavorable to the Kuomintang, and in early August, the Kuomintang held a meeting in Nanjing and proposed a strategy of expanding in the northwest and suppressing it in east China in order to stabilize the northeast and consolidate north China. In September, our Party held a meeting in Xibaipo to prepare to overthrow the reactionaries of the Nationalist Army within five years.
The Battle of Jinan was then launched in September, in which the Communists successfully captured Jinan and failed the Nationalist key defensive plan. In this battle, the Communists killed and injured more than 20,000 Kuomintang troops and captured countless ammunition. The Associated Press commented on the campaign as follows: "From now on, wherever the Communists want to go, they will attack Hecheng, they will attack Hecheng, and there will be no more obstacles."
After the capture of Jinan, the Kuomintang only had a few base areas left in Shandong, and the People's Liberation Army had no worries about fighting in the south, and the CPC Central Committee carefully considered and decided to launch the Huaihai Campaign. In this battle, our Party has gained the right to take the initiative in the decisive battle. On October 11, 1948, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to conceive the Battle of Huaihai as a three-stage process, annihilating Huang Baitao's army; occupying Zaozhuang, Xin'an Town, Linyi and other areas; and containing Sun Yuanliang to ensure the smooth progress of the battle.
After the fall of Jinan, the Kuomintang began to strengthen its defense of the Central Plains and East China, adopting a conservative strategic policy. At the end of October, when the People's Liberation Army attacked Zhengzhou, the Kuomintang officers proposed two operational plans: First, concentrate their forces on both sides of the Jinpu Railway, which can advance or retreat; when the People's Liberation Army goes south, it will concentrate all its forces to fight a decisive battle against it. The second was to abandon Xuzhou and the whole army retreated to defend the Huai River. In the early stage of the war, the Kuomintang adopted the first plan, but did not determine the operational deployment, and Chiang Kai-shek himself preferred the second combat plan to gain time for the second-line strategic planning.
It was not until November 5 that the Kuomintang decided on the strategic layout of the first plan. Chiang Kai-shek wanted Bai Chongxi to take the post of commander-in-chief, but Bai Chongxi believed that the Kuomintang was already in a passive state and resolutely resigned, and Chiang Kai-shek wanted Du Yuming to command the Huaihai Campaign, but Du Yuming had earlier been transferred to the northeast to suppress bandits. Chiang Kai-shek had no credibility for a while, so he sent Liu Zhi to command the Battle of Huaihai.
The Battle of Huaihai was divided into three phases: the first phase officially began on November 6, 1948, until November 22, when the East China Field Army annihilated 100,000 people of the Seventh Corps and the commander of the Seventh Army was killed. In the second phase, from November 22 to December 17, the PLA was still in a position to gain an advantage in the war. On December 17, five leaders of the former committee of our party gathered to discuss, which was the only meeting in the Battle of Huaihai. The third phase was on January 6, 1949, when the People's Liberation Army launched another offensive against the Kuomintang forces, and on January 10, the war officially ended. The People's Liberation Army captured Du Yuming in Xiao County, Anhui Province, which was one of the important signs of the end of the Huaihai Campaign. The Plaster occupied most of the area north of the Yangtze River.
The old army of the Kuomintang
The army equipped by the Kuomintang in the early stage was very advanced, but the high-level leaders of the Kuomintang did not command well, so that the invincible army became fragmented. Some Kuomintang prisoners who joined the People's Liberation Army once reflected the situation of grass-roots Kuomintang soldiers. According to some sources, after a Kuomintang deserter was captured, he was ordered to be beheaded 37 times and dug out his internal organs and forced his father to eat it. It's inhumane.
Some soldiers in the army exposed the company commander, and another soldier was hanged up and beaten by the company commander for desertion, and after beating this deserted soldier to death, he was violently killed in the wilderness, and he also cut off the ears of the deceased and hung them on the wall, intimidating the soldiers throughout the company, and if anyone escaped, this was the end. There was a sick number in the camp who could not walk, and the battalion commander lied to them that whoever could not walk, give him a word, and he would let the man go home.
When four soldiers turned their heads and prepared to go back, they were stopped by the battalion commander, who beat all four men into the ditch with sticks, then turned around and left. Some company commanders in the Kuomintang killed more than 20 recruits who were deserted, and the methods of killing people were very cruel, most of them were killed with a knife, and some were killed by despicable means such as the ancient "five horses and divided corpses". After a new recruit escaped, the company commander arrested the family, set fire to the house, and put the family on fire and burned the family to death. How is this kind of behavior different from banditry?
During this period, an American reporter recorded some real appearances in the Battle of Huaihai, and he used his camera to take pictures of the Kuomintang troops: there were three soldiers standing on the tracks talking and laughing, as if temporarily forgetting the damage caused by the war. The three officers sat at the table eating a very sumptuous meal, and the two soldiers in the back watched the officer eat meat, and their eyes were full of longing and helplessness. There is also a picture of a female soldier smoking a cigarette in her mouth with short, neat hair.
In these photographs, although there is no blood and war, these photographs are full of despair, confusion, numbness, reasonableness and helplessness. On the other hand, the PLA army, the troops to a small town, because the local people are very poor, not very clear about the PLA. At first, the PLA was more repulsive, because the families of some villagers had been captured by the Kuomintang, and they were afraid that the PLA would also do bad things, so they were very defensive and did not let the PLA live in their houses. Finally, the People's Liberation Army helped the villagers to work, and in getting along, the villagers found that the People's Liberation Army was very kind, and it was an army that truly served the people, fought for the people, and protected the lives and property of the people.
The Kuomintang was scattered
In the Battle of Huaihai, the military combat ability of general Huang Baitao of the Kuomintang army was still very capable of fighting, but this did not prevent some people from being red-eyed and digging a pit for Huang Baitao. In the first phase of the Huaihai Campaign, Huang Baitao marched and fought, and could have successfully reached Xuzhou and Du Yuminghuihe, but on the way to the march, he received an order: wait for a few days in place, waiting for the 44 troops retreating from Haizhou.
Huang Baitao was very confused at that time, but because it was the instructions issued by his superiors, he did not dare to disobey, and later Huang Baitao learned that it was because Liu Zhi went to transport his own private money, Huang Baitao was very angry at that time, and even coveted some stolen money when he was alive and dead, taking the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers as a child's play. At that time, the supreme commander Chang Kaishen actually went to deal with his own personal affairs during the decisive battle, and the other officers expressed great shock.
The advice and ideas of officers with real command skills have been rejected and even disenfranchised. The high-ranking generals were not responsible for the safety of the soldiers' lives, and only paid attention to their own personal interests and private affairs.
brief summary:
In the huge party organizations, all kinds of small groups existed, and many of the top leaders of the troops could not even command them. The Kuomintang in 1948 did not seem to realize that it had lost the initiative and the conditions for victory on the battlefield, and seemed to be very powerful, but in fact it was just fish and meat on the board, ready to be slaughtered. The Communist Party can fight if it wants, and the whole Party has unified its thinking, clearly understood the current situation, and made sufficient preparations for the entire war. The two parties formed a sharp contrast, the defeat of the Kuomintang was inevitable, and the victory of the Communist Party was also inevitable. The leadership of our party is an inevitable choice of history and the people, and our party is rooted in the people and truly seeks happiness for the Chinese and the people, so the Chinese people also support our party even more.