In the Three-Year Liberation War, the end of 1947 was the most sticky period in the Central Plains War. Liu Deng's army marched south to Dabie Mountain, but failed to gain a firm foothold, facing the encirclement and suppression of 33 brigades of the Kuomintang army on the southern front, and the situation was worrying.
During this period, Su Yu and Chen Geng, two famous generals of the world who had been friends for a long time, joined hands to fight, and they led 5 columns of the East China Field Army and two columns of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army to attack the Pinghan Road, and the Land of Jianghuai, which had been calm for two months, suddenly burst into wolf smoke.
Since the "July Division", the Huaye soldiers have suffered setbacks in three ways, their vitality has been damaged, and they are still in a state of rest until the end of the year. During this period, five columns were concentrated to launch an offensive, the purpose of which was to force Bai Chongxi, who was sitting in Jiujiang, to draw troops from Dabie Mountain, thus alleviating Liu Deng's huge pressure.
Break the Pinghan Railway
Su Yu, then 40, and Chen Geng, 44, were Chen Yi's "outstanding military figures" who could "march side by side with Peng, Liu, and Lin." At the age of 54, Bai Chongxi was what Chiang Kai-shek called "the number of military experts in the world." This battle between the top generals on both sides of the war will surely splash Mars.
Knowing you is worth it
At the same time that Su Yu led his men and horses to the Pinghan Road, the 10th Column of the Huaye Song Dynasty Wheel and the 11th Column of the King of Nakano Bingzhang were also breaking the railway from Kaifeng to Shangqiu. As for Wang Bicheng's 6th column and Wang Jian'an's 8th column, which could attack and defend Well in Huaye's troops, they were responsible for containing their sworn enemies, Qiu Qingquan's 5th Army.
Su Yu commanded the battle
The timing of this attack was just right. The mobile strength of the Kuomintang army was used in the direction of Dabie Mountain, and the garrisons of the strongholds along the Pinghan Road were pitifully small. Since December 13, Huaye Lianke Xuchang, Lanfeng and other places, the Pinghan line has been twisted into a twist.
Unlike Su Yu, who was in a smooth sailing, Chen Geng encountered trouble, and his troops encountered stubborn resistance when attacking Gaocheng. The defenders of the 66th Army were a new unit for restoration and reconstruction (the reorganized 66th Division had been annihilated by Liu Deng at the Battle of Yangshanji), but the will to fight was quite strong, and the Lack of heavy weapons chen geng corps was weak and unskilled, and several attacks could not be successful.
The only remaining mobile units of the Kuomintang army in Henan were Sun Yuanliang of Zhengzhou and Li Tiejun of southern Henan, and the two of them soon received a telegram from Chiang Kai-shek: concentrate 15 divisions to attack from the north and south, relieve the siege of The City, and open the Pinghan Railway.
Chen Geng Corps
It is unrealistic to expect the "flying general" Sun Yuanliang to fight bravely, his style has always been to take two steps further, and this time is no exception, leading the three armies to wander and watch. In contrast, Li Tiejun, the "fox of Guangdong", was eager to fight, and after receiving the order, he traveled day and night, and the threat was menacing.
Li Tiejun's army consisted of the 10th Army and the 20th Army, and the garrisons were in Xinyang and Qishan, respectively, far away. If you wait for the two armies to meet and then leave, you will inevitably miss the time. Li Tiejun could not afford to delay several times a day, so he led the 10th Army to go first.
If two armies were to join forces, it would be indeed difficult for such a large lump of enemy to attack, but at present, Li Tiejun only came to one army, which was really a good deal to send to the door. Mao Zedong sent a telegram to Su Yu, authorizing him to unify the command of the headquarters and all the troops of Chen Geng, quickly annihilate Li Tiejun, and then wait for the opportunity to go south and threaten Wuhan.
Su Yu and Chen Geng met, and Chen Geng said, "Knowing you is worth it."
Half a world of Fame was destroyed
Like Chen Geng, Li Tiejun was also a first-term student of Huangpu, but his previous record was really unable to take a shot, and it was not a grade compared with his brother. Since he had sought a position as a corps commander from Hu Zongnan, he was eager to gain some battle achievements, and the reason why he dared to venture forward alone this time was because The intelligence agency of Chiang Kai-shek's army was too incompetent to know that Su Yu's main force was nearby. Li Tiejun had always believed that those who picked up the rails on Pinghan Road and besieged Gaocheng were Chen Geng's men.
It was not until December 24 that Commander Li, who was full of ambition, discovered that the main force of HuaYe, which had a strong army, was in front of him, and that he was facing a joint attack by Chen Geng and Su Yu. Alarmed, he hurriedly ordered a retreat to the south, and the corps headquarters, the 10th Army Headquarters and the 3rd Division withdrew to Zhuwangzhai and the 20th Division to The Kongo Temple.
Huaye Position
Su Yu and Chen Geng divided their work, with Chen Geng's 8 brigades encircling the regimental headquarters, the army headquarters, and the 3rd Division, and Huaye's three columns encircling and annihilating the 20th Division, under the unified command of Huaye's chief of staff, Chen Shiyu. Li Tiejun's troops had previously let Chen Geng lead the group around Funiu Mountain, and they had long been exhausted. At this time, in the Jedi, which was not familiar with life and did not have a strong fortification to rely on, surrounded by absolute superiority troops, how could it resist?
The battle ended in just one day, and the defenders of Zhuwangzhai and Kongo Temple were almost completely annihilated. Li Tiejun fell into the wilderness and lamented in succession that "half a world's heroic name was destroyed in one fell swoop."
After learning the bad news that the 10th Army had been wiped out, the 20th Army, which also belonged to Li Tie's army, immediately retreated and quickly occupied Queshan. The military commander Yang Gancai urgently ordered the construction of a fortification, and while preparing for battle, he urgently called Bai Chongxi to request reinforcements.
Chen Shiqu and Chen Geng (left)
Su Yu and Chen Geng joined forces for the first time and won a great victory. Since the defeat of the Nanma and Linqu campaigns, HuaYe had not fought a bitter battle for some time, and this time it was too much fun, and the morale of the whole army was bursting. Under the great victory, the natural desire for battle was strong, and he was determined to immediately launch an attack on The Mountain and eat the 20th Army in one bite.
At the battle meeting, the crowd was full of emotion, and it became a consensus to fight another big victory, and the 5 columns could not defeat a county town? However, Ye Fei, commander of the 1st Column of Huaye, and Tao Yong, commander of the 4th Column, sang the opposite tune, they did not approve of hitting The Mountain, because they had fought with the 20th Army 5 months ago and knew the strength of this Sichuan Army!
Chen Geng fought for the current commander-in-chief of the enemy
The 20th Army was a strong brigade in Sichuan, and the first commander, Yang Sen, was a famous general of the Sichuan Army. The army is well-trained, active and tenacious in combat, and has outstanding performance in both the civil war and the War of Resistance, especially good at defense, and is a rare strong enemy in the miscellaneous army.
Fei
Yang Gancai, the 47-year-old military commander at the time, was the nephew of Yang Sen, graduated from Luzhou Daowutang, and during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he underwent the tempering of many battles in Songhu, Xuzhou, Wuhan, and Changsha, and led the 20th Army to shandong, Central Plains, central China, and other battlefields during the civil war, and his performance was quite active, especially in the Battle of Fujian County, which withstood the siege of Huaye Yefei and Tao Yong's two elite columns for a week, and Ye Tao's corps was chased and killed by a large number of reinforcements, and they were severely damaged, and they were simply unbearable.
The Battle of Fujian County stimulated Ye Fei and Tao Yong greatly, and they believed that Yang Gancai should not be taken lightly, otherwise he would repeat the mistakes of The defeat of Fujian County. But their objections were soon drowned out. From the perspective of the comparison of troop strength, the 20th Army defending the city has about 20,000 people, while the 3 columns that besieged the city are nearly 100,000 people, with a strength ratio of 5:1, and the advantage is obvious; in terms of firepower, the Sichuan Army's troops have always been generally equipped, and there are basically no heavy artillery.
Although the heavy firepower of Chen Geng's corps was insufficient, the number of heavy artillery of huaye's special forces column was considerable, not to mention that when li tiejun was annihilated, it captured a lot of money, and the superiority in firepower was also obvious. Such a big advantage can still not fight? Fighting a victorious battle for the New Year is a common wish of everyone.
Huaye troops in training
The last time Li Tiejun was fought, Chen Shiyu served as the commander-in-chief of the former enemy, and this time Chen Geng volunteered to take over the responsibility of the commander-in-chief of the siege. Chen Geng's deployment was: his 4 columns attacked the southwestern highlands of the city; Huaye 4 columns attacked the southeast highlands of the city, and the 3 columns attacked the north gate with all their might; Yang Yong's 1 column under Liu Deng 's command (which had turned out of Dabie Mountain) blocked the south to aid the enemy; and Huaye 1 column served as a general reserve.
However, somehow, Chen Geng made an oversight in surveying the terrain, marking only two highlands outside the city on the map, but missing the highest Panlong Mountain. As a result, Panlong Mountain was not taken into account in Chen Geng's deployment, so much so that all the troops regarded the mountain as a position controlled by friendly forces. This oversight proved rather fatal in hindsight.
Synergy is a new problem
On 28 December, sieges began. As Ye Fei and Tao Yong feared, the battle was not smooth from the beginning.
Bullets rained down on Panlong Mountain, causing heavy casualties to the exposed attacking troops. The narrowing of the attack area led to the inability of the attacking forces to spread, and it took two days for Huaye 4 to occupy the two hills of Highland 670. This high ground was a stone mountain, there was no way to repair fortifications, and it was impossible to defend it, and the 4th column lost 1500 people in two days, and the position was still lost.
Huaye 3, who attacked the north gate, was known for its longitudinal strength, but their main force, the 8th Division, became a reserve this time, and when looking at the terrain before the battle, it did not look accurately and did not break through from the enemy's weak point, so it was killed by dense fire and could not break through for a long time.
After three days of playing, the difficulty was far greater than expected. The siege troops were mainly Hua Ye, Chen Geng was not familiar with it, the communication and communication was not smooth, and the brother troops were humble and polite to each other, so that they could not form a joint force, and the more the battle was fought, the more chaotic it became.
For the sake of command convenience, the open-minded and generous Chen Geng suggested that Chen Shiyu unify his command. Chen Shiyu pulled up the 8th Division, which had the strongest offensive ability, and broke through from the north gate with all his might. However, the two units of different formations fought together, and the commander still inevitably had misgivings, and Chen Geng could not solve the problem, and Chen Shiyu could not do anything.
Officers and men of Huaye studied tactics
Hearing that Mount Qishan was under siege by heavy troops, Bai Chongxi immediately sent three reorganized divisions north to reinforce, of which the fastest and most threatening was Hu Lian's reorganized 11th Division, and whether Yang Yong's 1 column could be stopped or not, no one had a bottom in mind. It seems that the mountain city is indeed unbreakable, and Hu Lian is like a thorn in the back, and the situation is getting worse and worse.
In line with the principle of "if you can't win a fight, you can leave", Chen Geng and Su Yu ordered the attack to stop and quickly evacuate Qishan. A huge Pinghan Road breaking battle ended.
The destruction of Pinghan Road was the first time that Su Yu and Chen Geng had fought together, and the result was a victory and a defeat, which showed that the PLA in this period was invincible in field battles, but the ability to attack the stronghold was still insufficient. As for how the two fraternal units of different formations should coordinate and cooperate, it is also an issue that needs to be solved urgently.
Su Yu (left), Chen Geng (right) and Zeng Xisheng
The failure to defeat the mountain made Mao Zedong's grand plan of coercing Wuhan by the Su-Chen coalition forces unrealized.
In order to give Liu Deng a foothold in the Dabie Mountains, Mao Zedong proposed a plan for Su Yu's main force to leap into Jiangnan. However, liu Bocheng, based on his own lessons from fighting without rear, suggested to the central authorities, "Let Su not to unfold again, it does not matter if we are bitter, and we should not weaken the powerful troops because of this."
From this point of view, if the Battle of Qishan had been won, the Su-Chen coalition army might have threatened Wuhan in the spring and summer of 1948, or even crossed the Yangtze River south. In this way, I am afraid that the entire process of the war of liberation will be completely rewritten.
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