First, the biggest loser in the Xiangjiang Campaign: the Xiang Army
The Xiangjiang River originates in Xing'an County, Guangxi, and then flows northeast from the boundary of Xing'an County to Quanzhou, Guangxi, then out of Guangxi into Dong'an, Hunan, then into Yongzhou, Hengyang, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan, Changsha, and finally into Dongting Lake in Yueyang. From the direction of view, the Xiang River is a river that runs from southwest to northeast.
The Red Army's Long March, to avoid a powerful enemy, could only march on the edge of the provinces, so the Xiang River, which was to be broken, occurred at the junction of Guangxi and Hunan.
After the Central Red Army left Ruijin, the goal was to go to Xiangxi to join the Second and Sixth Armies of He Long and Xiao Ke, and they went all the way to the west and broke through three blockade lines in a row, because there was tacit understanding with the Guangdong Army along the way, and the Xiang army that intercepted them were all vulnerable local natives, so there was no major battle during the period, and the operation was smooth.
In early November 1934, after breaking through three blockade lines, the Central Red Army entered the Jiuling Mountains in Shonan, which is the junction of Guangxi and Hunan and the weakest link between the Gui and Xiang armies. The Central Red Army wanted to go to western Hunan Province, and crossing the Xiang River from here was the best plan.
That is, after the Red Army broke through the three blockade lines, Chiang Kai-shek saw that the Red Army was going to xiangxi, so he deployed the Xiangjiang Campaign on November 12, in an attempt to completely annihilate the Central Red Army through the Xiangjiang Battle. The main battlefield of the Xiangjiang Campaign was placed in Jeonju, Guangxi.
Chiang Kai-shek's deployment was for General He Jian and Liu Jianxin, commander of the 1st Column of the West Road, to lead 4 divisions of the Xiang Army into Jeonju, Guangxi, and to block it head-on with 1 division of Xia Wei of the Gui Army, with the other two divisions of the Xiang Army, Li Yunjie and Li Yunheng, in the rear, and 8 divisions of Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army blocking the north and south sides of the Central Red Army to prevent the Central Red Army from deviating from the direction.
From Chiang Kai-shek's deployment, it can be seen very clearly that the main force of the Xiangjiang Campaign was the Xiang Army, followed by the Gui Army, and the Central Army became a partial division.
Chiang Kai-shek's intention is self-evident; he wants to take advantage of the opportunity of pursuing and suppressing the Red Army to eliminate the local princes and realize his so-called strategic ambition of "killing two birds with one stone," which not only eliminates the Red Army, but also weakens the local system. The local princes with great talents also saw this clearly. One of the most clever is Xiao Zhuge Bai Chongxi.
Bai Chongxi had a lot of dealings with Chiang Kai-shek and was well aware of Chiang Kai-shek's personality, so he always had the heart and eyes of "fire prevention, theft prevention and anti-Chiang Kai-shek" in his heart.
When the Central Red Army appeared near DaoXian county in Hunan on November 16, Bai Chongxi suddenly ordered the Gui army that was holding Quanzhou and Xing'an in northern Guangxi to withdraw on the 21st and retreat to Longhuguan and Gongcheng, south of Guilin.
On the contrary, the Xiang army was rushing to Quanzhou, Guangxi.
In fact, as the boss of the Xiang Army, He Jian, the chairman of Hunan Province, was not willing to do so.
The Xiang Army under the command of He Jian, chairman of Hunan Province, had a total of 14 divisions and 5 brigades, and its strength was strong, far exceeding that of the Gui Army, which had only 18 regiments, and there was a saying in the military circles at that time that "the Qian Army of the Dian Army had two sheep, and the Xiang Army was a wolf", but the 4 divisions of Liu Jianxu and Li Yunjie and li Yunheng's 2nd Division, which surrounded and suppressed the Red Army, were still under the command of Xue Yue, the daughter of Chiang Kai-shek, so there was a strange incident that the Gui army did not care about its own whole prefecture, while Liu Jianxu's Xiang army rushed to defend it.
The day after the Gui army withdrew, Chiang Kai-shek gave an order to He Jian, who was far away in Changsha, to rush to Jeonju to block the defense. Of course, He Jian did not want to be the wrongdoer, and he did not carry out Chiang Kai-shek's orders, but his subordinate Liu Jianxu actively rushed to jeonju.
From the withdrawal of the Gui army and the blockade of the Xiang army from a long distance, the delicate relationship between Chiang Kai-shek, Bai Chongxi and He Jian can be seen. Chiang Kai-shek could not control Bai Chongxi, but he could control He Jian, the root of which was that Bai Chongxi had a strong control over his subordinates, and he could make Xia Wei withdraw with a single order, while He Jian could not restrain his subordinates, because Liu Jianxu listened to Xue Yue.
Rao was the Xiang army in a hurry, and it was only on the 27th after the 7th that it arrived in Jeonju, and as soon as the Xiang army arrived, it fought hard with the Red First Army, so the Battle of Jeonju became the battle in which both sides invested the most troops in the Xiangjiang Campaign, and it was also the battle that sacrificed the most.
On November 30, the entire Red First Army of more than 10,000 people and the 4 divisions of the Xiang Army 60,000-70,000 people engaged in a fierce battle, the Xiang Army under the cover of more than 10 aircraft, forcibly broke through the red 1st Division's defense line, and then occupied the position of the Red 2nd Division;
On December 1, the day of the fiercest battle between the two armies, Liu Jianxu's Xiang army launched a fierce attack on the second blocking position established by Chen Guang of the Red Second Division and Li Jukui of the Red First Division at the Baisha River. The Central Military Commission issued a death order to the Red First Army, demanding that before 12 noon, no matter how much sacrifice they had, they would never let the enemy break through the baisha river defense line. Such an order means that the Central Military Commission is ready to finish the elite Red First Army.
The attack of the Xiang army was indeed fierce, breaking into the combined headquarters of the Red 1st Division and the Red 2nd Division for nearly 4-5 miles in one fell swoop, but thanks to the desperate hand-to-hand combat with several times the enemy on the Baisha River, it was able to block the Xiang army from developing in depth.
The ferocity of the Xiang Army can be seen from the recollection of Yang Chengwu, political commissar of the 2nd Division and 4th Regiment of the Red First Army:
The enemy fell to the ground like a storm-torn stalk, but they repelled a batch, a batch rushed up, another batch retreated, another batch rushed up, from long-range shooting, to close-range shooting, from shooting to stabbing, and the smoke and dust rolled and the knife shone brightly. A cry of death shook the earth.
Another part of the Xiang Army once rushed to the headquarters of the Red First Army, but fortunately the alert guard platoon commander organized a counterattack in time to crush this part of the invading enemy. However, if this fight continued, the Fate of the Red First Army would inevitably be destroyed, but fortunately, near noon, the Central Military Commission informed the Red First Army to retreat, and the Red First Army was able to break away from contact with the Xiang Army.
In the Battle of xiangjiang, He Jian's Xiang army contributed the most and sacrificed the most, but after this battle, Chiang Kai-shek established a direct relationship with Liu Jianxu, a fierce general under He Jian, and gave Liu Jianxu the position of commander-in-chief of He Jian's Fourth Route Army, thus marginalizing He Jian. For the Xiang clan, Chiang Kai-shek has completed his plan of "killing two birds with one stone."
In the Battle of Xiangjiang, He Jian became the biggest loser.
Second, the Gui system of no loss and no win
The main battlefield of the Red Army crossing the Xiang River was in Guangxi, so it was natural for the Gui army to block the Red Army, so Chiang Kai-shek promised Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi of the Gui clan that they would pay for it and give ammunition for ammunition:
If your ministry can do its best to block the Border between Xianggui and Guizhou. Cooperate with the central army to annihilate between Guanyang and the whole county, then the credit lies in the party-state, and the required salary and ammunition are not stingy.
In order to show his sincerity, Chiang Kai-shek gave the two armies of the Gui clan 1 million yuan for 3 months. Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi were unwilling to let the Red Army enter, nor did they want Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army to enter, so the strategy against the Red Army was to "give way and send passengers." Under such a strategy, Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi formulated the battle against the Central Red Army
"Don't stop the head, don't cut the waist, just hit the tail"
The send-off battle.
When the Red Army appeared near Daoxian and Jianghua in Shonan, Li Zongren sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek:
It is planned to move the main force of the Renbu to the vicinity of Gongcheng to respond to He, Fu, Xing, and Irrigation.
It can be clearly seen from the map that if the red army's movement route is a straight line to the west, it will reach Guilin in the hinterland of Guangxi, so Li Zongren's demands are justified, and Chiang Kai-shek cannot oppose it, but can only reply to the telegram and agree.
What Chiang Kai-shek did not expect was that Li Zongren's telegram played a slippery slope, and he only said that he would deploy the main force of the Gui clan at Gongcheng, but did not say that he would withdraw the troops of Jeonju. After receiving Chiang Kai-shek's telegram, the Gui army on the Xiang River in Jeonju and Xing'an suddenly withdrew, and it was more deliberate to dig up the fortifications overnight, and at this time Liu Jianxu's troops of the Xiang Army were still out of reach, so there was a gap in the section of the Xiang River, which was 130 miles from the head of the Xing'an border to the whole prefecture, and the Xiang River defense line was completely open to the Red Army.
The reason why Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi did this was after careful calculation.
Li and Bai calculated that it would take 5 days for the 100,000 Red Army to cross the Xiang River at the speed of marching on foot, which was the time they left for the Red Army to cross the border, and they planned to wait until the night of the 5th to send another division to intercept the Red Army rearguards, and as a result, on the night of November 27, the 44th Division of the Gui Army launched a send-off attack on the Red Army.
Li and Bai made this move and opened their mouths on the iron barrel array that Chiang Kai-shek had encircled the Red Army. Due to the withdrawal of the Gui army, the Red First Army occupied the line from Jieshou to Jeonju before the Xiang army arrived and immediately erected a pontoon bridge. The next day, November 28, the 11th and 12th regiments of Zhang Zongxun's 4th Division of the Third Red Army crossed the Xiang River, and the 10th Regiment formed a defensive position on the east bank of the Xiang River.
However, Li and Bai did not calculate that the speed of the Red Army was too slow, and by November 28, the Red Army Military Commission and the Central Column were still 40 kilometers away, because the Central Military Commission and the Central Column were "moving" marches, holding too many altar jars and cans, which seriously affected the speed of the march.
Since they had already made contact with the Red Army, Li and Bai could no longer retreat, so on the night of November 27, when two divisions of the Gui Army and one regiment after another went north to prepare for the tail attack on the Red Army, a fierce battle began in Xinxu and the 5th Division of Li Tianyou of the Red Third Army, which was tasked with blocking the attack. Li Tianyou led 1 division to block nearly 3 divisions of the Gui army for three days and nights, making it impossible for the Gui army to advance a step, and Zhang Zongxun, the commander of the 4th Division of the Red Third Army, stayed in the 10th Regiment on the east bank of the Xiang River, and successively sacrificed two regimental commanders, Shen Shuqing and Du Zhongmei, and also successfully blocked a division of the Gui army.
The Red Army was able to stop the Gui Army, in addition to the heroic sacrifice of the soldiers of the whole army, it was more related to the strategy of the Gui Army:
When the Red Army passed, the camera carried out flanking and pursuit, which could not only prompt the Red Army to go fast, but also did not risk the main force of the Red Army to turn back and attack.
Gui Jun did not want to fight hard with the Red Army, but just wanted the Red Army to go fast. Therefore, compared with the main forces of the First and Third Armies, the Red Army's rearguards suffered heavy losses, the main reason was naturally the Gui Army's "tail-shooting" strategy, the purpose of which was to force the Red Army to leave as soon as possible.
In the Battle of Xiangjiang, the Gui army's "giving way to sending guests" achieved its purpose, which not only prevented Chiang Kai-shek's central army from entering Guangxi, but also made it impossible for Chiang Kai-shek to directly cross Li and Bai to give orders to the Gui generals as he did with He Jian, and at the same time preserved his own strength, but also deepened the contradiction between the Gui clan and Chiang Kai-shek's central department, so the Gui army was considered a peace in the Battle of the Xiang River.
Third, only one-third of the purpose of the Jiang family
Before the Battle of xiangjiang, Chiang Kai-shek's idea was very grand, that is, to annihilate the central Red Army in one fell swoop, while weakening the Gui and Xiang armies, and completing his "one arrow and three eagles" strategy.
However, Chiang Kai-shek's approach seems unpretentious.
Chiang Kai-shek appointed He Jian, chairman of Hunan Province, as commander of the "Suppression General" and commanded the Central Army Xue Yue, the Gui Army, and the Xiang Army, and naturally He Jian was the boss. In the era of warlords who have always regarded the army as the root of their lives, Chiang Kai-shek did so, which can be called the use of people without doubt, which is an atmosphere on the surface, but in reality it is stingy.
In fact, not to mention that He Jian could not command the Central Army and the Gui Army at all, even his subordinate Liu Jianxu could not command it. Liu Jianxu listened to Xue Yue, who in turn secretly listened to Chiang Kai-shek's orders. In just half a month before and after the Battle of the Xiangjiang River, Xue Yue had more than 20 copies of Chiang Kai-shek's secret telegrams, and the Battle of the Xiangjiang River became Chiang Kai-shek's remote control command.
Chiang Kai-shek's deployment was to make the Gui army and the Xiang army desperately fight on the front.
Chiang Kai-shek also had a small jiujiu, and he thought that He Jian and gui had a good relationship, so he ordered the Xiang army to enter Guangxi to help guard, so that He Jian, Li, and Bai could not refuse, and the Xiang army's departure from Hunan weakened He Jian's strength in Hunan, so that Chiang Kai-shek's central army could smoothly enter Hunan. In Chiang Kai-shek's deployment for the Battle of the Xiang Army, 4 divisions of Liu Jianxu of the Xiang Army and 6 divisions of Li Yunjie and Li Yunheng's 2nd Division, which followed the Red Army, entered Guangxi, and the Fourth and Fifth Armies of the Central Army Wu Qiwei took this opportunity to enter the hinterland of Yongzhou in Hunan.
Chiang Kai-shek not only coveted Hunan, but also wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to pursue the Red Army into Guangxi, but when the Zhou Hun Yuanbu of the Central Army was preparing to enter Guangxi from Shonan, he was blocked by the Gui clan and was not allowed to enter.
As a result of the Battle of the Xiang River, Chiang Kai-shek captured Liu Jianxu, a fierce general of the Xiang Army, and achieved the goal of elevating He Jian and thus controlling Hunan, but it did not weaken the Gui clan, let alone achieve the goal of controlling the Gui clan, and the attempt to annihilate the Central Red Army was even more bankrupt.
Fourth, the loss is huge, but the phoenix nirvana
The Battle of the Xiangjiang River was a huge loss for the Central Red Army. According to the latest research data in recent years, the Red Army at the beginning of the Long March had about 86,000 people, and lost about 10,000 people after experiencing the three blockade lines, about 70,000 people in the Red Army before the Xiangjiang Campaign, and more than 45,000 people in the Red Army after the Xiangjiang Campaign, so the Xiangjiang Campaign lost about 20,000 people to the Red Army, which was a very big loss for the Red Army, which was already precious in numbers, but not as said in previous years, the Red Army Ruijin set out 100,000 when it set out, and 30,000 after crossing the Xiangjiang River, giving the impression that the Battle of the Xiangjiang River lost 70,000.
The losses in the Battle of the Xiang River could have been avoided, because the Central Red Army had two opportunities to cross the Xiang River safely, but it failed to grasp it.
The first opportunity was for the Gui army to withdraw from November 21 to its return on November 27, during which the first six days of the XiangJiang River to Jeonju were completely open to the Red Army. On November 24, the Red Army also knew the withdrawal of the Gui army and the intelligence that He Jianxiang's army was coming, and the whole army had made ideological preparations to pass through the Xiang River as soon as possible, but the Red Army adopted a large-scale moving-style Yongdao march, flanked by the Red First and Third Armies, and the Central Military Commission and the Central Column in the middle carried a large amount of weight, both large military machinery and small sanitary potty basins, and there were more than 1,000 pickings alone, resulting in extremely slow action, and the time left by the Gui army could not pass through the Xiang River, resulting in the Return of the Gui Army on the 27th. Most of the Red Army had not yet reached the Xiang River, and the two sides had to engage in fierce fighting.
The second opportunity arose from 28 November to 30 November, when the Red 13rd Army had occupied all the crossings 60 miles near the head of the border, which was a good opportunity for the Central Military Commission and the Central Column to cross the river, but the Central Military Commission and the Central Column did not cross the river until December 1, and this was the day when the fighting between the enemy and us was the most intense, and both sides suffered the greatest losses.
However, although the Battle of the Xiangjiang River suffered huge losses, it was a phoenix nirvana for the Red Army.
As far as the commanders and fighters of the Red Army were concerned, crossing the Xiang River was like the rest of their lives, and their morale not only did not decrease, but on the contrary soared, because before they crossed the Xiang River, they regarded crossing the Xiang River as the goal of victory, and crossing the Xiang River was naturally their victory, which was a spiritual encouragement to the Commanders and Fighters of the Red Army.
After the Red Army crossed the Xiang River, it entered the mountainous areas, and it was far away from the pillbox groups set up by the Kuomintang army to encircle and suppress the Red Army, which also made the heavy equipment of the Kuomintang army unable to play a role, which was conducive to giving play to the Red Army's specialty in mountain combat.
Most importantly, the Battle of the Xiangjiang River marginalized bogu and Li De's command, and the call for Mao Zedong to come out and take command grew louder and louder. At the Liping Conference on December 18, Mao Zedong's proposal to abandon xiangxi and turn to Guizhou was formally adopted, a decision that meant that the power of Bogu and Li De was weakened, and the collective leadership of the central government took the lead. A month later, the Zunyi Conference gradually established Mao Zedong's leadership over the Red Army. And if there was no Battle of the Xiangjiang River, Bogu and Li De would still occupy the leadership, which may be a disaster for the Central Red Army.
Therefore, the Battle of xiangjiang, although the losses for the Red Army were huge, was a phoenix nirvana.
5. Comments on events
Chiang Kai-shek's planned Battle of the Xiangjiang River was an old-fashioned campaign, and his aim was not only to destroy the Red Army, but also to bring his Central Army into Xiang and Guizhou. To a certain extent, Chiang Kai-shek's goal of joining Hunan and Guizhou was even higher than that of eliminating the Red Army.
Through the Battle of the Xiang River, Chiang Kai-shek achieved his goal against Hunan and the Xiang Army. Chiang Kai-shek did not have much hope for the entry into Guangxi, because three years ago a large-scale war broke out between him and the Gui clan, but he did not expect that Bai Chongxi would dare to withdraw in the absence of the Xiang army, which made the Red Army break through the Xiang River.
The withdrawal of the front had caused serious consequences, and it was natural that it should be punished by military law, but Chiang Kai-shek had no way to do anything, and this was the reality between Chiang Kai-shek and the local powerful factions.
However, Chiang Kai-shek's actions in the Gui clan were not without gains, and he understood more clearly the attitude of the Gui clan towards the Red Army, and the withdrawal of the Gui clan was later accused by He Jian of being a "common communist".
Therefore, in the process of capturing Guizhou later, Chiang Kai-shek reversed the state of the Central Army in the Xiangjiang Campaign as a partial division, and ordered the Central Army to seize Guizhou quickly before Bai Chongxi, after which Guizhou's goods exports no longer went through Guangxi to Hong Kong, but bypassed Guangxi, making the already barren Guangxi finances more difficult.
Under Chiang Kai-shek's game strategy of "one arrow and three eagles", He Jian had no power to fight back and could only be led away by Chiang Kai-shek, so his loss of power became inevitable, and the reason was still strength. Although He Jian's army in Hunan seemed to be much more than that of the Gui clan, it was far less elite than the Gui clan, and at that time there were rumors in the military circles"
The Qian army of the Dian army has two sheep, and the Xiang army is a wolf
The next sentence is
"The monkeys of Guangxi are the Gui Army, fierce as tigers and evil as wolves",
It shows that the combat effectiveness of the Gui Army is much higher than that of the Xiang Army, and the loyalty of the generals of the Gui Army is also higher than that of the generals of the Xiang Army.
From the different endings of he Jianxiang and Li and Bai Gui, it is even more obvious that internal unity is the basis for preserving himself, Bai Chongxi dared to order the Gui army to withdraw from the Xiang River, but He Jian did not dare, not only did he not dare, even if he gave the order, Liu Jianxu would not listen to him.
The Red Army crossing the Xiang River was not a participant in the tripartite game of Chiang Kai-shek, Li Bai and He Jian, but their chips, but there was a game within the Red Army. Under the leadership of Bogu and Li De, the Red Army had to cross the Xiang River by force
According to Mao Zedong's opinion, the Central Red Army did not need to cross the Xiang River by force, but first fought several mobile battles, annihilated the enemy in the movement war, and then crossed the Xiang River according to the opportunity.
Mao Zedong's art of war was brought into full play in the later Sidu Chishui, but unfortunately he did not get the opportunity to express it when crossing the Xiang River.
Before crossing the Xiang River, Bogu and Li De were the leaders, but after the Battle of Xiangjiang, Chiang Kai-shek's Central Army, Li Baigui's Army, and He Jianxiang's Army finally made the Red Army understand that Bogu and Li De were blindly commanding, so Mao Zedong called out. It can be said that it was the external game of Chiang Kai-shek, Li Bai and He Jian that helped the internal game of the Red Army and led to changes in the leadership of the Red Army. Mao Zedong gradually returned to the leadership of the Red Army, which was a victory in the internal game of the Red Army.
Therefore, from this point of view, the Red Army's forced crossing of the Xiang River is not only a victory in battle, but also a victory in the internal game and strategy of the Red Army.
In the Battle of the Xiang River, the Red Army suffered heavy losses, but it won the greatest victory.