During the period of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the small city of Yan'an, located on the yellow land of the northern Shaanxi Plateau, became the capital of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region of the CPC and the seat of the CPC Central Committee; although its material life was extremely scarce, it was hailed as a "revolutionary holy land" because of its splendid spiritual life and enthusiastic anti-Japanese cause, attracting countless intellectual youth and patriotic democrats to flock to it. It is precisely for this reason that Yan'an has also become a thorn in the eye and a thorn in the flesh of Chiang Kai-shek and his ilk, and while using heavy troops to blockade, they have tried to launch sneak attacks several times, but for various reasons they have not succeeded.
Yan'an was captured for only 1 year before it became an isolated city
On March 13, 1947, Chiang Kai-shek launched a major offensive against the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and ordered Hu Zongnan, director of the Xi'an Appeasement Office, to gather 200,000 heavy troops to carry out a "ploughing and sweeping of the caves and effective occupation" of Yan'an. At that time, the Northwest Field Army of the People's Liberation Army,000 people responsible for defending the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region only had more than 20,000 people, and after 7 days and 7 nights of defense, after the CPC Central Committee and all the organs and schools were evacuated, they took the initiative to abandon the city of Yan'an. On March 19, Hu Zongnan entered the city of Yan'an, began to celebrate, and also built 10 empty prisoner-of-war camps, and then drew 5,000 soldiers from his command and posed as prisoners of war for reporters to take pictures of and publish in the newspaper.
After the occupation of Yan'an, Hu Zong's main force in the south continued to move north, tracking and pursuing the main force of the Northwest Field Army to seek a decisive battle, and as a result, they were defeated successively in Qinghua, Yangmahe, Panlong Town and other places, and the troops of the entire regiment and brigade were wiped out; on August 20, the 36th Division, which had two brigades under its command, suffered heavy losses at Shajiadian, with more than 6,000 troops. Subsequently, the Northwest Field Army gradually turned to the counter-offensive and successively recaptured Wa Yao Fort and other places. By the end of 1947, Yan'an had become an isolated city, connected only to the rear through a long, unsecured supply line. Due to the shortage of troops, from the headquarters of the reorganized 17th Division to Luochuan, where the headquarters of the 29th Army is located, there are not even guard troops on the 100-kilometer road.
The city of Yichuan was destroyed, and the defenders of Yan'an died of fox sorrow
At this time, in addition to its political symbolism and Hu Zongnan's face problems, the city of Yan'an had no military significance to speak of, let alone any hope of lasting persistence, so that Liang Wentie, chief of staff of the reorganized 17th Division, was pessimistic and disappointed about the future of the troops, and found various reasons to transfer from Yan'an, and Song Zhengjian, former director of the Tactical Research Department of the Xi'an Branch of the Central Military Academy, took over the post of chief of staff.
On February 28, 1948, the Northwest Field Army adopted the tactic of "encircling points to fight for reinforcements", first attacking Yichuan City southeast of Yan'an, attracting the main force of the nearby integrated 29th Army to come to the rescue. After hearing the news, Chief of Staff Song Jianjian hurriedly sent a telegram to Liu Kan, commander of the 29th Army, suggesting that Yan'an be abandoned and that the main force of the army should be cooperated to reinforce Yichuan. In effect, this move was to free the 27th Division from the predicament of holding Yan'an alone. Unfortunately, after the telegram was sent, it was always like a mud cow into the sea, and no call back was received. It was not until March 4 that a telegram was received from the Xi'an Sui Bureau, claiming that Liu Jie's troops had been completely annihilated on the way to reinforce Yichuan.
The withdrawal of the reorganized 17th Division from Yan'an was met with no strong resistance
At that time, Hu Zongnan had only two main forces in the northern Shaanxi battlefield, Dong Zhao's troops of the 1st Army had been transferred to the western Henan region, and after the collapse of Liu Jie's troops of the only 29th Army, there was no mobile force to be adjusted in the short term, and it was necessary to concentrate the troops of isolated strongholds such as Yan'an. However, due to the imminent convocation of the "Constitutional Congress" and Chiang Kai-shek's election for president, the withdrawal order of the reorganized 17th Division was not issued until April 19, three days after the conclusion of the "National Congress". For the safety of the retreat route, He Wending tried his best to keep secrets, and only conveyed the order to the brigade commander level; it was not conveyed to the regimental officers until the 21st, before everything was ready and the troops were mobilized.
Although this ensured the suddenness of the retreat, it inevitably caused chaos, and a large number of officers' dependents and the huge "Northern Shaanxi Administration" and other organs were mixed in the marching ranks, scrambling to flee south, and some even could not take care of their children. At this time, the Northwest Field Army was busy launching the Battle of Xifu, and multiple columns were besieging Baoji, the rear supply base of Hu Zongnan's group, leaving only 3 columns in northern Shaanxi to besiege Luochuan City, so although the retreat of the reorganized 17th Division was intercepted several times along the way, it still retreated to Pucheng without any danger.
Chaos occurred while crossing the river and suffered heavy losses
Seeing that the troops were about to cross the Luo River, it was completely safe to cross the river. However, when they arrived at the Luo River, they found that the divisional engineer battalion sent to build the bridge earlier had not built a pontoon bridge, and even the battalion commander was missing. He Wending then ordered the two regiments of the 12th Brigade to cross the river first to occupy the position with limited ferries, and the rest of the troops scattered to find shoals that could cross the river in vain. Just then, the 3rd Column of the Northwest Field Army rushed up from the northwest and exchanged fire with the rearguard units of the 17th Division.
The sound of gunfire caused panic among everyone, and everyone rushed to the river. The 3rd Column took the opportunity to occupy the commanding heights and used heavy machine gun fire to block the original river crossing point. The 17th Division's artillery battalion had 21 mountain artillery pieces, 2 howitzers, and all of its cars, tanks, and most of its heavy luggage discarded, and the troops lost more than 3,500 men. On May 10, Chiang Kai-shek personally went to Xi'an City to inspect the military preparations and dismissed He Wending from his post on the spot to investigate and investigate.
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