Throughout the Liberation War, there were many captured Kuomintang generals, and Du Yuming, who was then the deputy commander-in-chief of Xuzhou's "Suppression General", was undoubtedly the highest-ranking one. However, many people do not know that he was successfully captured by our army, in fact, it is related to a small person, and today I will tell the story of Du Yuming before and after he was captured.
One
In January 1949, the overall situation of the Huaihai Campaign was decided, the Nationalist army was defeated like a mountain, and the entire division surrendered its weapons. Li Mi's 13th Corps was also wiped out, and the remnants merged with Qiu Qingquan's 2nd Corps, and 200,000 troops gathered at Chen Guanzhuang, which was less than 10 kilometers away, in an attempt to survive in a group.
On the morning of January 9, Du Yuming and Qiu Qingquan, with the ace Fifth Army as the vanguard, dropped poison gas bombs as cover and attacked in the direction of Guo Ying and Zuo Zhao, hoping to open a breakthrough passage. However, the breakthrough operation was strongly blocked by the eighth and ninth columns of Huaye, and all of them were beaten back. Qiu Qingquan was furious, but he could only helplessly cancel the breakout operation.
At dusk that day, Du Yuming came to the headquarters of the Fifth Army and brought Chiang Kai-shek's orders, asking Li Mi and Qiu Qingquan to gather the remnants and break through again the next morning. The People's Liberation Army did not give them a chance to breathe, and Huaye's third, fourth, and tenth columns were already pointing their swords at Chen Guanzhuang, and there was a great threat of eating the remnants of Li and Qiu in one bite.
Faced with such a situation, Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi felt that they were facing great difficulties, and decided to disregard Chiang Kai-shek's military orders, carry out a breakthrough in advance, and threatened to persuade Du Yuming to follow him. At 22:00 that night, Qiu Qingquan telegraphed Deng Junlin, commander of the 70th Army, Yu Jinyuan, commander of the 72nd Army, and Qiu Weida, commander of the 74th Army, saying that he had given up his command and immediately left the headquarters and let them break through on their own.
At that time, Chen Guanzhuang was surrounded on three sides, and there was only a gap in the southwest direction, and Du Yuming and Qiu Qingquan fled for their lives in the dark of night under the cover of the 200th Division. In the vast night, the people and horses were crowded, and the two people quickly disappeared when they left Chen Zhuang. In the early hours of the morning, Qiu Qingquan was killed in a farmland southwest of Zhangmiaotang Village, while Du Yuming, along with ten aide-de-camps and guards, fled north to Xiao County (in present-day Anhui).
Du Yuming shaved off his beard and changed into the uniforms of the soldiers, and all the people in the group held pistols and pretended to be our army escorting prisoners of war in an attempt to take advantage of the chaos to get out of the blockade line. As they approached the vicinity of the hospital station behind the 4th Column 11th Division, their whereabouts were discovered by a manure-picking farmer.
Two
On January 10, 1949, the gunfire on the Huaihai battlefield had already subsided, and Qiu Qingquan's 2nd Corps, Li Mi's 13th Corps, and the remnants of Sun Yuanliang had been completely annihilated by our East China Field Army.
Early this morning, Duan Qingxiang, a villager in Zhanglaozhuang, Xiao County, got up early to collect dung, and encountered a group of scattered soldiers coming from the southwest. At first, he didn't pay attention, thinking it was the People's Liberation Army that came down from the battlefield, and smiled and greeted them. At this time, a person in the crowd who looked like an officer (Du Yuming's adjutant) stepped forward and asked, "Old man, can you find a dress for me?" I change. ”
This question made Duan Qingxiang "giggle" in his heart, feeling that several of them were Kuomintang deserters! Although he was a little afraid, he quickly calmed down, after all, these people all had guns, and they couldn't run away by themselves, so he had the courage to say to the officer: "Where do I go to get clothes?" ”
The officer was unwilling and begged, "Uncle, you can do a good job, help me go to the village to find a dress to change for me, I still have a big brother." ”
Duan Qingxiang glanced at the crowd and asked, "Which is your eldest brother?" ”
The officer pointed to Du Yuming and said, "That tall guy is." With that, he took out a gold ring and stuffed it into Duan Qingxiang's hand, asking him to get two clothes back. Duan Qingxiang saw that he had such a generous shot, and confirmed his inner thoughts.
Three
Although the masses of the people of that era did not have much money in their pockets, their political consciousness was absolutely leveraged. Duan Qingxiang saw that this person had made a generous move, and expected that they must be high officials, so he pretended to go back to Zhuangli to get clothes and hurried to find a report to the People's Liberation Army.
As soon as he reached zhuangdongtou, Duan Qingxiang met a soldier from the divisional bandage office, and he immediately reported: "There are 11 Kuomintang soldiers outside the village, you hurry up and arrest them, they told me not to say, give me a gold ring, I will now hand over to the public." ”
The soldier did not dare to be sloppy, and immediately reported to Zhao Yunhong, director of the health department, who was busy bandaging the wounds of the wounded, even thinking that there was a "big fish" outside the village, he casually said: "You catch it back." The little soldier didn't say much and immediately took his comrades out to arrest people.
The two warriors, one after the other, ambushed on the side of the road in the direction pointed out by Duan Qingxiang. When Du Yuming and his party came over, the small warriors in front of them rushed out with an arrow step, pointed their guns at everyone, and ordered them to "stand still, all lay down their weapons, and retreat!" Another small soldier also jumped out and stood behind to take cover.
To their surprise, none of them resisted, obediently threw their guns on the ground, and took a few steps back. The two soldiers piled their guns together with their feet and shouted in a pretentious voice, "All the people in the communications squad are coming" (actually, he was the only two of them). Duan Qingxiang, who was hiding to observe, listened to the shouts of the little soldiers, and immediately ran back to the village, calling for villagers, lightly wounded and medical personnel, and escorted them back to the four-column prisoner of war shelter.
The prisoner of war shelter was not just about holding prisoners of war, it also had an important task of identifying senior Kuomintang generals whose identities were concealed, and the director Chen Maohui had a wealth of experience in this area (then director of the political department of the 11th Division of the Fourth Column). When he heard that a Kuomintang officer had been captured, followed by guards and drivers, whose identity was unknown, most likely a general, he immediately came to the spirit to see what this man was up to.
After waiting anxiously for 2 hours in the office, the eleven captives were finally sent, and Director Chen noticed the person in the middle at a glance. I saw him wearing a soldier's cotton suit, wearing a torn coat, shrugging his head, shrinking his neck, and at first glance he was a guy, but his eyebrows revealed a stable and capable temperament. After some interrogation, his concealed identity was identified as the famous Du Yuming.
Four
American military experts once lamented that how could the Communist Party have won the Kuomintang's 800,000 troops with 600,000 troops. The mystery can be found in the incident of "capturing Du Yuming alive", that is, the desire of the people!
In the Huaihai Campaign, the Nationalist army had an advantage over our army in terms of both strength and weapons and equipment. However, our army has an advantage that cannot be compared, that is, 400,000 militia and 5.43 million former migrant workers (Sulu, Yuwan and Anhui Provinces).
According to statistics, in the third stage of the most fierce battle in the Huaihai Campaign, the ratio of troops on the battlefield to the migrant workers in front of the army was as high as 1:9. In other words, every PLA that fights on the front line has 9 former migrant workers behind it. In such a war, it is difficult to lose.
In the course of the entire campaign, the former migrant workers dispatched a total of 206,000 stretchers, 767,000 livestock, 880,000 large and small vehicles, and raised 960 million catties of grain. Like Duan Qingxiang, tens of millions of people are single-minded in their pursuit of the party, daring to stand up and make their own contributions at critical moments.
On the other hand, the nationalist army has no support from the people at all, and can only rely on airdrops to survive. However, the airdrop was far from being able to meet the needs of the troops, the limited materials were controlled by the officers, and the soldiers of the Nationalist army even killed each other for food, so that the "pork stew noodles" of our army persuaded the 2 divisions of the nationalist army to surrender.
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