Among the three major battles of the Liberation War, the Huaihai Campaign is recognized as the most heavily sacrificed by the PLA, the largest number of annihilated enemies, and the most complex battle.
The victory in the Battle of Huaihai marked the strategic and military victory of our Party, and this battle enabled the People's Liberation Army to surpass the remnants of the reactionary Nationalist government in both numbers and equipment.
However, there are still some details about this battle that are little known, such as the surrender of the Nationalist general who confessed: Before the Battle of Huaihai, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the bombing of the river to block the communist army, and Qiu Qingquan did not dare to carry it out.
Liberation War, Huaihai Campaign
On June 26, 1946, the disasters and scars brought to the people by the Japanese invaders had not yet faded, and a new storm struck again.
No sooner had the armistice expired than the Kuomintang troops launched an offensive against our Party's troops, and a large-scale armed conflict broke out between the two armed forces in the Central Plains, and the War of Liberation broke out.
After a period of operational planning and victory in the campaign, our Party gradually changed from the defensive stage and the counter-offensive stage to the decisive battle stage that began in September 1948, and the second battle in the decisive battle stage was precisely the Huaihai Campaign that the world talked about.
In fact, long before the Battle of Huaihai, the decline of the Kuomintang had gradually emerged. Unlike the overall superiority at the beginning of the civil war, since the beginning of the stage of strategic decisive battle, the Kuomintang troops have been at a disadvantage in terms of combat, logistics, and supply, and it can be said that they will no longer regain their former glory.
In the Battle of Eastern Henan in July 1948, our party annihilated more than 90,000 Kuomintang troops, and after the confluence of the two major armies in the east and west, it even captured the city of Jinan and completely annihilated more than 100,000 Kuomintang troops. The Associated Press commented on this: "From now on, the Communist Party will go wherever it wants, and it will attack Hecheng, and there will be no more obstacles." ”
The battle was lost, and the river was bombed
At that time, the Nationalist troops on the east China battlefield were basically at a disadvantage, either annihilated or crippled, and even Qiu Qingquan, a general under Chiang Kai-shek, gradually lost his morale in repeated defeats. He even chose to deal with the soldiers with magic words such as gambling and swearing before the war, and it is conceivable that the Kuomintang troops were inferior on the battlefield at that time.
But did Chiang Kai-shek really have no idea about this? After seeing that his troops had been repeatedly defeated and demoralized, Chiang Kai-shek thought of a sinister method, and this method was even rejected and feared by the Kuomintang insiders -- and this method was to blow up the river to block the enemy. And the river that blew up was called the Yellow River.
After receiving Chiang Kai-shek's order, Qiu Qingquan was shocked by thunder, and he never imagined that Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, who had sworn allegiance to him, could actually come up with such a cruel method.
Although he participated in the civil war, this was ultimately a dispute between the two parties and a struggle of interests, but if the Yellow River broke the embankment, it would not only be the soldiers who would suffer, but also the people of the world! Although Qiu Qingquan did not want to carry out this move, Chiang Kai-shek said very firmly in the secret telegram, Qiu Qingquan could only reluctantly consult with others, and he chose his chief of staff Li Hanping and the commander of the Seventy Army, Gao Jiren.
Not only Qiu Qingquan, but also Li Hanping and Gao Jiren were also shocked by this matter and thought that this was a stupid move. It turned out that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Huayuankou embankment was blown open, hindering the Japanese army's advance. However, the Japanese army could not march from eastern Henan, so it chose to take a detour and capture Wuhan as well.
Therefore, the bombing of the river will not only fail to achieve the expected strategic goals and bring damage, but will make the people of the world suffer irreparable harm. A few people did not want to carry it out, but when they thought that this was Chiang Kai-shek's order, they could only harden their scalps, but no one expected that until the end of the Huaihai Campaign and the victory of our party, they did not wait for the opportunity to bomb the river.
The demotion will confess and did not dare to execute
After the Battle of Huaihai, Huaye's troops sent a large number of captured senior Kuomintang officers to Qingzhou, Shandong Province, for intensive short training, on the one hand, to let them study and reform, and on the other hand, to collect intelligence on the Kuomintang troops.
Among the intelligence revealed by this group of senior officers, the information revealed by a major general of the Nationalist army named Li Hanping attracted the attention of our army. It was precisely because of this surrendered general's confession that our army knew more about Chiang Kai-shek's fierce heart and the fact that the bombing of the river was more insider.
It turned out that at that time, the three people had already planned a plan to bomb the river, and even prepared a plan:
1. The Goji led the army forward lightly, without weight, forcibly opened the embankment and returned; In order not to let the world know that this operation was committed by the Kuomintang, all the hats and emblems of the Seventy Army were removed, and the uniforms of the East China Field Army were changed to pretend to be the troops of our Party; In order to cover up the attempt, the levee was blown up with explosives and then confused by air force bombing, pretending to be injured by mistake ...
Although this step by step and every plan has been planned, the hearts of several people are still heavy, and Qiu Qingquan's psychological pressure is particularly serious, and it should be known that he is not only the person who formulated the plan, but also the leader of the army, and the pressure will be even greater, but Chiang Kai-shek has an order, and several people do not dare to disobey it, so they have to continue the plan with a solemn mood.
Fortunately, Qiu Qingquan found vitality from the dead end. On November 4-5, Qiu Qingquan won a certain degree of discretion by reporting to his superiors during a meeting about his failure to act illiberally.
On the other hand, he forced the Second Corps to withdraw properly south, away from Luxi's Huaye troops, so that there was a great vacuum between the Huaye troops and the Second Corps, and it can be said that this part of the territory was basically abandoned, so it was of little significance to blow up the embankment again. So Qiu Qingquan pretended to be confused and gave up the plan to blow up the river.
The reason why Qiu Qingquan did this was because he did not dare to carry out the task of bombing the river at all, and if the matter was revealed, then his children and grandchildren would be nailed to the pillar of shame and spurned by the Chinese people.
A catastrophe that could affect millions of people faded away in the silence of several. If it were not for Li Hanping's inability to bear the pressure of her heart to tell this matter, I am afraid that Chinese people would not have known that in the liberation war, the people were facing such an invisible disaster.
brief summary:
In 1938, Chiang Kai-shek blew up the yellow river garden mouth levee in the hope of thwarting the Japanese attack. The price of this river bombing was the destruction of the homes of the people on both sides of the strait and the great famine that broke out in Henan in 1942.
No one expected that after such a tragic situation, Chiang Kai-shek still wanted to break the embankment a second time, and fortunately even the officers within the Kuomintang opposed Chiang Kai-shek's idea, so that this painful disaster did not happen twice. Sooner or later, those who are not mainly based on the people will be defeated by the people, and Chiang Kai-shek's perverse and brutal behavior is the most fundamental reason for his defeat in the war.