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Shangdang, located in the southeast of Shanxi Province, is another name for the ancient city of Changzhi, which is bordered by Hebei and Henan provinces through the Taihang Mountains to the east, Linfen to the west through the Taiyue Mountains, Wuyun Mountain to the north and Jinzhong to the north, and Xinxiang City in Henan province through Wang Mangling to the south.
The Taihang Mountains stretch from Jiyuan in Henan in the south to the capital Beijing in the north, and the Shangdang Basin is an important link between Luyu in Jinji and Hebei and the capital Beijing.
That is to say, after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, if Chiang Kai-shek wanted to transport his elite troops from the southwest to North China and Northeast China by land, the Shangdang area was an important strategic passage, and our army's occupation of Shangdang choked the throat of the Kuomintang army's march into North China and Northeast China.
Another important aspect is that the Shangdang area is considered to be "under the heavens", although Chiang Kai-shek has never been to shangdang, but he knows an old saying:
"Whoever wins the Central Plains wins the world, and if he wants to win the Central Plains, he must first occupy the Upper Party."
This is the reason why Chiang Kai-shek, after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, set his sights on the party, because he wanted to win the world.
It should be said that Japan's sudden surrender was unexpected by Chiang Kai-shek, so his elite troops were still far in the southwest, and the Shangdang area had been occupied by the Eighth Route Army led by Liu Bocheng, and Chiang Kai-shek's concubine troops could not occupy the Shangdang area in time.
At this time, Chiang Kai-shek thought of his good brother Yan Xishan, and he ordered Yan Xishan to send a large army to sneak up on the Party, on the one hand, to gain a good victory for himself to seize the world, and on the other hand, to gain the initiative in the negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
And Yan Xishan had long coveted the Shangdang and was bound to seize it quickly, because as a native of Shanxi, Yan Xishan's importance to the position of the Shangdang was too clear.
As early as the beginning of 1945, when the defeat of the Japanese army was already there, Yan Xishan was moved by the party, and on February 16, 1945, Yan Xishan held the fourth backbone meeting of the comrades' association to study the question of how to seize the fruits of victory after the surrender of the Japanese army. Because Shi Zebo was a candidate for high-ranking cadres, of course, he also participated in this meeting.
After the meeting, Yan Xishan summoned him to ask for his opinion on the occupying party, and Shi Zebo said:
"You can go, but you can't stand, because you can't concentrate your troops, you can't occupy such a big place, and if you disperse your troops, you will be eaten one by one."
It should be said that Shi Zebo's view is still very correct, but Yan Xishan does not think so, he believes that on the whole, the Kuomintang army is much stronger than the Communist army, and in terms of the comparison of shanxi's troop strength, the troops he has in his hands are not only superior in numbers, but also in weapons and equipment.
On August 15, 1945, as soon as Japan announced its surrender, Chiang Kai-shek quickly issued an order to Yan Xishan: immediately sneak attack on the Shangdang.
On August 19, the fourth day of Japan's unconditional surrender, Yan Xishan, commander of the Second Theater of operations of the Kuomintang Army, ordered Shi Zebo, commander of the 19th Army, to command 4 infantry divisions, 1 advancing column (equivalent to a division), and some puppet troops totaling 17,000 people, and a large-scale invasion of the Jin-Hebei Luyu base area.
In fact, Shi Zebo did not agree to invade the Shangdang area, but under Yan Xishan's strict orders, he had to carry out the order.
It should be said that Shi Zebo had misgivings about invading and occupying the Shangdang, but the action went unexpectedly smoothly, and Shi Zebo led all the soldiers and horses to advance from Linfen, Fushan, and Yicheng to the Shangdang under the cover of the Japanese puppet army along the way.
At first, Shi Zebo was very careful, but there was no trouble along the way, which gave him the illusion that the strength of the Eighth Route Army was not so great. Is this really the case?
It turned out that before Shi Zebo attacked the Shangdang, our underground party in Taiyuan learned of the intelligence and passed it on to the intelligence department of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region of the Eighth Route Army, which immediately reported this situation to Liu Bocheng in Yan'an, because Liu Bocheng had returned to Yan'an in 1943 to participate in the rectification movement and the party's "Seventh National Congress."
Chairman Mao asked Liu Bocheng if he could recover the Shangdang area if Yan Xishan was allowed to occupy the Shangdang area, and Liu Bocheng was very aware of the combat effectiveness of the Yan army, and he said that it could be recovered.
Why did Chairman Mao order not to obstruct it? Li Da, deputy commander of the Taihang Military Region of the Eighth Route Army, who controlled the Shangdang area at the time, wrote in his 1985 memoirs:
"In order to expose Yan Xishan's criminal act of encroaching on the fruits of the victory of our army and people in the war of resistance in front of the people of the whole country, when the ministry passed and attacked our liberated areas, our army did not block it, but let it pass. In this way, the people will see clearly that it is Chiang Kai-shek's Yan army that is launching an offensive to seize the fruits of the people's victory. If not, how could Yan Bu have entered my Tai xing's heart so smoothly? ”
On September 11, 1945, Zhou Enlai, who was in Chongqing, informed the pro-democracy zhang Lan of Yan Xishan's attack on the Liberated Areas in the Shangdang area, and Zhang Lan said indignantly:
"Openly sending telegrams to invite you to negotiate and then waging war behind your backs will absolutely not allow the Kuomintang to be so arrogant!"
On the afternoon of September 14, 1945, Zhang Lan bluntly rebuked the Kuomintang negotiators Zhang Qun and Shao Lizi:
"Why didn't Yan Xishan save Mr. Jiang a little face?" Chongqing is talking, Shanxi is fighting, isn't this laughing at the world? Didn't Mr. Jiang feel embarrassed? ”
Zhang Qun knew in his heart that Yan Xishan's entry into the Shangdang was instructed by Chiang Kai-shek, but he pretended to be confused with understanding:
"This is Yan Xishan's personal action."
Yan Xishan attacked shangdang, and the democratic parties condemned Chiang Kai-shek and Yan Xishan one after another for provoking a civil war, and our party won the political initiative.
After the Yan army occupies shangdang, what should our army do? On August 25, 1945, Chairman Mao and Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, who were about to return to the Taihang base area, talked to them and asked them to return to the front, let go of the fight, and said:
"The comrades are worried about my safety to negotiate. We know Chiang Kai-shek as a person. If you fight better on the front line, I will be safer, if I don't fight well, I will be more dangerous, and if you win the battle, it will be easier for me to negotiate, otherwise it will be more difficult. ”
At that time, the Jinji-Hebei Luyu base area controlled more than 80 counties, with a population of 24 million, nearly 300,000 troops and 400,000 militia. Because it is located in the middle zone that echoes with other base areas on all sides, and is the gate of North China, it is called "the land of four wars" by Liu Bocheng.
It was difficult to annihilate the enemy in the land of the four battles, liu Bocheng, commander of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region, and liu Bocheng took extraordinary measures for this purpose.
The first is the formation of field regiments. As early as August 10, 1945, Liu Bocheng sent a telegram ordering all military regions to immediately draw troops to form field regiments, and on August 14 he reiterated this order, Liu Bocheng said:
"The most urgent task at present is to concentrate and disperse the troops fighting, depending on who concentrates quickly, gathers together, and forms a fist, which is victory."
In order to concentrate his forces to the greatest extent and as quickly as possible, Liu Bocheng decided to adopt the method of fighting, building, and training at the same time, quickly organized three field columns in Taihang, Taiyue, and Southern Hebei, and expanded the militia in large quantities.
Soon, Liu Bocheng concentrated more than 31,000 people in each column of the Taihang, Ji'nan, and Taiyue military regions and local armed forces to capture Shangdang, and 50,000 militiamen to cooperate in the battle.
The fact that the Jin-Hebei Luyu Military Region was able to concentrate so many armed forces for the Shangdang campaign in a short period of time embodied the Communist Party's organizational and command capabilities, which was unimaginable to the Kuomintang.
This kind of action of fighting while forming and fighting at the same time makes Liu Bocheng remember it vividly. After liberation, Liu Bocheng recalled with emotion:
"Tens of thousands of guerrilla fighters, still dressed in colorful civilian clothes, gathered up and went to the front, and thousands of militiamen lined up in neat lines to participate in combat work."
The second is to innovate the method of tackling tough problems. Because the firepower of the troops participating in the battle at that time was very weak, there were only 6 mountain guns in the entire Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region, only half of the regiments had 2 to 4 mortars, 3 to 4 heavy structures, and most of the new soldiers used large knives and spears, even rifle ammunition was extremely scarce, and many rifles only had a few bullets.
It is very difficult to capture a fortified city with such a weak firepower.
In addition, the various units have been engaged in guerrilla warfare with the Japanese puppet army for a long time, and the troops are very unfamiliar with the offensive battles, which is also an important issue that Liu Bocheng needs to liberate, and these material conditions cannot be changed, and can only be solved through innovative tactics.
How to tackle the tough problems? The troops participating in the battle pooled their wisdom and created the method of tunnel blasting, and first used this method of warfare to conquer the county seat of Xiangyuan County.
Xiangyuan County is located in the north of Changzhi 90 miles, the city defense is relatively strong, for this reason, the 13th Regiment of the Taihang Military Region dug more than 100 meters of tunnels to the bottom of the city wall, with a coffin full of explosives to blow up the city wall, the siege troops took advantage of the situation to pour into the city, after 4 hours of fierce fighting, killed 350 enemy people, captured 450 enemy.
The victory in the Xiangyuan Offensive Battle represents the success of our army's use of the tunnel offensive method.
From the Shangdang campaign in the coming year, our army was at a disadvantage in terms of strength and weapons and equipment, but our army's advantage was that it had strong field combat capabilities, so Liu Bocheng commanded the troops to use the tactics of encirclement points to help eliminate a large number of enemies in the field.
For example, when our fortified troops besieged Changzhi, Yan Xishan sent Peng Yubin, deputy commander-in-chief of the 7th Army, to command more than 20,000 troops, 2 armies, 6 divisions and 2 artillery regiments, plus 4 regiments of the 3rd Army of the Shanxi Provincial Defense Army reorganized by the puppet army to rescue them, and the total strength of the reinforcements reached 23,000, which was almost the same as the troops that Liu Bocheng was preparing to help.
To this end, Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping broke the routine of "besieging the city and blocking aid."
Since ancient times, the "siege of the city to block the aid" is aimed at conquering the enemy city, so the siege of the city is large, the strength of the reinforcement is small, this time Liu Bocheng decided to fight most of the troops for reinforcements, only a small force of troops to besiege the city, because Liu Bocheng judged that the besieged Shi Zebo did not know the details of our army, did not dare to rush to break through.
To this end, Liu Bocheng immediately made a decision, ordered Chen Zaidao to lead more than 6,000 people of the Southern Hebei Column to rush north to participate in the battle, and deliberately marched during the day to expose his whereabouts in order to shake the hearts of the enemy troops.
After several days of fierce fighting, all but more than 2,000 people who fled back to Qin County were annihilated, Peng Yubin was killed, and Hu Sanyu, commander of artillery and deputy commander of the reinforcements, Guo Rong, commander of the 46th Division, Zhang Hong, commander of the 49th Division, and Li Peiyi, commander of the 66th Division, and other senior officers were captured.
After the reinforcements were annihilated, Yan Xishan was stunned and urgently ordered Shi Zebo to abandon the city and break through, and as a result, Shi Zebo was surrounded by our army shortly after the breakthrough, the whole army was destroyed, and Shi Zebo was also captured by our army.
The Shangdang Campaign was the first relatively large-scale annihilation battle carried out by the troops in the Liberated Areas after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in counterattacking the kuomintang army's offensive, in which more than 35,000 enemy personnel were annihilated, including 31,000 prisoners, including 27 officers of the general rank, 24 mountain artillery pieces, more than 30 mortars, more than 2,000 light and heavy machine guns, and more than 16,000 long and short guns were captured, which not only consolidated the rear of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Liberated Area, but also strengthened the position of the Communist Party of China in the Chongqing negotiations.
Sure enough, as Chairman Mao expected, Chiang Kai-shek, who had suffered repeated heavy blows on the battlefield, had to restrain his arrogance at the negotiating table and agree to the CPC's proposal.
Just two days before the end of the Shangdang Campaign, on October 10, 1945, after 43 days of negotiations, the Kuomintang and the Communists finally signed the Minutes of the Talks between the Representatives of the Nationalist Government and the Chinese Communists (the "Double Tenth Agreement").
Chairman Mao, who returned to Yan'an from Chongqing, delivered a report entitled "On the Chongqing Negotiations" at the cadres' meeting, in which he spoke highly of the Shangdang campaign and pointed out:
The total number of troops they attacked was thirty-eight thousand, and we dispatched thirty-one thousand. Thirty-eight thousand of them were wiped out thirty-five thousand, two thousand escaped, and one thousand scattered. Such a battle will continue. Here's the thing, he comes to attack, we wipe him out and he's comfortable. Eliminate a little, be comfortable, eliminate more, be much more comfortable, completely eliminate, be completely comfortable. When people call, we fight, and we fight for peace. Peace will not come without dealing a great blow to the reactionaries who dare to attack the Liberated Areas.
Chairman Mao achieved four goals through the Shangdang Campaign:
First, it gained the political initiative, won the initiative in public opinion, publicized the principles and policies of the Communist Party of China, and at the same time enabled the despicable image of the Kuomintang to be fully displayed before the people of the whole country.
Second, the victory in the Shangdang campaign enabled Chiang Kai-shek to realize the strength of the Communist Party's armed forces, so that he did not dare to act rashly, thus creating favorable conditions for the Chinese Communists to conduct peace negotiations.
The third was to directly annihilate 35,000 of Yan Xishan's elite troops. At that time, Yan Xishan's total strength was about 100,000 people, and as a result, Chairman Mao and Liu Bocheng ate one-third of Yan Xishan's total strength through the Shangdang Campaign, effectively weakening Yan Xishan's strength and laying the foundation for the later liberation of Shanxi.
Fourth, the equipment of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army has been greatly improved, especially the captured 24 mountain guns, more than 30 mortars, and more than 2,000 light and heavy machine guns, which have greatly increased the firepower of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army.
Therefore, afterwards, everyone lamented that Chairman Mao's decision was too clever.
Judging from the level of strategy, if Chairman Mao is a college student, Chiang Kai-shek is at best a primary school student, and in the face of Chairman Mao, Chiang Kai-shek's failure is inevitable.
Today is the 127th anniversary of Chairman Mao's birth, and this article only commemorates Chairman Mao's great achievements!
Tianxuan is the author's pen name, who has engaged in teaching and research at the National Defense University, and has studied history and philosophy