The war of liberation has always been a hot field worthy of in-depth study in the military field. In this war, which seemed to have no suspense at the beginning, the Chinese Communist Party won a seemingly impossible war with a 1:3.4 inferior force (after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Nationalist army had a total military strength of 4.3 million, including more than 2 million regular troops; the Communist Party only had more than 1.2 million, including more than 600,000 regular troops), and was completely inferior equipment of a grade, and Chiang Kai-shek was beaten to the point of losing his armor and fleeing to The island of Taiwan.
Someone, in interpreting this war, once vividly said:
"Chiang Kai-shek adopted the strategy of 'seizing land', and Mao Zedong adopted the strategy of 'seizing people', and judging from the course and outcome of the war, the latter simply defeated the former."
In the middle and late stages of the war, there was even a situation in which "as many guns as the nationalist army has, and as many guns as the communist army has." The former has a steady stream of equipment, while the latter has a steady stream of soldiers, and the situation is reversed in a moment of gain and loss.
After Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan, he often reflected on the war that had left him extremely defeated, and often asked himself in bitterness and wandering: What is the problem in waging such a defeat in a war that seems to be victorious?
Yes, why aren't we thinking: What is the problem with Chiang Kai-shek? Or rather, where did our PLA win?
01. The strategic direction of Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek is almost opposite
During the Period of the War of Liberation, Chiang Kai-shek's strategic policy was completely different from Mao Zedong's, and it can even be said to be antagonistic.
Chiang Kai-shek's strategy is to "seize land," that is, to position the main goal of the war as to seize territory, especially to occupy large and medium-sized cities and lines of communication, and then to take the cities as "points" and the lines of communication as "lines" to build a grid one by one, and to encroach on and divide the liberated areas through the grid. This is actually the "grid tactic" promoted by Okamura during the War of Resistance Against Japan. On the surface, in the battle of advantages and disadvantages, such a strategy is not inappropriate, but in fact, there are very big hidden worries, and it can even be said that it is a fatal shortcoming, which also determines that the national army must end in tragedy in the end. What are the hidden worries, we will talk about later.
Mao's strategy was the opposite, focusing on "seizing people" rather than "seizing land." The so-called "seizure of people" contains two levels of meaning, the first level is against the enemy, trying to annihilate the enemy's living forces, in this process, never overly consider the gains and losses of one city and one place; the second level means to treat oneself, not to pay attention to the city, but to pay attention to the countryside, to do everything possible to win the support of the broad masses of the people, and to obtain a steady stream of troops. Between the rise and the other, the strength of the two sides changed from being strong and weak to being evenly matched, and from being equal in strength to being weak and strong, which also led to the situation of "as many guns as there are in the national army, and as many guns as the communist army has."
It can be said that these two completely different strategic principles determined the outcome of the liberation war.
02 The Ideological Root of the Outbreak of the Civil War: Chiang Kai-shek's ineffable deep resentment of the Chinese Communist Party
I don't know why Chiang Kai-shek has such a deep resentment towards the Chinese Communist Party, he once said:
"This matter (i.e., the Chinese Communist Party) is a matter of my life and death. If this purpose is not achieved, I will not be at ease when I die, and there is no point in winning the War of Resistance, so my opinion will not change until I die. ”
Ironically, he said this at the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japan, when the Chinese Communist Party was seeking to unite against Japan, but Chiang Kai-shek regarded him as the most dangerous enemy and placed its importance before the war of resistance.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, China had hoped to establish a coalition government, but Chiang Kai-shek tried to carry the power of victory in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and make a quick decision, launch a civil war in an all-round way, and completely eliminate the so-called "greatest danger" in his heart.
However, he faced a super big problem that had to be solved: the Nationalist army had been hit by the Japanese army to the southwest, japan surrendered very suddenly, and it became very difficult for the Nationalist army to seize the Japanese-occupied area, after all, China's territory was vast, the distance from the southwest to the east was too far, and the traffic was not developed enough at that time. However, the Chinese Communist Party is different, because it has been insisting on guerrilla struggle behind enemy lines for many years, and the Liberated Areas are not far from the periphery of the Japanese-occupied areas, and after Japan's surrender, it can go to the Japanese-occupied areas with a single step.
In order to prevent the surrender of the Chinese Communist army, Chiang Kai-shek issued a contradictory order, on the one hand, demanding that the Chinese army quickly go to the Japanese-occupied areas to accept the surrender of the Japanese army, and on the other hand, demanding that the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China stand by and not be surrendered. This order is simply a model operation of "double standard", I don't know if he blushed when he gave this order, but it did cause dissatisfaction in the Chinese Communist Party (this matter will be dissatisfied with anyone), and began to forcibly accept the surrender of the Japanese army.
Under these circumstances, Chiang Kai-shek began to invite Mao Zedong to Chongqing for negotiations, in order to delay time and make comprehensive preparations for the launching of a civil war. I have to say that this is a trick that is difficult to crack. If Mao Zedong had not gone to Chongqing, then Chiang Kai-shek could justifiably push the charge of waging a civil war on the side of the Communists; if Mao Zedong had gone to Chongqing, his life would have been completely in Chiang Kai-shek's hands.
What Chiang Kai-shek did not expect was that Mao Zedong was wise and courageous, went directly to Chongqing, and during the entire negotiation period, the two sides were virtual and real, and the battle of wits and courage was defused by Mao Zedong, and even took the initiative to break this dead end in a dashing manner.
03 Chiang Kai-shek's confidence in launching a civil war lies in excessive trust in paper power
As mentioned above, when the War of Resistance Against Japan was just over, the gap in strength between the two sides was still very large.
In terms of the national army: 2 million regular troops, 2.3 million other military forces, adding up to about 4.3 million. In terms of weapons and equipment, the United States received a lot of assistance, and by the middle and late part of the war, even a quarter of the troops had achieved all-American armaments, tanks, aircraft, and warships. At the same time, it also controls almost all large cities and major transportation lines, and controls almost all modern industry.
On the Communist side: the regular army is only in its early 600,000s, and the other military forces are about 650,000, adding up to more than 1.2 million people. The weapons and equipment are backward, the Millet Plus rifle is standard, or even not up to, there are almost no planes, tanks, warships, and few cannons. There are almost no big cities and lines of communication under the hands, and there is no modern industry.
In contrast, the gap can be seen. It is also based on this contrast that Chiang Kai-shek is full of confidence in destroying his "most dangerous enemy" in the short term.
And how short is this "short-term"? In Chiang Kai-shek's eyes, nature is as short as possible. Chiang Kai-shek had ordered He Yingqin to draft a plan to suppress the Communists, and He Yingqin had also paid a special visit to Okamura Ningji, commander of the Japanese dispatch army in China. Okamura ningji said: We must attach great importance to the Communist Party and never despise them. So He Yingqin drafted a plan to "suppress the Communist Party within two years" and focused on "dealing with it carefully and never rushing forward." After the plan was presented to Chiang Kai-shek, the stone sank into the sea, and later learned that Chiang Kai-shek thought that two years was too long and was not interested.
Later, Chen Cheng submitted a plan to eliminate the Communist Party within six months. Chiang Kai-shek was greatly interested in this plan, and in June 1946, the Ministry of National Defense was established, the General Headquarters of the Chinese Army was abolished, Bai Chongxi was appointed minister of defense, and Chen Cheng was appointed chief of staff, in fact, the city let Chen Cheng take over He Yingqin's position, and sent He Yingqin to the United States, idle.
However, it turned out that Chiang Kai-shek's plan for a quick battle and a quick decision was actually unreasonable. Because the victory or defeat of the war does not all depend on paper strength. Subsequent failures proved this.
04 Chiang Kai-shek's "land grab" strategy and "rogue" ideology
Chiang Kai-shek had his own set of ideas, that is, to start from taking important cities and controlling the line of traffic. He believes that cities and transportation are the most important factors of modern warfare, and as long as the city is controlled, it can control the materials and talents. After controlling the city, it can be centered on the city and extended along the traffic line to the surrounding areas, forming a grid one by one, dividing and truncated the liberated areas, and eliminating the divisions.
He believed that in this way the Communists could be expelled from the big cities, then they would have no base areas and would become rogues, and historically, all the armed forces that became rogues, because the supply was unsustainable, would fail.
According to this policy, in the early days of the civil war, Chiang Kai-shek indeed seized many important cities in the Liberated Areas, opened up some lines of communication, and controlled large areas of land in the Liberated Areas. This has indeed brought relatively large losses to the Communist Party; first, the base areas have been divided, and there has indeed been a relatively great adverse impact on the movement of warfare. The second is the loss of liberated areas, especially important areas, such as Yan'an in 1947 (although it was voluntarily withdrawn), which led to dissatisfaction among cadres, the army and the masses. Third, the grid tactic does make the logistical supply of the troops difficult, and the supply of weapons, ammunition and food is often not timely.
In seven battles between the two sides in the central Soviet Union, tang Enbo occupied most of the area south of Yancheng, controlled the railway from Pukou to Nanjing and the transportation of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and relieved the People's Liberation Army of the threat to the Nanjing government, believing that they had won this local battle. But in fact, the Nationalist army was annihilated by six and a half brigades, which Su Yu called "seven battles and seven victories". In the same battle, both sides said that they had won, but it was really because of different strategic objectives, one side focused on "seizing land" and focusing on controlling the chassis and communication lines, while the other side focused on "seizing people" and focusing on annihilating the enemy's living forces.
However, Chiang Kai-shek's strategic principle made a big mistake, that is, not only large cities can be called base areas, and the PLA has no big cities, but has developed the vast rural areas into base areas. The rural population is large, and because of the implementation of the land reform policy and the extensive support for the Communist Party, the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army are mostly peasant soldiers, not only loyal, but also united, not only united, but also high morale, not only high morale, but also sufficient and continuous supply of troops. In addition to the soldiers, the peasants who did not join the army also became the support of the Platon Army, and they spontaneously supported the front, transported grain and supplies to the front line, spontaneously took in, transported and rescued the wounded, and spontaneously transmitted intelligence to the PLA. That is to say, the People's Liberation Army really fought this war into a people's war, and the nationalist army will always control only isolated points and lines, not patches of areas.
This situation has also led to another situation, that is, the national army cannot achieve effective control over the occupied areas, and every time it occupies a place, it is necessary to allocate troops to maintain law and order; the more it occupies, the more dispersed the troops, the more dispersed the troops, the more dispersed the troops, the easier it is to be detoured and divided and annihilated by the PLA.
It can be seen that Chiang Kai-shek's strategic idea of "controlling the line from the point and controlling the surface by the line" is actually completely divorced from reality when it comes to the tao. This also led to his final failure.