Artillery is the king of war, and in the early days of the Liberation War, the Kuomintang army had its own tanks, planes, and artillery, and did not pay any attention to the People's Liberation Army. Therefore, in the early days of the civil war, some troops were a little blinded by the strong firepower superiority of the Kuomintang army, but in the later stages of the Liberation War, the artillery strength of the People's Liberation Army was gradually strengthened.
In the later period of the Liberation War, the most powerful artillery force was in the Northeast Field Army, they had a strong military industrial system behind them, during the Liaoshen Campaign, the Northeast Field Army concentrated thousands of cannons when attacking Jinzhou, and conquered Jinzhou in one fell swoop. However, in the East China Field Army, located in the hinterland of the Kuomintang army, the artillery strength was also very strong later, and during the Battle of Huaihai, Huaye had to shoot 30,000 shells a day, so where did their shells come from?
First, first of all, I would like to thank Dalian Jianxin Company. After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Soviet army did not withdraw from the Liaodong Peninsula for a long time, and this was the military industrial base during the Japanese occupation, with many arsenals, a large number of military personnel, and many Japanese engineers. Although most of Dalian's arsenals were demolished when the Soviets entered the northeast, under the leadership of the Military Industry Department of the Northeast Bureau and with the support of many workers, Dalian's heavy industry gradually developed, and the production lines of many factories were restored.
In 1947, the East China Bureau valued the conditions of Dalian, so it invested all the gold accumulated in Shandong for ten years into the construction of Dalian Jianxin Company, which was personally led by Zhu Yi, director of the East China Finance and Economic Committee. The Northeast Bureau also invested some funds at that time, but it was mainly invested by the East China Bureau.
At that time, Dalian Arsenal was a well-known large-scale comprehensive military enterprise in the Liberated Areas, with 9 branches under its jurisdiction and more than 8,000 employees. At that time, various branches such as artillery shells, fuzes, steel, chemicals, foundries and other factories undertook the task of producing various parts and components of artillery shells. In particular, the tasks of artillery shell factories and fuze factories are more arduous. Wu Pingzhou, director of the artillery shell factory, and Wu Yunduo, director of the fuze factory, worked day and night to lead the entire staff and workers of the factory to devote themselves to the task of trial production of large artillery shells.
In 1948, Dalian Jianxin Company produced 125,000 shells, two kinds of Japanese and American (75 caliber). In that year, it was supplied to the East China Battlefield, and made great contributions in the famous Battle of Huaihai, fighting more than 80,000 rounds in the battle to eliminate Huang Baitao's corps alone. In 1949, another 125,000 rounds were produced, which could have been about 100,000 more rounds this year, but due to the collapse of the Kuomintang army on the battlefield, the People's Liberation Army was in full swing, and the victory was in hand, and in accordance with the instructions of the headquarters, there was no warehouse for storing artillery shells, so it had to reduce production. Therefore, the reason why Huaye can have so many shells is inseparable from this large arsenal. The workers and technicians trained by dalian Jianxin Company were later assigned to various arsenals in the northeast, which promoted the development of the national military industry.
Second, it was seized. During the Liberation War, the East China Field Army had been deep in the hinterland of the Kuomintang's ruling center, which was too close to the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions where Chiang Kai-shek started, posing a great threat to the Kuomintang army. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek did not allow the New Fourth Army and the Eighth Route Army to develop in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, let alone during the Liberation War. However, this unit was not eliminated by the Kuomintang army, but gradually developed and grew, and Chiang Kai-shek regarded this unit as a serious problem for his confidants.
On February 19, 1947, Chiang Kai-shek said in a speech: "At present, the bandit army in Guannei can be divided into five departments, namely, he Longbu, Nie Rongzhen, Chen Gengbu, Liu Bocheng, and Chen Yi. Among these five parts, as far as my inspection is concerned, Chen Yi is the most tenacious, the most well trained, the most attempted, and the most difficult to eliminate. ”
During the Liberation War, huaye won many battles in danger, but was captured a lot. In the Battle of Lunan, Chen Yi and Su Yu annihilated 53,000 Kuomintang troops, captured 36,000 people, captured 24 tanks, more than 200 artillery pieces of various kinds, and 474 vehicles at the cost of more than 8,000 casualties. Hua Ye used these heavy equipment to form the first special forces column of the People's Liberation Army, with Chen Ruiting as commander.
Just after the end of the Lunan Campaign, Chen Yi and Su Yu led their troops to launch the Battle of Laiwu, and the results of this campaign were even more exaggerated; Huaye annihilated 56,000 enemy and captured 47,000 prisoners at a relatively small cost of more than 8,800 casualties; Huaye even had some troops reassembled with American equipment, the 18th Division of the Sixth Column was all replaced with American equipment, the 16th Division also had two regiments and 1 battalion for American equipment, the 49th Regiment of the 17th Division was American-style equipment, and the 51st Regiment had 1 battalion and two companies of American equipment. Many units of the Kuomintang army have not yet equipped these AMERICAN weapons and equipment, and they have been equipped by Huaye.
In the ensuing campaign, Huaye's various units were also very richly captured, according to the recollection of Chen Ruiting, commander of the Huaye Special Forces Column: Huaye's shells for attacking Jinan were captured in Kaifeng in the Battle of Eastern Henan, and the shells of Huang Baitao's corps in the first phase of the Huaihai Campaign were captured from the Jinan Campaign. In the third stage of the Huaihai Campaign, when Du Yuming led three corps to escape from Xuzhou City, he forgot to destroy more than 100,000 American howitzer shells in the city, which were captured by Hua Ye and returned to Du Yuming in the Battle of Chen Guanzhuang. Moreover, during the Liberation War, HuaYe captured far more shells than he had built.