Battle of Huaihai
On September 16, 1948, huaye Shandong corps launched the Battle of Jinan, and after only eight days of fighting, Huaye captured the city of Jinan defended by Wang Yaowu's more than 100,000 troops. After the end of the Jinan Campaign, except for Qingdao, the People's Liberation Army had already controlled the whole province of Shandong, and the army had no further trouble going south.
On the third day after the battle of Jinan, Su Yu, acting commander and acting political commissar of Huaye, suggested to the Central Military Commission that he hoped to take advantage of the victory to capture the nationalist armies in Huaiyin, Huai'an, Gaoyou, Haizhou, and other places, and the main goal was to contain Qiu Qingquan's corps and Li Mi's two corps, annihilate Huang Baitao's Seventh Corps, which was far away from Xuzhou and in a relatively special position, and Li Yannian's Ninth Appeasement District, and to prepare for the capture of Xuzhou, and this proposal was immediately agreed by Chairman Mao.
The Kuomintang army Xuzhou Suppression General also sensed the danger, and immediately gathered four corps and four appeasement zone troops totaling 25 armies and 600,000 troops; if you add the Huang Wei 12th Corps that was later transferred, there are also some local troops, the Kuomintang Army Xuzhou Suppression General has a total of 800,000 troops, these troops are Chiang Kai-shek's most elite forces, and the generals of each unit are also Chiang Kai-shek's most trusted Huangpu clan. With Xuzhou as the center, Chiang Kai-shek used the two railway lines of Longhai and Jinpu to organize a defensive formation from Haizhou in the east, to Shangqiu in the west, to Lincheng in the north, and to Bengbu in the south.
At that time, the PLA's participating units were the Central Plains Field Army and the East China Field Army, as well as the local units of the Central Plains Military Region and the East China Military Region, of which Huaye had 15 columns plus a special force, a total of 360,000 people, seven columns in Zhongye with a total of 120,000 people, plus the troops of the local military region, a total of 600,000 people, the two sides not only had a huge difference in strength, but also a great difference in weapons and equipment, and the 800,000 troops of the Kuomintang army Xuzhou were all Chiang Kai-shek's concubine troops, often accompanied by the support of tanks and aircraft.
Guild wars
The goal of the first phase of the Huaihai Campaign was to annihilate Huang Baitao's corps, but Huaye almost collapsed at the beginning of the game, and Su Yu did not expect at first that the troops composed of Huang Baitao's corps, a miscellaneous army, could have such tenacious combat effectiveness, and originally planned to solve the battle in five days, but only after three days of fighting did they find that Huaye did not take advantage of half a point, but suffered heavy losses, occupying only a few insignificant villages in the periphery.
After discovering that he was lightly hostile, Su Yu immediately changed his combat deployment, adopted the method of soil work to compress the positions of Huang Baitao's corps little by little, and finally took 12 days to completely annihilate Huang Baitao's corps, and Huang Baitao shot himself after the defeat. At the same time that Huang Baitao was besieged, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Huang Wei's 12th Corps, as well as Liu Ruming's Eighth Corps, and Liu Yannian's 6th Corps to advance north, hoping to rescue Huang Baitao's corps.
Huang Wei's 12th Corps at that time had four corps plus a rapid column, especially the 18th Army in the 12 Corps, which was one of the five main forces, with very strong combat effectiveness, even the Japanese army was very afraid during the War of Resistance, and the threat to the People's Liberation Army was great, and the task of encircling and annihilating Huang Wei's corps fell on Nakano's body.
After Nakano came out of the Dabie Mountains, a company of only forty or fifty people, and their clothes were ragged, and their weapons were of varying lengths. Later, after replenishment and recuperation, each company reached the size of more than 120 people, the combat effectiveness was also improved, and the morale was very high, especially when they heard that the brother troops, especially the huaye whole division, annihilated the Kuomintang troops, and they were very envious and wanted to fight a decent battle.
The goal of the second phase of the Huaihai Campaign was to annihilate the Huang Wei Corps, a task that Nakano was responsible for, and Nakano successfully surrounded the 12 Corps in a double pile before discovering that with Nakano's firepower at that time, it was impossible to smash the huang Wei Corps' fortifications. Later, he still learned to carry out soil work in the mill, and only little by little did he knock out the fortifications of the 12th Corps.
The second stage of the Huaihai Campaign was a crucial moment concerning the fate of both sides, and at this time Huaye's task was also very tense, not only to reinforce Nakano, but also to encircle Du Yuming's group, and also to block Liu Ruming's corps and Liu Yannian's corps, until Huaye completely trapped Du Yuming's group, Su Yu was relieved, and drew three columns and a special forces column from the troops surrounding Du Yuming's group, and Huaye's chief of staff, Chen Shiyu, reinforced Nakano.
The support of the people
The Huaihai Campaign was able to defeat a powerful enemy even when the enemy was strong and we were weak, mainly thanks to the support of the common people. Before the Huaihai Campaign had even begun, Chairman Mao pointed out that the logistics departments must prepare grain for three to five months, and Premier Zhou assigned Yang Lisan, director of the General Logistics Department, to coordinate with Liu Ruilong, commander of Huaye Logistics, and Liu Daifeng, commander of Zhongye Logistics, to take charge of the logistics and pre-support work of the Huaihai Campaign.
On November 4, 1948, before the Huaihai Campaign had even begun, the East China Bureau established a unified highest branch former leadership organization to unify the leadership and command logistics work. Trains and ships from all over the world continuously transport grain, weapons and ammunition and other materials to various grain stations and military stations. Before the battle had even begun, Huaye Logistics collected more than 2,000 civilian ships to transport grain to the front.
However, after the battle began, the situation developed faster than many people expected, and in the first phase of the Huaihai Campaign, the Battle of Nianzhuang was fought with unprecedented fierceness, and the demand for food and ammunition also increased sharply. On November 18, Rao Shushi held an emergency meeting in Jinan, calling on all the military and civilians in East China to mobilize to transport grain and ammunition to the front line in a timely and rapid manner, and the stretcher team must also keep up in time.
On November 20, the East China Bureau again issued an urgent directive requiring all vehicles in the rear organs to be subject to the movement of the Logistics Command and all used to transport ammunition and other military supplies. A large number of local basic cadres and militias and local armed forces have also been drawn out and replenished to the main forces, so that the main forces can be continuously replenished. In addition, the stretcher team in the rear and the hygienists were all transferred to the front line.
In the first phase of the Huaihai Campaign, due to the rapid changes in the war situation, the various units in Huaye have been in motion, and it is difficult for the grain and ammunition in the rear to keep up. As a result, Nakano had to mobilize a large number of civilian workers to advance with the troops, and at that time, there were more than 5 million ordinary people who provided support for Huaye and Nakano, of which more than 1 million people rushed to the front line.
A former migrant worker in Linyi, Shandong Province, recalled the prospects of the branch and once said: "At that time, I was hundreds of kilometers from Linyi to the Huaihai battlefield, pushing a small cart, transporting only two shells, and my feet were rotten. Later, Chen Yi said: "The victory in the Huaihai Campaign was pushed out by the masses of the people with a small cart. There is nothing wrong with this, because at that time, if it were not for the support of these ordinary people, the logistical support of the officers and men of our army would be difficult to guarantee.
Compared with the effective logistical support of the Platon Army, the logistical support of the Kuomintang army during the Huaihai Campaign was very difficult. After the Battle of Shuangduiji, Yang Botao, commander of the 18th Army, was sent to a village and town in the rear with other prisoners, and he saw that the streets were bustling with people, and many people were sending grain and pork to the People's Liberation Army, which shocked Yang Botao very much, because when he led the army through this village, not to mention grain and pork, even the wells were blocked.
On December 17, 1948, after the end of the second phase of the Battle of Huaihai, the Huang Wei Corps was annihilated, and Du Yuming's group was surrounded by seven blockade lines set up by Su Yu. In order to cooperate with the Pingjin Campaign and prevent the North China Nationalist army from fleeing south, Hua Ye, according to the order of the Central Military Commission, turned to rest and recuperated, and only encircled and did not fight.
Su Yu, Chen Shiyu, Zhong Qiguang, and Zhang Zhen suggested to the Central Military Commission and the East China Bureau at that time that they hoped to let the commanders and fighters eat half a kilogram of pork and restore their physical strength. Zhou Enlai called back on behalf of the Central Military Commission: All the troops participating in the war in East China, the Central Plains, and the frontline personnel, each person has one pound of pork and five packs of cigarettes. Those who do not smoke shall be replaced by other equivalent items. This payment is the responsibility of the two major military regions in East China and Central Plains.
At that time, the East China Bureau was responsible for transporting 800,000 kilograms of pork, and the East China Bureau sent cadres to purchase it uniformly on the one hand, and on the other hand, it went to the market to exchange with the people, and exchanged four kilograms of wheat for one kilogram of pork. In just eight days, the LuzhongNan Military Region raised 400,000 kilograms of pork and transported it to the front line by train or horse-drawn carriage. In the trenches of the front positions of the People's Liberation Army, all units slaughtering pigs and sheep are all festive New Year scenes.
At the beginning, the Kuomintang army still had some airdrops, and the major factories in Nanjing rushed to make large cakes, steamed buns and other materials day and night, but these materials were tantamount to a drop in the bucket for hundreds of thousands of troops. Later, after the bad weather over Chen Guanzhuang, the Kuomintang airdrop was also interrupted, and the besieged Kuomintang troops did not have to say that they had eaten, even making a fire for heating was a problem, and the coffin boards in the local cemetery were dug up and burned. Since ancient times, those who have won the hearts and minds of the people have won the world, and the reason why the Kuomintang army in the War of Liberation has collapsed so quickly has a lot to do with this.