As the saying goes, the army does not move, the grain and grass go first, and I believe that as the leader of the Central Plains Military Region, who has experienced hundreds of battles, it is impossible not to understand it, but the Central Plains Field Army parked in Xuanhuadian soon faced a state of no grain and no money.
At a later wrap-up meeting, the top brass of the Central Plains Bureau also believed that it was a big failure not to prepare enough grain. The root cause is ideological, and in action, the situation after the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan has misjudged, and the ancients who were thinking of danger in times of peace did not deceive me.
The core of the Central Plains Field Army is the Fifth Division of the former New Fourth Army, which has always been the dispersion and development of the base areas during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and through self-financing, capture, and allocation, it is possible to fight local tycoons, basically solving the problem of supply.
With the surrender of Japan, because of the new situation created by the war, the central government strengthened the strength of the Fifth Division, formed a new field regiment, and concentrated the troops for use. The problem came that as soon as the troops originally scattered in the various base areas were transferred away, the defensive forces of the old base areas suffered huge losses and were unable to resist the attacks of Chiang Kai-shek's army, resulting in the repeated compression of the base areas.
The main force concentrated and used cannot form a joint force because of its complex composition, and it lacks a strong command structure, and it cannot quickly adapt to the combat mode under the new situation, combat tasks, and several encounters with the enemy have become wars of attrition. Not enough capture was obtained to achieve the purpose of feeding the war with war.
What is even more serious is that the economy of the Liberated Areas of the Central Plains is very backward, most of them are mountainous, and after many years of war, from the agrarian revolution to the War of Resistance Against Japan, the population base has dropped too much, and it can no longer bear the food supply needed by the large corps. In the final analysis, under the conditions of the Liberated Areas of the Central Plains, the most important thing to maintain and adhere to is the mode of raising war with war.
The Luoshan Agreement signed in late January allowed our army to transport grain, but there was no money, so in order to raise funds, the Central Plains Bureau had to entrust Ren Qianbin to go to Yan'an in early February to report to the central authorities on the financial difficulties of the Central Plains troops.
Liu Shaoqi and Ren Bishi listened to the report and promised to ask the Liberated Areas of Jinji, Hebei, Luyu, Shandong, and other liberated areas to help the Central Plains solve the money needed for supplies, but demanded that the Central Plains demobilize 20,000 people and streamline the administration.
The decision to restore 20,000 people really needs to be implemented to the actual situation that there are not so many people, but this decision is actually endorsed by the central government to help the Central Plains, and the Central Plains must reduce the number of personnel, the main force of the troops, organs, families, local cadres, and so on.
However, the reduction of the establishment depends on what time, what place, and everything to be done at a difficult time, and it must be comprehensively weighed; with the existing conditions in the Liberated Areas of the Central Plains and the current situation of being besieged, it is too much to test wisdom if there is no money, there is no grain, what conditions can be given to people by the reduction, if the morale of the people is forcibly reduced, the prestige of the Communist Party will be hit, and in what way it will be completed is too much of a test of wisdom.
If we do not reduce the number of personnel, the logistics organs with so many people will be able to get out of it once they break through, not to mention the shortage of grain that is most urgent now. But at this time, this decision is difficult for the Central Plains Bureau to make. Because once the Central Plains Bureau made this decision, the troops may fall into chaos, if they can force back the enemy's attack in the early stage, but the current situation makes the central government have to come forward and carry this pot.
On March 13, the Central Plains Bureau again appealed to the Central Committee:
"In the 50 days since the armistice, more than 50,000 of our main forces have been stationed in the narrow area of More than 100 Miles on the border of Lishan Mountain in Dongluoshan Via Fuguang Mountain, and all the grain has relied on borrowing the surplus grain of the local rich households and carrying out pre-requisition. In the first half of this year, 3.7 million catties were obtained in terms of one-year land endowment, which was exhausted by February 20.
At present, the average burden per insurance is more than 20,000 catties of rice. Of the 16,000 troops, there is no food to eat, and the other tens of thousands of people can only last from one week to nine days at most.
I was able to raise more than 600,000 catties in the southern part of Xinyang and the Anlu and Yingshan areas of Luxi, but due to the blockade of the Kuomintang, it could not be transported to the east of the road. This small area is already in a state of military-civilian difficulties and can no longer be borrowed. Buying Mishan may last for 1 to 2 months, but there is no money to buy. ”
It is not that the Central Plains Bureau did not think of a way, but how could the Kuomintang let go of a piece of fat in its mouth, and they vigorously undermined the local political power and tightly sealed the economy of the base areas. Everywhere they went, they hunted down and killed local cadres, wounded people, family members of the troops, and revolutionary masses, and the impact was extremely bad.
To cause panic, the Kuomintang also sent agents to poison water or grain, which poisoned 500 people once in mid-February alone. In March, a larger poisoning campaign was arranged, resulting in 1,500 poisonings and 30 deaths.
Heavy troops were sent to important economic junctions to prohibit all grain and daily necessities from entering the Central Plains Military Region. Price gouging, looting, and grain foreclosure in the periphery. Those sent by the Central Plains Military Region to purchase grain were obstructed and even killed. Although there is an agreement, the agreement is only a paper agreement. Questioning the Kuomintang side only shirked it.
The Kuomintang army's practices put the Central Plains Military Region in a precarious position, and they struggled to support themselves in a narrow strip of less than two hundred miles from east to west and less than 50 miles from north to south, with a shortage of food, medicine, and salt, and thousands of wounded and sick people could not be treated because of the lack of medicines.
In the past, the practice of letting the troops borrow grain from the common people themselves did borrow, but if they still insisted on it here, they were bound to have to borrow it, and the people themselves would not be able to survive.
Wang Enmao wrote in his diary about the plight of the troops when they were collecting grain:
"There may be tasks to complete, but the difficulties are great. Possibly, some insurance only engaged in less than 10,000 catties, while the general number of grain guarantees is more than 20,000 catties, and then these areas have not been levied.
The difficulty is that the number of times grain is made is too much, at least five times, and the people feel that the burden of grain does not know how long it will be borne. The burden is also heavy, and I feel that I can't bear it. When the spring famine comes, the people are anxious about their own food difficulties, we have said that we will never borrow again, and now if we borrow again, we will lose credibility. ”
At first, the troops had no money, and the grain was borrowed by IOU, but the people still borrowed it.
In order to maintain the survival of the Central Plains troops, Zhou Enlai negotiated with the Kuomintang in Chongqing:
20,000 tons of grain from the Jin-Cha-Ji, Taihang, and Shandong Liberated Areas were sold to the Kuomintang grain management offices in Beiping, Taiyuan, Xinxiang, Jinan, and other places, converted into cash, and then purchased grain in Wuhan by our side, and all of it was shipped to the 5th Division, and Comrade Dong Biwu made a special trip to Hankou to handle the matter.
In order to support the Liberated Areas of the Central Plains, the Liberated Areas of Jin-Cha-Ji, Taihang, and Shandong raised a large amount of grain money, and on March 30, Dong Biwu, on behalf of the Central Committee, went to Xuanhuadian to comfort the cadres and fighters of the Central Plains, and brought 300 million yuan of grain money supported by the Liberated Areas.
By mid-April, the Central Plains Liberated Areas had received a total of 800 million yuan in relief money from various quarters, which could be used for the living expenses of the troops for two months.
The central authorities were most worried about whether the Central Plains Military Region could unify its thinking and persist in the face of difficulties; the central authorities learned about the current situation in the Central Plains from Wang Zhen and successively asked Dong Biwu and Zhou Enlai to go to Xuanhuadian to convey the instructions of the central authorities to Zheng Weisan and Li Xiannian to the Central Plains. Only by strengthening faith can we turn decay into magic.
The instructions of the central authorities have a role, but they all say that the train runs fast, all rely on the headband, the entire Central Plains Bureau has never formed a strong unified leadership, in fact, the core leader is Zheng Weisan is not capable of leading this collective, it can be found from the founding of the country, Zheng Weisan was abandoned, if it were not for the prime minister's maneuvering, the chairman estimated that he would have forgotten the secretary of the Central Plains Bureau.
At present, in order to survive, and for the most important breakthrough, it is necessary to transfer the organs, families, wounded, old and weak, and streamline the troops.
It was an extremely difficult job, and Pi Dingjun almost regretted it for the rest of his life. His wife, Zhang Feng, is 7 months pregnant and is also transferred. Zhang Feng and 3 other brigade leaders and their wives collectively left the unit in disguise. The women, pretending to be refugees, were targeted by traitors as soon as they hit the road.
Because they knew the urgency of the matter, several people rushed to the road, but Zhang Feng was 7 months pregnant, and he really couldn't move a few people had to stop and rest, who knew that in the middle of the night, Meng Songtao, the lover of Xu Zirong, the political commissar of the 1st Brigade, accidentally heard that the enemy was preparing to arrest them tomorrow, and was suddenly frightened, and quickly woke up Zhang Feng and rushed back to Baique Garden overnight. Seeing Pi Dingjun, Zhang Feng had tears in his eyes and complained: "You sent us blindly!" Almost caught. ”
On May 26, the organization once again let Zhang Feng transfer, and Pi Dingjun obeyed the order as a leading cadre, but he was particularly sad in his heart, afraid that his lover would have three long and two short on the road.
He wrote in his diary:
"I, in dealing with and considering the problem, am very inconsiderate and incorrect, and I have hurriedly implemented the party's resolutions and calls, and I have not considered any questions, and I will let her go by herself when she says she will leave, showing my little glory!" The fact is that the living revolutionary fighters were sent away in such an invincible way, and they themselves had no claims. Organizationally speaking, it is resolutely obedient, but ideologically it is very contradictory and uneasy, in case something happens to her, I will regret it for the rest of my life! ”
At one point, Pi Dingjun thought Zhang Feng had died, and did not return to contact until October 1946.
And Zhang Feng dragged six or seven months pregnant, walked from Baique Garden to Xinyang, really experienced hardships, and then took the train to Zhengzhou first, and then to Xuzhou. In Xuzhou, there was no connection, and there was no money to buy a ticket, so she could only climb on the roof of the train alone, and it was impossible to know how a pregnant woman who was 7 months pregnant did it. After returning to Kaifeng, he finally found a relationship between the two pretending to be husband and wife, drove a pass through relatives in the inner line, crossed the blockade line of the Kuomintang army, and took a horse-drawn carriage to the Taihang Liberated Area, during which he did give birth to his daughter early due to fatigue, but eventually died of illness.
There were more than 2,000 people like Zhang Feng, who were evacuated and transferred, women cadres, and students from the Kuomintang district to participate in the revolution. What their fate is is unknown.
However, when the Central Plains troops began to demobilize and reorganize a large number of surplus cadres and soldiers, due to the short time and limited conditions, many preparatory and ideological work were not done well. This is a document of the central authorities on restoration, but as far as the situation in the Central Plains is concerned, it is simply difficult to do so, so where can some money and grain be used for restoration?
In this case, demobilization is more fierce, and the demobilized soldier cadres are not clear, and everyone is unwilling to leave or leave the unit.
Some people excitedly said: "If I want to be demobilized, I will not recover; if I must be rehabilitated, send me a bullet to kill me and put me in a coffin!" ”
A young warrior was only given 150 yuan for the road fare when he recovered, not even enough money for a few meals. He had nowhere to go and wandered around town.
Some sold their things on the streets of Xuanhua shops, and some demobilized people were arrested by the Kuomintang troops halfway through, their money was searched, and people were tortured and even killed.
Wang Mao'en believes that such a restoration is really worth considering, the blow to morale is huge, and many comrades in the troops have a lot of resentment against the leadership of the Central Plains Bureau after the breakthrough, and it cannot be said that it is unreasonable.
During the entire armistice period, there is still an important task, the hundred-day training of troops, and the entire Central Plains Army is no longer capable of accomplishing this matter.
Although in the armistice period, the Kuomintang troops were still concentrated in the original areas, stepping up the construction of bunkers, encircling and encroaching, and squeezing the Chinese communist troops into the smallest possible space so that they could be resolved as soon as possible when the use of force could be used.
The Central Plains thus became the second hot spot in the country at that time outside of the northeast where conflict could break out, and the situation of the Chinese Communist forces, which were much smaller than the number of Kuomintang troops around them, was indeed very dangerous.
Although war in the Central Plains was imminent, the Chinese Communists were still trying to delay the Kuomintang's military offensive and gain time to prepare for a breakthrough.
On May 1, Zhou Enlai met with Xu Yongchang and suggested that representatives of the Kuomintang, the United States, and the United States go to Xuanhuadian to supervise the implementation of the armistice on the ground.
On the 5th, representatives of the military trio Xu Yongchang, Zhou Enlai, and Marshall flew to Hankou.
On the 8th, Wang Tianming, representatives of Zhou, Bai and Xu Yongchang, went to Xuanhua store for field investigation and returned to Hankou the next day.
On the 10th, the three parties reached a Hankou agreement on the armistice in the Central Plains, which stipulates:
Immediate cessation of fighting and conflict in the area; immediate cessation of movement of forces, notification to the Executive Group of any movement permitted in the armistice order; cessation of the construction of bunkers and fortifications; It is necessary to determine the boundaries of the confrontational forces; to agree that the Chinese communist forces will transport 1,160 wounded and sick soldiers and related personnel to Anyang; and to ensure the safety of the demobilized and returned personnel of the Chinese communist troops.
As a result of the signing of the agreement, tensions in the Central Plains were temporarily eased, but under the influence of the national situation, this agreement did not solve the fundamental problem.
In fact, the main purpose of Zhou Enlai's tireless visit to Xuanhuadian was to convey the CPC Central Committee's decision on the strategic transfer of the Central Plains troops and make careful arrangements for issues related to the breakthrough. The Kuomintang side also did not give up its attempt to encircle and annihilate the Chinese communist forces, Chen Cheng said to Yu Dawei:
The CCP's Li Xiannian department broke through, the government could not agree to let it go to Yan'an, Li Bu escaped, counting Yi's skills are good, the government cannot fight, the government cannot.
With the completion of the Preparations of the Kuomintang, the pace of the civil war was getting closer and closer, and the war was also on the verge of breaking out.