preface
Xu Shiyou was furious as soon as he heard it, grabbed the microphone in the hands of the staff officer, did not care to ask who the other party was, and shouted: "You only know that you are stuck on the map, and the soldier is on two legs." ”
Xu Shiyou's violent temper
General Xu Shiyou spent his life fighting in the south and the north, and developed a fiery temper. Especially on the battlefield, the favorite thing to say is "kill the head." On March 15, 1941, Xu Shiyou was commanding troops to attack Asan, and when he was mobilizing before the war, he said directly with a tiger's face:
"This battle is only allowed to advance, not to retreat!" Shake the hearts of the army and kill the head. Passively avoid the enemy, kill the head. See death is not saved, kill the head. ”
This was Xu Shiyou's usual method before the war, and it often had remarkable effects.
On the one hand, Xu Shiyou was limited by his cultural level and rarely read ancient and modern Chinese and foreign military theoretical works; on the other hand, he explored his unique "experience" on the battlefield and withstood the test of war. For this reason, in the view of General Xu Shiyou, as long as he can win the battle, he must be able to use it.
In the words of Commander Xu,
"What is tactics? Being able to get in is a tactic! Don't talk nicely, get blind when you start a fight. ”
Xu Shiyou often teaches his subordinates that even if you encounter a strong enemy, you can't instigate it. At this time, what you need to do is to hit hard and let the other party know how strong you are. If you are mentally intimidated by it, then the other party will have to inch in and bully you.
In November 1933, the great Sichuan warlord Liu Xiang responded to Chiang Kai-shek's instructions and summoned a large army to launch an 11-month large-scale siege against our army. At that time, Xu Shiyou led the 25th Division of the 9th Army and garrisoned the position of Damian Mountain south of Wanyuan.
In this battle, the enemy launched six major attacks in succession, sometimes in just one day, to repel the enemy's charge more than a dozen times. When dealing with the enemy, Xu Shiyou would generally put the enemy close to the position, then counterattack, and sometimes put on a bayonet for white-knife warfare.
Although the enemy's offensive momentum was very fierce, Xu Shiyou did not hesitate at all and dared to counterattack. At the height of the fighting, the front of the position was littered with corpses, and even the corpses of the enemy were used for fortifications. Liu Xiang's army suffered heavy losses in four and a half months and was unable to launch another attack. In the end, our army launched an all-out attack, successfully smashed the enemy's encirclement and suppression, and liberated more than ten counties and towns in one fell swoop...
In his later years, Xu Shiyou once recalled:
"As far as the defensive battle I participated in, the battle of Damian Mountain, which was large in scale and long in time, was very cruel. I haven't fought a battle like this since. ”
Su Yu's face turned red with anger
Xu Shiyou's violent temper also caused a lot of trouble. In 1947, the Chinese people's liberation army units were reorganized, and Xu Shiyou's Jiaodong Military Region was incorporated into the battle sequence of the East China Field Army. Hua Ye became the team commanded by Xu Shiyou.
During the Liberation War, the Kuomintang concentrated three corps north to attack the Yimeng Mountains in Shandong, hoping to annihilate Huaye's main forces.
Faced with the enemy's movements, Huaye's headquarters ordered the columns to hide between the mountains. The complex terrain and steep mountainous terrain of the Yimeng Mountains are very conducive to the covert operations of the Huaye troops.
Although there was no problem with the decision of the Huaye Command, it also caused complaints from the columns as the troops had been circling and hiding.
Xu Shiyou was originally violent, and with the lack of understanding of the intentions of the boss, it was inevitable that there would be complaints. One day, the 9th Column had just walked more than a dozen miles, when it received a call from the Huaye Headquarters and ordered the Ninth Column to return to its original position.
As soon as Xu Shiyou heard this, he was angry, and directly snatched the phone from the staff officer's hand, and without asking who the other party was, he said loudly:
"You only know that you have two legs on the map, and you are a soldier." When the roar was over, the microphone fell!
Who is the other person? Su Yuya. He was then the deputy commander of the East China Field Army, responsible for the command and coordination of the entire campaign. According to the recollections of those present:
"After Commander Xu dropped the microphone, Su Yu's face turned red with anger, and he stared directly at the microphone in his hand, and was stunned for a while."
Although Xu Shiyou dropped the phone, he did not dare to disobey the command's orders. The troops moved back through the night and successfully reached their destination within the allotted combat time.
On May 10, Huaye Command ordered the Ninth Arson to quickly return to the division to the west and intercept the isolated and prominent integrated 74th Division of the enemy's middle road corps. Hearing that he was going to fight the 74th Division, Xu Shiyou did not hesitate in the slightest. He then said:
"Others are afraid of his 74th Division, we are not afraid!"
His temper is like this, the harder the enemy, the higher his interest.
At the pre-war mobilization meeting, Xu Shiyou said: We are not allowed to fight the slippery head battle in the Ninth Column, and we must go up when we see difficulties and pick up hard knocks. In the Battle of Menglianggu, Xu Shiyou did not brag, and the main combat task of the Ninth Column led by him at that time was to drag the 74th Division on the frontal battlefield.
Throughout the day, the Ninth Column withstood the onslaught of the 74th Division. In two days and two nights, the ninth column and the fourth column firmly nailed the 74th Division to the front line of Tanbu, so that Zhang Lingfu could neither break through nor give up. It was in this way that under the command of Huaye Command, the other columns smoothly divided the battlefield according to plan, cutting off the 74th Division's contact with friendly forces.
After the Battle of Menglianggu, the Nine Columns led by Xu Shiyou did indeed make battle achievements. However, at the celebration meeting, Xu Shiyou did not dare to participate, because he knew that Elder Chen would always criticize him. At the celebration meeting, Chen Yi really criticized him,
"Some people are just proud and complacent, like to say some strange things, what is called a card on the map, not how to command..."
Xu Shiyou's strategy
Although Xu Shiyou was criticized by Mr. Chen, Xu Shiyou was definitely not the kind of general who only knew how to fight hard. When attacking Jinan, Xu Shiyou proposed the "ox knife tactic". Although the fortifications in Jinan are relatively strong, we must grasp the enemy's key troops and concentrate our firepower and forces to kill a bloody road.
After the fact, it turned out that Xu Shiyou's tactic was correct. If you want to talk about the understanding of General Xu Shiyou, then his old subordinates have a certain right to speak. Liu Yan, former deputy commander of the Henan Provincial Military Region, who had followed Xu Shiyou on his campaign for many years, once said:
"No matter where Commander Xu is, he must hang a map in the room." Before the battle, he would be alone in the room, and no one was allowed to disturb him. ”
Some people once pointed out at the meeting that in carrying out modernization, it is not as simple as commanding wars in the past, and we cannot "blindly command" and so on. As a result, this sentence caused Xu Shiyou's anger, and he said angrily:
"Some people say that in the past, it was very simple to lead soldiers to fight, and they did not talk about science, which is complete nonsense. When a war starts, the commander's responsibility is very heavy, and it is necessary to consider the changes in the battlefield situation, consider how to arrange troops, and not let the soldiers sacrifice in vain..."