As we all know, Su Yu is one of the most capable of fighting among the new Chinese generals, although he himself did not go to a regular military academy or received systematic training in military knowledge, but on the battlefield, the troops he commanded defeated those high-caliber students who came out of the military academy again and again, which made us have to admire General Su Yu's military talent.
The biggest feature of Su Yu's use of troops should be flexible and changeable, eclectic, so that the enemy can not touch his head, this point, the national army lieutenant general Wang Yaowu deeply understands this, he was once Su Yu's old opponent for many years, for this reason sighed: Su Yu's combat style is changeable, can adjust the deployment at any time and anywhere, and their senior generals who have come from the general school are very different.
Su Yu's flexibility and changeability are not only reflected in the command of operations, but also in the work of resettling prisoners and battlefield logistics, he can also come up with many feasible methods to solve problems that others cannot solve.
The Battle of Huaihai took too many prisoners
During the period of the War of Liberation, every time our army won a war, there were many prisoners of war, and most of these prisoners of war joined the ranks of the People's Liberation Army after a simple education; after all, it was a war within the country, and there was no need for both sides to make you die. Therefore, throughout the period of the War of Liberation, our army adopted the policy of "capturing and replenishing", so that the PLA contingent fought bigger and bigger, and fought more and more.
Compared with the Red Army period, most of the prisoners of war were sent home, leaving only a few, the PLA's policy towards prisoners of war was much more relaxed, as long as they were not officers, ordinary soldiers would be released after simple education, or let them join the PLA.
This is also the reason why the number of our army expanded from more than one million to four million throughout the period of the Liberation War.
At the end of 1948, Su Yu designed a plan for the Huaihai Campaign according to the situation of the national battlefield, and after a series of discussions, the central government opposed it at the beginning and finally agreed to implement it, affirming Su Yu's views and judgments on the overall war situation.
The entire Huaihai Campaign was very large, and its fierceness far exceeded that of the Pingjin Campaign and the Liaoshen Campaign, and while destroying the enemy, its own casualties were also relatively large.
The entire Huaihai Campaign can be said to be divided into three small battles, namely the Battle of Nianzhuang, which eliminated Huang Baitao's corps, the Battle of Shuangduiji, which eliminated Huang Wei's corps, and the Battle of Chen Guanzhuang, which captured Lieutenant General Du Yuming.
It is worth mentioning that the fierceness of the entire campaign far exceeded Su Yu's own expectations, and only in the Battle of Nianzhuang, under the desperate resistance of Huang Baitao himself, the PLA suffered 60,000 casualties, and many troops were insufficient, and new soldiers were urgently needed to supplement the combat effectiveness of the troops.
After the battle of Nianzhuang, our army captured a large number of prisoners, and according to the policy of "that is, prisoners are replenished" for the treatment of prisoners, the prisoners can voluntarily join the People's Liberation Army after education.
As a result, the forces that had suffered heavy casualties were greatly increased in strength after being replenished by a large number of captive soldiers.
Friendly and enemy forces cannot be identified without uniforms
A battle captured more than a hundred thousand, and these captured soldiers, although they had combat experience, could quickly fill the combat effectiveness of the army.
However, they were wearing the uniforms of the Kuomintang army, which were mixed in the ranks of our army, and they were not easy to identify, and they were easily mistaken for enemy troops, causing accidental injuries.
At first, the staff of the Logistics Department did not think that a single battle would capture so many people, and they would not be able to produce 100,000 sets of uniforms for a while, which meant that those prisoner soldiers who did not wear our uniforms could not join the ranks of the People's Liberation Army.
Because the soldiers who went to the battlefield were very vigilant, a nerve was tense, and when they saw the uniforms of the Kuomintang army, they would self-reflexively shoot at the opposite side.
When everyone was worried about how to send a large number of captive soldiers to the battlefield to replenish the combat effectiveness of the troops, Commander Su thought of a way, and he asked the logistics department to make more than 100,000 simple military hats overnight.
At first, the Quartermaster Department still couldn't understand what to do with so many military hats, but after listening to Su Yuyi's explanation, he suddenly realized.
It turned out that these more than 100,000 military hats were for those captive soldiers, and if they rushed to produce 100,000 sets of military uniforms, it would certainly be very difficult, and it would be difficult to complete in just a few days.
But to make 100,000 simple military hats, the difficulty is much smaller, and the skillful women comrades will soon be able to finish it, and there will not be much delay.
Su Yu's method was to first make 100,000 military hats and wear them on the heads of the captives, so that our army could quickly distinguish whether the soldiers wearing the Kuomintang uniform were friendly troops and solve the problem of accidental wounding on the battlefield.
Su Yu replaced the military uniform with a hat, which expanded many troops and solved the problem of the shortage of soldiers in the army.
epilogue
No matter what the method, the purpose was to win the Huaihai Campaign, and when the great war broke out, Su Yu was able to think of being eclectic, replenishing the combat effectiveness of the troops as quickly as possible, and solving the problem of accidental wounding of friendly troops.
It was precisely because after the Battle of Nianzhuang that the troops were rapidly replenished, they were able to quickly and effectively encircle the enemy in the rear double pile and the Battle of Chen Guanzhuang, and wipe them all out in the area north of the Yangtze River.
If our army was insufficient at that time and the battle losses could not be replenished, it might have allowed some of the enemy to run away, increasing the difficulty of follow-up operations.