Before the Battle of Huaihai began, old Chiang kai-shek was exhausted by the selection of a marshal. At the beginning, he planned to let Bai Chongxi command this strategic armageddon. Bai Chongxi is the soul of the Gui clan, and has rebelled against Jiang many times in history with Li Zongren, so why did the old Jiang let Bai Chongxi become the commander-in-chief of the Huaihai Campaign?
The first reason is that Bai Chongxi does have a set of wars. After the outbreak of the Liberation War, the performance of many famous generals of the National Army was out of standard, but Bai Chongxi was one of the few bright spots. After Nakano advanced into Dabie Mountain, he was ordered to lead his troops to besiege, and in only half a year, Nakano lost more than half of his troops, and was finally forced to withdraw from Dabie Mountain.
In the Battle of Dabie Mountain, Bai Chongxi's military ability left a deep impression on Lao Jiang. The Battle of Huaihai was a strategic decisive battle that could not be lost again, and after comprehensive consideration, Lao Jiang believed that the position of the commander-in-chief of the Nationalist army was none other than Bai Chongxi.
The second reason is to take the opportunity to weaken the strength of the Gui clan. When Chiang Kai-shek made Bai Chongxi the commander-in-chief of the Nationalist Army in the Huaihai Campaign, he attached a premise that Bai Chongxi's 200,000 Chinese troops must participate in the battle. Old Jiang vainly tried to tie Bai Chongxi and himself to the same chariot through this move, in order to achieve the purpose of taking advantage of the opportunity to weaken the strength of the Gui clan.
At first, Bai Chongxi agreed to Lao Jiang's conditions, but when he went around Xuzhou, he changed his mind and resolutely did not take office. Why? It turned out that after Bai Chongxi arrived in Xuzhou, he found that hundreds of thousands of Nationalist troops had formed a long snake array along the railway line, pulling up a passive beating posture.
Before the battle was fought, he was in a passive position in the situation, and Bai Chongxi felt very awkward. What disturbed him even more was that the Huangpu generals headed by Qiu Qingquan were very arrogant in front of him. Bai Chongxi was worried that after the battle began, Qiu Qingquan and others might not listen to their own commands, and when old Jiang controlled in Nanjing, he would be completely hollowed out, and it was better not to do it than to be plinthy.
After careful consideration, Bai Chongxi finally refused Lao Jiang's request and recommended Liu Zhi to be the commander-in-chief of the nationalist army. Although Liu Zhi was very senior and was still a famous fu general in the Northern Expedition, he had not won any victorious battles since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and handed over 800,000 nationalist troops to his command.
So the question is, why doesn't Old Jiang use Xue Yue? It should be known that Xue Yue was a famous anti-Japanese general, who had defeated the Japanese army several times under Changsha City with his original Heavenly Furnace Tactics, annihilating 100,000 enemies, and was known as the "Tiger of Changsha". Regardless of his seniority, prestige, or ability to command a large army, Xue Yue was no worse than Bai Chongxi.
Before the Outbreak of the Huaihai Campaign, Xue Yue was holding an idle post in Nanjing, not impossible to transfer. So why not let him command the Battle of Huaihai? Old Jiang: You don't look at why Xue Yue was removed from his post! Many people think that lao Jiang did not reuse Xue Yue in the Liberation War, but in fact, this is a misunderstanding.
As soon as the Liberation War broke out, Old Jiang entrusted Xue Yue with a heavy responsibility, making him the director of the Xuzhou Appeasement Office, commanding hundreds of thousands of nationalist troops to fight against Shandong and Huaye in Jiangsu. Old Jiang had thought that with Xue Yue in his seat, he would soon be able to defeat Hua Ye, but Unexpectedly, Xue Yue disappointed him greatly.
In terms of fighting, Xue Yue did have two shots, but he encountered Su Yu, first losing Dai Zhiqi's reorganized 69th Division in the Battle of Suqian, and then Ma Liwu's reorganized 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column under his command were completely annihilated by HuaYe in Yixian County. Dai Zhiqi and Ma Liwu were both concubines of Lao Jiang, and Ma Liwu also served as Old Chiang's attendant aide-de-camp, resulting in one suicide and one captured.
The first rapid column was even old Jiang's heart and liver treasure, and the result was also buried by Xue Yue. Less than half a year after Xue Yue took office, successive defeats in successive battles, two integrated divisions and a rapid column were destroyed one after another, and lao Jiang was extremely disappointed in Xue Yue, and dismissed him on the grounds of "weak command" and transferred him back to Nanjing to take up an idle post.
Old Jiang had already given Xue Yue a chance, and it turned out that he was not Su Yu's opponent at all. Now that he was going to fight a strategic decisive battle in Huaihai, 800,000 elites was already one of the few capitals of Old Jiang, so how could he still let Xue Yue, Su Yu's men, defeat him and command him in the future. In the end, old Jiang pushed Liu Zhi to the front desk in desperation, and asked Du Yuming to be his deputy, responsible for specific military command.
Du Yuming was also relatively capable of fighting among the senior generals of the Nationalist army, but before he arrived in Xuzhou, Huang Baitao's corps was already surrounded by Huaye, and as soon as the battle began, the Nationalist army was in a passive position. Coupled with the reasons of Chiang Kai-shek's remote control command and internal intrigue, the Nationalist army was finally defeated in the Battle of Huaihai, and the outcome of the Liberation War was also doomed.