On November 28, 1948, the elder Jiang summoned Du Yuming to Nanjing for a meeting to discuss how to deal with the crisis of the Battle of Xuzhou. After Du Yuming arrived in Nanjing, he first talked with Gu Zhutong for a while alone in the small living room of the old Jiang official residence.
Du Yuming asked, "Originally, it was decided to add several more armies, so why didn't even one army increase?" Until now, it has formed a situation in which it is difficult to ride the tiger. ”
Gu Zhutong said, "You don't understand, you are everywhere, you can't move!" ”
Du Yuming was a little annoyed: "Since you know that you can't draw troops to fight a decisive battle, you shouldn't have decided to fight!" It has trapped the Huang Wei Legion under siege and cannot be saved! At present, the only way to save Huang Wei is to concentrate all the forces that can be concentrated to fight a decisive battle with the communist army, otherwise Huang Wei will be finished, Xuzhou will not be protected, and Nanjing will be in danger! ”
Gu Zhutong was depressed: "The old man also has difficulties, all methods have been thought out, and even an army cannot be moved." ”
What Gu Zhutong said was indeed the truth, and in order to increase the strength of Du Yuming's forces in order to relieve Huang Wei, Lao Jiang did everything he could, and he summoned Song Xilian, commander of the 14th Corps, to Nanjing, and said to him in a serious tone: "The main purpose of calling you this time is to transfer all the strength of your corps east to reinforce the operation in the Xu Beng area to save the unfavorable situation we are currently in." The decisive battle now being waged in the Xu beng area has a bearing on the survival of the party-state. I hope that your troops will open east as soon as possible, and after joining the battlefield, they will first relieve the siege of the Huang Wei Corps with all their strength, and then join forces with xuzhou troops to break the communist army and stabilize the war situation! ”
Song Xilian did not dare to be idle, and immediately after returning to Jingmen in Hubei Province, he ordered the 20th and 28th Armies to assemble in Wuhan and prepare to be transported by water to the battlefield of Xu Beng. However, when the troops arrived in Wuhan, Bai Chongxi sent a guard unit to guard all the ships, and also told the Central China "Suppression General" Transport Command that the 20th Army and the 28th Army would never be allowed to be loaded and transferred without his orders. At that time, Song Xilian's 14th Corps was subordinate to the "Suppression General" sequence in central China and was under the jurisdiction of Bai Chongxi. Now that Bai Chongxi would not let him go, Song Xilian was in a hurry and there was no way.
After Old Jiang learned of this, he personally called Bai Chongxi, but Bai Chongxi just wouldn't let up, and the last two people actually quarreled on the phone. Old Jiang scolded Bai Chongxi for disobeying the order, and Bai Chongxi said, "Reasonable orders I obey, unreasonable orders I cannot accept." Old Jiang saw Bai Chongxi bumping into himself so much that he was so angry that he dropped the phone. Due to Bai Chongxi's vigorous obstruction, Lao Jiang was unable to transfer a single soldier from Central China.
Afterwards, someone asked Bai Chongxi why he refused to go to East China to take up his post and refused to increase his troops to Huaihai, if he could go to East China to command and quickly transfer the main force into the battlefield, the outcome of the Battle of Xu Beng might not be so bad. Bai Chongxi replied, "What if it's not bad?" Victory is not yet the world of Old Jiang! Old Chiang's success! Did I win fewer battles during the Northern Expedition? The result? Now let him taste the taste of failure, too. ”
The hundreds of thousands of nationalist troops on the battlefield of Huaihai had reached the critical juncture of life and death, and Bai Chongxi not only did not want to rescue him, but also deliberately demolished old Chiang Kai-shek's platform, intent on watching his jokes, and the general was so detached from Germany that the nationalist army had the reason for being invincible! As an aside, Bai Chongxi, who had repeatedly opposed Old Chiang at a critical juncture, actually followed Old Chiang away despite Li Zongren's repeated persuasions when the Nationalist army was in a great rout, and finally ended up with a tragic ending, which was really a vain call "Little Zhuge Ge."
Since reinforcements could not be transferred, old Jiang Cai urgently summoned Du Yuming to Nanjing to discuss the next move, and finally decided to abandon Xuzhou, withdraw his troops to Yang and Fuyang, and build a position on the Huai River to secure Nanjing. Du Yu saw that Old Chiang was determined and agreed to withdraw his troops from Xuzhou; in order to prevent Old Chiang from changing his mind halfway through, he put forward the principle of "if you want to withdraw, you will not fight, and if you want to fight, you will not withdraw.", and Old Jiang agreed very happily.
After Du Yuming returned to Xuzhou, he immediately arranged a retreat plan, the first step reaching the vicinity of Yongcheng on the border between Anhui and Henan, and the second step reaching the areas of Mengcheng, Woyang, and Fuyang west of Jinpu Road and between Bengbu and Suxian. The retreat needed to be "covered one by one by the tactic of a drum", and at the same time required that the troops should carry seven days of supplies, five hundred kilometers of fuel and ammunition, and would not be replenished halfway before reaching Fuyang. Despite Du Yuming's repeated requests for confidentiality, the news of the retreat was quickly leaked, and Xuzhou was instantly plunged into great chaos.
What was supposed to be a military operation in a critical time turned out to be like an entire city moving. Along with the retreat of the Kuomintang army, there were also personnel of the Kuomintang party organs in Xuzhou and a large number of young students and citizens who were coerced, totaling more than 300,000 people. At dawn on December 1, Huaye's forward troops and reconnaissance troops approaching Xuzhou reported that Du Yuming's main force had retreated. Su Yu immediately ordered Huaye's 9 columns to pursue and strike fiercely in parallel with multiple echelons, encircle and chase, and surpass interception. The largest pursuit and blockade operation in the Battle of Huaihai thus began.
Of all the retreating troops, Li Mi's 13th Corps ran the fastest. When departing from the vicinity of Xuzhou on the 30th, Li Mi told Zhou Fan, commander of the Third Division of the Ninth Army, how could these hundreds of thousands of people in Xuzhou move? Let's take cover in the back, don't you tell us to be substitute ghosts? I decided not to walk with them, avoid the Xiaoyong (Xiaoxian to Yongcheng) highway, and go directly to Xuejiahu, not being beaten behind them, and going around their right wing to see who could run faster.
Du Yuming's withdrawal time for Li Mi's corps was December 1, but Li Mi's retreat time for the troops was November 30. In order to run faster, Li Mi deliberately cut off contact with Du Yuming, so that Du Yuming could not find him and his Thirteenth Corps at all. In this way, this so-called cover force instantly became the main fleeing front of the entire Xuzhou Kuomintang army. Ordering and blindly preserving personal strength is another major reason for the failure of the nationalist army.
Just as Li Mi was running forward vigorously, Qiu Qingquan stopped. Because Guo Jiqian, commander of the 45th Division of the Fifth Army, who was walking behind, reported that he was already under siege and was about to be completely annihilated. Qiu Qingquan immediately ordered the 72nd Army to send a division back to reinforce. Xiong Xiaosan, commander of the 5th Army, Gao Jiren, commander of the 70th Army, and Yu Jinyuan, commander of the 72nd Army, strongly opposed it, believing that the task of the 45th Division was to cover the retreat of the main force of the corps, and it was normal for the main force of the corps to continue to retreat. Now go back to rescue the 45th Division, and the main force has not become a cover force? If you don't get it right, you will become Huang Baitao.
It should be said that the minds of these military commanders are still relatively sober, but Qiu Qingquan resolutely disagrees. He said: "It is okay to sacrifice others, Guo Jiqian is my general, and he has made many military achievements in northern Jiangsu, Luxi, and eastern Henan, if he is not rescued from the siege today, the soldiers will be chilled, and they will scold me for not having a conscience, who will fight for me in the future?" So, Qiu Qingquan's corps stopped. Qiu Bingtuan was the absolute main force among these hundreds of thousands of national troops, and as soon as he stopped, Du Yuming had no choice but to stop.
Just when Du Yuming was distraught, the plane dropped a parcel with Lao Jiang's handwritten letter: "According to the air force report, most of the enemy at the mouth of Suixi is flowing toward Yongcheng, and the younger brothers are still advancing toward Yongcheng on this day, so they act like this, and sit back and watch the Yellow Corps annihilate, and we will be annihilated, and Wangdi quickly ordered all the corps to stop advancing toward Yongcheng, turn to the attack at Suixikou, and coordinate the attack from the north and south of Li Yannian's corps advancing from Bengbu to the north to relieve the siege of the Huang Wei Corps." ”
After reading this letter, Du Yuming had mixed feelings in his heart: When Nanjing reached the plan of using the Huang Wei Corps to contain the communist army and cover the comprehensive retreat of the main force in Xuzhou, he repeatedly stressed the principle of "if you want to withdraw, you will not fight, and if you want to fight, you will not withdraw." Why did he change his mind again when he was halfway there? If you want to fight with the communist army, why not fight in Xuzhou, where the fortifications are strong and have the support of supplies, but wait until you go to the wilderness? Isn't this a clear intention to send yourself into the mouth of the communist army that has been opened?
Du Yuming's first thought was not to carry out this order, to continue to retreat in the direction of Yongcheng according to the original plan, and then launch an attack to rescue the Huang Wei Corps after the main force withdrew to the vicinity of the Huai River. However, after a moment he hesitated again: "In case of being intercepted by the People's Liberation Army along the way, the troops suffer heavy losses, and the siege of Huang Wei cannot be lifted as planned, Chiang Kai-shek is bound to be angry with me, completely blame me for the defeat in the Huaihai Campaign, and be punished by military law." In this way, I will die in battle, and I will die without fighting. ”
Later, Du Yuming recalled: "At that time, my idea was that it was too late to escape, and there was no hope of fighting. When I think about it, I think jiangshan belongs to Chiang Kai-shek, so it's up to him to go. In the end, Du Yuming decided to turn around and walk back, and as a result, he plunged into HuaYe's encirclement and was strictly surrounded by Chen Guanzhuang. In this desolate wilderness of more than a dozen square kilometers, in addition to the officers and soldiers of Du Yuming's group, there were warlords, bureaucrats, bankers and landlords who had escaped from Xuzhou, as well as teachers, students, workers and peddlers who had been coerced.
These hundreds of thousands of people need at least 240 tons of food and meat, 160 tons of ammunition and other various supplies every day. The limited number of airdrops made by the Nationalist army every day is tantamount to a cup of water and a tragic situation in the encirclement. The wounded groaned as they lay in improvised tents of various colors, and a large number of frozen corpses were scattered around them. Officers and men who were not injured or sick but were tormented by hunger searched everywhere for something to eat, several small villages in the vicinity had been repeatedly looted several times, the people had not only been robbed of their food, but also stripped of their clothes, and all the furniture, door frames and beams had been burned by the nationalist army as firewood.
Geng Jixun, the governor of Tongshan County, who ran after Du Yuming, begged everywhere and committed suicide without begging for any food. After the students, teachers, and workers were searched, they were replenished into the Kuomintang army, driven into the wilderness during the day to dig trenches and stand guard, and locked up like prisoners at night. What was even more tragic was that the female students, most of whom were recruited into the regimental headquarters of the various military divisions in the name of "female nurses", became the temporary "wives" of the officers in order to get a little food.
Hunger drives all people crazy. The troops were able to receive several bowls of rice a day at the beginning, and when they cooked the porridge, they saw only water and no grains of rice, but soon there was nothing. Sometimes a donkey was brought in, and after being shot with a gun, the heart, liver, lungs and stomachs were boiled in two large pots, which were guarded by the officers themselves, but before they were cooked, chaos occurred - the soldiers fought with each other to grab a little meat. The slightly higher-ranking officers had flatbread and canned food because the airdrop site was tightly sealed off by the pro-credit machine guns they sent out.
A few airdrop bags landed outside the airdrop site, and the soldiers scrambled with each other, sometimes opening them to see, it was bullets, sometimes opening them to see, it was some small vegetables and melon seeds, and the words written on the wrapping paper were "Corps Headquarters Tea Food". What made the soldiers even more angry was that it was easy to grab a large bag and open it to see that it was soil. There are also times when the pie is grabbed, but the snatcher just took a bite, and was knocked down by a bullet, and the shooter ran up and then bit it, and was quickly knocked down again, "A big cake has to send more than a dozen lives to be nibbled."
In order to find a way for these people to live, Du Yuming planned to surrender his guns to our army, but Qiu Qingquan arbitrarily refused. Although Du Yuming was Qiu Qingquan's superior, at this time he also had no way to take Qiu Qingquan. Du Yuming later recalled: "This time in the encirclement circle, Qiu asked me for instructions on major and minor matters, and it was not bad, but it was not enough to talk about it. Qiu didn't agree with this, and I couldn't do it. If you don't do well, but you die before you can succeed, and you are accused of treason against Chiang Kai-shek, I think it is too unworthy. ”
On January 6, 1949, our army concentrated 15 columns to launch a general attack on the enemy defending Chen Guanzhuang, and the enemy army lost all morale and soon collapsed. At dusk on the 9th, Du Yuming, Qiu Qingquan, Li Mi and others came to Xiong Xiaosan's Fifth Army in an attempt to break through under the cover of this ace force. The 5th Army was one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang, known as the Iron Horse Division, Du Yuming and Qiu Qingquan both served as commanders in the army, and Xiong Xiaosan was the 5th commander of the army. However, at this time, the 5th Army was no longer what it used to be, and in the dozens of days of encirclement, the officers and men could not even eat enough to eat, where did they still have the strength to fight?
After our army launched a general offensive, the 45th and 46th divisions of the army surrendered their weapons one after another, and only the 200th Division stubbornly resisted and was eventually destroyed. Du Yuming, Qiu Qingquan, Li Mi, and Xiong Xiao were forced to break through separately. Li Mi and Xiong Xiaosan disguised themselves as wounded soldiers escaped, while Qiu Qingquan was killed. Surrounded by more than a dozen guards, Du Yuming fled to the west toward Canghuang, and at dawn on the 10th, Du Yuming and his party were found by villagers in Zhanglaozhuang Village, and immediately made a report to the Health Department of the 4th Column and 11th Division of Huaye, and Fan Zhengguo, a correspondent of the Health Department, immediately took several fighters to check and captured this group outside the village.
They confessed that they were all members of Li Mi's 13th Corps, and the highest-ranking of them was the quartermaster general, named Gao Wenming. Director Chen Maohui, who was in charge of rear service command of the 4th Column 11th Division of Huaye, examined the prisoners. Director Chen took out a pack of "Pegasus" brand cigarettes and handed it over, but the "Quartermaster General" took a box of American cigarettes from his pocket and buried his head in smoking. Chen Maohui asked which unit the "high civilization" belonged to, and he said that he was the quartermaster of Li Mi's 13th Corps.
Chen Maohui asked him how many major places the 13th Corps had, "Gao Wenming" replied that there were 6 major places, Chen Maohui asked him to write out the names of the directors of these 6 major divisions, "Gao Wenming" took a pen and thought about it for half a day and could not write it out, and finally he was forced to admit that he was Du Yuming. After being captured, Du Yuming was sent to Gongdelin, and ten years later he was the first to be pardoned, successively serving as a commissioner of literature and history of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and died of illness in Beijing in 1981 at the age of 77.