Before the outbreak of the Liberation War, the Nationalist army had an absolute superiority in strength and weapons and equipment, and there was also the support of the United States. Therefore, old Jiang was full of confidence and boasted that he could end the war in only one year, but it turned out that his cowhide was obviously blown. In the first year after the outbreak of the Liberation War, the Nationalist army did occupy a certain advantage on the battlefield, but the second year began to decline, and in the third year, the army was defeated, and in just over three years, chiang Kai-shek's 8 million troops were defeated.
So why didn't Old Chiang Kai-shek, who had such a huge army, win the War of Liberation? Huang Baitao's encounter is the best answer. Personally, I have always believed that in terms of the overall performance of the Liberation War, among the many senior generals of the Nationalist Army, Huang Baitao was the first fierce general, and although he was from a miscellaneous background, he had both offensive and defensive skills. During the Northern Jiangsu Campaign, he led the 25th Division of Lianketai County, Gaoyou, Baoying, Yancheng, Funing, and Muyang; after being transferred to Jiaodong, he successively captured Gaomi, Pingdu, Laiyang, Fushan, and Yantai. Huang Baitao's attack ability was so strong that even compared with Zhang Lingfu, it was no less.
Looking at the defense, in the later stages of the Battle of Eastern Henan, Huang Baitao was surrounded by Huaye in Diqiudian, and in the absence of water, he led his troops to resist for eight days and nights, during which he personally led a counterattack to our army, and finally forced Huaye to retreat, with this battle, Huang Baitao not only won a medal of blue sky and white sun, but also forced Hu Lian to become the commander of the 7th Corps. Before the Battle of Huaihai, the position of the 7th Corps was the most prominent, and Huang Baitao, feeling that he was in danger of being encircled by Huaye, hurriedly asked Liu Zhi to retreat. On November 4, Liu Zhi called Huang Baitao back: Your corps should quickly withdraw to Xuzhou.
If Huang Baitao's 120,000 men and horses could withdraw to Xuzhou in time, hundreds of thousands of Nationalist troops in the region would be firmly held together, bringing great difficulties to the division and attack of our army, and even the entire Huaihai Campaign's idea might be frustrated. However, just as Huang Baitao was deploying the retreat, Liu Zhi suddenly changed his mind and ordered the Seventh Corps to wait for the 44th Army in the direction of Haizhou and retreat with the army. Liu Zhi had a lot of private salt business in Haizhou, and in order not to damage his own interests, he actually took military secrets as a joke and ordered the boss who was engaged in the salt business for himself to retreat with the 44th Army with private salt.
Boss Yan quickly told his friends and relatives about the retreat of the 44th Army. As a result, ten and ten hundred, soon all the people in Haizhou knew that the 44th Army was about to withdraw, and the merchants, local rich people, and some high-ranking officials and dignitaries all took action, dragging their families and mouths to Xin'an Town, and blocking the road at once, and the 44th Army could only move towards Xin'an Town like a snail. When Huang Baitao learned of this, he was greatly annoyed and said to his subordinates: "When the army fights, it is the general who has no talent and dies of exhaustion to the three armies." Liu Jingfu saw that money was bigger than the country's affairs, and it was really unreasonable! How can such a leak of military secrets not be defeated! ”
It was not until November 7 that the 44th Army reached the town of Xin'an, and Huang Baitao urgently ordered the whole army to retreat to Xuzhou, but it was too late, and Hua Ye used the three precious days given by Liu Zhi to catch up and surroundEd Huang Baitao in the Nianzhuangwei area. Huang Baitao was well aware of the bad habit of the Nationalist army in seeing death and not saving, so from the moment he was surrounded, he issued an order to the commanders of the army to "prepare to fight independently and fulfill the duty of the soldiers", and declared that he would fight with our army "one by one".
In order to relieve Huang Baitao's siege, Lao Jiang urgently ordered Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi to lead 6 armies to attack Nianzhuang, but in order to protect themselves, neither of them would fight to the death. At the last moment of the Battle of Nianzhuang, Huang Baitao said to Chen Shizhang, commander of the 25th Army: "The ancients said that if you win, you will raise a glass to celebrate, and if you lose, you will save each other. How can one by one, who only cares about plotting against each other for personal gain, ever fight the Communist Party? People follow the instructions of their superiors to the end, and we follow the yin and yang. Now that we are unlucky, Qiu Qingquan and others would like to be as far away from us as possible, and when they come to the rescue, there is no hope. ”
Eventually, Huang Baitao committed suicide at the age of 48. After learning the news of Huang Baitao's death in battle, Old Jiang was very sad and posthumously awarded him the second-class general of the army and gave him a pension of 100,000 gold coupons. At that time, the golden yuan coupon was no different from waste paper, carrying a sack of gold yuan coupons to eat a breakfast, and 100,000 gold yuan coupons could only buy a burnt cake at best. Liu Zhi went so far as to play military secrets for his own private salt business, causing Huang Baitao to be besieged; Qiu Qingquan was ordered to reinforce but blindly protected himself and sat and watched Huang Baitao collapse; after Huang Baitao's death, Old Jiang actually only gave a pension of "burning cakes." Blindly plotting for personal gain, coupled with unclear rewards and punishments, even if he gave Lao Jiang more troops, he would still not be able to win the war of liberation.