In 1947, Xu Xiangqian received an order from the central authorities to leave Yan'an for Shanxi to eliminate the warlords of Yan Xishan, who had been entrenched for many years, and at that time there were three major problems in Xu Xiangqian, one was that Yan Xishan was very cunning and difficult to deal with; the other was that the troops handed over to Xu Xiangqian were all local troops, and their combat capabilities could not be compared with the main forces; and the other was that the equipment of the troops was extremely different from that of Yan Xishan's troops.
Faced with such a difficult situation, Xu Shuai was confident and assured that he would definitely take Shanxi before leaving.
There are many factors for the success of a battle, the most important one is to have correct strategy and tactics, in the campaign to capture Yuncheng and Linfen, considering that the local troops did not have artillery and could not destroy the enemy's powerful defense system, Xu Shuai used the soil work industry, using forced explosion to advance little by little, with a very high cost of casualties to conquer these two cities, Yan Xishan learned that Yuncheng and Linfen fell, extremely shocked, full of doubts said: "The communist army did not use the main force, but actually captured these two cities? ”
After the cities of Linfen and Yuncheng were conquered, Xu Shuai set his sights on the Jinzhong region. At that time, the main force of Yan Xishan was in Taiyuan, this unit was very good at defense, if the People's Liberation Army directly attacked, even if it conquered Taiyuan, the casualties were also very large, in order to minimize the enemy's living strength, Xu Shuai thought of a perfect tactic.
Every June is the harvest season of wheat in Jinzhong, every time at this time, Yan Xishan will send troops to grab wheat, Xu Shuai took this factor into account, so he decided to lead the troops to Jinzhong after the Battle of Linfen, in order to confuse Yan Xishan's army, he also sent a troop to cross the river from Fengling, so that Yan Xishan thought that the People's Liberation Army was going to Hexi.
At that time, the People's Liberation Army was very tired after the end of the first two battles, and the soldiers urgently needed to rest, but in order to buy time, Xu Shuai ordered the troops to go to Jinzhong non-stop, and on the way forward, Wang Xinting, the commander of the Eighth Column, saw that the troops were too far behind, and found Xu Shuai to ask the troops to rest for a few days before marching, but Xu Shuai sternly refused: even if they climbed, they had to climb to their destination.
After the troops arrived in Jinzhong, it was not long before they encountered Yan Xishan's army, which came to grab grain, because the People's Liberation Army was very good at mobile warfare, and Yan Xishan's army suffered a lot of losses, and according to the battle situation on the front line, he summed up a method: divide the troops into multiple roads, and the interval between each road was very small. In this way, when facing the PLA's tactics of dividing and encircling, it is not afraid of being eaten. At first, such tactics achieved extremely good results, and the Platon's many attacks were unsuccessful.
However, Yan Xishan's troops still failed in the face of the PEOPLE's flexible and changeable movement warfare.
At that time, a unit of Yan Xishan quietly followed behind the Linfen Brigade, but it was soon discovered by the People's Liberation Army, and the troops quickly divided and surrounded this enemy army, and in less than 4 hours, they were completely destroyed.
After Yan Xishan learned the news, he angrily scolded the founder of this unit for being useless. Why the Founder? It turned out that this unit was specially trained according to the establishment of the Japanese army, and the officers in it were all personally selected by Yan Xishan, and the weapons equipped were very advanced, and the most important thing was that their instructor was a senior staff officer of the Japanese army, which was such a unit that yan Xishan had spent a lot of effort, and it was wiped out just after fighting the first battle.
Under the huge difference in weapons and equipment of the PLA and Yan Xishan's army, in addition to having superior tactics, it also has strong execution. At that time, Xu Shuai planned to drive part of Yan Xishan's main force to the Jinzhong Plain, and in order to achieve this strategic goal, he let the troops implement a variety of tactics, and under the strong execution, they achieved this goal in many difficulties, and even Yan Xishan had to lament the plausible combat strength of the People's Liberation Army.
Driven to the main force of Yan Xishan in the Jinzhong Plain, there is a unit called the Tenth General Brigade, which is all composed of surrendered Japanese troops who invaded China, if the previous battle is the PLA tactical mastermind, then when it comes to attacking this unit, the PLA shows a stronger will to fight than the Spirit of Japanese Bushido.
The Japanese army's combat has a very strong stubbornness, not only command and cooperation tacit understanding and bayonet technology is first-class, in the face of such an enemy, as a local unit grew up in the Platon Army to fight very difficult, the street battles at that time were very fierce, most of them were several PLA against a Japanese, the regimental commander commanded at the front, cadres at all levels rushed to the front, and the Japanese army fought room by room, and finally it became a contest of will to fight.
At that time, a PLA soldier rushed to the headquarters of the Tenth General Brigade, pulled out the explosive package lead on his body, and directly paralyzed the Japanese headquarters, and after the battle, the PLA soldier was left with only a hand full of blood.
In the Battle of Jinzhong, Xu Shuai commanded the People's Liberation Army to wipe out 100,000 yan xishan troops with 60,000 people, the Central Military Commission learned of the news of the victory, Chairman Mao personally sent a congratulatory telegram, originally the original message was "great help to the entire war situation", but later changed to "great", such a change is rare, which shows the chairman's appreciation of Xu Shuai.