On March 3, 1947, Xue Yue, a well-known member of the Kuomintang army, resigned from his post as director of the Xuzhou Sui Bureau and became a scapegoat for Chiang Kai-shek's blind command. The mediocre and incompetent Gu Zhutong became Xue Yue's successor. Hearing this news, Su Yu was very happy and thought that his pressure was instantly reduced.
In the East China Battlefield, why did Xue Yue, who had fought countless vicious battles, hard battles, and victorious battles, repeatedly lose battles? In this series of failures, what effect did his superior, Chiang Kai-shek, play?
First, Jiang Xue enmity
Xue Yue was born in Guangdong, which coincided with the end of the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, in which the Qing Navy was completely destroyed. Xue Yue's father, in his grief and indignation, gave his son the name "Yue", hoping that he would become a hero who resisted foreign insults like Yue Fei, a famous general of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Before the Xinhai Revolution, Xue Yue joined the League and joined the Chinese Revolutionary Party in 1914, becoming the first revolutionary to follow Dr. Sun Yat-sen. When Chen Jiongming rebelled in 1922, Ye Ting commanded the 1st Battalion of the Guard Regiment to guard the front door of the Presidential Palace, while Xue Yue led 3 battalions to block the back door and repeatedly repelled the rebel attacks. His bravery and courage left a deep impression on Sun Yat-sen. Judging from the seniority, Xue Yue was no lower than Chiang Kai-shek.
After Chiang Kai-shek seized power, he had no distrust of Xue Yue. The reason is that xue yue was born in the Cantonese clan and was not a close associate of Lao Jiang's own concubine. All along, Chiang Kai-shek's treatment of Xue Yue has always been a half-pull and half-dozen relationship. And Xue Yue has always been vain and condescending to Chiang Kai-shek, and his confrontation and obedience are mixed.
After the outbreak of the Central Plains War in 1930, Xue Yue, who was originally dissatisfied with Chiang Kai-shek, participated in Li Zongren's anti-Chiang War. During a battle, Xue Yue was wounded and returned to Kowloon in Hong Kong to recuperate. And this recuperation is 3 years.
Although Chiang Kai-shek had always disliked Xue Yue, he was more convinced of his military talents. In May 1933, Chiang Kai-shek launched the fifth "encirclement and suppression" campaign. On this occasion, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to reconcile with Xue Yue, who was "studying German" in Hong Kong, and invited him to become the deputy commander-in-chief of the 5th Army. In this way, Xue Yue became a military commander from a cloth cloth.
In the fifth "anti-encirclement and suppression" campaign, Xue Yue became the fiercest enemy of the Red Army. In the Battle of the Xiang River, Xue Yue inflicted heavy losses on the Red Army. In the later Long March, Xue Yue led hundreds of thousands of troops to pursue the Red Army. The Red Army walked twenty-five thousand miles, and Xue Yue also pursued twenty-five thousand miles. In this regard, Mao Zedong once said humorously:
"There is Brother Lauberling sent away."
With his excellent performance in the "suppression of the Communists", Xue Yue finally got the reuse of Chiang Kai-shek. In May 1937, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Xue Yue as the director of the Dianqian Sui Bureau and the chairman of Guizhou Province, becoming a veritable king of the southwest.
Although Jiang and Xue entered the honeymoon period, it does not mean that the two did not disagree. What Xue Yue hated most was that Chiang Kai-shek liked to interfere in the command of the front-line generals and play "micro-exercises." Zhao Zili, deputy director of the 9th Theater Staff Office, recalled:
"I believe in myself in commanding operations, and sometimes he feels that Chiang Kai-shek's military orders are wrong and will not obey them."
The First Battle of Changsha was won by Xue Yue's strong resistance to Chiang Kai-shek's order to retreat.
And Chiang Kai-shek? Although Xue Yue was reused, there was never any trust in such a capable non-concubine general. After the Battle of Songhu, Xue Yue was ordered to retreat, but on the way he was pursued by the Japanese army, and one of his special service battalions died in order to cover the retreat of the troops.
In order to commemorate these heroic martyrs who died in battle, Xue Yue had to gather some generals every day to mourn. Gradually, this group of generals formed a small group called the "Jingzhongguo Regiment".
For Chiang Kai-shek, however, it was clear that small groups in the army that were not under his control were not allowed. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek summoned Xue Yue to Hengshan Mountain in Nanyue, scolded him, and wanted to thoroughly investigate the "Jingzhongguo Regiment." Xue Yue was very frightened and repeatedly explained to Jiang, which did not cause Jiang to investigate deeply.
After the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Xue Yue believed that he had made a lot of meritorious contributions, and was not a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek, fearing that he would be "hidden by birds with all his bows." So after accepting the surrender of the Japanese army in Nanchang, he left the army and went to Shanghai to live temporarily. Originally, Xue Yue could enjoy his old age as a cloth cloth, but the outbreak of civil war once again involved him.
Second, stir up the muddy waters of civil war
In 1946, Chiang Kai-shek tore up the Double Tenth Agreement and was determined to start a civil war. As a tiger general with great military talent, Xue Yue was naturally regarded by Chiang Kai-shek as an important pawn in "suppressing the Communists."
Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to Xue Yue to make him the chairman of Shandong Province and the director of Jinan Appeasement. However, Xue Yue did not want to wade through the muddy waters of the civil war, so he categorically refused.
Chiang Kai-shek was not dead-hearted, so he sent Chen Cheng to Shanghai to personally invite people. The first time he was asked to be the commander-in-chief of the army, Xue Yue declined; the second time made Xue Yue laugh and let him be the commander-in-chief of the navy. Xue Yue said, "I haven't been a navy for a day, so how can I be the commander-in-chief of the navy?" ”
Chiang Kai-shek believes that I am afraid that this will require the vigor of "three gu maolu" to be used. In May 1946, he personally summoned Xue Yue to Nanjing, but he said with a heavy heart: "Once the Communist Party crosses the river, how can you sit back and relax in Shanghai?" For the sake of the survival of the party-state, I order you to immediately go to Xuzhou to replace Gu Zhutong."
This time, Xue Yue never shirked again. First of all, this was an order personally issued by Chairman Chiang Kai-shek, which was not bad; second, Xue Yue had had a festival with the Communist Party since the period of the agrarian revolution. He feared that the Communists would suppress him after liberating all of China.
In this way, Xue Yue drove the ducks to the shelves and became the director of the Xuzhou Appeasement Office, responsible for the combat tasks in the Huaihai area.
In the beginning, Xue Yue did cause trouble for our army. In the Kuomintang's East China Battlefield, Xue Yue was once the undisputed military and political leader, with a strong general like a cloud, sitting on 500,000 troops.
At that time, Su Yu defeated the Kuomintang army in Jiangsu for 7 consecutive times, and created the miracle of "seven battles and seven victories in the Soviet Union" with a partial division. However, Xue Yue's arrival caused serious setbacks to the Central China Liberated Areas.
Under Xue Yue's crazy attack, Lianghuai, Lianshui and other places were lost one after another. As a result, all the main forces of our army in the central Soviet region and the southern part of the northern Jiangsu region, as well as the party, government, and logistics, must be immediately withdrawn to the north, and the central China Liberated Area is almost completely lost.
Some people say that Xue Yue performed mediocrely in the Liberation War, but in fact, this does not conform to historical facts. At the beginning of the Liberation War, Xue Yue still caused considerable trouble to our army.
In this regard, Mao Zedong once said worriedly: "The more the enemy occupies more land, the greater the might, and the morale and morale of our army are damaged." Therefore, we must seek opportunities to win, destroy the enemy's might, and strengthen our own ambitions. ”
However no pole Tai Lai, however. In order to cope with Xue Yue's crazy attack, Hua Ye and the Shandong Field Army were united, and Chen Yi and Su Yuzhu were united. "Under Chen's leadership, the major policies and principles were jointly decided, and the campaign command was handed over to Su to be responsible." This also enabled our army in East China to quickly get rid of passivity, regroup, and restore the initiative, which brought about a subversive change in the war situation in East China.
Under the exquisite command of Su Yu, Xue Yue gradually changed from a "tiger general" who won every battle to an ordinary general who "would no longer fight".
After taking control of northern Jiangsu and northern Anhui, Chiang Kai-shek and Xue Yue advanced in an attempt to fight our army in a decisive battle in Shandong and completely drive our army north of the Yellow River.
By the end of December 1946, the 26th, 51st, 59th, and 77th divisions of the Nationalist army had advanced to Lunan, just a few dozen miles from Linyi, the central city of the CCP's Shandong base area. Among them, the position of the 26th Division is particularly prominent.
The 26th Division was an elite division organized by American equipment, including a mechanized unit called the First Rapid Column. It had two armored regiments consisting of Japanese light tanks and American tanks. The commander of this force was nominally Jiang Weiguo. However, Jiang Weiguo had a special status and did not personally come to the front.
In Ma Liwu's view, with such a powerful force, there is no need to worry about those "earthy" New Fourth Army. However, Ma Liwu was still more cautious, believing that his troops were too prominent and the situation was extremely isolated. Therefore, he telegraphed Xue Yue, hoping to retreat some distance. However, Xue Yue said that the 26th Division must be firmly held on the spot and must not retreat.
Art of War Yun: "The lone army has been violent for a long time, neither advancing nor retreating, and the front and back are empty left and right, and the so-called hanging shape of this sincere military language is also." This mistake by Xue Yue gave Chen Yi and Su Yu the opportunity to take advantage of the 26th Division.
Chen and Su decided to concentrate the strength of a total of 27 regiments of the Shandong Field Army to encircle and annihilate the reorganized 26th Division, and at the same time deploy the troops still in northern Jiangsu to withdraw north at an appropriate time and concentrate on Shandong. For the 26th Division, the Shandong Field Army already had an absolute numerical superiority. A large-scale war of annihilation is on the verge of erupting.
Third, Xue Yue was overhead
On the night of January 2, 1947, the Shandong Field Army suddenly appeared in the Xiangcheng area and surrounded the 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column. Since it was the New Year, Ma Liwu was also defenseless and was enjoying the Peking Opera "Wind Wave Pavilion" in the rear of Yi County.
However, just as Ma Liwu shook his head and hummed with the actor, the "storm" did come. The Shandong Field Army launched an overwhelming offensive against the 26th Division and the 1st Column. With the dragons leaderless, the 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column were soon thrown into chaos.
In fact, Ma Liwu had originally made a retreat plan. Once the battle was unfavorable, tanks were allowed to tour around the troops, covering the retreat of the troops along the road, a tactic he called "meat slime tactics".
However, the weather did not help Chiang Kai-shek, and on January 4, the weather changed suddenly, rain and snow, and the clouds were thick, not only could the aircraft not participate in the battle, but the cars and tanks of the 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column were trapped in the mud and could not move.
After 4 hours of fierce fighting, in addition to 7 tanks escaping, more than 30,000 people of the 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column were completely annihilated, and 24 tanks, dozens of American heavy artillery, and more than 420 trucks became the spoils of our army. These weapons have changed the unfavorable situation of the poor equipment of the Shandong Field Army. The poet Chen Yi immediately composed a poem:
"The rapid column went like a fly, and the Indo-Burmese return came from the advocates. Lunan was muddy, and the tanks were all scrap iron piles. ”
Upon learning of the fiasco at the Battle of Lunan, Chiang Kai-shek was furious. He believed that the fiasco of this battle was all because Xue Yue could not fight. He said:
"In the past six months, the loss of bandits has been the greatest." This was due to the miscommunication of BoLing (Xue Yue), the heavy artillery of the chariot was placed in the most prominent part of the front, and it was very long, which was no different from sending fine weapons to the bandits, violating tactical principles. Yu Zeng used this chariot to expose the troops too much, and predicted that the bandits would attack, but failed to correct it. Yu yu is politically busy and has no intention of studying it carefully. But if this lesson can be thoroughly corrected, it can be remedied. ”
For the defeat of the Battle of Lunan, Xue Yue did have an unshirkable responsibility, but he could not put all the responsibility on his head. As a Cantonese general, Xue Yue did not have his own concubine troops, and he could never support the troops under his command. His military exploits, far from the respect of his colleagues, would have been the reason for his exclusion.
Wood shows in the forest, and the wind will destroy it. Xue Yue's failure was like this, and so was Zhang Lingfu's later death.
When the 26th Division was besieged, Xue Yue sent the 77th Division on the right wing to support. Who knew that in order to preserve its strength, the 77th Division not only did not save, but also took the initiative to abandon its position and retreat. Xue Yue could only watch as his elite divisions were annihilated. LuNan's fiasco was not only because Su Yu and Chen Yi commanded them skillfully, but also because the factional struggle within the Kuomintang was constant, and they could not move in one place.
After this battle, Xue Yue was deeply questioned by the Kuomintang government and the opposition, and Wang Shuming, deputy commander-in-chief of the Air Force, believed:
"The national army is so unable to fight, and senior commanders are responsible. In the defeat on the outskirts of Xuzhou, Xue Yue should be responsible for the command error, and Chen (Cheng) has not yet expressed it... Xue Yue's consecutive losses of two divisions and the entire number of their rapid troops were not punished, and many soldiers were quite dissatisfied with this. ”
Since Xue Yue was so unable to fight and was not a concubine, Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to push the boat along the water and take down his command power.
Chiang Kai-shek believed that although the Nationalist army suffered a crushing defeat at Lunan, the PLA suffered no small losses. Therefore, he gathered 500,000 troops and formulated a plan for a north-south attack.
Adhering to Jiang Yi, Chen Cheng, the chief of staff, personally came to Jinan to plan the Battle of Lunan. He ordered that the attacking forces be organized into two corps, the north and south corps, the southern corps as the main attack corps, and 7 integrated divisions and 1 army under the command of Ou Zhen, commander of the reorganized 19th Army, starting from Longhai Road and pointing along the Yi River and Shu River in three roads to Linyi, the central seat of the CPC's east China region.
The Northern Corps was an assist corps, commanded by Li Xianzhou, deputy commander of the 2nd Appeasement District, and seven reorganized divisions were sent from Jiaoji Road to Laiwu and Xintai, cutting off the rear road of the Chinese communist troops. A big showdown, a hair-trigger.
Fourth, the old Jiang Blind command was defeated miserably, and Xue Yue became a scapegoat
In this attack on the Liberated Areas of Shandong, Chiang Kai-shek can be said to have attached great importance to the whole process and commanded the whole process. On February 2, Chiang Kai-shek personally flew to Xuzhou to "instruct the strategy."
Perhaps learning the lessons of past defeats, more than 100,000 troops on the southern front, on a front that is not more than a few tens of miles wide, slowly advanced in a dense flat pushing manner, stopped advancing in the face of a slight obstruction, and walked less than 70 miles in 7 days, and all the units looked at each other, unwilling to be too prominent, and behaved more cautiously.
Chiang Kai-shek wanted to completely squeeze out the East China Field Army by taking the battalion step by step and attacking on both sides. Even if it could not annihilate the main force of the East China Field Army, it could be driven out of the Shandong Liberated Area.
Faced with such a critical situation, Chen Yi and Su Yu carefully examined the battlefield and found that the progress of the Ouzhen Group on the southern front was extremely slow, while Li Xianzhou on the northern front was making relatively rapid progress. Therefore, Chen and Su formulated a strategic plan to stabilize the southern front and annihilate the enemy on the northern front.
First, Chen Yi and Su Yu led 7 columns north to prepare to wrap a dumpling for Li Xianzhou. Chen Shiyu led 2 columns disguised as huaye's main force and made a look of wanting to die in Linyi. On the other hand, Su Yu also let the local troops build pontoon bridges in the western canals with great fanfare, creating the illusion that "the war is unfavorable, that is, retreating to the west".
Under Su Yu's constant "showing" of form, Chiang Kai-shek was indeed deceived. On the 15th, ouzhen group captured linyi, which was empty. Chiang Kai-shek, however, said triumphantly: "This strategy can be said to be completely successful. As for the statement that our army took the initiative to retreat, old Chiang Kai-shek was even more dismissive:
"Our army has searched for important weapons in Linyi, and we can see that the enemy's retreat in Linyi is not a planned action!"
Chiang Kai-shek was deceived, but the old and heavy Wang Yaowu did not. He found that the Nationalist army had occupied Linyi without a big battle, which was really strange. Therefore, he believed that the real target of the East China Field Army should be Li Xianzhou's troops on the northern front, so Wang Yaowu took matters into his own hands and demanded that Li Xianzhou's troops immediately retreat. If this order is enforced, HuaYe will encounter unprecedented difficulties.
At this moment, however, Chiang Kai-shek intervened again. At that time, the Kuomintang Air Force reconnoitred everywhere and found a pontoon bridge erected by our army in the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. And saw that the local troops of our army were moving eastward.
Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek decided that the East China Field Army had been dealt a devastating blow and was about to flee. Therefore, he strictly ordered Wang Yaowu to continue to carry out the plan of attacking from the north and the south. He sent planes to airdrop orders to Li Xianzhou's department and strictly ordered them to return to defense, otherwise they would be punished as disobedient
Originally, Li Xianzhou's troops had been withdrawn after 16 days, but due to Chiang Kai-shek's strict orders, his troops returned to their original positions. It took 3 days to come and go, and the East China Field Army also wrapped a large dumpling for Li Xianzhou.
On February 23, seven columns of Huaye launched a general attack on Li Xianzhou's troops. In just 9 hours, nearly 60,000 people in 7 kuomintang divisions were completely destroyed, an unprecedented defeat since the civil war.
Chiang Kai-shek commanded the Entire Battle of Laiwu, but suffered a fiasco that "never in his life". At the post-war wrap-up meeting, Chiang Kai-shek was furious and demoralized, and the Kuomintang generals observed from the sidelines and also noticed that Chiang Kai-shek was "extremely distressed" and "still extremely indignant"; "The face is sad and indignant", "extremely sad".
Of course, Chiang Kai-shek will never take responsibility, but as usual, pushes the responsibility on his subordinates. He first scolded Wang Yaowu for not knowing the use of people, and even let Li Xianzhou, who "can't fight", be the commander. Chiang Kai-shek angrily rebuked Wang Yaowu: "You don't know that others can't use it and have misled the country to this point." ”
Subsequently, Chiang Kai-shek pushed the blame on Xue Yue, who had nothing to do with the Laiwu Campaign, and he scolded Xue Yue for being "incompetent in combat" and "unable to command." At the operational meeting, Chiang Kai-shek openly said: "In the battlefield of the whole country, Du Yuming fought the best and Xue Yue fought the worst."
On March 3, Chiang Kai-shek dismissed Xue Yue from his post as director of the Xuzhou Appeasement Bureau and set up the Xuzhou Headquarters of the Army Headquarters (where Gu Zhutong, commander-in-chief of the army, was also the commander) and the Zhengzhou Command Post (director Fan Hanjie), with Gu Zhutong sitting in Xuzhou and commanding the war in East China in a unified manner.
From then on, Xue Yue was beaten into the cold palace with the false post of "chief of staff in the presidential palace". Before the Battle of Hainan, Xue Yue had never participated in any battle between the Kuomintang and the Communists.
It is worth mentioning that Xue Yue was replaced by Gu Zhutong, who was known for his stability. The kuomintang infighting over this appointment was controversial. Gu Zhutong had no military achievements, his military ability was far inferior to Xue Yue's, and his only "advantage" was his allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek.
According to Xue Yue's later recollection, he was dismissed because he had different opinions on Chiang Kai-shek's command. Chiang Kai-shek's principle of employing people has always been that "it is better to use rice buckets than talents." He preferred to use the obedient Gu Zhutong rather than Xue Yue, nicknamed "Tiger Boy".
Regarding the change of generals this time, Su Yu said happily:
"Xue Yue is still astute and decisive in his use of troops, while Gu Zhutong has always been a defeated general under our army, which is tantamount to replacing talent with mediocre talent." In the change of senior military commanders, just like the Kuomintang's twilight road, it is bound to collapse in the end. ”
As Su Yu expected, after Xue Yue, Gu Zhutong and Liu Zhi were even more defeated. In a series of defeats, the main force of Xuzhou's "suppression of the general" was completely destroyed in the Battle of Huaihai, and the fall of the Kuomintang could not be reversed.
In October 1949, Xue Yue re-entered the army and was responsible for the defense of Hainan Island. However, Chiang Kai-shek did not trust Xue Yue, lest he support the army and respect himself. He once wrote in his diary: "Xue Boling is ungrateful and is the second bai chongxi. ”
On April 19, 1950, Han Xianchu launched a general attack on Hainan Island, and Xue Yue could not resist it, so he had to flee to Taiwan in ashes and live a life of close surveillance by Chiang Kai-shek. In 1998, Xue Yue died at the age of 102.
Before xue Yue died, he made this comparison between Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen: "When Mr. Sun hit the world, he drew circles from the inside out, and the more he painted, the bigger he drew, and when Mr. Jiang hit the world, he drew circles from the outside to the inside, and the more he painted, the smaller he drew." ”