A few days ago, I saw an article on Baidu to the effect that the defeat of the Kuomintang in the Liaoshen Campaign was not defeated by Chiang Kai-shek but by Wei Lihuang, because he did not resolutely carry out the order of the old Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw from Jinzhou. What the article said is indeed in line with historical facts, and naturally many people have followed the comments and accused Wei of improper command, but they are afraid that they do not know the second. I personally believe that the victory or defeat of any battle cannot be decided by a single person alone, and I would like to interpret the Liaoshen Campaign with limited historical knowledge.
Interpretation of the Liaoshen Campaign (1): The Kuomintang seized the northeast, and the Communists gave way to the road to occupy the two compartments
To talk about the Liaoshen Campaign, we must start from 1945, the year before the outbreak of the civil war.
After the end of the war in Europe, a million Soviet Red Army marched into China to fight the Japanese army. After Japan's surrender, there was a political vacuum in the northeast, and both the Kuomintang and the Communists also noticed the importance of the northeast.
Mao Zedong's reason was that our current little bit of base area was quite scattered by the enemy, and the hills and base areas were not consolidated, there was no industry, and there was a danger of extinction. Therefore, we must fight for such a whole place, and as long as the northeast is under our leadership, the Chinese revolution will have the basis for victory. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Communist Party organized the Northeast Anti-Japanese League in the northeast, and a number of anti-Japanese heroes such as Zhao Yiman, Zhao Shangzhi, and Yang Jingyu emerged. After the defeat of the Anti-Japanese Coalition, many officers and men withdrew to the Soviet Union, and most of them participated in the Great Patriotic War with the Soviet army, and also followed the Soviet army back to the northeast. Old Chiang Kai-shek regarded the northeast as the "home of the revolution", he "revolutionized" from Guangzhou, as long as he occupied the northeast, he would be considered a complete "victory".
But the difference in the deployment of troops between the two sides immediately became apparent: Chiang Kai-shek's main force was located in the great southwest, which was the opposite pole of China's territory in the northeast. The communist army's Hebei-Reliao Border Region Li Yunchang was only more than 100 kilometers away from the northeast, and the communist army was able to preemptively enter the northeast. At this time, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek's Chongqing negotiations were underway, and Liu Shaoqi, who was in charge of the work of the central authorities, immediately ordered the main forces of our army in northern Jiangsu and Shandong to travel by land and by sea to Liaoning, and a total of 100,000 troops and 20,000 local cadres were dispatched to the northeast. At the same time, a decision was made: the first step was to abandon the base area in southern China; the second step was to abandon the base area in Jiangnan; and the third step was to abandon the base area in northern Jiangbei. On the one hand, this is a certain gesture of the Chongqing negotiations, and on the other hand, it is also to fill the gap in Shandong's troops after the main force has left.
Chiang Believed that there was no kuomintang-communist armistice in the northeast, only the nationalist government received sovereignty from the Soviet army, so he refused to negotiate with the Communists on the northeast. Since the communists occupied the middle part of the railway line, it was impossible for Chiang Kai-shek to enter the northeast by car. Also because the northeast is an outpost fortress to contain the Soviet Union, so the United States and Chiang Kai-shek married, the United States spent 600 million US dollars to help the old Chiang Kai-shek, maritime weapons to attack the northeast, resulting in the early stage of the liberation war in the northeast of our army in a difficult situation, Lin Biao's main force has been driven to the north of the Songhua River.
It must be said realistically that at that time the Communist Party was not prepared for a full-scale civil war with Chiang Kai-shek's army. Because at that time, the communist army was still very weak, with only 1.2 million troops in full count, while the kuomintang's military strength had reached 4.3 million. Therefore, the only ideal was to first thwart several rounds of attacks by the Kuomintang, and then the two parties would compromise and strive for a new future of peaceful and democratic nation-building, which seemed to be a very pragmatic attitude at that time and now. The Communist Party has even been worried that once the premise of a common confrontation with Japan disappears, the flames of civil war will be rekindled. For this reason, Mao Zedong once asked the US military observation group visiting Yan'an: Is it possible for the United States to set up a consulate in Yan'an? Because Chiang Kai-shek "had long decided to destroy us," if it wanted to avoid civil war, the Communist Party must have a certain ability to defend itself, and at the same time it must look at the restraint of other forces on the Kuomintang. Mao Zedong valued the attitude of the Americans.
The final outcome of the Chongqing negotiations, the signing of the Double Tenth Agreement, gave the Communists some hope, but the signing of the Sino-US Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation between the United States and Chiang Kai-shek and the Agreement on the Disposal of Leased Materials, which aimed to fully supply the Nationalist army, completely angered Mao Zedong. The Treaty stipulates that the capital of the two countries can freely invest in each other, and the ships and aircraft of the two countries can freely sail and anchor each other. In addition to the money looted by the four major families in the United States, what capital can be invested in the United States? What ships and planes can China sail to the United States? This is a traitorous treaty that is literally equal and in fact the greatest inequality ever made, and undoubtedly facilitates the control of China's national economy by American capital. The "Agreement" is an outpost war between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp at the expense of the United States and the old Chiang Kai-shek. At the same time, the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance signed by the Kuomintang and the Soviet Union stipulated that only Chiang Kai-shek's army could take over the northeast, and these three treaties were enough to give "the government the confidence to eliminate the Communist army in eight to ten months." It was not easy for the Communist Party to face "two ruptures" with the Kuomintang and the United States at the same time, and Mao Zedong was also caught in a dilemma. But in the end, he still believes that if he wants to fight for national liberation, he must struggle his own, and cannot expect the mediation of the United States. It was also the courageous decision made by Mao Zedong that put China's new-democratic revolution on the road to victory!
As the territory occupied by Chiang Kai-shek's army became larger and larger, the battle line became longer and longer, and the deployment of troops began to be stretched. Our Party, on the other hand, reformed the land in the northeast, mobilized the masses, suppressed bandits, and increased rapidly in economy and military strength. In addition to holding Harbin and other Cities in Heilongjiang, it also occupied some cities and vast villages in Kyrgyzstan and Liao.
After more than two years of tug-of-war, the Nationalist army was only able to shrink into the three large unconnected strongholds of Changchun, Shenyang, and Jinzhou and parts of the area near the railway line, controlling only three percent of the land and fourteen percent of the population in the northeast. Land ties between them had been severed, making it difficult for soldiers to supply food and ammunition. Especially after the siege of Changchun, it has reached the point where there is no rice to cook. Except for the new thirty-eighth and 182 main divisions, which have four or two soybeans per day, the remaining four divisions can only rely on boiling vegetable soup. Wei Lihuang did his best to carry out airlift for Changchun, but the Changchun garrison could not be maintained from the ratio of capacity to consumption until the beginning of spring next year, and the heating fuel needed in winter was not yet taken into account. After the large-scale airfield was captured, there was no possibility of air transport, and it could only rely on airdrops. Due to the fierce fire of the communist army against the air, the transport aircraft were forced not to fly low. Due to the extremely poor accuracy of the limited airdrops, nearly one-third fell outside the city and became the supply of the communist army. In addition to scavenging for food in the homes of citizens, the defenders also demolished houses, cut down trees, and even dug up the asphalt on the road and burned it as fuel. The whole corps lived in hunger and cold.
Interpreting the Liaoshen Campaign: Jinzhou or Changchun, Mao Zedong and Lin Biao had strategic differences
At that time, our army in the northeast was also facing pressure in combat. Since the small strongholds available for attack no longer existed, Lin Biao had to organize a huge force to attack the city, and needed the same huge force for reinforcements, so the supreme commanders of both sides focused their attention on one point - Jinzhou.
Jinzhou is located at the southern entrance of the Western Liaoning Corridor, and the Beining Railway and Highway pass through the city, which is the only throat for the land route to maintain the connection between northeast china and north China. Although the northeast region is vast, the narrowest part of the neck of this chicken-shaped land is less than three hundred kilometers, and its throat is less than twelve kilometers. Whoever occupies Jinzhou will close the gates of the entire northeast and will grasp the initiative of the battlefield.
In view of the tensions of the Northeast Nationalist Army, the head of the U.S. Military Advisory Group, Major General Bartawi, proposed a full retreat to Jinzhou to hold firm, which was not recognized. The US advisory group also proposed to withdraw at least the Changchun garrison to Shenyang and concentrate its forces, so that the advance could retake Changchun and retreat to Jinzhou. Old Jiang believed that Changchun should not be given up even if it was for himself, but his reason was a bit strange: Changchun was a pseudo-Manchu capital, and giving up would hinder international audio-visual. Their own capital is almost a problem, why care about a pseudo-"capital" that the whole world does not recognize? Of course, there are other reasons why old Chiang wants to stick to the northeast: he has just been "elected" president, and immediately abandoning the northeast is really an obstacle to international public opinion, and the Kuomintang members from the northeast also insist on preserving the northeast. The worried U.S. advisory group vowed that if the Nationalist army did not withdraw comprehensively from the northeast to Jinzhou, nor from Changchun to Shenyang, then there would be no chance of retaking the northeast from the communist army. As the situation became increasingly urgent, Chiang finally accepted the American proposal. But what he did not expect was that the heavy retreat could not be completed in a day or two, and when the situation was really urgent, the retreat would be impossible.
At this time, Mao Zedong also ordered Lin Biao to attack Jinzhou, "ignoring the enemy of Changchun and Shenyang", occupying Jinzhou, and completely blocking the annihilation of Chiang Kai-shek's army in the northeast.
Lin Biao believed that the transfer of troops and supplies to Attack Jinzhou required a railway, and from the perspective of the repair progress, this ability was not available in a short period of time. At the same time, the jinzhou fan hanjie group of four armies and fourteen divisions of 150,000 people, more than changchun fifty thousand, only thirty kilometers away from Jinxi and Huludao can also be large-scale reinforcements, "still uncertain", it is recommended to first remove the stumbling block at the doorstep of Changchun.
Mao Zedong did not think that Lin Biao was deliberately avoiding war. Lin Biao is good at fighting and calculating, and he is well aware of Lin Biao's style of always achieving the greatest results at the lowest cost. However, at this time, the northeast is no longer the time to focus on this calculation, and our army in the northeast has surpassed the other side in both economy and strength, and it is necessary to quickly close the northeast gate to catch turtles in the urn. The attack on Changchun was not in line with Mao's strategic vision, as the capture of Changchun could have a consequence: the Nationalist army quickly decided to withdraw from Jinzhou because it had unloaded a burden. In view of Lin Biao's statement that Changchun could be captured in ten and a half days, the central authorities reluctantly agreed to fight Changchun first.
However, Dongye's attack on Changchun was severely frustrated. Lin Biao ordered Xiao Jinguang and Xiao Hua to besiege Changchun for a long time with twelve columns and five independent divisions, hoping to annihilate them in the wild when the enemy 'difficulties continued to increase and had to be forced to break through.' Or wait for reinforcements in Shenyang, first annihilate the enemy and then fight Changchun. This was a vague concept without a predetermined time, and Mao Zedong was precisely worried that as time passed, Chiang's army would withdraw to Jinzhou. Two months passed in silence, the long enemy showed no signs of a breakthrough, and Wei Lihuang in Shenyang did not move at all, and the siege and reinforcement became a problem. Mao Zedong explicitly demanded that Lin Biao: First, establish his determination to capture the jinzhou, Yuguan, and Tangshan fronts; second, establish the determination to fight your unprecedented war of annihilation, that is, dare to fight against Wei Lihuang's entire army when he comes to his aid; and third, prepare for the food and ammunition needed for soldiers. This was enough to prove Mao Zedong's grand ambition to annihilate all the Northeastern nationalist forces, and finally Lin Biao made up his mind to attack Jinzhou.
Lin Biao's concerns about attacking Jinzhou were not entirely unreasonable. After our army conquered Jinzhou, it would be mainly anti-guest, and at that time, the city fortifications in Jinzhou had all been destroyed, and it was difficult to resist Chiang Kai-shek's east-west attack, and it was afraid that it would be difficult to escape the mistakes of repeating the defeat of the four peaces in World War II. The problem was that at this time, Chiang Kai-shek's army had gradually exhausted its strength, and if it was in the early stages of the civil war, the Kuomintang army was a unit with one heart and one mind, and our army would have thought twice about attacking such a big city. At that time, the purpose of sticking to Siping was to gain chips at the negotiating table, but Jinzhou was different, and after the conquest, our army would not stick to it, but would seek opportunities to continue to annihilate the enemy in large numbers in the movement and eliminate the enemy's living forces.
The Communists should be thankful that these two months were also the time when the Kuomintang was arguing endlessly about whether to withdraw from Jinzhou, but for various reasons the retreat was not carried out.
Interpretation of the Liaoshen Campaign (3): Encircling points to fight for assistance, the Communists quickly attacked Jinjin; it was retreating or defending, and the Kuomintang could not escape with its wings
According to the historical reality at that time, the Northeast Nationalist Army only had the ability to temporarily hold on to the city with a strong position, and it was completely impossible to attack and fight and win the battle. Under such circumstances, Lao Jiang ordered the concentration of forces to withdraw to Jinzhou, which could not only connect with the North China National Army, but also completely seal Lin Biao's 700,000 troops outside the Guan, thus ensuring the stability of North China. Strategically, this has its rational ingredients. Of course, withdrawing from Jinzhou is not without risks, but no matter how big the risk, it is always much easier than trying to regain Jinzhou after being occupied by Lin Biao.
Having just completed a year-long overseas travel expedition, Wei Lihuang, the second-rank general in the army who was appointed commander-in-chief of the Northeast "Suppression General" (the so-called overseas inspection was actually just that Old Chiang Kai-shek deprived him of his military power and drove him out of the country), as a senior general who had fought for decades and commanded one-third of the Kuomintang troops, he could not fail to understand this reason, but he always refused to carry out this order. Half a year ago, Chen Cheng, the chief of staff, ambitiously took up the post of director of the Northeast Expedition, trying to fight Lin Biao to the death, and as a result, the troops were annihilated. With the lessons of the previous car, Wei Lihuang always firmly believed that as long as he did not attack and did not move, Lin Biao could not take him. At this time, Lin Biao really couldn't find the fighter to carry out the mobile war because he couldn't hold out. The strategy of sticking to Shenyang was brought to the extreme by Wei Lihuang, and no matter which stronghold was surrounded and annihilated, he could not come to his aid, watching Shenyang become an isolated island.
The reasons for Wei's failure to evacuate the main force from Shenyang to Jinzhou were very complicated and even puzzling, but two things were certain: First, the hundred thousand brothers in Changchun could not be left alone. And if Shenyang sends troops to take changchun to break through and then withdraw from Jinzhou together, then "just like the well to save people, Changchun can not be saved, Shenyang will certainly be unstable"; second, the huge army, but also with their families, it is good to be able to travel five kilometers a day on foot. The three big water side enemies of the Beiliao River, the Huanyang River, and the Xinkai River acted on the side of the three major rivers, and once they encountered an attack, wouldn't adults cry and cry? Before reaching Jinzhou, there is a possibility of being divided and annihilated. When the time comes to withdraw from Jinzhou, the main force in Shenyang has also been sent, and who will bear this historical responsibility? These two points were the high-sounding reasons for his confrontation with Old Jiang. The Northeast National Army has reached such a point that it cannot attack, defend, and cannot even withdraw. "For today's sake, Shenyang can only stick to it to protect itself." As for Changchun, the government is currently being asked to strengthen air transport. "As for the capacity of the air transport and the cost of machinery and fuel, what is the matter with him as a commander-in-chief of the theater?"
When Lin Biao's army was assembling under Jinzhou, Liao Yaoxiang, commander of the Ninth Corps, made a relatively good suggestion: the communist army gathered the main force to besiege Jinzhou, and the area around Changchun and southern Liaoning was relatively empty. The nearly 300,000 nationalist troops in Shenyang are concentrated and can be assembled within two days. To attack and occupy Yingkou in one fell swoop, one can get the necessary supplies from the sea, the other can go north through the Panshan and Gou Gangzi to relieve the siege of Jinzhou, and the third can retreat from the sea when the situation is unfavorable. At the same time, Changchun can also take the opportunity to break through and assemble Shenyang.
In fact, Old Jiang was already determined to abandon the northeast, but he did not explain to Wei that he needed his subordinates to put forward this proposal and then make a reluctant approval to shirk his responsibility. Of course, no one dared to make such a suggestion. Lin Biao had already pounced on Jinzhou, and the entire northeast was in jeopardy. His intention was not simply to retreat safely from the northeast, but to have a decisive battle with Lin Biao in Jinzhou and consume Lin Biao's strength, otherwise there would be problems in North China. Therefore, he rejected Liao Yaoxiang's proposal, and strongly ordered Wei and Liao to go west out of Shenyang, and to cooperate with the eastward advance of Huludao to attack our army, and Liao had no choice but to lead his troops out to the west.
At this time, at the west tower hill of Jinzhou, we blocked the fourth column and eleventh column of the Huludao East Advance Corps, and blocked the repeated onslaught of the eleventh division of the Kuomintang army commanded by Hou Jingru, commander of the Seventeenth Corps, with four divisions. The Eastward Advance Corps was strong, heavily artilleryized, and provided fire support from the navy and air force, but it was unable to advance until the liberation of the entire northeast.
Fearing Lin Biao's tactics of reinforcement, Liao did not attack southwest at great speed, but first to the west, then to the north, in the opposite direction of Jinzhou. In any case, this kind of action could not see the mystery in it, and his reason was that the Jinhu troops had not yet met the division, and the strategy of attacking the communist army from east to west could not be coordinated in time and space. At this time, it was necessary to first occupy the Zhangwu and Xinlitun lines and destroy the railway, cut off the supply line of the communist army, and cause chaos to the communist army besieging Jinzhou. Our army had already made preparations for this, and in order not to stimulate Liao Yaoxiang to quickly reinforce Jinzhou, Lin Biao even decided to cede the county seat of Zhangwu to him. Mao Zedong had even great contempt for the reinforcements of the Liao Corps: as long as he occupied Zhangwu, it would inevitably take five days, and it would be impossible to come to Jinzhou when he wanted to reinforce jinzhou.
After thirty-one hours of fierce fighting, Jinzhou was liberated, and the 184th Division of the Sixth Corps attached to the 60th Army, which belonged to Fan Hanjie, deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast "Suppression General" and director of the Jinzhou Command Post, was annihilated. Shen Xiangkui, commander of the New Eighth Army, escaped from the battlefield, and Fan, commander of the Sixth Corps, Lu Junquan, and Commander of the Ninety-third Army, Sheng Jiaxing, were captured. When the generals of the EastWard Advance Corps learned of this, they waited in horror for Lin Biao to turn around and fight him. At this time, Lao Jiang only had a 60% certainty of ordering the Liao and Hu forces to retake Jinzhou. Dare to fight a decisive battle with a 60% certainty? He was either confused or confused. The Central Committee and Lin Biao believed that as long as the Liao Corps was completely annihilated, the overall situation in the northeast would be decided, so they decided to resolutely block the Eastern Advance Corps, and when the Liao Corps went further, when it was farther away from Shenyang, the main force besieging Jinzhou turned around and launched an attack on it to annihilate it.
Liao suddenly found that Jinzhou in the front had suddenly disappeared, and Shenyang in the back had a considerable distance, and the entire corps was in a dilemma in the cold wind whistling in the wilderness, and the Kuomintang headquarters had begun emergency consultations with their own interests. It was normal for the generals to have different views among themselves, but if it happened within the Communist Party, a unified will and firm action would soon be formed, and it would turn into endless quarrels within the Kuomintang. Old Jiang insisted on recovering Jinzhou, Wei insisted on holding Shenyang, and Liao insisted on retreating to Yingkou. In the end, the only consensus reached was that no matter whether they entered Jinzhou, retreated from Yingkou, or returned to Shenyang, they must first defeat Montenegro.
Interpretation of the Liaoshen Campaign: Life and Death Breakout, Liao Yaoxiang could not escape the fate of being annihilated; Shenyang Yingkou, the northeast ushered in a comprehensive liberation
On the northeast battlefield, the only sober-minded person was Liao Yaoxiang. As a general leading the troops in the front line, he thought more about the way out for the officers and soldiers. He believed that it was completely impossible to retake Jinzhou, and that retreating to Shenyang was only a second Changchun, or even worse than Changchun. Changchun can also count on Shenyang reinforcements, Jinzhou is gone, Shenyang rely on who to reinforce? The only way to do this was to retreat to Yingkou. However, due to Lao Jiang's orders, he had to order a strong attack on Montenegro against fengwu's 71st Army and the 3rd Brigade of the 207th Division, and if the attack was successful, he might be able to retake Jinzhou. On the one hand, he ordered Zheng Tingdi's Forty-ninth Army and the Fourteenth Division of the New Third Army to forcibly attack the camp mouth through the corridors of Black Mountain and Dahushan to open the way for the entire corps to retreat. The Tenth Column, the Third Division of the First Column, and the First Inner Mongolia Cavalry Division of our army in Dongye won time by holding on to Montenegro for three days and nights, and the Forty-ninth Army mistakenly thought that it had bumped into Lin Biao's main force because it encountered my small independent second division, and they ran back to the edge of the encirclement. The seven columns of our army besieging Jinzhou arrived here, and they would watch liao yaoxiang go anywhere with wide eyes? Except for Pan Yukun, commander of the New First Army, and Long Tianwu, commander of the New Third Army, who escaped back to Shenyang by chance, within forty-eight hours, the infantry, tanks, artillery, engineers, and cavalry of the Ninth Corps and the twelve divisions (brigades) of the five corps (brigades) of the New First, New Third, New Sixth, New Sixth, Forty-ninth, and Seventy-first Armies were wiped out, and all the generals were captured.
At the same time, Lao Jiang ordered Zheng Dongguo, deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast "Suppression General" and commander of the First Corps and chairman of the Jilin Provincial Government, who was trapped in Changchun, to command two subordinate armies to "break through to Shenyang desperately, and there were troops on the Shenyang side on the road to meet them." But "in these seven or eight hundred miles, there is not a single national army in the middle." Officers and men are hungry and their legs and feet are swollen, not to mention fighting, that is, just walking will become a problem." Zheng believed in the dilemma: a breakthrough is a death in battle, not breaking through is also starving to death, horizontal and vertical are all a death, it is better to fall into the reputation of a soldier who resolutely carries out orders. But no force is willing and able to carry out this order. Under the tragic situation of no grain and grass inside and no rescue troops outside, Zeng Zesheng of the Sixtieth Army declared an uprising, and Li Hongbu of the New Seventh Army also contacted our army and agreed to lay down its weapons. Zheng Dongguo and Deputy Chief of Staff Yang Youmei led the remnants of more than 300 people to surrender at the Central Bank Building. The Northeast Field Army besieged the opponent with 100,000 troops, and finally liberated the spring city of Saiwai without bloodshed, and most of the Changchun defenders were reorganized into the People's Liberation Army. However, the citizens of Changchun also died of illness and starvation during the seven-and-a-half-month-long siege, which was also a major regret in the Liberation War.
Lin Biao, judging that Liao had no possibility of retreating from Yingkou, did neglect control of Yingkou, and the enemy Fifty-second Army stationed in Liaoyang arrived and occupied Yingkou within a day. Mao Zedong was furious: "You did not anticipate in advance that the enemy would take Yingkou as one of the retreat routes. After we pointed it out in a few telegrams, and on the basis of the inaccurate information of the fifty-second army's westward advance, it was a big mistake to ignore the control of Yingkou. Because this may mean that our army closed the northeast gate at a huge cost, but let the enemy slip away from the "side door".
Since the main force of our army was all used to encircle and annihilate the Liao Corps and there were no troops to send, Lin Biao ordered the 12th Column and three independent divisions that had originally besieged Changchun to pursue Yingkou along the Middle And Long Road. At a time when the 12th Column might be too late, the Shen enemy did not retreat to Yingkou in one fell swoop, but made another "surprising" deployment: the Fifty-second Army retreated by sea, and the rest of the troops shrank Shenyang and held firmly, and Shenyang was exposed to the attack of our army in the northeast. Because of the need to wait for ships, 14,000 men of the Fifty-second Army at Miji Beach were pursued by our army, and another 10,000 people escaped by boat. 140,000 men of the 53rd Army, the 6th Army, the 53rd Division of the New First Army, and the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the 207th Division in Shenyang were annihilated. Shen and the camp were liberated on the same day, and the Liaoshen Campaign ended in victory!
Fifty-two days before and after the Liaoshen Campaign annihilated a Kuomintang general headquarters for "suppressing bandits," a Jinzhou command post, four corps headquarters, eleven corps, thirty-six divisions (brigades), and other miscellaneous units, totaling 472,000 people, of whom more than 58,000 were killed or wounded. The Northeast Field Army lost more than 69,000 men, including about 11,000 officers and men who were killed, and when they fell, the young black hair and the black land that nurtured them were forever integrated.
Interpreting the Liaoshen Campaign: What is Man-Made? Wei Lihuang's identity and the general of the Liaoshen Campaign were recorded
With the end of the Liaoshen Campaign and the victories in other strategic areas of the country, the number of communist troops was fundamentally reversed from that of Chiang Kai-shek's army. The old Chiang Kai-shek probably never dreamed that his regime would have since capsized, and that the Communist Party had fought from his "revolutionary home" to the great southwest. During the tense stage of the Liberation War, Mao Zedong ordered Su Yu to dispatch several columns to Fujian, Zhejiang, and Gansu to open up guerrilla zones in order to mobilize the Kuomintang troops attacking northern Jiangsu and Southern Lunan to return to defense, but for various reasons this was not carried out. The Communist Party also did not expect that by the time the People's Liberation Army marched to Jiangnan, it would no longer go to open up guerrilla zones, but would occupy the whole of Southern China in a devastated and decadent manner.
After that, the Sixty-second Army, the Twenty-first Division of the Ninety-second Army, and the Independent Ninety-fifth Division of Huludao withdrew to Qinhuangdao, the Fifty-fourth and Thirty-ninth Armies were transported to Shanghai and Nanjing and then transferred to the Xuzhou Battlefield, the Thirteenth Army of Chengde withdrew into Guannei, and there was no soldier or pawn of the Kuomintang army in the northeast.
Judging from these inexplicable deployments, is there something wrong with the military mind of the Commander-in-Chief of Wei? But the vast majority of people ignore, or even know, that there is a third point.
Although our army has never made it clear, in fact this is a certain tacit understanding between the Wei and the Communist Party.
From a political standpoint, Wei was at odds with the Communists, and he was not soft on fighting the Red Army. However, as a non-Huangpu general, he was consistent in the two points of anti-Japanese resistance and anti-Chiang Kai-shek. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wei served as deputy commander of the Second Theater and commander-in-chief of the former enemy, and theoretically the Eighth Route Army was also under his command, and the two armies got along very well. After the Battle of Xinkou, Wei led his troops to move to Zhongtiao Mountain, deliberately bypassing Yan'an. After the trip to Yan'an, he gradually turned to the Communists, and immediately after returning to Xi'an, he issued a warrant: the 18th Army, with one million rifle bullets and 250,000 grenades. At the time of delivery, he ordered the addition of one hundred and eighty boxes of canned beef, and at that time, the Joint Logistics Department of the Kuomintang Army allocated only a few hundred boxes of canned beef to the Second Theater, which was also the largest supply of the Kuomintang to the Communists during the War of Resistance. For this reason, he was severely reprimanded by Lao Jiang, and Wei's answer also made Lao Jiang helpless: They are under my command, how can I order the troops without ammunition to go to war? Commander-in-Chief Zhu knew that Mr. Wei was not in a good position and allowed him to curse the Eighth Route Army if necessary, but Wei said that he would rather remain silent than scold the Eighth Route Army. This can be seen in Wei's conversations with his secretary Zhao Rongsheng, with Hou Jingru, commander of the Seventeenth Corps, and with his niece and son-in-law Wang Dezhao while in England. The first two were underground members of the CCP, and Wang Dezhao was an atomic physicist, but as a member of the French Communist Party, he had no connection with the CCP, so he could not bring some words to him. During the Liaoshen Campaign, he actually gave up the favorable conditions abroad to go to the northeast to become the director of the "Suppression General" Office, and the reason for this is self-evident. Wei even made a request to join the Communist Party, and Lin Boqu replied that if Mr. Wei could be a member of the Kuomintang who implemented Sun Yat-sen's three major policies, it would be more beneficial to the Chinese revolution than if he joined the Communist Party. Why did he join the Communist Party? Maybe no one but himself had an answer.
What's more, during the Liaoshen Campaign, Old Jiang convened a military conference at the residence of Yuan'en Temple in Beiping, after which Fu Zuoyi asked Wei Lihuang: "Listening to Mr. Jiang's remarks today, Shenyang has not been saved, what should we do in northern China?" Wei was silent for a long time: "Once the Liao Corps is finished, according to the past style of the communist army, it can be digested within two months." At that time, Lin Biao will reach a million troops, so you must not defend the city. The problem between the Kuomintang and the Communists is expected to be resolved politically, and the existence of Chiang Kai-shek's regime is only a question of the life and death of a small number of people, not the life and death of the Chinese. Fu Zuoyi was deeply impressed by this, which was one of the reasons why Fu finally held a peaceful uprising in Peiping.
On the eve of the destruction of Shenyang City, Wei and Zhao Jiajun (chief of staff of the Northeast "Suppression General" and commander of the Sixth Army), Pan Yukun, Long Tianwu, and Wang Tiehan (former commander of the Forty-ninth Army and chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Government) retreated to Huludao by plane after arduous hardships, and Lao Jiang immediately ordered Zhou Fucheng, commander of the Eighth Corps and commander of the Fifty-third Army, to act as Wei. Being able to replace Wei as the supreme military and political chief, Zhou was flattered and unashamedly expressed his coexistence and death with Shenyang. As a complete and veteran commander of the army, he thought that he could effectively control the troops, but he did not know that the division commanders and even the deputy commanders of the four divisions he belonged to had already shared the same bed with him, and in the end he could only obediently be captured.
Wei Hou retreated to Beiping, and followed the order of the Nationalist government: "Wei Lihuang, commander-in-chief of the Northeast Suppression Campaign, hesitated, lost his military plane, and lost his heavy town, and immediately removed him from his post to investigate and deal with it." "Everything that should be done is covered, do you still care about your "dismissal and investigation"? After living alone for a few days, he flew first to Shanghai and then to Guangzhou, and was immediately "sent" by military aircraft to his home on Shanghai Road in Nanjing under house arrest. In January 1949, when the Fall of the Kuomintang was imminent, he was able to flee to Hong Kong with his wife Han Quanhua, and in 1955 he successfully escaped the threat of secret agents and returned to the mainland, where he was received by Mao Zedong and others. On January 17, 1960, heavy snow fell in Beijing, and Wei Lihuang, who had been a horseman for a lifetime, died quietly due to illness at the age of sixty-four.
In the Liaoshen Campaign and even in the entire War of Liberation, the Kuomintang was neither defeated by Chiang Kai-shek nor by a certain individual in Wei Lihuang, and the fundamental reason was that the party and government led by Chiang Kai-shek were opposed by the people and were destined to be overthrown by the people. No war is a purely military contest, and the two sides are compared to each other's manpower and material resources, especially which side the people are on and which side they stand on will eventually win. After years of fighting, the northeast national army, which had made major contributions to the nation and the world during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, was completely annihilated in the war against the people, and many of its troops were rebuilt or newly built after annihilation. Its soldiers were added to the first that they were transferred by train from Guannei, and that after the Beining Road was cut off, it would not work, and the second was to grasp and replenish Zhuangding on the spot. Can the captured soldiers be the same thing as the turned-in peasants in the northeast who voluntarily joined the army? "Shoot and don't kill", and most of the captured soldiers became communists. Although most of these captured soldiers were from poor backgrounds, they were also inevitably contaminated with the habits of some old troops, and the mercenary mentality of eating whose food was a soldier was serious. But after political education and ideological transformation, he will soon become a qualified liberation fighter. Weapons and ammunition were also captured, followed by the annihilation of more nationalists, more soldiers and "good equipment was given to the communists, which were then used to destroy ourselves." When the Pingjin Campaign liberated Tianjin, many American expatriates were surprised to find that the weapons that originally aided Chiang Kai-shek's army finally "aided" the communist army.
The matter is clearly there: as long as the Northeast National Army is completely annihilated, North China will not be stable. Huaihai is finished again, Jiangbei is finished, Jiangnan is finished, and old Jiang must get out of the egg. It should be said that although Wei's choice had the intention of using the Communist Party to oppose Chiang Kai-shek, it also directly and indirectly promoted the final victory of the War of Liberation and made great contributions to the Chinese nation.
Let's talk about the fate of several of the main protagonists.
Major General Badawi later became the commander of the Seventh Division of the Tenth Army, and met with our army in the Korean battlefield in 1950. The 31st Regimental Combat Team of its "Polar Bear Regiment" was almost completely annihilated at Chosin Lake, and the silk-woven regimental flag was captured by the volunteers. Colonel McLean, commander of the Thirty-first Regiment, and Lieutenant Colonel Feith, commander of the First Battalion of the Thirty-second Regiment, were killed. The total strength of the whole team was more than 4,000 people, of which more than 3,000 people were annihilated, and another more than 1,000 people left the truncated road and walked on the ice surface of Chosin Lake to escape to Hagaru-ri, and only about 300 people with sound limbs. The regiment's designation was immediately revoked, and for them the war was over.
The Sixtieth Army was reorganized into the Fiftieth Army of the People's Liberation Army, and Zeng Zesheng remained the commander of the army, which participated in the Liberation of Southwest China Campaign and the Suppression of Bandits in Western Hunan Province. He fought in Korea three times, and after returning to China, he participated in the liberation of Yijiangshan Island. Zeng Zesheng was awarded the rank of lieutenant general in 1955, becoming one of the few cadres with the rank of lieutenant general.
Zheng Dongguo submitted a request to participate in the construction of New China and was appointed as a member of the Military Commission.
After Shen Xiangkui fled, he became the commander of the Twenty-fifth Army, and launched another bloody battle with our army on Kinmen Island.
Zhao Jiajun fled to Taiwan to serve as deputy commander of kinmen defense, and together with two other deputy commanders, Ji Xingwen and Zhang Jie, were killed in the first round of Kinmen shelling.
Pan Yukun and Long Tianwu fled Hong Kong, and after the founding of New China, they announced that they would break away from the Kuomintang camp and return to the interior.
Wang Tiehan fled to Taiwan, and as a general of the Northeast Army, in his later years he wrote historical materials of the Northeast Army as a spiritual sustenance.
The remnants of the Fifty-second Army fled under the leadership of commander Liu Yuzhang, and after reorganization, they participated in the battles of Huaihai and Shanghai, and finally retreated to Taiwan, becoming the "fragrant feast" of old Chiang Kai-shek. During the Korean War, Chiang offered to send the army to the United Nations Army, but Truman refused.
The captured Kuomintang generals were pardoned one after another, and most of them served as commissioners for literature and history of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Liao Yaoxiang was criticized during the Cultural Revolution, and died of a heart attack in shock, and was buried in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery as the name of the War of Resistance.
Author: Jiao Feng, thank you for the author's authorization