In June 1949, the Kuomintang leaders, who wanted to swallow the fruits of the victory of the War of Resistance alone, tore up the armistice agreement and brazenly launched an all-out attack on the Communist Liberated Areas, and the soldiers and civilians in the Liberated Areas launched self-defense operations under the command of our Party leadership, and the War of Liberation began. The soldiers of the army were eager to overthrow the feudal warlords and achieve the peaceful reunification of the country, so the will to fight was very strong. However, what is surprising is that just half a year after the Liberation War, the Shandong Field Army has already fought 6 fierce battles with the Kuomintang army, but the final battle record is 6 battles and 5 losses, which not only makes Huaiyin and Huai'an and other important towns fall into the hands of the enemy, but also causes a large number of casualties. The seven leaders of the military sub-district held a joint meeting, at which they pointed at the nose of the top commander of the Shandong Field Army and scolded him sharply, asking him whether he would fight or not, and at the same time sent a telegram to the central leaders, requesting that the commander-in-chief of the Shandong Field Army be replaced, preferably Xu. However, the central leadership still vetoed it after more than 20 days of consideration. Who is this commander who has been criticized by the leadership for "not fighting"? Why did he lose 6 battles and 5 losses on the battlefield? Since the record is not good, why are the central leaders still unwilling to replace him?
Chen Yi
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Video link: After Mr. Chen entered Shandong, he lost 6 battles and 5 losses, and his subordinates proposed to change generals, why did the leader think deeply about the veto after 20 days.
He was sent to Shandong and resigned to take up his post
In fact, the commander who lost 6 battles and 5 losses after entering Shandong was the well-known founding marshal - Chen Yi. Chen Yi is the only "liberal arts student" among the ten founding marshals of the mainland, born in 1901, his hometown is in Lezhi, Sichuan, and he has been reading poetry since he was a child. Chen Yi was gifted and intelligent, entering the Chengdu Jiazhong Industrial School at the age of 15, studying in France after graduation, coming into contact with many advanced ideas abroad, and participating in patriotic activities with other Chinese students. The school felt that Chen Yi was a restless angry youth and persuaded him to retire and send him back to China. However, Chen Yi, who returned to the motherland, did not stop studying, insisted on self-study, and was successfully admitted to the College of Literature of The University of China and France in Beijing at the age of 22. Previously, Chen Yi had joined the Chinese Youth League under the influence of his classmates Cai Hesen, and met progressive young people Xiao Zhensheng and Yan Changyi during his college years, and then successfully joined the Communist Party of China under the introduction and recommendation of these two people. After graduating from university, Chen Yi officially began his military career, successively participated in many military operations such as the Nanchang Uprising and the Shonan Uprising, and even more brilliantly during the War of Resistance Against Japan, commanding troops to repel the Japanese invaders on the battlefield many times, and making great contributions to the realization of the great rejuvenation of the country. But even such a great military expert with great military achievements also had a sad experience of not being recognized.
In fact, by the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the wolf ambitions of the Kuomintang leadership had become clearly revealed, and they frequently made small moves behind the united front and sent troops to invade the Communist Party's liberated areas. The leaders of our army knew that the other side was not good, and they also began to make strategic preparations, and the first action they took was to redivide the top commanders of the various theaters. At that time, as soon as Chen Yi learned that he had been transferred to Shandong to preside over the work, he immediately sent a telegram to the superior leader, asking the superior to change the transfer order and send himself to the northeast or other regions. When asked by the superior leader, Chen Yi honestly replied that it was because he and Rao Shushi, a department official in Shandong, had a tense relationship and were worried that the two would affect their work because there were too many contradictions to reconcile.
The story between Chen Yi and Rao Shushi is long, the two sides had dealt with each other as early as 1943, when Chen Yi was the acting commander of the New Fourth Army, and Rao Shushi was the second in command of the unit. The leaders put the two of them together because they valued Chen Yi as a dashing and frank person, and Rao Shushi was meticulous and rigorous, hoping that the two could complement each other and lead the troops to develop and grow. But what the leader did not expect was that because of the excessive difference in personality, the angle and starting point of the problem were completely different, and there were often differences in the process of work. Rao Shushi also openly expressed that he was very dissatisfied with Chen Yi's style of life, and felt that Chen Yi's frequent poetry and production were completely a bad bourgeois style, not the material for serious wars. Contradictions accumulate day by day, and the relationship between the two is more rigid.
Rao Shushi
In order to resolve the contradictions between the two men, the central leaders have personally stepped forward to mediate from all angles. Knowing that this time he was sent to Shandong to partner with Rao Shushi, Chen Yi was still a little unhappy in his heart, but at this time, all the personnel arrangements had been completed, and the temporary replacement would probably bring a lot of trouble to the relevant departments. In the end, it was the leader who personally visited Chen Yi's combat headquarters to persuade him, so that Chen Yi could put his mind at ease and rush to Shandong. However, at this time, Chen Yi would not have thought that the difficulty of this trip to Shandong was far more difficult than before, and he had just taken over the Shandong field troops and tasted the taste of repeated defeats.
The battle began, and there were six battles and five losses
The Kuomintang leaders had always been eyeing the Shandong region, feeling that shandong's Plajun forces were too close to nanjing, the center of their rule, and the threat was extremely great. In addition, Shandong is located in a key area, containing two railway lines and multiple water ports, and has convenient transportation, so it became a key offensive area for the Kuomintang army in the early days of the Liberation War. In order to take Shandong in the shortest possible time, the Kuomintang leaders invested a large number of elite troops in the East China Theater, including the reorganized Seventy-fourth Division, which was known as "one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang."
Kuomintang Reorganization Division
The enemy army is fierce, and the Platon's side is also making intensive preparations for combat, but Chen Yi, as the top commander of the unit, has encountered difficult problems. Although Chen Yi was quite prestigious in the army and had fought many victorious battles, he had previously commanded guerrilla battles in the central Soviet Union and had not dealt with the officers and men of the Shandong Field Army, which directly led to his lack of prestige in Shandong and the difficulty of commanding work. The tactics proposed by Chen Yi were not recognized by the veteran generals of the Shandong Field Army, and sometimes there was even a situation in which people at the bottom disobeyed the orders, which also made Chen Yi play a tragic record of "six battles and five losses" in the period of a few months of entering Shandong. After several defeats in a row, the soldiers of the Shandong Field Army were greatly reduced in their fighting spirit, and they became more and more dissatisfied with Chen Yi. Seeing that the morale of the troops was low, Chen Yi called a meeting of the generals and proposed to launch an attack on Si County, Anhui. However, as soon as Chen Yi's voice fell, the officers and men of the field army protested one after another, saying that this plan was not feasible and that Si County was not a good place to fight.
Stationed in Sixian were two Guishi divisions of the Kuomintang army; although these two divisions and regiments were from a place of origin, their weapons and equipment were poor, and their numbers were not too large, their combat ability was quite strong, they defeated the well-cultivated troops of the Kuomintang leadership during the warlord melee, beat the Japanese invaders to the ground during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and were called "Gang Army" by other Chinese troops.
Gui Division
Chen Yi reported his battle plan for attacking Sixian to the central leadership, and the leader quickly replied after reading it, earnestly saying: "If there is no full certainty that the enemy army on the opposite side can be completely annihilated, then we will not fight this battle first." Marching to fight such a thing is urgent, as long as you have heavy troops in your hands, you can always wait for the right time to fight. It can also be seen from this remark that the central leadership did not recommend That Chen Yi take the initiative to launch this battle, but at this time, Chen Yi could not take care of so much, and he urgently needed a victory to boost morale. In Chen Yi's view, there were only two regiments of the Kuomintang army stationed in Si County, while the Shandong Field Army under his command had a total of 22 regiments, and the disparity in strength was so great that the results of the campaign were obvious, so he resolutely issued operational orders and ordered the troops to formally launch an attack.
But the battle was fought, and things that Chen Yi expected happened one after another. Just as Chen Yi was leading the Shandong Field Army on a rapid march to Sixian County, heavy rain suddenly fell along the Huai River, and the uninterrupted rain caused the river level to soar. Because there was only one road to go from the Liberated Areas to Sixian County, the fighters had to cross the waist-high river, then crawl forward on the muddy mountain trails, and finally fight the Kuomintang troops in a wet environment. To make matters worse, a large number of weapons and ammunition failed due to moisture or water ingress, which greatly affected the shandong field army's play on the battlefield. Chen Yi once sent a military intelligence report to the central leaders in the course of the battle, frankly saying that the troops had difficulty marching in the rainstorm, and could only advance forward by a maximum of 20 to 30 miles a day, and the artillery weapons they carried were muted when they encountered the rain, the soldiers were exhausted, and many people suffered from wind and cold because of the poor marching conditions.
The People's Liberation Army crosses the river
After holding out for several days, the Shandong Field Army finally arrived at the designated combat site and launched an attack on the Kuomintang troops stationed in Sixian County. However, the actual combat ability of the Defenders of Sixian County was far beyond Chen Yi's imagination, and the soldiers of the Shandong Field Army had already expended too much energy in the rush for days, so after two days and two nights of fierce fighting, only a few hundred Platsu barely broke through the enemy's defensive front and rushed into the city. However, the city was the location of the base camp of the Kuomintang defenders, so these hundreds of soldiers were quickly surrounded by enemy troops after entering the city, and finally failed to break through, and all died heroically. The Battle of Sixian eventually ended with the defeat of our army, and after the war, the Shandong Field Army annihilated more than 3,000 enemy troops in this battle, but its own casualties were as high as more than 2,700. Knowing that this time he acted recklessly, Chen Yi took the initiative to conduct a self-examination with the superior leaders, and the leaders did not blame him, saying that victory or defeat was a common affair of soldiers, and although the Shandong Field Army lost this battle, the troops were also tempered and learned a lot of lessons.
However, the relief of the leaders did not make Chen Yi put his mind at ease, the attack on Sixian County was a complete failure, the soldiers of the Shandong Field Army became more and more depressed, and the burden on Chen Yi's body was heavier. Just when Chen Yi was struggling with how to improve the morale of the troops, there was a new move on the Kuomintang side, and the Seventy-fourth Division, which was regarded as the main force of the ace by the Kuomintang leadership, rushed toward Huai'an and Huaiyin all night under the leadership of its commander Zhang Lingfu. After the unit leaders discovered the march plan of the Kuomintang troops, they quickly issued operational orders to Su Yu, who was then the top commander of the Central China Field Army, and asked him to lead the Central China Field Army to huai'an and huaiyin as quickly as possible to support Chen Yi's Shandong field army.
Battle of Sixian County
As soon as Su Yu received the instructions from his superiors, he immediately set off with 30,000 horses and horses to the Lianghuai area, but the liberation area where Su Yu was located and the combat site were separated by a full 500 miles, plus it was the rainy season in Shandong at that time, and the marching road was full of water networks, resulting in the advance speed of the Central China Field Army being quite slow. Su Yu's troops received an urgent telegram from Chen Yi on the way to the march, chen Yi yan yan Shandong Field Army is now poor and lacking, there is no counterattack against the Kuomintang Seventy-fourth Division, the situation in Shandong is precarious, and it is hoped that Su Yu's troops can reach their destination before the Kuomintang army officially launches an attack on Huaiyin and reverse the defeat. Su Yu and the soldiers of the Central China Field Army traveled through the night, but they still failed to catch up, and were preempted by the Nationalist Seventy-fourth Division. The Kuomintang troops opened the way with artillery fire and launched a fierce attack on Huaiyin, and in less than 2 days they successfully broke through the southern defensive line of Huaiyin County, encircling and annihilating the Platon Troops stationed in Huaiyin. The Nationalist Seventy-fourth Division, which had taken Huaiyin, did not stop there, and they pulled out their camp the next day and marched south, and soon took Huai'an into their hands, so that the areas of the two Huai regions were completely reduced to the enemy.
Without defending Huaiyin and Huai'an, Chen Yi, as the supreme commander of the troops, became the target of public criticism, and the generals of the Shandong Field Army were quite critical of him. Since Chen Yi became the commander of the troops, the fighters have experienced many defeats in three months, the only victory was the sniper war carried out in Tai'an, but the final results of this battle were very limited. The leaders of the military sub-district held a meeting, and when confronted with Chen Yi's criticism, they asked him: "You touch your heart and ask yourself, how exactly are these battles commanded?" Chen Yi also knew that he was not performing well, so he did not refute it, but also carried out profound self-criticism. Chen Yi said that the troops cannot win the battle, not because the soldiers' combat ability is not good, nor is it a problem with weapons and equipment, the biggest problem lies in the body of the commander himself. During the previous period of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese invaders were strong and strong, and their weapons were advanced, and the Eighth Route Army did not beat them to the ground. The equipment of the Kuomintang army is not as good as that of the Japanese army, and why the Shandong Field Army was attacked by them, in the final analysis, is that he, the supreme commander, made two mistakes.
Troop talks
The first mistake is that si county should not be hit first. The story of Tianji horse racing tells us that when encountering a strong enemy, we must take correct tactical countermeasures, and do not blindly go out to fight strong. If it were not for the insistence on gnawing down the hard bones of Sixian County, the officers and men of the troops would not have suffered heavy casualties, and the Shandong Field Army could have freed up its hands to attack the slightly weaker Sixty-ninth or Twenty-eighth Divisions of the Kuomintang army. Another mistake was not making up his mind to stick to Huaiyin. If the troops could hold Huaiyin for a few more days, they would be able to join Su Yu's Central China Field Army, so that it would be possible to encircle and destroy Zhang Lingfu's Seventy-fourth Division, and would not in vain send the Kuomintang leaders a battle record that could be boasted.
The proposal was made to change the coach, and the leader vetoed it
The generals of the Shandong Field Army sent a joint telegram to the central leaders, summing up Chen Yi's three dereliction of duty as the supreme commander of the unit: First, he did not actively listen to the opinions of his subordinates and insisted on going his own way, causing the troops to miss the fighter plane; second, they gave up holding huaiyin, causing this important town to be occupied by the Kuomintang; third, they were not decisive in their personality, they were not resolute in handling things, the enemy was still wavering at the moment, and he lacked the basic military qualities that should be possessed most as an army commander.
Su Yu
Because the Shandong Liberated Area was the primary target of attack, the operational policy adopted by the Kuomintang leaders in the early stage of the Liberation War was to "divide the troops into two roads, attack from north to south, take Shandong, and expand along the Jinpu railway line." In order to counter the Kuomintang army, the People's Liberation Army deployed two defensive fronts in the Shandong region, the Shandong Field Army led by Chen Yi on the southern front, and Su Yu led the Central China Field Army to garrison the northern front. Chen Yi's side repeatedly lost battles, and the clouds were miserable, but Su Yu's side made a sound and colorful, not only repelling the enemy's offensive, but also creating brilliant results of "seven battles and seven victories.". Therefore, at the beginning, when the generals of the Shandong Field Army sent telegrams to the superior leaders, they hoped that the leaders could let Su Yu replace Chen Yi. However, later they considered that Su Yu would have to concurrently serve as the supreme commander of the two units of the Central China Field Army and the Shandong Field Army at the same time, which was too hard, so after weighing it up, they said that if Su Yu could not do it, he could also transfer Xu Forward, Xu Xiangqian also fought many victorious battles in Shanxi, and Shandong and Shanxi were also relatively close and familiar with each other.
Immediately after receiving the telegram, the central leaders convened a meeting to discuss, first agreeing to the request of the generals of the Shandong Field Army and intending to send Xu Forward. Chen Yi also expressed understanding and welcome after learning of the decision of the superior leader, and he felt that Xu Xiangqian was also an excellent general with rich command experience, especially good at skillfully using tactics, always able to lead the troops to win more and less, and defeat the strong with the weak, and there was a great chance that he could change the unfavorable position of the Shandong Field Army on the battlefield.
Xu Xiangqian
However, just when Chen Yi was ready to be replaced and packed up, Xu Xiangqian, who was in charge of the succession, never appeared. More than twenty days later, Chen Yi, who was still anxiously waiting for Xu Xiangqian, suddenly received a telegram from the central leadership, but the content told him that the original exchange plan was canceled, and let him continue to serve as the supreme commander of the Shandong Field Army and preside over local work. This is a decision made by the leader after a long period of deliberation. In the leader's view, first, if such a thing as changing generals before the war can be done without doing it, it will be done as little as possible, because it will greatly affect the morale of the army; second, the leader has already figured out a good way to reverse the situation in Shandong and is ready to readjust the strategic deployment.
Partner Su Yu, the momentum is like a bamboo
The leader knew very well that Chen Yi was from a liberal arts background, and his military strength might indeed be slightly weaker, but he had an open-minded personality, was able to treat others with courtesy and courtesy, and he could accept it with an open mind after the generals of the army put forward criticisms of him. More importantly, Chen Yi is very good at coordinating the troops and can make full use of military resources. Although at the beginning Chen Yi was unfamiliar with Shandong affairs and the soldiers of the troops were somewhat estranged, and the internal composition of the Shandong Field Army at that time was also very complicated, including the New Fourth Army, the Eighth Route Army, and many local troops, Chen Yi still put down the shelf of old party members, personally went to the front battlefield to talk with the soldiers of the troops, and united these soldiers by his own efforts, which was the main reason why the leader did not intend to replace Chen Yi.
Chen Yi and Su Yu
In the later stages of the Liberation War, the war situation in Shandong and even in the entire central China region changed, and the central leadership once again readjusted the troops, merging the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army into the East China Field Army, with Chen Yi as the supreme commander of the troops and Su Yu as the second in command of the troops. The combined troops were invincible on the battlefield in Shandong, and soon Chen Yi threw off the hat of "not fighting".
At the end of 1946, the East China Field Army officially completed the merger and fought the first battle in the Northern Subei region. The central leaders had high hopes for huaye's debut, and before the battle began, they personally called and told Chen Yi and Su Yu that this battle must be won. Chen Yi and Su Yu did not live up to the expectations of their superiors, completely annihilating the Kuomintang 69th Division at the cost of more than 8,000 casualties and eliminating more than 21,000 enemy troops. Later, Huaye's troops made another good achievement in the Battle of Wuhu, not only annihilating more than 56,000 Kuomintang soldiers, but also destroying the Kuomintang's combat headquarters in the "Appeasement Zone" and killing many senior enemy generals. Of course, the biggest achievement of Chen Su and the two on the battlefield in Shandong was that in the Battle of Menglianggu, they completely annihilated the "pearl in the palm of their hands" led by the Kuomintang, the reorganized Seventy-fourth Division. The Seventy-fourth Division is also an old friend of the People's Liberation Army, an army of the Central Committee, which was supported by the leaders of the Kuomintang, with excellent equipment and strong combat strength. When they learned of Hua Ye's great victory in the Battle of Menglianggu, the leaders of the Kuomintang and the leaders of our party were shocked.
Battle of Menglianggu
Since Chen Yi and Su Yu became good partners, the operational situation on the battlefield in Shandong has undergone earth-shaking changes, and Hua Ye launched a fierce attack all the way, and soon completely defeated the Kuomintang troops who invaded here. The comradeship between Chen Yi and Su Yu also became stronger, and later Chen Yi was transferred out of the East China Field Army, and Su Yu kept him the position of commander-in-chief of the troops. Of course, it was also because the central leadership made good use of people and had the wisdom to see pearls that Chen Yi could continue to serve as the commander-in-chief of the Shandong Field Army even after losing battles, and he and Su Yu could massacre four sides on the battlefield, which was the full embodiment of the leader's great wisdom.