By 1947, the situation on the battlefield in East China had undergone tremendous changes; in the past six months or so, the East China People's Liberation Army had fought from Central Jiangsu to Northern Jiangsu and then to Central and Southern Luzhong, and the war had continuously expanded from the forward positions to the liberated areas; the scale of the war was getting bigger and bigger, from the initial independent operation in Huaye to the joint operation of the two major field armies in the Lunan Campaign, the different liberated areas realized the transformation from strategic coordination to campaign coordination, and the number of people participating in the war was increasing, from the initial movement war of more than 20,000 people to the large-scale annihilation war of more than 100,000 people. The number of annihilated enemies increased, and more than 50,000 enemies were annihilated in the Battle of Lunan alone. In more than half a year, the East China People's Liberation Army eliminated nearly 200,000 Kuomintang forces, completed the goal of annihilating a large number of enemy forces instructed by the central authorities, and the forces of the two sides are gradually moving toward balance.
In the spring of 1947, according to the instructions of the central authorities, the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army were reorganized into the East China Field Army, forming a command team with Chen Yi as commander and political commissar, Su Yu as deputy commander, Tan Zhenlin as deputy political commissar, and Chen Shiyu as chief of staff. There are about 275,000 combatants; its combat capability has been greatly improved after several major battles, especially the Lunan Campaign; the command system of the reorganized East China Field Army has become more flexible, the organization has become more refined, the weapons and equipment have been greatly improved, and the appearance has been renewed.
The Kuomintang had a different view of the situation in the East China Battlefield, and although the Kuomintang lost 200,000 troops in the past six months, it forced the People's Liberation Army from the Soviet Union to Luzhongnan and completed the generals set by Chiang Kai-shek in the early days of the civil war."
The bandit army rushed north of the Longhai line
The goal, and therefore strategically victorious; Chief of Staff Chen Cheng wrote in a military intelligence analysis.
The communist forces are gone
”，“
Although the nationalist troops suffered slight losses, as far as the overall war situation was concerned, it was a great success
It is precisely on the basis of this judgment that Chiang Kai-shek could not wait to launch the "Battle of Lunan" after the Battle of Lunan, believing that the People's Liberation Army had just experienced a major battle, that it had not yet had time to rest, that its combat effectiveness had not yet been restored, and that Linyi City was the capital of the Shandong Liberated Area, and that the attack at this time would definitely force Huaye's main force to fight a decisive battle in Lunan.
On January 31, 1947, less than 10 days after the end of the Lunan Campaign, the Kuomintang mobilized 8 reorganized divisions and 20 integrated brigades as assault groups on the southern front, attacking Linyi from Longhai Road in three ways; the other three armies and 9 divisions went south from the Jiaoji line, with Li Xianzhou as the commander-in-chief, which was the auxiliary assault group on the northern front; the two large armies advanced from the north and south in an attempt to pinch the East China Field Army assembled near Linyi; in addition, in order to prevent our army from escaping from southwest Lu, Chiang Kai-shek also specially transferred 1 army and 3 divisions of Wang Jingjiu's group from southern Hebei and northern Henan. As a western road unit, he was ready to throw himself into the luzhong and lunan battles at any time; in view of the lessons of the failure of the previous battles, Chen Cheng, the commander-in-chief in charge of this attack, made some thoughts, and in order to avoid being divided and annihilated by our army again, Chen Cheng ordered all the large armies to take measures."
Concentrate troops, fight steadily and steadily, advance hand in hand, and avoid prominence
"The tactics of warfare.
According to the enemy's situation, Chen Yi and Su Yu also drew up a battle plan, preparing to concentrate 50 regiments to crush the enemy troops on the southern front first, and the operational intention was to let go and lure the enemy to the area south of Linyi, to block the enemy's middle road troops in the front with a main column, to induce the enemy troops on the left and right roads to stand out, and then to concentrate the main force to annihilate the road that was easy to annihilate; this combat plan was conservative, and in the tentative attack on February 3, the enemy army not only did not break through, but on the contrary, the troops on the left and right roads had a tendency to move closer to the middle; our army's operations have always been strategically to win more with less. In the battle, there were many victories and few victories, the heavy troops of the enemy troops on the southern front were not easy to divide, and the enemy troops on the northern front took advantage of the situation to occupy Laiwu, leaving little time and space for the East China Field Army.
The direction of the enemy's attack on the southern front
Central call indication at a critical moment"
If necessary, Linyi can be abandoned
This gave Su Yu a great deal of strategic thinking space, so that he was no longer limited to the operational goal of "defending Linyi" in campaign command, but turned his attention to the strategic goal of annihilating the enemy's living forces and crushing the enemy's attack. Su Yu thought that the large number of enemies on the southern front and the gathering of hedgehogs together would not be conducive to our army annihilating the enemy in the movement; on the contrary, the enemy troops on the northern front were few, and they were all miscellaneous armies, and there was a tendency to go deep alone, which was convenient for our army to divide and annihilate the enemy. From this, Su Yu came up with a bold idea, that is, to abandon the enemy on the southern front and secretly go north to strike a surprise blow at Li Xianzhou's clique.
Just when Su Yu was analyzing the feasibility of annihilating the enemy in the north, Chen Yi also put forward the strategic idea of "sacrificing the south to take the north." Instead of wasting the fighters on the southern front, it would be better for the main force to go north and annihilate Li Xianzhou's troops with absolute superiority; since the Liberation War, Chen Yi and Su Yu have always had a dispute over the strategic direction of external and internal operations, and this strategic coincidence is rare; Chen Yi asked Su Yu to analyze in detail the feasibility of the northward combat campaign, and Su Yu thought that if one or two columns stayed near Linyi to negotiate with the enemy, At the same time, the main force secretly went north, surrounded Li Xianzhou's troops as quickly as possible, and abandoned Linyi at the right time, so that even if the enemy discovered our army's intentions, it would be too late.
In his telegram to the central authorities, Su Yu stressed the positive significance of going north to annihilate the enemy, seizing the Jiaoji line to threaten Jinan, attracting the enemy on the southern front to the north, and then annihilating the enemy in the Luzhong area; soon the central authorities agreed to Su Yu's battle plan, believing that this would mobilize the enemy army and reverse the unfavorable situation of our army's passive decisive battle. In this way, a great war was formed in the discussion between the central and front-line commanders.
The biggest difficulty in "giving up the south to take the north" is not to annihilate the enemy, but to hide the motive for the operation; Su Yu thought that even if the enemy troops on the northern front retracted, there would still be a major opportunity for our army to go north, but this inevitably left regrets for this wonderful operation, so Su Yu began to make a tense layout. First, to confuse the enemy on the southern front, to launch a campaign against Hao Pengju with the second column, in order to attract reinforcements from the enemy to the east (it is estimated that it is difficult), and then the main force gathered near Linyi to make the illusion of a decisive battle with the enemy; second, the second and third columns disguised as the main force and launched a frontal defense in the area south of Linyi to show our army's determination to protect Linyi; third, Su Yu estimated that the enemy would not be too late to occupy Linyi City, and it was not enough to delay our army's intention to go north as much as possible. Pontoon bridges were erected on the canal and fishing boats were raised on the banks of the Yellow River, making the illusion that our army would transfer westward to join Liu Deng after abandoning Linyi.
In order to delay the advance speed of the enemy troops on the two fronts and further create the illusion of a decisive battle of our army, Su Yu cleverly set up suspicious troops on the north and south fronts, ordering a brigade of the Seventh Column to block the enemy's Seventy-fourth Division at Longhai Road, and the local troops of the Luzhong Military Region to block the enemy's Forty-sixth Army, which was moving south from Laiwu, and struck the banner of the main force. After all the preparations were made, on February 10, Chen Yi and Su Yu ordered a secret transfer to the north, and the main force quickly set off, braving rain and snow to shuttle through the lofty mountains of Yimeng Mountain; at the same time, nearly 600,000 former migrant workers also relied on shoulder picking, unicycles, and other primitive methods to transfer tens of millions of grain and ammunition gathered in Linyi City to the north, and the East China Field Army successfully realized the emergency transfer with the help of Luzhong's father and fellow villagers.
Li Xianzhou troops on the northern front were deployed
Soon, the comrades of the front-line reconnaissance sent information from the enemy troops on the northern front, and the headquarters of the Seventy-third Army and the Fifteenth Division led by Li Xianzhou were located in Yanzhuang, the 193rd and 77th Divisions were located near Zibo, the 12th Army headquarters led two divisions were located in Laiwu and Kouzhen, and the Forty-sixth Division was located in the Xintai area; Su Yu quickly issued a assembly order to the troops according to the enemy's situation, and the main force entered the ambush point in two ways, left and right. On February 15, the remaining troops on the southern front resisted one after another and finally abandoned Linyi, and the Kuomintang army occupied an empty city, and the enemy troops asked Chiang Kai-shek for merit and threatened."
Annihilating 16 brigades of the bandit army, the East China Field Army collapsed in its entirety
”“
It was no longer able to fight a decisive battle with the Nationalist army
", and even commanders made"
The bandit army fled westward, intending to join Liu Dengbu
" judgment.
Su Yu's deployment in the south seemed to conceal the enemy on the southern front, but there was no shortage of capable people in the Kuomintang, and Wang Yaowu, commander of the Second Appeasement District, saw the problem, and the nationalist army on the southern front occupied Linyi without experiencing a major battle, judging that the main force of our army might change the direction of operations, and the only possibility was that the Li Xianzhou troops on the northern front were Li Xianzhou troops, so he quickly ordered Li Xianzhou's troops to retreat in all directions and demanded from Chen Cheng."
Mobile operations are permitted
”。 Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng were unable to make a correct judgment under the sway of the troops on the southern front, and they firmly believed in the main force of Huaye."
It has been defeated, and there have been attempts to avoid the Yellow River
", strictly order Li Xianzhou troops"
Restore the pre-war posture
"To achieve the purpose of the north-south attack." Wang Yaowu had no choice but to accept the order.
Wang Yaowu (first from the left) and Lu Han, Zhang Fakui and other famous generals of the Nationalist army
Chiang Kai-shek's judgment of "establishing a soldier by deception" and the commanders on the front line is completely reasonable and credible, conforms to the general law of war, and caters to the psychology of the enemy army.
"Attack what you must"
At the beginning of the Battle of Lunan, the Kuomintang judged that our army would defend Linyi, so a decisive battle in Linyi was imperative, and Su Yu decided to show the enemy in linyi south based on a condition. However, due to Wang Yaowu's caution, the enemy troops on the northern front underwent four major changes when our army entered the ambush site, especially the first time, Li Xianzhou's 70,000 troops shrank northward, when the East China Field Army had not yet completed the encirclement of Laiwu, seeing that the enemy army had to run many front-line commanders suggested launching an attack in advance, so that at least one of the enemy's tails could be cut off.
As for whether to attack in advance, Su Yu held that even if he could grasp the enemy's tail, it would not have much impact on the enemy situation on the northern front; all the enemy troops on the northern front fled, and our army still had great potential in terms of campaign, so there was no need to expose the operational intentions in advance; soon Wang Yaowu transferred the Forty-sixth Division back to Xintai under the pressure of Chiang Kai-shek to prove that our army's combat intentions had not yet been exposed, which strengthened Laiwu's determination to annihilate the enemy. On February 20, the third major change occurred in the northern front troops, Wang Yaowu ordered the enemy of Xintai and Laiwu to retreat north, and at the same time ordered the Seventy-seventh Division to go south through Xiabo; at this time, after more than 10 days of preparations, most of the main forces had entered the ambush point, Su Yu resolutely ordered the troops to attack, first annihilating the Seventy-seventh Division to the south, blocking the enemy's way north; soon the left road troops captured the town of Tusikou north of Laiwu, and the troops south of Laiwu became the turtle in the urn.
Siege of Li Xianzhou's department
The Battle of Laiwu lasted three days, annihilated 56,000 enemy troops, captured Li Xianzhou alive, and completed ahead of schedule the task given by the central authorities to annihilate 10 enemy brigades in a month to a month and a half; the number of enemies annihilated, the speed of the operation, the rapid movement of troops, and the small number of losses set a new record since the Liberation War; after the Battle of Laiwu, the strength of the East China Field Army was once again enhanced, and at the same time it seized the initiative near the Jiaoji Line, opened up the links between jiaodong, Bohai, and Luzhong liberated areas, and created a favorable situation for Huaye's next operation. In addition, from the perspective of the campaign, the Battle of Laiwu embodied the super-long command ability of our army, and the strategy of "showing the form to the south and hitting the enemy in the north" made the senior Kuomintang generals afraid, and after the war Wang Yaowu shouted: "
The Battle of Laiwu suffered heavy losses, a hundred years of lessons, and unforgettable
”。