The Fifth Theater Command, led by Li Zongren, began to move late the night before the fall of Xuzhou, at 11:00 p.m. on May 18. One might think that how many people a command can have, but in fact, it is not true, his number is very large.
In addition to Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, Xu Zuyi, Liu Fei, Lin Wei and other senior generals, there were many people who came to Xuzhou, asked question groups, reporters from various places, a total of more than 1,000 people, moved with the headquarters, and the direction of the breakthrough was mainly the Fuyang area south of Xiao County.
This squad is very important, bringing together most of China's talents, and if there is a deviation, the loss is immeasurable. At the beginning, the plan was to take the train, and I wanted to turn west after arriving in Suxian county in the south, but I did not expect that the train had just driven forty or fifty kilometers, and there was a powerful explosion in front of me.
After some inquiry from the special service battalion, it turned out to be the Chinese engineer unit, which was blasting the railway bridge in front of it, and because the news was not smooth, the commander of the engineer company thought that the commander of xuzhou had already taken the train and passed a day in advance.
This happened, which also surprised Li Zongren, and according to the initial decision, he withdrew on May 18. However, because Wuhan lost its position at Yuwang Mountain, it was only possible to withdraw the front-line troops one day in advance. However, in order to stabilize the morale of the army, the retreat time of the Fifth Theater Command was still scheduled for the night of the 18th.
But the change in order was not notified to the sappers, and a scene appeared in front of them.
The train bridge had been blown up, the train could not go, Li Zongren had to lead people on foot, and after coming to the outskirts of Su County, he found that the city had fallen, but found Tang Enbo's troops nearby.
Tang Enbo asked Li Zongren in a spirited manner: Do you need to take Suxian back?
Li Zongren replied: Your troops should retreat quickly, and I will lead people to detour from the east of Su County. Liao Lei's troops had already picked us up 30 kilometers south of Suxian County.
However, the actual situation was not smooth, Li Dongren led people to the southeast of Suxian 20 minutes before a Japanese cavalry team galloped past, this time the unit is the main cavalry force of the 3rd Division led by Ono Ryozo, as we mentioned.
In order to avoid the Japanese planes, Li Zongren and his party went out day and night, and even so, the danger came like a wave. Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, like everyone else, from time to time lie in the wheat field to avoid enemy aircraft, and from time to time rush to the scene.
One day, a Japanese reconnaissance plane flew around the village where everyone was hiding, which was obviously not a good thing. The workers immediately told everyone to disperse and hide. Sure enough, a group of planes flew in and bombed the village. Bai Chongxi and others were lying on the ground, and they could even see the hat badge of the Japanese pilot.
Fortunately, due to the concealment in advance, the group did not suffer a single casualty.
After bypassing Su County, they walked for a whole day, and finally met Liao Lei's troops who came to meet them, and then followed the troops to Fuyang. Liu Fei and Lin Wei bid farewell to everyone and went to Wuhan via Zhoujiakou in Henan to send an errand to Chiang Kai-shek, while Li Zongren Bai Chongxi set up a command post in the local area to take in the retreating troops.
Xuzhou fell on May 19, and All Japan got was an empty city.
Although the Japanese army occupied Xuzhou, in this battle, Japan obviously exposed more problems than China.
One of the reasons why the Chinese troops were able to calmly jump out of the encirclement at the end of the Battle of Xuzhou was, of course, the lack of Japanese troops. The main reason was that it was an active, planned retreat. There is nothing to say about planning, but for initiative, it can only be said to retreat voluntarily without a complete rout.
In addition, the Xuzhou battlefield is located between 20,000 Japanese troops, and it is very difficult for the Japanese army to establish a unified command structure. There was a very obvious habit among the Japanese troops that they had no immunity to attacking large cities at all, and everyone wanted to be the first to enter, and for this purpose, some front-line commanders often undermined the strategic deployment of the command.
The fact that the Chinese army was able to move safely had a very important relationship with the fact that the Japanese army did not have a clear operational purpose.