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In the mid-summer of 1946, Nanjing was unusually hot. At night, the hustle and bustle gradually faded, and a man was looking around anxiously in the secluded streets and alleys outside Wutai Mountain. Soon, a black Buick car sped by. In a hurry, the man quickly stepped into the car, and before he could sit down, the car was already moving.
Sitting in the back row was Zhou Enlai, and the man with whom he had a secret meeting was named Zhang Kexia, who was then the deputy commander of the Kuomintang's Third Appeasement District. His real identity is that of a "special party member" of the CCP directly led by Zhou Enlai.
Since joining the party in 1929, Zhang Kexia has used his status as a senior Kuomintang general to cover the party's underground work and secretly transmit intelligence and military supplies to the New Fourth Army. In the Kuomintang's many anti-communist actions, tens of thousands of revolutionary volunteers were protected from being safely transferred.
It is the 17th year since the enemy camp was lurking. This time, Zhang Kexia received a new task—Zhou Enlai gave clear instructions to choose a favorable time to try to instigate an uprising of senior Kuomintang generals and large troops.
In the dangerous streets of Nanjing, this brief meeting laid a crucial foreshadowing for the future victory in the Battle of Huaihai.
When the moon is empty, the long night will end.
Xuzhou, located in the Central Plains at the junction of the four provinces of Sulu, Yuwan and Anhui, will become one of the battlefields that will determine the future and destiny of China.
On November 6, 1948, the Battle of Huaihai was officially launched. The People's Liberation Army's East China Field Army planned to take the lead in annihilating The Huang Baitao Corps stationed at Nianzhuang, but the Kuomintang 59th Army and the 77th Army deployed in Jiawang blocked the troops' way south. Many corps of the Kuomintang army were assembling in Xuzhou, and the enemy was outnumbered and the fighters were fleeting.
At this time, in Xuzhou City, the wind and cranes were roaring. In front of the headquarters of the "Suppression General" headquarters, it is heavily guarded, as if facing a great enemy.
Zhang Kexia ushered in the most anxious day of his life.
Not long ago, he delivered a copy of the "Xuzhou City Defense Deployment Map" to the People's Liberation Army, and the CPC Central Committee sent people to Xuzhou secretly to study with Zhang Kexia the specific methods for cooperating with the PLA. According to the instructions of the Party Central Committee, Zhang Kexia must win the uprising of the Kuomintang Fifty-ninth Army and the Seventy-seventh Army as soon as possible to seize the opportunity for the war situation. Now that the war is stalemate, the pre-battle uprising is poised to start, but at this juncture, something has changed. As the main planner and leader of the uprising, Zhang Kexia was suddenly transferred out of the army.
It turned out that Zhang Kexia had previously plotted against many senior generals of the Northwest Army, which aroused the suspicion of many diehards within the Kuomintang army. Among them was his immediate superior, Feng Zhi'an, commander of the Third Appeasement District. Due to Zhang Kexia's outstanding military achievements and extremely high prestige in the army, Feng Zhi'an has not dared to act rashly. At present, on the pretext of holding a meeting, he firmly trapped Zhang Kexia in the Xuzhou "Suppression General" Headquarters, which was more than forty kilometers away from Jia Wang's front line, and could not escape.
From dawn to dusk, time passes minute by minute. Until late at night, the meeting continued. The cold of early winter was soaked with trapped anxiety, and Zhang Kexia was anxious. During this period, he repeatedly proposed to rush back to the front line to command the operation, but Feng Zhi'an refused under various pretexts.
At 1 a.m. on the 8th, Zhang Kexia proposed that it was futile to continue the discussion, so it was better to let everyone go back to rest first and discuss it at dawn. This tactic of slowing down the army obviously worked, and was approved by most of the generals present, and the meeting ended.
At 4:00 a.m., there was silence in the headquarters, but Zhang Kexia was anxious and worried. Although most of the rebel army obeyed his old subordinates, the army was afraid at such a moment, and if it did not return to preside over the overall situation, I was afraid that many years of hard work would be wasted.
While everyone was asleep, Zhang Kexia quietly woke up the driver. They rode in a jeep, broke through the heavily guarded guard, and risked their lives to drive towards Jia Wang.
At 8:00 a.m., Zhang Kexia finally rushed back to the troops.
At exactly 10:00 on November 8, 1948, Zhang Kexia and He Jifeng, deputy commanders of the Kuomintang Third Appeasement District, led all of the Fifty-ninth Army and most of the Seventy-seventh Army, a total of 23,000 people, to declare an uprising in the Jiawang and Taierzhuang areas, opening the northeast gate of Xuzhou. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) was in a state of disarray and smashed Xuzhou, and the Kuomintang army was in chaos and panic.
The Jiawang uprising sounded like a thunderclap, opening the prelude to the victory of this great battle.
When Chiang Kai-shek received the news, he was furious and jumped like a thunderbolt. Previously, he had personally awarded Zhang Kexia the "Zhongzheng Sword" engraved with his own name, but he never expected that this meritorious "Sword General" was actually a sharp sword directly inserted into the heart of the Kuomintang.
Su Yu, acting commander of the East China Field Army, once said: If you delay in Jiawang for four hours, the war situation will be different.
Mao Zedong excitedly commented: This was the first major victory in the Huaihai Campaign.
"Concealed and lean, long-term ambush, accumulation of strength, waiting for the opportunity".
In the past 20 years, the enemy battalion has sacrificed its life and forgotten its death, and has done the heavy tasks entrusted by the party again and again. The averting danger in the face of the crisis reflects the great wisdom and courage of the Communist Party members; and the courage of the Communist Party members in the face of danger shows his bold loyalty to the Party. Zhang Kexia used his firm dedication to establish a silent merit for the Chinese revolution.