This is a key battle that can almost determine the victory or defeat of the Battle of Huaihai, this battle can be called the most arduous battle of su Yu, the god of war, and the most emblematic of the art of command of the god of war! This was a battle between General Su Yu and Huang Baitao's old rival, and also a fierce battle between the East China Field Army and the elite troops of the Kuomintang, which was the highlight of the first stage of the Huaihai Campaign and played a crucial role in promoting the development of the war and even the overall situation afterwards. But this battle was also the one in which our army annihilated the most enemies in the War of Liberation, fought the most difficult battles, and suffered the heaviest casualties. The total number of troops invested by the Kuomintang and the Communists on the battlefield was as high as 250,000, and General Su Yu, who was the commander of the front line of our army, did not close his eyes for seven days and seven nights, and he was directly tired and fainted at the moment when the battle was divided into victories and defeats. The opposing Huang Baitao was even killed after the end of the battle.
This is a key battle that can almost determine the victory or defeat of the Battle of Huaihai, this battle can be called the most arduous battle of su Yu, the god of war, and the most emblematic of the art of command of the god of war! This was a battle between General Su Yu and Huang Baitao's old rival, and also a fierce battle between the East China Field Army and the elite troops of the Kuomintang, which was the highlight of the first stage of the Huaihai Campaign and played a crucial role in promoting the development of the war and even the overall situation afterwards. But this battle was also the one in which our army annihilated the most enemies in the War of Liberation, fought the most difficult battles, and suffered the heaviest casualties. The total number of troops invested by the Kuomintang and the Communists on the battlefield was as high as 250,000, and General Su Yu, who was the commander of the front line of our army, did not close his eyes for seven days and seven nights, and he was directly tired and fainted at the moment when the battle was divided into victories and defeats. The opposing Huang Baitao was even killed after the end of the battle.
In fact, the campaign, which was originally planned by the central leadership to end in only three to five days, not only lasted for a full 15 days, but also fought quite intensely and fiercely. Although our army completely annihilated more than 100,000 people of the Kuomintang Seventh Army, it also suffered heavy casualties. At the beginning of the battle, General Su Yu directly ordered huaye's columns to stop reporting the specific number of casualties of the army. This is the Battle of Nianzhuang that took place in November 1948, so what is the background of the Battle of Nianzhuang? Why is this battle so fierce? What about the CASUALTIES of the People's Liberation Army? Do you support General Su Yu's approach before the video? If you support it, please type the three words I support in the comments section. Please also ask the parents to follow the likes and attention, your support is my greatest motivation. So today, I will lead you into this history and understand the story behind the Battle of Nianzhuang.
In September 1948, before the Battle of Jinan was over, Su Yu proposed a plan for the Battle of Huaihai, capturing Huai'an and Huaiyin in advance, and then taking Haizhou and Lianyungang. This plan was quickly approved by the Central Military Commission, but it was required that the primary goal of the operation should be changed to the full annihilation of the Yellow Army Corps, and then act according to the original plan. Before the Huaihai Campaign began, the People's Liberation Army, in order to cover the eyes and ears of the enemy and stir up tension within the Kuomintang, had been constantly creating the illusion that it was about to attack Xuzhou. On November 5, Chiang Kai-shek sent Gu Zhutong, chief of staff, to Xuzhou to hold a military conference and make some troop deployments to prevent the People's Liberation Army from attacking Xuzhou. At this time, Huang Baitao was busy retreating westward, and suddenly received an order to postpone the westward retreat instead of retreating from the ground to Xuzhou.
Therefore, Huang Baitao waited for the 44th Army to join him in Xin'an Town, and he gleefully felt that he could immediately capture the strength of an army, and then his army size would be comparable to that of the Yan clan heavy army group. However, he forgot that there are pros and cons, and it is not known whether such a decision will be a blessing or a curse for him. Although Huang Baitao only had to wait for the 44th Army to join his jurisdiction, on the surface his strength seemed to be better than before, but in terms of time, it would have to be delayed for a period of time, and the retreat would inevitably become slow as the troops increased. What Huang Baitao did not expect was that the 44th Army of Haizhou also had to do the business of carrying private salt on the way to join him, which also took two full days for the large army to march from Haizhou to Xin'an Town. At this time, the 16 columns of the East China Field Army, 400,000 men and horses, had already rushed forward separately and directly attacked Xin'an Town, where Huang Baitao's corps was located.
On November 12, 1948, Su Yu led the command of the East China Field Army to move to the headquarters of the People's Liberation Army in Manshan Xibaipo, south of Nianzhuang, and because the command position of the East China Field Army was too far ahead, it was immediately decided to retreat five kilometers to Tushan Town. At the same time, the East China Field Army made a plan to encircle and annihilate Huang Baitao's corps, block The Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi Corps aided by Xuzhou in the east, and intercept the retreat of the Kuomintang army in Xuzhou to the south. On the 13th, Su Yu led the command organ of the East China Field Army to move to the town of Tushan, which was about fifteen kilometers away from the front line of Nianzhuang, and commanded the various units of the East China Field Army to start a general attack on Huang Baitao's corps. After Huang Baitao's Seventh Corps was besieged at Nianzhuangwei on the 11th, under chiang kai-shek's instructions, it immediately turned to the local defense to wait for reinforcements to arrive. The area centered on Nianzhuangwei, where Huang Baitao's corps held, was located west of the canal. There were more than a dozen villages on both sides of the Longhai Road, and this piece of land was a defense area for Li Mi's 13th Corps before the battle began. In order to guard against the attack of our army, strong fortifications were constructed in this area and a relatively complete defensive position was formed.
After the Seventh Corps of the Kuomintang Army was surrounded in the Nianzhuangwei area, on the basis of the original fortifications, it dug some trenches and traffic trenches between each village, so that the entire Nianzhuangwei area formed a circular defensive position with traffic trenches and trenches connecting, relying on the earth fence and land protection, and using the water number as an obstacle. The villages in this circular defensive position can not only become the support points for independent defense, but also communicate through communication trenches and trenches, and villages and villages can support each other in terms of strength and firepower. Huang Baitao's four armies were placed in the eastern, western, southern, and northern surrounding villages centered on Nianzhuangwei for defense, and in addition, each village near Nianzhuangwei was surrounded by some open fields, and under the blockade of the dense firepower of the Kuomintang army, it was difficult for our army to pass through this open area.
Huang Baitao's corps was deployed layer by layer in the village, and the People's Liberation Army bombarded them with artillery when they were far away, threw themselves down with machine guns and grenadiers when they got closer, strafed them with rifles and submachine guns when they got closer, and when the bullets ran out, they smashed them with bayonets and stones. Our army's repeated charge still failed, and what was worse was that at this time Huang Baitao finally looked forward to the air support of Xuzhou, and the bombers in the sky made the PLA's attack more difficult. Under the cover of air force artillery fire, the defending enemy stubbornly resisted from village to village. The East China Field Army launched a four-sided central assault at Nianzhuang, with the 6th Column attacking north, the 13th Column attacking eastward, the Fourth Column attacking west along the railway line, the 9th Column attacking northwest, the 4th Column attacking Xiaoyazhuang and Liujiahu positions north of Nianzhuang wei, the 8th Column attacking the Dawuzhuang position east of Nianzhuang wei, the 9th column attacking the 44th Army near Nianzhuang Station, and the 6th Column and the 13th Column attacking the positions of Pangzhuang and Hetaizi. The command of the field army demanded continuous assault, a quick battle, and an end to the battle within three or five days.
However, at the beginning of the assault, it was found that the difficulties were much greater than expected, in addition to the dense ditches and ponds, scattered villages, strong fortifications and other reasons, the attacking troops after several days of rapid marching, the officers and men were extremely tired, and the artillery could not keep up in time. Therefore, in the first two days of fighting, the assault troops suffered heavy casualties and the battlefield advanced slowly. On the evening of 14 July, the Headquarters of the East China Field Army held an operational meeting in Tushan Town to encircle and annihilate the heads of various columns of Huang Baitao's corps, the main topic of which was to readjust the deployment, improve the tactics of operations, and clarify the command relationship. The new deployment decision was made by Tan Zhenlin, political commissar of the Shandong Corps, and Wang Jian'an, deputy commander of the Shandong Corps, to unify the command of each attacking unit, with the 9th Column in the south, the 6th Column in the southwest, the 13th Column in the northwest, the 4th Column in the north, and the 8th Column in the east. The meeting decided to adopt the tactics of first striking the weak enemy and then the strong enemy, attacking its head, and disrupting its deployment. Su Yu made an important speech on the issue of tactics.
Su Yu held that when attacking, the various offensive units should change their offensive tactics, adopt the tactic of first starting at night, then slowly approaching the enemy's strongholds, and then concentrating their forces and firepower to compete point by point, and attacking the strongholds of the Kuomintang troops around Nianzhuangwei one by one. The next day, the East China Field Army reported the results of the meeting to the Central Military Commission, and after adjustment, the offensive of the East China Field Army was greatly improved. On the 15th, Su Yu sent a telegram to the Central Military Commission to explain the battle situation, and encountered the main forces of Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi's two corps, who did not dare to make a strong advance. After receiving the telegram, Chairman Mao clearly pointed out in a telegram drafted for the Central Military Commission on 16 November to the commanders of the Huaihai front and the party's leading organs in relevant areas that a general front committee composed of five people, Deng Xiaoping, Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi, Su Yu, and Tan Zhenlin, should be established to command the East China Field Army and the Central Plains in a unified manner, so that the two armies could act in unison. This marked the formal formation of the General Front Committee of the Huaihai Campaign, which was an organizational guarantee for the equal leadership of the Huaihai Campaign.
Since then, the command work of the Huaihai Campaign has been coordinated and responsible for by the General Front Committee. After that, the East China Field Army occupied the villages outside Nianzhuang. When our army launched a fierce offensive at Nianzhuangwei, Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing was like a needle felt. He hurriedly dispatched a number of planes to fly over Nianzhuangwei, airdropped ammunition and grain at the Huang Baitao Corps, and withdrew leaflets, letters of condolence, and various medals, making efforts for the Huang Baitao Corps to persevere, and even releasing poison gas at our army's positions. None of Chiang Kai-shek's rescue measures could rescue Huang Baitao's corps from The Mill. On the evening of the 17th, the East China Field Army seized about six kilometers west of Nianzhuang. In the early morning of the 18th, it occupied the yellow beach outside the Nianzhuang Wei. After several days of fierce fighting, the offensive troops of the East China Field Army basically cleared the positions on the outskirts of Nianzhuangwei, compressing hundreds of thousands of people of Huang Baitao's Seventh Corps into a narrow strip of land centered on Nianzhuang, no more than 5,000 meters from east to west and less than 3,000 meters from north to south. If you capture Nianzhuang as soon as possible, you will be able to encircle the enemy in Xuzhou.
After the central leadership sent troops to block the Kuomintang reinforcements and cut off the rear road of Du Yuming's troops in the Suxian area, Du Yuming and his Kuomintang soldiers did not move a single step and directly abandoned the battle plan to reinforce Huang Baitao's corps. Later in the campaign, Su Yu decided on the overall situation and began to slow down the speed of his attack on Nianzhuang, intending to adopt the operational method of encircling points and providing reinforcements, and to attract other Kuomintang reinforcements to the encirclement of our army and sweep them away. However, these Kuomintang reinforcements were quite realistic, and they were afraid that there would be deception in the road ahead, so they shrank to their own garrisons and did not even have the idea of trying to break through. Unable to wait for reinforcements, Huang Baitao's corps began to show its decline, and General Su Yu also saw the opportunity and ordered the troops to launch a final general offensive at 8:00 p.m. on November 19, and launched a charge against the enemy's core position, Nianzhuangwei. The decisive battle policy formulated by General Su Yu was to first let the troops attack with fierce artillery fire, and then bombard the entire mill village, taking the momentum of taking the lead and seizing the people, thus disrupting the strategic deployment of Huang Baitao's corps.
Then, with the southeast corner of its defensive front as a breakthrough point, it launched an attack on the Nationalist soldiers stationed at Nianzhuangwei. The East China Field Army was fierce, and Huang Baitao also ordered the soldiers of the troops to hold their positions and resist vigorously. However, his troops had been besieged for a long time, the ammunition and logistics materials were exhausted, there was not much power to counterattack, and they were soon repelled by the PLA generals, shrunk to the eastern corner of the mill village, and stubbornly resisted. Many of the wounded soldiers were in excruciating pain, and even chose to shoot themselves, and the reinforcements promised by their superiors for a long time did not even see the shadows. The soldiers of the Huang Baitao Corps began to shake their hearts, and the Nationalist troops represented by Zhao Biguang, the general of the Huang Baitao Corps, did not even know what was the point of fighting like this, and led their subordinates to surrender to the People's Liberation Army. Huang Baitao was helpless in the face of the surrender of his soldiers, he also knew that the situation of the troops was becoming more and more dangerous, if there was no more personnel, it was possible that the entire army would be destroyed, but he did not want to surrender.
As a corps commander who was not from Chiang Kai-shek's concubine, Huang Baitao was not snubbed and discriminated against by Chiang Kai-shek, but his talent was appreciated by Chiang Kai-shek, and the more he reached a critical moment, the more he valued him. Huang Baitao was also a rare general, and he made many achievements in the anti-Japanese battlefield. When it came to the battlefield of liberation, in order to repay Chiang Kai-shek's trust, Huang Baitao also worked extremely hard for Chiang Kai-shek. But at this time, seeing that his own legion was about to be destroyed, Huang Baitao also vowed to die rather than surrender. Huang Baitao is also not a fuel-saving lamp, not willing to sit still, he knows that it is unrealistic to hope that friendly troops will open the gap and take it upon themselves to break out of the siege, so he has repeatedly organized death squads to rush outward to kill, organized several counter-charges, but were all repelled by our army. At this time, under the urging of Chiang Kai-shek, Qiu Qingquan, Li Mi and other people who rescued Huang Baitao felt pressure and gradually approached. Huang Baitao's corps exchanged fire with plaster troops outside Nianzhuang, and both sides suffered heavy casualties.
Su Yu understood that it was urgent to launch a general offensive against Huang Baitao's forces. In this way, the PLA engineers carried out four large-scale explosions, Huang Baitao's bunker was no longer impregnable, our tanks finally opened a gap in the mill, and the two sides fought fiercely in the night. By five o'clock in the morning of the 20th, Huang Baitao's army, which was exhausted of ammunition and food, could not hold on and retreated in a hurry, and the People's Liberation Army finally took all the enemy positions in Nianzhuang. However, the Battle of Nianzhuang had not yet completely come to an end at this time, and the East China Field Army that captured Nianzhuang did not stop fighting, and they were under the orders of General Su Yu. He pursued the retreating Huang Baitao with all his might, intending to annihilate them in one fell swoop. On November 25, the Nationalist 25th Army, which had fled to Youjiahu Lake in the north of Nianzhuang, was surrounded by four columns of the East China Field Army, and more than 3,000 troops were completely annihilated. After that, Su Yu personally led his soldiers in pursuit of the Nationalist troops around the village, and successfully cleared out several small remnants of Huang Baitao. However, at this time, General Su Yu's operational objectives were still not fully achieved, after all, Huang Baitao, who was the commander of the Kuomintang army, had not yet been arrested.
The decisive battle at Mill Zhuang put Su Yu under great pressure, and the Kuomintang's sense of counterattack was beyond everyone's imagination. Our troops are suffering heavy casualties every day, but they are unable to advance one step. Su Yu was anxiously unable to sleep every day, and his body gradually collapsed. This was Chairman Mao who learned of Su Yu's difficult situation and telegraphed Su Yu that although he was relieved, he expressed that the central authorities had great confidence in him. Chairman Mao's attitude of not having doubts about the use of people and not using them gave Su Yu great spiritual strength, and the soldiers were also greatly encouraged. In the final battle, the vanguard destroyed the enemy on the periphery and entered the vicinity of Huang Baitao's headquarters. At this time, Su Yu ordered the three columns to aim all their artillery at the central area of the mill and bombard, and at the same time ordered one column to rush into the trench to fight the enemy. Four hours later, the People's Liberation Army had already broken through the two lines of defense of Huang Baitao's corps, and Huang Baitao understood that there was no hope of defending any longer, so he had to divide the troops and break through while the remaining troops still had combat effectiveness.
Soon, the headquarters of Huang Baitao's corps was occupied by the People's Liberation Army, and Huang Baitao led the remnants of the 64th Army to the northeast of Nianzhuang, because the 64th Army was Huang Baitao's concubine ace, plus the commander and a number of famous generals to supervise the battle, the 64th Army resisted extremely fiercely. Most of the other Huang Baitao corps soldiers were killed and captured by our army, and only a small number of the nationalist troops took advantage of the chaos to break through. However, Huang Baitao personally led the 64th Army to break through, was pursued by our army, and did not go far, Huang Baitao looked at the officers and men around him less and less, the Plasu Army shouted around him, and suddenly felt that the general trend had gone. He asked the commander of the 64th Army to lead a large army to continue to break through to the northwest, and he himself broke through to the southwest with a small number of guards. As a result, the commander of the 64th Army did not go far before it was blocked, and was soon completely annihilated, the commander was captured by the People's Liberation Army, and Huang Baitao was wounded on the way out. In Huang Baitao's view, he met Chiang Kai-shek, just as Maxima met Bole.
Huang Baitao knew very well that he was afraid that he would not be able to leave, and after being captured, he had no face to face Chiang Kai-shek, in order to repay Chiang Kai-shek's kindness, Huang Baitao also used all his strength, and at this desperate moment, taking advantage of the fact that the guards were not paying attention, he raised his own gun and lamented why Li Mi and Qiu Qingquan could not pull himself. The wounded Huang Baitao let out a long sigh and committed suicide by drinking bullets, and the defeated soldiers around him were also purged one by one by the soldiers of the East China Field Army. At that time, the Leaders of the Kuomintang issued an order insisting that Du Yuming, who was stationed in Xuzhou, lead 300,000 troops to support. Du Yuming had no choice but to leave for the battlefield, but he was still surrounded by plagiarists and soldiers of the People's Liberation Army who had been prepared earlier. Although he had a large number of troops and advanced equipment, he had been carrying out a breakthrough and resistance, but after the 300,000 troops were besieged, the consumption was huge, and several conflicts broke out within the army because of the uneven distribution of logistical resources, and the Kuomintang soldiers who did not want to wade through muddy waters were even more demoralized, and they were quickly defeated by our army, the commander Du Yuming was captured alive by the People's Liberation Army, and the East China Field Army also accepted many Kuomintang prisoners.
Since then, this arduous battle of Milling Village has finally come to an end. Su Yu's East China Field Army completely annihilated Huang Baitao's corps at a cost of 28,000 casualties, winning the final victory of the battle and winning more strategic opportunities for the subsequent Battle of Huaihai. After hearing that his old rival Huang Baitao had committed suicide in defeat and that Huang Baitao's corps had been completely destroyed, Su Yu was very excited, and after repeatedly determining that the intelligence was correct, he was finally so relieved that he suddenly fainted, and General Su Yu had not slept for seven days and seven nights. In his later years, General Su Yu recalled the fierce battle with Huang Baitao's corps on the battlefield of Huaihai, and he was still very emotional, saying that he had countless opponents in his life, and Huang Baitao's corps was undoubtedly the most difficult hard bone to gnaw. Although the Battle of Nianzhuang ended in the victory of our army. But it is undeniable that the PLA has also paid a considerable price in this battle.
After the fierce battle of Nianzhuang, the Nationalist troops began to collapse in an all-round way. This battle is an important part of the Huaihai Campaign, and the Huaihai Campaign has always been the most tragic and meaningful of the three major battles of the Liberation War. At that time, our army had no possibility of victory in terms of strength and weaponry. But the PLA is born to work miracles, to be united, and to win the hearts and minds of the people. On the other hand, the nationalist troops have long lost the hearts of the people, morale is low, and the interior of the nationalist army is very dark, not to mention the troops under their command, and their defeat is doomed. In this battle, the PLA paid a heavy price, but also won the biggest victory. Since then, the main Kuomintang army has been almost completely annihilated. In any case, relying on the correct command of the generals of our army and the heroic struggle of all the soldiers of the army, the PLA troops finally won the victory in this battle.
It is worth mentioning that the prisoners of the Nationalist army who surrendered into the troops also played a role to a large extent. This is also enough to prove that the PLA troops are a division of benevolence and righteousness, and only then can they fight with confidence and join the revolutionary action of liberating the whole country. Today, the flames of war have moved away from our descendants, and countless revolutionary fighters have sacrificed for it. We cannot imagine the hardships of the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army, let alone feel the cruelty of war, we can only cherish the current era of peace, remember the soldiers who gave precious lives for the country and the people. It is only the ancestors who carry the weight for us, and it is they who have laid the peace for us for decades with their lives. Here, we would like to pay tribute to all the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army and to those revolutionary martyrs who have made sacrifices for the country and the people. Well, this video ends here, what else do you want to say about the Battle of Mill Village? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area, discuss, want to see more wonderful videos of the audience friends point a point of attention, if you like the content of this issue, please help like, forward, we will meet again in the next issue.