After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chiang Kai-shek began to take action against our Central Plains Military Region, and he successively mobilized the troops of more than 20 divisions to constantly encroach on our Central Plains Liberated Areas in an attempt to eliminate the troops in our Central Plains Liberated Areas and open up a road of march to East China, North China, and Northeast China. Although on October 10, 1945, the two parties signed the Double Tenth Agreement, and on May 10, 1945, the Two Sides signed the Hankou Agreement on the cessation of armed conflict in the Hankou area, but the Nationalist army refused to implement it.
Armistice
According to statistics, by June 1946, the Liberated Areas of our Central Plains had fought against the Nationalist army more than 1,000 times, large and small, and as a result, the Nationalist army had occupied more than 1,100 county towns, villages, and towns; more than 50,000 troops of our Central Plains Military Region had been surrounded by more than 50,000 troops in the Central Plains Military Region between Luoshan, Guangshan, Shangcheng, Jingfu (present-day Xinxian County), and Lishan (present-day Dawu) centered on Xuanhuadian.
From August 1945 to June 1946, for a full 10 months, why didn't the army in the Liberated Areas of the Central Plains break through? After returning from Chongqing to Yan'an, Mao Zedong was very worried about the situation in the Central Plains Military Region, and he sent a telegram to the Central Plains Bureau, in which he said: "Sooner or later the Central Plains will have to give up, because you are walking around in front of Chiang Kai-shek's house, he cannot sleep, but you cannot go now, and you must drag his troops to effectively cooperate with the actions of North China and Northeast China." ”
This delay dragged on until June 1945, and in late June, Chiang Kai-shek increased the number of troops encircling and attacking the Central Plains Military Region to about 300,000 people, and he thought that the time was ripe to eliminate the troops of the Central Plains Military Region, so he ordered Liu Zhi, director of his Zhengzhou "Appeasement" Office, to set up a command post in Zhumadian and instructed the besieging troops to complete their attack preparations and be ready for attack by June 22.
At that time, the most scarce thing in the Liberated Areas was grain; the Nationalist army controlled the passageways that could transport grain large and small, and deliberately raised grain prices in the border areas to attract grain outflows from the Liberated Areas. Due to the tight blockade of the nationalist army, the number of grain collections by the troops is increasing, the burden on the common people is getting heavier and heavier, the complaints of the people are inevitably getting worse and harder to hear, and the supply of the Central Plains Military Region is becoming more and more difficult.
A telegram sent by the Central Plains Bureau to the Central Committee said that the army had "reached the point where there was no rice to cook." In order to solve the grain problem of the Central Plains Military Region, the representative of the Central Plains Military Region proposed to Marshall that the officers and men of the Central Plains Military Region were "besieged by the government, cut off from grain, and very difficult, and requested to be moved to the defense and eaten." The purpose is obvious, naturally it is to take the opportunity to leave this surrounding land.
The deputies of the Nationalist Government categorically opposed it, and Zhou Enlai was very angry, pointing at Zhang Zhizhong and revealing: "Does Wen Bai mean to let my officers and men in the Central Plains starve to death or after they have been surrounded and annihilated before talking about 'moving defense and eating'?"
Military Investigation Group
Marshall pondered a bad idea: "Can the Nationalist side buy grain on behalf of the national army and deliver it to the junction of the two armies?" This is obviously a conspiracy, if carried out, the Nationalist army can calculate the approximate number of people in the Central Plains Military Region through the number of grain purchases, and can continue to choke the esophagus of the officers and men of the Central Plains Military Region.
Zhou Enlai suggested that the Eighth Route Army's Jin-Cha-Ji Liberated Area and Shandong Liberated Area take out 20,000 tons of grain and sell it to the Nationalist troops in Beiping, Taiyuan, Xinxiang, Jinan, and other places, and then the Central Plains Military Region would buy the same amount of grain in Wuhan and transport it to Xuanhuadian. After some debate, the proposal was finally approved, but before the deal could be completed, the Kuomintang troops began to prepare to attack our Xuanhua shop.
In response to the current situation, the Central Plains Bureau once again sent a telegram to the Central Committee requesting a breakthrough, and on June 23, Mao Zedong called back: "... Agree to break through immediately, the sooner the better, don't have any worries, survival first, victory first; In the future, everything is up to you to decide, do not ask for instructions, do not delay the timing... I hope to unite and struggle, and I wish you victory. ”
A total of more than 50,000 people, in addition to the troops who stayed behind to persist in the battle, there are nearly 40,000 people who need to break out, and the Nationalist army has already surrounded our Central Plains Military Region. After consulting with everyone, Li Xiannian, commander of the Central Plains Military Region, decided to adopt the strategy of "crossing the sea with the sky and attacking the west with sound" to highlight the heavy encirclement.
Using the tactic of "concealing the sky and crossing the sea," the Central Plains Military Region must conceal the sky (the reconnaissance plane of the Nationalist army), the people (Kuomintang agents) from the bottom, and the US military and the representatives of the Nationalist army from the mediation group in the middle.
Central Breakout Telegram
It is relatively easy to conceal the planes in the sky; during the period of the Red Army and the War of Resistance Against Japan, our army has already summed up many effective methods for dealing with aircraft in the sky; for reconnaissance planes, our army can basically do what it wants the enemy to see, and the enemy's reconnaissance planes will certainly not be able to see at all. Therefore, the daily report of the reconnaissance plane of the Nationalist army is almost the same: there is no abnormality in xuanhua shop. As for dealing with Kuomintang agents, our army is already a master, and I will not describe it here.
At that time, there was a military investigation group that often lived in Xuanhuadian, and when the US representative was called Li Dunbai and the Kuomintang deputy was called Lu Ji, our representative was Xue Zizheng. On the night of June 25, 1945, in order to cover the breakthrough of the troops of the Central Plains Military Region, the Central Plains Military Region Cultural and Labor Troupe performed the Peking opera "Fishing and Killing The Family", in order to attract the attention of the military investigation team. Halfway through the play, Lu Jishi received a telegram, and after reading it, he was shocked and immediately asked Li Dunbai and Xue Zizheng to leave the theater, and then handed the telegram to Li Dunbai. After Li Dunbai saw it, he was also greatly annoyed. He handed the telegram to Xue Zizheng and asked, "Mr. Xue, what is going on?"
Of course, Xue Zizheng knew what was going on, but he pretended to be ignorant and read the telegram carefully. Then he said, "Don't be impatient, I'll go and find out what's going on!" He summoned Zhang Tixue, political commissar of the Eastern Hubei Independent Brigade, and Zhang Tixue had a solemn expression and categorically denied that there had been a transfer of large troops.
Li Dunbai did not believe it, and said to Zhang Tixue, "Where are you General Li Xiannian?" He's friends with him and hope to talk to him tonight!" Zhang Tixue said: "Commander Li occasionally felt a cold wind, took medicine, and just fell asleep. Li Dunbai said: "Ah, sick! Then I should have gone to see him!"
At this moment, Li Xiannian had already led his troops to break through, had already left xuanhua shop, fifteen kilometers away from Xuanhua shop, Xue Zizheng was nervous in his heart, but Zhang Tixue pretended to be plain as usual, saying: "Mr. Li Dunbai wants to see Commander Li, you can wait in the theater, continue to watch the play first, I will go and invite Commander Li to come!"
Central Plains Breakout
Just as they were talking, the chief of staff of the Edong Independent Brigade left on the pretext of leaving, and he sent an urgent telegram to Li Xiannian, and Li Xiannian, who received the telegram, did not say a word and led a guard platoon to rush back to Xuanhuadian on horseback. Half an hour later, Li Xiannian rushed to the Xuanhua shop, and he instructed Zhang Tixue to return to the theater and invite Li Dunbai and Lu Jishi to eat supper, and Li Dunbai saw that Li Xiannian was full of sick faces, constantly sneezing, and when he ate supper, he also tasted lightly and looked like he had no appetite. I believed the words of our army, but Lu Jishi was uncertain in his heart. After the supper, Li Xiannian flew onto his horse again and chased after the troops.
Early the next morning, Li Dunbai and Lu Jishi saw that everything was as usual in the headquarters of the Central Plains Military Region and that the soldiers of our army were practicing normally on the playground, so they believed that "there was no other." In the afternoon, Zhang Tixue first invited the military adjustment team to play mahjong, and then arranged to go up the mountain to hunt, deliberately creating a peaceful atmosphere.
At about 9 o'clock in the evening of the same day, the main force of the Central Plains Military Region had reached the vicinity of Pinghan Road, and Zhang Tixue set up a banquet to entertain the military mobilization group.
When Chen Cheng learned that our army had left Xuanhua's shop, he hurriedly asked Liu Zhi, but Liu Zhi knew nothing about it, and he was so angry that he scolded Liu Zhi as a pig.