After the autumn of 1947, in the northeast battlefield, the situation gradually favored our army, and Mao Zedong's vision of opening up the connection between the northeast and the north China battlefield and launching a large-scale campaign in the northeast battlefield from the overall situation of the national war already had the conditions for realization.
Mao Zedong asked the northeastern troops to fight on the Heping Sui Road in eastern Hebei, and pointed out that "Shenyang and Jinzhou, Jinzhou and Shanhaiguan, Shanhaiguan and Tianjin, Tianjin and Beiping, and Beiping and Zhangjiakou are all good combat areas." ”
However, Lin Biao was still unwilling to lead the army south, and the reason he explained was: "At present, if you go to a large army, it will be difficult to replenish the supply, and if you go to a small army, you will disperse the troops, it is still difficult to find a small battle, and the feeling that the strength of the troops is not enough to fight a big battle." Therefore, I will not go for the time being, and I plan to look at the situation and action after the ice is opened next year. ”
Lin Biao, who had followed Mao Zedong in the southern expedition to the north for more than 20 years, was well versed in Mao Zedong's military strategy, and he certainly knew that the benefits of going south to the northeast battlefield could make the backyard of the northeast Kuomintang army catch fire, but Lin Biao was thinking about how to annihilate the enemy outside Guanwai first, and he was more afraid that the Kuomintang troops in southern Manchuria would take advantage of the fact that the eastern wilderness would go south and copy his back road.
As far as war is concerned, any local operation is within the overall framework. Mao Zedong immediately discovered Lin Biao's strategic limitations: Lin Biao was standing in a corner of the Northeast Theater planning the campaign, and his own plan to occupy Pingsui Road (the railway from Beiping to Zhangjiakou) was not in his consideration.
The difference in positions and the size of the pattern are the differences between the decision-making angles of commanders and generals, and they also lay the groundwork for Mao Zedong and Lin Biao to talk about soldiers and argue about the telegrams and arguments between Mao Zedong and Lin Biao on whether they fought Jinzhou or Changchun for nearly half a year.
But Mao Zedong did not want to interfere too much in the decision-making of the theater commanders, but was more willing to patiently persuade them that once the commander could not understand his ideas for the time being, Mao Zedong was not willing to directly use coercive means. Mao Zedong agreed that the northeast troops would not leave the border for the time being, but in the reply telegram, he once again stressed the significance of opening up the battlefield between the northeast and north China: "It is extremely important to make the northeast and north China begin to open up links, and to transport artillery shells and explosives from the northeast to central China, the central plains and the northwest." ”
Fortunately, Lin Biao put the winter offensive on the line of Shanhaiguan and the Liaohe River, and all 20,000 people of the Kuomintang New Fifth Army were annihilated, and the commander of the army, Lieutenant General Chen Linda, was captured.
The Kuomintang was led by Chen Cheng in the northeast and suffered a crushing defeat.
Li Zongren said: For the northeast, "no one can rise from the dead, and Chen Cheng is not able to turn the tide of the tide from the fallen material." Zheng Dongguo said: "It is difficult to say that he has any outstanding genius, especially in commanding the operation of the large army, he is far inferior to General Du Yuming. ”
The unanimous view within the Kuomintang was that Chen Cheng was politically mature and militarily mediocre. Chiang Kai-shek was nepotistic rather than talented, and sent Chen Cheng to rule the northeast, and the responsibility for the failure lay with Chiang Kai-shek himself.
Chiang Kai-shek remembered Wei Lihuang and asked him to succeed Chen Cheng to reverse the passive war situation in the northeast. However, Wei Lihuang had a disagreement with him and had not been very dealt with, and Chiang Kai-shek had to send his confidant Gu Zhutong and Zhang Qun as lobbyists, and finally he personally went out on his own horse and put down a "sincere word" of "in case of the defeat of the northeast war, there is no need to be responsible", Wei Lihuang flew to Shenyang on January 22, 1948, amid his wife's angry opposition to Chiang Kai-shek's promise of reinforcement support.
Chiang Kai-shek and Wei Lihuang
Less than 10 days after Wei Lihuang took office, Lin Biao launched the Liaonan Campaign at the doorstep of Wei Lihuang's Shenyang base camp. Ten days later, in the three cities of Liaoyang, Anshan and Yingkou, three divisions of the Nationalist army were depleted. This was a "meeting gift" from the commander-in-chief of the Communist Party in the northeast to the commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang in the northeast.
On February 27, 1948, Lin Biao issued a combat order to capture Siping.
Wei Lihuang's strategy was: stick to Shenyang and wait for the incident. He said: "The Third World War is very imminent, as long as we preserve our strength and occupy the territory, things will be possible." No matter where Lin Biao fought, no matter how anxious the defenders were, and even Chiang Kai-shek repeatedly sent orders urging him to rescue, Wei Lihuang was not moved.
On March 13, the general offensive of Siping began, lacking air support, missing reinforcements from 9 divisions of the Nationalist army in the last Battle of Siping, and the Dongye generals who were holding their breath to take Siping took only 23 hours to take this fortified city that repeatedly blocked the footsteps of the Dongye army.
Wei Lihuang did not listen to Chiang Kai-shek's orders, and soon after taking office, he lost Siping, which put the Kuomintang army in a dilemma on the entire northeast. By the summer of 1948, the Kuomintang's 550,000 troops in the northeast had been surrounded by the Northeast People's Liberation Army in three isolated areas:
Around the Shenyang area, there were several strongholds of Tieling, Xinmin, Benxi, and Fushun, 24 divisions, and about 300,000 people, commanded by Wei Lihuang, commander-in-chief of the northeast "Suppression General" and Liao Yaoxiang, deputy commander-in-chief.
The Jinzhou area, also known as the Beining Line area, is centered on Jinzhou, south to Shanhaiguan, north to Yixian County, commanded by Fan Hanjie, deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast Suppression And Director of the Jinzhou Command Post, with 14 divisions and about 150,000 people.
Changchun is an isolated city with no other strongholds, commanded by Zheng Dongguo, deputy commander-in-chief of the Northeast Suppression Army and commander of the First Corps, with 6 divisions plus 3 brigades of local troops, about 100,000 people.
The Northeast People's Liberation Army has 12 infantry columns, 1 artillery column, 1 railway column and 17 independent divisions, a total of 53 divisions, plus the local troops of the Northeast Military Region, which is often called the "Northeast Million Army".
The scheming Wei Lihuang held a firm strategy and preserved his strength and refused to go to war.
Lin Biao, who started and developed by relying on sports warfare and has suffered great hardships in tackling tough battles, is faced with a difficult choice, and if he does not attack the stronghold, there will be no battle to fight, and if he attacks the stronghold, he will be jealous. But we can't let the enemy, who is less than half of his total strength, drag his million-strong army to the northeast and do nothing.
On April 18, 1948, Lin Biao reported to Mao Zedong on his ideas for the next step of operation and asked for advice. The main meaning of this long telegram boils down to one sentence: first fight the enemy of Changchun. Although Lin Biao put forward many reasons, the most fundamental reason was that the Kuomintang had the least garrison in Changchun, and for Lin Biao, who was not good at attacking strong points, the risk of attacking strong points was the lowest. Lin Biao also believed that the encirclement and annihilation of the enemy in Changchun might allow the Shen enemy to go north to reinforce, so that our army would have the opportunity to encircle the points for reinforcements.
From a tactical point of view, it seems that there is nothing wrong with hitting Changchun first, but Mao Zedong, who is in control of the overall strategic situation, does not think so.
After the Northeast Field Army entered the superior stage, Mao Zedong always advocated fighting in the south. As early as October 17, 1947, Mao Zedong had telegraphed Lin Biao: "The main direction of attack should be transferred to the two lines of Beining (Beiping to Liaoning Railway, that is, The Jingfeng Railway) and Pingsui (Beiping to Zhangjiakou Railway). On February 7, 1948, when the Northeast Field Army was still engaged in winter operations, Mao Zedong sent a telegram to Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan: "You should be prepared to deal with the situation of the enemy's retreat from the northeast to north China... As far as the strategic interests of our army are concerned, it is advantageous to close off Chiang Kai-shek's army and annihilate them in the northeast. ”
Mao Zedong's strategic intention was very clear: The operational purpose of the Northeast Field Army was neither to capture a few unimportant cities nor to try to consolidate the existing territory, but to drive straight down from north to south, quickly insert itself into the position where the gate of the northeast region was closed, that is, the jinzhou and Chengde fronts, block the passage for the Kuomintang army to retreat to north China, and completely annihilate it in the northeast with a decisive posture.
Although Lin Biao agreed with Mao Zedong's strategic plan of sealing Chiang Kai-shek's army in the northeast and annihilating them, the two approached very differently. Mao Zedong's way was to "snap the neck" and directly insert it into the key point of the Kuomintang army to give it a fatal blow; Lin Biao was to "cut off its tail", if Jinzhou was the head and Shenyang was the waist, then Changchun was the tail. Lin Biao believed that by cutting off the enemy's "tail," the enemy who was in great pain would naturally turn back, and he would also be able to achieve the strategic layout of sealing Jiang's army in the northeast and annihilating it.
Zheng Dongguo, the supreme commander of the Nationalist Changchun garrison
Attacking Changchun first was not in line with Mao Zedong's strategic vision, and one possible consequence was that the loss of Changchun would cause the Kuomintang army to unload a heavy burden, thus making up its mind to withdraw from the northeast in an all-round way. Because earlier, in March 1948, the head of the US military advisory group in China, Bada Wei, formally proposed to Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw his troops from Guannei: "It is futile to continue to hold on to the isolated city of Manchuria. ”
Of course, Chiang Kai-shek understood that this opinion was completely correct militarily, but because the political status of Changchun and Shenyang was too important, and Chiang Kai-shek was planning to convene a National Convention to realize his dream of being elected as a "The President of the Republic of China," from a political point of view, he did not dare to abandon the northeast without a war. Moreover, it is cost-effective to drag a million Dongye troops into the customs with 550,000 national troops. Otherwise, it would be unimaginable that a million people's liberation army would be in the battlefields of north China and the central plains.
If Lin Biao attacked Changchun, under unfavorable circumstances, Chiang Kai-shek might instead take advantage of the situation to withdraw his troops and "liberate" him for Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong was worried that with the passage of time, the Kuomintang would undergo major strategic changes, which would lead to the failure of our army's idea of closing the northeast gate. But Lin Biao said that "all the fighting will be over in ten days and a half months or so", and Mao Zedong reluctantly agreed to the battle plan to fight Changchun first.
Lin Biao wanted to pinch a soft persimmon, but he didn't expect to touch a hard nail.
On May 19, under the decisive command and dispatch of Zheng Dongguo, the Changchun defenders took the initiative to attack in three ways, and the battle of Dongye's first column and sixth column attacking the outskirts of Changchun was not smooth, and also exposed the strategic intention of Dongye headquarters, alerting the ignorant enemy. A frowning Lin Biao changed his mind again, and on May 29 he proposed to Mao Zedong that he instead besiege Changchun with a portion of his forces. After some debate, the decision to besiege Changchun began to be implemented.
Lin Biao's "disobedience" was also defeated, and on July 20, he asked the Central Military Commission for instructions on the issue of fighting in the south. After receiving the telegram, Mao Zedong said happily: "Lin Biao is finally going south. ”
At the same time that Mao Zedong was troubled by Lin Biao's "disobedience," Chiang Kai-shek was also suffering from a headache over Wei Lihuang's "resistance to his will and disobedience."
As early as February 1948, Chiang Kai-shek conveyed his opinion to Wei Lihuang: Except for the 53rd Army and the 207th Division to defend Shenyang, the rest of the main forces were all withdrawn to Jinzhou. Wei Lihuang understood that withdrawing from Jinzhou was a kind of double insurance for the main force of the Northeast Kuomintang army in a dangerous situation, but he did not agree with Chiang Kai-shek's opinion.
He sent Zheng Dongguo to Nanjing to express his opinion to Chiang Kai-shek: After the replenishment of the troops is completed, the Shenjin Line will be opened by camera. After Zheng Dongguo returned to Shenyang, he sent his chief of staff Zhao Jiajun and the commander of the 6th Army, Luo Youlun, to Nanjing again to present his interests and stakes to Chiang Kai-shek. In the face of Wei Lihuang's repeated insistence, in early March, Chiang Kai-shek finally took a half-step back: "Once the troops have been reorganized, then Shenyang and Jinzhou will launch an offensive at the same time, open the Shenjin Line, and move the main force to Jinzhou." ”
A month later, Chiang Kai-shek summoned Wei Lihuang to Nanjing for an interview and again demanded that Wei Lihuang withdraw his troops from Jinzhou, and Wei Lihuang resisted again on the grounds that the troops had not been reorganized and that there was a danger that they would be eliminated if they had hastily withdrawn to Jinzhou.
Chiang Kai-shek threatened him with anger that he would no longer airdrop supplies to Shenyang and Changchun. Wei Lihuang said: "As long as the main force is not withdrawn from Shenyang, I am responsible for the supply of the northeast troops, and I ask the US advisory group to help with the transportation." Unexpectedly, Wei Lihuang's hands and eyes were in the sky, and he actually said that he had moved the US military advisory group to airdrop weapons and equipment and food for him, which solved his worries.
No one knew why Wei Lihuang did not agree to withdraw the main force to Jinzhou at that time. Some people say that Wei Lihuang believed that with Shenyang's strong fortifications, Lin Biao's troops could not attack at all, and Shenyang could be completely defended. Some people also say that Wei Lihuang believed that once he withdrew to Jinzhou, it was only a matter of time before he lost the momentum of Shen and Jinjiao and withdrew to Guannei, and once he withdrew to Guannei, the fate of his "King of northeast" would be over.
It should be admitted that Chiang Kai-shek's retreat of the main force from Shenyang to Jinzhou was indeed strategically far-sighted. If Wei Lihuang had quickly carried out Chiang Kai-shek's decision, it would have been difficult to predict whether the Liaoshen Campaign and the Pingjin Campaign, which later determined the fate of the Kuomintang regime, would have taken place as history had shown.
Look back at Lin Biao.
After Chairman Mao's repeated telegrams urging him, Lin Biao agreed to the main force of Dongye's entire army going south, but he was reluctant to fight Jinzhou, not only because he was afraid of fighting Jiancheng, but also because he was afraid of turning into a big war. He knew that fighting Jinzhou was likely to evolve into a big battle, and in this regard, Lin Biao had no bottom.
One moment he asked the corps in North China to go out first, the next he said that the grain of the army going south was not ready, and the next he said that he would wait for the end of the rainy season in the northeast before leaving, in short, he was delaying. In the final analysis, Lin Biao's hesitation was due to the lack of mao Zedong's "courage to close Chiang Kai-shek's army in the northeast and fight an unprecedented war of annihilation."
Under the strict orders of the central authorities, Lin Biao issued a mobilization order for operations on the Beining Line to the south to various columns and divisions in Dongye in early September 1948. Dongye first captured Yi County, then besieged Jinzhou. But at this time, Lin Biao was once again shaken, and he was worried that the Nationalist army would reinforce from the sea. If Lin Biao really withdrew from jinzhou, it would be equivalent to opening the door to the northeast, which Chiang Kai-shek could not ask for. If he really returned to Changchun, the consequences were very serious.
However, Mao Zedong's three telegrams at a critical moment allowed Lin Biao and the entire army of Dongye to unify their thinking, dispel their concerns, and take Jinzhou as the consensus of Dongye.
When Jinzhou was captured, the enemy general Fan Hanjie said: "In attacking Jinzhou, non-Xiongcai cannot make up his mind. This also shows from one side mao zedong's great talent in the decisive battle in the northeast. Although Lin Biao is considered to be the most capable high-ranking general in our army, in terms of strategic vision alone, he is still "slightly inferior" to Chairman Mao.
On the side of the Kuomintang army, Chiang Kai-shek demanded that Wei Lihuang immediately rush to jinzhou, but Wei Lihuang still advocated holding Shenyang. Chiang Kai-shek's order was the result that Lin Biao was most afraid of seeing, but Wei Lihuang's stubbornness and self-determination had fulfilled Dongye, otherwise Wei Lihuang's army would have gone south, and Lin Biao, who was attacked on his stomach and back, might really face a situation in which victory or defeat would be unpredictable.
From the perspective of Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, that is, from the perspective of the national battlefield, the Bac Ninh Line, centered on Jinzhou, not only has a railway, but also a road, and a seaport, which is the only passage for troops entering and leaving the Guanxi and Guanwai and replenishing their supplies on land. Jinzhou is at the key point of the Western Liaoning Corridor.
Whoever controlled the Bac Ninh Line centered on Jinzhou between the Kuomintang and the Communists had the initiative on the battlefield. Mao Zedong saw this, so he repeatedly asked Lin Biao to go south to fight on the Cining Line; Chiang Kai-shek also saw that although it was not yet possible to withdraw its troops from the northeast, it was also necessary to lay out the withdrawal path in advance for the Kuomintang troops in the northeast in the dangerous situation, withdraw the elite main force to Jinzhou, and quickly withdraw to Guannei in case of crisis.
The commanders saw it, and the generals who had been in the battlefield for a long time naturally saw it. Seeing and not doing it is another matter. The commanders considered the overall situation, and the generals considered the interests of the local theater. Lin Biao was afraid that his strength was not enough to be attacked by the enemy from Shenyang, Jinzhou, and even Guannei on three sides. To put it bluntly, he did not want to take risks, and he was not as anxious as Mao Zedong in the pressure of our army's hard fighting in Guannei.
Wei Lihuang also saw it, but he held the strategy of sticking to Shenyang, hoping that our army in the northeast would be in a chaotic position, but he miscalculated. Wei Lihuang also knew that his ideas were not in line with Chiang Kai-shek's wishes, so he proposed to let Gu Zhutong, a close confidant of the Chiang clan, go to Shenyang to command, and when Gu Zhutong arrived in Shenyang, he bypassed Wei Lihuang and directly gave orders to Liao Yaoxiang, which again caused Wei Lihuang's dissatisfaction. The kuomintang's final layout in the northeast battlefield was consumed little by little in the quarrels of Chiang Kai-shek, Wei Lihuang, Gu Zhu and others.
Realistically speaking, historical practice has proved that both the Kuomintang and the Communists, Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, did have a side beyond their generals in their strategic vision at the time of the decisive battle in the northeast.
The commander-in-chief formulates the strategy and the general directs the implementation, which is the basis for the most harmonious action between the generals. Mao Zedong spent half a year patiently guiding, criticizing, and persuading Lin Biao to conscientiously implement his strategic intentions, reflecting the solid foundation and superb art of the commander-in-chief's "generals."
Chiang Kai-shek did not have the patience, nor did he lack the ability to control it, and in a hurry, he could only simply and rudely force orders, as well as playing with his wrists and deliberately overhead. Wei Lihuang's dissatisfaction with Chiang Kai-shek also affected Liao Yaoxiang: "The chairman of the cppcc committee employs people, everyone can reach the heavens, no one can unify the command, and the situation in the northeast is afraid that it will be difficult to clean up." ”
Coercion does not make the generals convinced to carry out conscientiously; overhead can only cause centrifugal detachment. Wei Lihuang said to his cronies, let them toss and turn! Just stand by and watch.
Before the 1948 Decisive Battle in Northeast China, the simultaneous debate between the generals of the Kuomintang and the Communists over the military deployment in the Northeast was not only a strategic contest, but also a political consideration of the internal relations between the two parties. Whoever is the first to realize the complete unity of thought and action between the commander-in-chief and the general will win the military initiative on the northeast battlefield.
Lin Biao, persuaded by Mao Zedong, commanded the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army to become more and more courageous in the Vietnam War, while the Kuomintang army fought less and less and the strength of the troops dried up. When Lin Biao made up his mind to besiege Jinzhou, Du Yuming, who had been re-enabled by Chiang Kai-shek, rushed to Shenyang to "put out the fire", but he was unable to return to heaven. In the northeast battlefield, the general trend has gone.