In August 1945, after Japan announced its unconditional surrender, the 14-year arduous War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression of the Chinese people finally came to a victorious end! The people eagerly longed for peace and hoped that they could quickly stay away from the war and develop their domestic economy and live a peaceful life. However, in June 1946, Chiang Kai-shek tore up the Double Tenth Agreement, shattered the people's desire for peaceful nation-building, and launched a civil war.
The three major battles that laid the foundation for the defeat of the Nationalist army—the Liaoshen Campaign, the Pingjin Campaign, and the Huaihai Campaign—led to the loss of Chiang Kai-shek's troops. The civil war was fought very hard, and among the three battles, the Huaihai Battle was the most difficult to fight, but the national army also had many opportunities to turn the tables around, and they all missed them one by one. Now that I think about it, if I hadn't missed one of these turnarounds, would history have been rewritten?
Among the three major battles, the Huaihai War was the most difficult to fight
Let's first take a look at the three major battles that laid the foundation for the defeat of the national army in the civil war, and why the Huaihai Battle was the most difficult to fight. In the Pingjin Campaign, our army had an advantage in terms of strength, with 1 million troops against 520,000 troops of the national army, which can be said to have the key to victory in our army almost at the beginning.
In this war, although Fu Zuoyi, the general of the national army, fought well, he was unable to reverse the situation because he did not have effective subordinates and did not have an advantage in troops. Our army won easily in this battle.
In the Liaoshen Campaign, our army fought 700,000 against the national army of 550,000, and there were 150,000 more troops. Although the Nationalist Army mobilized the New First Army and the New Sixth Army to fight in this campaign, as well as the 49th Army, which had rich combat experience, and the army was also well-equipped with firearms, this was a temporary Ninth Corps, and its internal coordination and cooperation were not up to the combat level, so it was not so difficult for our army to achieve victory.
But the Huaihai Campaign was different, the Kuomintang army not only had excellent combat equipment, but also gathered 800,000 troops to fight against our army's 600,000 troops.
What's more, Chiang Kai-shek sent his own right-hand man to participate in this campaign, making the Huaihai Battle much more difficult to win than the previous two battles. Although the victory was ultimately won, the casualties of our army in this battle exceeded the combined number of the previous two battles. Why is it so difficult to fight? We have to start with the generals of the national army who participated in this battle.
The national army has a strong lineup to participate in the battle
Chiang Kai-shek saw the rapid changes in the current situation, and also understood that the Huaihai Battle might be the key to internal victory or defeat, so he invested his most elite generals and troops into this battle, and Liu Zhi was the commander-in-chief, Du Yuming was the deputy commander-in-chief, Qiu Qingquan was the commander of the Second Corps, Huang Baitao was the commander of the Seventh Corps, as well as Huang Wei, Hu Lian, etc., they all came from a lot of backgrounds.
Du Yuming's military talent was extraordinary, and he made brilliant achievements in the Northeast Battlefield in the War of Liberation. I believe that friends who like history know that his most wonderful battle was to defeat the most elite Japanese Fifth Division in Kunlun Mountain, so that he was awarded the title of "Steel Army".
But in the Huaihai Campaign, he failed to show his ability, he failed to successfully rescue Huang Baitao's corps, and because of Chiang Kai-shek's order, he had to help Huang Wei relieve the difficulty, and was finally captured by our army in the process of breaking through.
Huang Baitao belonged to the miscellaneous national army, but he was reused by Chiang Kai-shek in this battle, which also showed his originally underestimated talents and conduct. In the Huaihai Campaign, Huang Baitao's troops were at the forefront of the campaign, and he sent a telegram to the commander-in-chief Liu Zhi saying that the troops should be withdrawn in time to preserve their strength, but Liu Zhi did not reply to him immediately, telling him to wait for the retreat with the 44th Army, and this delay was three days.
Our army made full use of these three days to encircle Huang Baitao and his troops. Huang Baitao saw that the situation was not good, so he issued an order to the troops to "fight independently and fulfill the duty of a soldier", and resisted our army to the death in Xin'an Town, and finally our army suffered more than 60,000 casualties, and Huang Baitao was also killed.
When Huang Wei was surrounded by our army in Shuangduiji, Hu Lian asked Chiang Kai-shek for orders to parachute into Shuangduiji, which reassured the national army that was surrounded by our regiments at that time.
Because Hu Lian was very good at defense, he commanded the national army to build complete fortifications after arriving at the battlefield, so that our army won the victory with heavy losses in the Battle of Shuangduiji.
Qiu Qingquan is also a very brave general in the national army, known as "Qiu Madman", which shows how powerful he is in battle.
In the Huaihai Campaign, Qiu Qingquan and Du Yuming were trapped in the Chenguanzhuang area, Du Yuming showed that there was no chance of victory, so he proposed to surrender to the existing 300,000 national troops a way to live, but Qiu Qingquan resolutely disagreed, and in the Battle of Chenguanzhuang, he fought with our army to the end and finally died. Our army also fought with great difficulty in this campaign.
Why did it lose, and what opportunities could the national army have to turn the tables?
Since the Nationalist army sent such a luxurious lineup to fight the Huaihai Campaign, why did it still lose? If we look back at this battle carefully, we will find that if the Nationalist army can occupy Xuzhou, the whole pattern will become very different, and even the Huaihai Campaign may not be able to be fought.
After Du Yuming arrived in Xuzhou, Qiu Qingquan told him that the Central Plains Field Army (referred to as Zhongye) went southwest. Du Yuming immediately sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek, saying that as long as Huang Baitao could contain Huaye and hold on for a while, and send Qiu Qingquan and Li Yannian to pursue Zhongye instead of rescuing Huang Baitao, then the whole situation would be very different.
At that time, Nakano's troops and equipment were inferior to the hundreds of thousands of elites of Qiu and Li, and Nakano, who was pinned, not only could not prevent Huang Wei's corps from occupying Xuzhou, but also could not assist Huaye in destroying Huang Baitao.
However, Chiang Kai-shek did not adopt Du Yuming's suggestion, and still transferred Qiu and Li to relieve the siege of Huang Baitao, but the result was unsuccessful; Zhongye was not contained by the Nationalist army, and surrounded Huang Wei's corps, Du Yuming suggested at this time to abandon Huang Wei's corps and preserve its strength and retreat.
Chiang Kai-shek agreed at first, but halfway through the process, he changed his mind and asked him to turn back to rescue Huang Wei's corps, and as a result, Du Yuming and Qiu Qingquan's hundreds of thousands of troops were trapped in Chenguan Village, and the whole army was annihilated.
Brief summary:
If Chiang Kai-shek had listened to one of Du Yuming's suggestions, he would not have been so badly defeated. But from the other side, the defeat of the national army was still defeated by the hearts of the people.
In the Huaihai Campaign, the strength of the national army was not inferior to our army, and their weapons and equipment were too sophisticated, and from the above analysis of the campaign, we can see that the national army as a whole was not very united, nor did it have high morale, they went against the call of the masses for peaceful construction, so the morale of the entire army was weaker than that of our army. Failure is inevitable.