In November 1948, the wheel of history carved deep traces on the ancient city of Xuzhou. It was at this time that the East China Field Army and the Central Plains Field Army joined forces to launch the Huaihai Campaign that shook the whole of China. This battle is not only an ordinary military confrontation, but also a major decisive battle related to the fate of the country.
In the face of the 600,000 East China Field Army, the Kuomintang's 800,000 army seemed to have the upper hand. But as described in the movie, "Sandwich is sandwich, even if it is sandwich, you have to eat him." ”
The Battle of Huaihai lasted a total of 66 days. To the surprise of all the participants, the first stage of the campaign, the battle to encircle and annihilate Huang Baitao, turned out to be the most difficult part of the entire campaign. This was beyond the expectations of General Su Yu and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
After the war, General Su Yu once said frankly: "In the entire Huaihai Campaign, I only felt extremely nervous twice, and the first time was when Huang Baitao was besieged. When the news came and informed that Huang Baitao had committed suicide, Su Yu said with emotion: "If it is one-on-one, I may not be his opponent." This is enough to show the high military talent of Huang Baitao.
In the second half of 1948, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) won successive victories in the Shandong battlefield. At this time, the prototype of the Huaihai Battle had gradually become clear in General Su Yu's mind. He regarded the Battle of Jinan as a "small Huaihai".
When the Jinan Campaign was not completely over, Su Yu put forward a bold idea to the Party Central Committee: to expand the results of the battle and evolve the "Little Huaihai" into the "Great Huaihai".
After careful discussion, the central government finally decided to support Su Yu's proposal and officially launched the Huaihai Campaign.
The Huaihai Campaign was divided into three phases: first, the encirclement and suppression of Huang Baitao's corps, followed by Huang Wei's corps, and finally the siege of Du Yuming's group. Each stage is a great test of the wisdom and courage of the PLA, and it is also a major challenge to the KMT's military strength.
Why did General Su Yu set Huang Baitao's corps as the target of the first phase of the Huaihai Campaign? First, Huang Baitao's corps was not the core force of the Kuomintang and was relatively easy to attack; second, Huang Baitao's corps happened to be located in the encirclement of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and was the most direct threat to our army.
Therefore, Su Yu decisively chose Huang Baitao as the primary target. However, unexpectedly, this force caused as many as 60,000 casualties to Huaye.
In order to confuse the Kuomintang, the People's Liberation Army deliberately created the illusion of attacking Xuzhou in the early stage of the Huaihai Campaign. At this time, the closest to Xin'an Town was Huang Baitao's corps. Chiang Kai-shek immediately ordered Huang Baitao to quickly rush to Xin'an Town for reinforcements.
Su Yu immediately decided to gather the strength of ten columns to launch a fierce assault on Huang Baitao's corps, aiming to completely annihilate the Huang corps and capture Huang Baitao himself. But Huang Baitao is a brave general after all, and in the absence of intelligence support, he still smells danger. If it weren't for Liu Zhi's mistake, Huang Baitao might even break through the encirclement.
In the end, under the continuous pursuit of the People's Liberation Army, Huang Baitao's corps was forced to retreat to Nian Zhuangwei. Soon after, the People's Liberation Army also arrived in Cao Baji, where it engaged in a fierce battle with the Nationalist army, eventually occupying Cao Baji, severing the connection between Nian Zhuangwei and Xuzhou. At this time, Su Yu ordered Song Shilun to lead three columns to resolutely block the troops who came to the rescue.
The surrounding area of Nian Zhuangwei was originally a plain, which should be easy to attack and difficult to defend according to common sense. But Huang Baitao was extraordinary, he soon discovered the advantages of the terrain in this area, and used the terrain to resist.
Huang Baitao is different from other Whampoa generals, he does not have a strong background, and can only rely on military exploits to seek promotion. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he served as Gu Zhutong's chief of staff and was highly appreciated by Gu Zhutong. Therefore, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Gu Zhutong vigorously promoted Huang Baitao, so that he was finally promoted to the position of commander of the 7th Corps.
It is precisely because of this background that Huang Baitao is even more dedicated on the battlefield. Although he was not from the Whampoa family, he was grateful to Chiang Kai-shek and Gu Zhutong for their promotion.
When the Kuomintang troops led by Huang Baitao arrived at the outskirts of Nian Zhuangwei, he immediately realized the characteristics of the terrain here: endless plains, no commanding heights, but several high platforms built by local villagers due to the impact of the flooding of the Yellow River became an excellent vantage point for observing the surroundings. Huang Baitao was extremely perceptive and quickly turned these high platforms into his own defensive fortresses.
Huang Baitao not only made clever use of the high platform, but also rationally configured light and heavy weapons and machine guns to build a criss-crossing defense system with powerful firepower. The effectiveness of this defensive system was so effective that the PLA fighters failed to break through the defensive line of Nian Zhuangwei in many attacks.
In this battle, Huang Baitao even did not hesitate to use extreme means to use the villagers in Nian Zhuang Wei as human shields, causing the PLA to have many concerns when attacking, and had to slow down the pace of the attack to avoid harming innocents.
The five columns besieging Huang Baitao had encountered many difficulties in the previous days' fighting. The terrain of Nian Zhuangwei is narrow, which makes it difficult for the PLA to play a role in the division and encirclement tactics commonly used here. The attack of the fighters was difficult, far exceeding the expectations of the battle, and almost no progress could be made.
In the face of this stalemate, General Su Yu was extremely anxious, and did not have a moment of rest for seven consecutive days and seven nights, always keeping an eye on the operational map and the movements of the front line.
In the middle of the night on November 14, 1948, Su Yu held an emergency meeting in a private house about 15 kilometers from the front line of Nian Zhuangwei. At the meeting, in order to break through Huang Baitao's defense line as soon as possible, Su Yu decided to adopt a new tactic - replacing movement warfare with positional warfare, and ordered the soldiers to gradually approach the enemy's defense line by means of earthwork excavation.
This tactic can not only effectively shorten the charging distance of the fighters and reduce casualties, but also disrupt the deployment of the enemy army and create more opportunities for the PLA to attack.
In order to quickly eliminate the Yellow Corps, General Su Yu committed tank troops on a large scale for the first time in the Huaihai Campaign. Despite the adjustment of tactical deployment, the PLA encountered great difficulties in the first two days of the campaign. The stubborn resistance of the enemy troops caused considerable casualties to our troops. Although the sudden attack of the tank units caught the enemy by surprise, the attack did not achieve significant results due to the lack of experience in infantry and tank coordination.
However, with the deepening of the campaign, our army gradually figured out the combat power and firepower deployment of the Yellow Corps, and gradually mastered the tactics of infantry and tan coordination through actual combat.
On November 17, 1948, all units of the East China Field Army launched a concentrated attack on Huang Baitao's corps. By this time, our army was well aware of the enemy's disposition. Su Yu decided to adopt the tactics of "first breaking the weak enemy, then attacking the strong enemy, attacking the enemy's head, and confusing the enemy's deployment" to encircle and annihilate the Yellow Corps with all his might.
By dawn on November 18, more than 5,000 Kuomintang had been captured. At this time, Huang Baitao's defense system had completely collapsed.
Despite this, Huang Baitao still showed a stubborn spirit of resistance, and he led the remaining 10,000 people to continue to hold out in the hinterland of Nian Zhuang Wei.
By the night of November 19, the strength of the Yellow Corps had been reduced to less than 10,000. Su Yu decided to launch a general attack, and the artillery units of the East China Field Army fired 10,000 artillery guns in unison to concentrate on bombarding Huang Baitao's corps. The PLA took advantage of the situation to break through the enemy position.
Faced with the rout and delayed reinforcements, Huang finally collapsed and committed suicide in despair on November 21.
At the moment of the victory in the Battle of Nian Zhuangwei, Su Yu, who had been tense for a long time, finally relaxed, fainted from exhaustion, and fell asleep for a whole day. After learning the news of Huang Baitao's suicide, Su Yu said with emotion: "If it is one-on-one, I may not be his opponent." ”
Huang Baitao's defeat marked the successful start of the Huaihai Campaign. As Liu Zhi, the commander of Xuzhou's "Suppression Chief" at that time, said: "The destruction of Huang Baitao's corps indicates that the fate of the Battle of Xu Beng has been sealed. ”