If you liked this article, please manually click "Follow" on the top right. Thank you for your support and encouragement, and hope to bring you a comfortable reading experience.
The Huaihai Campaign, which broke out at the end of 1948, was the second of the "three major battles" of the Liberation War.
Compared with the Liaoshen Campaign, which opened the door for our party to win the world and strategically reversed the situation of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the Huaihai Campaign, which almost directly destroyed all the elite of the Kuomintang's lineage, laid a military victory for our party.
The first merit of this decisive battle deservedly belonged to Su Yu, who was personally recognized by Chairman Mao.
But after Su Yu, Liu Bocheng, known as the "God of War", also played an irreplaceable role.
What role did Liu Bocheng play in the Huaihai Campaign?
In his later years, why did Liu Shuai not want to mention this battle again?
The beginning and end of the Huaihai Campaign
After the Battle of Eastern Henan in 1948, the Kuomintang, which suddenly felt that the general situation was not good, began to change its combat policy.
At a military review conference held in Nanjing in August of that year, Chiang Kai-shek made a new tactical deployment:
Switch from offensive to defensive, stick to strategic points with heavy troops, and avoid decisive victory in field battles with the PLA.
In order to gradually realize the strategic policy of "stabilizing the Northeast, consolidating North China, expanding the Northwest, and suppressing Central and East China, so as to wait for the situation to change".
Due to the Kuomintang army's retracting defense, the PLA, which lacked superiority in heavy firepower, once fell into the embarrassing situation of "not being able to eat" the encircled enemy and "not being able to chew" the enemy who was reinforced.
In order to break this unfavorable situation, under the instructions of Chairman Mao, the East China Field Army led by Su Yu and Chen Yi concentrated superior forces in September 1948 and launched the Jinan Campaign, which broke the situation.
In the Battle of Jinan, the People's Liberation Army not only captured the famous Kuomintang general Wang Yaowu and conquered Jinan, the first fortified city, but also defeated the three corps of the Kuomintang army that went to reinforce in the field battle on the southern front.
This battle prompted the liberation of important Shandong towns such as Yantai, Heze, and Linyi one after another.
After the basic liberation of Shandong, the East China Field Army, which no longer had any worries about the future, could finally free up its hands to confidently and boldly plan the next strategic deployment.
In fact, as early as the Battle of Jinan, when the fierce street battles were still going on, Su Yu had already begun to take precautions.
In a telegram sent to the Party Central Committee on September 24 of that year, he clearly put forward the "proposal that the Huaihai Campaign be carried out."
The Party Central Committee also called back a day later, saying, "We believe that it is very necessary to hold the Huaihai Campaign." ”
In fact, Su Yu's initial plan for the Huaihai Campaign was far from the actual Huaihai Campaign that took place later, and could only be called a "small Huaihai".
At the beginning, Su Yu only planned to practice Chairman Mao's operational policy of "fighting a decisive battle with the Kuomintang army in the north of the Yangtze River".
That is, to attack Huaiyin, Huai'an, Haizhou, Gaoyou and other places, with the annihilation of the Kuomintang army's Huang Baitao Corps and Li Yannian's Corps as the campaign goal.
However, as the battle progressed, in mid-October 1948, Nakano successively conquered Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, important towns in the Central Plains.
Liu Bocheng sent a telegram to the Party Central Committee and suggested that the opportunity should be seized to let Zhongye advance eastward to cooperate with Huaye and fight a big battle in the Xubang area, so as to annihilate the elite of Chiang Kai-shek's lineage to the greatest extent and turn the "Little Huaihai" into the "Great Huaihai".
Chairman Mao was very much in favor of Liu Bocheng's proposal.
He immediately made a decision, and Nakano and Huaye cooperated to launch this decisive battle with the purpose of annihilating the main force of Chiang's army.
Interestingly, in addition to our party's exquisite planning, the "Little Huaihai" could not be turned into the "Great Huaihai" without Chiang Kai-shek's "cooperation."
It turned out that when our army began to make the tactical arrangement of "Little Huaihai", Bai Chongxi, a famous general of the Gui department, also gave Chiang Kai-shek two choices in accordance with the ancient precept of "defending the river must defend the Huai".
The first is to concentrate the superior forces of the Kuomintang in Xuzhou and Bengbu on both sides of the Jinpu line, relying on the existing sustainable fortifications and a steady stream of logistical supplies from Jianghuai, and taking advantage of the advantage of the home field to fight a decisive battle with the PLA.
The second is to abandon Xuzhou, shrink the forces and retreat to the Huai River, and make every effort to build the Jianghuai defense line.
Compared with Chiang Kai-shek, who was more pragmatic and prudent in his defense, unable to pull down and thought that "800,000 to 65, the advantage is mine", he finally chose the former without hesitation.
In this way, he blocked all his net worth and fought a decisive battle with the People's Liberation Army.
Su Yu should be the first to take credit
In the Huaihai Campaign, which lasted for more than two months, the PLA annihilated more than 550,000 of the main Kuomintang forces at the cost of 136,000 casualties.
Most of the American weapons in Chiang Kai-shek's hands disappeared.
The final defeat is already doomed.
For the victory of this battle, there is no doubt that the first credit should belong to Su Yu, the actual commander of Huaye.
Even Chairman Mao personally recognized afterwards: "In the Huaihai Campaign, Su Yu made the first contribution!"
The Chairman is right in saying that.
Judging from the review of the Huaihai Campaign later, Su Yuju's first contribution is well-deserved.
The entire Huaihai Campaign can be roughly divided into three stages.
In the first stage, Dongye sang the leading role and surrounded and annihilated Huang Baitao's corps with the main force.
Assisted by Nakano, responsible for containing and blocking the reinforcements of the Kuomintang army;
In the second stage, Nakano and Higashino cooperate with each other.
Nakano concentrated the forces of the main force of 7 columns to encircle and annihilate the Huang Wei Corps.
Dongye "used one enemy and three troops", and used 7 columns to block Du Yuming's troops on the northern front, 4 columns to block Li Yannian and Liu Ruming's two corps on the southern front, and 5 columns to assist Nakano in eating Huang Wei's corps;
In the third stage, the superior forces of the 16 columns of Dongye surrounded and annihilated Du Yuming's troops who rescued Huang Wei.
In this way, Chiang Kai-shek's last trump card was completely annihilated.
It is not difficult to see that in the three stages of the actual Huaihai Campaign, Huaye was the absolute main force in the first and third phases.
They annihilated most of the Kuomintang elite.
In the second stage, it also undertook the task of three-front operations and made great contributions.
Therefore, looking at the overall situation, Su Yu, as the actual commander of Dongye, can be said to have undertaken the vast majority of the tactical command work of normal battles.
Not to mention, the original idea of the Huaihai Campaign was put forward by Su Yu.
But aside from Su Yu, the number one hero of the Huaihai Campaign, who can be called the second hero who followed closely?
The result is also unsuspenseful, that is, Liu Bocheng, the actual commander of Nakano in the military.
Compared with Su Yu's more contributions to specific tactical command, Liu Bocheng's contributions to the Huaihai Campaign were more in strategic planning.
His contribution to the Huaihai Campaign was not inferior to Su Yu.
So, what role did Liu Bocheng play in the Huaihai Campaign?
But what is strange is why he did not mention this victory in his later years?
Liu Bocheng's great contribution
Liu Bocheng also made great contributions throughout the Huaihai Campaign, which ran through the entire campaign.
On September 24, after Su Yu sent a telegram to the Central Committee to put forward the idea of "Little Huaihai", Liu Bocheng went to the Central Committee with Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping.
They expressed their support for Su Yu's strategic policy of "attacking Lianghuai and attracting the main forces of the Kuomintang army to a decisive battle", and expressed Nakano's willingness to cooperate with the decisive battle of Dongye in the future.
This directly contributed to the realization of the Huaihai Campaign.
In the first stage of the Huaihai Campaign, Liu Bocheng also led a partial division of Nakano to actively cooperate with Dongye's operational policy.
They firmly attracted the Kuomintang army's Zhang Gan Corps and Huang Wei Corps in the western Henan region, and delayed the eastward march of these two mobile corps to reinforce Huang Baitao's corps.
This move effectively reduced the operational pressure on Higashino.
This is the key to Dongye's quick devouring of Huang Baitao's corps.
Although he was far away in western Henan at this time, Liu Bocheng showed an amazing overall view.
In a subsequent telegram to the Party Central Committee, he clearly put forward the idea of the "Great Huaihai" in which the main force of Nakano went all out to advance eastward and cooperated with Dongye to "clamp his forehead, pull his tail, cut his waist, and put him to death", and annihilated Chiang Kai-shek's main elite in one fell swoop.
In addition, being outside the situation, he can see the situation and subtle changes in the battlefield of Xu Beng, Liu Bocheng's military strategy level is staggering, and he is indeed worthy of the title of "God of War".
In the second stage later, Liu Bocheng once again made an accurate judgment.
At that time, after eating Huang Baitao's corps, Nakano and Higashino had a big disagreement about the next action plan.
Su Yu believed that the living forces of Chiang's army should be annihilated to the greatest extent.
Therefore, the main force of Dongye should be allowed to go south with all its might, and first eat the reinforced Li Yannian and Liu Ruming's corps.
Then go north to cooperate with Nakano to encircle and annihilate Huang Wei's corps.
Liu Bocheng believes that this plan is too dangerous, and at the same time, he wants to eat the three corps of Huang Wei and Li Liu, and he is afraid that his strength is not enough.
Once the stalemate is reached and Huang Wei's corps bites back from the rear, the battle situation is critical.
At first, the Central Military Commission approved Su Yu's plan.
However, the later battle situation showed that Dongye was indeed unable to encircle and annihilate the three corps of the Kuomintang Army on the north and south fronts at the same time.
Therefore, in the end, everyone adopted Liu Bocheng's strategic policy of "eating one, watching one, and sandwiching one" by first eating Huang Wei's corps reasonably, and then dealing with Du Yuming's troops on the northern line and Li Liu's corps on the southern front.
has made correct judgments at key nodes many times, and Liu Bocheng deserves to be the second hero of the Huaihai Campaign.
But the old marshal in his later years was reluctant to mention this battle.
I don't even want to watch related film and television works.
Why?
It turned out that this was because the battle was too tragic.
Because it was facing Chiang Kai-shek's last hole card, although our army won a complete victory in the entire Huaihai Campaign, it also paid a huge price.
According to statistics, our army suffered a total of 136,000 casualties before and after.
This number is more than the casualties of the Liaoshen Campaign and the Pingjin Campaign combined.
One will be successful, and ten thousand bones will wither.
In his later years, when Liu Bocheng was asked by his daughter why he didn't want to mention the war again, he reluctantly said: "After this war, I always dreamed that many widows asked me for their husbands, and many white-haired old people asked me for their sons. Now that the war is over, I don't want to see some tragic images of the war anymore. ”
epilogue
As one of the top ten founding marshals, Liu Bocheng's outstanding military exploits as the "god of war" need not be said.
And his reflection on the tragedy of the war after the war added the brilliance of humanity to this veteran and made his image even taller.
bibliography
CHEN Hui. Liu Bocheng and the Huaihai Campaign[C]//Beijing New Fourth Army and Central China Anti-Japanese Base Area Research Association.Huaihai Campaign: Proceedings of the Academic Symposium to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Huaihai Campaign and the Liberation of Xuzhou.Jiangsu Cultural and Historical Materials Editorial Department,1998:6.
On the evolution of the Huaihai Campaign[J].Military History,1985(01):27-31.