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On December 15, 1948, in the Shuangduiji area at the junction of Henan, Anhui and Suzhou, a life-and-death decisive battle was carried out to a white-hot stage.
After several battles in the dark and the change of positions, the PLA outside the village finally gained the upper hand, and poured into the stronghold of the Shuangduiji Kuomintang in one fell swoop, planting the fluttering red flag on this land that had paid countless blood and sweat.
This battle is the famous battle of Shuangduiji in the Huaihai Campaign, and the battle with our army is also the well-known 12th Corps of the National Army, that is, the Huang Wei Corps, however, despite the final victory, but for many years, there has always been a controversy about this battle, that is, who won the victory of Shuangduiji?
In the first battle, our army had two units participating in the battle, one was the Central Plains Field Army that fought in the early stage, and the other was the East China Field Army that participated in the war in the later stage.
Therefore, some people believe that Nakano defeated the Huang Wei Corps, and some people believe that the Huang Wei Corps was actually destroyed by Hua Ye, who later participated in the war, and in the end, some people even claimed that the Central Plains Field Army could not defeat the Huang Wei Corps, and it was all thanks to Hua Ye's reinforcements that they were able to annihilate the enemy.
So, what is the actual situation? Did Nakano really rely on Huaye's reinforcements to wipe out the Huang Wei Corps? How difficult was the Huang Wei Corps to fight?
Tremble in the balance
On November 22, 1948, a sharp gunshot rang out from a thatched hut in the Nian Zhuangwei area, and a middle-aged man wearing a Kuomintang general's official uniform fell down, this person was Huang Baitao, a lieutenant general commander who commanded the Kuomintang's Seventh Corps in the Huaihai Campaign.
Huang Baitao's defeat and death not only announced the complete victory of the East China Field Army in the first phase of the Huaihai Campaign, but also opened the next stage of the decisive battle between our army and the national army.
After the total annihilation of Huang Baitao's corps, the Central Military Commission set the goal of the next stage on the Huang Wei Corps, determined to fight a war of annihilation in the Central Plains, so this task fell to the Central Plains Field Army led by Liu and Deng.
At this time, Huang Wei's corps was marching north quickly under Chiang Kai-shek's order, trying to save Huang Baitao's corps, but before they could reach their destination, they had already received the news that Huang Baitao's corps had been completely annihilated by our army.
In the face of this piece of fat delivered to the door, the two leaders of the Central Field Army, Liu Deng, formulated a battle plan to lure the enemy into depth, encircle and annihilate him.
On November 23, Huang Wei launched an attack on the Nanpingji position of our army on the south bank of the Hun River, and the fourth column of Zhongye led by Chen Geng took the initiative to retreat according to the deployment of Liu Deng after stubbornly resisting, and withdrew his troops to the north bank of the Hun River.
It was only then that Huang Weifang realized that he had fallen into our army's plan, and hurriedly ordered the troops to turn around and want to retreat, but Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping did not give him this opportunity.
Nakano ordered all the columns to attack in an all-round way, killing from all directions, and simply surrounded the 120,000 people of the Huang Wei Corps in a narrow area with Shuangdui as the center, 20 miles from east to west and 15 miles from north to south.
When the news of the successful encirclement of Huang Wei's corps reached the Nakano Headquarters, the two leaders of Liu Deng, who had been frowning, finally showed a relieved smile, and the headquarters was also full of a relaxed atmosphere, however, before everyone could be happy, a more serious problem appeared in front of them.
According to the prior battle plan, after encircling the Huang Wei Corps, the next step should be to encroach on them step by step until they are completely annihilated, but it is easier said than done, and it is not until the real action is taken that Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping realized how difficult it is to eat the Huang Wei Corps.
Let's talk about Huang Wei first, after being surrounded, he never gave up, and struggled to break through several times, but Nakano tried his best to block him with his life before he could escape.
On December 6, Nakano launched a general attack on the besieged Huang Wei Corps, one of the two sides wanted to go out, the other wanted to encircle and annihilate, both fought with their lives, in the most fierce front, people died every second, the position was like a furnace, thrown into a unit, and it melted in a while.
Taking the Nakano Third Column as an example, the troops had already suffered more than 4,000 casualties in the first three days of the battle, and at that time, the average number of people in a column in the Nakano was only 15,000.
But even so, Nakano still failed to wipe out the Huang Wei Corps, and more importantly, at this time, other units of the Nationalist Army were also under Chiang Kai-shek's strong order to rescue the Huang Wei Corps.
And in this critical and dangerous situation, the other main force of the Huaihai battlefield, Huaye's troops, made timely actions, and this was undoubtedly a move in the snow for Nakano.
Coal transfer in the snow
In fact, Liu and Deng also expected the predicament faced by the Central Plains Field Army before the war.
After eliminating Huang Baitao's corps, Chairman Mao and the Central Military Commission set the next target to be annihilated as the Huang Wei Corps, and the main attack on Huang Wei's corps was the Central Plains Field Army located on the southern front.
It sounds like a good thing to have a battle to fight, but for the Central Plains Field Army at that time, it may not be so.
After leaping thousands of miles into the Dabie Mountains, although Nakano developed a base area in the Dabie Mountains and achieved the strategic goal of the central government to introduce the flames of war into the national control area, at the same time, Nakano suffered heavy losses.
The first is the loss of troops, Liu Deng's army went south to Dabie Mountain, not only to fight with the enemy army in front and open up the way forward, but also to face the rear and left and right to encircle and intercept, of course, the most important thing, but also to stay away from the base area that has been operating for many years, which means that they will lose their logistical source.
Under such conditions of being attacked on all sides and lacking logistics, the pressure and losses that Liu Deng's army had to face can be imagined.
The second is the loss of weapons and equipment. On the way to the march, Liu Deng's army had to pass through the Yellow Flood area, which was uninhabited for thousands of miles, as well as the Yellow River, the Shahe River, the Ru River, the Huai River, and other rivers, and in order not to affect the speed of the march and complete the task in a timely manner, it had to throw away and destroy a large number of heavy weapons and equipment on the way.
As a result, by the time of the Huaihai War, Nakano's participating troops had only 7 columns and two brigades, with an average of only 15,000 men per column and 12,000 individual columns, with a total number of about 120,000.
In comparison, although Huang Wei's corps is only 120,000 people, the situation is completely different. Huang Wei's 12th Corps is known for being the elite of the National Army, and the 18th Army under its jurisdiction is one of the five main forces of the National Army, and its strength is not trivial.
In the face of such an opponent, Liu and Deng had already made preparations, and at the pre-war meeting, Deng Xiaoping, as the political commissar of the middle field, said categorically: "Everyone must have the determination to die!"
Liu Bocheng, as the commander, also said: "As long as the Huang Wei Corps on the southern front can be eliminated, Nakano will be wiped out, and it will be worth it!"
As the commander of the 4th Column, Chen Geng also stood up and said impassionedly: "Even if there is only one squad left, I, Chen Geng, am willing to be the squad leader, and I will win!"
In the atmosphere of concerted efforts and unity of all in the field, the Central Plains Field Army was fully dispatched and successfully besieged the Huang Wei Corps in the Shuangdui area, but in the process, it also paid extremely heavy sacrifices, coupled with the previous shortcomings in troops and weapons, which made the Nakano extremely difficult in the encirclement and annihilation battle, although the Huang Wei Corps was wiped out more than 50,000 people, but he also paid the price of 20,000 people.
Looking at Zhongye who was in trouble, Chen Yi, as one of the general front committee members of the Huaihai Campaign, suggested to Liu and Deng: "Transfer two columns from Huaye, and the strength of two more columns can take down Huang Wei's corps." ”
"No, it's also very difficult on the Huaye side!" Deng Xiaoping, as the political commissar, refused.
"You are not afraid of beating Nakano to the bottom, but I can't watch it like this, you are distressed, I am also distressed, Nakano has done his best to besiege Huang Wei, which makes Huaye's troops able to move freely, and Huaye has put two columns to reinforce it, which is also a proper thing. Chen Yi poured out persuasion to Deng Xiaoping.
Finally, under the persuasion of Chen Yi, Liu Deng and the others agreed to transfer Huaye's two columns to the battle to encircle and annihilate Huang Wei.
The jury has long been made
After receiving Chen Yi's order to send two columns to reinforce Nakano, Su Yu, as the acting commander of Huaye, immediately made a decision, and he decided to send three columns to Nakano!
However, don't think that he has a lot of troops because Su Yu is so generous at this time, in fact, not only Liu and Deng in Nakano are in a difficult situation, but Su Yu is also the same, Deng Xiaoping's sentence "Huaye is also very difficult" is not a polite prevarication, but a real portrayal.
Because, at the same time that Zhongye was besieging Huang Wei's corps, Su Yu was also leading all the columns of the East China Field Army to block Qiu Qingquan and Sun Yuanliang's corps who came to reinforce Huang Wei, and it was difficult to draw out extra troops.
On December 10, after consulting with the comrades of the headquarters, Su Yu decided to transfer the Third Column, the Soviet Eleventh Column and the Lu Zhongnan Column to support Nakano, which was commanded by Chen Shiyu, who was then the chief of staff of Huaye.
After receiving the order, Chen Shiyu galloped in the starry night, rushed towards the battlefield of Nakano, and finally arrived at the Shuangduiji area on the 13th. Since the number of participants had been reached, Chen Shiyu only left two columns, and let the other column rush back to continue to support Su Yu's battle.
On this side, on the double-stacked battlefield, the war has reached a white-hot stage. The casualties of the combat units on the front line were very heavy, and if the battalion commander and instructor died, the company commander went to the top, and when the company commander died, the deputy company commander was promoted to company commander, and if the deputy company commander was gone, the platoon commander and deputy platoon commander were promoted, and some soldiers were even promoted to three levels in a day.
In the end, even the soldiers were in short supply, so they added cooks, confidential officers, and handymen from non-combat units.
Seeing that the Nakano troops were about to be unable to support it, but Chen Shiyu was standing still at the moment, looking at the increasingly urgent situation, Liu Bocheng, as the commander of Nakano, was anxious and angry, and hurriedly sent a telegram to Su Yu, asking Chen Shiyu why he did not move, did he have to wait for the brother troops to run out before he was willing to fight?
When Su Yu learned this, he was also shocked and angry, and immediately sent a telegram to Chen Shiyu, asking him why he was like this, however, in the face of Su Yu's questioning, Chen Shiyu replied reasonably, and he replied to Su Yu: Commander Liu's troops must be withdrawn before he can lead the team in, otherwise, rashly entering like this now can only add chaos.
It turned out that at this time on the battlefield of Shuangduiji, the battle situation was close to the decisive game, the soldiers of the Central Plains Field Army and the Huang Wei Corps were all red-eyed, if the Central Plains troops were suddenly withdrawn at this time, whether it was the soldiers or the commander of the column, I am afraid that there would be some emotions in it, after all, they had been fighting for so long, and they were about to win, but suddenly someone asked them to withdraw, this kind of order is difficult for anyone to accept.
And if the Nakano troops do not withdraw, and Chen Shiyu directly leads the team in, then it will inevitably turn the troops into a pot of porridge, and when the time comes, not only will the goal of encircling and annihilating Huang Wei be achieved, but the other party may also take advantage of the chaos to escape.
Faced with this dilemma, Chen Shiyu had doubts, so he didn't dare to act rashly on the sidelines.
After learning about Chen Shiyu's thoughts, Liu Bocheng immediately made a decision and immediately ordered the troops on the front line in the middle field to give up the position of the main attack, and handed over the main force of the troops to Chen Shiyu for overall command, and declared that those who violated the command would be handed over to military law for handling.
After clarifying the command system, all 7 columns of Nakano and 2 columns of Huaye joined forces to launch a final general attack on the Huang Wei Corps that was huddled in Shuanghei, and with the concerted efforts of both sides, only two days later, that is, on December 15, Huang Wei's corps was completely annihilated by our army, and Huang Wei, the commander of the corps, was also captured by Nakano.
To this day, people are still arguing about who won the Battle of Shuangduiji, and even think that Nakano could not defeat Huang Wei's corps, and it was all thanks to Huaye's reinforcements that he won, but in fact, this question has been answered many years ago.
After the Battle of Shuangduiji, Su Yu wrote in the post-war summary: Nakano first undertook the most difficult task of fighting on the outside line, and we can still use artillery when Huaye fights the national army, but they can only carry explosives bags and fight with the enemy, Huang Wei's 18th Army is not inferior to the 74th Division on Meng Lianggu that year, Nakano eliminated the strongest enemy with the worst equipment, Huaye should learn from them!
After reading the story of the Central Plains Field Army fighting against Huang Wei's corps, do you have anything to say in front of the screen? Welcome to leave your views in the comment area.
Resources:
"The Formation of the Decision to Encircle and Annihilate the Huang Wei Corps in the Huaihai Campaign" - Communist Party of China News Network
"Su Yu's Suggestion and Participation in the Command of the Huaihai Campaign" - Communist Party of China News Network
"Huaihai Campaign: Deng Xiaoping Twice Personally Drafted Telegrams to Report to Mao Zedong to "Fight Huang Wei First"" - Communist Party of China News Network
"There is such a key battle behind this inscription" - China Military Network
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