Ye Fei is a resourceful, brave and resourceful general under Chen Yi. From the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, he was under Chen Yi, fighting in the south and in the north, and was one of the generals in Sanye who was the most proficient in fighting and daring to fight dangerous battles. However, Ye Fei's outstanding exploits are inseparable from Mr. Chen's "letting go".
Take the 1939 Guocun War as an example, which fully shows the relationship between them.
At the beginning of 1939, Ye Fei led his troops into Guocun.
Originally, Chen Yi reached an understanding with Li Mingyang and Li Changjiang, the local faction in northern Jiangsu, to cooperate in resisting Japan. Who knew that Han Deqin, chairman of Jiangsu Province, beat and pulled them again and again, "rebuilding the old good", Li Changjiang repented again, and sent people to Ye Fei many times to "ask" Guo Village. In late June, he gave Ye Fei an ultimatum, limiting him to quit Guocun within three days.
Ye Fei reported to Chen Yi. Chen Yi replied with instructions in reply: The best policy is to avoid conflict with Li as much as possible, and if it cannot be avoided, it should be delayed as much as possible; in the middle policy, if it cannot be delayed, if it is to be attacked, it will be retreated to Wujiaqiao to fight; and the next policy is to fight in Guocun, and first send representatives to negotiate with Li in order to gain time for the main force to come to the rescue.
After Ye Fei received the telegram, he said:
"Now it's not that we're going to fight, it's that they're going to hit us first. Before the main force arrived, let's go to negotiate first, saying that our army's fatigue has not yet recovered, and after staying in Guocun for a while, we will return. ”
However, his subordinate generals are all young and angry, and they say: "What to talk about, there is no result in talking, only fighting!"
However, they were still "suppressed" by Ye Fei. So, Ye Fei sent Chen Tongsheng and section chief Zhou Shan to Taizhou to negotiate.
However, Li Changjiang lost his temper when he saw Chen Tongsheng and Zhou Shan:
"You are heavenly soldiers, and there are only two or three thousand people! We are tofu scum, tens of thousands of people, and we have to break the belly of the old sow!"
He ordered Dong Tongsheng and Zhou Shan to be detained.
This time, Ye Fei was also angry. At this time, Li Changjiang led 13 regiments and was approaching Guocun. Ye Fei was in a hurry, forgetting Mr. Chen's up, middle and bottom strategies for a long time, and decided to fight Li Jun in Guo Village.
After Chen Yi learned about it, he immediately called, and his tone was very resolute: "Xiao Ye, you must not defend the enemy alone in Guocun, if Wujiaqiao is not easy to defend, temporarily retreat to Jiangnan, meet with the Jiangnan troops, and then make a comeback." ”
Ye Fei was originally a tiger general, but he couldn't listen to it anymore, and said: "The general will not be subject to the military orders outside, fight!"
His tiger boys also shouted together: "Let's defend Guo Village together!"
But Mr. Chen seemed to understand Ye Fei's temper, and called again: I didn't agree to stick to Guo Village. The political commissar also said to Ye Fei: "If you want to fight, how can you explain to Mr. Chen at that time? If you don't fight well and the troops suffer great losses, it will be terrible!"
Ye Fei pondered a little, but still said: "The enemy has already hit the door, no matter, fight!"
However, he still sent a telegram from Chen Yi and reported that he was still insisting on defending Guo Village. When Mr. Chen learned about it, he was so anxious that he stomped his feet: "This Xiao Ye! This daredevil!" immediately ordered Tao Yong to quickly reinforce Guo Village, and telegraphed Ye Fei again:
"(I) crossed the river in plainclothes on June 28, and everything will be discussed when I arrive. ”
What Mr. Chen meant, don't fight first, wait until I come. At this time, there was another branch, and Chen Yusheng, an underground party member who had penetrated Li Changjiang's interior, called Ye Fei to complain about the urgency, saying that Li Changjiang would "solve" him first, and then go to fight Guo Village. He wanted to pull the troops over, so as not to be "eaten" by Li Changjiang. Chen Yusheng was in a hurry, he couldn't do it without reinforcements, but he couldn't do it if there were fewer troops to go. Ye Fei wants to defend Guo Village, if he divides his troops to reinforce Chen Yusheng, the number of troops guarding Guo Village will be even less; if he does not send troops to reinforce him, Chen Yusheng's troops will be eaten by Li Changjiang, and he cannot help them.
How can we reinforce Chen Yusheng's uprising without affecting the defense of Guo Village? Ye Fei was really anxious, and after thinking for a while, he slammed his fist on the table: "There is nothing to do! Send the 4th Regiment to reinforce it, leaving the main 1st Regiment and the special agent battalion to guard Guo Village. ”
The political commissar whispered: "We only have four battalions in Shouguo Village, and the number of troops is too small!"
"It's out, it's decided!" Ye Fei said.
It is worth mentioning that Ye Fei is not brave and resourceless. In the afternoon of the same day, he rode the well-known big white horse and led the 4th Regiment to leave Guocun with great fanfare and cross the Tongyang River.
He deliberately exposed himself to reinforce Chen Yusheng. In fact, Ye Fei's purpose in doing this was to let Li Changjiang know that the New Fourth Army was coming for reinforcements, so that he would not dare to attack Chen Yuxian. And Ye Fei went around and secretly returned to Guo Village that night.
Li Changjiang really took the bait.
When he learned that Ye Fei had left Guo Village with his main force, he thought that Guo Village's troops were empty, and said, "This is the best opportunity to attack Guo Village." So he changed the original deployment: first attack Guo Village, and then "solve" Chen Yusheng's troops.
At dawn on the 28th, Li Bu came to besiege Guo Village in a murderous manner.
At this time, Ye Fei was fully prepared. Before Li Changjiang's forces were deployed, Ye Fei ordered to take the initiative to attack. After a hand-to-hand engagement, the New Fourth Army drove the attacking enemy several miles away.
In the first round, Ye Fei won.
However, Li Changjiang was bent on conquering Guocun. At dawn on July 2, he personally went to the front line and commanded the troops to launch a fierce assault on Guocun.
Just the day before, Chen Yi's urgently transferred reinforcements, led by Tao Yong, traveled day and night, and also took advantage of the darkness to enter Guo Village. In this way, the defenders of Guocun suddenly increased from four battalions to seven battalions.
After the battle began, Guo Village was full of swords and swords, white-knives fighting, and the battle was extremely fierce.
Ye Fei said: "I don't think the other reinforcements that Mr. Chen said will come for a while. If we are on standby for reinforcement as planned, for a long time, if Han Deloitte invests the main force to participate in the war, we will have no rescue troops in front of us and no way to retreat, and the consequences will be unimaginable. It is better to carry out a local counteroffensive first and break the encirclement. ”
Therefore, Ye Fei sent Qiao Xinming, the commander of the 1st Regiment, to lead two battalions to fight Guocun, attack the Yangtai line, attack the rear of Li's army, and take Yiling directly.
At the same time, Chen Yusheng led his troops to revolt and reached Wujiaqiao.
Ye Fei's counterattack behind his back posed a strong threat to Li Changjiang's rear. In this way, Li Changjiang was faced with two choices: either continue to attack Guocun and lose his base camp of Taizhou, or withdraw his troops from Guocun and keep Taizhou. Li Changjiang decided to fight to the death and launched an attack on Guocun. However, he attacked three times, failed three times, and was instead destroyed by 3 regiments and 10 regiments crushed. At this time, Li Changjiang couldn't hold it anymore, and immediately withdrew his troops from Guocun and hurried to defend the Taizhou base camp. Ye Fei ordered the troops to chase for dozens of miles before stopping.
In this way, in the defense of Guocun, Ye Fei won a complete victory.
On July 3, Mr. Chen came to Guocun from Xinlaozhou, and Ye Fei led his subordinates to meet him. Ye Fei thought that if he won the battle, Mr. Chen would be very happy, but he didn't say a word when he was riding on a horse.
Ye Fei muttered, "Hey, what's going on?"
Mr. Chen dismounted. Ye Fei hurriedly ran forward and saluted him. Mr. Chen also stretched out his hand and said while shaking hands: "Originally, I came to scold you, and one group is messing with so many diehards!" Alas, now that you have won the battle, what else do I have to say!"
Later, someone told Ye Fei that when Mr. Chen hurried to Xinlaozhou, the battle of Guocun had already begun, and he listened to the fierce gunfire and jumped to his feet in a hurry:
"These daredevils, it's really a newborn calf that is not afraid of tigers! Now it's okay, Ye Fei, you just wait for me to contain it." ”
When Ye Fei heard this, he estimated that Mr. Chen's criticism must be a super storm. However, at the cadre meeting held in Guocun, Mr. Chen's speech was all praise.
Afterwards, Ye Fei went to see Chen Yi. Mr. Chen said very seriously:
"Xiao Ye, do you know that although you won this battle, it is not an example, only this once. You can't take such risks again. Danger, if you can't win, you'll be wiped out!
At this time, Ye Fei also completely calmed down: "Indeed, the battle of Guocun is too risky. We not only took the risk of fighting alone, but also took the risk of dividing our troops to rescue Chen Yusheng. ”
However, Ye Fei is Ye Fei, and he has this super skill: no matter what he does, he will not lose the battle! After that, he still disobeyed Mr. Chen's orders many times, and he never lost the battle.
A few years later, Admiral Ye Fei said to people:
"Mr. Chen is a good person, I disobeyed his orders so much, and I repaid it if I replaced someone else! But he is different, as long as you do it right, he will not be surprised, so I dare to fight him. ”
Chen Guanren, the secretary of the CPC History Publishing House's "Ten Marshals of the Chinese People's Liberation Army: The Little-Known History of the Ten Commanders of the People's Liberation Army," recounted the incident. The book is the society's annual bestseller, and once ranked first on China's military bestseller list (pictured).