There is a very classic scene in the movie "Armageddon", Dongye is launching the Liaoshen Campaign, Mr. Lin said: "The army fights, and military discipline must be strict", why does Mr. Lin emphasize military discipline? It is because the number of participants in the large corps is very large, and it is by no means the scale of 10,000 people, and if there is no strict discipline, it is impossible to fight in a unified manner.
Large corps operations, as the name suggests, refer to large-scale battles with a relatively large scale and a relatively large number of enemies to be annihilated.
So, when did our army discover that it was able to launch a large corps operation and had the ability to annihilate the enemy's large corps?
During the period of the Red Army, the overall number of our army was small, and the largest scale of operations was the Red Fourth Front Army. In 1934, the Kuomintang launched a "six-way siege" against the Red Fourth Front Army with 250,000 troops, and was annihilated by Xu Shuai with more than 80,000 people, which is enough to show Marshal Xu's outstanding ability to draw military affairs and control large-scale wars. However, the number of combat personnel of the Red Fourth Front Army was about 80,000, not more than 100,000, and in addition, it also annihilated the enemy in batches many times, not counting the large corps operations.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the largest battle launched by our army was the Battle of 100 Regiments under the command of General Peng Lao, with 105 regiments participating in the battle, and nearly 400,000 troops participating in the battle. However, the Battle of the Hundred Regiments was also intermittent, and the main task was to continue to destroy the Japanese army's lines of communication and destroy the main strongholds of the Japanese army deep into the anti-Japanese base areas, not to annihilate the enemy. Therefore, the number of people who annihilated the enemy in the Battle of the Hundred Regiments was not very large, and in three and a half months, 20,645 Japanese soldiers were killed and wounded, and 5,155 puppet soldiers were killed. At this stage, our army is still in the process of developing and growing, and it cannot be regarded as having the ability to annihilate the enemy's large corps in combat.
After the War of Liberation began, the arrogance of the national army was very arrogant, and the difference in strength between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was very great, and the national army had more than 5 million troops, a large number of new weapons with United States assistance, occupied a vast territory of more than 300 million people, controlled most of the country's transportation hubs and large cities, and owned almost all of the country's modern industries. During the same period, our army had only more than 1 million people, less than 30% of the national army, the equipment was only millet and rifles, and the population was only more than 130 million.
As a result, Chiang Kai-shek openly claimed that victory would take only 3 to 6 months. Chen Cheng, chief of staff of the Kuomintang army, also boasted: Maybe 3 months, at most 5 months, can solve the CCP army.
At the beginning, the situation was indeed unsatisfactory, the Northeast Battlefield was chased by Chen Mingren, the North China Battlefield was beaten by Fu Zuoyi and could not fight back, the Central Plains Battlefield Liu Deng's army was very difficult, and Chen Yi lost six battles and five defeats in the Shandong War.
In order to change the situation that our army has been defending, Chairman Mao planned to let Su Yu lead three columns to cross the Yangtze River and go south, "leading the war to the south of the Yangtze River", so as to respond to Liu Deng's army and take an offensive to change the situation.
So, with the support of Chairman Mao, Su Yu launched the Eastern Henan Campaign, reorganized the divided East China Field Army, annihilated more than 94,000 Kuomintang troops, liberated a large area of the Central Plains, and made the Kuomintang army lose the ability to carry out campaign attacks on the Central Plains battlefield.
The battle of eastern Henan was a real hard-fought duel between the large corps of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and the national army also showed a very high military quality, and our army almost entered a dead end, but it was "just" to win, and this battle also made Chairman Mao find that our army had the ability to annihilate the enemy's large corps.
Since then, Chairman Mao's strategic policy has been greatly opened and closed, and it has gradually changed from strategic defense to strategic offensive, which has accelerated the process of the war of liberation.