When we think of the world's famous military figures, we will invariably think of a name: Mao Zedong.
Chairman Mao was undoubtedly a great military man who led China's revolutionary war to a complete victory and continued to guide China's national defense construction, the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, and the Border Self-Defense counterattack after the founding of New China.
Under his command, the army was repeatedly able to win more with less and the strong with the weak, creating one impossible after another and winning victories again and again, and his superior wisdom and talent raised his military command to the height of theory, that is, Mao Zedong's military thought as we know it.
Since its formation, it has received attention from abroad. After the victory in China's revolutionary war, Mao Zedong's military thought was even more valued by people from all walks of life in the world. Many people have studied and studied it, and it has crossed its borders and become an important object of military theoretical research in the world.
There are many famous military figures in the history of the world, and the West also admires Napoleon, Hannibal, Alexander, and other military commanders, but they have never heard of elevating their military command to a theory, and only Mao Zedong can reach this height.
Unlike Napoleon, who graduated from military academy, and Alexander and Hannibal, who studied war from an early age, Mao Zedong did not study in military schools, did not learn formal military science, and did not even touch a gun several times, but he was able to defeat a large number of domestic and foreign opponents in the same period, lead the people's army to be invincible, and establish immortal merits for the Chinese nation and the Chinese people.
Many people wonder how he did it.
In Mao's own words: "I eat by summing up experience." ”
This sentence was said by Mao Zedong on July 26, 1965, to Cheng Siyuan, who later served as vice chairman of the National People's Congress. At that time, the chairman asked, "Do you know what I rely on to eat?" Cheng Siyuan replied, "I don't know." Mao Zedong explained.
Mao Zedong was not a bluster, "by summing up experience" – a summary that began with the Autumn Harvest Uprising of 1927.
According to the experience of the Soviet Union, the goal of the autumn harvest uprising was to fight Changsha, but due to the lack of combat experience of the troops, the uprising did not start smoothly. At this time, if it had become unrealistic to attack Changsha according to the original plan, Mao Zedong immediately decided to hold an emergency meeting in Shangping, Dongxiang, Liuyang, on September 14, and decided to change the plan for attacking Changsha. The march into Jinggangshan after the reorganization of Sanwan is precisely the result of this summing up experience, and if we continue to copy the Soviet experience to seize the city, the consequences will be difficult to say.
Although the Autumn Harvest Uprising failed, it opened up a new road and opened up the first revolutionary base area in the countryside, pushing China's revolutionary era to a new climax.
On Jinggang Mountain, Mao Zedong further summed up the experience and successively wrote "Why Can China's Red Regime Exist?" Works such as "The Struggle at Jinggangshan" and "The Struggle at Jinggangshan" marked the basic formation of the theory of the revolutionary road in which the countryside surrounded the cities, and found a revolutionary road suited to China's national conditions.
This kind of experience summary does not stop at the theoretical level. Theory must be combined with reality, and in the practice of war, Mao Zedong also constantly summed up experience and found a way to defeat the enemy and win victory from practice. As he himself said: "When he began to fight, he did not read much of the art of war, let alone rely on the "Art of War of Sun Tzu" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" to command, as some people say, mainly relying on the experience accumulated in the practice of long-term revolutionary war. ”
According to incomplete statistics, during the period of the Agrarian Revolutionary War and the War of Liberation alone, Chairman Mao personally organized and commanded and participated in the organization and command of as many as 239 battles. The difficulties of these battles, the sinister conditions, and the complexity of the struggles are unimaginable to ordinary people, but with wisdom, courage, and perseverance, he has turned dangers into disasters again and again and won one victory after another.
Take a look at a few representative examples of Mao's military command career.
From 1930 to 1934, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized a large army and launched a large-scale "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the revolutionary base areas and the Red Army in a row, reaching as many as five times in total.
In the central base areas, Mao Zedong personally led and commanded the first three anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaigns, and in fact, the fourth one commanded by Zhu De was also a direct continuation of Mao Zedong's tactics.
Even the third time that Chiang Kai-shek personally served as commander-in-chief, he transferred more than 100,000 troops of the consortial clan, plus the number of non-consort troops reached 300,000, and hired foreign military advisers.
The third anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign was commanded by Mao Zedong throughout the whole process, basically continuing the successful experience of the previous two battles, adopting the policy of enticing the enemy to go deeper, interspersed with transfers, and concentrating superior forces to fight the war of annihilation; the script was not much changed; in about 80 days, it exhausted the Kuomintang army, and the Red Army took advantage of the situation to attack, won six battles and six victories, annihilated the enemy by thirty thousand, and completely failed to get off Taiwan.
In short, after the four encirclements and suppressions, Chiang Kai-shek fell into the strange circle of defeat and continued to suppress and continue to lose, and the morale of the Central Red Army became more and more vigorous, and the more it fought, the more supported it became. From less than 40,000 people in the first anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, to 70,000 before the fourth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, and through battlefield capture, some heavy weapons were obtained, and Chiang Kai-shek's title of "Transport Brigade Leader" began to ring out at that time.
The Red Army grew stronger and stronger, and the Soviet zone became larger and more prosperous, and by the time of the fifth "encirclement and suppression", the Red Army had grown to 160,000 people.
Unfortunately, in the fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" campaign, Mao Zedong had lost his military command. The Red Army finally failed after nearly a year of bitter fighting, and began a great and difficult strategic shift, which is what we know today as the Long March.
Speaking of the chairman's military command, we have to mention the four crossings of chishui on the Long March Road, which are put into the world's military history, and the four crossings of chishui are also a stroke of great color, which can be called a must in the history of military command.
To put it simply, after the Battle of the Xiang River, Mao Zedong gained the say at the Zunyi Conference. At this time, the situation was that the Red Army was seriously attrition, the Kuomintang army of 400,000 people was chasing and blocking, and the ultimate goal of the Red Army was to jump out of the encirclement and throw off the pursuing troops.
However, at this time, it was difficult for the Red Army to penetrate the Kuomintang defense line head-on, there were blockades in the front and pursuing soldiers in the rear, and all Mao Zedong needed to do was to find even a slight gap in the tight encirclement, so that the Red Army could pass through at the smallest cost.
At this time, the competition is not only the combat ability, but also the brain contest between the commanders of the two armies, and the degree of brain burning is so complicated that even if the perspective of God is opened afterwards to review, many people are also a mess.
Mao Zedong did.
Crossing the Chishui River is a strong attack, and there are not many choices; after crossing the Chishui River, it is not simple to find the empty fighter plane in Guizhou, return to the second crossing, and find a gap that can be jumped out of the heavy encirclement; after the second crossing, they are faced with a choice, and most people think that they should attack the weaker Qian army of Wang Jialie, who is playing drums in Xinchang, as a breakthrough, and only Mao Zedong opposes it.
"Everyone in the meeting said they were going to fight, and they were going to attack that fortress. Mao Zedong alone said that we cannot fight, and that fighting is hard, and that we should not lose, and that we should destroy the enemy in a mobile war. —Zhou Enlai's Self-Description, p. 176.
In the end, at his insistence, the Red Army switched to Luban field and pretended to attack the powerful Zhou Hunyuan, so that he contracted his strength and did not dare to attack. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Red Army retreated to the town of Maotai and used the boats and pontoon bridges left behind during the second crossing to cross the Chishui River more easily.
After the three crossings, the main force of the Red Army turned off the radio station and lurked on the spot, and the headquarters radio station was carried by another unit to the direction of Gulin and Xuyong. The enemy was indeed deceived, and Mao Zedong effortlessly transferred the main force of the enemy army and artificially mobilized gaps in the defensive line. At this time, the Red Army unknowingly crossed the Chishui For the fourth time, returned to Guizhou, and passed by the enemy.
After the fourth crossing, it was even more bluffing, and with great fanfare, it was directly approached Guiyang, where the troops were empty, and Sun Du's three brigades were transferred away, and at the same time, he relieved the siege of the Red Ninth Army, which was responsible for the rear of the palace- the bottom of the pot + the siege of Wei to save Zhao.
The entire four crossings of chishui, 30,000 to 400,000, the danger is indescribable. And this whole set of strategies, which took shape after crossing the Red River, left everywhere with a backhand, and every step was wonderful, and the enemy was dazzled to see that the superiority of troops was chaotic but was transferred by the regiments.
In May 1960, he said to montgomery, a visiting British general: "Although the three major battles are very impressive in your eyes, in my heart, "Four Crossings of Chishui" is the most proud of the battles I commanded. ”
In fact, when we compare the anti-"encirclement and suppression" commanded by Mao Zedong with the four crossings of chishui, the core strategic thinking is basically the same, that is, to lure the enemy to go deeper, intersperse the transfer, and concentrate superior forces to fight the war of annihilation.
Mao Zedong grasped the initiative of time with tactical changes, he watched the enemy gradually disperse troops, and once he found that the enemy had obvious weak links, he concentrated all his forces to surround and annihilate, which he called "ten as one".
In his own words: we must seek favorable opportunities and regions to destroy the enemy, and under unfavorable conditions we should reject that kind of risky battle without the certainty of victory.
Copy the Soviet experience and seize the big cities? Listen to foreign military advisers and fight hard with the enemy?
History has proved that these are all wrong, and it is impossible to generalize about the differences in national conditions. Fortunately, we still have Mao Zedong, and the difference between the chairman and his opponents may lie in the continuous summarization of the practice of war, from which experience can be drawn and raised to the theoretical level.
From the four anti-encirclement and suppression campaigns to the four crossings of chishui, Mao Zedong's military thinking is embodied everywhere, and this idea is universally accepted and carried forward by the officers and men of our army.
For example, Huang Zhengcheng, a Kuomintang brigade commander captured in the Battle of Huaihai, studied abroad to study military affairs and won the trust of Chiang Kai-shek.
After being captured, Huang Zhengcheng was quite dissatisfied, and he humbly asked Chen Geng for advice: "Your playing style is very strange. It is logical to hit one of the two wings, our first brigade is in the middle, but you have hit us. ”
Gao Caisheng asked this pedantic question, and Chen Geng was amused by him and asked, "You are a Huangpu student and studying in Germany, how did you fight this battle?" ”
Huang Zhengcheng could not answer, so he had to prevaricate: "My firepower did not have time to unfold, just..."
Ancients Cloud: Soldiers are devious, so they can show that they can't, use and show that they don't use, close and show far, far and near.
The Kuomintang generals who received a full set of modernized military training only knew how to copy textbooks, did not know how to sum up war experience, and could not be defeated.
Mao Zedong's military command was haunted, and he was completely worthy of the title of great military man. But he was not only a military man, but also a strategist.
A militarist is defined as a person who has the correct guidance for military activities or is good at specifically responsible for the implementation of military operations; a strategist is a person who sets a strategic policy and wins a war.
Strategists must be qualified military experts, and military experts may not all be called strategists. The role of strategists is more crucial than that of military strategists, and if there are no good strategists in a team, even if there is a large group of fierce generals, the group is unlikely to win. "General Han Xin, the more the merrier", even Han Xin's cattle figure in history, the definition given to him by posterity is only a military man rather than a strategist.
Let's see why Mao Zedong became a strategist.
In addition to the superb art of command, the most important point is that from the Red Army to the People's Liberation Army, they are all the people's army, the army led by Chairman Mao is fighting for the complete freedom and liberation of the people, and the correctness of the political line is the most fundamental foundation and guarantee for the victory of the military line.
If we compare it, we can see that the reasons for the defeat of the Kuomintang army and the American army are similar. They believe that with better equipment, more food, more troops, they can win the war.
Unlike Mao Zedong, he long realized that relying on the masses and mobilizing the masses was the fundamental issue in winning the war.
During the long battle, Mao Zedong would think about summing up everywhere he went. In 1930, Mao Zedong led the Red Fourth Army from Huichang, Jiangxi to Xunwu.
Taking advantage of the opportunity of the troops to mobilize the masses to carry out the agrarian revolution in the nearby counties, he began to investigate the commerce of Xunwucheng, held an investigation meeting directly with the masses from all walks of life, mastered a large amount of first-hand materials, and wrote a "Opposition to Originalism", proposing: "There is no investigation, no right to speak." This laid the foundation for the subsequent formulation of flexible land policies.
Why was it that later the Eighth Route Army was able to continuously develop and expand its base areas behind enemy lines, and the people of the Liberation War pushed BMX to help the People's Liberation Army. In a sense, whoever the people are on the side of, whoever wins the battle. This is what Mao Zedong said: "Soldiers and civilians are the foundation of victory."
"Soldiers and the people are the foundation of victory" is an important idea put forward by Mao Zedong in "On Protracted War", and he pointed out that "the deepest root of the great power of war exists among the people", which once again shows that the will of the people is the key factor in determining the outcome of the war, and embodies the materialist historical concept that the masses of the people are the creators of history.
The history of China's revolutionary war proves that the people's army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, in the face of powerful enemies at home and abroad, can only fall into the ocean of people's war by relying on the masses of the people, mobilizing the masses of the people, arming the masses of the people, and carrying out a broad people's war. People's war is an important magic weapon for defeating the enemy and winning victory.
In his writings, he wrote: "What is the real copper wall? It is the masses, the millions of masses who sincerely support the revolution. This is a real copper wall and an iron wall, which cannot be broken by any force, and it cannot be broken at all. (The Collected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 1, p. 139)
During the Battle of Huaihai, Wang Yaowu was captured in Jinan, and when he saw our soldiers and civilian husbands entering the city from all directions, he was still a little unconvinced, and said to Commander Chen Yi: "Wang Mou's defeat this time is because there are too many of you!" ”
Chen Yi asked curiously, "How about a multi-fa?" ”
Wang Yaowu pointed to the long line, and Chen Yi smiled: "The reason why we can win is because of these ordinary people!" With the people, we have a big rear! This is the ultimate reason for your failure! ”
"Soldiers and civilians are the foundation of victory" is easy to say, how can we rely on the masses and mobilize the masses, that is, why do the people support the PEOPLE's Liberation Army?
In Mao Zedong's "On Coalition Government" of April 24, 1945, Mao Zedong made a classic summary:
"This army is powerful because all those who join it have conscious discipline; they are not fighting for the selfish interests of a few or narrow groups, but for the interests of the broad masses of the people, for the interests of the whole nation. Standing closely with the Chinese people and serving the Chinese people wholeheartedly is the only purpose of this army. ”
Officers and men of the old army joined the army mainly out of self-interest, and regarded this as a road to promotion and wealth, and there were factions among the army, and there were incessant infighting and incessant rolling. Platon soldiers fight for common ideals and the interests of the people, how can such an army have no combat effectiveness?
The broad masses of officers and men recognize and accept the purpose of serving the people, and soldiers know what they are fighting for, who they are fighting for, and who they are protecting, and they will be able to burst out of infinite combat strength.
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, various ideological trends such as the "theory of national subjugation" and the "theory of quick victory" appeared, and Mao Zedong's "On Protracted War" was like a bright beacon in the darkness, laying the theoretical foundation for victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the historical development since then has all confirmed the correctness of Mao Zedong's military thinking.
In the war of liberation, chiang kai-shek's troops, which claimed to be eight million, Chairman Mao predicted that the battle would be over in just three to five years. Chairman Mao said that three to five years would take three to five years, and as a result, it took only three years to drive Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan.
Mao Zedong showed a unique vision of whether to send troops to Korea, and after in-depth thinking, he resisted the pressure and decided to send troops, and the result was as he said: The benefits of participating in the war are extremely great, and the damage of not participating in the war is extremely great. Later developments proved that the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea can be called a war for the founding of a country, and it is a real "punch in the face, lest a hundred punches come."
As for the theoretical summary of military thought, Mao Zedong began in 1927, and by the time of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, he had personally written more than 50,000 military treatises and combat texts and telegrams, or about 5 million words. Creatively putting forward a whole set of military theories on the victory of the weak over the strong and the victory of the inferior over the superior, a new milestone has been set up in the history of the development of military thought in the world.
There have been many outstanding military experts in the world, as well as many military theorists, but Chairman Mao is the first person who deserves to combine the two. Mao Zedong's military thought is a precious wealth he has left to future generations, and like Sun Tzu's Art of War, it has long entered the lecture halls and classrooms of military academies in major developed countries in the world and has been accepted and recognized by the whole world.
The Battle of Xisha in 1974 was the last battle of Mao Zedong's decision-making, when he was 81 years old, the revolutionary years of military violence and the state affairs of the liver and gall almost exhausted all his energy, and the once upright body of the great shore was now plagued by diseases, and what remained unchanged was that his eyes were still bright and bright, and he was still far-sighted.
At about 10:00 a.m. on January 18, a report on the military deployment of our army in response to the aggression of the South Vietnamese Navy in self-defense was put on his desk. And said to the staff around him: "It seems that not fighting a war is not enough to safeguard China's maritime rights and interests!" Enlai and Jianying's opinion is very correct."
In every battle, the People's Liberation Army suppresses the opponent with a thunderous momentum, and after winning the battlefield victory, it always withdraws quickly from the territory of the other side, and never uses military superiority as the capital of aggression, which is fundamentally different from the Western powers.
This is exactly the same as when he met Montgomery and answered the famous "Montgomery's Question" when he met him.
Montgomery feared that when New China became strong, it would threaten neighboring countries: "According to the lessons of history, when a country is very strong, it will tend to invade. ”
The chairman's answer was loud: "After 50 years, China will still be 9.6 million square kilometers, and China will never invade the outside world." ”
Throughout all foreign wars, Chairman Mao has never broken his promises.
Compare the definitions of a military and a strategist.
The value of the militarist is reflected in the level of actual war. With original military ideas and theories, rich military knowledge, the ability to command troops to fight, superb actual combat experience, and having commanded influential battles and winning them, we can be called military experts.
In addition to the basic qualities of military experts, strategists also need to have extremely strong insights, often be able to see the small things, can see the essence through phenomena, and have a certain ability to foresee the future.
The value of strategists is embodied in the chaos of foreseeing the future, pointing out the direction and path for the group or organization, encountering extremely difficult situations, when others have no choice, they can propose solutions to the problem, help the team out of the predicament, grow their strength, and ultimately help the team to win the final victory.
The chairman also enjoyed reading napoleon's biography, and Napoleon famously said that there are only two forces in the world: the sword and the mind. In the long run, the sword is always defeated at the hands of the mind.
Napoleon finally failed, and Mao succeeded. After Napoleon, the French army seemed to have lost its warlike genes, while Mao Zedong led China to continuous success, and from the results alone, the two were already very different. The losers leave behind more lessons, and the winners leave behind immortal thoughts. Mao Zedong has surpassed Napoleon and become a unique presence in the world's military history, so his military theory has risen to the height of thought and is respected by the world's military community.