In late May 1949, a telegram from the Great Northwest was presented to Chiang Kai-shek. After Chiang Kai-shek finished reading it, he suddenly felt a great sense of refreshment, and hurriedly ordered a power generation to the northwest and greatly rewarded him.
At that time, the Kuomintang had already lost Nanjing, Hangzhou and other major cities one after another, and the small imperial court moved to Guangzhou. All that has been received in the past few months has been a defeat report, which has made Chiang Kai-shek even more worried. The only telegram was actually the northwestern erma taking the initiative to write a letter requesting a counterattack on Xi'an.
Under the end of the world, there are still "loyal and courageous men"? Even Chiang Kai-shek himself was a little incredulous.
First, Ma Jiajun asked for battle
Ma Bufang of Qinghai and Ma Hongkui of Ningxia, two local warlords, who had always been at odds with the Kuomintang Central Committee and only wanted to protect the two provinces of Qinghai and Ningxia, did they suddenly take the initiative to ask Miao to counterattack Xi'an?
It's not hard to understand. In mid-May 1949, Hu Zongnan withdrew from Xi'an, and on May 20, Peng Dehuai commanded Yiye to take xi'an city lightly, liberating the ancient capital of the northwest and occupying the political center of the northwest.
Originally, Qingning Erma did not have any ambitions for Xi'an, and Hu Zongnanshou or Lost neither affected Qingning Er province. But Hu Zongnan retreated too quickly, not only losing Xi'an, but even Baoji did not dare to defend, retreating all the way into Hanzhong, almost throwing away the entire Guanzhong Plain.
Peng Dehuai naturally accepted all the orders, and the army marched all the way west to the south, quickly approaching Xifu and threatening eastern Gansu. Originally, Hu Zongnan's group was blocked in Guanzhong, and the new four provinces of Qingganning could be described as sitting back and relaxing. Now Hu Zongnan is shrinking into Hanzhong, and although he clamors to emulate the communist army's tactics of advancing and retreating in a big stride, regardless of the gains and losses of one city and one place, and is always ready to go north to retake Guanzhong, but those who have insight do not know that you Hu Zongnan's troops are in full swing and cannot maintain total victory, and now the main force has been crippled by Peng Dehuai, and the so-called big strides and retreats are just a banner of retreat.
As soon as the central army withdrew from Guanzhong, the eastern side of Gansu was completely exposed, the gateway to Qingning Province was opened, and Qingning Erma's lips were cold, and he did not dare to sit idly by, which led to the initiative to ask Chiang Kai-shek for war and counterattack Xi'an.
Chiang Kai-shek happily called back and demanded that Hu Zongnan immediately send troops, and that the two horses and horses should counterattack Xi'an in order to recover it.
Second, the Huma coalition army full of contradictions
Hu Zongnan was very dissatisfied after receiving the electricity.
He naturally knew what kind of heart Erma had, and when it came to jointly attacking and recapturing Xi'an, it was actually sealing Longdong for Erma and preventing the People's Liberation Army from entering Gansu. As a wedding dress for others, Hu Zongnan took one hundred and eighty reluctances.
Originally, Hu Zongnan withdrew into Hanzhong because he wanted to avoid fighting with Peng Dehuai and temporarily rest and recuperate until the situation improved, and it could be delayed for a day. Now he has to re-emerge from Hanzhong, and after some tossing, the troops have to go back to the road without saying, and it is also possible to give Erma a substitute ghost, first come and be beaten first.
Hu Zongnan called Chiang Kai-shek back several times to explain the situation in the northwest, but Chiang Kai-shek urgently needed a big victory to restore the collapsed morale, and strictly ordered Hu Zongnan to immediately go north out of Hanzhong and fight against the two horses.
Hu Zongnan had no choice but to turn his head back. He thought about it for a moment, erma took the initiative to fight Xi'an, then let them rush forward, if the fierce Ma family army can really fight a few victorious battles and retake Xi'an City, it may not be a bad thing.
Therefore, Hu Zongnan, while sending a telegram to Pei Changhui, commander of the 5th Corps under him, led the remnants of the soldiers stationed in the Baoji area to set off first, while slowly engaging in mushroom tactics, the troops had been moving for several days, but they had not been out of Hanzhong.
Pei Changhui, who led the troops in front, was also a wonderful person, this person could not do anything else, on delay, mushrooms, only stronger than Hu Zongnan. Although Pei Changhui was the commander of the official regiment, he had no real power all along, and the real military power was firmly in the hands of Hu Zongnan and his cronies, and Pei Changhui could not even move a regiment under his command, but was just a marionette.
Pei Changhui was very resentful at first, and once thought about resigning. Later, after a long time, I actually figured it out, even if I made a puppet, it was also delicious and spicy, but It was Liu Kan, a general who held military power, who could not bear the responsibility for the defeat and committed suicide. Compared with the two, this puppet commander is easier to do.
After choosing to lie flat, Pei Changhui's life was quite comfortable, sleeping lazily every day, and the three poles of the day were not up, and most of the military affairs were handed over to his subordinates. The military pointed fingers at him and gave him the nickname "Lorises". Although Pei Changhui heard about it, it didn't matter, he still lay flat. So such a commander can be expected to take the lead in the counterattack on Xi'an?
Hu Zongnan sent people with a battle plan to Lanzhou to discuss with Erma. Erma saw through Hu Zongnan's tricks at a glance, but Erma could not care less about accusing Hu Zongnan of pressing forward, and there were also a bunch of contradictions between the two horses.
The strength of the two horses is one strong and one is weak, and the green horse is strong and the Ning horse is weak, so the green horse has always wanted to suppress the head of the ning horse and become the boss of the second province of Qingning. In order to win over Erma and make them fight hard with the communist army, Chiang Kai-shek deliberately gave up the post of northwest military and political chief, which had always been held by officials of the central department, to Erma.
Qinghai Ma Bufang, born in 1903, 11 years younger than Ma Hongkui in Ningxia, Ma Bufang called Ma Hongkui "old father" according to the middle generation of the clan, but in fact did not respect Ma Hongkui at all, and deliberately tried to encroach on the strength of Ningma. Ma Hongkui has seen the great world, at the age of 8 in the Xi'an Palace to see cixi, Guangxu, Li Lianying and other former Qing dynasty tycoons in exile, at the age of 20 in Beijing to Yuan Shikai as an attendant military attaché, can be said to be a living fossil of the history of revolutionary transmutation since the end of the Qing Dynasty.
Although Ma Hongkui did not have as many troops as Ma Bufang, he treated the iron barrels operated in Ningxia, and Ma Bufang would never be able to intervene. However, in the competition for the post of military and political chief of the northwest, in the end, the strength was inferior to that of people, and finally lost to Ma Bufang.
Ma Hongkui bargained and forced Ma Bufang to nominate him as chairman of Gansu Province, otherwise he would not cooperate with him. Ma Bufang agreed with a full mouth, but after taking office, he hesitated to pay attention to Ma Hongkui, and instead left Guo Jikui, then chairman of Gansu Province, to continue to take charge of the government, while Ma Hongkui's side kept hanging out, trying to make him retreat in spite of difficulties.
Hu Zongnan's staff officer went to Lanzhou to meet with Ma Bufang, and after several discussions, formulated a battle plan.
The two horses each sent more than 40,000 troops, totaling more than 90,000. The two armies of Qingma were commanded by Ma Jiyuan, the son of Ma Bufang, the two armies of Ningma were commanded by Ma Dunjing, the son of Ma Hongkui, and Lu Zhongliang actually served as the commander of the front. The Erma Corps was under the unified command of Ma Jiyuan and coordinated with Hu Zongnan's 5th Corps to advance eastward.
In any case, for the common purpose of capturing Xi'an, Hu Zongnan and Erma finally united. The second horse has a certain psychological advantage for the People's Liberation Army, and its army composition is half cavalry and half infantry, which is very fast and very suitable for maneuvering in the terrain of the northwest. Moreover, the battle in the Hexi Corridor was still fresh in Ma Jiajun's memory, and they were not afraid of the People's Liberation Army.
Moreover, the field army under Peng Dehuai's command has not had many troops, only about 150,000 people after the capture of Xi'an, and the combined forces of Erma and Hu Zongnan are as many as 250,000, which is absolutely superior in number. With more to fight less, to fight the weak with the strong, the confidence of the second horse is very large.
But the truth is that the summer of 1949 is far from the Wuxia Amun of that day.
Third, the number of troops in the field has been doubled
Since its formation in March 1947, the army has only had more than 26,000 men. Later, under the strong leadership of General Peng, the troops fought bigger and stronger, and the strength of the troops expanded to 150,000 people, and they already had the ability to fight against Hu Zongnan. However, in terms of total numbers, it is indeed inferior to the total strength of Hu Zongnan and Qingning Erma.
However, after the liberation of Taiyuan in April 1949, the situation changed dramatically.
This matter should also start from Xu Xiangqian. Xu Xiangqian led the North China Field Army to fight in Shanxi for a long time, with 60,000 people against Yan Xishan's more than 100,000 people, and actually took the initiative, annihilating the Yan army one after another, capturing the big cities of Southern Jin and Central Jin, and by March 1949, it had directly approached taiyuan.
Xu Shuai's health has not been very good for a long time, and the intensity of combat in Shanxi is very large, his pleurisy has an old attack, and people are as thin as bamboo poles. At that time, the attack on Taiyuan City suffered certain setbacks, and Yan Xishan's position on the western mountain of Taiyuan was very strong, and Xu Shuai felt somewhat overwhelmed, and urgently needed a powerful commander to replace Xu Shuai.
It happened that General Peng went to Xibaipo for a meeting, and the central authorities asked General Peng to go to Taiyuan to command the final siege operation. In fact, commanding operations is only one of them, and the central authorities have made other arrangements, preparing to transfer two corps, north China 18 and 19 corps, to Shaanxi after the battle of Taiyuan, and concentrate their forces on attacking Hu Zongnan and Ma Jiajun.
In May 1949, the 18th and 19th corps did not have time to rest properly, so they quickly marched to Guanzhong, scheduled to arrive in Xi'an around mid-June.
The 18th and 19th Corps are units directly under the central authorities, with relatively strong combat effectiveness; they have been fighting in Shanxi and Hebei for many years, fighting with the two major enemies of Yan Xishan and Fu Zuoyi of the Jin Sui clan, and dragging the enemies of Yan and Fu to the death.
When xu went to Shaanxi, Xu Xiangqian was unwell and no longer served as the commander and political commissar of the 18th Corps, but was replaced by deputy commander Zhou Shidi. Commander of the 19th Corps Yang Dezhi. The two main corps had a total of 6 corps and 24 divisions, with a strength of up to 190,000 troops. To digress, it is said that after the liberation, Xu Shuai mentioned this battle into Shaanxi, and he was very sorry, according to his inner thoughts, he personally killed him in the Hexi Corridor and attacked ma Jiajun to avenge the martyrdom of the comrades of the Western Route Army, and Fang took advantage of his wish to live in peace, but unfortunately Xu Shuai's physical condition really did not allow him to turn to war for thousands of miles.
The 18th and 19th Corps were transferred to Ichino, and as a result, Ichino's strength reached 340,000 people, quickly surpassing the Huma coalition army.
However, although there were many troops, it was not possible to put them all into the Battlefield of Guanzhong for a time, and at that time our army did not have the ability to project a large number of troops over long distances, and only a small number of troops could be transported by car to the Yellow River crossing at the junction of Jin and Shaanxi, and most of the rest were marched on foot.
On the way to the 18th and 19th corps, the news of the counterattack of the Northwest Erma and Hu Zongnan had already been discovered by our side, and Peng Dehuai urgently ordered the corps to speed up the march and make sure to arrive at the outskirts of Xi'an in early June.
Two corps accelerated their march, marching at a rate of 80 miles a day, and more than 70 percent of the soldiers had blisters on their feet. Most of the 18th Corps were Shanxi disciples, and many officers and men were reluctant to leave their hometowns, but under the order of Noji, everyone quickly reversed their understanding and resolved to emulate the Ancient Saint King Dayu, pass through the door without entering, and concentrate on liberating the Great Northwest.
The 186th Division passed through Yuncheng and left Shanxi, and some cadres and soldiers' relatives heard about it and rushed to the place where the troops passed, hoping to see each other again. A platoon leader of the 557th Regiment of the 186th Division had just given birth to a son, and the wife heard that her husband was going on an expedition and walked more than 30 miles with her son in her arms. The company instructor said to the platoon leader, "Go to the village and find a place, talk to your lover for a while, and catch up with the team before dark." The platoon leader only hugged his son who had met for the first time, said to his wife that he was optimistic about the old man and the child, and hurried to the road.
The news that two fresh corps had joined the northwest battlefield soon reached the Nationalist army. Erma decided to take advantage of the fact that the 18th and 19th Corps had not yet arrived and preemptively capture Xi'an.
Ma Jiyuan was 28 years old, arrogant, thinking that the officers and men of Yiye were not his opponents, and led his troops to advance rapidly, and before Hu Zongnan's troops could come close, they quickly entered the battle.
The news reached Xi'an, causing quite a stir. Xi'an has long been controlled by the Kuomintang army, and the liberation has only been more than a month, and the citizens dare not trust the Communist Party. Coupled with the fact that lurking Kuomintang agents continued to come out to demagogue people's minds, the citizens heard that Hu Zongnan and Ma Jiajun were coming back, and for a while people were panicked, rumors were spreading, and there was a commotion in social order.
Peng Dehuai was originally full of confidence, and he wanted to take advantage of the fact that when the main force of the Ma family army invaded Xi'an, he would gather a drum and annihilate them in the suburbs of Xi'an, so that he would have to run to Ningxia, Qinghai to fight them in the future. However, the Majia Army's advance was too rapid, and it was difficult to achieve the goal of annihilating the Majia Army with 150,000 troops in the western field.
After asking the central authorities for instructions, Peng Dehuai changed the target to "blocking Hu and attacking horses," that is, concentrating forces on eliminating an army of the Ma family army and repelling this attack.
Peng Dehuai repeatedly ordered the 18th and 19th Corps to speed up the march, and the vanguard of the 18th Corps, the 61st Army, finally rushed to the outskirts of Xi'an on the evening of June 10. In order to inspire people, Peng Dehuai arranged a grand entrance ceremony to let the 61st Army display its majestic military might and stabilize people's hearts.
Despite the fatigue of thousands of miles, Wei Jie, commander of the 61st Army, immediately arranged for his three divisions to take over the vicinity of Xi'an and picked the 181st Division, which had the strongest combat effectiveness, to enter the city.
At 9:00 a.m. on June 11, the 181st Division marched into the East Gate in a four-way column guided by the sound of military trumpets, and all the commanders and fighters were dressed neatly, wearing green steel helmets on their heads, wearing black shoes on their feet, and carrying various weapons on their shoulders. The streets were lined with colorful flags, crowds were crowded, and the onlookers were very happy and clapped their hands.
After the 181st Division entered the city, it did not care about resting, and quickly passed through the city and drove to Xianyang, where it blocked the Ma family army that was about to be killed.
Fourth, the Battle of Xianyang broke the Ma family army
Ma Jiajun's brutality and bravery are quite famous in our army. Peng Dehuai attached great importance to the tactics of the Majia Army, and from the beginning of the Longdong Campaign in May and June 1947, he paid attention to the study of the Majia Army, and by the end of the Longdong Campaign in Xifu in May 1948, he already had a relatively in-depth understanding of the Majia Army, especially the "Qingma".
The officers and men of Yiye had fought with the Majia army several times, and summed up the characteristics of some of the Majiajun cavalry, and Peng Dehuai asked them to exchange experiences with the officers and men of the 18th and 19th Corps. The 64th Army of the 19th Corps specially carried out training in fighting cavalry.
In fact, there is no invincible enemy in the world. Although the Ma family army came and went like the wind, plagiarized and good at war, world war has long entered the era of hot weapons, and the outdated combat tools of war horses have been restrained by high-speed, long-range guns. As long as the characteristics of the cavalry are accurate, they can be restrained with superior firepower.
After a period of training and the experience passed on by the old units, the officers and men quickly gained insights. Compared with tanks, armored vehicles, bunkers and other new things, cavalry is much easier to fight, and the soldiers of the 64th Army have compiled a set of smooth summaries of cavalry tactics:
Seeing the enemy cavalry Mo panicked,
He is iron to me steel,
Master the troops mo run scattered,
Calm and brave to fight,
The goal is big and easy to fight,
Concentrate your firepower to kill the enemy.
……
On the night of June 11, after the Ichino I.1 and 2nd Corps blocked the Majia Army, they were ordered to retreat and lead the enemy into the inner line. Ma Jiyuan marched into Xianyang, shouted wildly, and in another 3 hours he could hit Xi'an and eat dumplings in the city. This arrogant young lord of the Ma family could not imagine what kind of fate he was about to encounter under Xianyang City.
On the afternoon of June 12, a cavalry battalion of Ma Ji's reinforcements went to the sentry outside Xianyang City and suddenly encountered a squad of the People's Liberation Army. This squad was not in a hurry, relying on the terrain to lie down and shoot, and the cavalry of the Majia Army was shot one after another, all the warhorses were shot first and fell to the ground, and the cavalry was then shot. Ma Jiajun screamed in a hurry and immediately launched a formation to attack the encirclement.
In the end of the battle, the squad was outnumbered, killing 8 people and seriously wounding 4 people. The 4 people were later fortunately rescued by local villagers. This heroic combat squad was none other than the reconnaissance squad brought out by Wang Qingshan, a reconnaissance staff officer of the 181st Division, who sent a soldier to run back on a bicycle to report the situation before the battle, which won precious time for the 181st Division to block the battle.
At 18:30 on the afternoon of June 12, the 8th Cavalry Brigade of the Majia Army entered the outskirts of Xianyang and launched an attack on the two wings of the 181st Division with a slight adjustment.
When the Majia army cavalry charged, they used sabers to slash, and when attacking, they dismounted and were led by one person, and several people charged in front. The officers and men of the 181st Division were relieved to see it. The most taboo thing about organizing an impact in a charging position is that the personnel are dense, the carrying equipment is too much, and the running is dense and slow, which will cause huge casualties. The tactical level of Ma Jiajun's positional offensive is lagging behind that of the regular army of the Kuomintang army, let alone compared with the flexible tactics of our army.
Sure enough, as the officers and men expected, the cavalry dismounted and charged, the horses jumped in terror when they heard the sound of gunfire, and someone had to pull the horses forward, and the war horses that were originally mobile tools became a burden. The majiajun soldiers organized infantry combat formations that were very unprofessional, and their combat formations were disrupted and reorganized to attack slowly, and they stagnated even more in the face of trenches, becoming live targets one after another.
The soldiers of the 181st Division aimed at the enemy with automatic weapons captured in the Battle of Taiyuan and fired fiercely, knocking him down in pieces. After fierce fighting until dusk, the Majia Army's cavalry attempt to capture Xianyang in one fell swoop with a lightning-like impact failed, so they had to stop at the line of Shangzhao and Ishimura and form a confrontation with the People's Liberation Army.
The 181st Division had not fought with the Cavalry of the Majia Army before, and according to legend, the other side was even more difficult to fight than the Kuomintang Central Army, and the victory in the initial battle broke the original mysterious feeling and concern for the enemy cavalry, greatly boosted the mood, and enhanced the confidence in defeating the enemy cavalry and completing the task of blocking the attack.
After losing the initial battle, Ma Jiajun could not help but be a little frustrated, the invincible cavalry charging tactics were not successful, and Ma Jiyuan's dream of killing dumplings in Xi'an for three hours was shattered. Ma Jiyuan himself heard that the communist army was so tenacious, but he was timid, and stayed at the command post in Liquan in the rear and did not advance any further.
On the 13th, after the main force of Ma Jiajun's follow-up drove outside Xianyang City, Ma Jiyuan ordered all his troops to quickly capture Xianyang City at all costs, to give Hu Zongnan's troops a look and strengthen the prestige of Ma Jia's army.
At this time, the Ma family army that had reached Xianyang City already had 30,000 people, 4 or 5 times the size of the 181st Division of the defending force. The enemy has the superiority of troops and is arrogant again. Under Ma Jiyuan's death orders, Ma Jiajun did not hesitate to carry out a continuous group intensive charge with the strength of the entire battalion. In the face of the crazy enemy, the defensive unit of the 181st Division calmly responded, putting the enemy within 100 meters and then fighting, the mountain artillery and mortars were fiercely bombarded, and the rifles and machine guns opened fire at the same time, beating the enemy on his back.
After several encounters, the front-line troops basically figured out the tactical characteristics of the enemy cavalry. Our army has always been known for being good at studying war in war, and the officers and men have used their brains to quickly find a set of ways of playing to restrain the enemy's horses.
The front-line troops organized three lines of defense, the strong, will make the knife warriors in the first line, more equipped with some Japanese combat knives captured when fighting Taiyuan, this kind of combat knives are very sharp, placed in the first line can be cut against the enemy's sabre, although the Majia sabre is also very sharp, but compared with the Japanese combat knife is still somewhat inferior. The second line is submachine guns and carbines, and the third line is light and heavy machine guns.
This defensive line had a clear restraining effect on ma jiajun.
When the enemy cavalry began to attack, the knife-wielding warriors rushed out of the trenches and fell to the ground. The light and heavy machine guns of the third line began firing from a longer distance, both killing and slowing down their impact speed. When the enemy rushed to a hundred meters, the submachine guns and carbines of the second line exerted their most effective power and annihilated the enemy in large quantities with a dense rain of bullets. When the remaining enemy rushed to the front of the position, the first line fighters first threw grenades, and then pounced on them against the smoke and engaged in white-knife combat with the enemy.
Ma Jiajun's knife was short, blunt and heavy, and the PLA's knife was long, sharp and light, and with a knife against a knife, Ma Jiajun was obviously at a disadvantage and quickly lost.
However, Rao was so, because the Majia Army had too many troops, and they came on horseback, and they had the advantage of physical combat, and the officers and men of our 181st Division were running continuously for more than a month, extremely tired, fiercely fighting all day, and many positions were broken by the Majia Army.
Wang Chenghan, commander of the 181st Division, gave full play to his troops' specialty of being good at close combat and night combat, and launched a counter-attack after dark to retake the forward position. The fierce battle was fought until dawn on the 14th, and with the cooperation of reinforcements, all the lost positions outside Xianyang City were restored.
As the fish belly appeared in the east and the smoke of gunfire gradually dissipated, Wang Chenghan was planning to teach the Ma family army another good lesson, but he received a report from the reconnaissance team that the enemy had retreated.
It turned out that the Ma family army had fought hard continuously and paid heavy casualties, but it still could not make effective progress. The night battle suffered heavy casualties, and all the positions acquired during the day were lost. Ma Jiyuan thought to himself that if he continued to fight like this, there was no point in wasting his troops in vain, and even if he captured Xianyang City, he would not be able to attack Xi'an again. So he ordered the troops to withdraw quickly, and as for the harsh words released before the war, they had to be used as a breath of air released from the valley road, and let him drift away.
In the Xianyang Blockade Battle, the 181st Division won a complete victory, killing and wounding more than 2,000 enemy and taking 29 prisoners at the cost of more than 200 casualties. The significance of this battle is not only to defend Xianyang and defend Xi'an, but more importantly, to puncture the illusion that the Majia army cavalry is fierce and good at war, so that the officers and men of our army have established strong tactical confidence in this old army that is lagging behind the times, thus opening up a record of continuous victories against the Majia army cavalry on the northwest battlefield.