At the beginning of 1904, a local war broke out in the northeast of the Chicken Crown area of China, and the two sides of the war were the two major empires of Japan and Russia, who did not hesitate to fight in order to steal the rights and interests of northeast China.
But what is unimaginable is that the Qing government at that time was powerless to resist the atrocities of the two great empires of Japan and Russia, and could only let others meet each other on their own land, and then the final winner encroached on the 1.5 million square kilometers of land in our northeast.
Therefore, the Russo-Japanese War, which is an extremely humiliating page in the history of the Chinese nation, was finally turned over in 1945, after more than forty years of efforts by the Chinese people, and the northeast was completely returned to the hands of the Chinese people.
However, at this time, the northeast was not completely calm, and the ensuing liberation war made the northeast on the cusp of the storm. Here, the Kuomintang and the Communists fought for a full three years, and finally our People's Liberation Army completed the military counterattack and liberated the entire northeast in one fell swoop.
The first victory of our army in the northeast can be said to be the biggest reason for the overall victory of the liberation war, because since modern times, the northeast has become an important place in China's military industry, where the fertile soil and rich resources have finally become the rear of the PLA soldiers, supporting the Chinese people's liberation army and completing the great cause of national liberation.
Victory is always hard-won, and from our perspective today, when we look at the Liberation War, everyone knows that the northeast has played a huge role, especially the four wilds in the northeast and their commander Lin Biao, and everyone knows it. However, little is known that when our army was still at a disadvantage in the early decisive battle in the northeast, it was Comrade Peng Zhen who was hand-picked by Chairman Mao's Party Central Committee to be responsible for the overall situation in the northeast.
So what happened in between? As a result, Peng Zhen later retired from the leading position in the northeast, and Chairman Mao even disregarded the taboo of the soldiers and changed the commander in front of the emergency, and finally pushed Lin Biao to the position of the leader of the party, government, and army in the northeast.
To thoroughly explain this matter, we must start with our army marching to the northeast after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan. As we all know, the Japanese army has occupied and occupied our northeast for fourteen years since 918, so after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the political power in the northeast fell into a vacuum.
In this case, Chairman Mao first realized the importance of the northeast, and as early as 1945, when the Seventh National Congress was convened, Chairman Mao vividly compared the importance of the northeast, and he said this to the members of the Central Committee elected by the Seventh National Congress:
"Judging from the future prospects of the Chinese revolution, the northeast is particularly important, and if we lose all the existing base areas, as long as we have the northeast, then the Chinese revolution will have a solid foundation. Of course, the other base areas have not been lost, and we have the northeast again, and the foundation of the Chinese revolution has been further consolidated. ”
Obviously, Chairman Mao regarded the northeast as the decisive factor of the Chinese revolution, and even told everyone that he would not hesitate to lose the national base areas and preemptively occupy the northeast, which was enough to prove the importance of the northeast to the war of liberation.
At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek invited Chairman Mao to Chongqing for negotiations, but of course the negotiations were false and the delay was true, because Chiang Kai-shek's troops were in the rear of the southwest, and he was also anxious to seize the northeast, so in the name of negotiations, he tried to take advantage of the opportunity.
However, Chairman Mao saw Chiang Kai-shek's tricks clearly, and before he went to Chongqing for negotiations, he had a plan to make Liu Shaoqi the acting chairman of the Central Committee and temporarily replace himself.
Immediately after that, on September 15, Chairman Mao was still in Chongqing, but Comrade Liu Shaoqi, in accordance with Chairman Mao's instructions, held a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee in Yan'an, and the biggest role of this meeting was to establish the Northeast Bureau and determine the leading personnel of the Northeast Bureau.
Among them, the Northeast Bureau took Peng Zhen as the secretary, and then Chen Yun, Cheng Zihua and others as members, responsible for the overall work of the northeast. Subsequently, the Party Central Committee transferred more than 20,000 cadres from various places to the northeast, and among these people, the number of Central Committee members and alternate Members of the Central Committee elected by the Seventh National Congress alone was as high as twenty.
Everyone should know that the Seventh National Congress elected a total of seventy-seven official members and alternate members among millions of party members, but the party Central Committee sent nearly one-third of the party elite to the northeast, which is enough to show how important the northeast occupied at that time.
It is worth mentioning that Lin Biao, who was later in charge of the overall work in the northeast, did not go to the northeast at the beginning, but the place where he was sent by the central authorities was Shandong, but then the situation changed, and the central government urgently changed Lin Biao, who was originally scheduled to be sent to the liberated areas of Shandong, to the northeast.
Lin Biao came to the northeast in October 1945, but Peng Zhen took a Soviet plane to the northeast in September when the Central Committee established the Northeast Bureau, and after Peng Zhen came to the northeast, he quickly established the Northeast Military Region, with himself as the political commissar, and the commander was Comrade Cheng Zihua.
At this time, the northeast was actually still under the control of the Soviet Army, because at the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, in order to help the Chinese battlefield counterattack, the Soviet Red Army entered the northeast from the Chinese border and eliminated hundreds of thousands of Japanese Kwantung Army, thus temporarily managing the northeast on behalf of the Chinese government.
It is also because of this that the northeast has become a point of contention between the Kuomintang and the Communists, of course, the Soviet Union supports our party after all, although Stalin and Chiang Kai-shek signed an agreement, but when our army marched to the northeast, Stalin still provided a lot of help, so in the early stage of the northeast war, there were many big cities in the hands of our army.
Under these circumstances, in order to meet the needs of future wars, our army re-established the Northeast Democratic United Army on the basis of the Northeast Military Region, with Lin Biao, who came to the northeast only after that, as commander, Peng Zhen as the first political commissar, Luo Ronghuan as the second political commissar, and Lin Biao as deputy secretary of the Northeast Bureau.
According to the principle that our party has always had, Lin Biao was working under the direct leadership of Peng Zhen at this time, but it was also in this process that Lin Biao and Peng Zhen had differences of opinion on the overall development direction of the northeast.
At that time, Lin Biao advocated abandoning big cities and developing in rural areas, but Peng Zhen believed that we should adhere to the instructions of the Party Central Committee and seize big cities. In fact, the instructions of the central authorities at that time for the northeast were indeed insisted by Peng Zhen, which was to seize the big cities with the Kuomintang, but the complexity of history was that nothing could be quickly decided under the conditions of war, and this needed time to prove.
During this period, the situation in the northeast can be described as extremely complicated, with both military and political factors; in Chairman Mao's words, the northeast seems to be a contest between the Kuomintang and the Communists, but in fact it is a contest between China, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
Under these circumstances, our army fell into an unfavorable situation in the early stage of seizing the northeast, one was poor weapons and equipment, and the other was the disparity in strength with the Kuomintang troops, so many of the large cities occupied earlier were lost, especially the Siping Defense War that broke out in March 1946, which was the most famous, and this battle can also be called a turning point in the overall strategy of the northeast.
Because after the Siping Defense War, our army in the northeast gradually understood the form, and the Party Central Committee even carried out a strategic change in the northeast, and the focus began to shift from the cities to the countryside, and the most direct manifestation of this was that in June 1946, after careful consideration by Chairman Mao's Party Central Committee, it decided to reorganize the Northeast Bureau, and sent a telegram to all the comrades of the Northeast Bureau.
"At present, the situation in the northeast is serious, and in order to unify leadership, it has been decided that Lin Biao will be the secretary of the Northeast Bureau, the commander-in-chief and political commissar of the Northeast Democratic United Army, and comrades Peng Zhen, Luo Ronghuan, Gao Gang, and Chen Yun will be the deputy secretaries and deputy political commissars of the Northeast Bureau."
From this telegram, it is not difficult for us to see that with the changes in the battlefield and the unpredictable outcome, Chairman Mao decided to rearrange the leading organs in the northeast, among which Comrade Peng Zhen also stepped down from his post as secretary of the Northeast Bureau, and Lin Biao became the secretary of the Northeast Bureau and concurrently served as the political commissar of the Northeast Democratic United Army.
That is to say, at this time, Lin Biao integrated the power of the party, government and army in the northeast, and Peng Zhen returned to the central government not long after he stepped down as secretary of the Northeast Bureau. From here, we can see that the reason why Chairman Mao's Party Central Committee disregarded the taboo of soldiers and made the move to change commanders on the spot was actually to adapt to the changes in the war in northeast China, and only in this way could we survive this difficult moment.
So what kind of considerations did Chairman Mao's Party Central Committee have in the northeast, first Peng Zhen and then Lin Biao? What kind of changes has this brought to the overall situation in northeast China?
In fact, the reason why Chairman Mao's Party Central Committee sent Peng Zhen to the northeast at the beginning and let him take full responsibility for the affairs of the northeast was actually to value his urban work experience. Because at that stage, our army's foothold was unstable, but because the power in the northeast was in a vacuum, it was a problem to accept the big cities.
Comrade Peng Zhen, who is known for his political work, has long been engaged in the construction of urban political power, and in this case, he is also the most suitable person to shoulder the heavy responsibility of the northeast. However, the plan could never catch up with the changes, and with the development of the situation on the battlefield, Chairman Mao's Central Committee realized that it was not too hasty to deal with the northeast, and that it would be uneconomical to use the existing military strength to fight the Kuomintang in the big cities, so after more than half a year, the policy of putting big cities first was abandoned.
Of course, everything needs to be proved by practice, and chairman Mao's Party Central Committee made this decision under the test of time; after all, who is willing to give up the big cities that have just been occupied and the political power that has been painstakingly established?
However, forced by the actual situation, Chairman Mao finally made a decisive decision, which was to continue to adopt the original strategy of encircling the cities from the countryside and to survive in the course of development, thus eliminating the Northeast Kuomintang army in one fell swoop.
Therefore, it was actually necessary and necessary for Chairman Mao's Party Central Committee to change the commanders in the northeast war, and under the situation of integrating the military and the government at that time, if the power was too dispersed, this was even more detrimental to the development of the Northeast Democratic United Army and the grass-roots party organizations in the northeast, which was also the reason why Lin Biao later combined the power of the party, government, and army in the northeast.
Of course, the complete victory in the northeast actually stemmed from this strategic change, and Chairman Mao's party Central Committee promptly readjusted the candidates for secretary of the Northeast Bureau, from Peng Zhen, who is known for his politics, to Lin Biao, who is known for his military, and this strategic change is a direct embodiment of this strategic change.
From these things, it is not difficult for us to see that the role played by the Party Central Committee represented by Chairman Mao in the war of liberation is immeasurable. Before Comrade Peng Zhen was transferred back to the Central Committee, although our army was still inferior to the Kuomintang army, its numbers developed rapidly compared with the stage when it first entered the northeast, and there were already 300,000 field troops in the northeast.
Therefore, Comrade Peng Zhen's contribution in the early stage of the northeast war was also enormous, although many cities were lost in the early stage, but there were objective reasons for this, and at the same time, during Peng Zhen's leadership of the northeast, he basically completed the instructions of the central authorities, which was also a major contribution of Comrade Peng Zhen in the liberation war.
Therefore, when it comes to the liberation of northeast China, we must not only remember Siye, but also remember these contributions of Comrade Lin Biao and Comrade Peng Zhen, and we should also remember them as future generations!