Author: Zhang Xiuming
Zhang Xiuming
VII. Entering Guangdong
After our People's Liberation Army liberated Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Taiyuan, Xi'an and other important cities one after another, it gathered about 700,000 remnants of the Kuomintang troops in south and southwest China. Chiang Kai-shek attempted to use the Bai Chongxi clique and the Yu Han Clan of the Cantonese army to organize the so-called "Xiang-Guangdong Joint Defense" to prevent us from marching toward Liangguang; hu Zongnan clique to hold the Qinling Mountains and prevent us from entering The River from Shaanxi. And after the failure of the above plan, Bai Chongxi retreated into Guangxi, Hu Zongnan retreated into Sichuan, with Yun and Gui as the rear, and organized the so-called "southwest defense line".
In order to smash the enemy's conspiracy, the Central Military Commission and Chairman Mao instructed the field armies to continue their march and annihilate all remnants of the Kuomintang forces. It was determined that "against Bai Chongxi and all the enemies in the southwest, they all take a big detour, insert themselves behind the enemy, first complete the encirclement, and then fight back." "Erye's main task is to prepare to coordinate with Sanye to deal with possible US military intervention; when the coastal cities such as Qingdao and Fuzhou are liberated and the possibility of the United States sending troops is reduced, that is, under the coordination of the first and fourth fields, march to the southwestern provinces and liberate the provinces of Sichuan, Qian, Kang, Yunnan, and Tibet." The chief of Siye decided to occupy Guangzhou with two corps, the Fourth Corps and the Fifteenth Corps, under the command of Chen Geng, through Ganzhou. Then the fifteenth corps stayed in Guangdong and operated the whole province of Guangdong, and the fourth corps went deep into Guangxi as a southern route army to seek and annihilate Bai Chongxi.
After receiving the order of the Kuomintang Ministry of National Defense to "consolidate northern Guangdong and secure Guangzhou," Yu Hanmou, director of the enemy's Guangzhou Administration and governor of Guangdong Province, gathered together the remnants of the former Guangdong and Fang Yao and Hu Lian, who had fled from Jiangxi and Fujian to Guangdong, to organize a defense in Guangdong.
Our army is determined to march in three directions. The Fourth Corps was the Right Route Army, with a division of the Thirteenth Army, the Fifteenth Army, and the Fourteenth Army first capturing Qujiang, and then attacking Guangzhou. With the main force of the Fourteenth Army, it took the shortcut along the west bank of the Beijiang River and inserted three waters directly, cutting off the road for the Guangdong enemy to flee west. The Fifteenth Corps was the Left Route Army, which first attacked the enemy at Weng Yuan, and then the main force attacked and advanced along the east side of the Yuehan Road to Guangzhou, with a force out of Zengcheng, and the Ninth Road of Guangdong to prevent the enemy from fleeing east. The two Guangdong columns and the LinPing column were the Southern Route Army, and when we began to attack Qujiang and Wengyuan, they rushed south, cutting off the enemy's connection between Guangzhou, Chao'an, and Shantou, and entering the area between Guangzhou and Humen at the right time, forming an encirclement of the south of Guangzhou. The battle of Guangzhou began at the same time as the Battle of Heng (Yang) Bao (Qing).
At the end of August, the army's reconnaissance company was expanded into a reconnaissance battalion. In early September, I led the reconnaissance detachment of the military division to form a reconnaissance detachment, and led the radio unit into the Shangxian and Chongyi areas to carry out pre-war reconnaissance of Chengkou, Xiaomeiguan, Renhua, and Qujiang. The first is to find out the traffic situation of each road that crosses the Dayu Ridge, and the second is to find out the deployment and fortification of the enemy's troops in the Qujiang river area of northern Guangdong. Accompanying me this time were the reconnaissance section chiefs of three divisions: Wang Shangyong of the Thirty-seventh Division, Wang Xiaowu of the Thirty-eighth Division, and Yang Shichun of the Thirty-ninth Division. According to the instructions of the commander of the army, the whole army is responsible for forming this detachment, and the chiefs of each division are only responsible for the leadership and command of the reconnaissance detachments of each division. We were alone in Dayuling, between southern Gan and northern Guangdong, for more than a month, without suffering any losses, successfully completing the tasks we had received, and getting along very well. On October 1, Chairman Mao announced the founding of the People's Republic of China to the world at Tiananmen Square. When the news came, the whole army was excited and determined to quickly liberate Guangzhou and present a gift to the great new China.
Our army originally planned to reach a siege of Qujiang on October 8, but the enemy, intimidated by the might of our army, abandoned Qujiang and fled south on the 6th, and the commanders of our corps rushed forward and forced them to approach Guangzhou. Except for one unit of the Thirteenth Army to control the important town of Qujiang, the main force also went south. During this southward march, according to Director Du's proposal, the military reconnaissance battalion marched south by boat along the Beijiang River, and Director Du and I accompanied the reconnaissance battalion first. He also proposed that we both take a small boat to the south, saying that the boat was fast and the target was small, and I agreed. On October 11, I, Duff, and his guards took a small fishing boat down the river. It was really fast at first, but it slowed down in the afternoon, it was a small boat with single and double oars, and people couldn't paddle when they were tired. It was dark to the north mouth of the Feilai Gorge, the rowers had not come, we did not know, only asked the boat to row in the open direction, a row to the east bank, back to the west bank, is not afraid to paddle to the south of the gap. We were in a boat of four people, and we were tossed and turned for nearly two hours, which exhausted us. Finally I said to row the boat into the river and let it drift. That's a good idea. About half an hour later, the boat was swept into a canyon, the banks were steep, and a large boat in the river broke anchor and almost knocked our boat over. About the end of the day, a large ship from the reconnaissance battalion arrived, and we boarded the big boat. Director Du said with deep feeling: I will never sit on this boat again. We took a large boat to Qingyuan at noon on the 12th, waited for the reconnaissance battalion companies to arrive, and landed at Lubao Market in the afternoon of the same day.
On October 14, Guangzhou was liberated for our brother's troops, and our army assembled in the Sanshui area for standby. On the 24th, the Thirty-eighth Division arrived at Yangjiang, annihilating more than 1,000 remnants of the Fifty Army. On the 29th, the Thirty-ninth Division annihilated most of the 213rd Division of the Enemy's 23rd Army in Luoding, taking more than 1,500 prisoners. On November 2, the 38th Division liberated Maoming County. On November 5, the military command advanced to Maoming. At this point, the Battle of Guangdong was over.
VIII. Fighting in Guangxi
The victory in the Battle of Hengbao caused Bai Chongxi to retreat to Guangxi; the victory in the Guangdong Campaign completely exposed Bai Chongxi's right back, thus creating a favorable situation for the total annihilation of Bai Chongxi's clique. Bai Chongxi, who fled back to Guangxi, also maintained five corps, twelve corps, and thirty divisions totaling 150,000 people, plus about 30,000 troops of the 13 corps and the remnants of the 109 army that fled from Guangdong into the Bobai area of Guangxi, with a total strength of 180,000 people. Bai Chongxi tried to collude with the remnants of the Kuomintang in Yunnan-Guichuan to organize the "Southwest Joint Defense," relying on the guangxi old nest that it had operated for more than twenty years, relying on the favorable terrain, stubbornly resisting, winning US aid, and continuing to struggle. At the same time, when I am ready to be attacked by my power, I will travel abroad, waiting for the opportunity to make a comeback. The total number of troops of our army participating in the Guangxi campaign was nine armies, thirty divisions, and 400,000 people, with the intention of annihilating the Bai Chongxi clique in Guangxi.
On November 7, the Battle of Guangxi began, the 13th Army was located in the Maoming and Lianjiang areas, and the main force of the 10th Corps and the 43rd Army began to advance to Xinyi. The Western Route Army attacked and occupied Tongdao and Jingxian, and the enemy's Seventeenth Corps fled south, and our army took advantage of the victory to pursue. Bai Chongxi fled west to the clouds, and Gui had no hope, and feeling that the right side was greatly threatened by me, he tried to take advantage of the fact that our frontal offensive had not yet begun and the troops of the western and southern roads were still far apart, mobilized the main forces to launch a "southern offensive, in a vain attempt to control the coastal areas in southwest Guangxi, open the road to flee to the Leizhou Peninsula and abroad, and gain local initiative to save the fate of its destruction. The 39th Army was then located on the line of Dajiaolin and Giethoorn, the 37th Division was located on the line of Guangpoling and Zhongdongwei, the 38th Division was located on the line of Linchenwei and Tongshulin, and the army was directly located in Lianjiang.
On November 25, our Northern Route Army captured Guilin, Yangshuo, and Wuzhou; the Western Route Army occupied Hechi and advanced towards Baise, while the other army occupied Liuzhou and advanced towards Binyang. The enemy's third corps and ten corps have been deployed in the Yulin, Bobai, Beiliu, Rongxian, and Lingxi areas. The enemy's Third Corps attacked Lianjiang with the 126th Army, the 48th Army attacked Hejiangwei, and the 7th Army attacked Maoming. The Eleventh Corps attacked with the Fifty-eighth Army towards Qiaotoupu and Jingangwei in the northwest of Xinyi, and the 125th Army moved east at Lingxi. At the same time, the remnants of the 13th Army of the Cantonese enemy attacked from Bobai in the direction of Lianjiang, and the 109th Army moved north from the Leizhou Peninsula to cooperate with Bai Chongxi's actions. On the 26th, in addition to leaving the Thirty-ninth Division and the reconnaissance battalion of the army to organize defenses north of the Lianjiang River to block the enemy, the main force of the army advanced to the north of Hua County to organize defense, and the army also returned from the lianjiang river east to Shiwan Wei in Hua County.
At 9 o'clock on the 27th, the enemy, with its 126th Army and 1 part of the 48th Army, under the cover of aircraft, launched a continuous onslaught on our army's positions. The troops of our army stubbornly resisted and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. At the same time, the remnants of the 13th Corps of the Guangdong enemy Shen Fazao launched several attacks on the reconnaissance battalion of our army in Tangpeng, northwest of the LianJiang River, but we repelled them. On the 28th, our regiment was surprised by the enemy and attacked on all fronts, completely smashing the enemy's offensive on the southern front. On the 29th, the 39th Division and the reconnaissance battalion of our army entered and occupied the mansion and annihilated the enemy's 126th Army. The Thirty-seventh Division advanced to the Qingping area, the Thirty-eighth Division (owed to the 112nd Regiment) advanced to the area south of Nayu, the 112nd Regiment marched from Hua County along the road to Lianjiang, and the army set out from Shiwanwei in the morning, expecting to camp at Lianjiang that night. Due to his physical discomfort, Zhou Junchang wanted to rest and treat shiwanwei and planned to arrive in Lianjiang by jeep in the afternoon. When the main force of our army was pursuing west with all its might, the remnants of the enemy's 109th Army and the 321st Division of the 23rd Army, totaling more than 6,000 people, took advantage of the gap to occupy the county seat of Lianjiang. After that, two stories that are worth documenting occurred.
Ninth, the sense of inspiration is experienced
At 14:00 on the 29th, the army took a small road from Shiwanwei to Naliang Village, east of Lianjiang City, to rest, cook, set up radio stations and contact the divisions, and prepare to leave for Lianjiang camp at 16:00. I wasn't hungry, I wasn't thirsty, I wasn't tired, I was fidgeting, I always felt like I had something to do, but I didn't know what to do. The reconnaissance battalion was not there, and Corey and I were chief Zhu. According to the situation at that time, Lianjiang City had no enemies, but the inspiration prompted me to go to Lianjiang City first. So I proposed to Zhu Yulin that I should go to Lianjiang first. Zhu agreed to my proposal without thinking about it. I took a Cantonese soldier with me as an interpreter and went to the city. At about 15:30, the two of us walked to the outside of Dongguan in Lianjiang, saw no one walking on Lianjiang Street, and experience told me that the situation was suspicious and that I could not venture into the city, so I went up to the hill on the north side of Dongguan to observe Lianjiang City. I meticulously searched every street and courtyard, and finally found that Lianjiang City had been occupied by the enemy about a division. The military does not know this situation, and I must try to report it urgently. It seems that Junzhi cannot camp in Lianjiang today. As I observed the hill to the south, west, and north of the city, I found four more columns of the enemy, each with a multi-battalion battalion, advancing eastward on the plain north of the city, with the first head having surpassed my position, and the direction was toward the village of Naliang, where the army was resting, in an attempt to attack the army. The military is in danger! I pulled out my leg and ran back, running to Shaling, where a line squad of the communications battalion set up a telephone in advance and was cooking, I answered the phone and reported to Director Du: "The enemy attacked the army in four ways, so quickly transfer!" Director Du also wanted to ask for more details, because the enemy had already entered the village, and the sharp soldiers overtook me, so I said: "The enemy is outside the courtyard, I rush out to report again!" "I rushed out of the village with my interpreter and two telephone men, overtook the enemy first, and asked the telephone soldiers to communicate with me two hundred meters behind me, and I took the interpreter to delay the enemy. The little old man I brought with me had never seen such a dangerous situation, and his whole body trembled with fear, and the gun could not be accurately hit, so I had to take his rifle and aim at the head of the enemy column, shooting three shots in a row, firing hits, and three bullets hit five enemies. The enemy did not dare to rush along the road and began to prepare for the attack on the spot. I took advantage of this time to run to the back and talk to Director Du of the Operations Department for a second time, and reported the enemy situation more clearly: "Lianjiang has been occupied by the enemy, and about four battalions have attacked the village where the army is resting in four ways. I am facing the south of the road is now five miles away from the military headquarters, I have three roads to the north, because no one is blocking the current distance from the army is only three or four miles away, please quickly move to the east of the mountain pass. I only have one rifle here, please send a platoon to occupy the south highlands of the village! Director Du still wanted to ask about the situation, and I said, "The enemy is coming, and I want to stop the enemy!" "Put down the phone and shoot at the enemy again, the first shot hits one down, the enemy immediately dispersed, with two machine guns to shoot at me, I told the telephone soldier to quickly retreat, to find a covert place to communicate the phone, I continued to shoot at the enemy two machine guns, this time it was not so easy to fight, I fired nine bullets to shoot off the two machine guns, and ran back to the telephone. The telephone soldier said that the army had been transferred, the switchboard had been withdrawn, and Director Du told you to go to the mountain pass to find him to accept the task. I held off the spot for a few more minutes and saw that Jun nao had gone to yamaguchi to find him on a mission. I held off the attack for a few more minutes at the spot, and saw that the army had moved to the east of the mountain pass, and a platoon of the guard company had occupied the position of Study Ridge, so I withdrew. When I went to the side of the mountain pass, I met Deputy Political Commissar Liao Guanxian, and Director Du, Chief Zou, and Chief Zhu were also there. Director Du instructed: "You take three companies of guards to guard the mountain pass, ensure the safe transfer of the army, and return to the army after the mission is completed." "While we were talking, three companies and a platoon had withdrawn from the heights, and I was furious and ordered them to go back to resist, and Zhu Yulin took the initiative to leave us to command together. The front position had been lost, and only the Tanibe Ridge was retreating behind. After we had taken the position, the enemy approached me, and they were running again. I left Zhu to sit at the top of the hill, and went to the front to grab a machine gun and a squad to resist, and only then did I stabilize my position. At dusk, a platoon of the Engineer Company of the Thirty-eighth Division arrived and took over the task of the third company of guards, so I was relieved. These guard detachments are not strictly restrained in peacetime, and they have less exercise in wartime, and when they are really used, they are really not good, and strictly speaking, they are not as strong as the combat effectiveness of a squad I lead in the regiment.
After dusk the enemy withdrew to Lianjiang. When I returned to Xin'an Town, I encountered an important matter, that is, to do everything possible to intercept Commander Zhou on the road from Huaxian county to Lianjiang, and let him return to the mountain command post immediately, and never let the commander enter Lianjiang by bicycle. To this end, the army sent a report to Guo Zhiwei, commander of the 112nd Regiment, who was advancing on the highway: "Lianjiang is occupied by the enemy, and your regiment quickly gets on the highway and sets up a card, intercepts the Jeep of Commander Zhou, and escorts the commander back to the army as soon as possible. In addition, the army also sent several soldiers and horses on the road to find the commander. It was not until 20 o'clock that the commander of the 112nd Regiment had arrived at the regiment and was now on his way back to the army that everyone could relax their minds and begin to study the battle plan for annihilating the enemy in Lianjiang. When Commander Zhou returned to the army that night, he decided that the Thirty-ninth Division would continue to pursue westwards and transfer the Thirty-seventh Division and the Thirty-eighth Division back to lianjiang. The specific deployment was: the Thirty-seventh Division attacked from the southwest of the LianJiang River, the main force of the Thirty-eighth Division attacked from the north, and the 112nd Regiment attacked from the southeast. The divisions deployed according to the army, and on the 30th, Foxiao began to fight, and after a fierce battle all day, they completely annihilated the remnants of the Guangdong enemy's Shen Fazao Corps, captured more than 6,000 people below Yu Yingqi, and once again captured Lianjiang.
X. Wisdom breaks secret electricity
After our army returned to annihilate the enemy in Lianjiang, the army entered Lianjiang on the morning of December 1. At 13:00, our scientific and technological reconnaissance team intercepted a transcript of a phone call between the radio director of the enemy's Third Corps and the director of Bai Chongxi's radio station. After the two frequency communications, the commander of the three corps said: "The boss is not there, the ledger is lost, what to do?" The director of the White Headquarters replied: "The arrears are to be repaid!" The commander of the three corps said: "Understood", and the call ended. After we got this secret language record, Chief Zhu Ke, Chief Zou, Li Ting, and I thought about it repeatedly, but we couldn't understand it, so we had to put it down. However, I always put down this simple and implicit information, and I always felt that it was not a business transaction, and it must have implied something. In my curiosity and fun heart, I also wanted to unravel it, so I was thinking about these few conversations even when I was eating. At 20 o'clock that day, I went to the Operations Section for a meeting to study the actions of the next army. I suddenly saw Qinzhou on the map, became extremely interested in this "Qin" word, stood in front of the picture, and repeatedly deliberated. "The debt must be repaid" is a Qin character, what is the meaning of "the ledger is lost", will it be the loss of the codebook? Yes, it was to lose the secret book, otherwise he would not have played hide-and-seek on the radio in code words. So what does "the boss is not there" mean? Could it be that something went wrong with Zhang Gan? When two armies are facing each other, how can a corps commander not be there? Could it be that our army was killed or captured alive, and that the only way to capture him alive was to annihilate his corps headquarters? Right! The headquarters of the Three Corps was probably annihilated by my friendly neighbors. At this point in my deduction, this coded telegram is completely unraveled. The content explained that the enemy's three corps were annihilated by our friendly neighbor's troops at noon on December 1, the whereabouts of the commander of the corps Zhang Gan were unknown, the radio password of the three corps was lost, the station commander ran to the next radio station, used the frequency and call sign of the three corps radio station to contact Bai Chongxi headquarters radio, and reported in secret words the disappearance of the commander of his corps and the loss of the password. When Bai Chongxi learned of this, he also replied in code: The headquarters is going to Qinzhou, and he wants him to go to Qinzhou (this is a pun). The conclusion is that the headquarters of the three corps has been annihilated, and Bai Chongxi's headquarters wants to flee to Qinzhou!
I promptly reported the deciphering situation and the conclusion of the judgment to the two section chiefs and director Du, and after listening to it, they felt that the intelligence was true, the explanation was reasonable, and the conclusion was correct, and it was an important piece of intelligence. Director Du immediately went to report to Commander Zhou, and after listening to the report, Commander Zhou quickly came to the war room, listened to my report again, and also thought that the intelligence was credible and the reasoning was reasonable, and immediately informed Political Commissar Liu, Deputy Commander Chen, and Deputy Political Commissar Liao to go to the war room for a meeting and make arrangements to pursue Qinzhou. He also asked the Communications Department to call the corps radio station to speak to the head of the corps. The head of the regiment on duty that day was Guo Tianmin, deputy commander, and Commander Zhou reported: "Zhang Gan's regiment was annihilated in Bobai, and Bai Chongxi's headquarters wanted to flee to Qinzhou. I intend to immediately launch a pursuit of Qinzhou. Deputy Commander Guo replied: "The situation needs to be confirmed, and we must be cautious in pursuing Qinzhou!" Then Commander Chen Geng's voice appeared on the newsstand, and he said, "Comrade Zhou Xihan, chase, chase, and boldly chase Qinzhou!" Block the enemy's escape from the sea! ”
In accordance with the instructions of the head of the corps, our army rushed to Qinzhou on the 2nd, regardless of fatigue, traveled 200 miles a day day, liberated Hepu on the 3rd, occupied Beihai City on the 4th, crossed the Qin River on the 6th, occupied Longmen Port on the 8th, liberated Fangcheng County, and liberated Dongxing Town on the 10th, completely blocking the enemy's sea escape route. After that, he returned to the 100,000 mountains and annihilated the enemy.
In the forty-three-day encirclement and annihilation battle between Guangdong and Guangdong, our army implemented Chairman Mao's operational policy of great relocation and encirclement, carried forward the fine work style of being heroic and tenacious, fighting continuously, and not fearing hardships, fighting thirty battles, annihilating more than 20,000 enemy personnel, and satisfactorily accomplishing the combat tasks. In this battle, I have made another great contribution.
11. Campaign in Southern Yunnan
In late December 1949, our army concentrated in the Nanning area to prepare for the invasion of Yunnan. We have marched into other armies in the southwest, and have captured Guiyang and Chongqing and besieged Chengdu. Chiang Kai-shek's "southwestern joint defense" has come to naught. On December 9, the local government of Yunnan, Lu Han, declared an uprising, and Chiang Kai-shek flew over Kunming, but when he saw that the situation was not good, he flew to Taiwan instead. However, chiang kai-shek's Eighth Army and twenty-sixth army of about 30,000 people in Yunnan, unrepentant, continued to make enemies of the people, undermined the peaceful liberation of Yunnan, and colluded with the remnants of the enemy in Xichang in a vain attempt to control Kang and Yunnan, and carried out a dying struggle. Chiang Kai-shek ordered his deputy commander-in-chief Tang Yao to organize two armies to invade Kunming on December 15, and on 18 December launched an attack in an attempt to intimidate Lu Han, occupy Kunming, and prevent us from entering Yunnan. In order to ensure that Kunming is not destroyed, maintain social order, and deal a powerful blow to the enemy's Eighth Army and the Twenty-sixth Army, the Central Military Commission decided that the local party in Yunnan should actively organize workers, students, citizens, and peasants to carry out a defense war in Kunming, and assist the rebel troops in holding kunming. At the same time, the Forty Division was ordered to rush from Qianxi to Kunming by car. On the 22nd, the remnants of he Shaozhou of the enemy's 19th Corps, Li Mizhi's 3rd Division, and the Headquarters Gendarmerie Corps were annihilated by our 49th Division in the Qujing Zhanyi area. The enemy who attacked Kunming saw that the situation was not good, and retreated to southern Yunnan, trying to flee abroad or Taiwan through Mongolia. Based on the above situation, Chief Liu Deng decided that the Fourth Corps would enter Yunnan ahead of schedule and annihilate the enemy's Eighth Army and the Twenty-sixth Army in Yunnan.
In late December, the enemy's Twenty-sixth Army withdrew to the Mengzi and Gejiu areas, and the Eighth Army retreated to the Kaiyuan and Jianshui areas, and was organized into the Eighth Corps. Our corps adopted the tactic of first taking the lead and then annihilating, boldly and roundaboutly, cutting off the enemy's land and air retreat routes first, and then dividing and annihilating the enemy, and completely annihilating the enemy in southern Yunnan. The specific arrangements are: The 114th and 151st Divisions of the Thirty-eighth Army, which are under the command of our corps, depart from the Baise and Tiandong areas, and with the cooperation of the Qianbian Column Detachment of Yunnan and Guizhou, pass through Funing, Wenshan, and Maguan, and directly penetrate the river mouth and the Jinping Sino-Vietnamese border line, cutting off the enemy's retreat to Vietnam. The Thirty-seventh Division of the Thirteenth Army (owed to the 111th Regiment) and the 38th Division (112nd Regiment) set out from Nanning and went straight out of Mengzi via Guode, Baise, Funing, and Yanshan, seized the Mengzi airfield, and cut off the enemy's air escape route. All detachments in Yunnan should actively carry out activities against the enemy, destroy roads, exhaust the enemy army, and cooperate with the main force in combat. There are many documents and articles about the Battle of Southern Yunnan, and I will only write a few fragments here as an experience and experience of participating in the war.
Order light loading. At the end of December, the units participating in the war of our army seized the time to make pre-war organizational preparations in the Nanning area. At that time, considering that Yunnan was a tropical mountainous jungle area with dense mountains and dense forests, sparsely populated people, and difficult roads, the troops were ordered to carry out light armor, and according to the regulations on light military equipment, the regiment had fewer heavy firearms and no division heavy firearms. With such a lightness, the personnel were reduced by one-fifth, the horses were reduced by four-fifths, and on the surface the firepower seemed to be weakened, but the speed of travel was increased.
The journey is fast. On January 1, 1950, the troops participating in the war of our army set off from the Nanning area, walked to Guode to change cars to Baise, and from Baise they entered the mountains on foot. In order not to let the enemy escape, all the commanders and fighters were not afraid of difficulties and fatigue, crossed the forest and valley, crossed the mountains and mountains, traveled day and night, traveled hundreds of miles a day, and marched more than one hundred and sixty miles a day for several days. Our army has advanced more than nine hundred kilometers in fourteen days, fully embodying the famous saying that "time is the army, and speed is combat effectiveness." Of course, most of the areas our army passes along the route belong to the "border and vertical" base areas, and the masses enthusiastically greet the army, collect grain and grass, repair bridges and roads, organize transportation, and take care of the reserves, which not only reduces the difficulty of marching the troops, but also encourages the troops, blocks the news, and keeps secrets, so that our army can appear in front of the enemy unexpectedly and win the initiative in the campaign.
Capture the airport. On January 11, one of the 4th and 151st Divisions of the Thirty-eighth Army had entered the hekou and Nanxi areas, cutting off the enemy's escape route to Vietnam. On the 13th, the Thirty-seventh Division had reached the Yanshan Ameng area. The enemy expected our army to arrive in a week's time, so he neglected to be on guard, and only sent a regiment to the east to guard the east, and did not find that our army had arrived. In order to seize the airport, the troops at that time had two options of action: one was to first destroy the Ming's outpost regiment, and then attack Mengzi and seize the airport; second, the main force bypassed Ming,Seized the airfield, and left Ming to the troops of the Thirty-eighth Division to fight. Commander Zhou Xueyi of the Thirty-seventh Division chose the second plan, that is, he led two regiments of his division to take Mengzi directly, seize the Mengzi airfield, and cut off the enemy's escape route in the air. The commander agreed to this proposal. Therefore, Commander Zhou led the 109th Regiment and the 110th Regiment from Yanshan on the morning of the 14th, arrived in Dehou at dusk that day, and bypassed it from the north of Mingxi in the darkness of the night. On the afternoon of the 15th, we arrived at Mengzi Dongshan. After more than two hundred and forty miles of continuous forced marching day and night, he suddenly appeared in front of the enemy, and the enemy was not yet aware of it. The whole division rested for a while at Dongshan, and at 15:00 the troops rushed to the Mengzi area in two ways, passing through houdong to the Qixi River at the corner of the mountain, encountering an enemy company. The enemy also thought that it was their own friendly army, and when I entered the village and captured them alive, I knew that it was the People's Liberation Army. When our army entered the dam area and rushed toward the Mengzi airfield, and when it besieged Heilongtan, Buyituo, Yizhai, Yizhai, and Weizhai outside the city, the headquarters of the Twenty-sixth Army of Mengzi still thought that it was only a guerrilla attack and disturbance operation. At 20 o'clock, our army took advantage of the situation to pounce on the Mengzi airfield, and it was really a divine soldier who fell from heaven, caught the enemy by surprise, made a mess, and could not carry out organized resistance. At 4:00 a.m. on the 16th, our army occupied the Mengzi airfield and the county seat of Mengzi, sealed the enemy's air retreat, annihilated more than 1,700 enemy troops, and captured one aircraft and eleven artillery pieces. On the night of the 15th, the 113th Regiment of the 38th Division captured Mingcheng, and the defending enemy fled in the direction of Kaiyuan, and our army pursued to Dazhuang to annihilate the enemy.
Our army quickly captured Mengzi, blocked the enemy's air escape route, and was very shocked by the enemy, creating favorable conditions for the entire campaign, and of great significance. With regard to the merits of this battle, in the past it was often said that only one assault battalion was attacked at the airfield, and only the battalion commander and a few squads were publicized, which was incomplete and unrealistic. The merits of this battle should be attributed to the Thirty-seventh Division as a whole, and to say who played a decisive role, I think it was Comrade Zhou Xueyi, the commander of the division. It was he who advocated bypassing Ming and went straight to Mengzi, it was he who led his team to force two hundred and forty miles to suddenly appear in front of the enemy's main force, and it was he who immediately decided to swing his division down the mountain and pounce on the airfield. He commanded the four directions of circling, running, swinging, and swooping, and completed it in one go, which was completely in line with the principles of "soldiers and noble speeds" and "surprise to the enemy". Rushing into the airfield and capturing Mengzi was already prepared to fight and be unprepared, with less disruption, and some even won without a fight.
Poor chase. After our army captured Mengzi, the enemy fell into a state of panic, the Twenty-sixth Army fled in a panic in an old direction, and the Eighth Corps also fled from Kaiyuan to Jianshui and Yuanjiang. There were only three regiments of our army's troops entering the Mengzi area on the 16th, and the front commander of the army was determined to seize the fighter plane and pursue and fight the fleeing enemy. The specific arrangements were: the Thirty-seventh Division left a battalion to control the Mengzi airfield, and the main force pursued in the direction of the old one; the 113th Regiment of the Thirty-eighth Division pursued the Kafang south of the old one, occupying the Kafang to cut off the old enemy's southward escape route; Wu Xiaomin, deputy commander of the Thirty-seventh Division, led the 109th Regiment (owed to the 1st Battalion and the 2nd Battalion and the 4th Company) and the 110th Regiment (owing the 3rd Battalion) from Mengzi on the afternoon of the 16th, took the mountain road to take the old one, surrounded the old one at dawn on the 17th, and then launched an attack. After more than two hours of fighting, the enemy's Twenty-sixth Army Headquarters, the 483rd Regiment of the 161st Division, and the 93rd Division were completely annihilated, with a total of more than 3,000 people. At the same time, Commander Zhou led the division commander and the 109th Regiment and a battalion into Jijie by small train, encountering the 481st Regiment of the enemy 161st Division, which fled from Kaiyuan to the south. The enemy was anxious to capture the station and flee south, and engaged in a fierce battle with me, but I was severely attacked, annihilating one of them, and the remaining enemies fled westward. On the 17th, the forward command of the army decided: with the Thirty-seventh Division to pursue the enemy's Eighth Army in the direction of Jianshui, Shiping, and Yuanjiang, the 113th Regiment pursued along the Red River in the direction of Nansha and Qisa (now the Red River), cutting off the enemy's southward escape passage. Considering that at this time the Thirty-seventh Division had only four battalions of troops except for the company that left the prisoners in custody, the former commander decided: the three battalions of the 110 regiment were quickly rebuilt, and the airfield security was replaced by the second reconnaissance battalion of the army, and urged the 114th regiment to accelerate towards Mengzi. As the plenipotentiary representative of the combat troops, I was sent to Mengzi Station, ordered the railway stations to stop the private operation, obey the military movement, mobilize the locomotives and trunks of the mengzi, and prepare to send the troops forward.
After two days of pursuit and blockade battles on the 18th and 19th, the units participating in the battle annihilated more than 3,000 enemy troops in Brute, Yide, Puxiong, and other places, and the deputy commander of the enemy's Eighth Army and commander of the Third Division saw that there was no hope of escape, and led two regiments at Anbian Outpost to surrender to our army. By the 20th, the 37th Division occupied Shiping, and the 113th Regiment advanced to Xinmin (present-day Yuanyang County).
Grab the mountain and take the bridge. On January 20, the enemy's Twenty-sixth Army was basically annihilated. Tang Yaozheng, deputy commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Army and commander of the Eighth Corps, led his corps headquarters and the main force of the Eighth Army, the Forty-second Division, the 170th Division, the Instructor, and the Ninth Regiment of the Third Division, with about 20,000 people, starting from Baoxiu, running Panshan to flee to The Yuanjiang River in an attempt to occupy Yuanjiang County, and continued to struggle by virtue of the natural dangers of the Red River. The Thirty-seventh Division of our army led two regiments with a total of more than 2,000 people to Shiping, and learned that the terrain in front of them was: not far from Baoxiu to the west is the Babaoshu Pass, over the yakou down to the bottom of the ditch is the creek at the bottom of the small river, down the river to the north for three miles to start up the mountain, through the three slopes, small sentry and big sentry, straight up forty miles, is the Yuanjiang Big Peak Peak Peak Panshan Mountain. Thirty miles down the western slope from Yingpan Mountain to the Red River, across the river is the county seat of Yuanjiang. The depth of the Red River cannot be waded in vain, and it is not convenient for the boats to cross, and the large troops must pass through the Red River Chain Bridge, which must be used ten miles north of the city. The bridge is 300 meters long and 2 meters wide, with iron cables for bone, paved with wooden planks, feasible mules and horses, and is the only passage on the Red River. I entered Dehou Street in a group of 114, and I could not reach Mengzi until noon on the 21st. There are already five trains at Mengzi Station, which can depart at any time. If the 114th regiment arrived around noon, they immediately boarded the car and drove out, running smoothly, and arrived at Shiping on the evening of the 21st. On the basis of the above basic situation, the former military commander has seriously analyzed and studied the above basic situation, and the final conclusion is: Judging from the comparison of the enemy's and our strength, the enemy is ten times as many as me, and the enemy is more numerous than me, but the enemy is a defeated soldier and a deserter, while our army is a victorious army, a pursuing army, and can be pursued and fought. Judging from the time, although the enemy fled two days earlier than me, he was a contingent of twenty thousand people, retreating along a mabang mountain road, and it was inevitable that he would not be happy; I was a lightly armored and elite soldier, who would certainly be able to catch up, and as long as I dared to choose a way ahead, I could also intercept the enemy's main force. From the topographical point of view, there are two key points on the road of our army's pursuit, which must be occupied by the enemy or forcibly occupied first, that is, the main peak of the Yuanjiang Mountains, Yingpanshan, and the Honghe Yuanjiang Chain Bridge. If these two points are seized, one point will be actively divided, and all of them will be captured as a whole. Judging from the analysis of the fighter plane, the enemy is fleeing west along the road, and if our army chases for one minute early, it will have already achieved a point of victory; the opportunity must not be lost, and the time will not come again, and we must dare to win more with less and immediately launch a pursuit and annihilation. It is particularly worth mentioning that it is also the leader who dares to make up his mind that the Thirty-seventh Division, an old unit of the Red Army that has experienced hundreds of battles, can shoulder this heavy responsibility. Therefore, the commander of the former command made up his mind: the Thirty-seventh Division immediately launched a pursuit of the Yuanjiang River, seized yingpanshan, seized the chain bridge, and annihilated the enemy's Eighth Corps.
On January 21, the Thirty-seventh Division began to pursue the enemy, and after Baoxiu annihilated a battalion behind the enemy, it rushed through the Babaoshu Pass, waded through the bottom of the small river, and began to climb the three slopes in the dark. The Yuanjiang Mountains are high, steep, densely forested, narrow and difficult to navigate, coupled with the cloudy wind and drizzle that night, the journey is very difficult. It was not until 3 a.m. on the 22nd that the enemy was caught up in the small post. The enemy, because of the days of marching, lacked food and drink, and fell to rest on the side of the road. Here is still ten miles away from Yingpan Mountain, shooting at the past will surely alarm the enemy, bypassing and blocking the ditch, it is even more laborious and time-consuming. Gu Yongwu, commander of the 109th Regiment, instructed Qin Sansu, deputy commander of the Second Battalion of the Vanguard Battalion, to take advantage of the darkness of the night to have the Sixth Company of the Vanguard put on the enemy's clothing, interspersed in the enemy formation, rush forward, occupy the commanding heights of the Camp Pan Mountain before dawn, and cut the enemy troops into two sections. The enemy who was intercepted in the back heard the gunshots on the camp and the mountain, and there was a great chaos, and I was quickly annihilated. The main force of the enemy instructor and the ninth regiment of the third division intercepted in front of them fled to Yuanjiang City in a panic. Two companies of the three battalions of the 109th Regiment pursued them closely and chased them to the east bank of the Red River, capturing more than 2,000 enemy soldiers. At the same time, the second battalion seized the Qixia Mountainside northwest of Yingpan Mountain and moved towards the Chain Bridge. At this time, the chain bridge had been blown up by the 170 division that had escaped the bridge first. The 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 109th Regiment occupied the bridgehead heights and blocked the follow-up troops who tried to build the bridge and escape. At 13:00 on the 22nd, the enemy's Eighth Army headquarters, which had arrived at Yingpanshan and Lutongpu, was blocked by us and fled to the Iron Rope Bridge, and was blocked by our army and gathered in the Ertang and Laterite Slope areas. My 114th regiment arrived in Mengzi at 13:00 on the 21st, and immediately took four small trains to Shiping that night, immediately rushed to the northwest, and entered Ganzhuangba on the evening of the 23rd. At this point, our army has formed an encirclement of the remnants of the Eighth Corps. At dawn on the 24th, under the unified command of commander Zhou of the Thirty-seventh Division, all units launched a general attack on the enemy, and at 14:00, the Eighth Army of the Eighth Corps was completely annihilated, killing more than 1,500 enemy soldiers and capturing more than 6,000 people under Tang Yao, commander of the Eighth Corps, and Cao Tiange, commander of the Eighth Army.
Chase to the end. In order to completely annihilate the remnants of the 70th Division and the Instructor who had escaped one of the Red Rivers and not to let them wander abroad, the former commander of the military ordered Zhou Xueyi to lead one battalion of the 109th Regiment and one battalion of the 110th Regiment; and Deputy Division Commander Wu Xiaomin led four companies of the 114th Regiment to pursue the remnants of the enemy at a long distance. In the course of pursuing and pursuing, all units have carried out the principle of "pursuing to the end and not annihilating more than once." On January 28, the troops set out from Yuanjiang to chase the rear of the 170th Division in Lhasa, Yuanjiang County, annihilating an enemy battalion, and the rest of the enemy fled west. Commander Zhou led a team to chase west, crossed the Ailao Mountain, crossed the Li Xian River, endured hunger and starvation, did not fear hardships, and despite fatigue, pursued and advanced for eight consecutive days and nights, and on February 4, he chased the fleeing enemy on Nanjing Street in Zhenyuan County. The enemy saw that we had few soldiers, and in a vain attempt to fight with trapped beasts, they continuously counterattacked at me, and after being repelled, they fled to The Circle Street and were once again surrounded by me. In order to win the surrender of the enemy, the commander of the Zhou Division ordered the deputy commander of the 109th Regiment Zhou Feng to go to the enemy camp for negotiations, and finally the enemy division commander Sun Jinxian led more than 2,700 people to surrender to our army on February 7. In the course of our army's pursuit, about 800 men of the enemy's 170th Division fled south from the Mojiang River and fled to the Sino-Burmese border via Simao. Wu Xiaomin, deputy division commander, led four companies of the 114th Regiment, south into Puwen via Pu'er and Simaowei enemies, and received the strong assistance of the local Dai leader Zhao Cunxin, who crossed the Lancang River, took the Da Menglong, and Rannan (勐遮), and on February 19, he caught up with the remnants of the enemy and annihilated him completely. The campaign lasted forty-nine days, conquered 3,000 miles, annihilated more than 30,000 enemy troops, crushed the enemy's attempt to flee, and completely liberated Yunnan.
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Excerpt from "Beacon Life" National Publishing House
First edition, October 2004
About author:Zhang Xiuming (1927.9-2011.3), a native of Zezhou, Jincheng, Shanxi, joined the Children's League in 1938, joined the Eighth Route Army in March 1942, and joined the Communist Party of China in October 1946. He successively served as a soldier and squad leader of the 772nd Regiment of the 386th Brigade of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, a transceiver and staff officer of the headquarters of the 28th Regiment of the 4th Column 10th Brigade of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army, and a staff officer and deputy section chief of the Reconnaissance Section of the 13th Army Headquarters of the Erye Army.
After the founding of New China, he served as a cadet and instructor at the Nanjing Military Academy, director of the training department and deputy chief of staff of the 13th Army Headquarters, head of the Campaign and Tactics Teaching and Research Office of the Beijing Military Academy, chief of staff of the 11th Army, principal of the Army School of the Kunming Military Region, deputy chief of staff of the Headquarters of the Kunming Military Region, and first deputy director of the Aftermath Office of the Reorganization and Rehabilitation of The Organs of the Kunming Military Region.