After the end of the three major battles, the people's liberation army launched the Battle of Crossing the River in April 1949, and the 2 and 3 million troops crossed the Yangtze River to start the liberation of all of China. Until the People's Liberation Army liberated Hangzhou, Wuhan, Nanjing, shanghai and other places to end the campaign. After a month and a half, our army completely annihilated 430,000 nationalist troops, and of course paid the price of nearly 60,000 casualties. Among these losses, our army suffered 30,000 casualties in the Shanghai Campaign alone, reaching 50%, and the number of casualties in the battle was the highest number of casualties in a single time since the establishment of the 3 Fields (HuaYe).
So what caused the Hundred Battles Division 3 Ye to lose 30,000 elites here?
The 3 field troops who participated in the Battle of the River Crossing
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > the tough Battle of Shanghai </h1>
After the People's Liberation Army crossed the river, the 8th Corps and 10 corps that crossed the river from the East Road began to push south after consolidating their positions, and the 5 corps of the Tang Enbojing Shanghai Garrison Headquarters were eliminated before they could be deployed, and the rest retreated to Shanghai and the surrounding areas for defense, planning to hold Shanghai to the ground. At this time, the defenders in Shanghai reached 25 divisions and 200,000 men after being reorganized. Tang Enbo also made a posture of stubbornly resisting our army to the end.
Remnants of the Nationalist army retreated to Shanghai
After crossing the river, all of our 3 fields and 4 major regiments were under the full command of Su Yu, the deputy commander of the 3 fields, and in the face of this force in Shanghai, Su Yu also prepared for the last hard battle of the 3 fields. For this purpose in the first offensive against Shanghai, Su Yu prepared the 9th (20th, 27th, 30th and 33rd Armies) and the 10th Corps (26th, 28th, 29th and 33rd Armies) 8 corps of nearly 250,000 people to attack Shanghai from two directions. The 10th Corps is responsible for the north and the 9th Corps is responsible for the south.
3 Wild Crossing the River After Marching to Shanghai and Hangzhou (Stills)
On May 12, the 9th Corps of the Southern Front took the lead in launching an attack on the outskirts of Shanghai, and soon occupied Fengxian, Jinshan, and Songjiang on the outskirts of Shanghai. Subsequently, the 10 corps also occupied places such as Jiading and Liuhe. It can be said that the two corps progressed smoothly when the war on the periphery began in the early stage. However, the further we go to downtown Shanghai, the more difficult it will be for our army to fight.
The "Great Victory of Yuepu" celebrated by the Nationalist Army (stills)
Soon the first conundrum came.
In order to lure the enemy out of the cave, the 10th Corps fought extremely anxiously with the sixth main force of the Nationalist army, the Ace 52nd Army, in the area of Yuepu, which was used as a throat road to the city, and a large number of reinforced concrete light and dark forts were built by the Nationalist army. The main force of the attack, the 28th Army (the famous 10th Column), was quickly attacked by various fire points of the Nationalist army, and the casualties were quite large, and the battalion and company units that our army rushed up, even if they broke through a fire point, it was still difficult to consolidate the position. Even in order to occupy the bunker, the whole regiment attack was launched, but with little success, and even led to the sacrifice of 2 regimental combat heroes of our army. The 28th Army did so, and the 29th Army, which rushed to support, also suffered heavy losses.
Map of the situation of our army's attack on Shanghai
How much did the attacking forces lose at that time?
The main force of the 29th Army, the 260th Team, suffered more than 95% of the casualties, and the entire main force regiment had less than 64 men left during the Battle of Yuepu. During the Battle of Yuepu, our army suffered 8,000 casualties, accounting for 10% of the number of the two armies. However, our army, whichse attack was frustrated, had no choice but to adopt the old method of crushing and double stacking, exchanging time for space in the earthwork industry, and forcing the blasting operation of the bunker with explosives to annihilate the Yuepu defenders. In order to strengthen the attack on Shanghai, Su Yu also transferred all the troops of the 21st and 25th Armies and the special column, and the number of troops of our army attacking Shanghai reached 10 armies and 400,000 people.
Our army is on its way to Shanghai
In the Battle of Yuepu on the outskirts of Shanghai, our army suffered a clear loss in front of the nationalist three-dimensional bunker, while in the battle against the urban area, our army suffered a dark loss.
In the battle to forcibly cross the Suzhou River, because they could not use heavy weapons to attack the city, the soldiers could only rely on their own light weapons to deal with the enemy's fortifications and bunkers in the street battles in the urban area, and compete with the enemy street by street and house. For this reason, many of the fighting heroes of our army who came out of Menglianggu and Huaihai fell on the eve of the liberation of the city. The battle in downtown Shanghai ended with the remnants of the 52nd and 54th armies led by Tang Enbo retreating, and the defenders of downtown Shanghai, led by Liu Changyi, deputy commander of the garrison district, declared an uprising.
Our army enforcing discipline after entering Shanghai (stills)
Throughout the Shanghai Campaign, our army destroyed 153,000 enemy troops, captured 1,370 guns of various kinds, 119 tanks and armored vehicles, and 1,161 cars. But our army also paid the price of more than 30,000 casualties. This victory can be described as a "crushing victory".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="28" >Why is the Battle of Shanghai so hard to fight? </h1>
So why did our army still pay such a heavy casualty price in the face of absolute strength and equipment? In this Yutian Jun it is classified as 3 reasons:
First, do you want the people's soldiers or do you want the enemy's building?
In the movie "The Great War of Ninghu-Hangzhou", our Central Military Commission stated the importance of Shanghai, with a population of 4 million, Shanghai was the most prosperous and largest city in the Far East at that time, and our army's every move in Shanghai would receive the attention of the entire international community, and once it was not handled well, it would be expanded by people with ulterior motives, so Chen Shuai, commander of the 3 fields at that time, said at the mobilization meeting of the Shanghai campaign that the battle was "to catch rats in the porcelain shop, and our army must annihilate the enemy in the encirclement, but also cannot rush to beat it up." In order to give play to the special role of this international metropolis for the construction of new China. To this end, Chen Shuai also wrote to the chairman a detailed article on the operation and management of our army's Shanghai campaign of nearly one million, and 3 Ye also received the chairman's affirmation for Shanghai's "protection operation", and replied concisely and concisely, "Very good, very good, very good, very good."
Chen Shuai who disciplined our army (stills)
Of course, the core of the "Protection of Shanghai Operation" of the three fields is to protect Shanghai to the greatest extent, which will inevitably be constrained in the operation, and large-scale heavy artillery cannot be used, and destructive combat methods such as explosive blasting are prohibited from being used in urban areas. Therefore, as the main attack, our army's firepower is not as good as that of the remnants of the nationalist army in many cases, and the casualties are naturally high.
Second, it is caused by the direction of our army's general offensive operations in Shanghai.
This reason is actually the first reason in the direction of the operation, the Nationalist army in Shanghai is almost all the main force of the Huangpu department south of the Yangtze River, and Sanye's operational concept is to not only save Shanghai, but also to leave the last 200,000 nationalist troops in Shanghai. Under this combat guidance, Sanno has 3 ways of fighting:
First, according to the successful experience of the Changchun Campaign, we will not fight in a siege, but this is not conducive to our army taking over Shanghai, and at the same time it will cause unnecessary difficulties to the people of Shanghai.
The second is to learn from the breakthrough of the central committee of our army in Tianjin and directly hit the urban area, but on the one hand, it will destroy the urban area and cause innocent casualties among the citizens of Shanghai, on the other hand, Tang Enbo may run away in advance, not only failing to make dumplings but will lead to the new China being passive in the world.
3 Methods of Our Army's Attack on Shanghai (Stills)
Finally, it was the "next strategy", attacking the Nationalist army from the periphery, encircling Tang Enbo's rear road Wusongkou from both wings, first attacking the periphery, then attacking the urban area, smashing and smashing, and annihilating the enemy's dumplings in the Shanghai area. In the tactics will be to transfer the enemy's main force from the city to the outside line of the decisive battle, but doing so is bound to pretend to be anxious on the battlefield in order to "fish", which will increase unnecessary casualties.
Third, our army was not well prepared for Shanghai at that time.
This is indeed a mistake that our army often committed in the later stages of facing the nationalist army, and this battle was most obvious in the Battle of Yuepu, and the lack of experience in attacking our army was just the enemy's underbelly. During the battle of the 4 Wilds going south, Zhong Wei's troops also suffered heavy losses due to the deep penetration of the lone army in Qingshuping, not to mention the Golden Gate that Ye Fei did not want to mention.
Entering our army in downtown Shanghai (stills)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="46" > Yutianjun said </h1>
From a military point of view alone, our army's operation in Shanghai can hardly be called perfect, and it can even be said to be a crushing victory. But in fact, the blood shed by the people of Shanghai by our people's sons and soldiers in the battle touched Shanghai, which is known as the most stubborn rule of the Nationalist army, with their actions. In order to protect the buildings and people of Shanghai, the soldiers of our army can only rely on small arms to fight the enemy, and after entering the city, the soldiers choose to sleep on the street in order to ensure that they do not disturb the people.
The Battle of Shanghai is still known as the "Miracle War" to this day. In the course of the campaign, the image of the mighty and benevolent division of our army also began to be famous in the world, worthy of the image of the people's children and soldiers.
Source: A Brief History of Historical Figures