Battle of Laiwu: How did Su Yu defeat Wang Yaowu and capture Li Xianzhou alive with less victory and more?

The Battle of Laiwu was, to be precise, a contest between Su Yu and Wang Yaowu. Although it is said that this battle was coordinated by Chen Cheng, the location of the war has always been in the northern front of Laiwu, Xintai, and Tusikou towns. That is to say, Chen Cheng has not yet figured out where Su Yu's main force is? Wang Yaowu's subordinate Li Xianzhou had already dueled with Su Yu.

Let us not underestimate this battle, and still less should we forget what Chiang Kai-shek once said: Whether the party-state can survive or not depends entirely on the Battle of Lunan.

It can be seen that its importance.

So, what is the situation with regard to the strength of the two sides in this campaign?

At that time, chen Yi and the East China Field Army led by Su Yu could deploy 9 columns, about 270,000 soldiers. At this moment, they were all stationed at the important military base of Linyi.

Chiang Kai-shek and Chen Cheng, who attached great importance to this campaign, invested a total of 330,000 troops. And they are very confident in this victory. Before the war broke out, Chen Cheng even put down his bold words, and these people he sent, even if they were "tofu scum", could support their opponents to death.

You see, is Chen Cheng crazy?

It can only be said that Chen Cheng does not understand himself too well, and he does not understand his opponent too much. Fighting a war does not mean that you can win with more people, and the duel between the masters is a competition based on intelligence and comprehensive aspects.

Everyone can see that in terms of the number of people, one is 270,000, the other is 330,000, and the East China Field Army is obviously less than Chiang Kai-shek's army. At that time, Su Yu's army was in Linyi, and the Kuomintang was sent from both the north and the south on January 31, 1947.

The purpose of their coming this time was to attack the East China Field Army back and forth.

To the south was the Ou Zhen Group, who led 8 reorganized divisions, marching from south to north in three ways: left, center and right, towards Linyi.

To the north were 9 divisions led by Li Xianzhou from Luzhong.

At the beginning, Su Yu's plan was to first attack the Ou Zhen Group from the south, didn't he march into Linyi in three ways: left, center, and right? What Su Yu wanted was for us to concentrate our superior forces and first attack one of them on the left, center, and right sides. The three-way army took different paths, and they could not reach Linyi together.

That is, to take the way of each breakthrough.

Originally, the East China Field Army was ready for battle, and they were waiting for the enemy to enter the circle. However, in the end, Su Yu found the left, center, and right route army that Ou Zhen had come to, and they did not take the enemy lightly, but steadily advanced forward in parallel. That is to say, he does not give you the opportunity to fight one of the road troops, and if you want to fight, you must go together.

This should also be a summary of their experience of many losses, right?

One thing is certain that this coordinated approach is that they're not going to be too fast. Under such circumstances, Su Yu had to readjust his strategic deployment.

Coupled with the Li Xianzhou Group in the north, their march speed is fast, and there is still a situation of lone troops going deep. If no more measures were taken, Li Xianzhou would threaten the rear area of the East China Field Army.

On February 4, Li Xianzhou's three armies had already reached Laiwu, Xintai and other places.

How should Su Yu's side deal with it?

As we said earlier, the enemy means that they want to lock the location of the war in the city of Linyi. The reason why they made this judgment was to conclude that the East China Field Army led by Su Yu would not abandon this city.

At that time, Linyi was the base area of the New Fourth Army, and the economic and political center of our army north of the Yangtze River and south of the Yellow River, which was second only to Yan'an in its importance.

In their opinion, Su Yu would not let go of this place.

In fact, chairman Mao had been paying close attention to the East China battlefield from the beginning, and he also gave Chen Yi and Su Yu that he could abandon Linyi if necessary.

With this sentence, Su Yu has many choices, and he can choose to fight with his opponent in Linyi. However, if you can't find the right opportunity, or if you don't have the certainty of victory, then move to another location.

In short, look for opportunities to win in one sentence.

Isn't this the fast march of Li Xianzhou in the north? Then secretly march to Laiwu and Xintai to attack them, and you will catch them by surprise.

Be sure to pay attention to this sentence of secret marching.

The decision made by Su Yu was that on the surface, the enemy saw that he wanted to fight the enemy in Linyi and come according to their wishes. However, in fact, Su Yu only left a column to confuse the other side in Linyi. The 14689 column, all of which began to march at dusk and began to rest after the sun came out, secretly approached the Li Xianzhou group.

Su Yu gave this order on February 10.

Before they advanced to Laiwu, by February 6, the 2nd Column had annihilated one of Hao Pengju's armies, about 6,000 men. Hao Pengju was once a subordinate of Feng Yuxiang and was good at engaging in political speculation. To put it bluntly, it is capricious, today to this, tomorrow to that, the combat effectiveness is not at all.

Such a person believes that no one will regard him as an opponent, so we will not talk about him more. At that time, the enemies of the East China Field Army were still the Li Xianzhou Group and the Ou Zhen Group.

On February 10, the large army led by Su Yu marched towards the Laiwu area, and on February 15, the Ou Zhen group occupied Linyi, in fact, they fought with a column left by Su Yu.

This column first resisted for a while, confusing the coming Ou Zhen army, and then abandoning Linyi City.

The enemy forces occupying Linyi City thought they had defeated the large force of the East China Field Army.

The news of the victory in the occupation of Linyi was soon sent out, and after arriving in Nanjing, Chen Cheng thought that victory in the East China Battlefield was in sight. He concluded that Chen Yi, the remnants of the army led by Su Yu, might be mixed with Liu Deng's army. His order was to continue to clear the remnants of the East China Field Army.

However, Wang Yaowu, who was in Jinan at the moment, was also secretly observing the actions on the Linyi battlefield, and he concluded that the East China Field Army could not be defeated so quickly, and they should have moved to a new territory. The so-called victory at the Battle of Linyi over Ou Zhen is not credible.

With this conclusion, Wang Yaowu ordered Li Xianzhou's three armies to move back and not to risk advancing. In fact, it was not until February 19 that Wang Yaowu really saw Su Yu's intentions. But by this time it was too late, and their army was already trapped in a narrow strip.

On February 20th, the Battle of Laiwu began!

What is even more interesting is that the 2 armies besieged in Laiwu City led by Li Xianzhou belong to this situation: the 73rd Army belongs to Chiang Kai-shek's concubine troops, and there are more relatives in this army, many of them are at the level of imperial relatives and state relatives, and Li Xianzhou is not too good at mobilizing them. The situation of the 46th Army is more complicated, this is a unit composed of the Gui army, and their commander is more meaningful than Han Liancheng.

Han Liancheng is a secret party member of our army!

Originally, Wang Yaowu's intention was to let Li Xianzhou lead the 73rd Army and the 46th Army to break out of Laiwu and eventually reach the town of Tusikou, which was guarded by Huo Shouyi's 12th Army more than a dozen kilometers away.

To put it bluntly, it is possible to have their three armies converge in one place, and three armies converge to defend a city.

That is to say, as long as the two armies led by Li Xianzhou reached the town of Tusikou, they would be safe.

However, the current situation is that the town of Tusikou is also surrounded by the East China Field Army, even if it is only a dozen kilometers of road, even if they have the cover of the air force, it is still very difficult to rush out of Laiwu City.

Let's put it this way, if Li Xianzhou stayed in Laiwu City for one more day, the probability of them being defeated would be several times greater. By the time Li Xianzhou led the 46th Army and the 73rd Army to retreat, Han Liancheng, the commander of the 46th Army, was gone (deliberately hiding), and the transfer work was even more difficult.

Just as the two armies were marching towards the town of Tusikou, they were severely attacked by the East China Field Army led by Su Yu. To put it bluntly, Su Yu had already laid down a pocket town here, waiting for their arrival.

During the retreat, Li Xianzhou was too flustered and injured in his leg, and was eventually captured by the East China Field Army. The rest of the 46th Army and the 73rd Army, totaling more than 50,000 people, were completely annihilated.

The news of the defeat reached Wang Yaowu, who said that even if 50,000 pigs were placed on the battlefield, they would be arrested for three days. More than 50,000 of you were wiped out in less than 3 days.

This was a contest between Su Yu and Wang Yaowu!

So, why didn't the Southern Ouzhen Group come to save Li Xianzhou? It can only be said that the war began too quickly and ended too quickly, they simply did not have time to act, just figured out what was going on, and the East China Field Army had already won the victory.