History of the Liberation of Chongqing (Middle)
Hu Plain
According to the deployment of the Central Military Commission
Liu Deng's army formulated a specific battle plan
The Kuomintang troops, who were eager to move, were completely unexpected by the Central Military Commission, and the southwest defensive line of the Kuomintang troops took Sichuan as the defensive focus, and the defense of Qinling to prevent the Platon Army from entering Sichuan was the focus of its focus. In order to confuse the enemy army and ensure the implementation of the plan of a great detour and a great encirclement against the enemy army, in accordance with the deployment of the Central Military Commission's large encirclement, Erye also formulated three specific plans for encircling and annihilating the enemy:
The first plan is to use the Fifth Corps of the People's Liberation Army and the Tenth Army of the Third Corps to directly penetrate Guizhou and southern Sichuan, cut off the enemy's retreat to Yunnan, and at the same time coordinate with the three corps to fight; With the main force of the three corps and the first part of the four fields, it directly penetrated into the southeast of Sichuan and pinned down the enemy forces in the eastern Sichuan region, and then together with the 5th corps, surrounded the enemy troops in the eastern Sichuan and Chongqing areas.
In the second plan, after the Third and Fifth Corps of the People's Liberation Army completed the above tasks, they immediately rushed to the Chengdu area, formed a pocket formation from the east, south, and west, and gathered the Hu Zongnan group on the Chengdu Plain under the aggregation of the Eighteenth Corps in North China.
The third plan, after the liberation of Sichuan, in addition to leaving a part of the troops to maintain local order and eliminate the remnants of the bandits, the rest of the troops cooperated with the four corps from the direction of southern China to attack southern Yunnan and annihilate the enemy troops in Xikang and Yunnan.
After these three plans were determined, the Erye and the first unit set out from Nanjing in mid-August and late August, and when Chiang Kai-shek was about to break the dream of Yangcheng, Liu Deng's army calmly opened the curtain of the southwest campaign.
On October 5, 1949, the Erye Command Led the Three Corps to March by Train from Nanjing and Xuzhou to Xiangxi. While passing through Zhengzhou, Commander Liu Bocheng delivered a speech at a grand welcome meeting for the people of Zhengzhou, saying that after moving west, he would enter Sichuan from the north and liberate the southwest. Xinhua News Agency released the news and content of Liu Bocheng's public speech in Zhengzhou to the newspapers in the Liberated Areas. Subsequently, the main force of Erye changed its flag and secretly went south under the name of the Four Fields Army, and assembled in western Hunan through Changsha. In order to cover the south of Erye from Zhengzhou, Siye and yi marched into Zhongnan with great fanfare and vigor. He Long, Li Jingquan, and Zhou Shidi led the Eighteenth Corps, Liu Jinxuan of the Southern Shaanxi Military Region, and the 7th Army began to assemble at Qinling. These illusions created the illusion of the enemy. In addition, when Erye passed through central China, it was the battle of Hengbao and the Battle of Guangdong between The Four Wilds and the Four Corps of the Two Wilds, which also effectively covered up the whereabouts of the main forces of the Two Wilds.
When Nino entered the river, he was warmly welcomed by the people
After the main force of Erye arrived in Zhengzhou, it suddenly stopped and did not know where to go, and Chiang Kai-shek, Hu Zongnan, and others were panicked. On October 14, Acting President Li Zongren flew to Chongqing, and on the 27th, the 11th meeting of the Kuomintang Extraordinary Committee was personally held, attended by Ju Zheng, Yan Xishan, Wu Zhongxin, Zhang Qun, Zhu Jiahua, and Chen Lifu. The meeting focused on the current military and political situation. On the question of Erye's whereabouts, the meeting held: "Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping either stepped up pre-war training and material preparations in Zhengzhou, or they had quietly moved in the direction of northern Sichuan, and then suddenly appeared at the forefront of our position, and there was no other way." We must further strengthen the defense of northern Sichuan and keep the enemy out of the northern Sichuan defense line. At the end of October, after the Erye Third and Fifth Corps assembled in western Hunan Province, the enemy army was still in a dream, and according to Deng Xiaoping, he called: "God is unaware of ghosts, let alone Chiang Kai-shek?" In order to prepare the main force to march to Guangxi and cooperate with the Erye Campaign, Siye decided to use the main force of the Forty-seventh Army and the troops of the Fifty Army and the Hubei Military Region to attack in a pincer-shaped combination from the western Hunan and western Hubei regions to annihilate the Song Xilian group in the Pengshui and Qianjiang areas. Based on this situation, Erye decided to use the main force of the Three Corps, together with the Siye forces, to detour from the Xiang'e border area to Sichuan, encircle and annihilate the Song Xilian clique, and then go west out of Jiangjin and Luzhou to fight in coordination with the Fifth Corps. Its deployment was to take the main force of the Three Corps and the Forty-seventh Army of Siye as the left group, under the leadership of Chen Xilian and Xie Fuzhi, to directly insert into the Pengshui and Qianjiang areas, to detour the right side of the enemy army, and to coordinate with the right group composed of the Fiftieth Army, the Forty-second Army, and the Hubei Military Region troops in Siye, and would annihilate the Song Xilian group in the area east of Pengshui. The Fifth Corps and the Tenth Corps of the Third Corps, under the leadership of Yang Yong and Su Zhenhua, still made a big detour to penetrate Guizhou, capture Guiyang and Zunyi, attack Yibin, Naxi, and Luzhou, and cut off the enemy's retreat to Yunnan.
The People's Liberation Army imposed a great siege on Chongqing
On November 1, 1949, while fighting against Guangxi, the People's Liberation Army launched a campaign to march into Chuanqian. The operation was divided into two fronts: the Second and Fourth Field Armies of the Southern Front first launched a powerful offensive against Chuanqian on the Qianli front, starting from the Yangtze River in the north and reaching the Border Of Hunan, Guizhou, and Qian in the south. The 18th Corps of the Northern Front and other soldiers were divided into four routes: 1 route was qinling to pass and go south along the Sichuan-Shaanxi Highway; 2 routes Kang County, Liuyang clamp hit Guangyuan; 3 Routes Zhangxian and Minxian inclined to Wudu; Route 4 travels south along the Hanzhong Ancient Road.
The Fifth Corps and the Tenth Corps of the Third Corps, which were tasked with a major detour, were dispatched from the Shaoyang and Taoyuan regions of western Hunan province respectively, and with a sudden action, they advanced into guizhou territory 10 days ago, liberated the Zhenyuan and Sansui areas, and directly inserted themselves into Guiyang and Zunyi. At the same time, the main forces of the Three Corps and the Four Wild Forces broke through the two wings of the Song Xilian defense line and liberated the cities of Xiushan, Youyang, and Enshi. The People's Liberation Army attacked in multiple ways from Padang in the north to Tianzhu in the south and about 1,000 miles wide, completely unexpected by the enemy, thus disrupting the enemy's position and crushing the enemy's entire strategic deployment in the southwest. On November 2, when the enemy found that the main direction of the People's Liberation Army's advance into the southwest was not northern Sichuan, but southeastern Sichuan, it was too late to adjust the overall deployment and transfer heavy troops to southeast Sichuan and Chongqing, so two emergency measures were taken.
First, Yang Sen, former mayor of Chongqing, was the commander-in-chief of the Chongqing Garrison, Liu Yuqing and Yang Hancheng were deputy commanders-in-chief, and Fan Shengsheng was the chief of staff. Chongqing And its nearby Ba County, Jiangbei, Fuling, Changshou, Nanchuan, Wulong, Fengdu, Hechuan, Bishan, Tongliang, Yongchuan, Jiangjin, Rongchang, Wusheng, Guang'an, Qijiang, Dazu, Beibei 19 counties and districts as garrison districts, each county and district set up a standing division, under the command of Yang Sen. At that time, the basic units of the garrison area were the Second Police Corps, nine corps led by Captain Peng Bin, the Twenty-fourth Regiment of the Gendarmerie, Luo Juntong's 361st Division, and the 133rd, 134th, and 79th Divisions of the 20th Army. The Seventy-ninth Division, the most elite of the Twenty-First Army, was ordered to defend Fuling and strengthen chongqing's defenses from the periphery. The 133rd Division was in the left-wing area, the 361st Division was in the central region, and Peng Bin's Inner Second Police Corps was in the right-wing area, on the south bank of Chongqing, from Daxingchang to Jiulongpo on the first line via Huangjueya to Jiulongpo to occupy defensive positions and build fortifications to prevent the People's Liberation Army from crossing the Yangtze River. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek personally ordered the urgent dispatch of cars to transport the First Army of Hu Zongnan's ace troops defending the northern Sichuan region to Chongqing, and decided to have a general battle in Chongqing. At the same time, five armies of the "Anti-Communist And Nationalist Army" were established. Liao Ze, Zhou Hanxi, Huang Qingyun, etc. were appointed as military commanders; Three general commanders were also set up above the military level, with Yu Mengqun as the first road commander-in-chief, in charge of the first and second armies; With Xia Jiong as the commander-in-chief of the Second Road, he had jurisdiction over the Third and Fourth Armies; With Xu Yingqing as the commander-in-chief of the Third Road, he had jurisdiction over the Fifth Army, and organized the standing divisions of each county into various "anti-communist and civilian defense army" structures. Through this measure, the overall protection of Chongqing will be strengthened.
Second, the first-line troops retreated to the second line, concentrating their forces on defending the Qiandong troops' line of withdrawing Bijie, Zhijin, and Zhenfeng; The Luo Guang Corps, which had already moved to northern Sichuan, immediately turned back and reinforced southeast Sichuan from the Dazhu area; The Song Xilian clique withdrew west from the Pengshui and Qianjiang areas, combined with the Luo Guangwen Corps, and relied on the Wujiang River to prevent the Plaster from advancing.
In order to break the planned retreat and organized resistance plan of the Song Xilian clique, the Erye leading organ ordered all the troops to overcome all difficulties and accelerate their advance according to the original plan. On the vast southeastern border of Sichuan, a race for speed and time began. The areas through which the PLA units pass are all continuously lofty mountains and mountains, with inconvenient transportation, sparsely populated, rainy and muddy roads for days. Coupled with the fact that the enemy army wantonly destroyed bridges and roads during the retreat, and burned and looted everywhere, the PLA encountered great difficulties in its operations and supply, and the physical strength of the troops was greatly depleted. However, under the slogan of "racing against the enemy for speed and time," all the commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army traveled day and night, and the troops launched a race between units to pursue speed and annihilate the enemy. At the same time, because the PLA conscientiously implemented the party's policy on new districts and united the broad masses of the people, the local people actively raised grain and grass for the PLA, delivered grain and vegetables, vacated houses, repaired roads, maintained traffic, and led the way to pursue the enemy. The support of the masses not only solved all kinds of difficulties in the PLA march, but also greatly boosted the morale of the PLA. On November 15, the Fifth Corps and the 10th Army of the 3rd Corps liberated Guiyang, Sinan and other places. However, the Kuomintang army, which was scattered and had no morale, acted like ants, like dogs that lost their families, and could not form an army.
After the southwest defensive line was breached, Chiang Kai-shek was like an ant on a hot pot - anxious. On November 14, Chiang Kai-shek left the defense deployment of Kinmen Island behind, and 100,000 people flew to Chongqing in a hurry, summoning Gu Zhutong, Zhang Qun, Qian Dajun, Yang Sen, Wang Lingji, and others to hold an emergency meeting in the forest garden. The Meeting decided:
1. Urgently order the Chen Chunlin Department of the Forty-fourth Army, the Guizhou Appeasement Office, and the Guizhou Security First Brigade to deploy defenses along the Wujiang River, in coordination with Song Xilian's troops, and rely on the natural dangers of the Wujiang River to stop the advance of the People's Liberation Army.
2. The Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Southwest Military administration separately ordered: (1) Commander Chen Chunlin assigned special personnel to organize forces to quickly and completely destroy the Wujiang Bridge in order to prevent the People's Liberation Army from crossing the Wujiang River to the north; (2) Lei Ming, commander of the 11st O Division, assigned special personnel to organize forces to quickly destroy the road from Dabashan to southern Shaanxi; (3) ordered Sun Zhen, director of appeasement in the Sichuan-Shaanxi-Hubei Border Region, to appoint special personnel to organize forces to completely destroy the road from Dabashan to Shaanxi and Hubei, and to generally set up obstacles to prevent the People's Liberation Army from advancing.
3. Order the Fourth Replenishment Zone to quickly prepare a large quantity of high explosives and other explosive equipment for backup.
(4) The Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Southwest Military and Political Forces shall separately dispatch high-ranking staff or subordinates to deliver the above orders and the required explosives and other explosive equipment by car to the recipients of the orders of each unit for implementation.
5. Ordered Chen Chunlin to send forward troops on the north bank of the Wu River to Guiyang after destroying the bridge to prevent the People's Liberation Army from crossing the river. After this order was issued, Chen Chunlin immediately destroyed the Wujiang Bridge.
6. Divide Sichuan into four operational zones. Hu Zongnan was responsible for the northern district of Chuanbei, Sun Zhen was responsible for the eastern district of Chuandong, Yang Sen was responsible for the central district of Chuanzhong, and Wang Lingji was responsible for the western district of Chuanxi.
Even after making these arrangements, Chiang Kai-shek remained unsettled and restless. The situation on Song Xilian's side deteriorated sharply, and the so-called six armies were almost completely destroyed. In mid-October, the 12nd and 2nd Armies were annihilated in Dayong. In early November, the Seventy-ninth Army, the 124th Army, the 118th Army, and the 1st Army were annihilated at Xuan'en and Xianfeng. Zhong Bin, commander of the Fourteenth Corps, was captured. The troops retreated one after another to Sichuan, and the Qianjiang, Pengshui, and Wulong areas were like ants, and the order was chaotic, and the towns of Pengshui, Wulong, and Jiangkou were set on fire by the defeated troops.
Faced with such a situation, Chiang Kai-shek was terrified and angry, and he was eager to shoot Song Xilian in front of the position in order to boost morale. However, Chiang Kai-shek also believed that the shooting of Song Xilian would not help, but would lose a henchman who served his life, so Chiang Ching-kuo took his handwritten letter to the town of Jiangkou in Wulong to appease Song Xilian. Chiang Kai-shek said in his letter: "The Communist Party rejects peace and demands our complete surrender, which will plunge the Party-state into a place of no return, and there will be no place for my generation to die." In order to save the party and save the country, I cannot but rise up and fight with everyone to fight the Communist Party for life and death. We must hold the determination of 'there are bandits without me, and there are no bandits with me', consolidate the eastern Sichuan front, and give the communist army a head-on blow. ”
Chiang Kai-shek, who was restless and restless
The People's Liberation Army captured Kuomintang officers and soldiers
Song Xilian stated to Chiang Ching-kuo four important reasons for the defeat in eastern Sichuan:
1. The main force of the communist army appeared in Chuandong, which we did not expect, and gave us a surprise. In terms of overall strength, the communist army is far superior to ours, especially the officers and men of the communist army are strong in will to fight, are not afraid of difficulties, are heroic in combat, make rapid progress, and are tactically flexible, and often copy the flanks and backs of our army from some rugged trails, so that many units are always cut off, broken, and finally wiped out.
2. Most of the six armies under my command, except for the Second Army, which is more effective, are in dilapidated, and some are newly formed and have weak combat effectiveness; in particular, since the main forces of the Nationalist Army were annihilated in the northeast, Pingjin, and Libang areas, many officers and men had no confidence in the communist army fighting at all.
3. In the mountains of western Hubei, where grain is limited and requisitioned on the spot, when it reaches the situation of being poor in Luo, it mainly relies on chongqing to provide, but due to the long distance and insufficient transportation capacity, it often makes the officers and men at the front line hungry.
4. The mountains and mountains in the east of Hubei River are often rainy, and now it is quite cold, and it is sad at night. However, only half of the cotton uniforms received by the troops have reached. Lack of food and warm clothing, of course, seriously affect morale.
Despite Chiang Ching-kuo's desperate efforts to cheer him up, Song Xilian was discouraged and completely lost confidence, saying: "I only have one word, and I will do my best to obey the destiny of heaven!"
After the southeast barrier broke through, Chongqing was in a panic. In order to maintain order in the city, on November 16, the commander of the garrison, Janssen, issued the "Measures for the Emergency Maintenance of Law and Order", that is, sixteen killing orders: "1. Obstruct the government order and collude with bandits, kill; 2. Harboring bandits and spies, concealing those who do not report, killing; 3. Those who supply bandits with guns, telecommunications equipment, and secret documents, and kill; 4. Those who spread rumors to confuse the public, disturb the order, and kill; 5. Disrupt finance, destroy coin believers, kill; 6. Manipulating prices, influencing people's livelihood, killing; 7. Whoever sets fire to the premises of materials and military supplies shall be killed; 8. Robbery of financials, killing; 9. Gather a crowd of instigators and kill; 10. Kill those who use written books and speeches as bandit propagandists; ...... 16. Those who conspire to destroy military communication bridges, airports, docks, ordnance, ammunition, grain, quartermaster depots, as well as vehicles, aircraft, ships, and communications equipment, shall be killed. ”
On November 17, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) marched into Chongqing from southeastern Sichuan and northern Qianbei, encircling the stubborn remnants of the Kuomintang enemy in Chongqing layer by layer, and the officers and men of the enemy army became birds of fright.
Liu Deng's army entered Chongqing
(To be continued)
(Reference: Chongqing Literature and History Materials, Vol. 32)
About the Author
Hu Pingyuan, pen name: Huang Huiqing, Hu Xin, born on October 11, 1957, university degree, major in Chinese language and literature, senior language teacher, before retirement, was a teacher of Hongqi Primary School in High-tech Zone, Zigong City, Sichuan Province. Since 1978, he has published more than 1,000 works in newspapers and periodicals such as Yanhuang Chunqiu, People's Political Consultative Conference Daily, Chinese Literature, Chinese Soul, Zongheng, Writers' Digest, Southwest Writers, Wenshi, Sichuan CPPCC Literature and History, Military Shilin, Wenshi Spring and Autumn, Archival Memory, Jianghuai Literature and History, and Collecting Circles. He is currently a member of the China Internet Poetry Association, a member of the Zigong Writers Association, a member of the Chongqing Banan District Writers Association, a special researcher of literature and history of the Chongqing Banan District CPPCC committee and the Democratic League, a member of the Chongqing Documentary Literature Society, a special researcher of the Chongqing Municipal People's Government Literature and History Research Museum, a member of the Chongqing Communist Party History Society, and an editor of "Oral History of Banan Party History" in the Party History Research Office of the Banan District Committee of the Communist Party of China.