(Editor/Cole Proofreader/Geng Ying)
As early as October 1948, Comrade Xu Xiangqian commanded the First Corps of North China to surround Taiyuan. By the end of November, they had captured many peripheral points. In order to prepare for the Pingjin Campaign, the central authorities decided to "encircle and not fight" Taiyuan.
On February 19, our two corps set out from Beiping on orders and assembled in Shijiazhuang. The Corps Headquarters organized a temporary command, led by Comrade Pan Zili.
Yang Dezhi, Luo Ruiqing, and I took three jeeps and drove in the direction of Tianjin. We want to go to the Tianjin section of the Pingjin battlefield to have a look and master some new siege experience. Because Taiyuan is different from Shijiazhuang, Shijiazhuang is a "city under the city", while Taiyuan is a "city on the city".
Soon after getting on the road from Tianjin, the rear wheel of my car could not be driven, and it could not be repaired at that time, because there was a problem with the gearbox, and the driver did not dare to drive. There was no way, so I had to drive myself, use the afterburner to drive the front wheel, and later reach Shijiazhuang.
In March, we drove from Shijiazhuang to Taiyuan, passing through Jingxing, Yangquan, Shouyang and Yuci, and arrived near Taiyuan. On this road, the Nineteenth Corps of our army is really mighty, and the red flag is fluttering. The newly formed artillery regiment of the corps also added military prestige to us.
As soon as we arrived at the Taiyuan front, we went to see Comrade Xu Xiangqian. Seeing us, Mr. Xu said humorously: "Welcome to the Nineteenth Corps!" Let's beat up my fellow countryman. Originally, Xu Lao was always from Wutai County, Shanxi, and Yan Xishan was also from Wutai County, so he was called a "fellow countryman."
Comrade Xu Xiangqian asked us, "Do you have an artillery regiment?" "We reported to him about our artillery regiment. He said happily, "Your family is not thin." To attack a city like Taiyuan, it is not enough to rely on explosives packages, but it is necessary to have cannons and tanks.
I said, "In the past, some tanks were captured, no one would fiddle with them, and some of them were blown up. Mr. Xu said: "You, you are still old tempered, like to study machinery." In the future, with tanks, you drive me to sit. ”
At the beginning of April, the "three brothers" of the 18th, 19th and 20th Corps of our North China Field Army gathered around Taiyuan, plus the Seventh Army of the First Field Army, the 1st Artillery Division of the Fourth Field Army, and the troops of the Jinzhong Military Region, totaling 2560,000 people.
From April 5 to 7, the General Front Committee held an enlarged meeting to deploy a general attack on Taiyuan. While nervously making preparations for the war, a message suddenly came that Yan Xishan had flown to Nanjing by plane.
Li Zongren, the acting president of the Kuomintang in Nanjing, was forced by the situation to express his willingness to peacefully resolve the Taiyuan issue according to the "Beiping method." However, Yan Xishan remotely controlled Taiyuan in Nanjing, directing his subordinates to play the exemption card on the one hand, and shouting in the city on the other hand, "Stick to the ground."
Peace talks on the Taiyuan issue broke down. On April 17, the Central Military Commission and Comrade Mao Zedong sent a telegram to the General Front Committee of the Taiyuan Front and agreed to the reported battle plan. The telegram specifically pointed out: "You feel that when to launch a war on Taiyuan is a favorable time, that is, to start to fight Taiyuan, without any constraints." ”
Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi, bordering the Fenhe River, with undulating mountains in the east and north, and the terrain is dangerous. There were dozens of heavy industrial factories in the city, such as arsenals, machinery factories and steel factories, which Yan Xishan relied on to make guns and cannons as a capital for him to suppress the people and maintain his throne as emperor.
Long before the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Taiyuan had permanent fortifications. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Yan Xishan recruited more than 3,000 Japanese prisoners of war as "military advisers", added thousands of bunkers, and further repaired and strengthened the fortifications of the city, making Taiyuan a fortified city.
Chiang Kai-shek airlifted more than 11,000 men from Xi'an to reinforce Taiyuan, and Yan Xishan had thirteen infantry divisions, three headquarters units, five special forces divisions, and garrison troops, a pistol battalion of three hundred men, and a tank battalion of nine light tanks. The total strength of the army is about 100,000 people.
On April 20, the sweeping battle outside Taiyuan began. Yan Xishan divided the outskirts of Taiyuan into five defensive zones, and deployed about 80 percent of his total troops in the outer defensive areas. The siege units of our army launched separate attacks.
Under the cover of more than a hundred artillery pieces, our army's siege troops opened a gap in the enemy's western defensive area, cleared the stronghold, and killed Zhao Gong, commander-in-chief of the enemy's western defensive area and commander of the Sixty-first Army. The defending Headquarters of the Sixty-first Army, the Sixty-ninth Division, the Seventy-second Division, the Engineer Division, and the "Jianzhen Division" were all annihilated.
To the south, the dying enemy gasfired poison gas, but could not escape the fate of annihilation. After fierce fighting, the enemy's Sixty-sixth Division was completely destroyed, and the Seventy-third Division suffered heavy losses. After clearing the enemy's outlying strongholds to the south, our army surrounded the Twin Pagoda Temple in the southeast corner.
The "fortress" of the Twin Pagoda Temple is the location of the general headquarters of the enemy's southeast defense area, which is a barrier southeast of Taiyuan. The enemy built three layers of fortifications and dozens of pillboxes on the position, surrounded by natural ditches and artificial trenches, which were easy to defend and difficult to attack.
On the morning of the 22nd, our army launched a general attack on the defenders of the Twin Pagoda Temple. The honorable cannons of our artillery regiment aimed at the enemy. I ordered the artillery to fight hard! However, only the fortifications and pillboxes around the tower were allowed to be destroyed, and the enemy's communication equipment, communication trenches, and fire points were all destroyed, but it was not allowed to hit the two towers.
So many artillery shells hit so accurately that they destroyed the enemy's ground fortifications and high forts, and not a single shell fell inside the Twin Pagoda Temple. In this way, this Ming Dynasty ancient temple with many inscriptions, the Twin Pagoda Temple, was preserved intact in the dense artillery fire.
Then, after the attacking forces took advantage of the momentum and broke through the outer trenches, the demolition commandos destroyed the enemy bunker group with continuous blasts. After our army occupied the position in the southwest of the tower, it then carried out a roundabout encirclement, interspersed with divisions, directly pounded the enemy's core fortifications, and completely annihilated the enemy.
After clearing the perimeter, our army stepped up its earthworks and dug zigzag trenches until it was only sixty or seventy meters away from the city wall. In order to ensure that as soon as our shells fell, the commandos could jump out of the trench and quickly occupy the breakthrough.
The city defense of Taiyuan was touted by the enemy as a "hundred-mile defense line, impregnable.". However, its outer defensive line has been destroyed by our army, eighty percent of the defending enemy has been annihilated, thousands of pillboxes scattered outside the city have been destroyed, and now it can only rely on the remnants to guard the besieged dangerous city on all sides.
On the evening of the 23rd, the Corps Headquarters received an attack order from the front command. The Independent Brigade contained the defenders of the West Gate, and the Sixty-third Army attacked Shouyi Gate. The defenders of Shouyi Gate were Yan Xishan's death squads, who shot down their guns and shells like water, and our army attacked several times, but they were unsuccessful.
We calculated the height of the city walls, determined that the flamethrowers could be sprayed onto the castle towers, and ordered the four Japanese flamethrowers captured in Zhangjiakou in 1945 to be brought up. Four fire dragons flew up to the Shouyi Gate, and the rampant enemy died and fled. Our army captured Shouyi Gate.
At this time, our army in the west also launched an attack, bravely climbing the city wall between the Water West Gate and the Dry West Gate, and then opening the Water West Gate, and the main force rushed into the city like a furious tide.
At the Great South Gate, our cannons were "nibbling on the cake", and dozens of howitzers approached and fired, the muzzles flattened, and fired at the city wall. Rows of shells blew the walls apart and swept away from top to bottom. The smoke had not yet cleared, and the warriors had already shouted and rushed in.
The Sixty-fifth Army reported by telephone that nine enemy tanks had been found at the gate of the Appeasement Office in Yan Xishan's old lair, and that our army had rushed to the front before they could be used because of the street fighting. The enemy on the tank abandoned the vehicle and fled, not even turning off the engine.
As soon as I heard that the tank had been captured, I almost jumped up with joy and shouted into the microphone: "Great, send a platoon to watch, and I will arrive later." ”
On the morning of the 24th, the main forces of the three corps of our army gathered in the center of Taiyuan, surrounded the "Appeasement Office" and the "Provincial Government," occupied the command center of the enemy in Taiyuan in less than half an hour, and killed Liang Huazhi, the head of the secret service acting as Yan Xishan's administrative post.
I immediately went to find the nine tanks captured by the Sixty-fifth Army. Seeing my arrival, they reported: "Deputy Commander, these tanks do not know why they are not ringing. I climbed up to see that the oil had burned out, and said, "It's all right, find the driver from the captives, and add the oil to drive away." ”
In this battle, our Nineteenth Corps alone captured more than 30,000 enemy troops, captured more than 300 trucks and more than 20 radio stations, and even the beautiful little sleeping cars of yan Xishan's "Appeasement Office" were also captured intact.
We took the captured nine tanks into a tank battalion with three companies, each with three tanks.
Then, in accordance with the instructions of the Central Military Commission and Chairman Mao's telegram, "The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Corps were transferred to the first field army structure, and then the action was reorganized and supplied under comrade Peng Dehuai's command area," we left the battlefield in North China and embarked on a journey to understand and enlarge the northwest.
(To be continued...) ）