In January 1948, the War of Liberation entered a white-hot state, the People's Liberation Army and the Kuomintang army fought in a difficult battle on major battlefields, of which the East China battlefield was particularly fierce, and the two sides often launched more than 100,000 battles, both wanting to compete for this confidant of China and gain the initiative for the future war situation.
In January 1948, Chen Yi, then commander of the East China Military Region, commander and political commissar of the East China Field Army, issued an "Annual Gradual Summary of the Self-Defense and Counterattack War in East China.", which contained the following passage in the report: In the past year, Huaye has suffered 200,000 casualties, which shows our bravery and also shows the stupidity and backwardness of our tactical battles. Until now, we have maintained the tactics of the Northern Expedition, using wave-style collective charge. It is good that our army is brave, but when the enemy is charged in rows, the people who sacrifice themselves are also in rows. This charge encounters a powerful enemy, and the casualties are even greater.
It is worth noting that there is also a paragraph in the report that is harshly worded: The people in the Liberated Areas have handed over their sons and daughters to the People's Liberation Army, and we must be responsible to the people, and we do not know how to organize firepower and use troops.
After this report was issued to huaye's whole army, it immediately caused a great reaction within Huaye, because everyone knows that although Chen Yi is the commander and political commissar of the East China Field Army, Su Yu is the actual person in charge of the campaign command of the East China Field Army, and this is also the decision made by the Central Military Commission and Chairman Mao when Huaye was formed.
Even Chen Haosu, the eldest son of Marshal Chen Yi, said: "My father admired Comrade Su Yu very much, and he felt that this was a military talent cultivated by our party -- my father once had a telegram to Chairman Mao, to the effect that our army had fought for more than twenty years, and there were not many military talents trained, and recently there were Su Yu and Chen Geng, who were on a par with Lin Biao, Peng Dehuai, and Liu Bocheng, and had a great future. The cooperation between them is also very good, and my father himself has said many times: I only play the role of a political commissar in many cases, and the military commander is Su Yu. ”
Chen Xiaolu, the younger son of Marshal Chen Yi and the son-in-law of General Su Yu, also said: "My father played the role of a politician more, he established a base area, he had the ability to unite the united front and diplomacy, and he was able to integrate the army." In terms of military affairs, the strongest of the East China Field Army was Su Yu, and he was responsible for the battles. ”
Through these historical materials, it can be shown that during the Liberation War, the campaign command of the East China Field Army was indeed the responsibility of the deputy commander Su Yu, so Chen Yi's report can only criticize Su Yu. But why did Chen Yi make such criticism? Is Chen not far away from Su and Su not separated from Chen just a slogan? Whether this was the case with Su Yu in 1947 depended on all the battles of 1947.
During the Liberation War, there were two main forces of the People's Liberation Army in East China, namely the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army. The Shandong Field Army was commanded by Chen Yi, and the Central China Field Army was commanded by Su Yu.
In December 1946, the Battle of Subei was the first joint operation between the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army, in this battle, the People's Liberation Army annihilated 21,000 Kuomintang troops, Dai Zhiqi, commander of the 69th Division of the Kuomintang Army, was killed, and Major General Rao Shaowei, deputy division commander, was captured, which greatly boosted the morale of the People's Liberation Army.
After the Battle of Subei, in January 1947, Chen Yi and Su Yu commanded the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army to launch the Lunan Campaign, annihilating two reorganized divisions of the Kuomintang Army, a rapid column with a total of more than 53,000 people, including 17,000 prisoners, 24 tanks, 470 vehicles, more than 200 artillery pieces of various kinds, Lieutenant General Ma Liwu, commander of the reorganized 26th Division, commander of the reorganized 51st Division, and many other senior generals of the Nationalist army were captured.
The two armies have joined hands to fight two battles, and although both have won unprecedented victories, many problems have also arisen; in terms of military command, the Shandong Field Army and the Central China Field Army still maintain two sets of command structures when fighting, and it is very troublesome to command operations and coordinate various units. In terms of the ideological style of the troops, everyone is from each hill, there is the Shandong Eighth Route Army wearing yellow uniforms, there are also the New Fourth Army in northern Jiangsu wearing gray uniforms, no one is convinced of anyone, when cleaning up the battlefield, the units are not willing to ask for the captured materials to be handed over, so the merger of the two armies is also the trend of the times.
On January 23, 1947, Chen Yi entrusted the Staff Office of the Shandong Field Army to draft the "Plan for the Reorganization of the East China Field Army" and submitted it to the Central Committee, which was quickly approved by the Central Military Commission. According to the order of the Central Military Commission, the East China Army was formally formed into the East China Military Region, the East China Field Army, and the Committee of Former Enemies of the East China Field Army of the CPC. The names of the New Fourth Army, Shandong Military Region, Central China Military Region, Central China Field Army, and Shandong Field Army were abolished at the same time.
The Central China Military Region and the Shandong Military Region were merged to form the East China Military Region, with Chen Yi as commander, Rao Shushi as political commissar, Zhang Yunyi as deputy commander, and Chen Shiyu as chief of staff. The Central China Field Army of the New Fourth Army and the Shandong Field Army of the Eighth Route Army were merged to form the East China Field Army, with Chen Yi as commander and political commissar, Su Yu as deputy commander, Tan Zhenlin as deputy political commissar, Chen Shiyu as chief of staff, and Tang Liang as director of the political department.
The East China Field Army was reorganized into nine columns (corps), each column had three divisions and nine regiments under its jurisdiction, and the howitzer regiments, automobile brigades, and tank battalions directly under the headquarters were merged into special forces columns, and Chen Ruiting served as the commander of the Huaye special forces column. HuaYe's reorganization of the two armies has unified the organization and organization of the two armies, further realized the centralization and unification of combat command, and laid the foundation for the subsequent operations of large corps.
After the establishment of the East China Military Region and the East China Field Army, Chen Yi's task was very important, serving as both the commander of the East China Military Region and the political commissar of the East China Field Army, but what many people did not expect was that when the East China Field Army was formed, Chairman Mao especially clarified the division of labor after the two headquarters were merged into one: "Under the leadership of Chen Yi, the major policies and principles were jointly decided, and the campaign command was entrusted to Su Yu. ”
In the Battle of Laiwu in February 1948, Su Yu only took three days and nights to annihilate three armies of Li Xianzhou's group, seven divisions of more than 60,000 people, and 46,000 prisoners, including two lieutenant generals, seven major generals, and a large number of military supplies, while our army only suffered more than 8,000 casualties, of which 1,459 were sacrificed, which was another unprecedented victory since the Liberation War.
In May 1947, the Battle of Menglianggu was launched, and this battle was also three days, Su Yu resisted the pressure under the heavy encirclement of more than 400,000 troops of the Kuomintang army, commanded the East China Field Army to completely annihilate the number one main force of the Kuomintang army, and the reorganized 74th Division, which was stronger than the Japanese army, killed and wounded 12,000 enemy troops, and captured 19,000 people.
Su Yu won consecutive victories and gained the reputation of a general who was always victorious, but huaye also had many serious problems while winning victories after victory. Chen Yi also gave an example in his report: We have a battalion commander who commands three companies to fight the enemy in a village, the outside of the village is open, there is no attention to the cover of machine artillery fire, the enemy waits until we rush to a distance of seventy or eighty meters before shooting, and seventy or eighty people are killed or wounded in one charge.
The reason why Hua Ye was able to achieve major victories was very much related to Su Yu's genius military command ability, and when fighting a tailwind battle, often the troops would defeat all opponents with overwhelming momentum. However, when facing a fierce enemy like the reorganized 74th Division, if the commanders at the grass-roots level do not have excellent military command skills, it is difficult to win the war, and even if they win, they will pay a terrible price.
The Battle of Menglianggu was like this, and the outstanding technical and tactical level of the officers and men of the reorganized 74th Division left a deep impression on the officers and men of Huaye. After the Battle of Menglianggu, Su Yu fought two more battles, namely the Battle of Nanma and the Battle of Linqu, the Battle of Nanma, Huaye faced one of the five main forces, Hu Lian's reorganized 11th Division (formerly known as the 18th Army), and in the Battle of Linqu, Huaye faced the opponent of Li Mi's reorganized Eighth Division, both of which were the ace units of the Nationalist army, and their combat effectiveness was very strong, huaye not only did not annihilate the opponent in these two battles, but lost his troops, and it was not until the next day that he gasped for breath.
In fact, Su Yu was not unaware of the problems existing in the troops, but the east China region where HuaYe was located had always been an area where the Kuomintang was heavily armed, and it was very close to nanjing, the political center of the Kuomintang, and the economic center of Shanghai.
In addition, General Su Yu himself also has his own shortcomings, the most obvious example is that compared with Lin Biao, Lin Biao is from the Whampoa Military Academy, he is an ordinary soldier, when he first became a soldier, he only underwent short-term training in Ye Ting's student teaching team, and did not have systematic contact with military training. Therefore, during the Liberation War, Lin Biao formulated a lot of tactical policies, and the military command ability of the grass-roots officers and men in siye was also very strong.
For example, after the battle of Menglianggu, Su Yu ordered all units not to release the prisoners of the reorganized 74th Division, but to replenish these prisoners in huaye columns to improve the technical and tactical level of the officers and men of the various columns in Huaye, and the officers and men of the reorganized 74th division to teach the officers and men of the reorganized 74th division how to properly maintain, use american weapons, and the shortcomings in the battle.
Later, after Chen Yi's battle summary report in 1948 and the shortcomings of commanding Su Yu again, Su Yu also humbly accepted it, which led to the great victories of HuaYe again and again. The ancients said: Gentlemen are harmonious but different, and villains are the same but not harmonious. Marshal Chen Yi and General Su Yu will be well-known military figures in the People's Liberation Army, and they have always studied in the war and improved their shortcomings, so that they can achieve final success. On the other hand, within the Kuomintang, on the surface, they were all consistent in harmony, but they each had their own calculations, they were fighting with each other, and they were jealous of each other, and only then did they have the later failure.