The year 1947 was the second year after the liberation war began. And this year was the most difficult year for Mao Zedong and his people's army. With the support of the United States and the 4.3 million troops under his command, Chiang Kai-shek launched round after round of offensives against our liberated areas, and the lives of the people were ruined and the people's power was in danger of being destroyed. However, under the correct leadership of Mao Zedong, the people's army crushed the all-out offensive of the Kuomintang army in only 8 months.
Due to the heavy losses of the army, Chiang Kai-shek decided to change his tactics and launched a so-called key attack on the Shandong Liberated Area and the central seat, Yan'an. For a time, the red capital of Yan'an was in jeopardy. Because the enemy was outnumbered, Mao Zedong decided to abandon Yan'an. Before the evacuation, Mao Zedong left a note on his desk. This note was left for Hu Zongnan to read.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" >1, 250,000 VS 20,000</h1>
Since Chiang Kai-shek launched an all-out offensive against our liberated areas in June 1946, the Nationalist army has lost 66 brigades and 710,000 troops in just 8 months, and more than 100 senior generals above the rank of major general have been killed, wounded and captured. Obviously, the battle did not achieve Chiang Kai-shek's goal of eliminating the "traitors" within three months.
In addition to scolding "Niang Xipi", Chiang Kai-shek also lamented sadly:
"The number of high-ranking generals such as our regimental commanders, brigade commanders, and division commanders has been captured is staggering. It is really the strength of the enemy, but our weakness. If there is no urgent attempt to remedy the situation, the enemy will try to capture our senior officers in the future, and this will have an impact on our military situation in the future. ”
In February 1947, in order to get rid of the passive situation of being beaten everywhere, Chiang Kai-shek and his staff formulated a plan to attack Yan'an.
In terms of geographical situation, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region is actually not important, and the number of soldiers who can support the barren people, the mountains and rivers are long, and the number of soldiers who can feed themselves is very limited, and its strategic position is far inferior to that of the Liberated Areas of East China, Northeast China, and North China. Even so, Chiang Kai-shek threw 250,000 elite troops into the loess wasteland of northern Shaanxi. There is no reason for him, because Chiang Kai-shek also wants to learn the tactics of the people's army, that is, beheading.
Chiang Kai-shek once said:
"The lair of the communists ... And the location of the head of the head that gave the order, it must plough the court to sweep the caves and effectively capture it... Destroy the command center of the bandit party, government and army, shake its military spirit, disintegrate its will, and weaken its international status. ”
Obviously, Chiang Kai-shek's goal was not only to occupy Yan'an, but to capture Mao Zedong, Ren Bishi, He Long, and other central leaders.
In order to achieve this goal, Chiang Kai-shek ordered his concubine Hu Zongnan, director of the Xi'an Appeasement Office, to take full command of the Yan'an war.
Although Hu Zongnan was short in stature and did not look amazing, in Chiang Kai-shek's mind, his status was extraordinary, and he occupied several "firsts" among the senior Kuomintang generals. First of all, as a fellow chiang kai-shek, he was a graduate of the first huangpu period, the commander of the first army, the commander-in-chief of the first group army, the commander-in-chief of the first corps, the commander-in-chief of the first theater, and the first and only general who received the third general star before leaving the mainland.
Although Hu Zongnan's "first" is many, his command level is far from "first". For example, Bai Chongxi, the "Little Zhuge Ge", once said: "Hu Zongnan's level is only worthy of commanding one regiment." Peng Dehuai also commented on him contemptuously: "This person has great ambitions and talents."
Since Hu Zongnan's level was so "unremarkable," why did Chiang Kai-shek still entrust him with the task of attacking Yan'an? This is because in Chiang Kai-shek's heart, Hu Zongnan was the most "revolutionary." To put it bluntly, it is loyal enough. There are many factions of the Kuomintang and there is discord between the top and the bottom, so in Chiang Kai-shek's view, talent is not the most important, the most important thing is loyalty, that is, execution. Although Hu Zongnan's ability is not good, his loyalty is first-class.
On the eve of the Liberation War, Hu Zongnan was able to command 250,000 elite troops. This force exists as a general strategic reserve. As long as it is stationed in Guanzhong, the north can threaten north China, the east can enter the Central Plains and East China, and the south can support Central China. This time, Chiang Kai-shek threw this reserve into the Battlefield of Yan'an and decided to "plough the court and sweep the caves" in one fell swoop and destroy the center of our party. To this end, Chiang Kai-shek and his staff also drew up a detailed plan for the attack on Yan'an.
According to the plan, Hu Zongnan will fight 250,000 against the 20,000 people's army in the northern Shaanxi base area, and the contrast can be described as extremely large. However, Chiang Kai-shek and Hu Zongnan did not expect that the "careful plan" they had formulated would have long been placed on Mao Zedong's desk.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" >2, Xiong Xianghui</h1>
Xiong Xianghui is the ace agent of our party. His other identity is the "big red man" around Hu Zongnan. Mao Zedong once said: "Xiong Xianghui alone can top several divisions." ”
On November 5, 1949, Zhou Enlai held a banquet in Zhongnanhai, and he pointed to Xiong Xianghui and said to Zhang Zhizhong, a senior general of the Nationalist Army: "Do you know? ”
Zhang Zhizhong looked at it and couldn't help but be shocked: "Isn't this Old Brother Xiong?" Did you revolt too? Zhou Enlai smiled and said, "He is returning to the army, not an uprising." As early as 1936, I sent him to Hu Zongnan's side. ”
As early as the Anti-Japanese War, Xiong Xianghui repeatedly provided intelligence to the central authorities and smashed Hu Zongnan's plan to raid Yan'an. During the Liberation War, Xiong Xianghui became the bottom card of the people's army.
In 1947, Xiong Xianghui entered the palace of marriage under the personal presidency of Chiang Ching-kuo. Just when he was about to take his new wife to study in the United States, he was called by a phone call from Hu Zongnan. Hu Zongnan said he hoped Xiong Xianghui would postpone his trip to the United States and assist him for another three months.
Arriving at Hu Zongnan's headquarters, Hu Zongnan gave Xiong Xianghui a briefcase and asked Xiong to draw a sketch for him based on the documents in the bag. Before leaving, Hu Zongnan also told Xiong Xianghui to lock the door and not allow any entry.
Xiong Xianghui took his briefcase and hurried into his office. When he opened his Chinese piece, he couldn't help but be shocked, isn't this a strategic plan to attack Yan'an?
The plan to attack Yan'an was formulated under the auspices of Liu Fei, deputy chief of staff of the Ministry of National Defense, and the key to it was to fight steadily and steadily. Because the Kuomintang agents also sent news, the people's army in northern Shaanxi was only 20,000 people, and the local troops would not exceed 60,000. The Kuomintang alone had a front-line force of 84,000 troops. Therefore, Liu Fei believes that the Nationalist army should, with the support of the Air Force, advance layer by layer with "superior troop strength" and "three-dimensional offensive", and push the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region like a stone mill.
This plan, which integrates political strategy, strategy, and tactics, cannot but be said to be a big deal, and it seems that Chiang Kai-shek is not without capable people under his command. However, Chiang Kai-shek did not expect that the plan formulated by Liu Fei on March 1 would have been obtained by Xiong Xianghui on March 2.
Xiong Xianghui's memory is amazing, and he memorizes the contents of the file to heart. On the morning of March 3, Xiong Xianghui arrived in Xi'an with Hu Zongnan by plane. That night, Xiong Xianghui sent the information to Wang Shijian, the editor-in-chief of Xi'an's Xintai Daily. Soon, this top-secret information was quickly sent to Yan'an and placed on Mao Zedong's desk. At that time, for the sake of secrecy, even Hu Zongnan's military commanders and division commanders did not know anything about the plan.
In the months that followed, Xiong Xianghui continued to collect hu Zongnan's classified intelligence, and he wrote the information in the form of a letter on white paper and in a large envelope with the words "Commander of the First Headquarters of the Theater." For the sake of safety, he had to write two letters, one to Wang Shijian and the other to Wang Shijian's friend Pan Yuran, and a steady stream of information was sent to the Party Central Committee.
The existence of Xiong Xianghui also laid the foundation for the victory of the Northern Shaanxi Liberation War. Because the enemy is completely transparent in front of us. At the same time, Xiong Xianghui also recorded in his memoirs the ugly state of Hu Zongnan after he captured Yan'an.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="47" >3. A note from Mao Zedong's cave</h1>
For this Battle of Yan'an, Hu Zongnan was determined to win. Chiang Kai-shek once said: "To suppress the Communists," we must divide the party into seven parts politically and three points militaryly. In actual combat, Hu Zongnan did exactly that.
Hu Zongnan believed that if he wanted to defeat the Communist Party, he must be more "revolutionary" than them. Therefore, Hu Zongnan instructed Xiong Xianghui to draft a "program of governance," the main points of which included "democratization of politics, and the poor are the masters of their own affairs," "exempting the land for three years, and practicing the practice of cultivating the land for the land," "popularizing education, village-run primary schools, township-run middle schools, and county-run universities," "not eating people's grain, not living in people's houses." Wait a minute.
Regarding the name of the document, Hu Zongnan also specially stipulated that it is not allowed to use "restoration" and "recovery", because this does not look like "revolution", so "liberation" should be used. Eventually, the program was named the "Governing Program for the Liberation of Yan'an and Northern Shaanxi by the Nationalist Army." ”
After doing these tasks, Hu Zongnan felt that he could sit back and relax and win. Therefore, he ordered Xiong Xianghui to prepare a radio for himself to listen to Yan'an radio at any time, and at the same time to bring traditional novels such as "Water Margin", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Journey to the West", "Yue Fei", etc. In Hu Zongnan's view, only when he fights and does not release his hands can he show the demeanor of a general.
With everything in place, Hu Zongnan commanded 15 brigades and 140,000 troops to attack Yan'an on March 14. By March 18, Mao Zedong and other central leaders had quietly left Yan'an, leaving Hu Zongnan with an empty city. At five o'clock in the afternoon of March 19, the red capital of Yan'an finally fell.
After Hu Zongnan's blitzkrieg at Yan'an, the Kuomintang trumpeted the "victory." On March 20, the front page of the JoongAng Daily carried the news: "The Nationalist army has retaken Yan'an, and more than 10,000 communist troops have been captured."
Chiang Kai-shek said happily:
"Yan'an, the old lair of the traitors, is regarded as the red capital of the world, and on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the rebellion, he restored hu zongnan for me..."
As for Hu Zongnan? He was even more overjoyed, and he bragged in the Xi'an Daily:
"The Battle of Yan'an was very fierce, and with the magic tactic of charging and hitting and encircling the two wings, it defeated two enemy brigades on the outskirts of Yan'an, killing 3,000 people and capturing more than 10,000 people. Under fierce attack, the enemy retreated north of Yan'an in a panic, and his army took advantage of the victory to pursue and occupy the city of Yan'an. ”
In Hu Zongnan's view, the capture of Yan'an was simply more glorious than the Soviet army's capture of Berlin.
After the news of the "Yan'an Victory" came, Chinese and foreign reporters were eager to try it out and wanted to come to Yan'an to visit the "brilliant achievements" of the Nationalist army. Hu Zongnan was afraid of Lu Feng, where to find these more than 10,000 prisoners?
To this end, Hu Zongnan was in a hurry to capture more than 500 villagers, and then selected more than 1,500 people from his own ranks and took them as prisoners of the people's army. Later, he set up a battle record room and transported the equipment of one of his regiments as captured in this battle. In addition, he also built many fake graves and fake monuments, pretending to be evidence of "killing the enemy".
At that time, Hu Zongnan set foot on the yellow land of Yan'an and set up the front-line command post in the cave of the bank of the former Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region in Yan'an. The next day, Hu Zongnan asked Xiong Xianghui to find a guide to inspect the residences of Mao Zedong, Zhu De, and Zhou Enlai.
Xiong Xianghui recorded in his memoirs that Hu Zongnan first went to Mao Zedong's cave in Zaoyuan. After entering the cave, Hu Zongnan found a note on Mao Zedong's desk with the following words:
"Hu Zongnan went to Yan'an, and he was bound to become a tiger, and he could not advance, and he could not retreat. how! ”
After reading this piece of paper, Hu Zongnan suddenly laughed. In this regard, Xiong Xianghui, who is familiar with Hu Zongnan's disposition, explained:
"He laughed when he was right, and he laughed when he said he was sick."
Mao Zedong had expected Hu Zongnan to enter his cave as a victor, so he left him a message. So did this message promote Hu Zongnan's arrogance, or did it hit Hu Zongnan's weakness? In my opinion, maybe both.
But what is certain is that Mao Zedong left this note not out of the "Q spirit" of the "loser", but made careful planning. Later, with his own wit and courage, he made this message true, and really let Hu Zongnan fall into the trend of riding a tiger.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="80" >4</h1>
For Mao Zedong, leaving Yan'an was indeed unwilling. The central government has been stationed in the Yan'an area for more than 10 years and has built it into a holy land of democracy to which the people of the whole country yearn. Mao Zedong had no choice but to launch Yan'an now.
However, the fall of Yan'an did not discourage Mao Zedong, but made him stronger and stronger in the Vietnam War, and then came up with a strange move to reverse the situation of the War of Liberation and focus on anti-guests.
Before leaving Yan'an, Mao Zedong did ideological work for cadres and soldiers. He wisely pointed out:
"Chiang Kai-shek A Q is full of spirit. After occupying Yan'an, he thought he had won, but in fact, as soon as he occupied Yan'an, he lost everything. First of all, the people of the whole country and even the whole world know that Chiang Kai-shek has betrayed his faith and launched a civil war, which is unpopular. In addition, Yan'an has become a world famous city, that is, a heavy burden. If he wants to carry it, let him carry it. Then again, since he can call Yan'an, I can also call Nanjing. Come and go without being rude! ”
What exactly does this sentence mean?
The strategic purpose of Chiang Kai-shek and Hu Zongnan to attack Yan'an was to destroy the command center of the people's power. If this could not be done, even if Hu Zongnan occupied Yan'an, it would be meaningless in practice. Mao's withdrawal from Yan'an was to crush the conspiracy of Chiang Kai-shek and Hu Zongnan and make their strategic objectives unattainable.
Although they occupied Yan'an, the central government was not destroyed and could still command the whole country. Mao Zedong once said:
"Our army fights a war not in the gains and losses of each city and place, but in the effective strength of the enemy. Where there are people who lose their land, everyone and everyone loses their land; if they lose land, they lose everyone and everyone loses their land. ”
The Northwest Field Army also suffered no losses. Therefore, Hu Zongnan's occupation of Yan'an was like carrying a burden. According to the original plan, Hu Zongnan successfully occupied Yan'an, and should have sent the main force outside Guanzhong to support the battles in other theaters. But if Mao Zedong and the central authorities were still in northern Shaanxi, Hu Zongnan's main force would be dragged to death.
So Mao made an amazingly brave decision. Mao Zedong rejected the proposal of other comrades to withdraw to northern China or even Harbin, and instead resolutely decided to stay in northern Shaanxi. He once said:
"I can't go, and the center had better not go either." When I am gone and the Party Central Committee is gone, Chiang Kai-shek will throw Hu Zongnan to other battlefields to increase the pressure on other battlefields. I stayed in northern Shaanxi and dragged Hu Zongnan, and I could win the battle well elsewhere. ”
In the end, Mao Zedong vigorously overcame the consensus, and he, Together with Zhou Enlai and Ren Bishi, led the central organs and the People's Liberation Army to stay in northern Shaanxi and preside over the work of the central authorities; the Central Working Committee, composed of Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De, and Dong Biwu, went to the northwest of Jin and other appropriate places to carry out the work entrusted by the central authorities. And this resolution played a decisive role in the overall situation of the war.
After that, Mao Zedong led the guard troops to fight a guerrilla war with the troops of Hu Zongnan's gang in the ravines of northern Shaanxi. From leaving Yan'an on March 18, 1947, to crossing the Yellow River in the east on March 23, 1948, Mao Zedong led the Central Organs of the Communist Party of China to move around in northern Shaanxi, lasting 1 year and 5 days, traveling more than 1,000 kilometers, passing through 12 counties and stationed in 38 villages. It is precisely because the CPC Central Committee and Mao Zedong "transferred" so many places that we called this strategic shift "turning to northern Shaanxi."
Moving to northern Shaanxi was not an easy task, and according to the recollections of those around Mao Zedong, the transfer to northern Shaanxi was even more bitter than the Long March. But even so, the small contingent of more than 800 people led by Mao Zedong dragged Hu Zongnan's hundreds of thousands of troops in northern Shaanxi, and cooperated with Peng Dehuai's Northwest Field Army to drag Hu Zongnan's troops down and then annihilate them.
This is as Mao Zedong said:
"When he (Hu Zongnan) arrives in Yan'an, he will open his fist so that we can cut it off one by one."
In this way, Peng Dehuai fought several beautiful ambush battles in succession, and repeatedly defeated Hu Zongnan's troops in Qinghua, Yangmahe, Panlong, and other places, and beat the enemy to the ground. Therefore, Hu Zongnan had no choice but to abandon the tactic of "rushing forward and fiercely attacking", but instead shrunk the troops together.
By December 1947, most of the lost land in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region had been recovered by the People's Liberation Army, and the defenders of Yan'an and Luochuan were isolated. Hu Zongnan's huge army began to stretch thin. And just as Mao Zedong said, Hu Zongnan was riding a tiger. A Yan'an, dragging down the Kuomintang's reserve forces, is really worth it.
While Mao Zedong was moving to northern Shaanxi, his eyes were not only focused on the Loess Plateau, but also on the occupation of the whole country. Hearing the news of the Liberation Army's victory in the major battlefields, Mao Zedong knew that the moment of decisive battle had finally arrived.
Mao Zedong made the decision to immediately shift the battlefield from the inner line to the outer line. At this time, the Kuomintang army concentrated its main forces in northern Shaanxi and Shandong, just like a strong man separating his two fists. Although it looks terrible, it also leaves a fatal flaw, that is, the Central Plains as a chest.
Mao Zedong made up his mind to send the three major armies of Liu Deng, Chen Xie, and Chen Su to the Central Plains and to create a new Central Plains Liberated Area as the main axis of the grand strategy of "the three armies cooperating, the two wings containing, and the central authorities making a breakthrough."
In June 1947, Liu Deng's army successfully approached Dabie Mountain and threatened Wuhan and Nanjing, so that Chiang Kai-shek had to shrink his front and protect his old lair. In this way, the three-way army of nearly 400,000 people and horses carried out the strategy, galloping between the Jianghuai River and Han, and after four months of combat, annihilated nearly 200,000 enemy troops, liberated nearly 100 county seats, and attracted and mobilized 90 brigades of the 160 brigades of the enemy army on the southern front around themselves.
While our army was moving wildly, the Kuomintang army was beaten everywhere and could only shrink and hold on. Hu Zongnan, as a reserve corps, was dragged to northern Shaanxi by Mao Zedong and the Northwest Field Army, and was unable to support the central plains for a long time. The victory or defeat of the Kuomintang-Communist Civil War has since been known.
Yan'an has completely become a chicken rib. Mao Zedong said that he had "exchanged one Yan'an for the liberation of the whole country," but it was indeed realized. In March 1948, Mao Zedong crossed the Yellow River in the east, bidding farewell to the people of northern Shaanxi, where he had lived and fought for 13 years. Because he's going to new places, to command new battles. Only a month later, the exhausted Hu Zongnan withdrew from Yan'an, and the once arduous northwest battlefield has since entered a new stage.
The great policy decision to take the initiative to evacuate Yan'an and move to northern Shaanxi opened up a situation of national liberation. In such a difficult and dangerous environment, Mao Zedong was still able to stand tall, see far, and be steady; he was not only a born military and strategist, but also a brave man. Which leader would use himself as bait to hold the enemy's main force to death?
The darkness before dawn was as dark as ink, but Mao Zedong used his wisdom to make a red sun rise from the top of the mountain, and let the people who had been bullied by darkness embrace the glorious sunrise.