As the saying goes, "Good things come in pairs." In late May 1946, after the 4th Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army destroyed the 184th Division of the Nationalist 60th Army in the Battle of Anhai (Anshan, Haicheng) [Whirlwind Commander Han Xianchu's famous work: Destroying Two Cities and Forcing one Division to Surrender in World War I], in October of that year, the 4th Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army annihilated the 25th Division of the Nationalist 52nd Army in the Battle of Xinkailing, firing a beautiful "double cannon".
A few days ago, I talked about the situation of the Battle of Anhai, and today I will talk about the Battle of Xinkailing.
One
First, two units in the Battle of Xinkailing are introduced.
In this battle, the protagonist of our army is the 4th Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army.
The 4-column was founded in the early spring of 1946. Commander Wu Kehua, Deputy Commander Han Xianchu, political commissar Peng Jiaqing. The predecessor of this unit can be traced back to the Jiaodong Military Region of the Eighth Route Army.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1945, Wu Kehua, deputy commander of the Jiaodong Military Region, and Peng Jiaqing, director of the Political Department, led the organs directly under the Jiaodong Military Region and 6 independent regiments of the local troops of the 5th Sub-district to form the Shandong 6th Division and advanced into the northeast region. At that time, the whole division had a total of 8942 people, 2250 long guns, fewer personnel, and insufficient weapons and equipment.
After several months of development and growth, the Shandong 6th Division was expanded into the 4th Column, with the 10th Division, 11th Division and 12th Division under its jurisdiction. Later, the 10th Division became one of the 7 main divisions of the Northeast Field Army.
As one of the first two columns (3 columns and 4 columns) established by the Northeast Democratic United Army, the 4 columns were active in the southern Manchuria region, and the national army was very strong and faced a very harsh environment. 4 Zhong overcame all kinds of difficulties, while preserving himself, defeated the enemy many times, and struck at the arrogance of the enemy.
In this battle, the protagonist of the Nationalist army was the 25th Division of the 52nd Army, the famous "Thousand Mile Colt Division".
The 25th Division is a well-known ace division in the Nationalist Army, which was expanded from the Independent Brigade of the 4th Division of the Nationalist Army, and walked out of Guan Linzheng, Du Yuming, Zhang Yaoming and many other famous generals. In the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the 25th Division successively participated in large-scale battles such as the Great Wall War of Resistance, the Battle of Baoding, the Battle of Zhanghe, the Battle of Taierzhuang, the Battle of Wuhan, and the Battle of Changsha.
So why is the 25th Division called the "Thousand Mile Colt Division"? This is because this unit has a strong mobile combat capability, the marching speed is very fast, once set a record of 7 days of rapid march of 900 miles, the name of "Thousand Mile Colt" has not gone away.
Therefore, the battle between the 4th Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army and the "Thousand Mile Colt Division" of the Nationalist Army is destined to be a strong dialogue.
Two
How did the new Kailing start?
Beginning in mid-October 1946, under the dispatch of Du Yuming, commander of the Northeast Security Command, the Nationalist army gathered more than 100,000 people from 8 divisions of the New 1st Army, the New 6th Army, the 52nd Army, the 60th Army, and the 71st Army, and divided the troops into three routes, from Shenyang to the south, to attack the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army in the Liaodong and Southern Liaoning regions. The nationalist army's key offensive targets were the Andong and Kuandian regions in the southeast of Liaoning Province.
The nationalist army seemed to be crowded, but after the soldiers were divided into three roads, there were only 30,000 or 40,000 horses on each road. At the same time, the mobility of the national army is high and low, and it is difficult to maintain a consistent pace of action. After a few days of action, some troops rushed to the front, and some troops fell behind, so that our army had an opportunity to take advantage of it.
In this operation, the "Thousand Mile Colt Division" with strong mobility spread its feet and ran very fast, and soon reached the Xinkailing area northwest of Kuandian County, forming a situation of going deep alone. For our army, this kind of army is equivalent to "fat meat" sent to the door. Therefore, the 4th Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army decided to take the "Thousand Mile Colt Division" to open the knife.
On November 2, the 4th Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army pressed on and besieged the "Qianliju Division" at Xinkailing.
Three
The commander of the "Thousand Mile Colt Division" was named Li Zhengyi. Li Zhengyi was a native of Qianxian County, Shaanxi Province, and Du Yuming was a fellow villager in Shaanxi, and he was also an alumnus of the Whampoa Military Academy. So the two have a very good relationship.
In early 1945, Li Zhengyi served as the commander of the "Thousand Mile Colt Division". When he learned that the "Thousand Mile Colt Division" was surrounded by the 4th Column of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army, he had a bad premonition and quickly asked the 52nd Army for help. The military department received his telegram and unexpectedly called back with 12 words: "Lie about military information, greed for life and fear of death, cowering." ”
The call back from the military headquarters made Li Zhengyi disheartened. He also knows why. It turned out that the commander of the 52nd Army was named Zhao Gongwu, a native of Dapu County, Guangdong Province, who had always looked down on the Shaanxi officers in the army.
Li Zhengyi had the idea of surrendering. However, he thought about it for a moment, and there were many officers from the Whampoa Military Academy in the "Thousand Mile Colt Division", and they could not protect themselves. Li Zhengyi had no choice but to give up the idea of surrendering and sent a telegram to Du Yuming in Shenyang, asking him to immediately send reinforcements to the rescue. Du Yuming did not send troops to the rescue, but instead used aircraft to drop a batch of ammunition and asked them to hold their positions. However, the aircraft was airdropped in a very high position, and most of the ammunition was dropped on the positions of the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army and became the "transport squadron leader".
The fighting was very intense. The 4th Column not only dispatched all troops, but even the reserves went to the battlefield, and finally annihilated all the "Qianliju Division", and nearly 6,000 people under the commander of the "Qianliju Division" Li Zhengyi and deputy division commander Duan Peide were captured, and more than 1,600 people were killed or injured.
This was the first time that the Northeast Democratic Coalition Army had encircled and annihilated 1 whole division of the Nationalist Army in the Northeast Battlefield.