In the famous Battle of Laiwu in 1947, the East China Field Army captured more than 40,000 enemy soldiers in 63 hours at the cost of more than 6,000 casualties, and annihilated more than 56,000 enemy. After the war, the enemy general Bai Chongxi lost his temper and said: "Even if it is 60,000 piglets, the People's Liberation Army can't catch them in three days and three nights. ”
In this battle, which was easier than catching the "piglets", one of Huaye's fierce division commanders fell asleep with his head covered and deliberately did not order the troops to pursue and capture the prisoners.
What's going on here?
This commander was Liao Zhengguo, commander of Ye Fei's 1st Division.
Liao Zhengguo was one of the top three generals in the whole of Huaye, warlike, fond of fighting, and also loved to capture. Why did he give up such a large capture opportunity this time and deliberately not capture it?
People in the know said that this had a lot to do with the previous day's battle! In other words, this Liao Zhengguo and Su Yu deputy commander gambled!
It turned out that at 6 p.m. on February 22, Su Yu, deputy commander of Huaye Headquarters, informed the enemy that the first regiment of the enemy had entered Nanbailong and two regiments had entered Shajiazhuang, and for this reason ordered that the first column and the eighth column should solve the enemy in the field north of Laiwu that night, and the fourth column would pretend to attack and clamp down on Laiwu City. Therefore, Ye Fei, the commander of the first column, decided: the 1st Division attacked the enemy of the Southern White Dragon, and the 2nd Division attacked the enemy of Shajiazhuang.
Liao Zhengguo, commander of the 1st Division, immediately ordered the two regiments of the 1st Division to fight at 9 p.m. After the two regiments successfully broke through the siege, they successfully broke into the Southern White Dragon. In the street battle, the troops were killed by enemy deep fire and their progress was delayed. After receiving the reports of the two regiments, Commander Liao habitually listened to the sound of gunfire on the battlefield, and judging from the enemy's firepower, there was absolutely not more than one regiment of the enemy army entering and occupying the Southern White Dragon! The captives were immediately interrogated, and it was found that the enemies of the Southern White Dragon were the 193rd Division and the 15th Division of the 73rd Army.
Taken aback, he immediately personally called the commander of the column, Ye Fei, to report the above situation and inquire about the situation of the brother troops.
Ye Fei said, "I have not been in touch with the Eighth Column so far. The 2nd Division had not yet begun to fight. In other words, Liao Zhengguo's 1st Division fought as ordered.
Liao Zhengguo said angrily: "If the gongs and drums are uneven, I don't think this battle can be fought tonight." How can we fight alone? Before the 2nd Division could fight, he ordered them to stop fighting!"
Ye Fei said, "Your opinion is reasonable, the 2nd Division will not move for the time being, and if you cannot withdraw, I will ask Deputy Commander Su for instructions." ”
As a result, at 11:00 p.m., the column command post relayed Su Yu's instructions: stop the attack.
However, the order was a little late, and the 1st Division had been fighting for nearly two hours. The orders were delivered to the front one after the other, at 4 a.m. on Feb. 23. The 1st Division inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and suffered considerable losses itself.
At 8:00 a.m. on February 23, the janitor of the 1st Division's command post exclaimed, "Signal flares! Flares!" Red, blue and white signal flares rose in the sky, which was very dazzling. This was the signal stipulated by Huaye's former finger to "release" the enemy Li Xianzhou Group.
Hua Ye's forward finger had already set up a bag-shaped position, ordering the enemy's column north of the city to "give way," letting go of the Lai (Wu) Tu (Sikou) Highway, and blocking only on both sides of the highway, so that Li Xianzhou could only drill into the "pocket" along this "prescribed route." The three columns on the west side of the highway were under the command of Ye Fei, and the two columns on the east side were under the command of Wang Jian'an, and after the enemy troops had all left Laiwu City, they attacked in all directions, attacked from east to west, and destroyed the enemy in the movement.
To this end, Ye Fei personally called Wang Bicheng, commander of the Sixth Column, and ordered him to send a division to hold the line of Shantoudian and Maozhizhuang to block the enemy's way: "I drove Li Xianzhou here, and you asked him to 'stop' there, tighten his 'pockets,' and take all of Wang Yaowu's shrimp soldiers and crabs as ordered." ”
To this end, he personally called the 1st Division to tell Liao Zhengguo: "You have to tell Master Liao that the 1st Division will pay the greatest price, and we must take this opportunity to cut Li Xianzhou's tail, capture more prisoners and hand over their guns, and make up for it well." ”
Staff Officer Mao Jin immediately reported Commander Ye's telephone records to the division commander.
However, when he walked to the door, Jiang Qingyi, the guard of Master Liao, pointed to the inside and shook his hand. Mao Jin saw Master Liao wrapped his head in a cotton coat, lying on the door panel, and sleeping heavily. The guard said softly, "The division commander has not rested for three days and three nights, and has just laid down, so don't disturb him." ”
Mao Jin also lowered his voice and said, "The combat deployment of Hua Ye's former finger must be reported to the division commander." ”
At this time, Liao Zhengguo grabbed his coat, sat up, and ordered, "Read!"
Mao Jin read it. However, liao zhengguo heard this and wrapped his coat and lay down to sleep.
At about 12:00 noon, the reconnaissance company sent someone back to report that the enemy's vanguard troops had not yet reached The Mouth of Tusikou, and their defenders could not hold their breath, so they withdrew from Laiwu City on their own and rushed to catch up. As soon as they left the city, the back road was blocked by one column and one column, and the front was blocked by the six columns of Huaye, so from Qin Village, west to Gaojiawa, south from South Bailong, north to Zhoujiazhuang, three kilometers from east to west, and five kilometers from north to south, in a narrow area where more than 40,000 people in the Li Xianzhou Group could not advance and retreat, and fell into a desperate situation.
At exactly 1:00 p.m., Su Yu ordered a full-scale attack. The artillery roared, the shells flew towards the dense enemy army, and the officers and men of each column disregarded the enemy planes and frantically strafed, while launching a fierce attack on the enemy from the east and west.
However, the command post of the 1st Division waited for the division commander to issue an order to attack, but Liao Zhengguo did not, and the people were still sleeping. Mao came in front of the division commander's house, only to see the guard open the wooden shell cover of the barge gun, sit on the threshold, and say: "The division commander explained that no one was seen, and no one was allowed to enter the room." ”
Mao Jin had no choice but to report to Chen Ting, the deputy division commander: "Commander Ye earlier ordered our 1st Division to take more prisoners. ”
However, Chen Ting had no choice, shook his head, and said with a bitter smile: "No way." ”
At this time, the battlefield had become very lively, the enemy and us had become a scuffle, the People's Liberation Army was interspersed with many roads, and the enemy was in chaos. The 73rd Army in the west was running east, the 64th Army in the east was fleeing west, the south was running north, and the north was retreating south, and the enemy was all in disarray, and there were several numbers in each pile of enemies. The car in front caught fire, and the vehicles, heavy weights, and horses behind them were congested, squeezing and trampling on each other. Wounded soldiers were ignored, lightly wounded crutches escaped, seriously injured crawled on the ground... The fraternal forces had already begun to take prisoners.
However, Liao Zhengguo was still asleep, and the division headquarters did not issue an order to attack. The commanders of the two regiments earlier were all shrewd men, and seeing that the division commander did not give orders, they quietly sent small troops out and each took two or three hundred prisoners. The reconnaissance company of the company headquarters took the sheep by the hand and took nearly two hundred prisoners in front of its own garrison.
As a result, in the Battle of Laiwu, the other troops captured a full number of people, and the 1st Column 1st Division, which sacrificed the most, won the least.
How did Liao Zhengguo, a tough general, turn into a sick cat this time? The officers and men were puzzled and had a lot of opinions.
In the summer of 1957, in the apartment of Hequn New Village on Shanghai Road in Nanjing, Wang Hao, a veteran of the 1st Division, could not help but ask Liao Zhengguo: "Teacher, commander, the Battle of Laiwu, are you angry that you do not let the troops attack?" ”
"Haha!" Liao Zhengguo smiled, "Not quite. At first, it was a little angry, how could some troops not reach the designated position for two or three days? Does the order of the Field Command still count? I can't figure it out. In fact, I also had an idea at that time, if I wanted to capture prisoners, I would have to arrest the vanguard troops, and those who took the lead could fight and dare to rush. The rear of the enemy army is either useless cowering and shriveling, or old, weak and disabled soldiers, and it is not good to catch and replenish the troops for the restoration and improvement of combat effectiveness. The casualties of our division are so large, the superiors always have to give us reinforcements! After that, the six columns gave us 3,000 captive soldiers, which was more capable. At that time, I couldn't tell you clearly. ”
Wang Hao suddenly realized, "Yes! I remember that most of the people arrested in the division at that time were brothers, porters, or fallen personnel, which was much worse than the quality of the six columns allocated to me. Among these Guangxi liberation fighters, there were indeed many outstanding figures in the future, and Huang Gen, a second-class combat hero in East China of the 2nd Company of the 1st Regiment, was a prisoner allocated to us by the Sixth Column! ”
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