On July 30, 1947, under the leadership of Su Yu , Huaye was forced to retreat from Linqu, Shandong to the southeastward direction of Jiaodong Peninsula. This move not only means that the Yimeng Mountain base, which Huaye has been operating for more than ten years, was taken away by the Kuomintang.
even made the strategic concept of the Party Central Committee at that time shattered the support of Huaye when Liu and Deng crossed the Yellow River . The defeat in this battle has hit Su Yu the biggest blow. You should know that it is less than two months since Su Yu set the highlight of "Menglianggu Victory".
Su Yu
Due to the huge casualties in this battle, Su Yu, as the military chief, cannot bear the blame. For this reason, Su Yu sent a report to the Party Central Committee specifically, taking responsibility for the occupation failure and requesting the Party Central Committee to punish him.
Although Chen Yi repeatedly enlightened Su Yu, Su Yu, who was deeply trapped in self-blame, was unable to get out of it alone. It was not until Su Yu saw the letter of criticism written by Tan Zhenlin to him that Su Yu woke up as if he was dreaming.
In this 1,000-word criticism letter, Tan Zhenlin did not deny Su Yu's military leadership and command ability, but said:
As a military genius, Su Yu lacked strategic vision.
Obviously, this is soft and thorny, why did Su Yu not be angry but happy, and even used it to get rid of emotional troubles and return to the peak? This cannot be said about the great victory in Menglianggu!
Chiang Kai-shek 's "new means";
On May 16, 1947, the famous Menglianggu Battle ended. After this battle, the Kuomintang not only lost an American mechanic with a number of up to 32,000, but even Zhang Lingfu , the lieutenant general of the 74th Division, was unable to escape.
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was heartbroken about this. Therefore, in the post-war summary, the Kuomintang generals who were unfavorable to rescue were criticized. However, there were many factions within the Kuomintang at that time. Although Chiang Kai-shek was angry, he did not dare to start a massacre.
Otherwise the army will mutiny and the consequences will only be worse. After this battle, Su Yu from Huaye became a nightmare in the hearts of many Kuomintang generals. They were already afraid of the People's Liberation Army. Now even the 74th Division, which had strong combat power, had been turned in. For a time, the national army was "scared to talk about Su"!
As the military commander of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-shek naturally realized this problem. However, the Kuomintang army has many internal problems. If you want to start from the inside, a little carelessness will lead to a greater crisis.
In desperation, Chiang Kai-shek planned to change his tactics. But in fact, from the anti-encirclement and suppression period to the War of Liberation, the Kuomintang and our army fought intermittently for nearly 20 years.
But in these 20 years, the Kuomintang has almost no tactics except for siege and intercepting our army. But at this time the People's Liberation Army had entered the period of strategic counterattack, and Chiang Kai-shek realized that if this continued, it would be really over!
Gangcun Ningji
But most of the so-called military advisers around Chiang Kai-shek are defeated generals of our army, and it is difficult to achieve any practical results based on them. Under such circumstances, Chiang Kai-shek dared to take the blame for the world and "ask for advice" someone - the former commander-in-chief of the Japanese invaders of China, Kaangmura Yasuji!
In fact, although we achieved the final victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan , we must admit that we also paid a huge price! During his tenure as commander of the North China Front Army in Gangcun, he launched the " May Day sweep "!
In this unprecedented sweep, our North China base was forced to shrink by half, the main force reduced its personnel by 100,000, and even sacrificed a deputy chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army, Zuo Quan.
Therefore, although our army is extremely resentful towards Gangmura Yanji, its ability cannot be underestimated. Even Peng Dehuai, deputy commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, once said: " Gangcun Ningji is the most powerful Japanese commander in history! "
Although we clearly listed Gangcun Ningji as the number one war criminal after the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Chiang Kai-shek government had an ambiguous attitude on this issue. The only measure taken against him was to put him under house arrest in Nanjing.
The reason why the Kuomintang was so "polite" to Gangmeng Neji was because under Chiang Kai-shek's instruction, Gangmeng Neji served as Chiang Kai-shek's secret military advisor!
Under the guidance of Gangmura Yanji, Chiang Kai-shek reviewed the battle situation. He found that our army was good at collecting intelligence and concentrating superior forces to fight annihilation wars. If we want to take the initiative in our army's battle, we must solve these two problems!
Dai Li
Dai Li, at that time, Military Control Commission , was dead, and Nanjing's intelligence network was already too far ahead of its past. In addition, there are many factions within the Kuomintang army, most of them just want to preserve their strength and do not want to work hard for Chiang Kai-shek.
Therefore, when our army was fighting, there were endless things such as ineffective rescue, observation, and even killing people with a knife. Chiang Kai-shek knew that the army could not "work together", otherwise his status would be worrying; but he could not be distracted, otherwise how could he talk about "victory"?
So in this case, Chiang Kai-shek thought about it over and over again and put forward a new tactical idea, that is,: it is better to overlap than to advance in parallel than to advance in parallel, and advance in three or four divisions overlap and interact with each other.
In this way, the Kuomintang also learned to concentrate superior forces in an attempt to have a decisive battle with our army. I have to say that this move is indeed sophisticated that even made the "God of War" Su Yu scratch his head!
Su Yu also scratched his head;
In June 1947, in order to eliminate the vitality of our Yimeng Mountain base in one fell swoop, Chiang Kai-shek launched the "Lu-Central Battle". Since the opponent was Su Yu, Chiang Kai-shek carefully selected and appointed Fan Hanjie as the commander-in-chief of the front line!
Due to the adoption of the new tactics, the Kuomintang army, led by Fan Hanjie, moved to the central Shandong region like a roller. Seeing such a big lump, Su Yu scratched his head a little.
Our army generally does not have the advantage of the Kuomintang troops, weapons and numbers. In this case, it is generally used to divide or search the flank to open the breakthrough, and then directly hit the Yellow Dragon.
But this time Fan Hanjie came, the Kuomintang army was stacked and intertwined, with almost no loopholes to take advantage of. If you venture into it, it is very likely that the enemy will not be able to separate them and will be completely wiped out by the enemy.
As the saying goes, "A person who fights according to military books is a fool." Su Yu, a veteran who has been through battle, naturally would not make this mistake. Seeing that the division could not be completed, Su Yu planned to use three columns as bait to attack Lunnan to lure Fan Hanjie back to help.
also places the main force of Huaye in Yishui first generation fighter jets. In theory, as long as Fan Hanjie is recruited and rescued, the Kuomintang army will be divided, so that the effect of annihilation of the enemy in the movement can be achieved.
Liu and Deng
But at this time, the Party Central Committee sent a telegram indicating that Liu and Deng would cross the Yellow River by the end of June, hoping that the Huaye could divide the troops , Shandong West and Shandong South to open a channel for them and support them, so as to share their pressure.
Although Su Yu had a plan to divide the troops in Lunan, it was just a bait and the main force was not mobilized. But if we want to share the pressure with Liu and Deng, then three columns are obviously not enough.
In desperation, Su Yu followed the instructions of the central government and quickly divided five columns from Shandong to southern Shandong. Due to Su Yu's reinforcements, the situation suddenly changed. In order to prevent Liu and Deng from breaking through the "cage", Chiang Kai-shek and Gu Zhutong and adjusted their deployment again and dispatched 7 reorganized divisions from Fan Hanjie's troops in Shandong to allow them to enrich the national army that encircled and suppressed the People's Liberation Army!
In this way, the situation facing Su Yu changed again. Due to Chiang Kai-shek's removal, Fan Hanjie's 11 divisions had only 4 troops left, which made Su Yu feel that the so-called "Luzhong Battle" might be dead!
But since the enemy is here and they are weak, even if they want to escape, Su Yu's opinion has to leave something valuable.
Fan Hanjie
, while only the 11th Division can watch the four Kuomintang reorganized divisions left in central Shandong. More importantly, the 11th Division is stationed in the heart of the Yimeng Mountain base - Nanma.
Although Nanma is not big, it is very important in the eyes of the Kuomintang.Chiang Kai-shek once said: " The Communist Party has two 'old nests' in Jiangbei, the political nest is in Yan'an, and the military nest is in Nanma. "
Therefore, the 11th Division of the Kuomintang stationed in Nanma area successfully aroused Su Yu's appetite. At the beginning, Su Yu believed that since the "Luzhong Battle" could not be fought, the Kuomintang army here would definitely retreat!
The 11th Division stationed in Nanma is at the end of the retreat sequence. At that time, just chase the tail and fight, it should be easy to annihilate the 11th Division. However, Su Yu miscalculated, Fan Hanjie was cunning, and he had never thought about retreating at all.
On the contrary, he also wanted to use the bait of the 11th Division to catch Su Yu, lure the main force of Huaye to Nanma, and then use the tactic of " center blossoming " to allow the national army to form a larger encirclement on the periphery, and then severely damage Huaye.
Su Yu (the map holder)
But not long after the great victory of Menglianggu, Huaye's commanders and fighters, including Su Yu, were still immersed in the great joy of victory. Although Su Yu is more sober than ordinary people, it’s a pity that he didn’t see through Fan Hanjie’s trap!
According to the power comparison and intelligence information at that time, Su Yu could use 4 columns and East China Special Brigade, while the Kuomintang 11th Division had only 5 regiments under its command. In addition, according to information, the 11th Division built some fortifications in Nanma, but they were not solid.
For these reasons, Su Yu believes that if the 11th Brigade is used as bait, it may also attract more Kuomintang troops to aid, and the "Menglianggu Victory" may not be able to be reproduced by then!
It seems that Su Yu and Fan Hanjie were plotting against each other at that time, and wanted to expand the results based on the 11th Division. However, perhaps the victory of Meng Lianggu was too easy. A heavy rain in the sky poured a basin of cold water on Huaye's commanders and fighters, including Su Yu!
days is unfavorable;
On July 17, 1947, Su Yu launched the Nanma Battle after repeated weighing. Before the war, in order to prevent the Kuomintang from providing reinforcements before our army had completely annihilated the 11th Division, Su Yu divided a column and local armed forces to fight for reinforcements.
18, under the cover of the special column, the other three columns began to attack Nanma. However, at the beginning of the attack, Su Yu discovered the problem.
It turned out that before the war, Su Yu learned from the information collected, that the 11th Division had built some fortifications, but they were not strong. But at the beginning of the attack, after several rounds of artillery bombardment, the fortifications of the 11th Division were almost unscathed.
In this way, Su Yu's strategic idea of a quick decision will be difficult to realize, which can't help but increase his worries. After all, when the gunshots of Nanma sounded, the surrounding Kuomintang troops would be moved. If they could not conquer them for a long time, the soldiers responsible for attacking aid would be under great pressure.
But now the troops have been launched, so I can only bite my teeth. But after truly contacting the local positions, the soldiers discovered that the 11th Division's fortifications were far stronger than they imagined.
11 Division Commander Hu Lian has set up many barbed wire and deer forts around the core position, which greatly prevent the PLA from advancing. Moreover, with the help of these fortifications, the 11th Division counterattacked with strong firepower, and the People's Liberation Army suffered heavy casualties for a while!
Seeing this situation, Su Yu was uneasy, but he could not reveal it. He was facing a hard bone at this time. Even if the front teeth collapsed, he had to chew it down, otherwise it would not be the front teeth that collapsed!
So under the charge of the soldiers' lives, they finally broke through the periphery's guard position on the evening of the 18th. In order to reduce the pressure on attacking the aid troops as much as possible, Su Yu ordered the troops to immediately launch a general attack on the main position of the 11th Division.
Originally Su Yu thought that as long as the general attack was launched, the 11th Division would be able to be defeated soon, but no one expected that this general attack would become Su Yu's first "Waterloo" after becoming famous!
Although most of the outer positions of Hu Lian's 11th Division were captured, the 11th Division was not panicked at all. It turned out that there were more than 1,000 fortresses in the outer positions.
These fortresses are called mother forts and small forts. A mother fort is densely surrounded by twenty or thirty sub forts.The mother-child forts are connected by traffic trenches, thus forming an indestructible fort group!
Although our soldiers rushed to the position without hesitation, they fell to the ground under the enemy's artillery fire before they even arrived. Even though some soldiers rushed to the fortress under the cover of our firepower, there were only two or three national troops in the sub-fort, and no more than one squad in the mother-fort.
Son-master
In this way, our army was injured, but the enemy was almost safe. In desperation, Su Yu quickly changed his tactics and, in addition to shooting with artillery fire, he also organized a blasting team to blast.
Blasting team first blows up the bunker with explosives, and then the assault team launches a rapid charge and rushes forward. The casualties of the offensive troops were therefore reduced, but the bunkers were not city walls, and it was fine after blowing up one. There were so many dense bunkers, and it took a lot of time to explode.
Hu Lian also formulated defensive tactics in a tit-for-tat way. Su Yu has an assault team, and he has a counter attack team. All counter attack teams are equipped with submachine gun and carbine. When the People's Liberation Army explodes, the counterattack team will attack at the same time and shoot at the blasting mouth from different directions.
will kill and injure the attack team that rushed up next to the breakthrough. At the critical moment of the tug-of-war between the two sides, it suddenly started to rain heavily.
Due to the lack of moisture-proof equipment, Huaye's ammunition was wet, and most of the explosive packs relying for blasting and attacking were ineffective. Heavy rain also caused mountain torrents, and the road became muddy. heavy artillery could not pull to the front line.
Because Nanma cannot capture it for a long time, and with Meng Lianggu's previous lessons, Chiang Kai-shek ordered all reinforcements to be reinforced in a timely manner. The armed pressure on our army to fight aid in various places has increased sharply.
Su Yu
Because Su Yu had limited troops at that time, he could no longer send a reserve team to reinforce. In order not to be trapped by the larger encirclement of the Kuomintang, he could only order the siege to be withdrawn at dusk on July 21.
In order to break out of the enemy's encirclement as soon as possible, Su Yu led the remaining troops of Huaye to retreat from the northeast of Nanma. But little did he know that in a hurry, Su Yu jumped into another trap set by Fan Hanjie! After
, in Linqu in Shandong, Su Yu encountered difficulties again. Due to insufficient troops and the pursuit of troops behind, Su Yu urgently needed to capture Linqu City. But at that time, heavy rain fell, and the medicine sent by our army to blow up the city wall failed to work when it was water.
Later, after much trouble, it finally opened a gap in the city wall. However, due to the erosion of rain, the earth-built city wall became mud and water, and the soldiers were restricted in their movements.
Su Yu originally wanted to quickly consume the ammunition of the Kuomintang defenders of Linqu, but the enemy's airdropped resources continued, which caused Su Yu's plan to fail.
Linqu is right in front of you, but it is still difficult to enter. Just when Su Yu was hesitating whether to continue the strong attack, the Kuomintang reinforcements changed their strategy. They took advantage of the loopholes that were far apart from our reinforcements and were already coming towards Linqu.
If Su Yu does not retreat, perhaps the remaining troops in Huaye will be completely explained to Linqu! In desperation, on the evening of July 30, Su Yu finally decided to give up Linqu and move to the Jiaodong Peninsula area to the southeast of Linqu!
Although this decision avoided the fate of Huaye being gathered and annihilated by the Kuomintang, it also lost the Yimeng Mountain base where Huaye had been operating for more than ten years. Moreover, in the battles between Nanma and Linqu, Su Yu's established results not only failed to achieve, but instead suffered heavy losses.
According to post-war statistics, during the battles between Nanma and Linqu, the Kuomintang suffered more than 18,000 casualties, and our army suffered at least 21,000 casualties. Due to the serious problem of staff reduction, some of the main divisions in Huaye were forced to be compressed into two regiments.
Faced with this result, Su Yu blamed himself and even took the initiative to send a telegram to the Party Central Committee requesting punishment. At the same time, Chen Yi, who was with Su Yu, kept enlightening him.
In Chen Yi's view, as the No. 1 military chief in Huaye, Nanma and Linqu are inadequate in the battle between them, and he has his own responsibility. Su Yu cannot be blamed on him. But even so, Su Yu still couldn't let it go.
cheered up again;
Tan Zhenlin
Until Su Yu's friend Tan Zhenlin heard the news of the defeat in the battle between Nanma and Linqu, he wrote a 1,000-word criticism.
In this book of criticism, Tan Zhenlin did not deny Su Yu's military command ability, but instead praised his previous achievements, believing that he was a rare military genius.
But his conversation changed, but he also said: Su Yu has talent in military command, but lacks foresight. It was this statement that made Su Yu feel enlightened and suddenly walked out of his self-blame and guilt.
It turns out that in Tan Zhenlin's view. As a general who is good at commanding large corps operations, Su Yu has no doubt about tactical command capabilities, but his strategic vision is obviously insufficient.
Perhaps it was Meng Lianggu's great victory that made Su Yu feel a little complacent, so that the Huaye troops were put on the verge of gamble during the battle of Nanma and Linqu, without considering the worst case at all.
The whole battle was just about how to win, without preparing for a future. Therefore, the entire battle was pushed away by the battlefield situation and the enemy, and there was no way to take the initiative. In the end, the battles of Nanma and Linqu were returned in vain and suffered heavy losses!
And after seeing this, Su Yu also understood his problem. He had a little sudden enlightenment for a moment, which made him regain his confidence and the will and courage to continue fighting against the enemy.
Because of this, in the days that Su Yu was able to remain calm in the face of danger and make clever arrangements, and continuously expand his results in Huaihai Battle , greatly weakening the vital strength of the Kuomintang and becoming the "general" mentioned by Chairman Mao!
Conclusion:
In fact, as strong as Su Yu, he will also have moments of losing himself. If Meng Lianggu hadn't come too easily, Su Yu wouldn't have let go of his vigilance and easily got into Fan Hanjie's trap, which eventually led to a crushing defeat.
So no matter when, we must keep a little sober. You should know that the moment of being proud and fulfilled is also the time when you are most relaxed, and often when you are unprepared, it is the time when the enemy is most likely to take action.
References: 1. "Overview of Party History" - Battlefield Confrontation between Su Yu and Hu Lian;
2. "Analysis of the Battles of Nanma and Linqu during the War of Liberation" - Yu Wan Ying
