There are many famous generals in the four fields, and will be like a tiger. Among many famous generals, Li Tianyou is a very special one.
Li Tianyou is of medium height. He was dark and thin when he was young. He speaks in a low voice, neither in a hurry nor slow. He is very organized and polite to others. He does not have the fierceness of those traditional tiger generals, but is more like a Confucian general.
However, when looking through Li Tianyou's record of meritorious service, we were surprised to find that he was a tiger general with truly outstanding military exploits. He had become famous as early as the Red Army and the Eighth Route Army, leaving behind many classic battle masterpieces. During the War of Liberation, Li Tianyou traveled across the Northeast, galloped between white mountains and black waters, and participated in almost all major and vicious battles.
On January 8, 1914, Li Tianyou was born into a peasant family in Gaopo Village, Liutangwei, Lingui County, Guangxi Province.
Li Tianyou's family has been poor for generations, and his parents have worked hard to raise five children. Li Tianyou ranks third, with two sisters. His father named him Tianyou, hoping that God would bless his first son to grow up healthily and bring glory to his ancestors.
html When he was 06 years old, his father sent Li Tianyou to a private school to study. However, as life became more and more difficult, Li Tianyou was forced to drop out of school and began to help his parents work to support the family.When Li Tianyou was 11 years old, there was a serious drought in his hometown. The harvest was poor and the family could not fill their stomachs. His father was cruel and sold Li Tianyou's younger brother to others. Later, he sent Li Tianyou to a rice noodle shop in Guilin as an apprentice.
Young Li Tianyou works from dawn to dusk every day, but is still bullied by the shop owner. At a young age, he is eager to change his destiny.
One day in June 1928, 14-year-old Li Tianyou heard that the army was recruiting soldiers, so he made up his mind to sign up. Li Tianyou left without saying goodbye. He asked someone to bring a note home to his father. After reading it, his parents found out that their son had gone to serve in the army alone.
"God bless! God bless! God bless! God bless!" Li Tianyou's parents prayed day and night, hoping that their son would come home safely as soon as possible. But they never imagined that their son would be gone for more than 20 years, and this farewell would be an eternal farewell!
Fortunately, Li Tianyou joined the team of the famous patriotic general Li Mingrui. After the failure of the vigorous Revolution, this famous general in the Northern Expedition gradually saw through the ugly faces of Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei, and chose to join the Communist Party of China. Together with Deng Xiaoping, Zhang Yunyi, Wei Baqun, etc., he led the famous Baise Uprising, and participated in the creation of the Seventh Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
During these turbulent years, Li Tianyou's thoughts were greatly shocked. In Li Mingrui, he saw the firm belief of the revolutionaries, so the young Li Tianyou resolutely chose to join the Communist Party of China and participated in the Baise Uprising.
Although Li Tianyou was young, he was very brave in combat. At the age of 15, he served as the platoon leader of the machine gun company of the training camp. After the Baise Uprising, 15-year-old Li Tianyou was appointed deputy company commander of the special agent company of the Seventh Red Army. The special agent company is directly under the command of the military headquarters. It is the elite of our army and has extremely strong combat effectiveness. As the deputy company commander, Li Tianyou takes the lead in every battle and rushes to the front, even if he is injured, he will not flinch.
On February 3, 1930, our army was besieged by four enemy regiments in Meihua Village, Ruyuan County, Guangdong Province. The enemy was outnumbered and the battle was extremely fierce. Our army killed more than a thousand enemies and suffered as many as six to seven hundred casualties. Li Tianyou was red-eyed, took the lead, went into battle shirtless, commanded the special agent company to brave the enemy's artillery fire, and captured the hilltop in less than half an hour.
In this battle, Li Tianyou was praised as "Little Tiger Company Commander" because of his heroic performance and charging ahead. He was promoted to company commander soon after. In the battles in the first half of 1930 alone, Li Tianyou was injured three times. Each time, he was slightly injured and could not get out of the firing line. He went into battle again before the injury healed. Although he was not tall, he was always the one who charged the most fiercely on the battlefield.
In July 1931, the Red Seventh Army and the Central Red Army were stationed in Yudu Division, Jiangxi Province, and were placed under the organization of the Third Red Army Corps. They participated in the third counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression" in the central revolutionary base area.
The success of the third counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression" was attributed to Mao Zedong's correct military command.However, on January 10, 1932, the Provisional Central Committee headed by Bogu made another adventurist mistake and required the Central Red Army to resolutely seize Ganzhou, , develop northward with Ganzhou as the center, strive for the first victory of the revolution in Jiangxi, and made specific military deployments to attack Ganzhou.
This order was obviously completely wrong. Mao Zedong, who had always opposed attacking cities, was furious. He threw his cigarette on the ground and asked sternly: "Isn't this a repeat of the adventurous route to capture the central city?!"
However, Mao Zedong did not have the highest decision-making power at the time. His anger alone could not change the development of the situation. The order to attack Ganzhou was still issued, and it could not be opposed.
Surprisingly, Peng Dehuai, who had always supported Mao Zedong's military ideas, did not support Mao Zedong's opinions this time, but expressed appreciation for the decision to attack Ganzhou. Later, Peng Dehuai recalled the incident and regretted it very much. He believed that he had misjudged the situation at the time and believed that there was a great chance of conquering Ganzhou. However, the facts proved that this attack on Ganzhou was a huge mistake, both in strategy and in battle.
Our army's combat deployment is to the Red 3rd Army and command the 7th Red Army and the 4th Red Army as the main combat arm, responsible for siege and blocking reinforcements. Peng Dehuai, commander of the 3rd Red Army, serves as the former enemy's commander-in-chief and political commissar.
Ganzhou City faces water on three sides. The city wall is tall and thick, and the wall is smooth and flat. It is easy to defend but difficult to attack. Under this situation, once the enemy closes the city and defends it stubbornly, our army will be unable to attack for a long time. When enemy reinforcements arrive, the situation will be very unfavorable to our army.
On February 4, 1932, when the main force of the Red Army arrived one after another, Zhu Shaoliang, director of the Kuomintang's Jiangxi Appeasement Office, did not attack rashly. Instead, he immediately shortened the defense line and ordered all troops to return to the city and defend the city. Together with local armed forces, the number was as high as 18,000, far exceeding Peng Dehuai's estimate.
After Peng Dehuai mastered this information, he knew that he had underestimated the enemy. Ganzhou was not easy to fight, but the arrow was on the string and had to be fired. The order had been issued, and it would be impossible not to fight!
The Red Army lacks heavy weapons such as artillery , and its weak siege ability is its biggest shortcoming. How on earth can it open Ganzhou's strong city wall? Looking at the enemy's figure on the top of the city, Peng Dehuai fell into deep thinking.
At this time, Li Tianyou has led his special agent company to standby outside Ganzhou City, looking forward to Mei breaking through the city and killing the enemy to make meritorious deeds. However, the order for the general attack has not yet been issued, and everyone is very anxious. Early that morning, Li Tianyou and his soldiers were practicing climbing in the woods. A soldier suddenly pointed not far away and exclaimed: "Look, what is that!"
Everyone looked over and saw three mysterious coffins delivered by friendly forces outside the headquarters of the Seventh Red Army! What happened to
? This battle hasn't even started yet, and people are already dead? Who is so unlucky? Everyone looked at me and I looked at you, each one was puzzled, and finally all cast suspicious eyes on Li Tianyou.
Li Tianyou lowered his head and thought for a moment, suddenly thought of something, and couldn't help but feel excited, and blurted out: "Well done! The coffin must be filled with explosives! The general attack is about to begin! Why are you still standing there, go and help!"
The soldiers went over to see that they were indeed transporting explosives, and they all gave Li Tianyou a thumbs up: How did you know that the coffin was used to hold explosives?
It turns out that Li Tianyou knew that the Ganzhou city wall was high and thick, and it would be difficult to break through without artillery. Therefore, our army formed a demolition team, preparing to use the cover of private houses to dig a secret passage from the bottom of the city river and place explosives at the base of the city wall for blasting. These coffins must be used to hold explosives.
However, this trick did not succeed in one fell swoop.
html On February 13th and 17th, our army tried two blasts to attack the city, but neither was successful. On the 23rd, Peng Dehuai ordered a desperate general attack. This time, the demolition team successfully blew down a section of the city wall near the east gate. Our vanguard stormed the gap in the city and captured the city tower in one fell swoop. However, the enemy immediately organized a counterattack and used their firepower advantage to seal the breach. Our attack was blocked and we were forced to withdraw from the battle.The battle situation was unfavorable, and Li Tianyou's special agent company was never able to directly enter the battle. Li Tianyou was extremely anxious and repeatedly asked for battle. It was not until March 4 that Li Tianyou finally received the order to form a death squad from a special agent company to prepare for another assault.
Li Tianyou replied excitedly: "Captain, resolutely complete the mission!"
html At dawn on March 4, with a loud "bang", our army's "dynamite coffin" exploded a city wall again! Before the smoke cleared, Li Tianyou took the lead and immediately led his soldiers to rush up from the gap and launch a fierce attack.Facing the superior enemy, the death squads suffered heavy casualties, and Li Tianyou had to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. Just as he jumped onto another tower, three bullets suddenly struck from behind and shot into Li Tianyou's body!
Li Tian didn't even feel pain. The impact of the bullet made him lose his balance. He fell from the high city wall and fainted on the spot.
When a soldier saw Li Tianyou falling to the ground after being shot, he thought he was dead and desperately carried him out of the position.
At this time, a cannonball suddenly exploded nearby. The huge air wave knocked the two people to the ground, and the soil from the explosion suddenly covered their bodies. Fortunately, the soldier was not seriously injured. When he shook off the dust and once again dragged Li Tianyou's arm to put it on his shoulder, he suddenly heard Li Tianyou groan and his body moved. It turned out that it was the shell that woke up the unconscious Li Tianyou. The soldier suddenly shouted happily: "The company commander is still alive, everyone, come quickly, he is still alive!"
After that, enemy reinforcements arrived and launched an internal and external pincer attack on our army. Our army was suddenly attacked and fell into a passive position. It was able to retreat with the support of friendly forces. The 33-day Battle of Ganzhou ended with a long attack and heavy losses. It became one of the few hundred battles in Peng Dehuai's military command career. Years later, Li Tianyou still remembers the cruel scenes of this battle.
