The strategic position of the Northeast is extremely important. As early as 1945, Mao Zedong believed that if all our existing bases were lost, as long as we had the Northeast, then the Chinese revolution would have a foundation for consolidation.

After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party entered a stage of subtle game. Chiang Kai-shek He did different things. On the one hand, he talked about peace, but on the other hand, he was secretly ready to adjust and deploy the army. Take the Northeast as an example only. The strategic position of the Northeast is extremely important. As early as 1945, Mao Zedong believed that if all our existing bases were lost, as long as we had the Northeast, then the Chinese revolution would have a foundation for consolidation. Mao Zedong's words showed that the strategic position of Northeast China was unique at that time. Chiang Kai-shek also understood this point. Since 1945, Chiang Kai-shek's operations in the Northeast have been increasingly frequent, and this is a powerful catalyst for pushing peace toward civil war .

In early and mid-November 1945, the United States used 31 transport ships to transport the two armies of the National Army from Kowloon and Vietnam Haidang to Qinhuangdao login. After landing, the two troops successively captured Shanhaiguan, Suizhong, and Jinzhou. Note that these places had been liberated by the Eighth Route Army long before the National Army captured them. Therefore, the behavior of the National Army is tantamount to a naked challenge. In 1946, the Kuomintang army once again made mixed actions: on the one hand, they asked the Soviet army to temporarily ease the withdrawal from the Northeast, and on the other hand, they asked the United States to dispatch more naval transport ships to cooperate with the National Army to land. In a word: The Kuomintang army is rapidly enhancing its hard power in the Northeast, thereby controlling the right to speak in reality.

By around March 1946, the National Army had already had about 250,000 troops deployed in Shenyang, Anshan , Yingkou and other places in the northeast. The intention was obvious: the sudden occupation of the entire Northeast region, creating a fait accompli, and taking China's strategic location into account.

Faced with the various actions of the national army, we are always striving to seek the possibility of a peaceful solution to the Northeast issue. It can be seen that it is clear who is a true pacifist and a patriot. However, peace requires strength, and all peace is nothing more than a manifestation of balance of strength. To this end, on January 7, 1946, we renamed the originally formed Northeast People's Autonomous Army to Northeast Democratic Alliance . At the same time, in order to be in a favorable position in negotiations with the national army that may come, the Northeast Democratic Alliance is required: If our side has retreated and has no choice but to retreat, if the enemy still wants to attack, we will resolutely strike and completely annihilate the enemy . Obviously, this strategy has been done with all its kindness and righteousness, and it deeply and realistically shows what our army does for peace.

However, the Kuomintang army made mistakes again and again, without any intention of stopping. Even though the two sides had reached the "Agreement to Mediate the Northeast Armistice" on March 27, 1946, even in this agreement, it was clearly stated that (Military Trio) should strive to make the two sides stop the conflict and make necessary and fair mediation. However, the Kuomintang army had no sincerity to fight for peace. Before the agreement was finished, it ordered Du Yuming to command the New First Army and the 71st Army to advance north from Shenyang, and ordered him to occupy Siping before April 2. At the same time, the US military was asked to continue to assist the national army in transporting the army and increase the transportation of 50,000 national troops into the Northeast.

Mao Zedong had already expected the various words and deeds of the National Army. Working to achieve the best results while preparing for the worst should reflect Mao Zedong's main mentality during this period. However, all signs at that time had shown that civil war was becoming increasingly inevitable. Once a civil war breaks out, the gap between the two sides in terms of hard power must be observed. Let’s look at the national army first.

Around June 1946, the total number of troops in the national army was about 4.3 million . Including the regular and informal army of the army, the navy, the air force, the special forces , and the rear troops (such as military academies, rear organ troops, etc.). Chiang Kai-shek was very confident in the armed forces he had. At a conference in June of that year, he said: The strength of our army is that we have special forces , navy, and air force, while the other side does not have these tandem 2.From this we can see that on a broad scale, the national army not only has an advantage in the number of ordinary troops, but also has a variety of troops and a large number of troops that our army does not have. These advantages cannot even be measured in terms of quantity alone.

, the combat efficiency of the party with air control advantage will inevitably be greatly increased. For example, at that time, the logistics supply methods of our army were mainly based on various human transportation methods, and extremely limited mechanized transportation was auxiliary. The transportation speed is slow, the transportation volume is small, and the efficiency is relatively low. This type of logistics transportation method is almost vulnerable once it encounters an enemy air strike. The reason is simple: Compared with our logistics maneuvering speed, the enemy air force is extremely fast. Once accurate information is obtained, it can quickly fly to and destroy our logistics supply route.

National army not only has strong military strength, but more importantly, they have the strong help of the United States. Mao Zedong had fully seen the military and economic advantages of the national army in late 1946, and , especially the United States, strongly supported this advantage. Financial aid is the top priority of U.S. aid. For example, in 1945, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to the suggestion of Song Ziwen, and Song Ziwen took advantage of the opportunity to attend the United Nations Constitutional Conference in San Francisco to go to Washington to negotiate with the United States about the delivery of China's required materials and gold to China.

Chiang Kai-shek wrote in his diary: Prices continue to rise, and the US military demanded monthly payments, but its transportation of materials, gold, and air transport and land transport tools cannot be fulfilled as promised. In May of that year, Song Ziwen and Morgansau reached an agreement that the United States has shipped gold to China for nearly nine months since May, with a value of about 189 million US dollars. It also supplied about 15,000 tons of cloth to China. In short, in terms of economic aid alone, in the first half of 1946, the United States provided Chiang Kai-shek with a total value of about .35 billion US dollars. In addition to economic aid, the United States also provided Chiang Kai-shek with various other forms of assistance. For example, the United States trained a large number of technical officers for the national army, with a total of about 150,000. The United States equipped the National Army with a total of forty-five Army divisions, equipped the Air Force with 936 various combat aircraft, and handed over 131 various ships and . Subsequently, the US Congress considered passing a bill to aid Chiang Kai-shek: the Continue Military Aid to China Act. When China aid entered the US legislation, the nature of the aid changed fundamentally. But the United States has not stopped. Just when the US Congress heard the bill, the United States was preparing to sell the remaining war materials worth to Chiang Kai-shek for only 500 million US dollars.

On the contrary, our army only had 1.27 million troops at that time, and its equipment and materials were far inferior to the other party. However, as we all know, the more stressed the greater Mao Zedong's psychological state becomes. When the civil war broke out, Mao Zedong was not afraid at all in the face of the 4.3 million national troops. On July 20, 1946, Mao Zedong once made a light and gentle response to what we should do under such a huge gap in military strength:

Although Chiang Kai-shek was a big crowd, I also have fourteen words here, which can match a million troops: people return to their hearts, morale is high, and there is also a way for the economy. Then Mao Zedong continued: We are preparing everything (methods) to crush Chiang Kai-shek's attack and strive for peace. Although Chiang Kai-shek received assistance from Americans, his heart was not smooth, his morale was not high, and his economy was in trouble.

Mao Zedong's fourteen words focus on three aspects: The hearts of the people, the morale of the army, and the economy . They explain all the problems concisely and concisely, plan and plan with feather fan and fence, sit in the central army, lead all directions, and the image of the master is vividly displayed on paper.

Many people don’t understand that at the beginning of the civil war, Chiang Kai-shek had obvious advantages, but why was he uprooted by us in just a few years like he was destroyed and destroyed. In fact, the fundamental reason lies in: people's support and support . Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek's understanding of these four words is completely different. Both of them studied Marx, and both of them studied Wang Yangming.However, Mao Zedong's understanding of the people's desires has gradually entered the situation of a saint . On the contrary, Chiang Kai-shek never truly understood the hearts of the people in the realm of being kind and all things in the world. This qualitative difference made Mao Zedong enter the way of King Wen (kingdom), while Chiang Kai-shek understood the people's support throughout his life in the state of domineering. The difference between

seems very false, but is actually very realistic, because it can be reflected through realistic actions (that is, the activities of sentient people as Marx calls it). For example, in 1946, in the face of the fait accompli of the outbreak of the civil war, Mao Zedong repeatedly emphasized: We must cooperate closely with the people and must strive for everything that we can. Later, Mao Zedong told American journalist Strong in August of that year: Russian Tsar, German Hitler , Italian Mussolini and Japanese imperialism are all very powerful and terrible on the surface, but from a long-term perspective, in essence, the truly powerful force does not belong to the reactionaries, but to the people . When talking about the huge power of atomic bomb , Mao Zedong said: atomic bomb is of course a weapon with large-scale lethality, but it is the people who decide the victory or defeat of the war, not one or two new weapons .

It is obvious that Mao Zedong truly understood that the people are the creators and protagonists of history. Once you reach this level, your vision will naturally be extremely long-term and you will never be scared by the difficulty in front of you. On the contrary, from the various speeches of Chiang Kai-shek during this period, we can find that he did not believe in the people at all and looked down on the people at all. What he truly believed in was hegemony, strength, and force. For example, as mentioned in the previous article, Chiang Kai-shek did not believe that the real advantage should be to win the hearts of the people. He believed that the special forces, navy, and air force of the national army were the key to victory. He did not understand at all that no armed force could exist in reality and that the army should also eat and wear food and clothing. If it could not eat and wear warmth, it would even have no combat ability. However, eating and dressing are inseparable from the labor of the masses.

Of course, although Mao Zedong attached great importance to long-term strategic issues (people's hearts), he also attached great importance to short-term strategic issues and tactical issues (mechanism, economy). After ensuring that all people can win the hearts of the people, Mao Zedong put forward military opinions. He believes that there are two points to pay attention to in the military: first, we generally have to defeat Chiang Kai-shek through mobile warfare; second, we must concentrate our superior forces, concentrate six times, five times, or four times the enemy's forces, and encircle and annihilate an enemy brigade or regiment . These two aspects are valuable experiences summarized by Mao Zedong in his long-term guidance of operations. Readers who understand Mao Zedong's military thoughts should know that when facing enemies whose military strength is far superior to theirs, Mao Zedong basically upheld these two combat guidelines.

Generally speaking, when the enemy has strong military strength and excellent equipment, our army should not engage in frontal and positional wars with the enemy, because this is not conducive to our army's preservation of strength and is not conducive to weakening the enemy. On the contrary, our army should actively, flexibly and systematically implement offensive battles in defensive wars (such as the combat policy of the Northeast Democratic Alliance in early 1946), and quick decisive battles in protracted wars and external battles in internal wars . During the War of Liberation, Mao Zedong used these guiding ideologies to command great battles one after another. Success has led to a rapid transformation of the military forces of our enemy and us.

Mao Zedong's fourteen words, in addition to the people's hearts and the military spirit, also mention the economy. At that time, the economic conditions in the liberated areas were indeed very difficult. Chiang Kai-shek controlled almost all major cities and major transportation routes in the country, and also controlled 76% of the country's land and 71% of the population. This means that almost all the major modern industries at that time were under his control. On the contrary, the liberated areas not only did not control major cities and transportation routes, but the production methods in many areas were even quite backward, and there were many cases of transporting materials through handheld, shoulder-bearing, and large and small carts.However, in the face of such a huge gap in material power, Mao Zedong still maintained optimism and confidence. He once said:

The economy must make long-term plans, and use our human resources and material resources very efficiently, and avoid waste. We must work hard to produce, rely on self-reliance, be invincible, work hard, and take into account both the military and the civilians.

A simple word allows us to see the profound wisdom of this great man: Seek truth from facts . Mao Zedong clearly recognized our various economic difficulties and proposed a two-step strategy very realistically: first, save existing human and material resources; second, strive to improve productivity and self-reliance . The way of sages is indeed just a simple task. As long as you seek truth from facts and understand reality, make steady progress while making steady progress, and improve your own strength step by step, it is enough.

Finally, under the wise leadership of Mao Zedong and others, and under the sincere unity and self-reliance of people of all ethnic groups, we achieved a great victory in the War of Liberation.