Among the many founding generals in New China, he is definitely an extremely special one.
He participated in the revolution lately. He was a famous general of the Northeast Army in his early years. He officially joined the Eighth Route Army in 1942, but his achievements were extraordinary. He won many battles and promoted all the way in the three consecutive years of the Anti-Japanese War, and eventually became a senior general of the Eighth Route Army.
However, what is little known is that such a highly anticipated general was "defeated" in a job transfer in 1947.
1. Sudden job changes
In the spring of 1947, Northeast Democratic Alliance Army conducted an internal job transfer.
During this transfer, Lin Biao issued an order to let former commander of Songjiang Military Region Li Tianyou serve as commander of the First Column, while former commander of the First Column, Wan Yi, went to Songjiang to replace Li Tianyou's position, and the positions of commanders of the two major military regions were "swap".
When this news came out, it caused a stir in the army.
Although the two are of the same level, they are different between the troops. Songjiang Military Region is a local garrison force, and the First Column is the field column in our army's sequence and belongs to the main front-line force with "right and red roots".
When receiving the transfer order, the most surprising thing was Wan Yi himself.
is naturally obeyed by the superior command, but he felt nothing in his heart. He could not think about it and did not know much about the reason for the mobilization.
At the same time as the transfer order was issued, Lin Biao and Wan Yi had a conversation.
In this conversation, Wan Yi was in an extremely low mood. When Lin Biao talked about the topic of mobilization, Wan Yi, who had been silent, did not hold back and confronted him on the spot: "Why should I be mobilized like this?"
Lin Biao has always had a high prestige in the Northeast Democratic Alliance. This is the first time he was questioned by his subordinates in such a tone. As soon as Wan Yi said this, Lin Biao's face immediately pulled down, and finally the conversation ended in a hurry with the people around him smoothing out.
The reason why Wan Yi is so angry is mainly because he has two major heart knots.
First, the First Column is the old army he has been with for many years. He has finally raised strong troops over the years, and he just "gives to others" like this. Anyone would be a little unwilling to do so.
Secondly, according to the normal promotion rules, Li Tianyou should not have been quickly promoted to the position of main commander at that time. In terms of qualifications, as an old man, he did not make any mistakes and was dragged down by the newcomer.
is confused in these two aspects that he questioned face in person regardless of Lin Biao's face.
But because of this impulse, the two of them parted in a bad mood, which made Wan Yi even more nervous.
Lin Biao has always been the only one who leads his troops. There has never been a precedent for subordinates to bargain in his troops, and Wan Yi is the first one.
However, unexpectedly, Lin Biao found Wan Yi again for a conversation.
This time the conversation between the two sides was very gentle. Lin Biao said to Wan Yi patiently: "I still have to discuss with you. If you don't want to go to Songjiang Military Region, you can also be the principal of Qiqihar Infantry School."
Seeing the leader taking care of this, Wan Yi was still emotional about the transfer of the troops, and it was difficult to raise it. In the end, he just said: "I won't say it."
Seeing Wan Yi not opening his mouth, Lin Biao had to let him go back first, and this conversation ended again.
After these two conversations, Wan Yi basically calmed down. He knew that he was likely to be unable to stay in the original army.
But after fighting for many years, he was unwilling to go to the rear to "super retirement". At this moment, he still wanted to fight for the opportunity to stay on the front-line combat troops, even if he was demoted.
But I was disturbed by myself twice in a row, so I felt embarrassed to disturb Lin Biao again.
Finally, he found his old partner Liang Biye and asked him to help convey his thoughts to Lin Biao.
Liang Biye has always had a good reputation. After some mediation and communication, Lin Biao finally understood Wan Yi's idea and dealt with it in a compromise with this transfer: Li Tianyou's order to take over as the commander of the First Column remains unchanged, and Wan Yi no longer needs to go to the Songjiang Military Region, but stay in the First Column as the political commissar.
In addition, Lin Biao also asked Liang Biye to bring Wan Yi a message: "Let you be a political commissar not really be a political commissar, it is mainly to give you a chance to learn from Li Tianyou to fight."
2, Siping Battle , textbook-level offensive
In fact, Lin Biao's mobilization this time was more about war considerations.
was at the critical moment of the People's Liberation Army's counterattack, and Wan Yi's personal command style and war tone were not moderate.
Because he was born in the Northeast Army in his early years, Wan Yi was unable to adapt to the People's Liberation Army's guerrilla warfare in tactical terms. He pursued steady battles and did not like to fight unprepared battles, which is a battle with huge disparity in strength between the two sides.
But the PLA is "unprepared" or "underprepared", which makes Wan Yi a little restrained in command on the battlefield. Although Wan Yi did not make any big mistakes during his tenure as commander of the First Column, the first Column did not establish too much results during this period. If it were fashionable and acceptable for both armies to balance the power.
But it was already May 1947. The Central Military Commission was preparing to launch the summer offensive , so Lin Biao decided to make internal adjustments, change the commander in the last battle, and transfer Li Tianyou, who was more radical in the battle, first.
After Li Tianyou took office as commander of the First Column, he immediately received a new order, which was to attack Siping City.
Siping is located in Jilin Province. It was the strategic focus of Northeast China at that time. It connected Shenyang, Changchun, Jilin and other major cities, and was related to the initiative in the entire Northeast war situation.
In order to ensure that Siping was won, in June 1947, Li Tianyou once again "crossed the level", commanding two columns and another division and five artillery battalions, , and launched an attack on Siping.
At that time, the Kuomintang had already turned to the defensive position. At that time, Du Yuming and issued an order to concentrate the entire Kuomintang army in central cities such as Shenyang, Siping, and Jilin, waiting for reinforcements, which also made the difficulty of attacking Siping a sharp increase.
At that time, Chen Mingren, the Kuomintang 71st Army (later revolt and became our general), was guarding Siping. He was ready for battle.
In order to win this battle, in addition to the main force, our army arranged four columns and seventeen divisions to be responsible for fighting aid, and the overall force formed 80,000 to 20,000.
Single from the perspective of the forces of both sides, this is an unprecedented "rich battle" of the People's Liberation Army, but in fact, behind the Siping City defenders, all the Kuomintang's air power at that time was also included. After the battle of
began, the Kuomintang army successively dropped bullets and drugs to the Sipingcheng defenders, including more than 3 million bullets, 530,000 mortar shells, 6,200 mountain shells, and 1,300 howitzers.
This brought great trouble to the progress of our army. In just the 8th day of the battle, the entire army had already damaged more than 8,000 people, far exceeding the pre-war expectations.
Despite such a difficult situation, Li Tianyou still showed an unparalleled art of command.
In the winter offensive launched from December 15, 1947 to March 15, 1948, Li Tianyou reorganized his troops and launched an attack on Siping City.
In this siege, Li Tianyou used thunder to clear out the peripheral fortifications in Haifengtun, Xujiayao, etc., and finally launched the general attack at 7:40 am on March 12. It took only one day and night to achieve a complete victory.
Under extremely harsh environments, more than 19,000 defending enemies were wiped out.
Li Tianyou's tactics were praised by the Military Commission special notice and ordered to be promoted throughout the army.
Its performance was extremely exciting for Wan Yi, who had been serving as political commissar in the army. It was not until this time that he fully understood what Lin Biao's words "learning to fight" meant.
Li Tianyou can be said to have given Wan Yi a military class with his own actions.
3, the hero behind the liberation of Peking. Chairman Mao personally met with Wan Yi, Wan Yi, was always convinced by Li Tianyou. After Li Tianyou took office as commander, the two had been getting along very well. Although there would be differences or even debates on their views, the two sides were always in line with each other in command and maintained unity.
During the year I spent with Li Tianyou, Wan Yi learned a lot from him that he had not paid attention to before, and his personal military command ability was greatly improved.
1948 When Northeast Field Army was reorganized again, Wan Yi also re-elected his original position again, serving as the commander of the Fifth Column, and returned to the combat force.
In the subsequent battles, the fifth column has always performed very steadily, especially in Pingjin Battle , Wan Yi used a "forced march" for the first time, allowing the army to advance from east to west, occupying Fengtai in one day beyond the Central Military Commission's expected time, and was commended by Lin Biao and Luo Ronghuan for power generation.
When the Kuomintang army counterattacked, Wan Yi also showed his extremely superb battlefield command ability, resisting the attacks of 12 divisions with his own strength, winning great initiative in the battlefield for our army and laying the foundation for the subsequent Peaceful liberation of .
In February of the same year, when the Central Committee was preparing to hold the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee in Xibaipo , Mao Zedong specially mentioned Wan Yi's name and invited him to attend and serve as an alternate member. The news of
caused a lot of shock at the time. Wan Yi was also a little nervous at first. He was born in the old army and had never seen Mao Zedong, nor had he ever engaged in politics.
Although Fengtai made a name for itself, there were many generals who made contributions in the army at that time. Why did Wan Yi come to participate?
In fact, Mao Zedong invited Wan Yi out of many considerations.
First of all, Wan Yi is the Manchu people and is the representative of ethnic minorities; secondly, Wan Yi is from the old army and is the representative of the transformation of the old army.
This is why Mao Zedong decided to invite him to participate.
To his surprise, when he first met Mao Zedong, the other party's words dispelled all his nervousness.
This meeting, Mao Zedong did not talk about work, but talked about Wan Yi's surname.
"Comrade Wan Yi, you said that in the hundreds of families, besides the surname Wu, Lu, Qian, and Wan, what other surnames are related to numbers? Your surname is Wan. Have you studied this aspect?"
's words made everyone present laugh, and Wan Yi's heart that had been tightly held was greatly relaxed, and the atmosphere of the meeting was very pleasant.
After the founding of New China, Wan Yi continued to devote himself to the cause of national defense. Since he served as the commander of the Fourth Field Army's Special Forces Force, he has never given up on the habit of constantly learning in his many years of military career.
In the 1950s, Wan Yi felt that his knowledge level was not enough. He was already in his forties and actually started learning Russian again and went to the Soviet military academy to study abroad.
After returning from the Soviet Union, the former old leader Luo Ronghuan found Wan Yi, hoping that he could be transferred to Second Ministry of Machinery Industry to be a deputy minister and be responsible for national defense industry work.
Wan Yi happily agreed to this appointment. In the days that followed, he had been working in related fields for more than ten years and made outstanding contributions to the development of my country's weapons and equipment.
Later, when the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army decided to establish the Weapons and Equipment Planning Department, Wan Yi was promoted again and was officially appointed as minister.
On October 31, 1997, veteran General Wan Yi died in Beijing due to ineffective treatment at the age of 90. After his death, his body was buried in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery and was mourned with extremely high standards.
In Wan Yi, he has the unique resilience of the older generation of revolutionaries and a characteristic of always being proactive. No matter what difficulties he encounters, he always overcomes them tenaciously and tries his best efforts to do his best.
Reference:
- "Summary of the Siping Battle": The achievements of the tough general Li Tianyou being frustrated by the city. Beijing Evening News
2, Chen Guanren. General: Documentary of the legendary general of the Chinese People's Liberation Army [M]. Central Documentary Publishing House, 2007.
3, edited by the History and Records Office of Jinzhou District, Dalian City. Ninety Years of Wind and Rain, General Wan Yi Memorial Collection [M]. Beijing: Party History Publishing House, 2007.08.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-