What was the scene like when the Central Plains troops successfully broke through?

Shortly after the Kuomintang and the Communist Party signed the "Double Ten Agreement", Chiang Kai-shek openly broke the agreement and launched a nationwide civil war. On June 26, 1946, Chiang Kai-shek besieged our Central Plains Liberated Area with 300,000 troops, and a full-scale civil war launched by the Kuomintang broke out. Chiang Kai-shek has long regarded our Central Plains Liberated Areas as a thorn in his side. After Japan surrendered, our army occupied the Central Plains, directly threatening Chiang's army's exit from Sichuan, and blocking the Kuomintang army from advancing into various battlefields such as East China, North China, and Northeast China. Such an important strategic position would be strategically extremely disadvantageous for Chiang Kai-shek to launch a full-scale civil war. Chiang Kai-shek deliberately wanted to remove this thorn in his side in order to realize his strategic intention of all-out civil war.

Chiang Kai-shek relied on the excellent armaments of his troops and wanted to kill our troops. Chiang Kai-shek secretly ordered Liu Zhi, director of the "Appeasement Office" in Zhengzhou, to command the "encirclement and suppression" campaign in a unified manner, and a general offensive was scheduled to be launched on July 1. Starting from June 22, the Kuomintang once again narrowed the encirclement of us; on the 26th, it fired at me from the fringe areas. The enemy also estimated that if the "gathering and annihilation" failed, we would break through, and judged that our army would break out to the east (Jiangsu-Anhui border area), so they placed more than 110,000 troops on the eastern front, preparing to block the attack. Chiang Kai-shek believed that with this set of "magical calculations", he could "annihilate" the Central Plains People's Liberation Army within 48 hours.

Within 4 months after the start of the Liberation War, the People's Liberation Army successively achieved victory in the Central Plains breakout operation, the Central China Field Army won 7 battles and 7 victories in the central Jiangsu area, and the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army won victory in Longhai Road and Southwest Shandong. The victory of the continuous operations in the region has effectively dealt a blow to the Kuomintang's military offensive arrogance and greatly enhanced the People's Liberation Army's confidence in victory in self-defense operations. Liu and Deng launched the Northern Henan Offensive

While the People's Liberation Army actively defeated Chiang Kai-shek's key offensives in the northern Shaanxi and Shandong battlefields and blocked Chiang's two punches, our army relied on northern Henan, southern Shanxi, Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei, and Northeast China. After waiting for the specific situation in each battlefield area, we successively launched strategic counterattacks, annihilated a large number of enemies, and gradually recovered lost ground, thereby effectively cooperating with our troops in northern Shaanxi and Shandong to completely crush the enemy's key offensives.

Northern Henan was originally the advance base for Chiang Kai-shek to open up the Pinghan Road. After Chiang Kai-shek launched a key offensive, it became the hub area connecting the battlefields of northern Shaanxi and Shandong. Therefore, more defensive forces were deployed, and A large number of strong fortifications were built. The enemy focused its defense on Xinxiang and the area north of the intersection of Pinghan Road and Daoqing Road. At the same time, in order to ensure his key offensive, Chiang Kai-shek implemented the long-planned "Yellow River Strategy" in the liberated areas of Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan. He blocked the Huayuankou to return the Yellow River to its original course, forming a stretch of more than 1,000 kilometers from Fenglingdu in southern Shanxi to Jinan in Shandong. The defense line of the Yellow River was established, and they proudly claimed that the water of the Yellow River could replace an army of 400,000, in an attempt to prevent Liu and Deng from crossing to the south to support the battles in northern Shaanxi and Shandong.

The rest and reorganization of the troops were basically completed. In order to reduce the pressure on our troops in northern Shaanxi and Shandong, on March 19, the day Hu Zong invaded and occupied Yan'an in the south, Liu and Deng issued an order to launch an offensive in northern Henan. Focus on attacking Wang Zhonglian's department, disrupt the enemy's deployment in the hub area connecting the two battlefields in northern Shaanxi and Shandong, attract Jiang Jun to reinforce northern Henan, and coordinate the operations of the People's Liberation Army in northern Shaanxi and Shandong.

In view of the characteristics of Chiang Kai-shek's strong fortifications north of Xinxiang, avoidance of field battles, and fear of being cut off from the north and south of the Yellow River, Liu and Deng decided to first concentrate their superior forces to attack the area between Xinxiang and the Yellow River Iron Bridge, and then Depending on the situation, launch into the enemy's deep areas, strive to annihilate Wang Zhonglian's troops in the field, and take advantage of the enemy's weakly defended towns and strongholds.

On the night of April 1, the main forces of Liu and Deng besieged the 32nd Division. By the night of April 2, many strongholds outside Ji County were captured, and Dongguan was captured. At the critical moment, Liu Rongzong rebelled and the original plan was frustrated. Only Wang Qiming led a small number of people to revolt and entered the liberated area, and the entire 32nd Division retreated to Ji County. At this time, Wang Zhonglian had transferred 3 brigades of the 66th Division, the 2nd Brigade of the 9th Division, and 1 brigade of the 41st Division from the Jixian area to the vicinity of Xinxiang. The enemy's 2 brigades of the 3rd Division in the Jiaozuo area had already moved to the vicinity of Xinxiang. Gathering in Xinxiang area. In this way, the enemy has 5 integrated divisions and 10 brigades in the Xinxiang area (including the 2nd Rapid Column in Xinxiang), and there are signs of advancing towards Ji County. Therefore, Liu and Deng were determined to end the Jixian campaign and find another opportunity to fight.

During this phase of the battle, Liu and Deng annihilated more than 5,000 Jiang troops, liberated an area of ??more than 100 kilometers from east to west and more than 70 kilometers from north to south, north of the Yellow River and east of Pinghan Road, and destroyed and Controlling more than 50 kilometers of Pinghan Road and Daoqing Road, it disrupted Chiang Kai-shek's deployment and forced Chiang Kai-shek to transfer the 66th Division and the 9th Division originally planned for the Shandong battlefield to the northern Henan battlefield.

On April 3, in order to eliminate Liu and Deng’s armies, the Zhengzhou Command of the General Headquarters of the Chiang Army organized the 26th Army to form a strike corps. It planned to first clear out the Xinxiang, Jixian, and Huixian areas on both sides of the Wei River. The troops of Liu and Deng then used the main force to pursue and annihilate the main forces of Liu and Deng.

Liu and Deng used small forces to move on defense and lure the enemy forward. On the 15th, they lured the enemy to the east of Yigou. The Tunzishan area later became a defensive force. On the night of the 16th, Liu and Deng concentrated their main forces to attack the first echelon of the enemy's reinforcements from behind, splitting its first and second echelons, and surrounded the first echelon in the Hetao area north of the Wei River and east of the Qi River. On the evening of the 17th, the main force was concentrated and the attack began. On the 18th, the second rapid column was completely wiped out in the Xiaohu Camp, and the remaining enemies fled. Liu and Deng took advantage of the situation to attack Tangyin and Cuiqiao, continued to eliminate the scattered Chiang troops, and isolated Anyang.

Tangyin is one of the important towns in northern Henan. After Japan surrendered in 1945, the city was captured by Liu and Deng's troops and the city walls were demolished. After the Jiang army captured it, they rebuilt the city wall. However, Chiang Kai-shek's defenses were mainly set up in peripheral strongholds, with walls and bunkers made of wheat straw and soil. The walls were about 2 meters thick and equipped with three layers of shooting holes. There are also bunkers near the wall so that the firepower of each village can support each other. Jiang Jun attached great importance to guarding the outer strongholds of Tangyin City.

In late April, our 3rd Group cleared the enemy strongholds outside Tangyin and made careful preparations for the siege. On the evening of May 1, the 3rd Group launched a general attack on the Tangyin defenders. The ministries used a combination of artillery shooting and tunnel blasting to create a breakthrough for the infantry to attack. The infantry took advantage of the situation and broke into the city, engaging in fierce street fighting with Sun Dianying and other troops. By the morning of May 2, nearly 10,000 defenders had been wiped out, and more than 7,000 people from Sun Dianying, commander of the 3rd column, were captured.

After the liberation of Tangyin, Wang Zhonglian and Sun Zhen's group shrank their main forces to the vicinity of Xinxiang and Ji County and turned to defense. In order to strengthen Anyang's defense force, Wang Zhonglian airlifted a regiment of the 40th Division left in Xinxiang to Anyang. In order to take advantage of the victory and expand the results, Liu and Deng decided on May 5 to launch an attack on Chiang Kai-shek's army in Anyang area. First annihilate the Jiang army in various strongholds outside Anyang City, and then seize Anyang City.

In the battle on the outskirts of Anyang, Liu and Deng carried out extensive work to disintegrate the enemy while attacking the enemy militarily. The second column performed particularly well. The 2nd Column used methods such as writing letters to captured officers, shouting messages to officers' families, and writing placards, etc., and achieved good results in dismantling the enemy. After the second column invaded Chuwang City, many established companies and platoons stopped resisting and voluntarily laid down their weapons, speeding up the process of ending the battle.

Since Anyang City was well fortified and difficult to capture in a short period of time, Wang Zhonglian did not dare to go north for reinforcements and did not have the opportunity to besiege the city for reinforcements. In addition, in order to gain time to prepare for a strategic attack, Liu and Deng decided to stop attacking Anyang City. Taihang and Jinan Military Region troops besieged the enemy in Anyang, and the field army went into rest and reorganization. At this point, the Northern Henan offensive ended successfully.

From the First Battle of Shangdang in September 1945 to the counterattack in northern Henan in March 1947, under the command of Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army became stronger and stronger as the war progressed and won the victory over Shangdang. , Pinghan, Longhai, Dingtao, Juye, Juancheng, Huaxian, Jujinyu, Henan-Anhui border and northern Henan battles, ten battles and ten victories.

In July and August 1949, Liu and Deng's armies successively crossed the Longhai Line, crossed the Ru River and the Huai River, and advanced towards the Dabie Mountains. After entering the Dabie Mountains, they quickly established and consolidated the Dabie Mountain base area, and cooperated with neighboring armies to pose a direct threat to the enemies of Wuhan and Nanjing.