Huaihai Campaign: A Miracle in the History of World War

Huaihai Campaign: A Miracle in the History of World War

In the movie "Battle of Huaihai", when a group of Kuomintang generals learned that Herry Liu was the commander of Xuzhou's "general suppression", they all felt that Xuzhou, as the gateway to Nanjing, had to find a dog to guard it even if it didn't find a tiger. How did Chiang Kai-shek finally choose pigs? The pig here refers to Herry Liu, who is called "Fu Jiang" in the Kuomintang army. It can be seen that Herry Liu's military capability was not recognized within the Kuomintang army at that time.

In order to ensure Xuzhou, Chiang Kai-shek dispatched troops.

After the Battle of Jinan, Xuzhou "General Suppression" Herry Liu Group began to shrink its forces. Its troops of about 600,000 people are distributed on the two railway lines of Longhai and Jinpu, with Xuzhou as the center, in an attempt to prevent our army from going south. Put forward the operational policy of Huaihai Campaign, demanding that the East China Field Army concentrate its forces to annihilate the Seventh Corps (Corps Commander Huang) as the first step and complete the breakthrough in the middle road; The second step is to annihilate the enemies of Haizhou and Lianyungang; The third step is to fight in Huaibei area. At the same time, the Central Plains Field Army is required to deploy and attack the Zheng (Zhou) Xu (Zhou) section of Longhai Road, and contain 16 Corps (Sun, commander of the Corps) to cooperate with the East China Field Army.

Four columns of the Central Plains Field Army launched the Zhengzhou Campaign, killing more than 10,000 people, and Zhengzhou and Kaifeng were soon liberated. According to the change of the enemy's situation, the Central Military Commission decided that Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping would command the Central Plains Field Army and the East China Field Army to carry out the Huaihai Campaign. In this way, our army can take part in the war with 15 infantry columns of the East China Field Army, one special warfare column and seven columns of the Central Plains Field Army, plus local troops, totaling more than 600,000 people.

After the Liaoshen Campaign, Chiang Kai-shek decided to shrink the main force of Herry Liu Group to the garrison on both sides of the Xu (Zhou) Bengbu (Hong Kong) section of the Jin-Pu Railway, in an attempt to distribute all the mobile corps on both sides of this section with the Xu Bengbu section as the axis, to prevent our army from going south by offensive defense, and to evacuate to Huainan to protect Nanjing when necessary, and to adjust the deployment according to this plan.

The Central Military Commission decided to form the General Front Committee of Huaihai Campaign.

The East China Field Army launched the Huaihai Campaign at night as planned, and all the troops advanced to the scheduled goal. When they found that the enemy was shrinking, they immediately turned to chase. Zhang Kexia and He Jifeng, deputy commanders of the enemy's third appeasement area (both underground party member), led more than 23,000 Kuomintang officers and men from three and a half divisions to revolt, which opened the way for our army to attack the Kuomintang Xuzhou "suppression" army. Subsequently, our Shandong Corps successfully crossed the canal to the east of Xuzhou. Herry Liu was very scared when he found that our army was approaching Xuzhou in many ways. He immediately changed the original plan of retreating to both sides of Xu Mu, and concentrated on Xuzhou at night in an attempt to stick to Xuzhou. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek decided to transfer Du back to Xuzhou as deputy commander-in-chief, and let his army go to Su Xian to serve as a garrison between Guzhen and Su Xian.

According to the change of the battlefield situation, the Central Military Commission asked the field armies in East China and Central Plains to "strive to annihilate the main enemy forces near Xuzhou, so as not to flee south" and decided to annihilate the enemy Herry Liu Group in Xuzhou. The Central Plains Field Army captured Suxian, annihilated a division and completed the strategic encirclement of Xuzhou. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China thought this campaign was an unprecedented battle on the downtown. If the campaign is successful, not only the situation north of the Yangtze River will be stable, but also the situation in the whole country will be basically solved. Therefore, Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi, Deng Xiaoping, Su Yu and Tan Zhenlin formed the General Front Committee of Huaihai Campaign, with Liu Bocheng, Chen Yi and Deng Xiaoping as the Standing Committee members and Deng Xiaoping as the secretary to co-ordinate all affairs in East China, the Central Plains and Hebei, Shandong and Henan areas.

Our army stormed the enemy's Seventh Corps and wiped it out. Huang, a corps commander, committed suicide. After the enemy's Seventh Corps was annihilated, Chiang Kai-shek sent Herry Liu to Bengbu to help the north; At the same time, Du led his troops to abandon Xuzhou, detoured south of Yongcheng, attempted to attack our Central Plains field army, and fled south after the siege of the 12th Corps (Corps Commander Huang Wei). Mao Zedong foresaw and instructed the East China Field Army to get ready. About 300,000 people from Xuzhou Du Tuan fled in the direction of Yongcheng, and our East China Field Army fully pursued them and surrounded them all. The enemy's 16th Corps broke through on its own and was annihilated by our army.

Our army surrounded two enemy regiments at the same time, and the enemy of Bengbu still tried to go north to rescue. The General Front Committee adopts the policy of "eating one (), holding one () and watching one (,) and Liu Ruming", with six columns of the Central Plains Field Army and one column of the East China Field Army as the general reserve. Our army launched a general attack on the enemy's first 12 corps, annihilated the enemy and captured Huang Wei. The enemy's aid to the north was blocked. When they learned that the No.1 12 Corps had been destroyed, they fled back to Bengbu overnight.

At this point, the battle of Peiping and Tianjin has started. In order to prevent Chiang Kai-shek from making a quick decision and transporting the enemy of Peiping and Tianjin to the south, the Central Military Commission decided to suspend the attack on Du Group, and the entire army at Huaihai Front took a battlefield rest and launched a political offensive against the enemy to prepare for the attack. The letter urged Du and others to surrender. But Du and others refused to surrender. Our army then launched a general attack on Du Group, wiped out the enemy and captured Du. At this point, the Huaihai Campaign ended.

Political and military significance

During the Huaihai Campaign, the Kuomintang troops successively invested in 7 corps, 2 appeasement areas, 34 armies, 86 divisions, * * * about 800,000 people, and dispatched 2,957 sorties. The failure of the Huaihai Campaign wiped out Chiang Kai-shek's elite main forces in the downtown area, especially the backbone of his own army, the 12th Corps of Huang Wei and the 2nd Corps of Qiu Qingquan, including the 5th and 18th armies among the "five main forces", thus losing the backbone that Chiang Kai-shek relied on to support the war. The north of Huaihe River was completely liberated, and most of Huainan was also controlled by the People's Liberation Army. Only one important city north of the Yangtze River, Anqing, was controlled by Kuomintang troops. The People's Liberation Army has pushed the Yangtze River, and the next attack is directed at the core area of Chiang Kai-shek's rule-Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. As far as the national war situation is concerned, after the Liaoshen and Huaihai campaigns, among the five strategic groups of the Kuomintang army, the most powerful strategic groups Xuzhou Group and Northeast Group no longer exist, and the North China Group is also in danger. The remaining two groups, Huazhong and Xi 'an, have also been greatly weakened under the constant attack of the People's Liberation Army. The newly established "Nanjing-Shanghai-Hangzhou-Tangshan Group" is very weak. The above four groups did not form the main group.

The significance of the Huaihai Campaign, as Mao Zedong said in the statement of Mao Zedong, Chairman of the Central Committee, about the current situation: "Now the People's Liberation Army is superior to the remnants of the reactionary Kuomintang government in terms of quantity, morale and equipment. At this point, the people of China began to vomit a sigh of relief. Now, the situation is very obvious. As long as the People's Liberation Army makes several major attacks on the remaining Kuomintang troops, all the reactionary Kuomintang ruling institutions will soon fall apart and the whole army will be wiped out. "

When the good news of the victory of the Huaihai Campaign reached Moscow, Stalin, the supreme leader of the Soviet Union, could not help but say, "600,000 wins 800,000, which is not only a miracle in the history of China's revolutionary war, but also a miracle in the history of world war!"