A Tuotuo River separated two people, one was Xu Xiangqian, an outstanding general and commander of our army, and the other was Yan Xishan, a high-ranking warlord of the Kuomintang. The relationship between his fellow villagers did not make him rely on each other, on the contrary, at this time, they were sharpening their swords and fighting each other in Taiyuan City.
In 1948, after liberating Linfen and Jinzhong one after another, the North China Military Region decided to attack Taiyuan, yanxishan's old nest, but Taiyuan was a hard bone and difficult to gnaw. The North China Military Region decided to first persuade Yan Xishan to surrender to see if a peaceful solution could be achieved. Therefore, Wang Shiying, deputy chief of staff, was sent to Taiyuan City to negotiate.
At that time, Marshal Xu Qianqian suffered from severe pleuritis due to days of hard work. After Wang Shiying visited Xu Xiangqian, he explained his intentions and wanted to borrow the relationship between his fellow villagers and teachers and students to go to Taiyuan City to persuade Yan Xishan to abandon resistance and change the banner.
Wang Shiying consciously had a personal relationship with Yan Xishan, and he had many old friends in the Taiyuan City Army, and he had a certainty of victory in his heart. But as soon as he opened his mouth and explained this idea, Marshal Xu Qianqian shook his head and vetoed it. Why Wang Shiying could not say that Yan Xishan was moved, he believed that there were three reasons:
The first was that Yan Xishan's army in Taiyuan still numbered 100,000.
These armies, judging from their numbers, are comparable to the strength of our army and can stand up to us. Yan Xishan is the "earth emperor" of Shanxi, operating in Shanxi for many years, especially in economic construction, the strength can not be underestimated, military industry, agriculture, machinery and chemical industry, financial industry are quite developed, which provides sufficient confidence for him to stubbornly resist.
The second was that Yan Xishan had built a strong fortification in Taiyuan City.
Yan Xishan built thousands of pillboxes on the outskirts of Taiyuan City and had the largest airport in North China at that time. He once threatened: "As long as the earth rotates for one day, the bunker will be built for one day." Blockhouses should be built on each position so that the position could be defended against the bombardment of ten thousand shells. And boasted that Taiyuan is a "fire sea area" and a "bunker city". In the face of strong city defenses, it is really difficult for our army to end the battle in a short time.
The third is that Yan Xishan is a stubborn reactionary, a hardcore follower of Chiang Kai-shek, and the backbone of the anti-communist force.
He had instructed his "group of five" to "not be taken prisoners and not to see their bodies with the enemy." Before the battle, Yan Xishan gave each of his generals a poison capsule, telling them to learn from the Japanese and share jade with themselves. It can be seen that he has already held the determination of the fish to die and break the net.
In view of the above points, Xu Xiangqian felt that Wang Shiying went to Taiyuan as a lobbyist, and it was very likely that the sheep would enter the tiger's mouth and never return. Therefore, he did not want this good comrade-in-arms to go to Taiyuan City to be a martyr.
Wang Shiying felt that Xu Xiangqian was right, but he was still not dead hearted. He thought of a way to throw stones and ask for directions, and he found an old Xiucai, who had once been Yan Xishan's private tutor, and Yan Xishan respected him very much. Wang Shiying sent him to the city to persuade Yan Xishan to surrender.
At that time, the people of Taiyuan City all hoped for a peaceful settlement, and Lao Xiucai was one of the representatives. Who expected that Lao Xiucai would meet Yan Xishan with Xu Xiangqian's handwritten letter, but Yan Xishan disregarded the friendship between teachers and students and killed Lao Xiucai in the blink of an eye.
After learning that Lao Xiucai was shot and killed by Yan Xishan, Wang Shiying breathed a long sigh of relief, and Fang knew Xu Shuai's foresight.
Marshal Xu Qianqian, after hearing Wang Shiying's report about Lao Xiucai's killing, said angrily: "Fight until he serves!" ”
In September 1948, the Central Military Commission approved the operational plan of "besieging, disintegrating, and attacking to gradually weaken the enemy, and then capturing Taiyuan in one fell swoop and completely annihilating the enemy."
The campaign was launched on October 5, and more than 110,000 troops from the First Corps of North China, the Seventh Column of the Northwest, and the Jinzhong Military Region were stationed under the city of Taiyuan. Faced with strong fortifications, the General Front Committee decided to destroy the enemy outside the fortifications in preparation for the capture of Taiyuan City.
After 11 days and nights of hard fighting, more than 10,000 enemy troops were annihilated, Wusu Airfield was occupied, and the first line of defense of Yan Xishan was breached.
After that, our army adopted the combat strategy of attacking the west from the east, holding most of the enemy troops in the south of Taiyuan City, while the Dongshan area was empty of troops, and Dongshan was also a natural barrier for Taiyuan City.
By good fortune, we launched an all-out offensive against Dongshan on October 15. After 7 days of fighting, most of the strongholds have been taken, but the temple cannot be attacked for a long time.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the regimental commander ordered the explosion king to bring three demolition men to blow up this stumbling block, the first time with 100 kilograms of explosives, the bunker was unharmed; the second time with 250 kilograms of explosives, the bunker did not move; the third time with 500 kilograms of explosives, the enemy in the bunker was still resisting.
The regimental commander was anxious and scolded: "Mother, I don't believe in this evil, that is, the Heavenly King Lao Tzu, I will also blow it up." He forced the demolition team to carry 800 kilograms of explosives up, only to hear a loud noise, and the demolition king completed his own mission, clearing the obstacles of the Dongshan Offensive.
Subsequently, they successively captured Naoma, Shantou, and Xiaoyaotou, and on the 13th, the four major fortresses of Dongshan were all occupied. At this point, a huge gap was torn out on the way to capture Taiyuan City.
In November 1948, the Battle of Huaihai was approaching, and the Central Military Commission mobilized the Northeast Field Army to launch the Pingjin Campaign, and because of the fear of Fu Zuoyi, who was guarding Beiping, jumping off the wall, our side adopted a strategy of delaying the troops, and the Central Military Commission sent a telegram to Xu Xiangqian: "Capture a number of key points in the periphery, and really control the airfield, that is, stop the attack and carry out a political offensive." The troops held their positions and rested on the spot. When our army in the northeast enters the border and attacks Pingjin in early January next year, you will attack Taiyuan again. ”
The troops stopped attacking and cooperated with the Battle of Pingjin to achieve a strategic victory.
In 1949, after the victory of the Battle of Pingjin, the Kuomintang was left with only four isolated cities in North China: Taiyuan, Datong, Anyang, and Xinxiang.
In a telegram sent by the Central Military Commission, it pointed out: "After the peaceful settlement of Peiping, there is also a possibility of a peaceful settlement in Taiyuan. The two artillery regiments temporarily assigned to the northeast marched directly to Taiyuan, forcing Yan Xishan to negotiate a peaceful takeover of Taiyuan. If the enemy resists, after the arrival of the 2nd and 3rd Corps of North China, the siege of the city will be carried out. ”
In March 1949, the three corps of the North China Military Region were victorious and subordinate to 3 corps, 10 corps, 30 infantry divisions, 4 independent brigades, and 3 artillery divisions, with a total of 320,000 people. The Central Military Commission appointed Xu Xiangqian as the former secretary and commander of the General Front Committee, and Peng Dehuai as deputy commander.
The General Front Committee drew up a battle plan for Taiyuan and determined April 15 as the time of the attack.
On April 1, under the pressure of our strong military strength and political situation, the Kuomintang was forced to make a compromise and agree to peace talks. On April 3, the Central Military Commission sent a telegram to the front line to "agree to the battle plan, while paying attention to the possibility of a peaceful settlement, and taking advantage of the opportunity to engage." ”
Soon, Xu Xiangqian received news that Yan Xishan had left Taiyuan and arrived in Nanjing. He met with Acting President Li Zongren and exaggerated the current serious situation in Taiyuan, and then flew to Fenghua to have a long talk with Chiang Kai-shek all night.
At the "Eight Articles of the CPC" seminar presided over by He Yingqin, Yan Xishan was extremely reactionary, absolutely refused to accept the eight conditions put forward by our side, and persisted in stubbornly resisting to the end.
At that time, when meeting with Chiang Kai-shek, Yan Xishan proposed that the war in Taiyuan was urgent and wanted to return to Taiyuan as soon as possible. However, Chiang Kai-shek and Li Zongren both advised him to stay in Nanjing.
Yan Xishan was anxious and anxious to return to Taiyuan to do the battle of the trapped beasts, but the Taiyuan airport had been controlled by our side, and the plane could not land, so Yan Xishan had to fight with Taiyuan Yongjiao. At this point, shanxi, which he had painstakingly managed for half a lifetime, had changed hands.
Although Yan Xishan could not return to Taiyuan, he still remotely commanded his "group of five" and advised them and made them stubbornly resist.
On April 15, our side sent Zhao Chengshou, former commander of the field army of Yan Xishan, into the city to negotiate a settlement of the Taiyuan issue, but Yan Xishan was iron-hearted and prevented Zhao Chengshou from entering the city. Peace talks were fruitless.
The Central Military Commission did not hold out any hope for Yan Xishan, and sent a telegram to Xu Qianqian: "Whenever you feel that it is advantageous to launch a campaign against Taiyuan, you can start to attack Taiyuan without any constraints." ”
A few days later, more than a dozen PLA troops pounced on Taiyuan, successively breaking through the enemy's forward positions and advancing deeper, and Yan Xishan's so-called "impregnable" castle also collapsed in an instant.
Soon, the People's Liberation Army captured the two fortresses of Crouching Tiger Mountain and Twin Pagoda Temple.
When the surrounding strongholds were cleared one by one, the frontal offensive battle to seize Taiyuan officially began, and 1300 cannons roared into Taiyuan, only to hear the earth shake and the ghosts cry wolf.
After more than four hours of fighting, Taiyuan City was liberated, and the Yan Xishan regime, which had ruled for 38 years, was destroyed. Yan Xishan's dream of "restoring the whole province with one city and the whole country with one province" was shattered.
In the Battle of Taiyuan, a total of 130,000 enemy troops were annihilated and more than 10,000 prisoners were taken.
On May 1, the local people spontaneously held a ceremony for the front-line troops to enter the city, the citizens were welcomed by the road, and the city stadium was surrounded by water, so the central government sent a congratulatory message: "This time, our Taiyuan Frontline People's Liberation Army was ordered to attack the city and quickly solve it. Since then, the whole territory of Shanxi has been purified, and north China has been consolidated. ”
Yan Xishan and Xu Xiangqian chose different revolutionary paths. Yan Xishan chose the path of making enemies of the people and ruling dictatorially; while Marshal Xu Qianqian chose the communist path of centering on the people and serving the people.
The road determines the way out, the road is different, and the outcome is very different.
Yan Xishan did not recognize at that time that the main contradiction in society was the contradiction with bureaucracy, feudalism and capitalism. Whoever can conform to the trend of thought and the will of the people will be able to win the support of the people and win the water. Whoever goes against the tide and moves against the tide can only be wrapped up in the tide and drowned by the tide.
Yan Xishan can also be regarded as a generation of celebrities among the warlords, and there are many remarkable places, but he is the old warlord of capitalism and feudalism after all, and he will eventually be eliminated by history.
Xu Xiangqian is a famous military and revolutionary in our country, he holds a firm belief in communism, always stands on the side of the people, and history has also chosen him.
From this we can see that the Battle of Taiyuan was a victory in the people's war against the warlord landlords.
Resources:
"Zhen Archives Tell History- Commemorating the 63rd Anniversary of the Liberation of Taiyuan", Taiyuan Municipal Archives
"The Fate of Xu Xiangqian and Yan Xishan" Yun Fan
"On the Eve of the Liberation of Taiyuan, Yan Xishan's Three Visits to Nanjing" Ye Changgang
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