In the Liaoshen Campaign in 1948, the battle to conquer Jinzhou was the top priority, and in order to ensure the smooth progress of the battle of Jinzhou, it was necessary to block the reinforcements of the national army.
At that time, under the strict orders of Lao Chiang, the Shenyang National Army formed the Western Advance Corps, and the defenders in Jinxi and Huludao plus reinforcements from North China and Shandong formed the Eastern Advance Corps. According to Lao Chiang's plan, these two mobile corps will advance east and west, attack to the city of Jinzhou to join the defenders, and then fight a decisive battle with the main force of Dongye.
Among these two major reinforcement corps, the Western Advance Corps was still far from Jinzhou, while the Eastern Advance Corps was only 30 kilometers away from Jinzhou, which posed a great threat to the attack on Jinzhou. Therefore, whether or not it can stop the Eastern Advance Corps is even more crucial.
In "The Great Battle: The Battle of Liaoshen", the Tashan Blockade Battle about blocking the Eastern Advance Corps of the National Army is a section with strong ink. In the movie, Lin Biao's "I don't want his casualty figures, I just want Tashan" has become a classic line in film history.
In order to block the eastward advance of the national army, in addition to the 11th column that was originally on this line, the 4th column of the main force was added, and at the same time, there were two independent divisions and artillery in Rehe to cooperate in the operation.
Aware of the enormity of the task, the 4th Column estimated before the war that casualties could reach 10,000 men.
Lin Biao also emphasized in his pre-war telegrams:
Our army must not adopt the method of movement defense, but must adopt a stubborn and courageous offensive defense arranged in Tashan, Gaoqiao, and their west and north...... This is a completely regular war, absolutely opposed to guerrilla habits, and must fight to the death, and victory should not be calculated by the number of casualties and captures, but should be regarded as the fulfillment of the entire campaign mission.
In order to keep abreast of the battle situation on the front line, Lin Biao also sent Su Jing to the front line of Tashan, and transferred the 1st column of the General Reserve to be deployed in Gaoqiao behind Tashan. One first-class main division was prepared to support Gongjin, and another first-class main division was prepared to support Tashan, in case the 4th Column suffered too many casualties and entered the battle.
From the current point of view, the Northeast Field Army directly invested the 4th Column, the 11th Column and 2 independent divisions in order to block the Eastern Advance Corps of the National Army, and there was also the 1st Column behind. The total number of divisions of the Nationalist Army's eastward march was only 11, and the strength of the Nationalist Army at that time seemed to be unable to defeat it.
However, in terms of the seriousness of the orders of the Northeast Field Army at that time, it was estimated that it was not as easy as we thought afterwards before the war.
Because the two independent divisions mainly carried out the task of pinning down the enemy on the west side of Jinxi and Huludao; The 11th Column mainly defended the mountainous area on the first line of Hongluo Mountain; In fact, the only one who was on the enemy's most likely attack lane was the 4th column.
The blocking operation depends on the terrain, there are many mountains, and the depth of nature is conducive to defense, but Tashan in the direction of the enemy's main attack is not a mountain, but a village called Tashan Fort, located between Jinzhou and Jinxi, east of the Bohai Sea, west of Baitai Mountain, Hongluo Mountain, close to the Jinxi Heights, the two Jin Highway through the village, the Bac Ninh Railway in the east of the village and the highway parallel to the north, is the main passage of Jin, Hu enemy aid Jin.
The terrain of this area is low and flat, there is only a small high ground with an altitude of more than 50 meters to the east of Tashan Fort, the highest point of our position is Baitai Mountain at an altitude of 261 meters, and the position of the 4th column extends to about 8,000 meters of Baitai Mountain on the Tayushan Island by the sea.
This kind of terrain is not possible for us to defend with troops, and it is difficult to build fortifications, but the enemy can concentrate forces and attack fiercely with firepower, and in particular, it can also get direct support from the navy and air force, which is a place that is easy to attack and difficult to defend.
According to the combat habits of our army, mobile defense is generally adopted, and if it is not possible here, it will retreat to mobile defense. However, the eastward march of the national army was only 30 kilometers away from the enemy in Jinzhou, and there was really no room for maneuver at such a distance, and it was necessary to attack and defend as Lin Biao said, and fight to the death.
And friends who are familiar with the history of our army's wars know that we rarely fight this kind of battle, and we are not very good at fighting.
So before the war, the estimated casualties of the 4th Column reached 10,000 people; Lin Biao also specifically emphasized that "we must fight to the death, and we should not calculate victory based on our own casualties and captures"; Even the strongest 1st column was placed behind, ready for reinforcements at any time.
When our army was ready to pay heavy casualties to defend Tashan, the national army was actually quite optimistic that it could fight through Tashan to support Jinzhou.
Because under the premise of being able to get the support of the navy and air force, and the ability to concentrate the firepower of the troops, it seems that it is not too difficult to fight through Tashan, which is not dangerous to defend. Even Liao Yaoxiang of the Western Advance Corps felt that Jinxi and Huludao were so close to Jinzhou that they would be able to attack the city with a little fighting, and after the Eastern Advance Corps made progress, his Western Advance Corps would go all out to advance westward, and then the main decisive battle envisioned by Lao Chiang would really be realized.
As a result, on October 10, the Eastern Advance Corps attacked Tashan with four divisions, but not only failed to move forward, but was defeated and returned.
You must know that at that time, the construction of the position of the 4th column had not yet been completed, and it did not understand the law of the tides.
Because the Nationalist side knew almost nothing about the construction of our army's position in Tashan under its nose, and was unprepared for the intensity of the firepower and counterattack of the 4th Column.
Although the 4th Column was not good at the construction of positions, it did its best after receiving the order, and although it was not completed before the attack of the Nationalist Army and most of them were damaged in artillery fire, it was at least much stronger than the Nationalist Army thought that we did not have a decent position.
In addition, in terms of firepower, the 4th Column set up a "two groups and three lines" formation with its headquarters artillery and reinforced artillery. Among them, the regimental battalion Type 92 infantry guns and 82mm mortars are used as the first-line artillery, which specializes in attacking the enemy's charge and fire points; With 28 mountain guns under the division as the second line of artillery, it mainly fights the enemy's first-line reserves; A total of 26 field howitzers belonging to the column and reinforced artillery were used to form the east and west artillery groups, which were mainly responsible for suppressing the enemy's artillery groups and fighting their second echelons and anti-tank batteries.
In the past, some articles took it out of context, saying that these 110 guns were all heavy artillery, but in fact this is everything from infantry artillery, medium mortars to field howitzers, which needs to be noted. In addition, there are 9 machine guns in the 4th column for air defense tasks; The 60 guns were mixed with light and heavy machine guns in the infantry positions to directly hit the enemy's shock troops.
Shi Youren, then deputy commander and chief of staff of the 8th Division of the Nationalist Army, recalled:
Because the PLA concentrated superior artillery firepower and carried out surprise attacks to block attacks, our artillery was greatly threatened and suppressed, and its artillery fire was so fierce that our troops had only seen it since the war against the communist troops. In our operations, we have always relied on the air force to suppress the enemy and open up a way forward with absolutely superior artillery fire. Now, for the first time, our artillery fire is in a disadvantageous state, and the morale of the troops has been greatly shaken.
Due to terrain constraints, the 4th Column had only 4 regiments on the front line, and not all of them were on the battlefield, and each division and regiment left one-third to two-thirds of the reserves; The 11th Column also had an entire division and 2 regimental reserves.
Therefore, after a front-line position changes hands, the reserves can immediately be put into a counteroffensive, and the national army will be in vain to fight for a day.
In fact, the next few days of combat were basically like this, even if the independent 95th Division, which had the strongest combat strength of the national army, went into battle, it was nothing more than causing our army to suffer heavy casualties, but it still failed to actually occupy our position, and was still expelled from the formation under the counterattack of the reserves.
The old commander of the 95th Division, known as Luo Chien, said at the time:
When reconnoitering the terrain, I saw that there was no movement in Tashan, thinking that the communist troops in Tashan were not many and the position was poorly constructed, but when the artillery extended the fire, the infantry advanced to the effective range of the communist army, and the communist army suddenly concentrated its firepower to shoot at our attacking troops, which had never been encountered in the North China battlefield, and the troops could not raise their heads, the obstacles of the communist army could not be destroyed, and our army could not advance, so it could only die in vain.
In the "Summary and Review of the Eastward Advance of the Jinhu Corps" reported by Luo Qi after the war, he summarized the advantages of our army and said:
The equipment of our army in the northeast has gradually improved, its combat effectiveness has been significantly enhanced, and its discipline is strict; Our army is good at making use of the terrain, and the firing range of the position is not wide but tight, and special attention is paid to the improvement of secondary defenses such as barbed wire; The position is equipped with a firepower group and an assault group, and the battalion-level reserve often uses a counterattack to ensure the position, and so on.
When analyzing the combat strength of the national army, it naturally called the 95th Independent Division, the old unit, the most meritorious, and sneered at other units. It is believed that the 62nd Army's Guangdong Army troops are not fully invested; The reconnaissance of the 54th Army was almost useless; For the time being, the combat strength of the 62nd Division and other units is not good, etc.
In the end, Luo Qi and Xi Ni said that the reason why they couldn't take Tashan was mainly because they didn't understand our army, and the national army actually worked hard.
In fact, most of the national troops attacking in Tashan were new troops transferred from North China, and the so-called newborn calves were not afraid of tigers, and their morale was still okay at the beginning, and the uniformity of soldiers and weapons was also good, and the tenacity of the attack was also there, but their performance was far from being as strong as Dongye had estimated in advance.
As mentioned earlier, the 4th Column was expected to pay 10,000 casualties; Moreover, if the casualties of the 4th column are too large, the 1st column will go up.
In fact, the 4th Column lost a total of 3,145 men in the six days at the climax of the Tashan Blockade, of which the ratio of casualties to casualties was about 1 to 3. During the entire operation cycle of the Tashan blockade, the 4th Column was reduced by 3,571 men, which was only one-third of the original estimate.
Specific to the attrition of the 3 divisions under the 4th Column, the 12th Division was reduced by 1,704 people; The 10th Division was reduced by 1,500 men; The 11th Division was reduced by 367 men.
In other words, at that time, the 4th Column and the 11th Division were hardly used, and the casualties of the first two divisions were also within the bearable range.
Therefore, at that time, Li Tianyou, the commander of the 1st Column, called Wu Kehua, the commander of the 4th Column, and said: If necessary, we can support it at any time.
Wu Kehua replied: All the comrades of the 4th Column salute the invincible Big Brother of the 1st Column, with the backing of the Big Brother, it has strengthened our confidence a hundred times, you have come from afar, please rest first, once necessary, we will invite the Big Brother to come up!
Everyone also knows that the 4 verticals can be done by themselves, and the 1 vertical is naturally useless.
Some friends may say, this is not right, the Tashan resistance battle is so tragic, how can it be that there are only more than 3,000 casualties?
General Hu Qicai, deputy commander of the 4th Column, mainly summed it up that in addition to using the strongest companies, battalions, and regiments to hold their positions, they were also constantly organizing counter-attacks with the coordination of infantry and artillery, and in addition, artillery played a great role.
In the face of such a defensive force, even if the Nationalist army has the advantage of directly attacking forces and the support of the navy and air force, it will not be able to move.
After our army took Jinzhou, Lao Jiang flew to Huludao and scolded:
Tower Hill was so close, how could the enemy have built so many strong fortifications and obstacles so quickly? The commander of the Que army is stationed in Huludao, and he should have discovered this situation a long time ago, so why not obstruct and destroy it? The more Lao Jiang spoke, the more angry he became, pointing at Que Hanqian and scolding: You are not a student of Whampoa, you are a locust, a locust! In the end, it was Roach who came out to change the topic and solved the siege.
In addition, you should not think that the casualties of more than 3,000 people are very small, because due to the limitations of the battlefield, the strength of the 4th Column is limited, so most of the casualties are concentrated in a few major garrisons. In particular, the front-line battalions and companies are under great pressure, and the casualties are also very large, and this imbalance in casualties leads to the fact that the total casualties seem to be not too much, but the proportion of casualties concentrated in the front-line troops is very high.
The tragedy of the Tashan Resistance Battle is actually mainly reflected in this aspect.
In addition, we are not afraid of casualties, and we must fight to the death mainly because we assess that the offensive power of the national army may be very strong before the war, but in fact it is not as strong as we imagined, and the difference between this pre-war assumption and the actual battle should also be noted.
Finally, we mention a very interesting thing, that is, the Battle of Tashan was a great deterrent to the North China troops of the National Army, so when the 4th Column entered the customs, the North China National Army heard that the Northeast Field Army was coming, and many times it did not fight and collapsed. This was also one of the other factors that contributed to the 4th Column's major success on the Pingsui Line with very few casualties.