In August 1946, the Northeast Democratic Alliance Army formed the 1st Column and the 6th Column, which were the oldest and most glorious of the Northeast Army. The predecessor of the 1st Vertical Division was the Red 3rd Army, and the predecessor of the 6th Vertical and 16th Division was an adapted unit of the Red 1st Army.
When the 1st Division and the 16th Division first arrived in the Northeast, they had been fighting under the direct leadership of General Lin, because these two units were once subordinate to the Red 1st Front Army, and were organized as the 343rd Brigade of the 115th Division during the Anti-Japanese War, which was the unit he once led. In April 1946, the troops annihilated 5 enemy battalions in one fell swoop in the battle of Xiushui Hezi, becoming the first annihilation battle of our army in the northeast.
After the establishment of the 1st column, the commander was Wan Yi, the deputy commanders Liang Xingchu and Li Zuopeng, and the deputy political commissar Zhou Chiping. After the establishment of the 6th Column, the commander was Chen Guang, the deputy commander Yang Guofu, and the deputy political commissar Liu Qiren.
At this time, on the Northeast Battlefield, there were 3 columns, 4 columns, 1 columns, 2 columns, 6 columns and other main columns.
Of these five columns, most of the generals who had served as deputy commanders were later promoted to column commanders or army commanders, but only one remained untouched.
Liang Xingchu, deputy commander of the 1st Column and commander of the 1st Division, was transferred to the deputy commander of the 6th Column and commander of the 16th Division, and served as the commander and commander of the 38th Army after the 10th Column was established a few months later. Li Zuopeng, deputy commander and chief of staff, was transferred to the deputy commander of the 6th Column and the commander of the 16th Division in 1948, and in 1949, the troops went south to Zhongnan and was promoted to the commander of the 43rd Army.
Zeng Kelin, deputy commander of the 3rd Column, succeeded the commander in October 1946 and was transferred to the commander of the South Liaoning Military Region in September 1947; Hu Qicai, deputy commander of the 4th column, was promoted to commander after the transfer of the first commander Wu Kehua, and was changed to deputy commander in September 1947; Deputy Commander Han Xianchu was transferred to the commander of the 3rd Column before the offensive in the autumn of 1947;
In 1949, Wu Xinquan was first changed to military political commissar and then took over the post of army commander.
Speaking of the 6th column, at the beginning of the formation, Yang Guofu was the first deputy commander, and later the superior transferred Liang Xingchu as the deputy commander of the column and the commander of the 16th Division. Li Zuopeng served as deputy commander and commander of the 16th Division.
These three deputy commanders who were parachuted in were later promoted to army commanders, serving as commanders of the 38th Army, 43rd Army, and 47th Army respectively.
In fact, there were many commanders in the 6th column, and after Chen Guang left, Hong Xuezhi served as him; After Hong Xuezhi left, Huang Yongsheng served, and after Huang Yongsheng left, Hong Xuezhi served for the second time. In terms of qualifications, the 6th Division and the 16th Division, the 17th Division and the 18th Division were developed from the troops of the Bohai Naval Region during the Anti-Japanese War, and Yang Guofu was the commander of the Military Region at that time. The column changed generals many times, and they were all airborne cadres, and they were all able to be deputy commanders and commanders of the corps later, but they were not promoted, and they were still deputy positions.
He served as deputy commander and deputy commander of the column from August 1946 to June 1949, when the troops went south to central and southern China to liberate Jiangxi, and he was transferred to the local military region as deputy commander. He also became the longest-serving deputy commander of the column in the Northeast Army, and the oldest general, and it is unknown whether he was restricted from use.
In the more than 20 years of war, if there is any period in which he is proud of his contributions, it has to be said that the period of the Anti-Japanese War. He wrote a life memoir, mainly writing about the development of anti-Japanese and development base areas in Qinghe and Bohai during the Anti-Japanese War.
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Yang Guofu was not incorporated into the combat unit sequence, but under the leadership of Guo Hongtao, a cadre team of more than 100 people marched from Yan'an to Shandong behind enemy lines. Arriving in Tai'an in May 1938, a cadre of more than 100 people was assigned to various parts of Shandong to be responsible for the formation of anti-Japanese teams in various detachments, and he was sent to the Qinghe Plain in northern Lubei. There were two anti-Japanese teams here, namely Ma Yaonan and Li Renfeng, which were later reorganized into the third detachment of the Shandong People's Anti-Japanese Guerrillas, which developed guerrilla warfare in the plains and established the Qinghe anti-Japanese base area.
He assisted Ma Yaonan in mobilizing the masses and expanding the armed forces to strike at the enemy. Because Ma Yao was born in the South African military, he was an intellectual in the past, and Yang Guofu was a veteran of a hundred battles during the agrarian revolution, and the two cooperated with the army to soon develop to more than 5,000 people, opening up Shouguang, Linzi, Changshan and other base areas.
The troops not only had to resist Japan, but also had to struggle against the recalcitrant Kuomintang troops and reactionary landlords. In the face of the sweep of the Japanese puppet army, coupled with the friction of the recalcitrant army, it suffered from the enemy on its back and still insisted on the struggle against Qinghe.
Commander Ma Yaonan died in battle, and Yang Guofu took over as commander and commanded to continue the battle on the Qinghe Plain. Later, the three detachments were reorganized into the 3rd Brigade, which had three main regiments and a special service battalion. Xu Shiyou was transferred from the deputy commander of the 386th Brigade to serve as the brigade commander. During the Red Army, he was the old chief of Yang Guofu, and now they are very happy to work together.
In February 1941, Xu Shiyou led a main force regiment of the 3rd Brigade to advance to Jiaodong to develop the base area, and Yang Guofu continued to stay in the battle.
In 1942, the 3rd Brigade was ordered to be reorganized into the Shandong Qinghe Military Region, with Yang Guofu as the commander and Xu Shiyou as the commander of the Jiaodong Military Region.
In 1944, the higher authorities merged the Qinghe Military Region and the Jilu Border Region into the Bohai Military Region, with Yang Guofu as the commander, and five military subdivisions under its jurisdiction. The establishment of the Bohai Naval Region marked a new stage in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in the Bohai Plain.
In August 1945, the main forces and backbone units of various military regions in Shandong were organized into field corps, and 8 divisions and 12 garrison brigades were formed. The main force of the Bohai Naval Region was changed to the 7th Division, with 3 regiments under its jurisdiction, and he concurrently served as the division commander. In addition, the military region is also connected with the 6th and 7th garrison brigades.
Not long after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, the main force of the Bohai Naval Region was ordered to go north, and he led the 7th Division, the first and third army divisions to form independent brigades, and went north under the leadership of Wang Zhaoxiang.
On the battlefield in Shandong, at first the troops participated in the defense of Shanhaiguan, and later transferred to North Manchu to suppress bandits. Until August 1946, it was reorganized into the 6th Column and served as deputy commander. Compared with the period of the Anti-Japanese War, he was a banner of the Lubei base area, and he was much more low-key during the Liberation War.