During the Liberation War, his father Liu Naiyan followed the 9th Division of the Luzhong Military Region, the 8th Column of Huaye, and the 26th Army to participate in the whole process of the Liberation War, and transferred to Shandong, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Shanghai 5 provinces and cities, traveling tens of thousands of miles, and participating in a series of battles.
The Huaihai Campaign was fought in a vast area centered on Xuzhou, stretching from Haizhou in the east, Shangqiu in the west, Lincheng (now Xuecheng) in the north, and the Huaihe River in the south.
About 600,000 troops participated in this campaign, including the two field armies of East China and the Central Plains, the two military regions of East China and the Central Plains, and some troops of the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, and Henan Military Regions.
61. In the second stage of the Huaihai Campaign, the Du Yuming group was encircled and Sun Yuanliang's corps was annihilated
The victory of our army's total annihilation of Huang Baitao's corps greatly shocked Chiang's army. Liu Zhi, commander of the enemy's Xuzhou "suppression chief", flew to Bengbu to supervise reinforcements, leaving deputy commander Du Yuming to command Qiu Qingquan, Sun Yuanliang, and Li Mi to hold on to the Xuzhou area and wait for reinforcements.
When our army launched the encirclement and annihilation of Huang Baitao's corps, Chiang Kai-shek urgently transferred Huang Wei's corps from the southern section of Pinghan Road to the north. On November 23, 1948, Huang Wei's corps was surrounded by the Central Plains Field Army in the Shuangduiji area southwest of Xuzhou. Du Yuming found that Huang Wei's corps was surrounded, and immediately took Qiu Qingquan and Sun Yuanliang's two corps to go south along both sides of Jinpu Road to rescue Huang Wei's corps.
In order to ensure that our army encircled and annihilated the Huang Wei Corps on the southern front, the Huaye 8th Column was ordered to be under the unified command of the Shandong Corps, and cooperated with friendly and neighboring troops to block the Qiu Qingquan and Sun Yuanliang Corps that were invaded by the south of Xuzhou. On November 23, the 8th column set out from the Nianzhuang Wei area, passed through the Gupi Town, Yaoji, Tianwangji, and Chaoyangji areas, and entered the southeast gate pupil and railing area of Xuzhou on the 28th, and controlled the Fenghuangshan position with the 23rd Division (77th Division). On the 29th, the 8th Column occupied the front-line positions of Baoguang Temple, Liuzhuang, Guanzhuang, and Qiantieying. On the evening of the 30th, the enemy's vanguard troops reached the areas of Chulan, Handazhuang, Dulou, and Xiaogaozhuang, but were blocked by the 8th column, and the enemy retreated.
Since the enemy's Qiu Qingquan and Sun Yuanliang's corps began to move south on November 26, they were resolutely blocked by our troops, and the advance was very small, and Du Yuming was afraid of being annihilated by our army, so he abandoned Xuzhou on November 30 and led his troops to march west along the road from Xiao County to Yongcheng, in an attempt to bypass the Huaye troops and rescue Huang Wei's corps head-on.
On the morning of December 1, the Shandong Corps ordered all columns to immediately pursue Du Yuming's group, with the 8th and 9th columns as the vanguard pursuit troops, quickly seize Yongcheng from the enemy's flank, and prevent Du Yuming from the northeast area of Yongcheng.
In the afternoon of the same day, the 8th Column set out from the blocking position south of Xuzhou, traveled day and night, passed through Jiagou and Juxi Town, and went straight into the combat area. On the afternoon of the 2nd, the vanguard of the 8th column seized Yongcheng, and the main force of the dusk column reached this place and intercepted the enemy head-on in the northeast area of Yongcheng. On the 3rd, the 8th Column actively compressed the enemy and confronted him in the areas of Li's Lin, Chenzhuang, Mengji, and Wuji to prevent him from advancing westward. On the 4th, all the columns of our army approached here, and Du Yuming's group was surrounded by our army.
After Du Yuming's group was surrounded, Chiang Kai-shek urgently ordered Du Yuming to cover on three sides, attack on the one hand, and break through to the southeast, and ordered Liu Zhi to command the enemy in the Bengbu area to come and respond, and the troops participating in the battle confronted the enemy-for-tat, adopting the policy of besieging on three sides and blocking on the other, tightly surrounding the enemy, and preventing the enemy from fleeing south and west.
On December 5, the 8th Column was transferred to the command of the Northern Jiangsu Corps, and on the same day, under the orders of Commander Wei Guoqing and Deputy Political Commissar Ji Luo, it approached Wei Xiaoyao, Youyan, and Liu Ji to build a solid in-depth position to block the enemy who might break through from there.
At 19 o'clock on the 6th, the enemy's Sun Yuanliang Corps broke through to the west from the junction of the positions of the 22nd and 23rd divisions of our army in Liu Ji and Youyan. After two hours of fierce fighting, most of the enemy was annihilated, and a few broke out of the encirclement, and were annihilated by the brother troops, and Sun Yuanliang escaped through the net. In this battle, the 8th column captured more than 5,700 people under Chen Yuanxiang, deputy commander of the enemy's 41st Army, and Zhang Guanghan, commander of the 127th Division. The breakthrough organized by Du Yuming's group was a complete failure.
The collapse of Sun Yuanliang's corps made Du Yuming's clique even more panicked and uneasy, and they did everything possible to find an opportunity to break through and escape the fate of being annihilated. In order to prevent the enemy from breaking through again, the troops participating in the battle resolutely held their existing positions on the one hand, and pressed forward on the enemy step by step on the other hand, compressing the encirclement. During this period, the 8th Column held its position with the main force, and selected one or two points of the enemy to attack every day with a part of its forces, forcing the enemy to constantly retreat, and by the 15th, our army had tightly compressed Du Yuming's group into a narrow area of 10 kilometers from east to west and 5 kilometers from north to south.
The Central Plains Field Army, with the cooperation of the First Division of Huaye, completely annihilated the Huangwei Corps on December 15, and the second phase of the Huaihai Campaign ended victoriously.
A row of right, Liu Naiyan
62. Transferred from the regimental organ to the first battalion
My father recalled that during the Huaihai Campaign, that is, in November 1948, I was appointed as an instructor of the 1st Battalion of the 68th Regiment of the 23rd Division.
However, the organization decided that I should remain in the regimental political office, which is a common method of preserving cadres in wartime.
My main task is to go down to the grassroots level, run the company, and do a good job in wartime political work. The new head of the Organizational Unit was transferred from the division, but I was still asked to assist in the work of the Organizational Unit.
In normal times, I go to the 1st Battalion more often, and I often help with pre-war mobilization in the 1st Battalion and summarize after the war. When I was in the battalion company, before every battle, not only did the political department urge me to go back, but sometimes Comrade Li Yunlong, the political commissar of the regiment, personally called me to urge me to return to the regiment headquarters.
After 16 days and nights of hard fighting, more than 110,000 people of Huang Baitao's corps were annihilated, Huang Baitao was killed, and the first stage of the Huaihai Campaign was victorious.
In this battle, although the casualties of our troops were relatively large, due to the total annihilation of the besieged enemy, a large number of weapons and ammunition were captured, and a large number of liberation fighters were replenished. The troops are well equipped, full of personnel, and their morale is high. Originally, he planned to strive for three to five days to educate and rectify the troops, but unexpectedly, as soon as the battle to encircle and annihilate Huang Baitao's corps was over, he immediately marched in a hurry to the southeast of Yongcheng to intercept the Du Yuming group (Qiu Qingquan, Li Mi, and Sun Yuanliang's corps) who had fled south from Xuzhou.
63. Annihilate Sun Yuanliang's corps
My father recalled: We were advancing day and night, and on the way to the march, we were bombed and strafed by enemy planes from time to time, and I remember that one day when we passed through Suixikou in Suzhou, Anhui Province, enemy planes continued to bomb and strafe in the air, throwing flares, and the town was burning with raging fires, thick smoke billowed out, and the flames crackled and crackled. It was a large town, and the troops picked up speed, braving the bombardment and strafing of enemy aircraft, through thick smoke and fire, and quickly passed through the town.
When they arrived at Fenghuang Mountain in Xuzhou, the site of the enemy's annihilation, the troops immediately began to dig trenches, and our 8th column organs, cadres and soldiers started to dig trenches and repair fortifications as soon as possible, so as to make full preparations for battle.
The day after we arrived at our destination, we annihilated Sun Yuanliang's group that broke through with our brother troops at night.
During the battle, I acted with the regiment's special service company, and they captured one of Sun Yuanliang's guards alive and handed him over to me, and when the guard saw me, he said that he would spare his life, and took out from his satchel a pair of ivory chopsticks inlaid with gold characters in white silk, which was a gift from someone to Sun Yuanliang for his birthday, and gave it to me as a valuable thing to relieve his anger.
At that time, my father said, the enemy's booty was often captured, but we handed it over to the troops according to the rules of discipline.
Liu Weiping
2024.7.18