Lao Niu looked at it and hurriedly said to Zhou Wu: "Since it is the hospitality of the villagers, then Lao Zhou, you can leave for the time being, we have to leave quickly, fellow villagers, we will have a period later."
Zhou Wu had no choice but to order his comrades to put away the kindness of the relatives in the base area, and the team marched very slowly surrounded by the warmth of the villagers in the Jiangbei base area, and many villagers kept sending their soldiers out ten miles away before reluctantly going back.
Zhou Wu looked at the backs of these villagers leaving, and said to Lao Niu Political Commissar and Lao Xu's Chief of Staff: "With the support of these villagers, we will definitely fight back, hurry up and keep up with the team."
Lao Chen and Huang Shuisheng, who received Zhou Wu's order to recapture Yancheng to the east, immediately set off from the ambush site in Dahe Village, just a day after they got up and drove eastward, the large army of Chief Gu who had withdrawn from the south bank of the abandoned Yellow River rushed to Dahe Village, at this moment Lao Gu had returned from Nanjing, to his surprise, Chairman Jiang did not embarrass him, but was quite polite to him, praising his team for their heroic operation when assisting the Eighteenth Division to attack Jiangbei, the entire army of the Eighteenth Division was annihilated, mainly because the commander of the Qian Division lightly advanced against the enemy, The mistake of going deep alone cannot be blamed on Chief Gu.
When Commander Gu heard Chairman Chiang say this, he was so moved that he immediately demand that he return to the front line immediately and lead his troops to fight Jiangbei again, so as to recover the losses suffered by the 18th Division and capture the Jiangbei base area.
Chairman Jiang hurriedly waved his hand to stop: "No need, there is already a team to do this matter, you still take your team to return to Xuzhou quickly, guard Xuzhou for me, and strictly prevent the chaos of Shandong Dongming, as for Jiangbei, I have other arrangements, I don't need to worry about you." ” Chief Gu didn't understand the meaning of the chairman, and returned to the front line in the area of the Yellow River with a breathless mood, at this moment he received information that the large troops in the Tianchang area had all withdrawn and were marching in the direction of Shandong in the north, it seemed that their goal was the liberated area in the Yimeng Mountains of Shandong, and Chief Gu was in a hurry, thinking that his hometown Xuzhou was not far from Shandong, once those Jiangbei and Shandong were united, then Xuzhou was now empty of troops, wouldn't it be necessary to defeat the battle here in Jiangbei, The old man doesn't dare to do anything to me, but if my old nest Xuzhou is lost, then Lao Jiang will not have to shoot me So when he heard this information, he immediately made an order to retreat towards Xuzhou on the whole line, and he didn't care about the direction of Yancheng, he couldn't control it, and he still took care of his own team.
Chief Gu led his team to retreat in the direction of Xuzhou, and suddenly ran away without a trace, the speed was simply faster than a rabbit.
The next day, Huang Shuisheng's outpost scouts met the fat man who was pursuing the enemy here, the fat man's first division and Huang Shuisheng and Lao Chen met in the area north of the abandoned Yellow River, the brothers shouted and cheered loudly to meet on the battlefield, the fat man hammered Huang Shuisheng's shoulder and said to him: "Shui Sheng, it's good now, we have so many people together, who are we afraid of, why did we receive an order from the army commander, he actually asked us to retreat to the north and go to Shandong, why?"
The fat man did not understand Zhou Wu's order to lead his team to open an evacuation channel in the Lianshui area and cover the retreat of the large army to Shandong, the enemy began to flee and evacuate on a large scale, we should take advantage of the victory to pursue and fight in the past, why do we have to abandon the Jiangbei base area and go to those ravines and ravines in the Yimeng Mountains of Shandong We have always been active in the Jiangbei Plain, and we have never had any experience in fighting in the mountains.
I didn't think that Huang Shuisheng still didn't know, so he had to say to the fat man: "Lao Liu, don't worry about this leisure, follow the order, we still have to march southeast and recapture Yancheng."
Chen Guofu heard the conversation between the two of them, and said: "Lao Liu, I estimate that we will wipe out Lao Jiang's elite 18th Division in this battle, Lao Jiang is anxious, and mobilizes the Kuomintang troops from various places around Jiangbei to pounce on us, considering that Jiangbei is a water network plain, easy to attack and difficult to defend, in order to preserve the strength of the team, the decision to retreat to Shandong was made, don't be scared to guess, Shui Sheng is right, obey the order, and complete the task" Lao Chen is worthy of being a battlefield veteran, The assessment of the situation is not far from ten, and it is to the point.
As soon as the fat man heard Lao Chen's words, he shut up and stopped talking, hurriedly said goodbye to Huang Shuisheng and Lao Chen, and led his first division to continue to march north Just when the fat man led his men to attack Lianshui City, Lao Chen and Huang Shuisheng also rushed to the outskirts of Yancheng at this moment, due to the retreat of Chief Gu's team, the Kuomintang troops who rushed from the direction of Nanjing were afraid of encountering the encirclement and annihilation of Jiangbei, and hurriedly withdrew from Yancheng, and the Kuomintang navy that came to help the war also quickly retreated to the south, until they retreated to the city of Taizhou before stopping.
After receiving the news of the retreat of the southern front, Lao Chiang scolded the officials of the Ministry of National Defense for being incompetent and afraid of death, and immediately ordered the removal of several division commanders who had taken the lead in the retreat to the south and handed them over to the Secrecy Bureau for disposal.
At the same time, he ordered the troops of Zhenjiang and Shanghai to move in the direction of Yancheng, cut off the northward retreat of Jiangbei by sea, and wiped them out in the water network plain area around Jiangbei.
Chairman Chiang knew very well that if Jiangbei could not be eliminated in this endless plain area of Jiangbei, and if they were allowed to successfully retreat to the mountainous areas of Shandong, then there would be no chance of destroying them in the future, and the advantage of the mechanized troops under his command was precisely in the plain areas, and it would not be of much use at all when they reached the Yimeng Mountains, so Lao Chiang once again sent a telegram ordering the troops of the provinces around Jiangbei to all be dispatched, march in unison, encircle them on all sides, and use the fortress tactics of encircling and suppressing the Red Army in Jiangxi more than ten years ago to besiege the base areas layer by layer.
Surround them in the Jiangbei area east of the canal and west of Yancheng, and then concentrate their forces to encircle and annihilate them Most of the troops in Anhui, Shandong, Jiangsu, Henan, and other provinces around Jiangbei are the Central Army, and there is no problem with the supply of weapons and equipment, and the supply of personnel, and the rations, ammunition, and salaries are also sufficient, and the troops mobilized are more than 300,000, which is three or four times more than Commander Li's Jiangbei New Fourth Army Advance Corps, and although the 18th Division is the elite under Lao Chiang, Lao Chiang thinks very much about the combat effectiveness of the 18th Division, and the battle on the shore of Hongze Lake is completely annihilated.
However, the strategic superiority of the Kuomintang army in the Jiangbei area was basically not shaken, and Lao Chiang still had the ability to quickly mobilize a large number of American armor divisions around Jiangbei to besiege the New Fourth Army, and he had been dealing with the New Fourth Army in the Jiangbei area for so many years, and Lao Chiang knew that the existence of the New Fourth Army was intolerable to him, and he must be immediately and quickly eliminated in order to stay in Nanjing with peace of mind, otherwise he would absolutely not give up.
On the way to the northeast of the mountain, Zhou Wu received a telegram from Commander Li, asking him and Political Commissar Niu and Chief of Staff Lao Xu to quickly rush to the headquarters for a meeting, and there was a major matter to announce.
As soon as Zhou Wu heard that the commander had sent a telegram at this time asking him to rush to the meeting, something important must have happened, so he jumped into the American-style jeep that had just been captured from the 18th Division and drove to the headquarters at a gallop.
As soon as Zhou Wu and them arrived at the headquarters, it was already full of the heads and brains of the Jiangbei New Fourth Army, and Commander Li saw that Zhou Wu and them had arrived, so he nodded and said to them: "Comrades, calling you from the march is to announce one thing, the Kuomintang reactionaries have completely tore up the "Double Tenth Agreement" yesterday and officially launched a large-scale attack on the Yan'an area, where our central government is located, and the Kuomintang army launched a siege on all our liberated areas at the same time, and the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party has officially begun.
The central authorities have decided that our New Fourth Army will be reorganized on the spot and reorganized into the Field Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army; together with the Eighth Route Army in the Yimeng Mountains of Shandong and the Jiaodong Base Area, we will be reorganized into the East China Field Army; the Advance Corps under the Jiangbei Command Headquarters and the New Fourth Army Detachment withdrawn from Jiangnan will be combined into the Second Corps under the Field Army; I myself will serve as the commander of the corps and concurrently serve as the deputy commander and chief of staff of the Field Army Headquarters; all columns under the original Advance Corps will be upgraded to armies, and the original military divisions and other units will remain unchanged.
Comrades, from today onwards, we are the People's Liberation Army, as the name suggests, this reorganization of our contingent has a profound meaning, that is, it requires us to eliminate the Kuomintang reactionary forces, overthrow the Chiang dynasty, and liberate the whole of China, and the object and purpose of our combat have changed, so we are required to change the way we conduct operations after command, and now our strength is far inferior to that of the superior Kuomintang army, so we can only avoid its sharp edge, preserve our strength, and constantly consume the enemy in the movement and destroy the enemy's vital forcesWhen we have developed to the point where we have the strength to engage in a large-scale offensive positional battle with the enemy, it will be the day when we will defeat the Kuomintang diehards and win the victory of the whole country."
Commander Li's remarks made Zhou Wu's blood boil and they applauded one after another, their own team identity is on the side, no longer the newly formed Fourth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, but a brand new identity, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, what the People's Liberation Army does, literally understood, is not to liberate the whole of China After the meeting was dismissed, Commander Li left Zhou Wu behind and said to him: "Zhou Wu, your army's task is very heavy, and it is directly related to the safety of our corps' retreat to the north. t1706231537: