Among the graduates of Whampoa Military Academy, Hu Zongnan is regarded as "the first favorite student in Tian Zi". He became a veritable "Northwest King" during the Anti-Japanese War, supporting hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight against the Japanese army but "defending" the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia border region. During the War of Liberation, he attacked Yan 'an and fell into the quagmire of northern Shaanxi, becoming the object of ridicule.
But some people say, who let Hu Zongnan's battle plan be known by the producers in advance? So why did Hu Zongnan fail in northern Shaanxi? Is it really because he has spies around him?
In some film and television dramas, our party's underground hidden personnel do almost anything, playing tricks on the enemy like a child's play. Of course, many plots are fictional, but Hu Zongnan does have a secret sleeper of our party-his confidential secretary Xiong Xianghui.
Mr and Mrs Xiong Xianghui.
Hu Zongnan's plan to attack northern Shaanxi on 1943 and Hu Zongnan's plan to attack northern Shaanxi on 1947 were indeed obtained by Xiong Xianghui in advance and sent to Yan 'an. Therefore, Hu Zongnan's initial combat defeat could not be separated from Xiong Xianghui's leak; But this exaggerates the role of Xiong Xianghui, which is purely an intelligence war.
Hu Zongnan's "blitzkrieg" against Yan 'an became a joke mainly because Hu Zongnan commanded 230,000 well-equipped troops. The hastily formed Northwest Field Army has only 26,000 people, and its ammunition is still seriously insufficient. And because the CPC Central Committee stayed in northern Shaanxi, the Northwest Field Army could not choose to withdraw, but continued to fight with Hu Zongnan Group. In the case of such a disparity in strength between the two sides, Hu Zongnan was defeated by Lien Chan and finally lost the only success, Yan 'an City.
Hu Zongnan's elite troops
People who think that a message can change the outcome of a war usually like to talk about the battle of midway. However, in the naval battle of midway, the strength of the United States and Japan was not much compared. If all three US aircraft carriers are destroyed in Pearl Harbor, even if the US military deciphers the information of the Japanese attack on Midway Island in advance, the US fleet with only a few cruisers and destroyers will be useless. At that time, the only thing the US military could do was to withdraw the guards stationed on the island in advance, so as not to sacrifice in vain.
When the strength of the two sides is extremely different, even if the weak side holds the intelligence advantage, it can only reduce unnecessary losses. For example, in the final stage of the fifth "encirclement and suppression" campaign, the Red Army chose the Long March, and Mao Zedong commanded the Red Army to cross Chishui four times and jumped out of the enemy's encirclement. But in northern Shaanxi, the two sides didn't fight like this at all. It is not that the information sent by Xiong Xianghui is worthless, but that our army cannot rely on it to defeat Hu Zongnan.
Speaking of which, someone will definitely be unconvinced. If Xiong Xianghui didn't report Hu Zongnan's every move to the CPC Central Committee, why did Mao Zedong have the confidence to deal with hundreds of enemy troops in northern Shaanxi? In fact, this is due to the special terrain in northern Shaanxi and the operational characteristics of the national army.
As we all know, our army was very weak during the revolutionary war, so we had to choose to live in the poor mountainous areas at the junction of the two provinces with the weakest enemy. This is the case in Jinggangshan, especially in northern Shaanxi. The terrain in northern Shaanxi is extremely complex, and the party with the advantage of heavy weapons can't display it at all. At the same time, the products are very poor. Hundreds of thousands of troops entered northern Shaanxi, and the logistics relied on foreign transportation.
Mao Zedong and others moved to northern Shaanxi.
If the terrain in northern Shaanxi is enough to make Hu Zongnan's officers at all levels have a headache; Then the operational characteristics of the national army determine that it can only be passively beaten. A major feature of the national army is that it is backward in organization, so it can only be huddled together and dare not send small troops out for reconnaissance. In this way, in the process of national military operations, we can only rely on inaccurate information provided by aircraft.
Combined with terrain and reconnaissance capability, the marching route of the national army is very limited. Considering the distribution of houses and wells, we can guess the camp site of the national army in Peng every night by looking at the map.
On the contrary, although our army is weak, it wins by being flexible, gathering and dispersing. When the enemy in any direction is particularly strong, the team will all break through. When the enemy in front of him is weak, he will quickly gather to destroy it and then quickly evacuate. This way of playing makes Hu Zongnan have the advantages of quantity and equipment, but it has never been able to catch the main force of our army, but it has been eliminated by our army repeatedly.
If the reconnaissance team could not be sent, it was the overall defect of the national army at that time and it could only fight in groups; In that case, Hu Zongnan Group's "golden jade is outside, but it's a disgrace" is its own characteristic. Hu Zongnan's core force, the First Army, only participated in the Battle of Songhu at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War. After that, 500 thousand troops, including the first army, wasted their national strength and did nothing in the northwest.
Battle of Shanghai
As we all know, the combat effectiveness of the army is made, not cultivated. Whether it is the trump card of our army or the five main forces of the national army; Who hasn't experienced several years or even more than ten years of long-term hard fighting, and forged the spirit of iron and blood with the heroic sacrifice of generation after generation. However, the whole Hu Zongnan Group passively avoided the war during the Anti-Japanese War, resulting in a serious decline in combat effectiveness.
In the early days of the War of Liberation, the "First Brigade in the World" adapted from the First Division of the First Army was destroyed by our Chen Geng Corps in Linfen. In order to cover up his failure, Hu Zongnan quickly formed the first brigade. And when attacking Yan 'an, other troops were ordered to make way for the First Brigade, which broke the "good reputation" of Yan 'an in the first place, but this could not conceal the decline of the fighting capacity of the whole Hu Zongnan Group.
In contrast, our Northwest Field Army and even the Northwest Field Army developed from it have the least number and the worst equipment in our main force. However, after all, northern Shaanxi is a revolutionary base where our party has been operating for more than ten years, and the local people have extremely high political quality and sacrifice spirit. Without such an active and brave army as Peng, it would be impossible to create miracles with so few troops.
Is it necessary to fight Yan 'an? Just think about it. Why didn't the Japanese attack Yan 'an with all their strength during the Anti-Japanese War? Because the Japanese know very well that they will only ask for it. But after the outbreak of the war of liberation, Chiang Kai-shek tried to force the PLA to fight Yan 'an. Chiang Kai-shek completely ignored the operational characteristics of the PLA, and as a result, he put himself in a strategic passive position for a little tactical "victory."
Hu Zongnan
Chairman Mao took the initiative to lead a few troops to northern Shaanxi for the overall situation of the liberation war; Hu Zongnan is the general reserve of the national army, while the Northwest Field Army is totally biased towards our army. In this way, the battlefield in northern Shaanxi has completely played a role of almost four or two. As long as Mao Zedong stays in northern Shaanxi, Hu Zongnan's hundreds of thousands of troops cannot be used in other more important battlefields.
When Hu Zongnan was still occupying Yan 'an, Chairman Mao decisively ordered the main force of the People's Liberation Army to advance into the Central Plains. Soon, the national army in the hinterland of the Central Plains was in a hurry and had to rob Peter to pay Paul.
At the end of 1947, Liu Fei made a battle plan to send Pei Changhui Corps south of Henan. But Hu Zongnan thinks this is the best time to destroy the Northwest Field Army, and he strongly disagrees. Then, his chief of staff, Vincent, had a heated argument with Liu Fei in front of Chiang Kai-shek in Nanking. Liu Fei cursed Hu Zongnan as a "warlord", while Vincent refuted Liu Fei as a "* * * spy".
Finally, at Chiang Kai-shek's insistence, Pei Changhui's corps went south, and the battlefield situation in northern Shaanxi was reversed. When Pei Changhui Corps went north to stabilize the war situation in northern Shaanxi, the Central Plains was once again in a hurry. It can be said that from the day Hu Zongnan entered northern Shaanxi, the pulse of Chiang Kai-shek Group was firmly grasped by our army. His strategic failure can no longer be compensated by any tactical victory.
Hu Zongnan did almost nothing in the northwest, but he frequently lost his troops, which made Peng's northwest field army more than double in two years. So after losing to Taiwan Province Province, many Kuomintang officials suspected that Hu Zongnan was a * * * spy. Of course, under the intervention of Chiang Kai-shek, Hu Zongnan's "spy" hat was not put on; But his other hat "straw bag" can't be taken off.
Peng (right)
A careful analysis of Hu Zongnan's performance in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation shows that he is indeed a son of heaven, but Mao Zedong's evaluation of his "ambition is greater than talent" is the fairest. In the key battles such as Panlong and Yiwa in the northwest battlefield, Hu Zongnan's blind command played a worse role than any * * * spy. Or if someone else came to sit in northern Shaanxi, Peng would definitely play harder.
Those who exaggerate Xiong Xianghui's role may not know that he went to the United States in May 1947. Later, Hu Zongnan's uprising generals had 1947 no contact with our party. Hu Zongnan's army has been defeated and fought in northern Shaanxi for more than a year. It is not so much a spy as a normal level.