It's just that after this battle, Li Ziyuan, who has been looking forward to fighting with Ma Jiajun again and avenging the Western Route Army and the Night Tiger Regiment, has not had the opportunity to fight with Ma Jiajun again until Qingma was completely defeated and Xining, Qingma's old nest, was liberated.

After the completion of the Xianyang Campaign, Li Ziyuan's corps was assigned to Yiye to command the westward march to Lanzhou, and the two main armies of the corps made a 90-degree turn and were transferred to the Qinling area to prepare for the Battle of Fumei and prepare for the march to the southwest.

After that, Li Ziyuan's command post participated in the Battle of Shaanxi, the Battle of Fumei, and the subsequent Battle of Qinling. And under the command of the Corps, he pursued the Central Army retreating from the northwest to Sichuan along the North Road, and participated in the campaign to liberate Sichuan and the Great Southwest. And in Sichuan, he successfully joined forces with his old army, that is, the Second Field Army.

At this time, although the Second Field Army still retained its structure, it had been successively reorganized into the Southwest Military Region after the liberation of the southwest. In addition to marching into Tibet and pursuing in southern Yunnan, the field army also carried out part of the troops in the final battle in the motherland. The main force of the field army has already begun to form local military districts and has switched to all-out operations to suppress bandits and stabilize the new regime.

Li Ziyuan's old political commissar served as the political commissar of the Southwest Military Region, and the teacher chief served as the chairman of the Southwest Military and Political Committee. Li Ziyuan's old leaders in the 129th Division and the Taihang Military Region, as well as his old superiors, are basically in Sichuan now. At this time, in Sichuan, it can be said that the former Taihang Military Region is full of stars and heroes.

However, at this time, the headquarters of the Southwest Military Region was in Chongqing, and basically the two armies of the Third Corps, which were composed of troops from the Taihang Military Region, were also stationed in eastern Sichuan and Chongqing. Li Ziyuan's headquarters is mainly stationed in northern Sichuan, and Nanchong, where the military and military region headquarters is located, is only more than 100 kilometers away from Chongqing. On the contrary, it is more than 200 kilometers away from Chengdu.

Every time Li Ziyuan went to Chongqing for a meeting, he could get together with his old comrades-in-arms. However, Li Ziyuan, who was busy suppressing bandits, opposing special forces, and reorganizing the rebel troops, did not have much time to go to Chongqing. Especially at that time, the southwest bandits were the crown of China, and the bandits of Sichuan were the southwest of China. Sichuan and Guizhou provinces are the most serious areas in the southwest of the country.

During the entire stage of the Liberation War, Sichuan Province, which had gathered more than 100,000 Central Army and tens of thousands of Sichuan Army, did not actually go through many big, hard, and bitter battles. has reached the end of the mountain, even the most die-hard Central Army troops have no heart to resist.

Not only was the Sichuan army, which was already excluded and discriminated against, but also seriously distrusted and monitored. That is, except for a few corps of the Central Army, most of the rest of the corps rebelled or surrendered. It can be said that in the liberation stage of Sichuan as a whole, there was not much real contest between the two sides.

However, the uprising and surrender of a large number of enemy troops, although it accelerated the speed of the final stage of the Liberation War, did not let the Chinese nation shed more blood. However, the backbone and latent enemy agents of the enemy that have not been eliminated by the formation system, especially the complete officer system, have also been relatively intact. The establishment has not been completely disrupted either.

And to a certain extent, it cannot but be said that the control forces of the Central Army over there still have a hand. Many of these officers and men, who were on the verge of the end of the road and finally chose to lay down their arms, were not very convinced. These hostile agents and those who are unwilling to be defeated take advantage of this mentality to encourage officers and men to defect and kill political work cadres sent by the People's Liberation Army to go up the mountain to become bandits.

This also caused many insurrectionary officers and soldiers to defect and become bandits in formations under the instigation of the hidden enemy agents. Not only the Central Army, but even the Sichuan Army appeared in this situation. In fact, because of the unique organization of Brother Pao in the Sichuan Army, some troops even defected more seriously than the Central Army.

The main forces have not yet been transferred to the localities, and the local armed forces in the new districts have not yet had time to be formed. Local governments have just been formed, and they have not yet had time to be stabilized. With the cooperation of the local bandits who had already existed, the activities of these officers and men who had become bandits became more and more rampant.

And these are precisely bandits, most of whom have received formal military training and have a certain degree of organization and discipline. combat effectiveness, far more than half of the bandits. In addition, with the cooperation of habitual bandits who are familiar with the local terrain and the people's feelings, the harm to the new regime is quite great.

At the same time, the Taiwan side, which is already in a hurry to seek medical treatment, not only is the letter of appointment flying all over the sky. A bandit leader of dozens of people, even if you were only a small second lieutenant before, as long as you have someone with a gun, you will be appointed colonel. A bandit group of several hundred people was organized into a reorganization. The division commander was awarded the rank of major general even if he did not wear a military uniform for a day.

A bandit of seven or eight hundred people is an army, and when it reaches the point of thousands of people, it is a corps, or this or that headquarters. If it is two or three thousand, it will become the headquarters of the National Salvation Army. All of a sudden, the bandits in the entire Sichuan territory were major generals and lieutenant generals.

The youngest one, also a lieutenant colonel detachment leader. As for the admirals, there was a platoon. Of course, these generals are not on the roster over there, and whether the team they bring is established in the Ministry of Defense over there, then only Tianhe knows who issued the letter of appointment.

The Taiwan side not only issued a letter of appointment to these guys, but also airdropped a large number of spies and weapons to the ocean. Within Li Ziyuan's jurisdiction, within five days, more than 10 airdrop radio stations were intercepted by the troops, and a few airdrop spies were caught.

It turned out that they had never been willing to equip the United States with weapons and equipment to a miscellaneous army like the Sichuan Army, let alone a chaotic team that had been incorporated into it. But now, when he is hungry, no matter what team he is, as long as he fights with the PLA, he will be given weapons, even American weapons.

Li Ziyuan's unit once received information and received 100 American-made Thomson*,* 200 pieces, as well as three 60 guns, a heavy machine gun, and 30,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibers for those bandits in one day.

Taiwan's unprecedented generosity, coupled with the fact that these mutinous personnel have received formal military training. With the cooperation of local habitual bandits who are familiar with the terrain and people's conditions, the harm is far greater than that of ordinary bandits. These bandits, who have accepted Taiwan's official titles to a greater or lesser extent, are called political bandits.

Under the onslaught of these political bandits, the newly formed local authorities in a considerable part of the area were destroyed. A large number of local cadres and peasant associations, even activists, were killed. Some county and district governments were even exterminated by bandits. Some female cadres were ravaged to death after being abused.

Some small units of the People's Liberation Army have been repeatedly eaten, and some cadres have disappeared or even been openly killed. At the beginning of the 50s, the director of the political department of a division of Li Ziyuan's friendly neighboring troops was ambushed by bandits on his way to Chengdu for a meeting. The head of the political department of the division, along with a guard squad, was killed. A battalion that hastily organized a rescue was also attacked by bandits and suffered heavy losses.

Trucks transporting supplies have also been repeatedly attacked along the seemingly stable highways, with escorts killed and large quantities looted. The telephone line was cut, and the fighters who had been sent out to check the line went missing. Small units of troops and staff sent to requisition food often never returned.

Even in the most rampant places where banditry is most rampant, bandits even openly attack the county seat. Most of the counties under the jurisdiction of the entire military region have been besieged. As for shooting black guns at troops, throwing *, killing sentries and attacking patrols, it is already not unusual. None of the local cadres are willing to leave the army, and they regard the work in the countryside as a ghost gate.

Not to mention various counties, even big cities like Chongqing and Chengdu, there have been incidents of people shooting black guns and throwing * during rallies. In view of the grim situation, the Southwestern Military District issued an order to suppress bandits. In between, Li Ziyuan, who was plagued by conservative bandits, had already launched an action first.

Li Ziyuan's defense area is located in the northern part of Sichuan Province, with a total of 36 counties and one city under the jurisdiction of four prefectures. It is located in Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and Xikang provinces. It is an important passage connecting Sichuan with Gansu and Hanzhong in Shaanxi, and is also a barrier between Chengdu and Chongqing to the north.

If there is a problem here, it is equivalent to a problem in the connection between Sichuan and Shaanxi. Therefore, before the military region issued an order, after being stationed in northern Sichuan, the army commander was transferred to western Sichuan to replace the commander who had been in poor health there, and Li Ziyuan, who served as the acting commander, had already taken the lead.

On the one hand, he was busy forming a new regime, and on the other hand, he was busy purging bandits, and he was too busy to do anything. However, the formation of the new regime was mainly the responsibility of the political commissar and the political department. And Li Ziyuan put his main energy on eliminating bandits and protecting the nascent local government.

In fact, for the battle of suppressing bandits, Li Ziyuan didn't feel much trouble. The method he adopted was very different, that is, to transfer the tactics of the Japanese army to sweep the Eighth Route Army, modify it according to the actual situation at present, and use it to deal with the bandits in his jurisdiction.

Li Ziyuan adopted the construction of a blockade circle, and troops were to be stationed in each village. Some small villages in the deep mountainous areas that are really unable to control them, or are temporarily unable to penetrate deeply, have adopted the method of returning to the tun and merging the households. All the villagers in the deep mountainous areas were forcibly evicted and concentrated in one large village.

In addition, a strict material blockade policy has been imposed in areas where banditry is rampant. Grain and salt are kept in a centralized manner, and all are rationed. Large-scale seizure of civilian weapons. At the same time, the tactics of dividing the bandits into divisions and concentrating forces to encircle them with an iron wall were adopted to sweep the net across the entire line and cross the net on every hill and every hill in the area where the bandits were active.

On a day-to-day basis, at least one company of troops is stationed at each key point, relying on key points along the highway and in the villages, and adopting the tactics of cross-coordination and multi-faceted coordination. Even if it is not along the main points and roads, every village should be stationed as many troops as possible, and a tight blockade circle should be formed along the roads and villages.

During the implementation of tactics, Li Ziyuan repeatedly stressed that all units must pay attention to the training, recruitment, and screening of guides, and absolutely must not be mixed into the guides by enemy specialists. Li Ziyuan clearly realized that the troops were not familiar with the terrain here. Once something goes wrong with the guide, that's the deadliest thing.

Li Ziyuan even proposed that if possible, he should try his best to find a guide among the Red Army diaspora in those years. Because the entire northern Sichuan was part of the Sichuan-Shaanxi Soviet Region in those years, or the area where the Red Army's Long March passed, there were not a few scattered people. And even if the guide has a habit of smoking big cigarettes, as long as he is reliable, the troops can provide him with big cigarettes.

It is forbidden to recruit local guides in areas where banditry is rampant. This is the iron law laid down by Li Ziyuan in the entire battle against bandits. If it is unavoidable, protective detention will be imposed on the families of the recruited guides. Take the family members as hostages to ensure that the guide does not have a moth.