"What I said, everyone understands it, wow, if you understand it, go and prepare!" Chen Yi, commander of the East China People's Liberation Army, completed the combat mission. According to the change in the enemy's situation, the East China Field Army gave up its plan to attack Zhengzhou and instead attacked Kaifeng, the capital of Henan! Kaifeng is the capital of Henan Province, bordering the Yellow River in the north and the Longhai Railway in the south. The headquarters of the reorganized 66th Division and its 13th Brigade, the 1st and Second Brigades of Henan Province, and three security regiments under the command of Liu Maoen, chairman of Henan Province, were garrisoned by more than 30,000 people. The troops participating in the siege were composed of the third and eighth columns of the East China Field Army, which were commanded by Chen Shiyu, chief of staff, and Tang Liang, director of the Political Department. The campaign was launched suddenly. After Chen Tang's corps captured Chengguan, the Eighth Column launched an attack from Nanguan, and the vanguard battalion broke through the new south gate, but the breakthrough was blocked, and the follow-up troops failed to follow up. The troops that had broken through seized the city tower as a support, and stubbornly resisted the counterattack of the defenders. After artillery preparation, the third column attacked the Song Gate, blew open the city gate, and quickly broke into the city. At the same time, the troops of the 8th Column, which had reorganized the assault, joined up with the assault battalion that controlled the towers, consolidating the breakthrough. The various departments were interspersed with multiple directions in depth, launched fierce street battles, and captured most of the urban areas. The remainder of the defenders put up a stubborn resistance with the help of the core positions of the Longting and North China Stadium. Under the cover of heavy artillery fire, the siege troops completely annihilated the defenders of Longting. One of the defenders of the North China Stadium surrendered, and the other was annihilated in the breakout. The next morning liberated Kaifeng.

After the liberation of Kaifeng, as the commander of the East China Field Army, Mr. Chen set his sights on the District Shounian Corps, and immediately convened the commanders of various troops, including the newly arrived Liu Hai Eighth Division, to hold an operational meeting! Mr. Chen explained his battle plan: Kaifeng was defeated, and Chiang Kai-shek urgently ordered the Qiu Qingquan Corps and other units composed of the reorganized Fifth Army and the reorganized 83rd Division to continue to attack Kaifeng, and the Ou Shounian Corps, composed of the 72nd Division, the 75th Division, and the newly organized 21st Brigade, detoured to Kaifeng from the Minquan area through Sui County and Qi County. Since it was very difficult to garrison Kaifeng and had little value, it was determined to abandon Kaifeng and form an assault group with the 1st, 4th, and 6th columns of the East China Field Army and the 11th Column of the Central Plains Field Army. In addition, five columns were used to block reinforcements: the 3rd and 8th Columns, together with the 10th Column from the northward movement of the Shangcai area and the Liangguang Column in Qixian County, formed a blocking group to cut off the connection between Qiu and the District Corps and block the eastward aid of the Qiu Corps; The Ninth Column of the Central Plains Field Army advanced to the southeast of Zhengzhou, blocked the Kuomintang troops coming to the east of Zhengzhou, and pinned down the Qiu Corps from the flank; The Hebei-Shandong-Henan and Henan-Anhui Soviet Military Regions attacked the Xuzhou-Minquan section of the Longhai Railway with a force and directly cooperated with the operation. This is the battle plan arranged by Mr. Chen at the meeting this time!

"Mr. Chen, please wait a minute!" After Liu Hai listened carefully to the battle plan, he stopped Mr. Chen after the meeting! "Which one are you?" Mr. Chen looked at the officer in surprise and asked. "Report, I am Liu Hai, the commander of the Eighth Division directly under the Northeast Bureau, I think your plan is a little inappropriate, I hope I can report to you!" Bangs said. "Oh?" Mr. Chen looked at Liu Hai in disbelief, he didn't expect such a small division commander to question his battle plan! "Tell me about it!" Mr. Chen asked with interest. "According to your plan, the 3rd and 8th Columns, together with the 10th Column in the Shangcai area going north and the Liangguang Column in Qixian County, will form a blocking group, and the blocking force is five columns, what I want to say is that your little strength can't stop Qiu Qingquan's corps at all!" Bangs said. "What? Hahaha, my five columns can't stop one Qiu Qingquan corps? What are you kidding? Mr. Chen smiled and shook his head! Mr. Chen, I mean seriously, don't talk about a single Qiu Qingquan, none of your five columns can stop my Eighth Division, and the combat strength of the Fifth Army is not what you can imagine! Bangs continued. Do you know a lot about the Fifth Army? Have you ever fought with them? Mr. Chen asked. I know this unit very well, because my 8th Division is one of them! ”

"Tell me about it carefully, this matter of reorganizing the Fifth Army!" Mr. Chen said with great interest. "The Fifth Army is the elite of the national army, the first commander is Du Yuming, in the former Kunlun Pass battle, the fifth division of the Japanese army was severely damaged, its firepower and mobility ability is the leader of the national army, their soldiers are only selected from the veterans and wounded veterans, the combat power is extraordinary, I just want to suggest that you revise the battle plan, increase the blocking force and firepower strengthening, otherwise your troops will fall into a two-sided combat state!" "Alarmist, I don't believe that the five columns can't stop his Fifth Army!" Liu Hai's words made Mr. Chen very dissatisfied, "If you are afraid of Liu Hai, you can not participate in this battle!" "Commander, to be honest, from a personal point of view, I don't want to fight them!" Bangs didn't lie! "In that case, I approve your Eighth Division not to participate in this battle, and I'll see how he Lin Biao sees me when the time comes!" Mr. Chen said. "Commander, three of your five columns are local troops that have just been converted into the main force, and their combat capability is not very strong... "That's it! I know! ”

Mr. Chen didn't believe Liu Hai's words and insisted on fighting according to the original plan! The 3rd and 8th columns withdrew from Kaifeng and moved in the direction of Tongxu County. After Qiu Qingquan's corps occupied Kaifeng, it attacked the third and eighth columns with the main force; However, after the Ou Shounian Corps arrived in the Suiqi area, it hesitated and formed a gap of 40 kilometers with the Qiu Corps. Su Yu seized this opportunity and commanded the assault group to encircle the Ou Shou Nian Corps, wedged it into depth with a section, cut its deployment, and divided and surrounded the corps headquarters of the Ou Shou Nian Corps, the reorganized 75th Division, and the newly formed 11th Brigade in Longwangdian, and surrounded the reorganized 72nd Division in the Tiefosi area. The Aid Group controlled the first line of Wangqiji in Qixian County and isolated the Qiu and District Corps. The assault group used one force to monitor the reorganized 72nd Division, captured the villages on the outskirts of Longwangdian with the main force, and after two days and nights of fierce fighting, annihilated the newly formed 21st Brigade and the 6th Brigade of the reorganized 75th Division. Then, a general attack was launched on the defenders of Longwangdian, annihilating the corps headquarters of the district corps and the headquarters of the reorganized 75th Division, capturing the commander of the corps, Ou Shounian, and the commander of the reorganized 75th Division, Shen Chengnian. The blocking group stubbornly resisted in the southwest and east of Qixian. However, at this time, things changed!

After the encirclement and annihilation of the corps began, the Kuomintang army headquarters urgently ordered the reorganized 25th Division, which had advanced from Xuzhou to Yanzhou to Tengxian County, to come back to help, and to form a corps with the 3rd Fast Column and the 2nd Traffic Police Corps modified from the paratrooper corps, with Huang Baitao, commander of the 25th Division, as the commander of the corps, to aid eastern Henan in the west, and quickly defeat the resistance of the 11th Column! Zhonghua Ye dispatched the main four columns and two Guangzhou columns to besiege Huang Baitao's corps at Diqiudian. However, Qiu Qingquan commanded the Fifth Army to adopt a great detour tactic, went around the back of the Huaye troops surrounding the Yellow Corps, attacked fiercely and unexpectedly, and combined with Huang Baitao to defeat Huaye on the whole line, and pursued the victory until the edge of the Yellow River, capturing several thousand wounded and hundreds of wounded prisoners, but according to the statistics of the results, more than 3,000 people were captured, and the East China Field Army suffered heavy losses! The situation had no choice, and in the end the East China Field Army had to retreat with difficulty!

Qiu Qingquan did not stop there, after a little rest, he began to attack the liberated area of northern Jiangsu, participated in the sweeping operation west of Xuzhou, and inflicted heavy losses on the Henan-Anhui Soviet troops, the national army was ready to open up the Pinghan line, occupy Handan, the main attack of the Fifth Army, and successively conquered important cities such as Puyang and Daimyo, causing heavy losses to the PLA base areas, the first battalion and the second company of the 133rd Regiment of the 45th Division of the Fifth Army were besieged and attacked by the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Column of the Nakano at Xiaoba Station, and the 7th Brigade and the 45th Division fought hard, The corpses were everywhere, and they were forced to withdraw from the battlefield, the company was killed and wounded four, and five were wounded, and the Seventh Brigade suffered thousands of casualties. The loss ratio is more than one to one hundred! It directly led to the subsequent hasty civil rights campaign, in which the PLA suffered more than 3,000 casualties and captured, and the Henan-Anhui Soviet Campaign suffered 6,000 casualties and 6,000 prisoners, which was a major defeat. "I didn't expect this Fifth Army to be so powerful, it's really not easy!" Mr. Chen looked at the huge casualty reports, especially the battle at Xiaoba Station, where a brigade fought a company and was disabled, and it was unimaginable to want to destroy the Fifth Army! "What about the bangs? Call him! Mr. Chen said.

"Report! Liu Hai, the commander of the Eighth Division, came to report! Bangs said. Comrade Liu Hai, I want to apologize to you, I insisted on going my own way and didn't follow your advice, so that I failed miserably today, but fortunately I didn't let you join the war, I originally planned to let you fight to block the attack, if this is lost, I will not be able to talk to Mr. Lin when I see him in the future! I called you here today mainly to ask you about the fighting style of the Fifth Army! "Boss, don't dare to apologize, in fact, you don't have to blame yourself too much, the Fifth Army is the main force of the National Army, and its equipment and soldier quality are not comparable to the general Kuomintang troops, you are used to fighting the general troops of the Kuomintang, and it is easy to develop thinking inertia, but for the Fifth Army, my advice is not to fight, first rest and replenish the troops, wait for the opportunity, now is indeed not the time!" Bangs tell the truth. "Alright! Very unwilling, let Qiu Qingquan be so arrogant! Mr. Chen said unwillingly. There will be a chance, and now I have another suggestion, that is, do not rush into battle, but first attack with small forces to attack the local Kuomintang regimes, weaken the Kuomintang ruling base in Henan, and encircle the cities in the so-called countryside, and wait until the liberated areas are consolidated, that is, the stone that will go down the mountain, and the momentum will be, no matter how strong the Fifth Army is, it is also the trend of the times, and there is no choice! Bangs said. It makes a lot of sense, but it's also helpless! Mr. Chen said unwillingly.