Zhentai operation

In early 1947, as a result of the battle south of Baoding, the Chinese Communists in Hebei Province were able to take control of the section of the Pinhan Railway between Baoding and Shijiazhuang , disrupting the connection between the center and the south of the province. At the end of February 1947, Mao Zedong set before the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Soviet district troops the task of moving from defense to offensive, and first defeating the weak Kuomintang units, and then striking at more powerful troops. In order to develop ways to implement these instructions, a meeting was held in March 1947 by the command of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Soviet District, at which it was decided to take advantage of the weakness of the Kuomintang troops guarding the railway between Zhending and Taiyuan . Besides the fact that this was the most vulnerable zone of the Kuomintang in all of Northern China, the Communists had the advantage here that during the war with Japan one of the liberated areas controlled by the Communists was located here, so the area was well known to the troops.

On April 3, 1947, Nie Rongzhen ordered the troops of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th convoys of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Soviet Region to advance from their places of deployment in Gaoyang and Renqiu , and move to the Wuji - Xingtai - Xinle area . On April 9, the Communists began the liquidation of the Kuomintang strongholds around Shijiazhuang, and on April 10 started fighting for Zhengding, disrupting the communication between Zhengding and Shijiazhuang. By April 12, the first stage of the Zhentai operation was completed: the Communists took Zhending and Luancheng , they controlled the 45-kilometer section of the railway, and the Kuomintang troops totaling over ten thousand were defeated.

The communists' exit to Shijiazhuang alarmed the Kuomintang command, and it tried to deliver a debilitating blow from Beiping . However, the Communists relied on the 7th separate brigade and troops of the 10th military subarea, which restrained the enemy on the north bank of the River , and with the main forces continued their offensive to the west along the Zhentai Railway.

On April 24, the Communists began fighting for Nianziguan - the passage in the Great Wall on the border of Shanxi Province, and the next day took possession of it; at the same time, another group of troops started fighting for a coal-mining area in the vicinity of Yangquan . After Yangquan was surrounded, Yan Xishan mistakenly decided that Taiyuan was the target of the Communist offensive and pulled back troops to defend the provincial capital.

On May 2, Yanquan was taken by the Communists, but when they tried to move further west, they met stubborn resistance on Mount Shinaoshan. It turned out that the Japanese military unit was defending there, which, after the surrender of Japan in 1945, switched to the service of Yan Sishan. The Communists entered into negotiations with the Japanese, inviting them to lay down their arms in exchange for security for themselves and their former family members. The offer was accepted.

On May 4, Shoyan was taken by the Communists , whose defenders fled to Yutsi . On May 7, the Communist command announced the completion of the Zhentai operation.

As a result of the battle, which lasted about a month, the Kuomintang troops of about 35 thousand people were defeated. Communists controlled 7 district centers, 3 coal-mining districts, and a 180-kilometer section of the railway from Kholu to Yutsi, as a result of which communications between the Hebei and Shanxi provinces were disrupted. One of the strategically important cities of Northern China - Shijiazhuang - was caught between Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei and Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Soviet regions.

• 中国 革命 战争 纪实。 解放 战争。 华北 卷 (The Complete History of the Revolutionary War. The War of Independence. Volume "Northern China"), - Beijing: "People's Publishing House", 2007. ISBN 978-7-01-003284-9