Xiao Jingguang, who served as commander of the Navy for 30 years

Xiao Jinguang was the only navy general among the ten founding general of New China. He was the founder of the navy, served as the commander of the navy for 30 years, and made outstanding contributions to the establishment and development of the people's navy.

　　Fighting in Minxi Soviet Area

In January 1903, Xiao Jinguang was born in a poor peasant family in Zhaozhou Port, Changsha, Hunan. In 1921, Xiao Jinguang entered Moscow Oriental University to study. When filling in the registration form for admission, he resolutely wrote down the word "military" in the column of what occupation he chose. During the period of studying in the school, he was transferred to the Soviet Red Army School to study military affairs. In 1925, 22-year-old Xiao Jinguang was the party representative of the Sixth Division of the Second Army of the National Revolutionary Army and participated in the Northern Expedition. After the failure of the Great Revolution, he was again sent to the Soviet Union to study at the Leningrad Military and Political Academy. He summed up the lessons of the failure of the great revolution, realized the importance of military work, and systematically studied the knowledge of military and political theory.

After graduating and returning to China in 1930, Xiao Jinguang was sent to the Minxi Soviet area. He successively served as chief of staff and director of the political department of the Fujian-Guangdong-Jiangxi military region, president of the Central military and political School, and political commissar of the Fifth Red Army, and led the development of the Jianning, Lichuan, and Taining Soviet areas. Later, he served as commander and political commissar of the Jianlitai Garrison, and political commissar of the 11th Red Army and the Seventh Red Army.

In June 1931, the Kuomintang mobilized 300000 troops to launch the third "encirclement and suppression" of the Central Soviet Area ". In the face of the strong enemy's attack, Xiao Jinguang analyzed the situation in western Fujian at that time and put forward the military strategy of "developing northward. He first transferred the 12th Red Army to the south and attacked Lufeng with the students of Hugang Guard Camp and Peng Yang School. While waiting for the arrival of the 12th Red Army, he got intelligence that the Kuomintang army had an attempt to send more troops to Lu Feng. He made a decisive decision and decided to take the lead in the enemy. He led more than 400 students from Hugang Guard Camp and Peng Yang School and took advantage of the enemy's reinforcements to capture Lu Feng at one stroke. In the afternoon, the Kuomintang reinforcements arrived, and the two sides launched a fierce battle. In order to maintain their strength, Xiao Jinguang decisively ordered the Red Army to withdraw to Lanjiadu to assemble. Under his command, the army carried out the second phase of the combat plan, took advantage of the situation to seize Tingzhou, captured Liancheng, defeated the main force of the enemy, and cooperated with the Central Red Army to successfully complete the task of smashing the enemy's third "encirclement and suppression. Since then, the western Fujian Soviet area and the Central Soviet area have become one piece, reversing the situation in which our army was passively beaten, and the game of chess in the western Fujian battlefield finally came alive.

　　Command Sibao Linjiang won

After the outbreak of the all-out Anti Japanese War, Xiao Jinguang served as commander of the left behind corps of the Eighth Route Army and deputy commander of the Shanxi Gansu Ningxia Shanxi Suiyuan joint defense army. Under the direct leadership of Mao Zedong, Xiao Jinguang repeatedly defeated the Japanese army's attack on the Yellow River defense line, and made important contributions to the victory of the Anti Japanese war. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, he was ordered to fight in the Northeast, where he served as deputy commander and chief of staff of the Northeast Democratic Allied Forces, and commander of the Liaodong Military Region. He participated in the command of the Sibao Linjiang, the Northeast Summer Autumn Offensive in 1947, and the siege of Changchun.

In December 1946 and January 1947, the Kuomintang army gathered forces to launch two attacks on Linjiang, the seat of our South Manchuria military region, in an attempt to destroy or trap the main force of our army on the spot in Changbai Mountain. Faced with the passive situation of soldiers oppressing the territory and the enemy being strong and weak, Xiao Jinguang commanded the Northeast Democratic Allied Forces to fight bravely and successively defeated the enemy's two attacks on Linjiang.

After two defeats, the Kuomintang army was still unwilling. On February 13, 1947, it concentrated the forces of five divisions and launched a third attack on Linjiang in four ways. Xiao Jinguang analyzed the characteristics of the enemy's attack and decided to concentrate the main force of the third column to attack the 91st Division, the main force of the Kuomintang army to the north. The main force of the fourth column moved behind the enemy lines and rushed to fight, making the enemy exhausted and always in a passive situation of being beaten. With the cooperation of the North Manchurian troops to the south, within one month, our army recovered the important towns of Ji'an, Jinchuan, and Huinan, defeated the three main divisions of the Kuomintang army, and wiped out nearly 10,000 enemies.

On March 27, in order to save the defeat, the Kuomintang army once again mobilized about 100000 troops from seven divisions to launch an unprecedented large-scale attack on Linjiang on the left, middle and right. On April 3, Xiao Jinguang decided to lure and annihilate the middle road army with weak combat effectiveness, so he sent the main force of the third column and a part of the fourth column to go out of the enemy's way, spread out first, attack the enemy in depth with strong forces, and encircle the enemy with two wings. After four hours of fierce fighting, more than 8000 enemy were wiped out. At this point, the enemy's plan to attack Linjiang was completely shattered. The Sibao Linjiang campaign in the past four months has completely reversed the strategic situation of the northeast battlefield and laid a good foundation for the strategic decisive battle in the northeast battlefield, the Liaoshen campaign.

　　Swing South to Win "Little Zhuge"

In 1948, Xiao Jinguang served as commander of the First Corps of the Northeast Field Army, commander and political commissar of the Twelfth Corps of the Fourth Field Army, and later commander of the Hunan Military Region. He led his troops to participate in the battles of Liaoshen, Pingjin, Dujiang, and Hengbao.

In August 1949, after the peaceful liberation of Changsha, Bai Chongxi, the Kuomintang Central China military and political chief, led more than 200,000 troops to guard the southern Hunan region centered on Hengyang and Baoqing in an attempt to prevent the PLA from marching into South China and Southwest China. Bai Chongxi's nickname was "Little Zhuge". Among the various ministries of the Kuomintang at that time, Bai Chongxi's group was quite strong in combat effectiveness. From September 13 to October 16, the Fourth Field Army of our army launched the Battle of Hengbao, dividing its troops into three routes to encircled and annihilate the Bai Chongxi Group. Xiao Jinguang commanded the 12th Corps to shoulder the arduous task of frontal attack. On October 2, he commanded three armies to launch a frontal attack on the enemy at the same time. After quickly breaking through the enemy's front-line position, our army took advantage of the victory and developed in depth. In particular, the First Third Five Division of the 45th Army fought alone and bravely, like a sharp knife inserted into the enemy's heart, disrupting Bai Chongxi's entire deployment.

Bai Chongxi was worried about the continuous entanglement and delay, so he hurriedly changed the battle plan, immediately contracted the troops, and commanded his most powerful ace Seventh Army to cover the retreat of the large troops. Xiao Jingguang seized the fighter plane and ordered the four armies and 12 divisions responsible for the attack to attack the enemy on all fronts and pursue and annihilate the fleeing enemy. On the 9th, Xiao Jinguang commanded 9 divisions to surround the Seventh Army, and another 6 divisions blocked and intercepted. The Seventh Army became a turtle in a jar. On the 10th, Xiao Jinguang organized eight divisions to launch a general offensive against the besieged enemy, annihilating four elite divisions of the enemy in one fell swoop, capturing the deputy commander, chief of staff, and three division commanders of the Seventh Army, liberating Hengyang, Baoqing, Chenzhou, and other important towns in southern Hunan, creating favorable conditions for our army to march into Guangxi to wipe out the Bai Chongxi Group and liberate South China.

　　Mao Zedong pointed out that he would be commander of the navy.

In October 1949, just after the Battle of Hengbao, Mao Zedong summoned Xiao Jinguang in Zhongnanhai and made him the first naval commander of New China. In January 1950, Xiao Jinguang was officially appointed commander of the Navy by the Central Military Commission.

In the early days of the formation of the Navy, Xiao Jinguang presided over the formulation of a series of guidelines and principles for naval construction. In August 1950, at the naval army building conference, he proposed to "build a modern, offshore, and light maritime combat force with offensive and defensive capabilities from the perspective of long-term construction and starting from the current situation". In December 1951, he creatively proposed that the construction of the navy should lay three "piles" of organizational construction, political and ideological construction, and technical construction, which pointed out the direction for the development and growth of the People's Navy.

At the end of 1950, under his auspices, the Navy Qingdao Base and the Navy of the Central South Military Region were established one after another. Together with the Navy of the East China Military Region established in April 1949, the strategic pattern of the three sea areas of the North, East and South was basically established. He attached great importance to the training of naval technical personnel, stressed that the army should be built first, and successively established the Dalian Sea School, the first Naval Aviation School, the Artillery School, the Submarine School, and so on. In just a few years, the Navy has supported 10 regular military academies and 6 preparatory schools. In view of the fact that the naval weapons and equipment were very backward in the initial stage, Xiao Jinguang paid close attention to the construction of naval weapons and equipment, rectified and developed the shipbuilding industry, and introduced advanced technology and equipment. At the same time, the construction of arms was strengthened, and the first speedboat unit, the first aviation division, the first submarine detachment, and the first destroyer brigade were successively formed. The naval combat force at sea has formed a relatively complete system from the air to the sea, from the surface to the water, from the island to the coast.

Xiao Jinguang's 60-year military career, "the first 30 years of fighting in the north and south for liberation, and the next 30 years of construction in a corner of the navy", his outstanding achievements and general demeanor are well-known in history, admired and remembered.

Source: Learning Times