Mao Zedong's War "Swimming"

In December 1936, Mao Zedong gave a speech on "Strategic Issues of the Chinese Revolutionary War" at the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese Red Army University: "We must encourage every Red Army commander to become a brave and wise hero, not only with overwhelming courage, but also Have the ability to control the changes and development of the entire war. Commanders swim in the sea of war. They do not let themselves sink, but make themselves reach the other shore in a determined and step-by-step manner. The law that guides war is the swimming of war." The "swimming technique" of war is Mao Zedong's war practice of leading and commanding the Chinese revolution. He summarized a series of basic strategic and tactical principles for guiding the war according to the situation of different stages of the war. The in-depth revelation and scientific grasp of the characteristics of the laws of revolutionary war is a great creation of the method of defeating the enemy based on the reality of the Chinese revolution and the situation of the enemy and ourselves at that time. In the war years of blood and fire, Mao Zedong and the older generation of proletarian revolutionaries firmly adhered to the basic principle of "preserving themselves and destroying the enemy". In the face of powerful enemies, they used superb war "swimming skills" to fight against the wind and waves in the "sea" of war, and created the military miracle of our army winning more with less, defeating the strong with the weak, and defeating the superior with the inferior, it has become a treasure of wisdom that has a universal guiding role in people's warfare and is still of guiding value in modern warfare.
To retreat for advance, to give up for gain
In August 1927, Mao Zedong went to Changsha to lead the autumn harvest uprising on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi, and formulated a military operation to attack Changsha in three ways. On September 9, the Autumn Harvest Uprising broke out, but the rebels suffered heavy losses due to the number of the enemy. Subsequently, Mao Zedong ordered the troops to retreat to Wenjia City. On the 19th, the troops retained by the various uprisings joined forces in Wenjia City. That night, former party secretary Mao Zedong, commander-in-chief Lu Deming, and division commander Yu Sa-du decided to hold an enlarged meeting of the former party committee. The participants had a heated debate on the direction of the troops. At the meeting, Mao Zedong made an in-depth analysis of the situation faced by the workers' and peasants' revolutionary army, and made the decision of "giving up attacking the central city and going to remote rural areas to preserve the revolutionary forces. The Wenjia City Conference supported Mao Zedong's proposal to abandon the attack on Changsha and decided to turn to the countryside where the enemy's ruling power was weak to preserve its strength and seek further development. As a result, the curtain of the shift of the party's work focus from the city to the countryside was officially opened, and the spark of "armed separation of workers and peasants" was ignited. This became a historic turning point for the party to lead the revolutionary struggle to encircle the city and seize power by armed forces.
Soon after the Chongqing negotiations ended, Chiang Kai-shek broke his trust and quickly tore up the peace agreement and aggressively attacked the liberated areas. In order to fight the "Battle of Yan'an", Chiang Kai-shek personally flew to Yan'an to supervise the battle. For a time, the enemy besieged the city and soldiers pressed the border. Mao Zedong, who was in Yan'an, analyzed the current situation and made a decision to give up Yan'an temporarily. Why gave up Yan'an? This was something that many soldiers and civilians in Yan'an could not figure out at that time. Mao Zedong told everyone earnestly: the enemy is menacing, and our troops are very few. We will definitely suffer losses if we fight hard. The purpose of temporarily abandoning Yan'an is to enable the army and people in the border region to compete with the enemy flexibly and flexibly until they are eliminated. Mao Zedong encouraged everyone that our army's war is not about the gains and losses of one city and one place, but about destroying the enemy's effective forces. Save people and lose land, people and land are saved; save land and lose people, people and land are lost. After the Party Central Committee took the initiative to abandon Yan'an, the Northwest People's Liberation Army and the Kuomintang army, which was 10 times larger than itself, calmly and successfully, effectively responding to other battlefields, and laid the foundation for the victory of the Northwest battlefield and the entire war of liberation. What Mao Zedong said was to exchange one Yan'an for the whole of China.
Avoiding the real and attacking the weak
Mao Zedong put great emphasis on avoiding the real and fighting the weak first, and then fighting the strong enemy when the conditions are ripe. This military strategy runs through the whole war led by Mao Zedong, creating the miracle of the people's army's repeated survival and turning the tide. In December 1934, the Central Red Army, which had just passed the tragic Xiangjiang Battle and was sharply reduced from more than 80000 to 30000, passed through the Hunan Passage and prepared to join the Sixth Army of the Red 2. Army in Xiangxi according to the established plan. However, Chiang Kai-shek had already noticed the movement of the Central Red Army and mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops to build fortifications in many places north of the passage, set up nets to wait, and prepared to wipe out the Red Army. In the face of the disparity between the enemy and ourselves, in order to solve the problem of where the Red Army will go, on the evening of December 12, the Central Red Army urgently convened a meeting of the heads of the CPC Central Committee. After analyzing the situation at the meeting, Mao Zedong believed that if the Central Red Army went north, it would get into the "pocket array" set by Chiang Kai-shek's heavy troops and face the danger of annihilation, so he changed his original route and planned to go west to Guizhou to attack the weak Guizhou army., Get rid of the encirclement designed by the enemy, let the troops win a respite, and let Chiang Kai-shek's plan to destroy the Red Army in Xiangxi.
Mao Zedong said, "It is better to break one finger than to hurt its ten fingers". The primary purpose of war is to annihilate the enemy's effective forces and to concentrate our superior forces to annihilate the enemy. In the revolutionary war years, Mao Zedong used this principle to command troops and won many battles. In August 1946, the Kuomintang deployed 14 reorganized divisions and 32 brigades with about 300000 people in an attempt to clamp down on the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan field army, occupy southwestern Shandong and open up the Ping-Han Railway. At that time, Liu Deng's army was only 50000 men, and its equipment was not as good as that of the enemy. Moreover, the army did not fully rest and recuperate in continuous operations. In the case of great disparity in strength between the two sides, Mao Zedong asked the troops to fight against the enemy's regular army with superior forces in each battle, "wipe out one of them, fight another, fight the third, and break them one by one". Liu and Deng's army adopted the tactics of "showing weakness to lure, clamping and blocking, encircling and annihilating", and decided to concentrate more than 50000 people in four columns, four times the enemy's strength, to lure and annihilate the reorganized 3rd Division to the west of Dingtao, and then encircle and annihilate it at one stroke. Under the leadership and command of Mao Zedong, the Dingtao campaign won a major victory of more than 17000 people from one integrated division and four brigades, reversing the passive situation of the southern front in the liberated areas.
lure the enemy to go deep, hold your weight and wait
In October 1930, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized more than 100,000 troops to launch the first "encirclement and suppression" campaign against the Central Soviet Area ". According to the situation of the enemy and ourselves, Mao Zedong put forward the operational policy of "luring the enemy into depth. On November 1, the headquarters of the First Red Army issued an order to "lure the enemy into the red area and wait for it to be exhausted and annihilated." The main force of the Red Army then retreated to the central part of the base area, looking for a plane to annihilate the enemy. On December 28, Lu Tiping, commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang army, ordered a general offensive against the Red Army. Zhang Huizan led a lone army to march towards Longgang, and the Red Army General Front Committee immediately ordered annihilation. In the early morning of the 30th, drizzle and fog. the headquarters of the first red army went to huangtuling to command. Mao Zedong said to Zhu De, "Commander-in-Chief, you see, it's really 'God helps me! 'During the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang took advantage of the east wind to break the enemy soldiers; today, we take advantage of the morning fog to wipe out the stubborn enemy!" as soon as zhang huizhan entered the narrow section of the road, zhang huizhan met with a head-on attack by the red army, completely annihilating nearly 10000 enemy troops, and zhang huizhan was captured alive. Mao Zedong took the opportunity to swing to the east and won the battle of Dongshao, which successfully smashed the first "encirclement and suppression" of the Kuomintang ".
Since March 1947, Chiang Kai-shek has adopted the tactics of strengthening depth, close to each other intensively, fighting steadily and gradually, and concentrating his forces to launch attacks on northern Shaanxi and Shandong. In accordance with Mao Zedong's instructions to "lure the enemy deep", the East China Field Army, with great patience and showing weakness, let go of the front and let the enemy advance, causing the enemy's front to stand out in the center of the enemy's front, giving us a gap to take advantage of and looking for an opportunity to annihilate the enemy. Chiang Kai-shek thought that the retreat of the East China Field Army was due to exhaustion of the offensive, so he ordered a rapid advance to Boshan and Yishui. The 74th division of the enemy's reorganization moved north from Duo Zhuang and successively occupied Yangjiazhai, Foshan Jiao and other places. On the evening of May 13, the East China Field Army severed the ties between the reorganized 74th Division and other troops with a frontal blockade and two-winged tactics. Feeling the danger of being encircled and annihilated, the enemy immediately retreated in the direction of Meng Lianggu and Duozhuang. The East China Field Army took advantage of the victory and stormed, and the rest of the departments attacked in multiple ways, forming an encirclement of the enemy's reorganized 74th Division. On the morning of the 16th, the 74th Division was wiped out and Commander Zhang Lingfu was killed. This victory completely shattered the Kuomintang's "decisive battle in Lu" and effectively cooperated with the operations in northern Shaanxi and other battlefields.
To walk to control the enemy, to long grams of short
Starting from the objective reality that the enemy is strong and we are weak, and the enemy is big and we are small, Mao Zedong skillfully used the terrain, the people and other favorable conditions to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, develop strengths and attack weaknesses, so as to achieve the goal of defeating the strong with the weak and the big with the small. In March 1929, Mao Zedong led the main force of the Fourth Red Army into Fujian and fought the first battle in Changling Village. The 28th and 31st regiments of the main forces of the Fourth Red Army seized the commanding heights of Changlingzhai and lured the enemy into the ambush circle. The secret service battalion and the army detoured behind the enemy lines and cut off the enemy's retreat, forming a trend of flanking up and down. More than 2000 enemy soldiers were wiped out at one stroke and Tingzhou City was liberated. In May of the same year, Mao Zedong led the Fourth Red Army into Fujian for the second time. On the morning of the 23rd, with the close cooperation of the party organization in western Fujian, the Fourth Red Army launched its first attack on the defending enemy in Longyan, wiped out a battalion of the enemy, seized a large number of ammunition and weapons, and won the first battle in Longyan City. After occupying Longyan, the Fourth Red Army did not stay, but withdrew and attacked its neighbor Yongding. On the 28th, when Mao Zedong learned that the defeated enemy had sneaked back into Longyan, he immediately ordered another division of troops to occupy Longyan on June 3. After the Fourth Red Army captured Longyan City for the second time, it still did not stop. Instead, it withdrew again and turned to Shanghang and Liancheng for guerrilla warfare. After Mao Zedong learned that Longyan's enemy Chen Guohui led the main troops back to Longyan City, he immediately assembled the Fourth Red Army for a long-distance attack and captured Longyan for the third time on June 19. Mao Zedong instructed the Red Army to skillfully use guerrilla tactics, so that Chen Guohui had no time to resist, disguised as a soldier mixed in the deserter team and fled. Mao Zedong used superb strategy and tactics to open up a new situation in the revolution in western Fujian.
Mao Zedong attached great importance to the movement tactics of getting rid of passivity and destroying the enemy in the movement, and put forward the combat policy of "fight if you win, and leave if you don't win", emphasizing that you should not follow the enemy and be controlled by the enemy; instead, you should be based on "I". In the face of a strong enemy, if you are sure, you will be annihilated, otherwise you will give in first, take the initiative and win. In January 1935, the Red Army arrived in Zunyi area and decided to cross the Yangtze River north to join the Fourth Red Army. In the face of the encirclement and interception of the Kuomintang 300000 army, Mao Zedong made a decisive decision and immediately abandoned the plan to cross the Yangtze River to the north, withdrew from the battle, crossed the Chishui River to the west, and developed to the border of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou, so as to get rid of the enemy and get rid of passivity. After the Red Army entered the Yunnan-Sichuan border, the Kuomintang adjusted its deployment in an attempt to encircled and annihilate the Red Army in areas south of the Yangtze River, east of Hengjiang, and west of Xuyong. In order to quickly get rid of the enemy's three-sided attack, Mao Zedong immediately turned around and crossed Chishui twice. He commanded the Red Army to kill a return carbine to the empty Qianbei area of the enemy's forces. In the battle of Zunyi, the Red Army defeated and annihilated two divisions and eight regiments of the Kuomintang army, killing and injuring more than 5400 enemy soldiers, greatly boosting the morale of the Red Army. After the Battle of Zunyi, Chiang Kai-shek came to Chongqing to take command in an attempt to surround and annihilate the Red Army in Zunyi with a combination of fortress doctrine and key offensives. The Red Army then moved north, crossed Chishui three times, and entered southern Sichuan again. When Chiang Kai-shek's heavy troops fell to southern Sichuan again, the Red Army turned eastward again and passed through the gap between the enemy forces. Under the situation that Chiang Kai-shek assembled heavy troops to the south of Sichuan again, Mao Zedong took advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness to fold his troops to the northeast, then crossed Chishui, advancing from the enemy's right wing to the south, with the soldiers pointing straight at Guiyang, leaving hundreds of thousands of Chiang Kai-shek's troops to the north of Wujiang River and jumping out of the enemy's encirclement. In the Battle of Sidu Chishui, Mao Zedong firmly grasped the initiative on the battlefield and directed the Red Army to annihilate a large number of Kuomintang troops in the movement, thus achieving a decisive victory in the strategic transfer.

Source: Learning Times