Second Field Army

Author: Zhang Junfu, Jin Fu (compilers)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Major turning point in the history of the People's Liberation Army: The birth of the Five Major Field Armies. Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping held the command post of the Second Field Army. On February 11, 1949, the Central Plains were covered in ice and snow, with flurries of white. At that moment, an American jeep was speeding through the morning snow, heading toward the command headquarters of the Second Field Army near Zhangcaiyuan in Shangqiu, Henan. In the car was Liu Bocheng, newly appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Second Field Army by the Central Military Commission. He was rushing back from Shijiazhuang at the Central Military Commission's command, to organize the troops for the battle to cross the Yangtze River and liberate the southern provinces. Liu Bocheng had just attended (or was a member of) the Central Political Committee meeting in Xibaipo, Hebei, and received the Central Military Commission's new appointment on his way back to his troops. Unifying the military structure and unit designations of the entire army was a crucial strategic deployment by Mao Zedong and the Central Military Commission for the complete victory of the revolutionary war, and also marked a major turning point in the progress of the Chinese revolution. People mature in a season, and rice ripens in a flash. The development of the revolutionary situation is no different. The two major political forces in modern Chinese history—the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party—after nearly 30 years of complex and fierce struggles and unpredictable changes in the wind and waves, by the end of 1948 and early 1949, the strength of each party and their status in Chinese society were undergoing unprecedented rapid changes. The original sizes and strengths were quickly exchanging places, rapidly transforming in opposite directions with lightning speed. Even as the Liaoshen Campaign was just beginning and the September Central Political Committee meeting had just concluded, Mao Zedong predicted: based on the results of the past two years' battles and the overall situation of the enemy and us, it was possible to build a five million-strong People's Liberation Army, eliminate about 500 divisions (brigades) of regular enemy troops in about five years (starting from July 1946), eliminate about 7.5 million enemy regular, irregular, and special forces (about 1.5 million per year), and fundamentally overthrow the reactionary rule of the Nationalist Party, with full possibility.