In the thirty-seventh year of the Republic of China (1948), the war situation in the Central Plains was still chaotic, the victory and defeat were not divided, and although Liu Deng's army jumped thousands of miles into the Dabie Mountains and achieved the purpose of leading the war to the Chiang Kai-shek region, the People's Liberation Army was still passive in the central plains battlefield, and after huaye divided the troops, it was also chased and fought by the nationalist army. Forced to do so, the central authorities decided to send Su Yu to lead three columns to cross the river and advance south, and to carry out a second step of attacking behind the enemy's lines, so as to attract the main force of the enemy army to return to the Jiangnan region and reduce the pressure on our army in the Central Plains. After settling an account, Su Yu thought it would be more cost-effective to stay in Jiangbei to fight a big battle, and reported his opinion to the central authorities. The central authorities ordered Chen Yi and Su Yu to go to the central garrison in Chengnanzhuang to report specifically, and Su Yu finally persuaded the central authorities to agree to stay in Jiangbei to fight a big battle, but the central authorities also left him with a task, to eliminate the main force of the Nationalist army in the Central Plains battlefield, the Fifth Army, within a year.
At the beginning of the 27th year of the Republic of China (1938), with the help of the Soviet Union, the armored corps led by Du Yuming was reorganized into the 200th Division in Xiangtan, Hunan, which was the first mechanized unit in the Nationalist army. The division consisted of two tank regiments, two motorized infantry regiments, an automobile regiment, an engineer regiment, an artillery regiment, a search panzer regiment, and other units. The tank regiment included 9.5-ton Soviet tanks, British 6.5-ton Wicks tanks, And Italian 2.5-ton Fiat tanks, etc. The Soviet advisory group was responsible for mechanized military education and training. In the winter of that year, the 200th Division was ordered to sail from Hunan to Quanzhou, Guangxi, and expanded into a new Eleventh Army, and soon after the name was changed to the Fifth Army, with Du Yuming as the commander and the 200th Division as the commander dai Anlan. In the winter of the same year, the Fifth Army took on the counter-offensive against Kunlun Pass, and the 200th Division and the Honor 1st Division took on the task of attacking head-on, eliminating the main force of the Fifth Division of the Japanese Army, known as the Steel Army, and killing the brigade commander Masao Nakamura.
Later, Du Yuming led the Fifth Army to participate in the first operation into Burma. In fact, in the first operation into Burma, the only people who could really confront the Japanese army were the 200th Division of the Fifth Army, the newly organized Twenty-second Division, the Ninety-sixth Division, and the newly organized Thirty-eighth Division of the Sixth Army. This was also the first time that the expeditionary force entered Burma was the most effective. In accordance with the original plan for the Battle of Tonggu, the 200th Division engaged in a frontal confrontation with the Japanese army against Tonggu for more than half a month, and did not fall behind, until the British army gave up the resistance on the western front, and after the Sixth Army and the Sixty-sixth Army on the Eastern Front were broken by the Japanese army, they had suffered heavy casualties and had to be ordered to retreat in the direction of Mandalay, and during the retreat, the commander of the 200th Division, Dai Anlan, was killed. In the process of retreat, the newly formed Twenty-second Division led by Liao Yaoxiang once again shined in resisting the Japanese pursuit division one after another, and became famous in one fell swoop.
Du Yuming
According to Du Yuming's plan, although the Battle of Tonggu was not successful, there was still a chance to organize another battle with the Japanese army at Binh Man Na after retreating backwards. His plan was for the Ninety-sixth Division, a subordinate unit of the Fifth Army, which had finally entered Burma, to first build a strong position at Pimona to resist the Japanese army, and the 200th Division and the newly formed Twenty-second Division would first retreat to the two wings after retreating to Binh Manna for reorganization and replenishment, and when the Ninety-sixth Division continued to deplete the Japanese army for a period of time, the 200th Division and the newly formed Twenty-second Division would encircle and annihilate the Japanese army from both flanks. But the plan was again abandoned by the British dropping the chain. At this time, the war situation had deteriorated sharply, and Du Yuming could only be forced to lead the 200th Division and the newly formed Twenty-second Division back to China. When climbing the Mountain of The Cross-Country, because of the steep road and the cut off of supplies, he had to discard almost all the heavy equipment.
Later, under the support of the new Thirty-eighth Division, which had already followed the British army to Liedo in india, Du Yuming led the 200th Division and the remnants of the newly organized Twenty-second Division to retreat to Ledo, and the Ninety-sixth Division, after turning over the Mountain of The People, crossed the Oligong Mountain in northwestern Yunnan, crossed the Nu River, and returned to China. The Nationalist Army Headquarters then ordered that the new Twenty-second Division and the new Thirty-eighth Division be left in India and sent to Imphal, India, to receive U.S. aid and equipment, and together with the new Thirty, Fourteenth, and Fifty Divisions that were later transferred, the New First Army and the New Sixth Army were formed, and the 200th Division was airlifted back to China with Du Yuming, and after supplementation and reorganization, it served as a city defense mission in Kunming, and the Ninety-sixth Division was also rebuilt shortly thereafter. After that, Du Yuming's position was repeatedly promoted, and he gradually broke away from the Fifth Army, and the commander of the Fifth Army was taken over by Qiu Qingquan.
In the Liberation War, among the five main forces of the Nationalist Army, the New First Army and the New Sixth Army accompanied Du Yuming to the northeast to participate in the battle, and finally were completely annihilated in the Liaoshen Campaign, the original Seventy-fourth Army was reorganized into the Reorganized Seventy-fourth Division when it was reorganized, and finally in the Battle of Menglianggu, It was "the first rank of general in the Million Army", and the Eighteenth Army, as the backbone of the civil engineering department, was once reorganized into the Reorganized Eleventh Division, which has been led by Hu Lian and fought in the battlefields of East China and the Central Plains. Only the name of the Fifth Army remained unchanged in the War of Liberation, and the main framework remained relatively intact. In the end, when it was completely annihilated by Huaye's troops in the Huaihai Campaign, the 200th Division remained in the Fifth Army formation, and the Forty-fifth Division, which was transferred to the Fifth Army after returning from Burma, remained within the fifth army formation, and in addition to the forty-sixth division before the Huaihai Campaign.
Qiu Qingquan
After Su Yu issued a military order in the central government, he first planned to provide reinforcements at the encirclement point in southwest Lu before the Battle of Eastern Henan, attracting the Fifth Army to come to the rescue, and then set up an ambush to surround and annihilate the Fifth Army halfway through. However, due to the change in the battlefield situation, it was temporarily changed to besieging Kaifeng, and only the District Shounian Corps was surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, and Qiu Qingquan was very cunning, not only was he not surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, but after the Huang Baitao Corps was surrounded, he broke through the Huaye blocking position and rescued the Huang Baitao Corps. After that, when the Nationalist Army Headquarters organized the corps, with the Fifth Army as the basic backbone, plus the Seventy Army, the Seventy-fourth Army, and the Seventy-second Army, it was organized into Qiu Qingquan's Second Corps, which became the most powerful main corps of the Nationalist Army on the East China Battlefield. At this time, the Fifth Army had three divisions and a cavalry brigade, totaling more than 50,000 people.
In the Battle of Huaihai, Qiu Qingquan led the Second Corps to Xuzhou to participate in the battle, but whether it was in the rescue of Huang Baitao's corps, or in the rescue of Huang Wei's corps after being surrounded by the People's Liberation Army at Chen Guanzhuang, Qiu Qingquan did not let the Fifth Army directly participate in the battle, and only when retreating from Xuzhou, the Forty-fifth Division served as the rear guard of the entire corps. It was also because the Plaster's pursuit force caught up with the Forty-fifth Division, and Qiu Qingquan was reluctant to abandon the Forty-fifth Division, and even ordered the entire corps to stop advancing, and then sent the Ninety-sixth Division back to the division to meet the Breakthrough of the Forty-fifth Division. In the encirclement, Qiu Qingquan also placed the Fifth Army in the center of the entire nationalist defense system, and in the initial operations, not a single shell fell on the position of the Fifth Army. It was not until January 10, 1949, after the People's Liberation Army launched a general offensive, that the Nationalist position was broken through, and Du Yuming, Qiu Qingquan and others hid in the Headquarters of the Fifth Army.
After the People's Liberation Army launched a general offensive, most of the Nationalist troops, which had long been trapped and exhausted, soon collapsed completely, Xiong Xiaosan took the lead in sneaking away, and Guo Jiqian, commander of the Forty-fifth Division, was temporarily promoted to commander of the Fifth Army and was in charge of command. After Du Yuming and Qiu Qingquan decided to break through under the cover of a battalion, the Forty-fifth Division, under the strong offensive of the People's Liberation Army, was forced to agree to surrender, the Forty-sixth Division also laid down its weapons in the same way and surrendered to the People's Liberation Army, while the 200th Division stubbornly resisted until the end, until less than a thousand people were left, the rest of the Nationalist troops had been completely solved, and the sound of gunfire could no longer be heard around, and the remnants of the 200th Division finally stopped resisting and laid down their weapons and surrendered. This elite unit of the national army also disappeared from history.