The Battle of Huaihai was called the Battle of Xu Beng by the Nationalist side. In order to give the Nationalist army in xuzhou a superiority in strength, Chiang Kai-shek quickly dispatched Huang Wei's 12th Corps, which was originally subordinate to the Central China Suppression Army, to quickly advance eastward to reinforce Xu Beng in battle. When the Huang Wei Corps marched to the shuangduiji area southwest of Su County, it was surrounded by the superior troops of our army.
At that time, Hu Lian, the deputy commander of the 12th Corps, took leave of absence because of the loss of his father and did not fight with the troops. There is also a theory that it is because Hu Lian did not become the commander of the 12th Corps, so he deliberately gambled not to take up the post of the troops. When the 12th Corps was surrounded in the Shuangduiji area, Hu Lian immediately flew to shuangduiji with Chiang Kai-shek's instructions and prepared to assist Huang Wei in battle.
However, the situation on the battlefield took a sharp turn for the worse, our army's offensive became more and more fierce, and the 12th Corps had reached the point of running out of ammunition and food, and it was useless to rely only on airdrops.
Just when the 12th Corps was in danger, Hu Lian once again flew away from the double pile in his small plane and went to Nanjing to report to Chiang Kai-shek. At this time in the Huaihai battlefield, Chiang Kai-shek had no troops to adjust, and could only encourage Hu Lian at the spiritual level. He invited Hu Lian to dinner, and at the same time deliberately found the movie "Wen Tianxiang" to play. Chiang Kai-shek's meaning is obvious: you Hu Lian and Huang Wei must be loyal to me and be the contemporary Wen Tianxiang. After comprehending the spirit, Hu Lian had to take his small plane again and fly to the double pile again.
On December 12, 1948, our army launched a general offensive against the 12th Corps, and seeing that the general trend was gone, Huang Wei and Hu Lian broke through in two tanks in different directions. In the end, Huang Wei failed to escape and was taken prisoner, while Hu Lian rushed out of the encirclement. So the question is, they all break through in tanks, why was Huang Wei, who was the commander, captured, while the deputy commander Hu Lian was able to escape?
First, let's talk about Huang Wei. Soon after Huang Wei's tank could not be driven, it was trapped in the quagmire, unable to move, and eventually lost his transportation, and could only sit and watch himself being captured. And Hu Lian? Luck was so good that although a grenade exploded next to him, it was difficult not to die, and then he broke through in a tank in the direction of our army's attack. When the men and horses of our army rushed to the double pile like a tide, no one paid any attention to the oncoming retrograde tank, and even many soldiers made way for it very "friendly". Apparently, the fighters regarded Hu Lian's tank as their own tank.
In this way, Hu Lian was able to escape. After that, he was even more official, first as the commander of the second formation training, then as the commander of the newly formed 12th Corps, then transferred to Kinmen, as the commander of Kinmen Defense, and finally became the deputy commander-in-chief of the army, promoted to a general of the first rank.
On the surface, Hu Lian was able to escape, which felt like an element of luck. But after careful combing, it is not difficult to find that Hu Lian's escape route is more like careful planning.
It is obvious to all that Hu Lian's performance on the battlefield is slightly better than that of other generals of the Nationalist army. He has Zhang Lingfu's "fierceness", but he does not have Zhang Lingfu's "arrogance"; he is more "loyal" than Huang Baitao, and his "strategy" is more than Huang Baitao. There are even rumors that Chairman Mao once gave Hu Lian such an evaluation: "Hu Lian of the 18th Army is as cunning as a fox and as brave as a tiger." "On the whole, Hu Lian is a brave and resourceful person.
So now it seems that Hu Lian was able to escape from the double pile set, most likely not simply because of luck, but possibly planned. There are two reasons for this:
First, the choice of breakout direction. The route chosen by Huang Wei should be the weak area of our army's encirclement, which seems to have a great chance of breaking through, but in fact, there is a quagmire on the road, and the tanks cannot pass. It is likely that Hu Lian had already sent people to investigate in advance, so he did not take this route, but gave up this route of "a greater success rate of breakthrough" to Huang Wei, and at the same time allowed Huang Wei to divert the attention of our army.
The direction chosen by Hu Lian was retrograde, directly driving a tank to break through in the direction of our army's attack. Militarily, it is often the opposite of the way, and may be able to reap miraculous results, and Hu Lian is precisely interested in this, so he took a risk, and the result was really successful.
Second, the tank you ride on has a mystery. The tank in which Hu Lian was riding was not an ordinary tank, but the command car of Gan Yisan, commander of the second battalion of the First Regiment of the War Regiment, which was equipped with a map of the breakthrough route and related materials. If you decide to break through on an ad hoc basis, how can you be so well prepared! Moreover, although Huang Wei was the commander of the 12th Corps, he was parachuted in, and Hu Lian was the old man of this unit, who was promoted from the first level, especially the subordinate 18th Army (reorganized 11th Division), which was his old unit. Therefore, during the breakout, Hu Lian was able to use his special position to build a tank with greater breakthrough characteristics, and perhaps before this, he and the commander of the tank battalion designed the breakthrough route, otherwise where would the road map in the tank come from!
To sum up, the reason why Hu Lian, deputy commander of the 12th Corps, was able to escape was because of good luck on the one hand, and most likely because he had carefully planned in advance!