In May 1947, the 1st Ace Reorganized 74th Division of the Kuomintang Central Army was completely annihilated at Meng Lianggu. But total annihilation refers to the fact that the enemy's main combat strength is destroyed by our army, not necessarily the entire force. At the Battle of Menglianggu, the five columns of Huaye annihilated the enemy and captured more than 32,000 people, but included some of the friendly and neighboring troops of the Kuomintang army supporting the 74th Division, and in fact, the number of 74th Divisions actually annihilated was less than 30,000.
Due to mountainous terrain factors, in 1947, Zhang Lingfu took Meng Lianggu's troops, not including hundreds of officers and men of the division's howitzer battalion and a large number of artillery reinforcements, which were not eliminated by Huaye and left some fire for this Kuomintang ace army. In addition to the hundreds of artillery of the 74th Division, another group of new recruits who had not been in the battle line escaped the disaster: a total of about 5,000 people, which was also closely related to the reorganized 74th Division.
Due to the 1946 reorganization of the 74th Division's onslaught on Lianshui lianghuai and other places, although it was ultimately victorious, under the stubborn resistance of Huaye, the 74th Division itself suffered heavy losses, and had to carry out a large number of troops to replenish and slow down the speed of the attack on Shandong. In April 1947, the reorganized 74th Division was expanded into a 9-regiment structure, and the newly added 3 regiments (153rd Regiment of the 51st Division, 169th Regiment of the 57th Division, and 173rd Regiment of the 58th Division) were urgently organized in the rear, and before they could form combat effectiveness, they did not rush to the Shandong battlefield, thus escaping the fate of the total annihilation of the army at Menglianggu, and the deputy division commander Qiu Weida did not go to the battlefield at that time.
Not all of the more than 20,000 elites lost by the 74th Division at Menglianggu were killed by Huaye, but more than 10,000 were captured and transformed into recruits of Huaye's columns after education. Although these soldiers are from the Nationalist army, most of the entire 74th Division is composed of veterans of hundreds of battles, who have fought hard in many battles of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, with an average service life of nearly 5 years and high military quality, which is of great help to enhancing the strength of the columns of our army.
In the Battle of Jinan in 1948, 140,000 people were concentrated on the eastern front of Huaye to attack the city, including many soldiers converted from the old 74th Division. Interestingly, the jinan city defender was none other than Wang Yaowu, the most important figure in the history of the 74th Army (the second commander, who had the highest military merit in the War of Resistance Among all the commanders), and his status was much higher than that of Zhang Lingfu, who died in battle.
On the eve of the Battle of Jinan, wang Yaowu, in view of the insufficient strength of the defending troops and the lack of concubines, specially asked the Ministry of National Defense of Nanjing for troops, proposing to transfer the rebuilt Qiu Weida 74th Army to Jinan, and the old Jiang expressed his permission. At this time, the 74th Army was formed on the basis of more than 5,000 officers and men of the supplementary regiment and howitzer artillery who were absent from Meng Lianggu, and it can be said that there is still some of the bones and blood of the old 74th Division, although the strength is not as good as the old unit, but after brainwashing, it has always aimed to "avenge the snow and hatred" to the East China Field Army.
Qiu Weida originally wanted to personally lead troops to Jinan to support Wang Yaowu, but in the process of transporting troops, HuaYe blocked the Jinan airport with intensive artillery fire, resulting in a serious obstruction of the airlift of the Nationalist army, and only more than 1,100 officers and men of the 74th Army actually arrived in Jinan. But it was this seemingly inconspicuous more than a thousand people who were later used as sharp knives by Wang Yaowu, which caused a very unfortunate scene on the battlefield of the liberation of Jinan.
It turned out that Wang Yaowu had used all the 1,100 officers and men of the 74th Army under his consort for the post and telecommunications building of the key defensive fortifications in Jinan, and these 1,100 elite soldiers played a very prominent role in the defensive warfare of the positions. On September 21, 1948, Wang Jiwen, commander of the 8th Division of the Third Column of the East China Field Army, was stabbed through the lungs by shell shrapnel fired by the artillery of the 74th Army, causing fatal wounds, and died in a field hospital shortly after. Wang Jiwen was also the highest-ranking commander of our army who was killed in the Battle of Jinan.
After Commander Wang was hit by the enemy, huaye soldiers used their anger to attack fortifications such as the post and telecommunications building, and the more than 1,000 people sent by the 74th Army, although their strength was limited, were very stubborn and stubborn, and they were stunned to fight the last soldier, repeatedly fighting with our army in the building, leaving almost no prisoners.
It is worth mentioning that most of Qiu Weida's 74th Army, which was not sent to the Jinan front, participated in the famous Battle of Huaihai with Qiu Qingquan's Second Corps 2 months later, and was completely annihilated in the Yongcheng area of Henan in January 1949, and its performance was also very tenacious, no less than the 5th Army, the core of the corps. Especially in the Battle of Pantang during the rescue of Huang Baitao's corps, huaye suffered serious losses, and Qiu Weida was captured and transformed into a senior tactical instructor of our army.