Competing for the commander of the reorganized 74th Division, why didn't Li Tianxia rob Zhang Lingfu? The source of soldiers is key
The 74th Division of the Nationalist Army was one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang army, formerly known as the 74th Army, the main reason why the 74th Army was able to become the head of the five aces was that it could fight hard battles and vicious battles, basically the 74th Army fought a full field during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, during the Liberation War, the 74th Army was changed to the reorganized 74th Division, which was surrounded and annihilated by our army in the Battle of Menglianggu, and although it was reorganized, its combat effectiveness was not as good as before, and there has always been a question about the commander of the 74th Division, that is, why did Li Tianxia not rob Zhang Lingfu?
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the 74th Army naturally suffered heavy casualties because it had been involved in the War of Resistance, which led to a continuous replenishment of troops, so the composition of the soldiers of the 74th Army was divided into time periods. During the Battle of Songhu, Wang Yaowu's 51st Division and Yu Jishi's 58th Division were combined into the 74th Army, the predecessor of the 51st Division was Wang Yaowu's Supplementary 1st Brigade, and the soldiers were mainly from Shaanxi and Shandong, while the predecessor of the 58th Division was the Zhejiang Security Regiment, so the soldiers were mainly Zhejiang.
During the Nanjing Defense War, the 74th Army participated in the battle, and the reason why the whole army was not completely destroyed was mainly because Yu Jishi's uncle Yu Feipeng was the Minister of Communications of the Kuomintang at the time, and he brought a tanker for Yu Jishi, which led to the retreat of more than 5,000 people in the 74th Army, and later Shi Zhongcheng's 57th Division joined the 74th Army, and most of the soldiers of the 57th Division were Shandong, so at first glance, the soldiers of the 74th Army were mainly from Shandong and Zhejiang.
After Yu Jishi was promoted, Wang Yaowu was elected commander of the 74th Army, plus Wang Yaowu himself was a Shandong native, so the soldiers of the 74th Army mainly became Shandong people, and soon after, the 74th Army fought in the Hunan region, where the 74th Army had a division dedicated to conscription, so the later soldiers were mainly from Hunan, and although some Guizhou people supplemented the 74th Army, most of the middle and senior leaders of the 74th Army at that time were Shandong, Zhejiang and Shaanxi, and the soldiers were mainly Hunan.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the 74th Army was stationed in Nanjing, and they recruited a lot of Wang Jingwei's Wang puppet government soldiers, so at this time there was a shadow of Jiangsu people in the 74th Army, and on April 20, 1946, Zhang Lingfu served as the commander of the 74th Army, and soon after it was reorganized into the integrated 74th Division. At this time, the main composition of the soldiers of the 74th Army remained basically unchanged, while Zhang Lingfu was from Shaanxi, and Li Tianxia was from Shanghai, so Li Tianxia was not supported among the middle and senior leaders.
Coupled with the fact that He Yingqin was the commander-in-chief and chief of staff of the army at that time, and Wang Yaowu's 51st Division was he Yingqin's family, and Zhang Lingfu was also out of the 51st Division, so Li Tianxia did not rob Zhang Lingfu, and soon after, in the Battle of Menglianggu, the reorganized 74th Division was surrounded and annihilated by the East China Field Army, in fact, the root cause was the reason for the Kuomintang infighting, because the 74th Army was controlled by three camps (He Yingqin, Chiang Kai-shek, and Chen Cheng), and Zhang Lingfu also became a victim of political struggle.