For the history of war, some people often act as "hindsight" and are good at "after-the-fact guns". Some things that have an unpredictable future and a confusing victory or defeat at the time of occurrence are simply and naturally said in the tone of "understanding people after the fact". In fact, many wars, under the extremely complicated situation at that time, were difficult to judge according to common sense predictions due to the huge reversal of some accidental factors. The real parties were also at a loss and anxiety, and no one was sure of it.
When people mention legendary generals such as Lin Zong and Su Zong, they often look at their many victories with a kind of worshipful eye of "the people who are favored by the god of destiny". As everyone knows, while these wars are underway, they are equally sleepless, sleepless, and likely to face the fate of defeat. It was only when our army accumulated far greater victory chips than Chiang Kai-shek's army, coupled with the outstanding performance of these outstanding generals, that we finally turned the danger into a disaster and won victory. But this inevitable overall victory does not mean that every specific battle can be won.
The famous Battle of Menglianggu in the Liberation War is a classic battle in the history of our army's warfare and has been written into many textbooks, but the sinister and tragic process is easy for people today to ignore. Until after liberation, when Marshal Chen Yi and other commanders of the campaign talked about Meng Lianggu, they still had some lingering feelings, because this battle was too fierce and too critical, and if they were not careful, the battle would be a different outcome.
The reorganized 74th Division of Chiang Kai-shek's army in this battle, formerly known as the 74th Army in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, participated in almost all major battles during the War of Resistance. After the promotion of the veteran commander Wang Yaowu, the commander of the 74th Army was succeeded by Zhang Lingfu. The 74th Army was reorganized into the reorganized 74th Division, although on the surface it seemed to be a "military reform division", in fact, its strength was greatly enhanced, and the equipment of the 74th Army during the war of resistance was still relatively messy, and German weapons plus Soviet equipment had been completely replaced by American equipment during the period of the Liberation War.
More notably, Zhang Lingfu greatly admired The famous US military general MacArthur during World War II and can be said to be a loyal "fan". He not only imitated the dress style (a pair of toad sunglasses on the face), but also highly admired the "frog jumping tactics" of the US military in the Pacific Theater.
This extremely aggressive tactic must be based on the overall strong tactical coordination and land, sea and air coordination tactics, without which blind imitation is very dangerous.
The mutual dismantling and infighting within Chiang Kai-shek's army is an important source and stubborn disease of the failure of the Chiang kai-shek authorities. In particular, an "upstart" like Zhang Lingfu, who has been valued by Jiang Renfu, is even more likely to be jealous of his colleagues, which is also one of the root causes of Zhang Lingfu's tragedy.
However, Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division did show great power at the beginning of the war, forcing Su Yu's corps to lose one after another, and had to withdraw from the Liberated Area of Eastern China, Central Jiangsu, and Northern Jiangsu, which had been struggling for more than ten years, and retreat into the Shandong Liberated Area.
The 74th Division pressed forward step by step, not only militarily occupying, but also beginning to emphasize the "strategic offensive of the people's hearts." However, the popular foundation of the Chiang Kai-shek authorities is not the broad masses of the working people, but the landlord bullying forces that have been riding on the heads of the people to make a threat and be suppressed by our army. They formed a "homecoming regiment" (said to have been invented by Zhang Lingfu), followed Chiang Kai-shek's army to "return to his hometown", counterattacked and counted, and massacred on a large scale, which was also the root cause of Chiang Kai-shek's eventual defeat.
In order to eliminate our army retreating to Shandong as soon as possible, and also to show his "strategist's" "talent," Zhang Lingfu formulated a very sinister "strange move": He wanted to personally lead the 74th Division to break into the Menglianggu area in the hinterland of the Shandong Liberated Area, set up a "central blossom" here, disrupt our large rear position, and then be "surrounded by regular troops" by other Chiang Kai-shek troops, forming a situation of attack inside and outside.
At a glance, clear-eyed people know that this is a "surprise soldier" strategy that coexists with danger and hope, and obviously imitates the tactics of the US military. But the question is, can Chiang Kai-shek's military cooperate like the U.S. military?
Zhang Lingfu was indeed bold enough to be arrogant enough, he was proud of the strength of the 74th Division, and the weight that the "old man" had on him, he would not be unaware that his colleagues might dismantle his platform, but he believed that the "old man" would desperately force them, which is why he was so arrogant.
In fact, Zhang Lingfu, the "strange soldier," was indeed sinister, and Jiang Ren did indeed give a "death order" to all the Jiang troops who were cooperating in the battle: "If there is any hesitation, if there is a sluggish hesitation, if the shuttle patrol is not moving forward or the aid is ineffective, and there is a pause in the middle, so that the friendly troops are in danger of dying, and the enemy escapes from the net, he will certainly avoid the battle with fear of bandits, and if the bandits harm the country to delay the war situation, he will be strictly punished for his crimes!" ”
The people of the Menglianggu area, at a critical moment, insisted on clearing the wilderness, and even buried all the wells to block, which proved to be a big role in hindsight.
Menglianggu is a mountainous mountain, with strange rocks, although it is easy to defend and difficult to attack, but the water source is lacking, once it is surrounded, it is difficult to support for a long time. Therefore, both sides must fight a quick battle and make a quick decision, especially for our army, if we do not pull out this big enemy behind us, once it is surrounded by Jiang's army in all directions, it is bound to face the fate of being completely annihilated, so from General Manager Chen to General Manager Su, they all went out and pulled out the enemy of Meng Lianggu as soon as possible at any cost.
The battle of Meng Lianggu was very fierce, and the officers and men of our army constantly launched a charge, but they were all repelled by the intensive firepower of Chiang Kai-shek's army. In front of Chiang Kai-shek's position, the remains of our soldiers were actually paved with as many as seven floors at the most! Su Yu, the god of war, was also constantly angry at the casualty figures reported: "Don't give me a number of casualties, I don't want a number, I only want Meng Lianggu, I only want Zhang Lingfu!" ”
At this time, the people's strategy of clearing the wilderness played a role. Without water, Jiang Jun's Makqin water-cooled machine gun encountered big trouble, because this machine gun needed to constantly inject water into the barrel to cool the machine gun barrel, and now there was no water, and the machine gun barrel was red, but it could not be cooled. In a hurry, the soldiers of the Jiang Army had to pee on it to cool down, but it was only a cup of water. Finally, many machine gun barrels are deformed, exploded, and scrapped!
Once the superiority of machine gun fire is lost, the impact in the offensive battle of the position is fatal. When the offensive and defensive attacks and defenses of the two armies took a turn for the better, our army ordered the captured spitfiremen of Chiang Kai-shek's army to "make meritorious contributions anyway" on the battlefield, turn around the flamethrowers, spray flames at the Chiang kai-shek army in the fortress, gradually occupy most of the positions, kill Zhang Lingfu in the fierce battle, and capture a large number of officers and men of the 74th Division.
In the end, our army won the victory in the Battle of Menglianggu, and our army also suffered tens of thousands of casualties, which can be described as a serious injury, and it was unable to launch a large offensive campaign for a long time.
And Su Zong, who had not closed his eyes for several days, slept for three days and three nights at once after the war, which showed the torment suffered by the God of War in this battle.