In the Liberation War, Huaye annihilated more than 2.4 million enemies, ranking first among the four major field armies. So what was the most difficult battle that HuaYe fought? Some people may say that it is the Battle of Menglianggu. In this battle, Hua Ye not only had to engage the Nationalist First Ace Reorganized 74th Division, but also had to block the 400,000 Nationalist reinforcements on the periphery, and the situation was very dangerous. However, in the end, Hua Ye still won the Battle of Menglianggu and completely annihilated the reorganized 74th Division, dealing a heavy blow to the Nationalist army.
Although the Battle of Menglianggu was very difficult, because the reinforcements of the Nationalist army on the outskirts were slow to move in order to protect themselves, our reinforcements did not suffer much resistance, so that huaye's main force could concentrate on dealing with Zhang Lingfu. Therefore, although this battle is thrilling, it is not the most difficult. So what was the hardest battle HuaYe fought? The answer is the Battle of Nianzhuang, in which the Nationalist 7th Corps, although there were 120,000 men and horses, most of them were miscellaneous troops, and the commander of the corps, Huang Baitao, was a standard miscellaneous general.
Huang Baitao was neither a graduate of the Baoding Military Academy nor from Whampoa, nor did he belong to any faction in the Nationalist Army. At the beginning of his military service, he followed Li Chun, the overseer of Jiangsu, and later followed Zhang Zongchang, who defected to Lao Jiang after the defeat of his army. Because he was from a miscellaneous background, old Jiang did not trust Huang Baitao, dismissed him from the military power, and only let him become a staff officer in the Central Military Commission. By chance, Huang Baitao became acquainted with Chen Cheng, who admired his military talents, and Huang Baitao was able to become the commander of the 25th Army.
At that time, the 25th Army was a newly formed unit, mainly composed of the Sichuan Army, the Northeast Army and a small number of central armies, and its combat effectiveness was very low. After Huang Baitao took office, he practiced what he preached and carried out strict training for the 25th Army, which greatly improved the combat effectiveness of this unit. After the outbreak of the Liberation War, the 25th Army was reorganized into the reorganized 25th Division, and under the leadership of Huang Baitao, the 25th Division ranked among the best in the Nationalist army both offensively and defensively, and became one of the most effective units in the Nationalist Army.
After the outbreak of the Battle of Menglianggu, among the 24 reorganized division commanders, Huang Baitao was the most active in the rescue of Zhang Lingfu, and the casualties of the whole division were nearly half, so he received a fourth-class Baoding Medal; in the Battle of Eastern Henan, in order to rescue Ou Shounian, he died in the battle of Diqiudian and Huaye, and once took the lead in the charge, causing certain losses to our army and finally forcing Huaye to retreat. After the war, Old Jiang personally awarded him a Medal of Blue Sky and White Sun, and also promoted him to the commander of the 7th Corps, so Huang Baitao was grateful to Old Jiang and vowed to repay him with death.
After the Outbreak of the Battle of Huaihai, Huang Baitao ran as a vanguard at the forefront of all the participating nationalist army units, and was eventually surrounded by Huaye at Nianzhuangwei. At that time, the 7th Corps had five corps under its command, namely the 44th Army, the 63rd Army, the 64th Army, the 25th Army and the 100th Army. Of these five armies, the 63rd Army and the 64th Army were the Cantonese Army originally subordinate to Yu Hanmou, the 44th Army was the Sichuan Army, and the 25th Army, although it was Huang Baitao's starting force, was also a miscellaneous army, and only 100 Corps was the Central Army.
It is said that such miscellaneous troops have no combat effectiveness, and the pre-war Huaye Command expects to be able to resolve the battle within 3 to 5 days. Unexpectedly, under the command of Huang Baitao, the enemy army burst out of amazing combat effectiveness, fought extremely tenaciously, and every village and every position had to be repeatedly fought for many times. In the end, after 15 days of bitter fighting, Huaye completely annihilated the enemy, but he also paid a very high price, with more than 60,000 casualties, which was also the most serious casualty of ZhonghuaYe in the entire Liberation War. The Battle of Nianzhuang left a deep impression on the generals of Huaye who participated in the battle, and some people said that Huang Baitao was even more difficult to fight than Zhang Lingfu, and the Battle of Nianzhuang became the most difficult battle fought by Huaye in the Liberation War.
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