After the outbreak of the Liberation War, Zhang Lingfu led the reorganized 74th Division from Nanjing and successively fought against our army in Jiangsu and Shandong. This made Zhang Lingfu more and more arrogant, and in early May 1947, he led his troops directly to Tanbu, where huaye headquarters was located, in a vain attempt to make a miracle. At that time, Zhang Lingfu was under the command of Huang Baitao, and when Huang Baitao saw that he was rushing too fiercely, he persuaded him to return to Tianma Ridge to move closer to himself and Li Tianxia, and then the three integrated divisions marched together.
However, Zhang Lingfu arrogantly believed that Hua Ye did not dare to confront him at all, so he did not take Huang Baitao's suggestion seriously at all, and eventually the reorganized 74th Division was surrounded by our army at Menglianggu. After three days of fierce fighting, the enemy army was completely annihilated, and Zhang Lingfu's soldiers were defeated and killed. Some people said that the main reason why the reorganized 74th Division was that the reinforcements from the periphery could not be saved when they saw death, and some people said that Zhang Lingfu himself had a problem. Some people even said that if Zhang Lingfu did not go to Meng Lianggu, but held firm in the plains, with his powerful firepower superiority, our army would not be able to defeat him at all.
Although history cannot be assumed, we can still find a similar example to learn from, and this example is the Battle of Nanma. Shortly after the battle of Menglianggu, Lao Jiang mobilized heavy troops to launch a large-scale attack on the Luzhong area. The enemy's large army pressed the border, Su Yu decided to encircle Wei to save Zhao, he led huaye's main force to the rear of the enemy's weak defense, surrounded Surabaya and Qufu, and the enemy's rear bases Yanzhou and Xuzhou were seriously threatened. Old Jiang saw the situation and hurriedly transferred 7 integrated divisions from Luzhong to come back to help.
Su Yumi's goal of mobilizing the enemy had been achieved, and he immediately killed a Hui horse gun and led his troops back to Luzhong at the speed of a rapid march, preparing to attack Hu Lian and his reorganized 11th Division. After Zhang Lingfu's army was defeated and killed, Hu Lian became more cautious, and this time he was ordered to attack Luzhong, and he stopped after capturing Nanma, and spent more than half a month building a dense group of bunkers, each of which was surrounded by barbed wire fences and obstacles such as deer. However, even with such a complete fortification, Hu Lian could not resist on the 4th day after the outbreak of the Battle of Nanma, and asked Chen Cheng for help one by one. Later, under the desperate reinforcements of Huang Baitao and Wang Lingyun, he was lucky enough to escape the disaster.
The process of the Battle of Nanma showed that even if Zhang Lingfu did not go to Menglianggu at that time and chose to hold on to the plains, the 74th Division could not escape the fate of the total annihilation of the army. Why? Let's make a comparison. The reorganized 11th Division and the reorganized 74th Division were both the ace main forces of the Nationalist army, and their equipment and combat effectiveness were basically on the same level. However, the level of commanders on both sides is obviously different, whether it is battlefield command or adaptability, Hu Lian is obviously higher than Zhang Lingfu, which should be no dispute. Therefore, in general, the combat effectiveness of the integrated 11th Division should be higher than that of the integrated 74th Division.
In addition, in the Battle of Nanma, Huaye besieged Only 3 infantry columns of Hu Lian, and the special forces column did not participate, so there was no obvious advantage in firepower. But even so, Hu Lian only held out for 4 days before he could not resist. Looking at the Battle of Meng Lianggu, Zhang Lingfu was surrounded in an instant, and there was simply not enough time to build the fortifications, and Hua Ye used all his family to fight him to the death. Hu Lian had dense fortifications and could not withstand the attack of Huaye's three columns, so how could Zhang Lingfu, who was surrounded in an instant, be the opponent of Huaye's 5 columns? Therefore, even if he did not go to Meng Lianggu, in the end, he would still be unable to escape the fate of the total annihilation of the army.