After Zhang Lingfu led the Nationalist ace army to reorganize the 74th Division after Meng Lianggu's entire army was destroyed, Chiang Kai-shek was very annoyed when he heard about it and scolded Niang Xipi.
It should be known that the reorganized 74th Division is the trump card of the Kuomintang Army, although it seems to be only the number of a division, but the effect of adding the word "reorganization" is different; in the early days of the Liberation War, an integrated division of the Kuomintang was a previous army, and the predecessor of the reorganized 74th Division was the 74th Army.
And only equipped with American equipment, according to the U.S. military organization of the army can be called an integrated division, in terms of the integrated 74th Division, it was identified by the United States military observers as the most capable army during the War of Resistance, ranked among the five main forces of the Kuomintang, with 32,000 elites.
However, the reorganized 74th Division was the first trump card to be completely annihilated, how can you make Old Jiang not be annoyed?
In the early days of the Liberation War, the Kuomintang adopted a combat plan of all-out offensive, and after the all-out offensive plan failed, Chiang Kai-shek retreated to the second place and began to implement a key offensive plan against Shandong and northern Shaanxi in March 1947, with Hu Zongnan focusing on northern Shaanxi and Gu Zhutong focusing on Shandong.
At that time, Gu Zhutong mobilized 24 integrated divisions and formed them into 3 mobile corps, and adopted the strategy of crushing and advancing from south to north in an attempt to eliminate all the PLA in Shandong.
Among the 24 reorganized divisions, the 8 reorganized divisions of the First Corps were the highlights, the most elite part of Gu Zhutong's corps, commanded by Tang Enbo, of which Li Tianxia's reorganized 83rd Division, Zhang Lingfu's reorganized 74th Division, and Huang Baitao's reorganized 25th Division formed an offensive echelon.
Before the Battle of Menglianggu, Hua Ye had been preparing to attack the 7th Army and the 48th Division of the Gui Clan, but persimmons had to pick a soft pinch, and the battle orders had already been issued.
However, at the moment of the first attack, Huaye Jiuzhong was attacked by the Nationalist reorganized 74th Division, and Su Yu judged that the reorganized 74th Division was already in a fairly advanced position, so he decided to change the battle plan and encircle and annihilate the overly prominent reorganized 74th Division.
Under the command of Su Yu, the reorganized 74th Division was completely destroyed at MengLianggu, and lieutenant general Zhang Lingfu was killed on the battlefield, and when Chiang Kai-shek received the news, he was furious and immediately ordered "Tang Enbo to be removed from his post and investigated, and Li Tianxia was executed on the spot."
In addition to the treatment of Tang Enbo and Li Tianxia, Chen Cheng, who was in charge of the battle, was suspended for inspection, and Huang Baitao, who was in charge of the reorganized 25th Division, was removed from his post and retained.
Most of the people associated with the Battle of Meng Lianggu were punished by suspension or dismissal, so why did Li Tianxia become an execution on the spot?
In 2009, the TV series "Red Sun" starring Li Youbin told the story of the 74th Division of the People's Liberation Army that completely annihilated the Kuomintang, blaming the failure of the Menglianggu Campaign on Li Tianxia's refusal to rescue, resulting in the total annihilation of the reorganized 74th Division.
The reason given by many students is that Li Tianxia and Zhang Lingfu are at odds, and Li Tianxia, in order to preserve her strength, will not save Zhang Lingfu from death.
In the eyes of the outside world, the feud between Li Tianxia and Zhang Lingfu can be traced back to the competition for the position of commander of the 74th Army, because Li Tianxia and Zhang Lingfu lost the competition for the commander of the 74th Army (before the reorganization), so they were jealous of Zhang Lingfu.
The soul of the 74th Army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was Wang Yaowu, and after the end of the War of Resistance, Wang Yaowu rose to prominence, and who would serve as the commander made Wang Yaowu feel worried, and the two most competitive people at that time were Li Tianxia and Zhang Lingfu.
Many students took the appointment of Zhang Lingfu for granted, Li Tianxia did not have the ability to compete, in fact, in any way, Li Tianxia had a better chance of succeeding to the post of commander of the 74th Army.
Li Tianxia was Wang Yaowu's classmate in the huangpu phase III, and Zhang Lingfu was a student of the huangpu phase IV, and during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Li Tianxia always suppressed Zhang Lingfu from the first to the half level.
Before the Battle of Songhu in 1937, the 51st Division and the 58th Division were merged into the Seventy-fourth Army, with Wang Yaowu as the commander of the 51st Division, Li Tianxia as the deputy division commander and brigade commander of the 153rd Brigade, and Zhang Lingfu only as the commander of the 305th Regiment under Li Tianxia.
As far as the achievements of the Anti-Japanese War under neutrality are concerned, Li Tianxia should also have more than Zhang Lingfu, but because Zhang Lingfu successfully served as the commander of the 74th Army at the end of the War of Resistance, he gave Zhang Lingfu a lot of credit for the War of Resistance.
The main reason why Wang Yaowu finally chose Zhang Lingfu as the heir and did not choose Li Tianxia when he was promoted to a high level was that after the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Wang Yaowu served as the commander of the Second Appeasement District and was in charge of the military and government of Shandong, and there was no hard thing in his hand that really could not hold up the scene, compared with Li Tianxia, Zhang Lingfu was more obedient.
Therefore, according to the Kuomintang's theory of seniority, Li Tianxia's position as the commander of the 74th Army was taken away by Zhang Lingfu, saying that Li Tianxia did not hate Zhang Lingfu, who was good at research, was blind and talking nonsense.
However, it should be known that Wang Yaowu was also interesting enough to Li Tianxia, not to hand over the 74th Army to Zhang Lingfu and ignore Li Tianxia, but to transfer Li Tianxia to the 100th Army as the commander.
Although the 100th Army is obviously not as good as the 74th Army, it is not a nest of waste troops, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, it once participated in the expeditionary army to fight in Burma, and those who could participate in the expeditionary force were all the concubines of chiang kai-shek, and at the time of reorganization, the 100th Army was also reorganized into the 83rd Division, semi-American equipment.
It should be said that Li Tianxia and Zhang Lingfu did not have any deep hatred, and in terms of rank, Li Tianxia was always higher than Zhang Lingfu.
For example, in the Battle of Menglianggu, Zhang Lingfu and Li Tianxia were in an offensive echelon, although Zhang Lingfu's troops were more advanced than Li Tianxia's troops, but on the battlefield they were subject to Li Tianxia's moderation, in order to get rid of Li Tianxia's moderation, Zhang Lingfu took the initiative to send a power to Tang Enbo and asked to be transferred to Huang Baitao's jurisdiction.
Huang Baitao is a typical general without a backer and faction, and the reorganized 25th Division led by him is also mostly a miscellaneous army, Zhang Lingfu asked Huang Baitao to take charge, in fact, he is looking at this point, is it true that the miscellaneous army also wants to manage the ace army?
After being separated from Li Tianxia's jurisdiction, Huang Baitao was unable to suppress Zhang Lingfu, causing Zhang Lingfu to be eager to fight, believing that the Platon Army was not vulnerable at all, and with the military strength of the reorganized 74th Division, looking for the main force of the PLA and then completely annihilating it would be finished.
It should be said that Zhang Lingfu was the commander of a tactical unit, and there was no problem in implementing the battle plan of his superiors, but letting him command an army was obviously a bit unqualified, leading the army to go deep alone, and eventually falling into the encirclement of the People's Liberation Army.
At the beginning of the siege, Zhang Lingfu was completely unaware of it, and planned to continue to advance according to the original battle plan, only to realize the risk of total annihilation when he found that he had been cut off from the integrated 25th Division and the 83rd Division and besieged Meng Lianggu.
Even under such circumstances, Zhang Lingfu still did not realize what kind of situation he was in, that is to say, Zhang Lingfu did not understand the strength of the reorganized 74th Division under his own unit, nor did he understand the situation of his own integration with the 25th and 83rd Divisions of friendly troops, let alone the sacredness of the Plaster Army that surrounded him.
When Zhang Lingfu was surrounded at Menglianggu, he saw a large number of troops in motion on the flanks, and thought that the friendly 25th Division was approaching them. At that time, Zhang Lingfu also thought that with the combat strength of the reorganized 74th Division, it was not a "hard bone" that Huaye could gnaw at all, and once Huaye's main force was attracted by it, the friendly forces around him could complete the counter-encirclement of Huaye's main force, thus creating a "center blossoming" tactic.
Affected by Zhang Lingfu's misjudgment of intelligence, Chiang Kai-shek also believed that "the Lingfu department of the 74th Division held its position, attracted the main force of the People's Liberation Army, and then transferred the strength of 10 divisions to reinforce the 74th Division, so that the 74th Division should be combined with the outside world, the center should blossom, the PLA should be pinched, a decisive battle, and the annihilation of most or one of Chen Su's troops would change the situation in East China in one fell swoop." ”
Some people commented that Chiang Kai-shek could bring at most one division of troops, which had something in common with Zhang Lingfu, and Gu Zhutong once satirized Chiang Kai-shek for commanding only one battalion of rifles.
Although in the end Chiang Kai-shek put the responsibility for the defeat on Li Tianxia, who was unfavorable in the rescue, did Li Tianxia have any rescue in the end?
In fact, there were certain reinforcements, and when Zhang Lingfu fell into a heavy siege, Tang Enbo ordered Li Tianxia to send a reinforcement regiment to respond to meng lianggu's direction, and the 57th regiment of the 19th brigade of the reorganized 83rd Division was the closest to Zhang Lingfu, and had been fighting with Zhang Lingfu in Menglianggu, and it was also the one that helped Zhang Lingfu the most in the battle of Menglianggu, and the last piece of the whole army was destroyed.
If you look at Li Tianxia's resume, you will find that Li Tianxia served in the 74th Army from the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and did not leave his post until the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression; it should be said that most of the officers and men of the reorganized 74th Division were formerly subordinates of Li Tianxia, and even if Li Tianxia did not look up to Zhang Lingfu, he might not be able to give up his former subordinates, and it was impossible not to save him if he could.
What did not have reinforcements in place was the main force of the reorganized 83rd Division, which was far away from Meng Lianggu, and when Zhang Lingfu asked for help, it was impossible for the reorganized 83rd Division to rescue it.
On the night of May 13, when the reorganized 74th Division was surrounded, Huaye had already launched a blockade against the possible rescue of the reorganized 83rd Division, and the main force of Huaye's 8th Column captured Taohua Mountain and Nose Mountain, cutting off the connection between the reorganized 83rd Division and the reorganized 74th Division.
The number of a column in Huaye is about 30,000 people, and with the positions already being formed, it is quite difficult for the reorganized 83rd Division to break through the positions of the eighth column of Huaye in a short period of time, and it is estimated that Li Tianxia also knows that the Plakmen is better at providing reinforcements than attacking fortifications.
Whether Hua Ye's real intention was to completely annihilate the reorganized 74th Division, or to support the reorganized 25th Division and the reorganized 83rd Division, is also difficult to figure out.
On the whole, even if Li Tianxia's reorganized 83rd Division went all out, it might not be able to break through Huaye's reinforcements, and it was reasonable that Zhang Lingfu's troops would be completely annihilated in the end.
In the final analysis, Zhang Lingfu's defeat was still defeated by the enemy's light advance, he had never participated in a large army combat, and he naively thought that fighting a war was based on advanced weapons.
It turned out that although Chiang Kai-shek was righteous and stern at that time and wanted to shoot Li Tianxia, on May 29, 1947, Chiang Ordered Li Tianxia to be escorted to Xuzhou for trial, and three days later, Li Tianxia was awarded the Order of the Third Class. This medal can also be regarded as Li Tianxia's death-free gold medal, and it was not long before Li Tianxia served as the deputy commander of the First Appeasement District.
Li Tianxia's downfall was due to the fact that after the fall of Pingtan in Fujian in September 1949, Chiang Kai-shek sentenced him to 12 years in prison for "retreating without authorization and dereliction of duty", and Li Tianxia was forced to end her military career.
As for Zhang Lingfu, old Jiang said praise on his lips, in fact, his widow and children did not even get a pension.
It can be seen that the old Chiang Kai-shek was quite critical of Zhang Lingfu's complete destruction of the most elite reorganized 74th Division, saying, "The revolutionary force with my absolute superiority was framed by the bandits of inferiority." What a loss that has never been greater, and it can not be saddening! ”
The total annihilation of the reorganized 74th Division was far more than the overthrow of an ace army, and the battle marked the failure of the Nationalist army's key offensive strategy in the Shandong Liberated Areas.