On November 22, 1948, Huang Botao was surrounded by Su Yu's East China Field Army in the Nianzhuang area during the Battle of Huaihai, and was finally defeated and killed in the process of rout.
However, what many people don't know is that
The battle between Huang Botao and Su Yu was not just this one time in the Battle of Huaihai, the two had had 2 major duels before.
Huang Botao and Su Yu
Huang Botao served under the warlord Zhang Zongchang before defecting to Chiang Kai-shek, serving as a brigade commander at the time, and later in the Northern Expedition, Zhang Zongchang's troops were destroyed by Chiang Kai-shek, and Huang Botao defected to Chiang Kai-shek and was appointed commander of the 25th Army.
Huang Botao is different from the generals of the Nationalist army in our impression, he has a clean style and strict management of the army, and he has risen all the way to the commander of the army, relying on his courage and courage in battle, so he is deeply trusted and appreciated by Chiang Kai-shek.
Su Yu is also an excellent general of our army, 7 years younger than Huang Botao, a member of the Hunan Huitong, and the first of the 10 major generals who were canonized after the founding of the People's Republic of China. He participated in the revolution from the time our Party launched the Nanchang Uprising, participated in 5 anti-encirclement and suppression operations, and led the New Fourth Army in the War of Resistance Against Japan.
During the Liberation War, he successively served as the commander of the Central China and East China Field Army, commanded the Menglianggu Campaign, the Jinan Campaign, the Huaihai Campaign, the Shanghai Campaign, the Battle of Crossing the River and other key battles, and was also a general of our army who could fight a good battle.
As for Huang Botao, Su Yu once said that he could not block Huang Botao under the same troop strength, which showed Huang Botao's military ability.
Battle of Shaobo, tactical mistakes
Beginning in mid-July 1946, Su Yu led the Central China Field Army and the Kuomintang army to engage in fierce battles with the Kuomintang in the central jiangsu region under the condition of extremely large disparities in strength.
At that time, the Nationalist army concentrated 120,000 troops, while the Central China Field Army was only more than 30,000, but Su Yu was still adapted to local conditions, using flexible movement warfare, and annihilated more than 50,000 enemies after 7 battles, known in history as "seven battles and seven victories" in Suzhou.
These seven battles took place in different places,
The duel between Su Yu and Huang Botao was in Shaobo Town, and the Battle of Shaobo was the most difficult battle in these 7 battles.
At that time, the division commander Huang Botao led the reorganized 25th Division to prepare to seize the strategic highland of Shaobo in the liberated area of central Jiangsu.
Shao Bo was the southern gate of the Liberated Area of Central Jiangsu and its strategic location was very important, so Chiang Kai-shek sent Huang Botao, who could fight a good war, to personally take charge of capturing this important place, while Su Yu's tactics were to leave 5 regiments to stay here and concentrate superior forces to attack Rugao and Huangqiao to achieve "encircling Wei and saving Zhao".
In order to take Shaobo, Huang Botao commanded the division's 108th Brigade and 40th Brigade to attack in three ways under the cover of superior firepower of aircraft, artillery, and gunboats, in an attempt to take Shaobo with 2 times the strength of our army, and 5 regiments of our army held their positions and fought a life-and-death battle with the nationalist army.
From the early morning of August 23, Huang Botao ordered the 108th Brigade and the 40th Brigade to rely on their firepower superiority to launch a full-line onslaught on our Army's Shaobo position, and the battle was extremely fierce, and our army's garrison troops not only repelled the enemy's attack at Qiaoshu 9 times, but also smashed the enemy's pontoon bridge on the side of the canal five times in an attempt to circumvent our army's plot.
On August 24 and August 25, the Nationalist army launched a more fierce attack with the cooperation of aircraft and artillery, and our army relied on reinforced fortifications to carry out many frontal counter-attacks and white-knife battles, thwarting the enemy's attack.
On the 25th, the enemy launched five large-scale attacks on the canal embankment.
Our army once again repelled the enemy with a white-knife battle, and at dawn on the 26th, the enemy sent an additional 40 brigade to launch a fierce attack on the river embankment, and our 89th Regiment of the 10th Column counterattacked tenaciously many times, from morning to evening, causing heavy casualties to the enemy's 120th regiment.
During the Battle of Shaobo, Su Yu commanded the main force of the Central China Field Army to rush 140 miles a night to attack the enemy of Rugao, whose enemy garrison was weak, in order to alleviate the pressure on Shaobo's army.
The stronghold under rugao, Dinglin, was mainly garrisoned by the Traffic Police Corps and 1 battalion of the 26th Brigade, and its strength was relatively weak, and the main force of our Huaye quickly interspersed and encircled it with superior troops, and took advantage of its lack of preparation to carry out a surprise attack and quickly annihilate this enemy force.
In the Battle of Huangqiao, our army originally wanted to engage in a vicious battle with it, but as a result, the enemy of the unit did not fight, and finally more than 17,000 people were killed and wounded by our army.
Su Yu's heavy encirclement and annihilation of the enemy at Huangqiao forced Li Mo'an, the enemy's supreme commander in charge of the campaign in central Jiangsu, to transfer the 25th Division of Huang Botao, who attacked Shaobo, back to rescue Huangqiao, so on the 26th, the enemy retreated and the Battle of Shaobo ended.
Observing this campaign, Huang Botao was transferred to fight a defensive position battle with our army in Shaobo, this tactic is the most depleting attacking force, although Huang Botao continued to attack, but its superiority over our army's strength was not too obvious, it was a tactical mistake.
However, other cooperating units of the Nationalist Army were frequently confused by Su Yu's movement warfare, which eventually led to a large number of annihilations.
In the Battle of Menglianggu, Huang Botao was powerless to return to heaven
The Battle of Menglianggu, which took place in May 1947, was an important battle in the Kuomintang's attack on the Liberated Areas of Shandong.
At that time, the Kuomintang 74th Division, which was known as the elite of the Nationalist army, was proud of the enemy and made meritorious contributions, in a vain attempt to attract Su Yu's East China Field Army to the vicinity of its garrison position, and then cooperate with the 400,000 main forces of the Nationalist army that rushed to support the outside of Huaye to form the effect of central blossoming, so that the main force of Huaye could be annihilated inside and outside.
Originally, the Kuomintang would reorganize the 74th Division and the 25th Division into one corps, under the unified command of Huang Botao, but Zhang Lingfu, commander of the 74th Division, prided himself on his superiority in equipment, did not listen to Huang Botao's orders, and rushed to make meritorious contributions, causing his single troops to break through, giving Hua Ye the opportunity to seize the fighters to surround and annihilate them.
However, after he was besieged, he did not panic, but telegraphed to Chiang Kai-shek about his central blossoming strategy, which made Chiang Kai-shek sad and happy, so Chiang Kai-shek ordered Huang Botao's 25th Division and li Tianxia's 83rd Division nearby to break through Huaye's blocking troops and rescue Zhang Lingfu.
However, at this time, the law of the Nationalist army's "friendly troops have difficulties, and they are watching from the sidelines" came into play again, and Li Tianxia, commander of the 83rd Division, and Zhang Lingfu, commander of the 74th Division, had always been at odds with each other, and they had done everything in their power to disobey old Chiang's orders, and did everything in their power to make superficial remarks, but Huang Botao was doing his best to rescue them.
Compared with Li Tianxia's sluggishness and false reporting of progress, Huang Botao rushed to Meng Lianggu as soon as he received the order.
With its superiority in equipment, it quickly broke through the blocking point of our army's fufu mountain line and reached our army's most important defensive line against the enemy- Tianma Mountain, which was less than 5 kilometers from Menglianggu.
If we can break through Tianma Mountain, Huang Botao will make another great contribution, and the defensive strength of our army on the front line of Tianma Mountain is not strong, it is composed of 4 regiments in 1 column, but 2 of these 4 regiments are newly formed, and the combat effectiveness is much worse than that of the old regiment.
At that time, the battlefield situation was that Chiang Kai-shek, after receiving the news of Zhang Lingfu's siege, immediately mobilized the strength of 10 integrated divisions to quickly advance to the Menglianggu area to cooperate with Zhang Lingfu's central blossom strategy.
These outlying Nationalist forces were only 2 days away from Meng Lianggu, so the time left for Huaye to encircle and annihilate the reorganized 74th Division was very limited, on the one hand, the troops blocking tianma mountain must fully block Huang Botao's attack, on the other hand, the troops besieging Meng Lianggu must take Meng Lianggu in the shortest possible time.
When Huang Botao advanced to Tianma Mountain, faced with such a close distance, he swore an oath to Chiang Kai-shek.
It is said that at most 1 hour can break through the line of Tianma Mountain, join forces with Zhang Lingfu, and complete the task of central flowering.
Since 10:00 a.m. on the morning of the 15th, Huang Botao, known as the fierce general of the Nationalist army, has carried out several rounds of onslaught on the positions on the front line of Tianma Mountain with the cooperation of aircraft and artillery.
At 8:00 a.m. on the morning of the 16th, Chiang Kai-shek saw that he could not break through the defense of the first-line position on Tianma Mountain, so he once again urged the reinforcements to speed up their support with stern words.
Inspired by the attack of Huang Botao's 25th Division, the attack was even more fierce, and with the addition of 3 battalions of the Nationalist 65th Division, which had already broken through another of our blocking positions, our army's positions suffered casualties continuously, but huaye's blocking troops did not have the heart of fear, but fought desperately with the enemy for every inch of land.
However, in the face of the huge disparity between the enemy and us, the 25th Division still successfully broke through the main positions such as Sanshandian and Jiepai, and some of the enemy had already attacked the mountainside position, and there was a danger that our defensive positions would be comprehensively breached.
At this time, in order to strengthen the defensive force of the position, Liao Zhengguo, the main commander of the position, mobilized the cooks, stretcher bearers and the wounded who could move around to join the battle, but it was still difficult to stop the enemy's offensive.
At this moment, the troops of the 2nd Battalion of the 28th Regiment of the 10th Division of the 4th Column of our army passed through this place and prepared to support Meng Lianggu's troops, which were one of the five main columns of our army to attack Meng Lianggu, so Liao Zhengguo urgently expressed his support to the battalion commander for the battle of Tianma Mountain.
The battalion commander said that we were ordered to attack Meng Lianggu, that the battle ahead was urgent, and that we might be severely punished for participating in the battle without permission.
Liao Zhengguo said that Tianma Mountain is related to the overall victory or defeat of Meng Lianggu, and once the enemy passes through here, he will lose everything.
The battalion then threw itself into the battle of Tianma Mountain, and with the addition of the 2nd Battalion, the situation was immediately reversed, and the enemy's 25th Division was firmly suppressed under the strong blows of our army, and no matter how much Chiang Kai-shek urged him, he was never able to cross the line of Tianma Mountain.
After two days of fighting on the 14th and 15th, at 3 p.m. on the 16th, the troops attacking Meng Lianggu completely annihilated the reorganized 74th Division with a tenacious will to attack and killed division commander Zhang Lingfu.
After the defeat in this battle, Tang Enbo, the commander-in-chief of the nationalist front, was dismissed, Huang Botao was also given a punishment of ineffective rescue, and for Li Tianxia, Chiang Kai-shek demanded strict handling.
However, when Tang Enbo reported the battle situation to Lao Jiang, he pointed out that the main reason for the failure of the battle was Zhang Lingfu's arrogance and aggressiveness, and Li Tianxia should be taken lightly, and Li Tianxia later bribed gold bars to a number of high-ranking officials of the military court, plus the efforts of Yu Jishi and others, and finally was only removed from his post and investigated.
In the Battle of Huaihai, Huang Botao was killed
Before the battle of Huaihai began in early November 1948, according to the deployment of the Nationalist army in the Xuzhou area, the li mi corps stationed in the eastern section of the Longhai line from west to east were the Li Mi corps in Nianzhuang, the Huang Botao corps in Xin'an Town, and the Li Yannian corps in the Ninth Appeasement District, and the first target of Su Yu's Huaye troops after liberating Jinan was the Huang Botao corps.
Before the war began, Chiang Kai-shek originally wanted to hand over the command of the Xuzhou suppression general operation to Du Yuming, and Du Yuming had already formulated a more feasible deployment plan, but at that time, the war in the northeast was tightening, and Chiang Kai-shek hurriedly transferred Du Yuming to the northeast to fight the fire.
With no one available in Xuzhou, Chiang Kai-shek gave such an important command position to Liu Zhi, a mediocre man of average command ability in the Kuomintang but the most active in escaping.
Faced with the situation that the distance between the corps on the Longhai Line was too far and they were easily divided and surrounded by the Platon Army, Liu Zhi ordered all the corps to withdraw in an orderly manner and move closer to Xuzhou, intending to rely on the superior strength of the troops to closely rely on Xuzhou's strong city defenses and fight our army to the death in the Xuzhou area.
According to Liu Zhi's orders, the 44th Army under Li Yannian's Corps in the Ninth Appeasement District had been assigned to Huang Botao's Corps, and when Huang Botao withdrew from Xin'an Town to Xuzhou, he had to wait for the 44th Army to meet it and then evacuate Xin'an Town together.
This kind of operation of having to wait for someone to withdraw the army made Huang Botao most helpless, but he had to act according to Liu Zhi's orders, so he waited dryly in Xin'an Town.
However, Huang Botao forgot that there was still a Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal on the left side of his station, and there was only one iron bridge on this river, and more than 100,000 people of the Yellow Army Corps had to rely on this iron bridge to cross the river.
During the two days of anxious waiting for the 44th Army, he did not think of erecting a few pontoon bridges on the canal, precisely because these two days gave me the opportunity to catch up with Huaye's pursuing troops.
At the same time, unexpectedly, the 3rd Appeasement District of the Nationalist Army deployed in the Taierzhuang area on the north side of Xuzhou announced an uprising under the leadership of the underground Communist Party He Jifeng and Zhang Kexia, resulting in an uprising
Liu Zhi's plan to rely on this unit to block Hua Ye's southward movement failed, and the northern gate of Xuzhou was wide opened, and Hua Ye directly approached Huang Botao's army without resistance.
The fall of Taierzhuang made Liu Zhi panic, thinking that the People's Liberation Army would directly capture Xuzhou, so he hurriedly sent a telegram to Li Mi's army stationed around Nianzhuang to quickly approach Xuzhou.
However, this made the Huang Corps lose the opportunity to join forces with li mi's corps, thus giving the People's Liberation Army the opportunity to surround the Huang Botao Corps.
Huaye's vanguard unit 1 column first caught up with Huang Botao and began to surround and annihilate the regiment. The enemy 63rd Army, which was responsible for the rear, finally withdrew, and Huang Botao gave the order to the army to wait for the main force of the corps to cross the canal, and the 63rd Army returned to Xuzhou from the town of Yaowan next to the canal.
However, the commander of the army, Chen Zhang, seriously misjudged the situation, and before his troops arrived at Yaowan Town, the west side of the canal had been occupied by the People's Liberation Army, but Chen Zhang decided to force the canal to cross, and as a result, he was surrounded by our army's 1 column division, and was annihilated within 2 days, and Chen Zhang was shot and killed in the confusion.
The Crowded Yellow Corps finally crossed the canal on November 9, and after crossing the canal, they were stationed in the Nianzhuang area, and Huang Botao had a heated discussion with his subordinates about the next step, but this discussion lasted for a day.
In the time of this day, our Huaye troops had already completed the encirclement of Huang Botao.
However, Huang Botao believed that he was already in a safe zone, and only later did he find that his 100,000 horses had been surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, and he was surrounded by a narrow area of 6 kilometers long and 3 kilometers wide.
Chiang Kai-shek, who learned that the Yellow Corps was surrounded, hurriedly huddled in the Vicinity of Xuzhou, qiu Qingquan 2 Corps and Li Mi 13 Corps to rescue, at the same time,
In order to completely annihilate Huang Botao's corps, Su Yu asked the Central Military Commission for instructions, asking Chen Yi, Liu Bocheng, and Deng Xiaoping's Nakano to join the Huaihai Campaign and cooperate in the encirclement and annihilation of Huang Botao.
Facing the Qiu and Li corps coming from southeast of Xuzhou, HuaYe ordered the 7th, 10th, and 11th Columns to block the frontal attack east of Xuzhou, and at the same time ordered the 2nd and 12th Columns to cooperate with the 11th Column of Nakano to deploy in the southeast of Xuzhou to complete the task of attacking the enemy reinforcements from the flank.
Huang Botao was besieged in the Nianzhuangwei area of Nianzhuang Town, which had many ravines and ponds, and was originally the garrison of Li Mi's corps, and the fortifications were well defended, easy to defend and difficult to attack.
Huang Botao was also a general of the Nationalist Army with strong command ability, so his stubborn resistance by relying on the advantages of fortifications made it difficult for our army to quickly annihilate.
After three days of onslaught, Huaye's troops only destroyed one part of the 44th Army, the 100th Army, the 64th Army, and the 25th Army, and their own casualties were relatively large, so Su Yu had to slow down the attack first and hold a meeting to study countermeasures.
Speaking of Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi's corps that went to the rescue, the 5th, 12th, 70th, 72nd, and 74th Armies under Qiu Qingquan's command were all well-equipped and highly mechanized elite Nationalist troops, and they were the strongest Kuomintang troops in the Battle of Xuzhou.
Therefore, Qiu Qingquan was still very optimistic about rescuing Huang Botao after receiving the order, but Li Mi's corps was weak, with only 2 corps.
In the rescue of Huang Botao, Liu Zhi always believed that Hua Ye had come to take Xuzhou, so he secretly detained the 74th Army of the Qiu Corps.
However, the Qiu and Li corps hesitated when they marched toward Nianzhuang, because they always believed that the PLA was good at encircling points and providing assistance, and in the end the PLA was to encircle and annihilate Huang Botao, or to encircle and annihilate his corps by besieging Huang Botao?
In view of this idea, the Qiu And Li Corps adopted a sharp cone strategy in the advance, that is, to put a small number of troops in the front and facilitate the retreat in case of trouble.
At the same time, Su Yu changed his tactics, from a simple rapid assault to strengthening the earthwork industry and artillery bombardment, and the combat effect after adjustment was very obvious, and after more than a dozen days and nights of onslaught, our army has eliminated more than half of the main force of the Yellow Corps and achieved great results.
The Qiu Li Corps, who was in charge of the rescue, was firmly blocked by Huaye and Nakano because of passive rescue, and could not advance around Daxu Village.
Huang Botao knew that there was no hope for a breakthrough, so he finally said to Gu Zhutong, who had come to inspect by plane, that he did not want to show Qiu Qingquan the awkward appearance of the breakthrough, and that in the end it was just a "dead" word, but he only hoped that the various departments of the party-state would not have any more collusion between themselves in the future.
This shows that Huang Botao is going to fight to the end, and later on the 19th,
I Huaye finally annihilated the Yellow Corps, and Huang Botao was hit by a stray bullet and killed.
Huang Botao, as a fierce general in the Nationalist army who can fight, was finally killed alive due to suspicion and disunity between the Nationalist troops, which once again shows that the collapse of the Kuomintang is a systemic reason, not a single fight by a brave general.