As we all know, the rank of a brigade commander and fighter in the army is generally colonel or colonel, but in the Kuomintang army there is such a special brigade, and its brigade commander's rank is lieutenant general.
This brigade was the first brigade under Hu Zongnan, which was well-equipped, and most of its soldiers were strong soldiers who had been in the battlefield for a long time, and the first regiment of this brigade also served as Chiang Kai-shek's guard.
The reason why it is called the first brigade under the heavens, in addition to this unit's combat effectiveness is indeed second to none in the whole army, there are two other reasons.
First, Hu Zongnan was the brigade commander of this brigade when he started;
Second, Chiang Kai-shek's younger son, Chiang Wei-kuo, served as the deputy commander of the artillery regiment in this brigade.
It was such a strong force, but in the War of Liberation, it was destroyed by the Taiyue Column of the Eighth Route Army, and the commander of the Taiyue Column was General Chen Geng, who was known as a legendary general.
In June 1946, Chiang Kai-shek tore off the pretense of peace and gathered heavy troops to brazenly attack the Liberated Areas of the Central Plains, and civil war broke out in an all-round way.
The army of Liu Deng of the Jin-Hebei Luyu Military Region has always been a serious problem for Chiang Kai-shek, and in order to completely eliminate it, Chiang Kai-shek decided to send the strongest combat force under his command, the Hu Zongnan Army.
Why is It said that Hu Zongnan's troops are the strongest fighting force of the Kuomintang?
First of all, Hu Zongnan was born in the first phase of Huangpu and was deeply trusted by Chiang Kai-shek, and during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Hu Zongnan always lurked in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region to monitor the every move of the Communist Party.
It was also for this reason that Hu Zongnan's army did not engage in large-scale battles with the Japanese army, and the strength of his men was relatively well preserved.
In addition, this unit is well-equipped, and the First Army of the World, the First Division of the World, and the First Brigade of the World are all from this unit, and its combat effectiveness can be seen.
There is a railway in Shanxi called the Tongpu Railway, which runs through the whole of Shanxi and is a very important transportation line, and if this railway is controlled, it will be of great benefit to Chiang Kai-shek.
First of all, Shanxi is yan xishan's old lair, and once Chiang Kai-shek controls his supply line, then yan xishan can only rely on his nose and have to obey his words.
Secondly, mastering this transportation line, it connected the Jin Sui Army in the hinterland of the Central Plains and Yan Xishan, which played a huge role in clearing and suppressing the Communist Party in the Jin-Hebei Luyu region.
Therefore, in chiang kai-shek's eyes, taking over the Tongpu railway has become the first priority at present.
On this day, Hu Zongnan received an order from Chiang Kai-shek to march north-south with Yan Xishan, suppress the Communist Party in the Shanxi region, and connect the north-south Tongpu Railway.
To say that Chiang Kai-shek chose to start at this time is indeed a good time, the main force of Liu Deng's army has now advanced eastward to Hebei and Shandong, and only four columns are left in the Shanxi region, that is, the original Taiyue column.
After receiving the order, Hu Zongnan did not dare to delay at all and immediately began to deploy troops.
He knew that the commander of the Communist Fourth Column was chen geng who was an old classmate of his time in Huangpu, and Hu Zongnan was also well aware that Chen Geng was not easy to deal with, so he sent 6 brigades of troops to cooperate with Yan Xishan's troops and launched an attack on the fourth column.
Logically, the strength of these 6 brigades alone was already more than twice that of the four columns, and with the addition of Yan Xishan's Jin Sui Army, the difference in strength was even greater.
Besides, what kind of equipment is the Kuomintang army? They were all old American weapons, and the Communist Party was incomparable in this regard.
If there were no accidents, Chen Geng would probably have to break the sand even if he was resourceful.
However, at this time, Chen Geng did not panic in the slightest, because the Communist Party had been operating here for a long time, and had built a complete intelligence network, and received news almost at the beginning of the mobilization of the Kuomintang troops.
In the face of the menacing enemy Chen Geng had no fear, according to his words:
"If only Hu Zongnan's army attacked us, we would be very troublesome, but if we added Yan Xishan's men, this battle would be easier to fight."
After the Kuomintang troops entered the Liberated Areas, they did not encounter several decent blockades at all, and even if they occasionally exchanged fire with the communists, the Red Army was on the verge of collapse, giving them the feeling that the Communists were vulnerable.
Gradually, these guys, who already had a very high self-esteem, paid less and less attention to the Communist Party, and later simply ignored Hu Zongnan's strategy of advancing in tandem, alternating covers, and advancing in echelons, and fought for themselves without any cooperation at all.
Chen Geng got this news and laughed: "I know that the Kuomintang army has never been monolithic, and it seems that in order to grab credit, they have already messed up the square inches, and our opportunity has come." ”
On July 13, the soldiers of the 31st Brigade stationed in Huzhang Town were resting, and because they had not encountered resistance for many days, the spirit of the troops was relaxed, and the defense of the barracks was only a formality.
Suddenly, the charge horn sounded in the distance, and countless soldiers of the Eighth Route Army appeared around, and the soldiers of the 31st Brigade were stunned and hurriedly organized resistance. Brigade Commander Liu Zhaoming immediately asked the reporter to send a report to the friendly neighboring troops for help, but unfortunately, other units were also like the 31st Brigade, and even the dispatchers fell asleep, and naturally no one came to the rescue.
For this surprise attack, Chen Geng gathered the strength of 6 regiments, which can be said to be inevitable.
However, Chen Geng also knew that the danger of this raid was not small, and once he was reacted by other enemy troops, he would probably be annihilated at that time.
Therefore, Chen Geng ordered the troops to attack the enemy army and make a quick decision.
In the early morning of July 14, the 167th Brigade, which had received a distress message, sent a regiment of small troops to reconnoiter, only to be intercepted by Chen Geng, who had been prepared earlier, and after losing two battalions of troops, he fled in a panic.
On 15 July, the fighting ended and the 31st Brigade was completely destroyed.
At this time, there was another wave of reinforcements, the troops of the 78th Brigade, but they came too late, and in the face of the imposing four columns, they did not dare to fight to the death, but only fired a few shots and left a few corpses and fled.
In this battle, Chen Geng's troops completely annihilated Hu Zongnan's 31st Brigade, as well as one each of the 167th Brigade and the 78th Brigade, a total of more than 6,300 people, known in history as the "Battle of Wenxia".
Yan Xishan, who got the news, directly confessed and withdrew all his troops to the old nest, which means that you Hu Zongnan is willing to toss and turn, and I will not mix.
Chen Geng saw that Yan Xishan's troops were retreating north, so he took advantage of the situation to bypass Linfen and chase the Jin Sui army all the way to the buttocks, Yan Xishan seemed to be frightened, and did not dare to fight at all.
The four columns successfully took the five counties and counties of Hongdong, Zhaocheng, Huoxian, Lingshi, and Fenxi, and completely cut off the Tongpu Railway.
Chen Geng also had a huge gain in this battle, that is, he captured one of Hu Zongnan's dispatchers and captured a full set of radios.
After persuasion, the dispatcher gave the password for the report, as well as the numbers and commanders of Hu Zongnan's troops, which played a huge role in the next battle.
If someone else seized the radio, it would at best be used to send out messages. But Chen Geng was different, he was the chief of the intelligence section who had been in the limelight in Shanghai, and although he later became a commander and fighter in the army, he never forgot his old profession and always attached great importance to intelligence gathering.
Looking at the radio station captured from the enemy's hands in front of him, a bold idea appeared in Chen Geng's mind.
At the same time, Yan Xishan, who had just been slashed by the Eighth Route Army in the recent Shangdang Campaign, was completely frightened this time, and he ordered his troops to retreat and become a shrunken-headed turtle.
But Hu Zongnan on the other side could not swallow this breath.
At first, Hu Zongnan did not put Chen Geng in his eyes at all, although he knew that his old classmate was outstanding, but after all, the strength of the two sides was very different, according to his idea, Chen Geng's four columns had no possibility of winning at all.
Who knew that this time the ship overturned in the gutter, his army was too arrogant, and did not fight according to his previous deployment, resulting in a fiasco.
Of course, Hu Zongnan was not convinced, he believed that the defeat was caused by his own too light enemy, and this time he wanted to send his strongest team to find back the lost face.
Hu Zongnan was eager for revenge, not only personally came to the front line to command but also brought his own bottom card, the reorganized 1st Brigade, known as the world's first brigade.
The brigade commander of the 1st Brigade is called Huang Zhengcheng, with the rank of lieutenant general, 7500 troops, all American equipment, although it is only a brigade, its combat strength is by no means inferior to that of a division.
Hu Zongnan, who had arrived in Yuncheng, first contacted Yan Xishan, and he demanded that he be given command of the Shanxi battlefield.
For this, Yan Xishan said that it didn't matter, anyway, I didn't plan to toss, you are willing to stand up to the thunder, I will never stop, but I want my army to desperately depend on my mood.
At the end of August 1946, Hu Zongnan once again gathered 9 brigades with a total of 100,000 troops, with Dong Zhao, commander of the 1st Army, as the commander-in-chief, and marched north, still adopting the previous strategy of advancing in tandem and taking every step as a battalion, vowing to wipe out Chen Geng's troops in one fell swoop.
Chen Geng in the Eighth Route Army's Fourth Column Headquarters had naturally received the news, and he knew that this battle was even harder to fight.
First of all, Chen Geng's total strength was only more than 20,000 people, and the enemy army had 5 times as many as it had itself. Secondly, this time it is Hu Zongnan's unified command, and I am afraid that it will be difficult to appear chaotic as the last time, which is disorderly and fighting for each other.
Chen Geng knew that the situation was serious, and immediately summoned all the commanders and fighters of the four columns to a meeting to discuss how to deal with it.
At the meeting, there were many opinions, and the vast majority of people believed that we should temporarily avoid the front, and then move to fight, find opportunities to break through each other, and gradually encroach on the enemy from weak to strong.
Chen Geng's thoughts were different from others, he felt that if he wanted to fight, he must first solve the enemy's strongest combat strength, only in this way could the enemy be afraid and disrupt Hu Zongnan's arrangement.
In the end, he vigorously defied the consensus and set the first target of the attack as the first brigade under the heavens.
On the other hand, Hu Zongnan learned the lessons of the last time, and before the war began, he repeatedly stressed that Chen Geng used his troops like gods and was not easy to deal with, and everyone must cooperate closely, and must not be greedy and adventurous, repeating the retreat of the 31st Brigade.
However, Hu Zongnan did not dream that it was his repeated instructions that caused the dissatisfaction of one person, and this person was Huang Zhengcheng, the current brigade commander of the reorganized 1st Brigade.
Huang Zhengcheng graduated from the 22nd Artillery Section of the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School and trained at the German Army Artillery School.
He had always been not very interested in the "dirt buns" who graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy, and thought that Hu Zongnan and Chen Geng were not enough.
Seeing that Hu Zongnan admired Chen Geng so much, he couldn't help but scoff, he felt that if he let his World First Brigade encounter the Four Verticals, it could be destroyed between the backhands.
Therefore, since the battle began, Huang Zhengcheng had held his breath, and Chen Geng had to lose in his own hands.
At this time, the most important thing for Chen Geng's side was to find out the location of the reorganized 1st Brigade, and the radio station in his hand was the key to success.
Chen Geng has converted the radio into a monitoring device, during this time, Chen Geng stayed in the communication room every day, filtering the information heard over and over again, huangtian did not live up to his painstaking heart, after a series of collations and comparisons Chen Geng finally found the location of the reorganized 1st Brigade: Linfen.
The location is found, but how can we get them out?
By listening to the enemy's radio, Chen Geng analyzed that the enemy's next target should be Fushan County, so he immediately gave instructions and ordered a regiment of the 13th Brigade to reach Fushan County and use it as bait with the cooperation of local troops.
The main force of the column was hidden near the road from Linfen to Fushan County, waiting for the opportunity to launch a sneak attack on the enemy. Everything was ready to stop, and on September 22, Dong Zhao did indeed order the 167th And 27th Brigade to launch an attack on Fushan.
What I didn't expect was that the enemy army, which had been attacking the city very smoothly for several days, encountered fierce resistance in Fushan County.
Dong Zhao received the news, thinking that this was probably Chen Geng's main force, so he could not be forced out, but he could not let them slip away again.
So he ordered the 167th And 27th Brigades to hold the enemy to their knees, and ordered the reorganized 1st Brigade to slowly advance in the direction of Fushan, and according to his idea, the reorganized 1st Brigade should descend from the sky when both sides were defeated and wounded, so as to quickly resolve the battle in order to destroy the situation of decay.
However, Huang Zhengcheng was obviously also a guy who did not play cards according to common sense, and he felt that if his troops walked slowly, I was afraid that the credit for destroying Chen Geng would fall on the heads of others.
Therefore, instead of slowly advancing according to the order, he let the 2nd Regiment rush all the way to Fushan.
At the same time, Chen Geng learned by radio that the 2nd Regiment of the Reorganized 1st Brigade had quickly rushed towards Fushan County, but the specific location was unknown. Chen Geng immediately made a decision and ordered the main force of 3 brigades to all go out to search for the enemy's position.
Fushan ordered the troops to withdraw from the county seat and let the enemy troops enter the city, and then pretended to be a project, killing the 167th And 27th Brigades in the city, so that they could not go out of the city to rescue the 1st Brigade.
In the evening, Chen Geng was pacing back and forth in the communication room of the Fourth Column Headquarters, his face full of anxiety, and he had not left here for a whole day, until this time there was no trace of the 1st Brigade.
Suddenly, the telephone rang and the 11th Brigade received news that the enemy had been spotted near the village of Guanque and that the encirclement of the enemy had been completed without the enemy's knowledge.
When Chen Geng heard the news, he slapped his thigh hard, which stabilized.
Chen Geng ordered the 11th Brigade to completely annihilate the enemy army on the one hand, and on the other hand ordered the 10th Brigade and the 13th Brigade to build fortifications and block the reinforcements.
After the battle began, Wang Yawu, commander of the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Brigade, did not pay attention to it at first.
He only sent a report to Huang Zhengcheng, saying: "I have reached the designated position and have been attacked by a small group of communist troops." "After all, this kind of thing the Kuomintang often encounters during this time."
However, as the battle progressed, Wang Yawu found that something was wrong, and the offensive of this communist army was really too fierce, and it was simply not afraid of death. After several hours of fierce fighting, the 2nd Regiment suffered heavy casualties, and Wang Yawu hurriedly sent a report to Huang Zhengcheng for support.
Receiving the news that the 2nd Regiment had been attacked, Dong Zhao was stunned, didn't he tell Huang Zhengcheng to move forward slowly? Why would Wang Yawu run to Guanque Village to fight with the Communists.
Therefore, he immediately called Huang Zhengcheng to reprimand him, and ordered him to lead the 1st Brigade to rush to the rescue, and at the same time ordered the two brigades in Fushan County to quickly return to the aid, form a counter-encirclement trend against Chen Geng's troops, and complete their efforts in one battle and annihilate them in one fell swoop.
Unfortunately, both reinforcements were stubbornly blocked by our army, and even though the Kuomintang used aircraft to bomb, our army still fought to the death, and the Kuomintang army failed to advance one step.
Seeing that more than ten hours had passed, the 2nd Regiment was almost completely destroyed, and even if it was too late to rush over, Huang Zhengcheng ordered the troops to retreat to Chen Nian Village for rest.
But what he did not expect was that when the 1st Brigade was resting in Chen Nian Village, the Communist army that had fought with them fiercely for more than ten hours was actually killed, and the 1st Brigade, which was still burying pots and making meals, rushed to fight, was beaten without the slightest ability to fight back, and finally could only shrink into a compound.
It was Night Zhou Xihan who brought in cannons and launched an artillery bombardment on the compound, and when he heard the sound of the cannons, Huang Zhengcheng knew that the general situation had gone, and in order to save his life, he had to lead the crowd to surrender.
Curiously, Zhou Xihan did not find any trace of Huang Zhengcheng when he reorganized the 1st Brigade.
Commander-in-Chief Chen said that when we started running, Huang Zhengcheng sent a report to Dong Zhao, which showed that he must be in the compound.
So Zhou Xihan ordered his subordinates: "Find me, no matter what, you can't let Huang Zhengcheng run." After a night of interrogation, there was still no news of Huang Zhengcheng, as if this person had disappeared out of thin air.
After dawn, Wu Xiaomin led people to the woods where the captives were being held, and after looking around, he suddenly noticed that there was a guy dressed very strangely. The man was dressed in soldier's clothes on the upper body, but the lower body was in breeches with leather boots, and a standard officer's suit.
Wu Xiaomin walked up to this person and asked, "What do you do?" When this person saw Wu Xiaomin coming, he was obviously a little nervous, and he replied with a evasive look: "I am the clerk." ”
"The clerk? I don't see it. Wu Xiaomin's eyes looked at his leather boots.
The man looked down at his boots and stammered, "I'm really a clerk, and my pants and boots were given to me by a friend." ”
Looking at this guy who is a thief with a weak heart, Wu Xiaomin smiled and immediately asked people to check it out,
It turned out that this person was the famous general of the Hundred Battles and Hundred Victories, huang Zhengcheng, the commander of the First Brigade of the World.
Looking at Huang Zhengcheng, who looked embarrassed after revealing his identity, the soldiers of our army and the prisoners around them laughed.
At this time, Huang Zhengcheng suddenly proposed to meet Chen Geng,
And the purpose of his meeting with Chen Geng was to question: "Why does the Communist Party not pay attention to rules when fighting wars?" ”
This seems to be a question that all Kuomintang generals from the class have to ask after they have lost the battle.
With the collapse of the First Brigade, Hu Zongnan lost the strongest combat strength under his command, and this confrontation with Chen Geng ended in failure.