In 1947, the all-out offensive launched by the Kuomintang army against the Liberated Areas was frustrated in many ways, and after repeated defeats, Chiang Kai-shek decided to change the offensive strategy after suffering losses, shrinking the strength and regrouping to launch a key offensive, Chiang Kai-shek's strategic intention was to let Gu Zhutong succeed Xue Yue in Xuzhou in full responsibility for the overall affairs.
After the Battle of Laiwu, the Kuomintang concentrated 24 integrated divisions totaling 450,000 troops on the entire Shandong battlefield, adopted the tactics of concentrating troops, taking into account both end and end, acting as neighbors from side to side, fighting steadily and steadily, and advancing hand in hand, planning to occupy the entire Shandong Liberated Area, and vowing to wipe out the East China Field Army led by Chen Yi and Su Yu on the Shandong battlefield.
In early May, Chen Yi and Su Yu led Huaye's main force to move to Mengyin, Xintai, and Laiwu to seek fighters, Gu Zhutong saw that Huaye's main force avoided its sharp edge and retreated to the east, so he ordered all the units to pursue and advance, and at the same time ordered Tang Enbo to lead the reorganized 74th Division, 25th Division, and 83rd Division to advance from the southern front to Yishui.
After Huaye's main force retreated eastward, Su Yu considered that if the Kuomintang troops followed, they would have to choose all the way to annihilate them all depending on the enemy's situation, and if the enemy was close together, he would first attack Weixian as bait and annihilate the enemy he was aiding.
On May 10, the 7th Army of Tang Enbo Corps and the reorganized 48th Division took the lead in attempting to occupy Yishui, both of which were aces of the Gui clan, and Su Yu decided to take them first, and ordered the 2nd, 7th, and 8th Columns to be the main force, the 1st, 4th, and 9th Columns to covertly annihilate the reinforcements on the periphery, and the 3rd and 10th Columns to defend against the enemy in the north.
However, before the battle, a small opportunity made Su Yu change the objective of the battle, when Huaye headquarters was hidden in a small town between Yishui and Mengyin, but on May 11, this town was bombed by the Kuomintang air force, Su Yu felt that why the Kuomintang would send the air force to bomb this town, there must be a reason for the matter.
After an investigation, he learned that at that time, a Kuomintang platoon leader was captured and locked up here, he saw that there were a lot of antennas here, and many people who came and went heard someone say "headquarters", and later he fled back to the garrison of the Kuomintang 74th Division and reported this news to Zhang Lingfu, who judged that this was most likely the Huaye headquarters, so he sent planes to bomb it.
Su Yu couldn't help but wonder if Zhang Lingfu would directly attack since he knew that this was Huaye's headquarters? On this occasion, the technical reconnaissance unit of the East China Field Army Headquarters, code-named "4th Squadron," gave Su Yu a piece of information on which all the deployment of Tang Enbo's corps was indicated, and on the basis of this information, Su Yu calmly analyzed it, believing that the Kuomintang was about to launch a full-line offensive in the Shandong battlefield, and that the reorganized 74th Division was the main assault force of the Kuomintang army.
At this time, the Kuomintang already knew that Tanbu was the headquarters of Huaye, and the integrated 74th Division, as an arrow unit, rushed straight in under the cover of the two wings and follow-up troops, preparing to eliminate the Huaye headquarters in one fell swoop, thus causing chaos to gather and annihilate it, Su Yu immediately decided to abandon the battle plan of annihilating the 7th Army and the integrated 48th Division, and prepared to give the Kuomintang troops a counter-encirclement.
He decided to assemble an elite column and take advantage of the fact that the enemy was on the way and there was a gap in the seam, and adopted the method of "fierce tiger digging out his heart" to cut through the central authorities, cut off the connection between the reorganized 74th Division and other units, which was the greatest threat to our army, encircle and annihilate Chiang Kai-shek's "Royal Forest Army," and completely wipe out this hard bone.
Su Yu reported his intentions to Commander Chen Yi, and many years later he mentioned in his memoirs that he had changed his mind and attacked the reorganized 74th Division at that time, mainly on four basis:
The first point is that as long as the 74th Division is annihilated, then the Kuomintang army's desire to annihilate the main force of Huaye will be disappointed, changing the situation on the battlefield, and if the 7th Army and the reorganized 48th Division are still maintained as they are, and these two units are only the concubines of the Gui clan and not the concubines of the old Chiang Kai-shek, then the other units are likely to turn a deaf ear and continue to encircle our army according to the original plan, so that they will fall into an unfavorable situation of fighting on both sides.
But the reorganization of the 74th Division is different, this unit is one of the five aces of the Kuomintang, the all-American equipment, whether it is technical tactics or equipment soldiers are second to none, if it can be annihilated, it can give the Kuomintang army a blow from both strength and spirit, give the enemy and our Huaye a bad impression, even the 74th Division can be completely annihilated, other units must also weigh and weigh, moreover, the 74th Division is Huaye's mortal enemy, the blood debt in the two Huaihuai areas, and the humiliation of Huaiyin Lianshui, are all caused by the 74th Division, this time can annihilate the 74th Division, For the Commanders and Fighters of Huaye, it will certainly produce great encouragement.
The second point of attacking and annihilating the flanks and isolating the enemy has always been the traditional way of playing in the People's Liberation Army, and the same is true for Huaye, and the siege and annihilation of Dai Zhiqi Division in the Subei Campaign is the only way to make a central breakthrough, but at that time, the enemy around the area was far away, not as dense as it is now, so it can be said that the siege and annihilation of Zhang Lingfu this time can be said to be unprecedented.
At the same time, in more than a year, Huaye has successively fought battles in northern Jiangsu, Lunan, laiwu, and other battles, and the technical and tactical tactics of the troops have been greatly improved; commanders and fighters at all levels have accumulated a lot of combat experience in large corps; secondly, Huaye's weapons and equipment have also been continuously strengthened in the course of fighting, and they have the conditions to encircle and annihilate a strong enemy.
Moreover, the enemy's central breakthrough method around the reorganized 74th Division must be accurate to see that our army will take the initiative to retreat to avoid its sharp edge, and if at this time it is unexpected to use the central breakthrough to deal with the enemy's central breakthrough tactics, it will hit his strongest 74th Division, and it will certainly receive miraculous results if it is unexpected.
The third point is that the enemy on the Shandong battlefield has gathered more than twenty integrated divisions to attack, while Huaye only has 9 columns plus a special forces column, which is not superior in terms of strength, but now Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division has been assembled in front of huaye's main force, and all the troops of our army are concentrated here, and the local strength ratio is 5:1.
The fourth point is that the strength and weakness are relative, the 74th Division is a heavily armored unit, as long as entering the mountainous area is equivalent to unloading an arm, Huaye can exert its own advantages under this circumstance, and the 74th Division Zhang Lingfu is arrogant and arrogant, and has deep grievances with other friendly and neighboring troops, as long as we resolutely fight for help, other units are likely not to actively rescue.
After listening to Su Yu's elaboration, Chen Yi's eyes lit up, although Su Yu's plan was bold, but if it was used well, it would be decided to break the hard bone of the 74th Division. We just want to have the courage to take the first rank of general in a million troops, give him a "fierce tiger to dig out his heart", and destroy the reorganized 74th Division, to see if Zhang Lingfu is still crazy!
On May 11, Zhang Lingfu led the reorganized 74th Division from Duozhuang to attack the 9th Column position south of Huaye south of Tanbu from menglianggu, and after obtaining the consent of Chairman Mao and others, Su Yu decided to take 5 columns as the main offensive task, 4 columns to block enemy reinforcements, and the special forces column was also all equipped with the main attack troops to participate in the battle.
In order to prevent Zhang Lingfu from retreating, Su Yu ordered Wang Bicheng's 6 columns to occupy Duozhuang before Zhang Lingfu realized the retreat, cutting off his retreat, Wang Bicheng had been trying to get back to the field since the defeat at the Battle of Lianshui, this time Su Yu gave him this opportunity, after receiving the order, Wang Bicheng led more than 20,000 people in 6 to march 130 kilometers a day and night, and captured Duozhuang in the early morning of the 15th, and Zhang Lingfu's retreat was completely cut off.
Zhang Lingfu had planned to withdraw to Duozhuang to wait for help, but he did not expect Wang Bicheng to copy his rear road, and just one hour after Duozhuang was occupied by the 6 columns, Zhang Lingfu helplessly ordered his troops to throw away the American heavy artillery and other equipment, shrink the troops to Meng Lianggu, relying on Meng Lianggu and Lushan areas to stubbornly resist and wait for rescue.
At this time, the operational intentions of both sides were obvious, if the other Kuomintang troops could rush to Menglianggu before the 74th Division was destroyed, then Hua Ye would be in a critical situation with the enemy on his back, and if the 74th Division could not hold on, then taking the enemy's first rank in the million army would seriously damage the morale of the Kuomintang army.
In fact, long before being cut off from the retreat route, Zhang Lingfu called Tang Enbo and asked him to urge the left and right friendly troops to come to the rescue as soon as possible, at that time he still held the mentality of using his body as bait and wanted to come to the sub-center to blossom, but Zhang Lingfu was proud and arrogant with Chiang Kai-shek's favor, and his relationship with other unit commanders was not very good, and Huang Baitao of the reorganized 25th Division, Li Tianxia of the 83rd Division, and others naturally did not do much to rescue him.
Zhang Lingfu was in a hurry several times, and under the strict supervision of Tang Enbo, Li Tianxia's 83rd Division flinched forward a few kilometers, and just after the fire with the Plakmen, it was stagnant, and Huang Baitao's 108th Brigade also "collapsed" when it just met the PLA, so that the two wings of the 74th Division were even more empty.
Li Yannian urged Huang Baitao to rescue Huang Baitao as soon as possible in Zhang Lingfu's headquarters, but Huang Baitao still did not move a single soldier, he knew that Li Yannian could not stay long, and sure enough, Li Yannian left the 74th Division after talking to him on the phone, and Zhang Lingfu looked at Huang Baitao and the others without moving, and scolded Huang and Li in the headquarters for being a scum of the party and the state, and seeing death and not saving.
Because the radio of the 74th Division sent out distress calls everywhere, Chiang Kai-shek also knew that Zhang Lingfu was in a critical situation in Shandong, and personally gave orders to Gu Zhutong, Tang Enbo, Huang Baitao, Zhang Gan, Li Tianxia, and others, asking them to rescue Zhang Lingfu at all costs.
However, on the way, he met Li Yannian, the deputy commander who had returned from the front, and when he asked, he knew that Duozhuang had been captured, and Zhang Lingfu's rear road had been cut off, only to be afraid of the fierceness, and then Tang Enbo once again gave Huang Baitao and Li Tianxia an order to let them attack at full speed, and Huang and Li dragged their feet and sent a brigade and a regiment to rescue each.
At this time, the situation on the battlefield was very grim, the Kuomintang under chiang kai-shek's orders mobilized all its troops to reinforce Meng Lianggu, the nearest was less than 10 kilometers, the farthest was only two days of travel, Huaye was in charge of reinforcements, the pressure on Huaye's troops responsible for reinforcement was increasing, and at this time the main offensive forces had not yet taken the 74th Division, and if the enemy broke through the blockade line, the consequences would be unimaginable.
At this time, Commander Chen Yi of Huaye was also sitting on a needle felt, listening to the movements of reinforcements everywhere and was anxious, and on the evening of the 15th, he called Ye Fei, commander of the 1st Column on the front line, to inform him of the movement of the enemy's reinforcements, stating that if the 74th Division could not be completely annihilated at dawn on the 16th, then our army would fall into the enemy's encirclement.
Chen Yi on the phone was also quite worried, and he authorized Ye Fei to command Huaye's 1st, 4th, 6th, and 9th columns to attack Meng Lianggu in general, saying that even if they paid the price of two columns, they would take the 74th Division, and that they would take down the enemy at all costs when the troops were exhausted.
After calling Ye Fei, he called Xu Shiyou again and said: Now we must take down Meng Lianggu at all costs! If you kill a thousand, I will give you a thousand, two thousand, two thousand, and whoever attacks Meng Lianggu is a hero!
Then he called the other two columns separately, and the commanders of each column all said categorically that they promised to complete the task, and conveyed instructions to the division commanders under him, Xu Shiyou hung up the phone and rushed to the front line with a large knife, and ordered: The commander of the whole column should be the regimental commander, the regimental commander should be the battalion commander, and the battalion commander should be the company commander, and follow me!
On the morning of the 16th, Huaye captured Diaowo and Lushan, and all the main positions of the reorganized 74th Division were lost, and at 3 p.m., the main peak of Menglianggu was captured, Zhang Lingfu was killed, and the 74th Division was completely annihilated.
After the Battle of Menglianggu, Huaye's strength increased greatly, while the Kuomintang completely withdrew from the Shandong battlefield, which created an example of the central government's breakthrough and annihilation of a strong enemy, which was of decisive significance for the disintegration of the Kuomintang's key offensive against the Liberated Areas of Shandong.
Later, Su Yu recalled the collapse of the 74th Division and said that the Lianshui Defense War was a turning point for Zhang Lingfu, that the battle caused the arrogant 74th Division to lose its vitality, and the veterans of the 74th Division suffered 1/3 of the casualties in the two Battles of Lianshui, and later the supplementary soldiers were pulled to the Shandong battlefield before they were trained, which also laid the groundwork for his downfall.
In fact, as early as after the Battle of Lianshui, Zhang Lingfu had a premonition, and in the telegram he sent to Hu Lian and Fang Xianjue, he had said that if he continued, he would die in the rest of the year, and now the Battle of Meng Lianggu also confirmed his words, but he was still too optimistic to predict, and after only half a year he was destroyed, and even the 74th Division was completely annihilated.
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