"Only the 74th Army is the most capable of fighting," the U.S. military adviser told Chiang Kai-shek during the Nationalist government.
The 74th Army, later the 74th Division, was led by the famous anti-Japanese general Zhang Lingfu, one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang, but it was such a unit that was defeated by the East China Field Army in the Battle of Menglianggu, so that after the war Chiang Kai-shek could not help but sigh: "The defeat of Meng Lianggu is the most painful and regrettable thing for me since our army carried out the suppression of bandits." ”
This so-called most elite and powerful unit of the Nationalist Army, with more than 30,000 people in the whole division, made great contributions during the anti-Japanese period, and its predecessor, the 74th Army, made great contributions in the Battle of Songhu and the Battle of Xuzhou, and played a huge role in resisting the Japanese army. However, it later became a tool of the Kuomintang dictatorship, so that it was eventually defeated by the East China Field Army and completely destroyed.
Later, the 74th Division was ordered by Chiang Kai-shek to rebuild, and the rebuilt 74th Division actually caused the loss of tens of thousands of people in 6 columns in Nakano.
Battle of Menglianggu
In 1947, during the Liberation War, after the all-out offensive strategy was broken, the Kuomintang army headquarters changed its military strength to attack the liberated areas in northern Shaanxi and Shandong, in an attempt to clamp down on the military strength of the CPC Central Committee and the People's Liberation Army in north China.
In order to achieve victory, the Kuomintang successively dispatched 24 integrated divisions with up to 450,000 troops, and equipped the 74th Division to reorganize the whole army, the 5th Army, and the integrated 11th Division as the main force, and these three main forces were used as assault forces to be responsible for mobile tasks.
By early April, the Nationalist army opened the road from Xuzhou to Jinan with one force, and after occupying Lunan, three corps launched a full-line attack on the Luzhong area from three directions.
At that time, the east China Field Army in Shandong only had 9 infantry general units and one special forces general column, with a number of about 270,000 people, far less than the Kuomintang army's 450,000.
However, the current situation is different from before, there are far fewer favorable fighters than before, so it is necessary to carry out mobile and flexible movement warfare to mobilize and disperse the deployment of the enemy army, so as to create various broken fighters.
The East China Field Army marched and fought and moved all the way to the east, which gave Chiang Kai-shek, Chen Cheng, and others a wrong judgment, who thought that the field army was "tired of offensive", so they decided to make a quick decision, and issued a day and night journey to the front line, following up and suppressing tactics, in order to achieve the goal of a decisive battle between the Luzhong Mountains and the main force of Huaye at an early date.
Under Chiang Kai-shek's orders, the reorganized 74th Division, one of the three major assault units, pursued all the way, with more than 30,000 troops, and pursued the entire army of the East China Field Army, which gave Su Yu, who had originally planned to fight and retreat, under Su Yu's arrangement, the 8th Column of the East China Field Army intercepted the 74th Division, the 74th Division was repelled, and then stationed in Yangjiazhai, MaMuchi and other places, ready to attack Tanbu later.
After that, the 1st and 8th Columns of the East China Field Army and the integrated 74th Division blocked the frontal blockade, and the main force approached the enemy from the two wings of the 74th Division to the enemy depth, blocking the connection between the 74th Division and the 25th Division of the Nationalist Army.
Subsequently, Zhang Lingfu had a premonition that he might be encircled and suppressed, so he led his team to rush to Meng Lianggu, where the East China Field Army formed an encirclement, Zhang Lingfu asked for help, but Li Tianxia, as a reinforcement, was delayed, and finally, the 74th Division was encroached upon by the East China Field Army, and the entire army was destroyed in Meng Lianggu, and Zhang Lingfu was also killed.
74th Division reconstruction
After the Battle of Menglianggu, Chiang Kai-shek deeply regretted that he could not believe that his ace army had been completely annihilated by the Communists, and all armaments had been captured.
As the main force of the Kuomintang, the 74th Division was equipped with the most advanced American equipment, so its combat effectiveness was extremely strong, but in the end, because of the unfavorable rescue of its teammates, it chose to "stand on the shore and watch the ship capsize", so that the 74th Division was finally completely annihilated.
In the eyes of the Kuomintang army, the 74th Division was a very capable army, and even such a team was annihilated by the Platon Army, not to mention other battles. Since then, no contingent of the Kuomintang has dared to go straight into the People's Liberation Army's base dazhong alone.
After the fall of the 74th Division, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Wang Yaowu, the founder of the 74th Division, to rebuild and reorganize the 74th Division. Wang Yaowu was a student of the third phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, Zhang Lingfu and Qiu Weida were both former subordinates of Wang Yaowu, and after receiving Chiang Kai-shek's orders, Wang Yaowu began to prepare for the reconstruction and reorganization of the 74th Division.
In fact, at that time, the 74th Division was only annihilated in the front line, and there were still three new corps in the rear area that did not participate in the battle, so Wang Yaowu formed the 51st Brigade on the basis of these three new regiments and a howitzer battalion, and the Second Shandong Garrison Brigade was also reorganized into the 57th Brigade, in addition to the 58th Brigade reorganized from the Guangdong Aviation Garrison Brigade.
Rebuild the First World War
After the reconstruction of the 74th Division, the division commander was Qiu Weida, a classmate of Zhang Lingfu's contemporaries. After the reconstruction was completed, the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division was sent to Fuyang to garrison, although the newly formed 74th Division was not as good as the original reorganized 74th Division, but the team also had more than 9,000 people, also fully Equipped with American equipment, and at that time a large number of fortifications were also built in and around Fuyang City.
At this time, Liu Deng's army had just emerged from the Dabie Mountains, and its morale was very low, and it was in urgent need of a big victory to boost morale, so Liu Bocheng set his sights on the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division in Fuyang.
In order to win the battle, Liu Bocheng sent the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 11th Columns, and a total of six columns of the 10th Column of the Central Plains Field Army to attack Fuyang, where the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division was stationed.
After that, the 59th Regiment of the 20th Brigade of the 1st Column took the lead in launching an offensive and annihilated a company of the Nationalist defenders on the outskirts of Fuyang, but soon the Nationalist army reacted, the 59th Regiment was besieged, and eventually the commander of the 59th Regiment was also captured.
The 58th Regiment organized the Sharp Knife Company to carry out the task of interspersing and cutting off contact with the Kuomintang troops. Although the 58th Regiment eventually occupied the position of contact between the Kuomintang troops, it also paid a heavy price, and in the end the 58th Regiment could only withdraw from Dongguan, and on the way to the retreat of the 58th Regiment, it was counterattacked by the Kuomintang army, and the People's Liberation Army suffered heavy losses.
Later, the various columns took turns to fight, but it was always difficult to break through Fuyang, where the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division was stationed, the two sides fought for several days, but the results were not ideal, Qiu Weida led the main force of the rebuilt 74th Division to the rescue, at the same time, other Kuomintang troops also rushed to the rescue, and finally, Nakano decided to abandon the strategy of attacking Fuyang and chose to preserve its strength.
brief summary:
Looking at the reconstructed battle, the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division, with its elite weapons and sufficient fortifications, forced the offensive of the five columns of Nakano and the tenth column of Huaye to be defended, and the entire battle, the PLA lost as many as tens of thousands of people, but did not achieve good results.
It can be seen that the equipment of the 74th Division is strong, but Nakano knows how to advance and retreat, did not choose to die in Fuyang, and finally was able to preserve its strength, in the later stages of the Liberation War, the People's Liberation Army once again fought against the reorganized 74th Division, and finally repelled the 74th Division, won the battle victory, and thus won the victory.