What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In May 1947, the East China Field Army took the rank of general from the million army and completely annihilated the 74th Division, the head of the five main forces of Zhang Lingfu and Chiang Kai-shek. On May 22, Xinhua News Agency commented that the Battle of Menglianggu was "the most powerful and almost the only direction of attack to defeat Chiang Kai-shek today" and that "this is the most elite unit against Chiang Kai-shek." Chiang Kai-shek said with great sorrow:
"Meng Lianggu's defeat is the most painful and regrettable thing since our army 'suppressed the bandits.'"
Chiang Kai-shek was heartbroken, but he was very unwilling and determined to make "some changes from the dead" and "make further plans."
How to "change", how to make "further plans"?
No one expected that Chiang Kai-shek, who had lost the red eye, like a crazy gambler, would take an action that almost all the Chinese people despised.
He went so far as to brave the world's great disobedience to appoint the notorious Japanese war criminal Okamura Ningji as an adviser to the Nationalist army, and then held military conferences in Nanjing, Xuzhou, and Linyi to put forward a operational policy of "advancing side by side rather than overlapping, advancing separately rather than advancing together, and advancing with three or four divisions overlapping and interacting."
In addition, chiang kai-shek also, in accordance with Okamura's suggestion, replaced the commander of the front line, reorganized 9 integrated divisions and 25 integrated brigades, and formed an offensive corps, and then launched a new attack on the main force of Huaye between Laiwu and Mengyin in Luzhong with Fan Hanjie, deputy commander-in-chief of the army, as commander-in-chief, in order to completely annihilate the Huaye army.
Faced with heavy military pressure, Huaye's main force immediately divided into three routes, avoided the enemy's front, attacked Lunan with one unit, and captured Fei County, Yi County, and Zaozhuang in a very short period of time, and the soldiers directly threatened Xuzhou.
Instead, Chiang Kai-shek was so overwhelmed by Huaye's attacks that he had to urgently dispatch the 3rd Division to defend Xuzhou.
Under the mobilization of Huaye Sanlu's soldiers and horses, Fan Hanjie was in vain everywhere, and Okamura Ningji's elaborate "encirclement and suppression" plan was completely frustrated not long after. Facts proved that his tactics against Huaye's army were completely ineffective. In this regard, Chiang Kai-shek's old rival Bai Chongxi said sarcastically:
"Okamura's tactics are nothing more than a copy of the 'iron sweep' of that year. This method of warfare, four or five years ago, had proved to be completely useless to the communist army. I wonder why Old Jiang should use this defeated general of Okamura Ninji? Aren't we eating enough of the Losses of the Japanese? ”
Chiang Kai-shek was ashamed and embarrassed, and in the War of Liberation, he no longer relied on Okamura Ningji, a veteran defeated general who Chinese the people.