In September 1948, the Liaoshen Campaign began, and the Northeast Field Army targeted Jinzhou, the gateway to the northeast. Jinzhou's geographical location was very important, especially at that time, Jinzhou was
The northeast region and north China are the only passageway, and the personnel and materials inside the guan can only enter the outside of the guanxi through this passage. If Jinzhou is conquered, hundreds of thousands of Kuomintang troops outside Guanwai will lose contact with Guannei and be annihilated by the People's Liberation Army one by one.
For the importance of Jinzhou, both sides of the campaign were well aware. Unwilling to accept defeat, Chiang Kai-shek urgently transferred troops from North China and Shandong to Huludao, formed an eastward marching corps of 11 divisions with the Jinxi defenders, and went north to reinforce; on the other hand, he ordered the defender Liao Yaoxiang to lead an attack group of 12 divisions to the west to aid Jin, and to attack the People's Liberation Army in Jinzhou from east to west with the eastern advance group.
At that time, among the two reinforcements, the Shenyang reinforcements did not dare to abandon Changchun to reinforce Jinzhou, so the action would not be too fast. However, Huludao is less than 100 miles away from Jinzhou, and if the Nationalist Army's eastward march north, it will be able to reach Jinzhou in two hours, posing a great threat to the PLA's campaign against Jinzhou. Between Huludao and Jinzhou, there is a necessary road for the Kuomintang army, and this is Tashan.
Tit-for-tat
Although Tashan is small, its geographical location is very important, it is only 15 kilometers away from Jinzhou and only 5 kilometers away from Huludao, which is the only way for the Kuomintang Army to go north. Whether Jinzhou can be conquered, and even whether the Liaoshen Campaign can be successful, mainly depends on whether Tashan can be defended.
According to the orders of the Northeast Field Army, the strength of the 4th Column, the 11th Column and the Independent 4th Division, the Independent 6th Division and the Artillery Brigade of The Eastern Field, a total of eight divisions, under the unified command of Cheng Zihua, commander of the 2nd Corps of Dongye, quickly assembled in the Tashan area to prepare to block the attack of the Kuomintang army.
After Cheng Zihua led the corps headquarters personnel to survey the terrain,
It was soon determined that the defensive front of the Fourth Column was the first line from the east to the foot of Baitai Mountain, and the 11th Column was located on the west side of the Fourth Column, serving as the defense of Xinlitun, Weijialing, and Laobian, and the independent 4th Division, and the independent 6th Division in the south of Dongyao Station, Shuangshupu, and Dizang Temple.
Chiang Kai-shek ordered Hou Jingru to serve as the commander of the East Advance Corps, which had the 21st Division of the 92nd Army, the 62nd Army, the 39th Army, the 54th Army and the Provisional 62nd Division, the Independent 95th Division, a total of 11 divisions, naval guns at sea, and aircraft support. However, the identity of Hou Jingru, the commander of the East Advance Corps, is very special, he is a veteran party member in 1925, he participated in the Nanchang Uprising, and he only joined the Kuomintang after losing contact with his superiors in 1931.
On October 6, 1948, Chiang Kai-shek personally arrived at Huludao to instruct the officers who participated in the war, when Hou Jingru was still transferring troops in Tangshan, and only Que Hanqian's 54th Army arrived at Huludao
Que Hanqian graduated from the Huangpu IV period, was a fierce general, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he performed well in the Battle of Songhu, the Great Victory of Kunlun Pass, and the Battle of Tengchong, and the 54th Army led by him was an elite unit of the Nationalist Army, and even the Japanese army was afraid of the War of Resistance.
Chiang Kai-shek was very anxious, and before Hou Jingru, the commander of the follow-up troops and corps, had arrived, he ordered Que Hanqian to take command of the EastWard Advance Corps and launch an attack on Tashan. In the early morning of the 10th, Que Hanqian commanded the strength of three divisions and launched an attack on Tashan under the cover of infantry artillery, air force cover, and naval guns at sea.
On the first day, the defensive battle entered a white-hot situation, and the firepower of the Kuomintang army was very strong, and Hu Qicai, the deputy commander of the fourth column, personally went to the front line to command and recaptured the position of Yushan occupied by the Kuomintang army. In order to defend Tashan, the Dongye blocking troops, especially the four columns, paid a lot of casualties, and the local people, in order to support the troops in battle, even the door panels and coffin boards were contributed to help the officers and men of the troops build fortifications.
On the 11th, Que Hanqian commanded four divisions to continue to attack Tashan, but after more than 1,300 casualties, he still could not take the PLA position. On the afternoon of the 11th, after Hou Jingru led the 21st Division of the Kuomintang Army to Huludao, he demanded a one-day truce on the 12th, waiting for the arrival of the 95th Division and other support units before continuing to attack. This day's armistice left an opportunity for the Higashino blocking forces to rest, and the troops desperately built fortifications and prepared to continue to block the attack of the Kuomintang army.
Zhao Zilong Division
The independent 95th Division of the Kuomintang Army, also known as the Zhao Zilong Division, was formerly a strong brigade in the hands of Ma Hongkui in Ningxia, and the soldiers were mainly northwestern athletes, all of whom were physically strong, brave and good at fighting, and skilled in sword skills. In 1930, during the Central Plains War, Ma Hongkui betrayed Feng Yuxiang and defected to Chiang Kai-shek, and his troops were reorganized into the 35th Division of the Army, with three brigades and nine corps under its jurisdiction, with a total strength of 20,000 troops.
In 1933, in order to divide Ma Hongkui's strength, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Ma Hongkui to return to Ningxia with five regiments, and the remaining four regiments were reorganized into the 95th Army Division by Chiang Kai-shek's close associate Liu Zhi.
In order to tighten control over this unit, Chiang Kai-shek also continuously sent political work cadres and graduates of the Central Military Academy. After the Xi'an Incident, Roach served as commander of the independent 95th Division.
Roach, a graduate of the Whampoa Phase I, was a general whom Chiang Kai-shek trusted, and after serving as commander of the 95th Division, he treated the division as if it were his own life, personally formulated a training plan, and selected and appointed officers at all levels. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance, Luo
Qi drew more than 1,000 officers and men from three battalions from the 95th Division to participate in the Battle of Songhu to test the combat effectiveness of this unit, and as a result, all the more than 1,000 officers and men of the 95th Division died on the Songhu battlefield and performed very heroically.
In 1943, Roach was promoted to commander of the Army's 37th Army, however
After years of fighting and replenishment, all officers at all levels were replaced by Whampoa Sheng, and the 95th Division had been completely transformed into Chiang Kai-shek's concubine unit
However, the style of the independent 95th Division of fighting hard has not been abandoned, and the officers and men of the unit are very good at white-knife warfare.
During the Liberation War, this unit caused a headache for the People's Liberation Army in North China, claiming that it had never lost a single machine gun, so it was called zhao zilong division. On the afternoon of October 12, 1948, after arriving at the Tashan front, Roach immediately summoned all the middle and lower-ranking officers of the Independent 95th Division as the head of the teacher, and took out a large number of gold coupons to form a death squad. On October 13, at the pre-war mobilization meeting of all the officers and men of the 95th Division on the Tashan front, the whole division shouted: "There is no position that the 95th Division cannot capture." ”
White-hot battles
On 13 October, with the arrival of the independent 95th Division and other units, the battle at Tashan entered a white-hot phase. Due to the heavy casualties of the previous two days, the fourth column transferred the 28th Regiment of the 10th Division of the main regiment to the position east of Tashan, and the fourth column was equipped with 16 heavy machine guns, 49 light machine guns, 9 60 guns and regimental mortars on the front of the Tashan fort position about 1000 meters wide.
On this day, the Nationalist army invested four divisions to launch an attack, of which the independent 95th Division was particularly fierce. The 95th Division, under the cover of light and heavy firepower, used the wave impact method, took the battalion as the unit, and constantly launched an attack on Tashan, and used a regiment to carry out a flank attack; the combat effectiveness of this unit was indeed very fierce, and it was also very good at white-knife warfare, but under the heroic blows of our People's Liberation Army, it was still unable to break through our army's defense line.
On the afternoon of the 13th, the Kuomintang troops stepped up their bombing efforts, and Chiang Kai-shek mobilized all the aircraft and ships that could be mobilized to carry out carpet bombing of the Tashan defense line. The Kuomintang army also began to form a supervision team, a death squad, forcing the soldiers to charge at the machine guns of the People's Liberation Army. By the afternoon of the 14th, both sides suffered heavy casualties, and the independent 95th Division was half of its strength left.
In the early morning of October 15, the Kuomintang Army's EastWard Advance Corps organized five divisions of troops to launch a full-scale sneak attack, but it was detected by our army, and the sneak attack turned into a strong attack. At this time, the 11th Column of Dongye took the initiative to attack, covering the fourth column of Dongye, which was responsible for frontal defense, and defeated the entire line of the Nationalist Army's EastWard Advance Corps. At six o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th, Jinzhou was liberated.
In the Battle of Tashan Blockade, many units of the four columns of Dongye were awarded honorary titles due to their stubborn resistance. The independent 95th Division of the Nationalist Army, known as Zhao Zilong's Division, was reduced to three battalions after the war due to excessive attrition in this battle. Wu Kehua, Mo Wenhua, Hu Qicai, Ouyang Wen, Li Fuze, Jiang Xieyuan, Jiao Yushan, Jiang Minfeng, and 8 other founding generals who participated in the Tashan Blockade War made a will before their deaths: After death, they buried Tashan and rested with the martyrs who died there.