In the Battle of Menglianggu, the reorganized 74th Division of the National Revolutionary Army, which claimed to be the number one main force of the Nationalist Army, was completely annihilated by the East China Field Army, which caused a great shock to the Kuomintang army at that time. Although many generals within the Kuomintang at that time did not obey Zhang Lingfu, but did not dare to underestimate this unit, this unit was very afraid of the Japanese army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, after the victory of the War of Resistance, in order to deter the Japanese army, Chiang Kai-shek used AMERICAN aircraft to transport the 74th Army to Nanjing, so this unit was also called Chiang Kai-shek's Royal Forest Army.
The collapse of the reorganized 74th Division and the death of Zhang Lingfu were a great blow to Chiang Kai-shek, who at first thought that he could eliminate the People's Liberation Army in a few months, but instead of eliminating them, he buried his number one general and the most elite troops, which made him very unhappy. Therefore, after the collapse of the reorganized 74th Division, Chiang Kai-shek immediately ordered Wang Yaowu, the second commander of the 74th Army and the one who really led the 74th Army into the first main force of the Nationalist Army, to reorganize the reorganized 74th Division, and it was necessary to make this unit the main force of the Nationalist Army again, so as to arouse the morale of the Nationalist army at that time.
In fact, in the Battle of Menglianggu, when the reorganized 74th Division and three new corps were trained in the rear and did not participate in the battle, Wang Yaowu established the 51st Brigade on the basis of these three recruit teaching regiments and a howitzer battalion, the Second Shandong Garrison Brigade was reorganized into the 57th Brigade, and the Guangdong Aviation Garrison Brigade was reorganized into the 58th Brigade. In order to improve the morale of this unit, the wounded soldiers of the Kuomintang army who fled back during the Battle of MengLianggu were also included.
The commander of the newly formed reorganized 74th Division was Lieutenant General Qiu Weida, who was both an old subordinate of Wang Yaowu, and both of them were regimental commanders under Wang Yaowu during the Battle of Songhu. Zhang Lingfu and Qiu Weida both had the Huangpu IV Phase, and both of them were familiar with each other, so it was appropriate to appoint Qiu Weida as the commander of the reconstructed reorganized 74th Division. In January 1948, the rebuilt and integrated 74th Division was officially incorporated into the combat sequence of the Ministry of National Defense, forming a combat effectiveness. The 58th Brigade was stationed in Fuyang, Anhui, while the rest of the troops were stationed in Mengcheng, Anhui.
In March 1948, when the Central Plains Field Army had just emerged from Dabie Mountain, all heavy weapons were lost, and the columns were short of soldiers, and morale was very low. In order to boost morale, they decided to fight a big victory, so they targeted the 58th Brigade of the reorganized 74th Division stationed in Fuyang, Anhui. The 58th Brigade has more than 9,000 people, fully equipped with American equipment, and the brigade commander is Major General Wang Menggeng, who graduated from the sixth term of Huangpu. The 58th Brigade was still excited when it learned that Nakano was coming to besiege, and it also played the slogan of shame before the snow.
In order to win this battle, Nakano sent out all the first column, two columns, three columns, six columns, and eleven columns, and also sent the ten columns of Huaye of the Song Dynasty wheel to come to reinforcements. The battle was fought with Yang Yong's first column and Wang Bingzhang's eleventh column, and three regiments with strong combat effectiveness drawn from Zhang Guohua's brigade, commanded by Jin Shaoshan; more than 50,000 officers and men from the above three departments were responsible for the main attack on Fuyang, with Yang Yong as the commander-in-chief of the siege.
Yang Yong's attack on Fuyang was not very smooth at the beginning, and the biggest problem encountered in the first column siege was the competition between Wenfeng Pagoda and Kuixing Tower, the two commanding heights of Chengguan. After two days and two nights of bloody battles on the 30th and 31st, the 2nd Brigade of dai runsheng finally occupied Wenfeng Pagoda in the early morning of April 1, and the attack on Kuixinglou was unsuccessful until the final defeat and retreat. Although the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division had just been formed, it had the combat effectiveness of the old 74th Division, and the regimental commanders even formed death squads to attack Nakano's units, causing great casualties to Nakano by virtue of its terrain advantages and firearms advantages.
Due to the lack of heavy weapons support, Nakano's various units suffered heavy casualties, and Cai Yiya, the 222nd Regiment of the 58th Brigade, even led a battalion to attack the combined headquarters of the 2nd Brigade and the 20th Brigade of the Nakano First Column, resulting in heavy losses for these two brigades, and Yang Yong had to transfer the First Brigade to continue the attack, but there was still no substantial progress. The attack of the 11th column was also difficult, and one of the main attack regiments did not hit all the shots.
After six days of fierce fighting between the two sides, Qiu Weida led the main force of the reorganized 74th Division to reinforce, and the rest of the Nationalist troops also came to form a siege of Nakano. In desperation, Nakano could only break through with his troops, Zhang Guohua and Jin Shaoshan continued to fight guerrillas in Huaixi, Wang Bingzhang's eleventh column returned to southwest Lu, and Nakano's remaining four columns of more than 80,000 people joined Chen Geng's forces in western Henan. When the two armies met, there were only 70,000 people left in the four columns of Nakano, and Chen Geng's troops were also 70,000 people.