In May 1947, the Kuomintang army concentrated 450,000 troops to launch a key attack on the Shandong base area where Hua Ye was located, and Su Yu finally made up his mind to concentrate his superior forces under the heavy encirclement of the Nationalist army, and completely annihilated the reorganized 74th Division, which claimed to be the head of the five main forces of the Kuomintang army, and killed the division commander Zhang Lingfu.
The predecessor of the reorganized 74th Division was the 74th Army of the National Revolutionary Army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which was formed during the Battle of Songhu, and although it was not formed for a long time, it repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on the Japanese army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and made great achievements in battle. After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, this unit acted as a thug for the Chiang family dynasty and became the vanguard of the civil war, causing great casualties to Huaye and the people in the base areas. After the complete annihilation of the integrated 74th Division, it caused a great shock within the Kuomintang army.
However, Chiang Kai-shek was not willing to accept defeat, and he asked Wang Yaowu, the second commander of this unit, to rebuild and reorganize the 74th Division. At that time, the reorganized 74th Division had three new regiments left in the rear and did not participate in the battle, and Wang Yaowu formed the 51st Brigade on the basis of these three new regiments and a howitzer battalion, the 2nd Shandong Garrison Brigade was reorganized into the 57th Brigade, and the Guangdong Aviation Garrison Brigade was reorganized into the 58th Brigade. The newly appointed commander of the reorganized 74th Division was Qiu Weida, who graduated from the Huangpu Ivy Stage, and he was also An old subordinate of Wang Yaowu.
In January 1948, the integrated 74th Division was rebuilt and included in the operational sequence of the Ministry of National Defense. In the spring of 1948, Liu Deng's army advanced into Dabie Mountain for thousands of miles, and after inflicting heavy damage on the Kuomintang army, he waved his division out of the mountain and sought an opportunity to annihilate the enemy. Nakano suffered heavy losses when advancing on the Dabie Mountains, reducing his personnel by more than half and losing all his heavy weapons, so he decided to attack Fuyang and restore morale.
At that time, the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division was stationed in Fuyang, with the brigade commander Luo Xingli, the 74th Division commander Qiu Weida leading the 51st Brigade, and the 57th Brigade and the division headquarters stationed in Mengcheng, Anhui, more than 200 miles apart. At this time, the 58th Brigade had more than 9,000 soldiers, and it was fully equipped with American weapons and equipment, and its morale was also very high, and it also played the banner of avenging Zhang Lingfu. At that time, the headquarters of the Fourteenth Appeasement District of the Kuomintang was also in Fuyang, and the Appeasement District was a local organizational structure established by the Kuomintang during the Liberation War to deal with the Communist Party and the revolutionary armed forces, and the party, government, and army were in charge, and the commander of the Fourteenth Appeasement District was Lieutenant General Li Jue, who had jurisdiction over eight counties, including Fuyang, Linquan, Taihe, and Mengcheng.
At that time, Liu Bocheng only had one column of Yang Yong and two columns of Zhang Guohua's independent brigade. Yang Yongyi lost more than 10,000 people during the Dabie Mountains, and now only more than 10,000 people are left, and the ammunition is seriously insufficient. Although Zhang Guohua had 25,000 people in nine regiments, the composition was very complicated, most of them were newly absorbed Kuomintang remnants, bandits, traitors, and lacked experience in large-scale operations.
In order to restore Nakano's vitality, the Central Military Commission instructed Nie Rongzhen to transfer 30,000 people from the North China Military Region to the south to replenish Nakano's soldiers. By March 1948, the second column, the third column, and the sixth column of Nakano rushed to Huaixi one after another, and after crossing the Yellow River in the south, Wang Bingzhang's eleventh column under the command of Su Yu was also returned. In addition, in order to win the Battle of Fuyang, the 10th Column of Huaye led by Song Shilun was also assigned to the command of Nakano, and at this time Nakano's strength in attacking Fuyang reached 150,000 people in six columns.
At that time, Liu Bocheng's purpose was to completely annihilate the 74th Division, and the order of battle was to first annihilate the 58th Brigade of the 74th Division in Fuyang, and then march to Mengcheng to annihilate the 51st Brigade and 57th Brigade of the 74th Division led by Qiu Weida. The main offensive tasks were Nakano Ichi column, Nakano eleven column, and three main regiments with strong combat effectiveness drawn from Zhang Guohua, which were commanded by Jin Shaoshan; Nakano commander Yang Yong served as the commander-in-chief of the siege.
On March 28, our army began to assemble secretly in the Fuyang area, but was detected by the Nationalist army in Fuyang. From March 29, Yang Yong's 1st Column and 3 Brigades were responsible for attacking Fuyang Dongguan and Nanguan, while Wang Bingzhang's 11th Column 3 Brigades and Commanding Jin Shaoshan Independent Brigade were responsible for attacking Xiguan and Beiguan. The three siege forces totaled more than 50,000 people.
On the night of March 29, the 59th Regiment of the 20th Brigade of the 1st Column annihilated 1 company of the defenders in Dongsanli Bay on the outskirts of Fuyang, and the whole regiment rested and prepared for battle in Dongsanli Bay. However, the next day, a battalion of the Kuomintang army launched a counterattack, and the 59th Regiment of the 1st Column was forced to withdraw from the position that had been beaten down, and the commander of the 59th Regiment's Democratic Movement Unit was also captured. Later, Nakano's 11th Column came to help in the battle, and only then did he take back the head of the 59th Regiment's Democracy Movement Unit.
Cai Yiya, commander of the 173rd Regiment of the enemy's 58th Brigade stationed on the yingshang, unexpectedly led the first battalion of his unit to attack and charge all the way, breaking through the multiple blocking lines in Nakano and hitting the city to support the nationalist forces in Fuyang City. At that time, there were two commanding heights in Fuyang Chengguan that were very important, that is, Wenfeng Pagoda and Kuixing Tower. Nakano took wenfeng Pagoda after two days of bloody fighting, and the attack on Kuixing Tower was unsuccessful until the final defeat and retreat.
On the night of March 31, the 20th Brigade of the 1st Column led by Wu Zhong once broke through the Dongguan and broke into the city, but luo Xingli, the commander of the 58th Brigade, personally led the division to launch a counter-charge, and the 16 flamethrowers of the 58th Brigade played a miraculous effect, and the 58th Regiment of the 20th Brigade in front of the assault was burned to death on the charging road one by one, and the casualties were very heavy. Liu Bingjun, commander of the 172nd Regiment of the enemy's 58th Brigade, led a battalion of the 172nd Regiment to block the retreat of the 20th Brigade and attacked fiercely from behind, and Wu Zhong had to lead the remnants to withdraw from Chengguan in order to prevent the total annihilation of the army.
Just when Wu Zhong broke through the Eastern Pass, Wang Bingzhang led the Nakano Eleventh Column to attack the North Pass and the West Pass, but Jiang Lixian, the commander of the 174th Regiment of the enemy's 58th Brigade, suddenly organized a death squad to launch a counterattack on Wang Bingzhang's eleventh column, Wang Bingzhang was caught off guard, and many people drowned and trampled to death in the moat. The 11th Column had to reorganize its troops to attack, and yang Yong, the commander of the 1st Column, had to withdraw the 20th Brigade, which had been crippled, and the 1st Brigade of the 1st Column continued to attack.
On April 3, Qiu Weida led the main force of the reorganized 74th Division to reinforcements, and Zhang Yi's corps and Hu Lian's 18th Army also reached the border of Yuwan and Anhui. Nakano was unable to attack for a long time, and after paying a terrible price of tens of thousands of casualties, he had to break through by separate routes. Zhang Guohua and Jin Shaoshan continued to fight guerrillas in Huaixi, while Wang Bingzhang returned to southwest lu. When Liu Bocheng led four columns of Nakano out of Huaixi and reached western Henan, there were only 70,000 people left in his unit, and Chen Geng's troops who welcomed him to the base area of western Henan were also 70,000 horses.