In 1946, the National Military Commission reorganized the Kuomintang army throughout the country, and at the same time, according to the performance of each unit during the War of Resistance, selected five units with strong combat effectiveness, namely the 74th Army, the 18th Army, the Fifth Army, the New First Army, and the New Sixth Army. The 74th Army was the best of the units at that time, and was known as the head of the five main forces, Chiang Kai-shek's Royal Forest Army.
During the Liberation War, the reorganized 74th Division of the 74th Army attacked and uprooted the village all the way, causing great casualties to Huaye, and the areas of Lianghuai, Central Jiangsu, and Northern Jiangsu were successively occupied by the Kuomintang army. In May 1947, the Kuomintang army concentrated 450,000 troops to launch a key attack on our Shandong battlefield, and the reorganized 74th Division was charging ahead, as if entering no man's land, many generals in Huaye had suffered the losses of this unit, and they all wanted to annihilate this unit. In the end, Su Yu finally made up his mind to annihilate this unit, and Zhang Lingfu not only did not hurry to retreat, but instead threw his heavy weapons at Duozhuang, took the troops to Meng Lianggu, wanted to come to a center to blossom, and used the reorganized 74th Division as bait to attract huaye's main force to attack.
In the Battle of Menglianggu, Hua Ye can be said to have used all his troops, and nine infantry columns and a special forces column totaling 270,000 troops all participated in the battle. There were five columns used to attack the reorganized 74th Division, namely Ye Fei's first column, Tao Yong's fourth column, Wang Bicheng's sixth column, Xu Shiyou's ninth column, and Wang Jian'an's eighth column, of which the first, fourth, sixth, and ninth columns were the four columns with the strongest offensive ability in Huaye, and the second column, the third column, the seventh column, and the tenth column served as the blocking task, and the special forces column cooperated with the main attack unit to shell the reorganized 74th division and provide artillery support.
This battle seems to be the superiority of our army, five columns to fight Zhang Lingfu an integrated division (the strength of the troops is equivalent to a column in Huaye), but in the overall situation on the battlefield, Huaye does not have the advantage. At that time, the 450,000 troops of the Kuomintang army were less than 10 kilometers away from Meng Lianggu, and the distance was only a day or two, and if the reorganization of the 74th Division could not be solved quickly, Zhang Lingfu's central flowering plan might not be really realized. Fortunately, the factional struggle within the Kuomintang army was fierce, and Zhang Lingfu was rather rampant in his usual life, so except for a few generals, not many people were willing to save him, let alone want to see him make such a great contribution.
In the Battle of Menglianggu, Huaye's various units performed very well, but the most difficult to fight was Huaye Yizhong. Although the column led by Ye Fei did not annihilate the enemy the most, it made the greatest contribution. When cutting off the rear road of the reorganized 74th Division, the first column sent troops to support the sixth column, annihilating a regiment of the reorganized 74th Division at Duozhuang.
After the battle began, the first column sent the Third Division out to capture Caozhuang and the northern highlands, approaching Mengyin, forming a posture of blocking the reorganized 65th Division from the outside front, and the reorganized 65th Division was also the main force of the Nationalist army. In addition, the First Column also had to send a division to capture strategic points such as Huangdouding Mountain, Yao Mountain, Tianma Mountain, and Jiepai, cut off the contact between the reorganized 74th Division and the reorganized 25th Division, and block the reinforcements of the reorganized 25th Division. In addition, Yizhong also allocated a part of its troops to attack Zhang Lingfu's integrated 74th Division.
After the battle began, the troops of the first column fought with great difficulty, especially the troops of the integrated 25th Division, and suffered heavy casualties. Huang Baitao's reorganized 25th Division was a miscellaneous unit, and it was an all-Japanese ordnance unit, but this unit was very strong in combat effectiveness, and the division commander Huang Baitao was a general who was loyal to Chiang Kai-shek, and this person was one of the few generals in the nationalist army who did not corrupt, did not take concubines, and did not deduct military salaries, so the officers and men of the unit trusted him very much. Due to the problem of troop strength, the first column only sent four regiments to block the integrated 25th Division, two of which were still new regiments, and these four regiments were almost destroyed later, Huang Baitao once attacked the halfway point of Tianma Mountain, if it were not for the fact that a unit of the fourth column happened to pass behind the mountain to prepare to attack Meng Lianggu, Huang Baitao would probably have rescued Zhang Lingfu.
In such a difficult situation, he completed both the task of blocking and attacking the stronghold, and made a major contribution to the victory of this campaign. In fact, Yizhong not only made great contributions to the neutrality of this battle, but also made great contributions in the Battles of Subei, the Battle of Lunan, the Battle of Laiwu and other battles. At the beginning of the Battle of Huaihai, when the commander of the column, Ye Fei, fell ill and was hospitalized, Zhang Yixiang, deputy commander and chief of staff, led a column to annihilate the Kuomintang 63rd Army one-on-one in three days, and showed extremely strong combat effectiveness.