During the Liberation War, the reorganized 74th Division was one of the five main forces of the Nationalist Army, and under the leadership of Zhang Lingfu, the division fought with our army many times in Jiangsu and Shandong, causing a lot of trouble for Huaye. In May 1947, Hua Ye found a fighter plane, surrounded the 74th Division at Meng Lianggu, and after three days and nights of fierce fighting, completely annihilated the enemy, and Zhang Lingfu was defeated and killed. The total annihilation of the 74th Division was a great blow to the morale of the Nationalist army.
In order to boost morale, Lao Jiang rebuilt the 74th Division shortly after the Battle of Menglianggu, with three integrated brigades of the 51st, 57th and 58th under its jurisdiction, with a total strength of more than 20,000 troops. Although it is still all-American armament, many people in the Nationalist Army are not optimistic about the rebuilt 74th Division, believing that the division has many new recruits and its combat effectiveness is certainly incomparable with that of the old 74th Division. However, no one expected that the rebuilt 74th Division would actually fight the hardest battle of the Nationalist army in the Liberation War in the Battle of Jinan, with two battalions of troops to resist Huaye and one division, and the commander of our army was still killed in the battle.
Before the outbreak of the Jinan Campaign, although Wang Yaowu still had nearly 110,000 troops in his hands, Jinan was too big, and this number of troops was simply not enough, and among these 110,000 people, many of them were security forces with low combat effectiveness. Wang Yaowu believed that he could not defend Jinan with this little force in his hands, and in order to seek reinforcements, on September 14, 1948, Wang Yaowu flew to Nanjing, told old Chiang in person about his difficulties, and pleaded with the rebuilt 74th Division to airlift Jinan to help him defend the city.
Considering Jinan's important strategic position, Old Jiang finally agreed to Wang Yaowu's request and said to him: "I immediately ordered the Qiu Weida Department of the 74th Division to airlift Jinan from Xuzhou. Jinan has both strong fortifications and reinforcements, which can be completely defended. After Wang Yaowu returned to Jinan, he immediately sent a telegram to Qiu Weida, so that he was ready to board the plane at any time. Qiu Weida was an old subordinate of Wang Yaowu, who had served as the deputy commander of the reorganized 74th Division, and when the Battle of Menglianggu broke out, he was in charge of the training of the new corps in Linyi, so he was lucky enough to escape the disaster.
After the reconstruction of the 74th Division, under the strong recommendation of Wang Yaowu, Qiu Weida became the commander of the division. At this time, when he learned that the old superior was in difficulty, Qiu Weida was impatient and eager to fly to Jinan immediately. At that time, the 74th Division was subordinate to Qiu Qingquan's Second Corps and was under the command of Liu Zhi, the "Commander of Xuzhou Suppression". In order to increase the strength of his own troops to secure Xuzhou, Liu Zhi held the 74th Division in place. Wang Yaowu urged many times, and Liu Zhi did not buy it. Wang Yaowu was angry and told Old Jiang about Liu Zhi's complaint.
Under the repeated strict orders of Lao Jiang, Liu Zhi had no choice but to "spit out" the 74th Division, but he "vomited" very slowly, and it was not until September 18 that two battalions were airlifted to Wang Yaowu, and they were all unarmed soldiers, not even light weapons. At this time, the Battle of Jinan had reached a white-hot stage, and Wang Yaowu did not have time to fight a lip service with Liu Zhi, so he hastily summoned Liu Bingkun, the commander of the 172nd Regiment who led the team, and asked him to lead more than a thousand free-handed soldiers to receive weapons first, and then go to the post and telecommunications building at the commanding heights of the Shangbu area.
The Post and Telecommunications Building, also known as the Second Appeasement District Headquarters Building, had three floors and had firing holes in the windows on each floor, forming a dense network of firepower. On the roof of the building is a light and heavy machine gun fire bunker made of reinforced concrete, equipped with three mountain guns. Responsible for attacking the post and telecommunications building was the 8th Division of the Third Column, one division against two battalions, and our army had an absolute superiority in strength. In order to reduce unnecessary casualties, Wang Jiwen, commander of the 8th Division, repeatedly asked political workers to shout to Liu Bingkun to surrender, but the enemy was very stubborn and refused to surrender.
Wang Jiwen saw the situation and immediately ordered the troops to launch a strong attack. Under the command of Liu Bingkun, the enemy army fired wildly from a commanding position, and the battle was very fierce. At noon, under the continuous explosion of our army, only reinforced concrete shelves were left in the western half of the post and telecommunications building, but the enemy still stubbornly resisted and did not retreat. In order to end the battle as soon as possible, he personally rushed to the front line to command nearby, unfortunately, he was hit by the enemy's bullets and died heroically, at the age of 32.
Wang Jiwen joined the Red Army at the age of 14, and after the arduous struggle of the Agrarian Revolutionary War, the Long March and the War of Resistance Against Japan, he grew from an ordinary soldier to a famous warrior in Huaye. On weekdays, he cared deeply for the soldiers, loved the soldiers like a son, and was deeply loved by the soldiers. Now that the division commander had unfortunately died, the soldiers were all red-eyed, screaming and rushing toward the enemy one by one. The soldiers who rushed into the building and the enemy fought layer by layer, and when the defeat was already decided, Liu Bingkun also organized the remnants to counterattack our army.
In the entire liberation war, it was rare for the Nationalist army to fight so hard. Although our army eventually captured the post and telecommunications building and completely annihilated the enemy forces in this battalion, it also paid a heavy casualty price. If it were not for Liu Zhi's obstruction, more than 20,000 people of the 74th Division could have been airlifted to Jinan, and the Battle of Jinan would have been much more difficult to fight. Years later, Sun Jixian, then commander of the Three Columns, recalled that during the battle at the Post and Telecommunications Building, he still lamented the sacrifice of Commander Wang Jiwen.