In early August 1949, the Fourth Field Army, under the leadership of Lin and Luo, the founding marshals, launched the Battle of Hengbao, and the troops pursued the main force of Bai Chongxi, the leader of the Gui warlords, "Little Zhuge Ge", in three ways.
The Siye army advanced all the way, and the Forty-fifth Army of the Middle Road Group fought the enemy in Yongfeng, Hunan province on September 30, desperately fleeing, and the divisions took advantage of the victory to pursue, gradually clearing the outlying strongholds of the Gui army.
In a panic, "Little Zhuge Ge" immediately dispatched his troops, concentrated all his troops, and posed as if he wanted to fight a frontal decisive battle with the Four Wilds Army.
In order to fight this battle well, Lin Shuai, commander-in-chief of The Four Fields, decided to proceed cautiously, first ascertaining the situation and then adjusting the deployment. After receiving this instruction, the four fields and three roads of the army all suspended the offensive, and the troops rested and stood by.
However, at this moment, an unexpected situation occurred, and the 135th Division, which was the vanguard division of the Forty-fifth Army, did not stop attacking, but continued to advance in a lonely and deep posture.
Of course, there were objective reasons for this: in the Battle of Yongfeng, the 135th Division led by division commander Ding Sheng fought extremely smoothly, the speed of the troops' advance was too fast, and the radio failed, so that they lost contact with the Forty-fifth Army on the way, and there was no way to know Lin Shuai's order to suspend the attack on all fronts.
The 135th Division, in this way, unconsciously slammed and charged, and they rushed all the way across the Hengbao Highway, and the lone army penetrated into the depth of the Gui Army. It can be said that at this time, the 135th Division was just like a small fish, and it ventured into the sea of "Little Zhuge Ge"'s 300,000-strong army.
Whether it was Ding Sheng himself, the commanders of the Forty-fifth Army and the Four Fields, or "Little Zhuge Ge", no one at first thought that this hasty attack of the 135th Division would disrupt the entire deployment of the Gui Army. Because the division's advance was like a sharp dagger, slammed into the nerves of the center of the "Little Zhuge Ge" campaign.
In desperation, "Little Zhuge Ge" had no choice but to adjust his countermeasures and ordered his 176th Division to block the attack from the rear tail, while the 171st Division, the 172nd Division, and the 172nd Division of the Forty-eighth Army, which he called the ace "Steel Seventh Army," were copying Ding Sheng's 135th Division.
Xiao Zhuge used five ace divisions against one of the PLA divisions, no doubt to regain the decisive battle position after swallowing this small fish that had taken the liberty of "throwing himself into the net" in one gulp.
The 135th Division led by Ding Sheng was immediately surrounded by the enemy, which was the most tragic battle in the history of the division.
When Ding Sheng realized that the 135th Division had fallen under siege by the enemy, the measures he took were once again unexpected by "Little Zhuge Ge".
At that time, the 135th Division had three choices: withdrawal, defense, and battle. If he retreated, Ding Sheng concluded that he would be ambushed by heavy troops; if he insisted, the terrain would be unfavorable and he would not be able to hold it at all. Therefore, Ding Sheng, the tiger general, resolutely chose to confront the enemy army head-on and hard!
At Ding Sheng's order, the soldiers of the 135th Division did not hesitate to rush to the enemy position and ran rampant in the depths of the enemy.
The enemy troops, who had long been fortified and waiting in strict formation, did not expect that the 135th Division would come from behind, and for a time the enemy and our fronts were in chaos, and the dense gunfire could not distinguish between the enemy and us, and the enemy's preset heavy artillery positions could not provide artillery support.
At this time, the 135th Division was like Sun Wukong who had burrowed into the belly of the Iron Fan Princess, and after some rushing east and west killing, the "pocket array" carefully set up by "Little Zhuge Ge" rushed into a thin mile!
Of course, the 135th Division, while disrupting the enemy's deployment, also paid a heavy price. Each regiment was divided and surrounded by the Gui army, and almost all units at all levels lost contact with each other and could only fight for themselves. From October 1 to 5, the 135th Division fought a chaotic battle and scuffle with the Gui army for five days and five nights.
Among them, the guard platoon of the 403rd Regiment lost contact with the main force in the melee, and encountered several times the enemy in the valley.
The platoon leader immediately led the fighters to occupy a small high ground, counterattacked on the spot, and sought an opportunity to break through.
The enemy could not have imagined in any way that they had a huge superiority in troop strength, but they could not bite a small platoon of the People's Liberation Army.
When they took a swarm charge and captured the small heights with a very crazy offensive, they found that more than a dozen PLA troops had successfully broken through. What the enemy could not accept was that they themselves paid the price of more than 280 casualties and spent a day and a night.
Lin Shuai noticed in time that there was chaos in the deployment of the Gui Army, and coupled with the fact that the originally malfunctioning radio station of the 135th Division was suddenly connected again, it was easy to deal with.
The fighter plane was fleeting, and Lin Shuai categorically issued a military order: three ways to advance at the same time, attacking in all directions! Because they expected that launching a general offensive at this time would not only liberate the 135th Division, but also take advantage of the situation to destroy the gui army's defense line.
What is amazing is that the 135th Division, which is alone and deep, has become a blocking force that cuts off the enemy's escape route. The enemy and we attacked and defended easily, and the 135th Division was desperately killed, and became a fresh force to defeat the Gui army.
On October 10, the 405th Regiment fought against the Gui Army's "Steel Army", that is, the Seventh Army, repelled 18 enemy charges, and took 10 hours to completely eliminate the "Steel Army" army headquarters and three special battalions, completely disrupting its structure, and turning a trump card in the hands of "Xiao Zhuge Ge" into a piece of rotten paper.
At the end of the Battle of Hengbao on October 11, The Four Wild Generals captured more than 30,000 enemy soldiers, and "Little Zhuge Ge" not only lost 14 ai generals, but also lost all the aces of the Seventh Army, the 1000 Army, the 122nd Army, and so on.
The lone army of the 135th Division went deep, originally a mistake caused by the loss of contact, but it was unexpectedly hit by mistake and beaten by them, like a tiger entering the flock and becoming a strange soldier that disrupted the entire war situation, which can be called an amazing miracle in military history.
It is said that when Marshal Liu (Bo Cheng) heard this battle report, he excitedly said that the move of the 135th Division was to "cut off the Seventh Army from the waist."
Commander Ding Sheng, who commanded the 135th Division to create this miracle, won a prestige with this battle, and the nickname of "Ding Bold" is well known. A year later, the famous general was promoted to acting commander of the Forty-fifth Army, and then formally took over as the commander, and became the first commander of the Fifty-fourth Army after the merger of the Forty-fourth Army and the Forty-fifth Army. In 1955, he became the founding major general of New China.