In early May 1947, after the failure of the all-out offensive against the Liberated Areas, the Nationalist army was forced to change its strategy and reduce its strength to carry out a key offensive. In the same year, Gu Zhutong, commander-in-chief of the army, succeeded Xue Yue and stationed in Xuzhou to command the key offensive matters, with Tang Enbo as the commander of the first corps, and gathered heavy troops in Shandong to carry out a key attack on the East China Field Army in an attempt to annihilate the main force of Huaye.
According to the deployment, the Nationalist army, with the ace reorganized 74th Division as the main force, advanced towards the Shandong Liberated Area. The Ace 74th Division was established during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and was an army that had fought almost all over the battlefield since the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the army had participated in the Battle of Changsha, the Battle of Shanggao, the Battle of Wuhan and other battles, and twice won the Flying Tiger Banner, the highest honor of the Nationalist Army. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the 74th Army was reorganized into the 74th Division, and the division commander was Zhang Lingfu. The reorganized 74th Division is fully equipped with american weapons and equipment, and there are many intellectuals among the officers and men, and it is known as one of the five aces of the Nationalist army.
Throughout the Shandong battlefield, hundreds of thousands of troops were deployed around the entire 74th Division. These units were: the reorganized 83rd Division, the 28th Division, the 57th Division, the 7th Army, the 48th Division, the Reorganized 25th Division, the 65th Division, as well as the Wang Jingjiu Department of the Second Corps, the Ou Zhen Department of the Third Corps, and the Wang Yaowu Department of the Second Appeasement District, with a total strength of more than 200,000 troops.
Tang Enbo, commander of the First Corps, initially placed the 74th Division under the command of Li Tianxia of the First Column. Zhang Lingfu and Li Tianxia are Huangpu classmates, but their relationship has not been good. In particular, Zhang Lingfu's rapid promotion after the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and Zhang Lingfu's arrogance led to some old chiefs being quite dissatisfied with him. Zhang Lingfu knew that too many people who had offended were afraid of eating Li's secret losses at the juncture of the war, so he insisted that the 74th Division be placed under the command of Huang Baitao.
Zhang Lingfu held that Huang Baitao was Gu Zhutong's basic unit, and the reorganized 25th Division was relatively strong in combat effectiveness, and once it encountered a critical situation, it could also take care of each other. Tang Enbo agreed to Zhang Lingfu's request, and Li Tianxia was very unhappy when she heard that Zhang Lingfu had forcibly separated the reorganized 74th Division.
On 12 May, Tombaugh ordered a full-scale attack. Zhang Lingfu ordered the brigades of the reorganized 74th Division to march in tanbu in tanbu and launch a powerful offensive against the main force of the East China Field Army of the People's Liberation Army. Zhang Lingfu's reorganized 74th Division advanced rapidly and soon broke to the forefront. However, at this time, the various units of the friendly army were lost, the left and right wings of the troops did not know where to go, and Zhang Lingfu's integrated 74th Division repeatedly broke through and soon entered the core of the position.
Zhang Lingfu was puzzled and was discussing countermeasures when the staff officer came to report that the main force of Huang Baitao's reorganized 25th Division was still assembled in place, and its first brigade was watching from a small hill tens of kilometers away from the 74th Division. The 83rd Division was reorganized, with only one battalion cruising away from the position. The reorganized 65th Division still did not make any movement in Mengyin.
After Zhang Lingfu received the report, he knew that the situation was not good, so he quickly reported to Tang Enbo: "Our army has shown a sudden forward posture, the support of friendly troops is weak, and I am not in a position to command. Please order the ministries to move closer to me. After Tang Enbo received Zhang Lingfu's report, he did not immediately reply, he told Zhang Lingfu that he should first understand the situation and then give him orders.
Tang Enbo knew very well in his heart that because Zhang Lingfu was the most favored by Jiang and the equipment of the reorganized 74th Division was also the most advanced, Zhang Lingfu had always had no one in sight and was very arrogant. The remaining division commanders were all of similar rank to Zhang Lingfu, and Li Tianxia and others were even older than Zhang Lingfu in the army. Therefore, in terms of action, it is very difficult for these people to unanimously obey Zhang Lingfu's arrangement and move closer. However, the great battle was imminent, and Tang Enbo still urged the divisions to advance quickly in the name of the commander-in-chief and cover the reorganization of the 74th Division.
On May 12, huaye command issued operational orders, with the 1st, 4th, 8th, and 9th columns as the task of dividing and annihilating the reorganized 74th Division, and the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, and 10th columns as the task of blocking reinforcements, and agreed to launch an attack at dusk on the 13th, quickly separating the reorganized 74th Division and other troops that had sneaked into the central region from their main forces, and then gathering and annihilating them. On the morning of the 13th, the Nationalist army launched an attack with the strength of 3 divisions, and the battle was fought until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and huaye's main force retreated to Huangdouding Mountain, MaMuchi and other places, luring the enemy to continue to penetrate.
At this time, the reorganized 74th Division led by Zhang Lingfu has been swooping forward, and the position of the whole division is getting closer and closer. Under HuaYe's tactics of enticing the enemy, the reorganized 74th Division gradually broke away from the two wings of the cover force and broke into the large encirclement set up by Huaye (in fact, the central blossoming tactic was implemented). Zhang Lingfu saw the situation and demanded that the Third Column's Zhang Gan, Huang Baitao,and Li Tianxia's troops quickly move closer to the reorganized 74th Division and rescue the reorganized 74th Division, which was gradually being encircled.
At dusk on May 13, the 4th and 9th columns of Huaye lured the 74th Division deeper in the front, sent the 1st Column to encircle from the right flank, and quickly occupied toad valleys, boundary cards, and other places, completely cutting off the connection between the reorganized 74th Division and the 25th Division. In just two hours, Zhang Lingfu lost contact with Huang Baitao. At this time, the reorganized 74th Division had fought with Hua Ye for most of the day, and there was already a big gap on the left wing, at this time Zhang Lingfu sent a telegram to Tang Enbo again, why there was no friendly main force on the left wing. Tombaugh asked the ministries, and all the ministries said that there was absolutely no such thing as not moving.
On May 14, Huaye launched a fierce offensive against the Tanbu front, and Zhang Lingfu's lone army fought fiercely with Huaye's two and a half columns. Huaye's 6th Column rushed from Fei County to the Baibu area south of Duozhuang, and the 8th Column attacked from the left flank and occupied Yiwenzhuang and Leishishan. After fierce fighting, the 8th Column cut off the contact between Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division and Li Tianxia's troops of the reorganized 83rd Division from the left, and the 6th and 8th Columns connected and cooperated with each other, encircling the reorganized 74th Division in the middle.
The battle that day was extremely fierce, and Zhang Lingfu knew that he was already under siege, so he ordered a rapid retreat to the rear supply base, Duozhuang. However, Duozhuang had already been captured by Huaye's 6th Column at this time, and the main forces of the 25th and 83rd Divisions, such as Zhang Lingfu, had not appeared in time. Zhang Lingfu had to abandon his heavy equipment and retreat to the menglianggu heights to wait for reinforcements.
After trapping Meng Lianggu, Zhang Lingfu immediately contacted friendly troops, but there was no shadow of friendly troops within a radius of tens of miles. In the afternoon of the same day, Zhang Lingfu received a telegram from Tang Enbo, saying that Li Tianxia's 83rd Division had been ordered to attack from the east side of Tianma Mountain and Meng Lianggu. Zhang Lingfu was relieved at this time, but it was later reported that only one search team of the 83rd Division had actually arrived at Tianma Mountain, and the main force of the 83rd Division was no longer near Tianma Mountain. After Zhang Lingfu listened, his heart was like a knife.
The fellow instructed Zhang Lingfu to hide
On May 15, although Tang Enbo repeatedly encouraged Zhang Lingfu to hold out for two more days to form the core of the decisive battle, he gathered the main force of Huaye in a split attack. However, time passed bit by bit, the position of the reorganized 74th Division at Menglianggu was getting smaller and smaller, the casualties were getting heavier and heavier, zhang Lingfu's long-awaited reinforcements had not yet arrived, and the reorganized 74th Division was in trouble.
The reorganized 74th Division was besieged, and when Jiang learned of the situation, he immediately personally issued an order to the commander of the front: "Move the offensive east of Mengyin and the banks of the Han River with all your might to relieve the siege of Menglianggu." Ou Zhen unified the command of the entire Twenty-fifth Division, the entire Sixty-fifth Division, the entire Eleventh Division, and the entire Ninth Division to attack Meng Lianggu, and if there was any slackness, the military law was immediately engaged. ”
After receiving the order, the commanders of each unit urged their troops to advance and attack in order to rescue the integrated 74th Division. But it was too late at this point, because huaye command issued an order to quickly surround and annihilate the reorganized 74th division. On the outskirts of Menglianggu, the strength of Huaye's 4 or 5 columns was blocked outside, and the battle situation was once glued. Although the various units of the Nationalist army were ordered to rescue, most of them were pregnant with ghost fetuses, and they knew that meng Lianggu was difficult to solve and was afraid of being completely annihilated by the People's Liberation Army, so it was difficult to have a great effect on rescue.
Under strict orders, only the 83rd Division Li Tianxia's troops sent 57 regiments to the outskirts of Menglianggu to symbolically carry out "rescue", while none of the 200,000 troops who had been planned earlier to wait on the periphery came to the rescue. Zhang Lingfu used himself as bait to attract 100,000 elites from Huaye to surround Menglianggu for three days and three nights, and the nationalist heavy army group did not come to encircle him, and Zhang Lingfu and his 74th Division fell to their deaths.
Jedi Meng Lianggu
So, where are the 200,000 national troops on the periphery? When Zhang Lingfu was besieged, the reorganized 5th Army of the Nationalist Army was pinned down at Laiwu; the reorganized 11th Division was blocked in the northwest of Mengyin; the reorganized 65th Division and the reorganized 25th Division were blocked at Caozhuang, Toad Valley, and Jiepai; the reorganized 48th Division was rejected at Liutian and Nose Mountain; and the 83rd and 25th Divisions, which were less than 10 kilometers away from Zhang Lingfu at that time, did not arrive.
In desperation, Zhang Lingfu sent out a final telegram: "The war situation has deteriorated, and the duty has done its best." Helplessly, the reinforcements of friendly troops could not arrive, and Junza (referring to Tang Enbo) and Huang Baitao and Li Tianxia should be fully responsible. Ammunition does not have to be dropped again, and the Air Force can quickly bomb the 600 Heights and surrounding positions. Zhang Zhonglin. The reorganized 74th Division was eventually completely annihilated by Meng Lianggu, and the division commander Zhang Lingfu shot himself (said to have been killed).
In the Battle of Menglianggu, the reorganized 74th Division was completely destroyed, and the division commander Zhang Lingfu was killed. What was the real reason for Meng Lianggu's fiasco? Guo Rujie, a general of the Nationalist army, wrote in his diary: "Yu felt that this defeat was very strange from a purely military standpoint. The friendly troops on the left and right flanks of the 74th Gai Division were five or six kilometers apart, so why could they not be reinforced for three days? The forces are so uncoordinated and their combat effectiveness is so poor that there is no other way but to fail. ”
In fact, even Zhang Lingfu himself was aware of this problem. Before his death (May 6), Zhang Lingfu wrote a letter to Chiang, detailing his views on the Nationalist army: "Those who express the nationalist army on the battlefield, the brave allow them to advance on their own, timidly listen to their feet, the sacrificial sacrifice is just that, and the clever people think that they have won the ambition." Rewards are difficult to understand, punishment is not appropriate, mutual existence is more wait-and-see, rare cooperation, each for their own sake, the same bed and different dreams. ”
Separate, same bed and different dreams. This was the real reason why Meng Lianggu's reorganized 74th Division was completely annihilated.