On May 10, 1947, Su Yu, who was in Huaye's headquarters, received a secret report that Tang Enbo's First Corps was actively moving northward, with the commander of the reorganized 48th Division on its left flank advancing along the road toward Yishui, and the reorganized 65th, 25th, 74th, and 83rd Divisions on its right flank lined up along the road.
Su Yu, who had received the information, knew that this time the enemy finally could not hold back.
The situation before the Battle of Menglianggu
The reorganized 74th Division, which had occupied Duozhuang on 11 May, was advancing northwards south of Tanbu, while Qiu Qingquan's 5th Army, which had already occupied Laiwu, and Hu Lian's 11th Division, which had occupied Xintai, were advancing eastward. The intention of this series of major moves by the Kuomintang army is obvious, that is, to force the main force of Huaye sandwiched in the middle to fight a decisive battle with it.
Through the map, you can see that the enemy's front-line attacking troops are lined up along the road like a scissors, and the two sides gradually converge. At this time, there are only two ways for Huaye in the middle of this scissors, one is to concentrate on giving him the blade of the scissors to miss; the other is that Huaye himself takes the initiative to transfer and jump out of the scope of the scissors (but abandoning the Shandong Liberated Area is exactly in line with Chiang Kai-shek's intentions, so the transfer is a forced next strategy)
Offensive map of the Kuomintang army
Chen Yi: If you don't leave, you will fight the reorganized 74th Division!
At the beginning, when Tang Enbo's corps made a big move, Su Yu's plan was to first attack the Prominent Gui 7th Army and the reorganized 48th Division on the flank. The biggest advantage of hitting the flanks is that the location is good, which is conducive to our army's encirclement and annihilation and reinforcement. If it was other Kuomintang troops, Su Yu might have flanked it.
But Su Yu considered that this Gui's 7th Army was very cunning,
They are all veterans who have been in the battlefield for a long time, but they can't fight quickly, they are in a hurry, and their combat effectiveness is amazing, and our army has suffered losses of the 7th Army in the Battle of Lianghuai before. Therefore, it is difficult to capture the 7th Army, and it is not the ideal target of our army.
Su Yu, who commanded the operation
Just as Chen Su was studying who to fight first, he received a telegram from Xu Shiyou, who was stationed in Tanbu, saying: Our army was attacked by the vanguard of the enemy's 74th Division in the area of Yangjiazhai in the area south of Tanbu. Su Yu was also puzzled,
Is the 74th Division so bold?
However, at this time, Su Yu still did not know the intention of the enemy at this time, so he did not rush to attack.
That night, Su Yu received the preliminary deployment plan of Tang Enbo's corps intercepted by the intelligence department, and tang Enbo immediately understood his intentions. Obviously, the enemy army wanted to put the sharpest Zhang Lingfu reorganized 74th Division in the center.
Take on the task of central breakthrough
Its left and right flanks were covered by Huang Baitao's integrated 25th Division and Li Tianxia's reorganized 83rd Division respectively to prevent it from being encircled and annihilated, and for the sake of safety, the reorganized 65th Division and the 7th Army were arranged to protect the flanks of the reorganized 25th Division and the 83rd Division, respectively. Moreover, there are roads connecting the various units, and once a certain unit is penetrated by our army, the rest of the units can arrive within a day.
The Central Committee of the Kuomintang Army made a breakthrough plan
At first glance, the plan is perfect, and the enemy expects that the main force of Huaye should not dare to meet the battle, and there is a high probability that the Nationalist army will be forced out of the Shandong Liberated Area and cross the Yellow River north to North China. But Su Yu took advantage of this idea of the Kuomintang command to catch them off guard.
I Huaye must not only fight, but also beat you as the most elite reorganized 74th Division in the Central Committee, and break the "scissor offensive" of the Kuomintang army in one fell swoop.
When Su Yu told Chen Yi about the plan to encircle Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division, Chen Yi threw his hat on the table and said: "
Don't go! Just fight the 74th Division! It is to have the arrogance of a million generals in the army.
”
Chen Yi
Su Yu made operational arrangements and besieged the 74th Division with 5 times the strength
Since it was decided to fight, it was necessary to annihilate the reorganized 74th Division as quickly as possible, otherwise it would turn into a praying mantis catching cicadas and yellow finches, and our army would be counter-encircled. Therefore, Su Yu decided to concentrate all the main forces of Huaye into battle. The specific deployment is as follows:
Surrounded on all sides by the 74th Division
The 10th Column of the Song Dynasty was responsible for containing and blocking Qiu Qingquan's Fifth Army east of Laiwu. He Yixiang 3rd Column was stationed east of Xintai to prevent Hu Lian's 11th Division from advancing east to rescue him. Ye Fei's main column inserted the gap between Huang Baitao's reorganized 25th Division and Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division, cutting off the connection between the two armies. Wang Jian'an's 8th column inserted the gap between Li Tianxia's 83rd Division and Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division, cut off the connection between the two armies, and captured Duozhuang. Tao Yong's 4th Column and Xu Shiyou's 9th Column were stationed south of Tanbu to block the attack of the 74th Division, and then launched a frontal attack on the 74th Division. Wei Guoqing's 2nd Column covered the flank of the 8th Column, and Chengjun 7th Column prevented the 7th Army and the reorganized 48th Division from going north and turning around.
The most miraculous deployment is the Wang Bicheng 6 column hidden in the Lunan Mountains, hidden in the deep hinterland of the enemy, perfectly avoiding the surrounding enemy troops. When the offensive was launched, the 6th Column would seize the important stronghold from the rear and completely cut off the 74th Division's retreat.
It was to confront the 74th Division
On May 11, the reorganized 74th Division tentatively attacked Tanbu, so many people believed that the reorganized 74th Division was besieged because it was advancing alone, but it did not seem to be so. In his memoirs, Su Yu specifically pointed out that our army's ability to encircle and annihilate the 74th Division was not our army's strategy in the past to fight the enemy who was advancing, because the 74th Division itself was tasked with the central breakthrough, and it was bound to be in the front, but the 25th Division and the 83rd Division on its two wings were less than 6 kilometers away from it, so there was no such thing as a lone army advancing. So fight the 74th Division
It's not that it's prominent
The reason is that our army wants to confront the 74th Division.
Before the Battle of Menglianggu, Su Yu commanded on the front line
On the night of May 13, Su Yu ordered Ye Fei's 1st Column to send a small force and pretend to surround and annihilate Huang Baitao's 25th Division in the area east of Mengyin. Sure enough, as soon as Huang Baitao saw the encirclement and annihilation posture of Huaye's troops, he immediately shrunk his troops. Because after more than a month of Su Yu on the battlefield
Dragon Lantern tactics
At this time, whether the Kuomintang army is a real encirclement or a false encirclement, the first thing it thinks of when it encounters an attack is to shrink and protect itself. Su Yu used the same method to order Wang Jian'an to attack Li Tianxia's 83rd Division in 8 vertically, and Li Tianxia's troops shrank even faster. The three Nationalist armies, which were originally very close apart, had been successfully separated by the 1st column and the 8th column of Huaye.
On May 14, our army had successfully isolated Zhang Lingfu's integrated 74th Division, but it was not over, Zhang Lingfu's old rival, Wang Bicheng 6th Column, would give the 74th Division a fatal blow from behind. On the morning of the 14th,
Wang Bicheng, who had been hiding in the Lunan Mountains, suddenly came out from behind the enemy army
, the target is directed at the stacking village. Duozhuang was an important stronghold on the south side of Menglianggu, and taking Duozhuang would cut off the last retreat of the 74th Division.
The 74th Division was isolated
Zhang Lingfu was also well aware of this, so he left a regiment in Duozhuang to garrison, but how could only a regiment block the joint attack of our 6th and 8th columns? On the morning of the 14th, the 6th Column successfully occupied duozhuang. At the same time, Zhang Lingfu found that the 74th Division was being surrounded by Huaye, and Tang Enbo ordered the 74th Division to quickly withdraw south to the direction of Duozhuang to meet Huang Baitao's reorganized 25th Division, but after receiving the loss of Duozhuang, the 74th Division's vanguard troops occupied the key points near Duozhuang, and its main force quickly occupied the high point near Menglianggu.
Tombaugh
At this point we find that the plans of the Kuomintang army have changed
The 74th Division changed from the original central breakthrough task to a stubborn one
to attract the main force of Huaye. After that, the surrounding troops combined to encircle the main force of Huaye. Let's look at the telegram sent by Tang Enbo, commander of the First Corps, to Zhang Lingfu on the evening of the 14th:
When the bandits came to attack me, it was a rare opportunity to annihilate the bandits, and our Zhong Army (the 7th Army) went west from near Jiehu Lake, and the Wang and Hu Second Divisions (65th And 11th Divisions) attacked the bandit army from Changlu through Mengyin to the east. Your division is the hub of the overall situation, and Wu Xi inspires all the soldiers to be strong and resolute, to stick to Meng Lianggu, and to occupy Duozhuang with one unit, and to cooperate with friendly troops to give bandits a hard blow, so as to reap the great achievements expected.
On May 15, the chief of staff of the 74th Division sent a telegram to Tang Enbo that the 74th Division had failed to occupy Duozhuang, and that a large number of supplies such as grain and ammunition were in Duozhuang, asking the Air Force to airdrop food and ammunition. Then, at noon on the 15th, Zhang Lingfu began to concentrate his troops and then all climbed several high grounds in Menglianggu. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 65th, 48th, 25th, 83rd, and 11th Divisions around the same time to quickly move closer to Zhang Lingfu and attempt to encircle the main force of Huaye.
The Kuomintang army wanted to swallow Hua Ye's plan in one gulp
In the face of Zhang Lingfu's dangerous move of pulling the 74th Division to Meng Lianggu, Su Yu had no choice but to attack with all his might
Eat the 74th Division as fast as you can to retreat
。 Su Yu said directly to the commanders of the columns who were on offensive missions: "If you kill a thousand, I will make up for you with a thousand, and I will make up two thousand for you, even if the column is exhausted, I will keep your number and rebuild." Now all we have to do is
Eat the 74th Division at all costs. ”
Zhang Lingfu, who pulled the troops up to Menglianggu, made a series of serious mistakes, first of all, there was a shortage of water on the mountain beams, and the drinking water of tens of thousands of troops should be the first thing to consider; secondly, the menglianggu mountain was full of big stones, and it was impossible for the troops to build fortifications in a short period of time. According to the recollection of the 74th Division soldiers who were captured afterwards, a shell hit the hill and exploded with stone fragments, which was even more powerful, and a single shot could kill twenty or thirty people.
The terrain of the main battlefield of Meng Lianggu
On the afternoon of the 15th, Huaye's various units launched a general offensive, and the stormtroopers and the 74th Division launched a fierce battle, but at this time the 74th Division was still quite tenacious, and every hill had to be repeatedly contested with Huaye. However, the five columns of Hua Ye acting as an attack continued to attack from all sides of the 74th Division, and the enemy army was already difficult to support, and the position was gradually compressed.
Li Tianxia saw death and could not be saved? not necessarily!
At this time, Huang Baitao on the periphery is also quite hard
Why is Huang Baitao working so hard? As we mentioned earlier, when the 1st Column pretended to attack Huang Baitao, his 25th Division quickly retracted, and did he not expose the flanks of the 74th Division to Ye Fei's 1st Column with this shrinkage, and when the 74th Division was finished, his Principal Jiang would certainly be indispensable to huang Baitao.
Li Tianxia
Similarly, Li Tianxia's 83rd Division also retracted so that Wang Jian'an's 8th Column successfully inserted into the right wing of the 74th Division, and many people said that Li Tianxia only sent a symbolic rescue 74th Division, I think
This claim is not credible
。
Although Li Tianxia didn't like Zhang Lingfu, she wasn't so stupid
If the 25th and 83rd Divisions saw death and did not save the entire 74th Division, then Chiang Kai-shek would be the first to shoot Li Tianxia and Huang Baitao. In hindsight, although Li Tianxia was not as hard as Huang Baitao, she was also decent, and under the premise of ensuring that she was not surrounded and annihilated, she tried her best to send usable troops to rescue the 74th Division.
The 5th Road Army surrounded and annihilated the 74th Division and attacked Meng Lianggu
On the morning of May 16, under the cover of fierce artillery fire, our army launched a charge, and at this time the 74th Division was already demoralized and completely different from the previous day's state, because most of the food, ammunition, water bags and other materials airdropped by the Kuomintang aircraft were thrown to our army's position. At this time, the officers and men of the 74th Division were already hungry, thirsty, and short of ammunition, and the army was distraught. Therefore, in the afternoon of the same day, the stormtroopers of huaye's 1st, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 9th columns successfully met Meng Lianggu, and Zhang Lingfu was killed in the melee.
Conclusion: The collapse of Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division directly broke the encirclement plan of the Kuomintang army, and this victory was not only a material gain of booty, but also a great spiritual boost to the morale of our army.