September 16, 1948, another day is the Mid-Autumn Festival, but at this time
Jinan City
There is no festive atmosphere inside and outside, but the silence is terrible.
The Kuomintang and the Communists
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers
, waiting uneasily in the silent night.
Midnight at midnight, along with
Xu Shiyou gave an order
Tens of thousands of cannons fired in unison on the positions of the siege group, filled with gun smoke and tremors. The siege of the city was fired
Battle of Jinan
Prologue.
At the beginning of the battle, it entered a white-hot stage, and the commander of the Second Appeasement District of the Kuomintang Army in Jinan City
Wang Yaowu
It has been a long time since august, because since August, jinan city has been surrounded by Huaye on all sides.
Therefore, Wang Yaowu in Jinan City should also be fully prepared to deal with this fierce battle, after all, he is also a famous general in the Kuomintang army who has experienced hundreds of battles.
However, at the beginning of the battle, Wang Yaowu, who had experienced hundreds of battles, was blinded.
At exactly 24:00 on September 16, the east and west groups of the Huaye Siege Group launched an offensive at the same time, and the battle began, the West Group
Huaye 3rd and 10th Columns,
Launched a fierce attack on the airport west of Jinan.
This was consistent with Wang Yaowu's pre-war judgment, which he thought was Hua Ye's
The main direction of attack
It must be in the west, and the first target is certainly
Capture of the airport
So he immediately sent troops to support.
However, not long after the reinforcements were dispatched, the artillery fire in the east became more and more intense, even exceeding the western front. And the commander on the east side sent a telegram saying:
"The communist offensive on the Eastern Front was extremely fierce, and even a large number of death squads were organized to launch a desperate charge against the bunker fortifications."
This can be a battle-hardened
Wang Yaowu was all in Mongolia
Is it because of his own misjudgment, and the east is the main direction of HuaYe's attack? Wang Yaowu was in a dilemma at this time.
So what's going on? To figure out what was going on, let's go back and see what happened before the siege began.
Before the war, Wang Yaowu's defensive deployment
Jinan City is located on the south bank of the Yellow River,
Jinpu Line, Jiaoji Line
Intersect here.
Through the satellite map we can see that the north of Jinan is
Yellow River
If you want to fight Jinan, you can only attack through the east and west sides.
So Wang Yaowu divided the defenders into divisions
Two garrisons in the east and west
, of which the western front is a horse Pingchuan, and there is a very important strategic point, that is, the airport.
Wang Yaowu also relied on the airport to airlift from Xuzhou
Reorganized 74th Division
To Jinan, so the airport must not be lost, so sent heavy troops to defend the airport,
West Garrison Area
The specific deployment is as follows:
The 57th Brigade, airlifted from Qingdao, was stationed in the Gushan area on the Jinpu Line; the 211st Brigade of the Reorganized 2nd Division was deployed in the Shuangmiaozhuang and Gucheng areas northwest of the Jinpu Line; and Wu Huawen's 96th Army
Reorganized 84th Division
The main force with the 96th Army
Independence Brigade
Deployed in Lashan, airport.
The East Garrison Is Different from the West Garrison, and there is one in the east
Yanchi Mountain and Maoling Mountain
Two hills, these two mountains are like a gate guarding the eastern part of Jinan.
Stationed in the east of Jinan was the reorganized 73rd Division, which the Nationalist army relied on on these two mountains to build a large number of reinforced concrete permanent fortifications and a large number of pillboxes.
After inspecting the positions of Yanchi Mountain and Maoling Mountain, Wang Yaowu was full of confidence and estimated that he would be able to hold out for at least half a month and reorganize the commander of the 73rd Division
Cao Zhenduo
It is even more wild:
"I'm afraid the communists won't dare to come."
In addition, weaker combat forces are deployed along the Yellow River
4th, 6th and 8th Security Brigades
It is responsible for ensuring the safety of the north of Jinan, and the inner city of Jinan has a second appeasement area
Secret Service Brigade
。
Outside the city, it had just been airlifted
19th Brigade, integrated 83rd Division
The brigade is also the strongest fighting force in Jinan at present, so Wang Yaowu let the brigade serve as a reserve.
Wang Yaowu's deployment was very clear, he knew that Huaye attacked Jinan, it was only possible to go east and west, and the terrain to the west was flat, judging our army
There is a high probability that it will attack the western front
Therefore, he deployed a heavy army group on the western front, which had a long defensive depth, and it was difficult for our army to capture it in a short time, especially around the airfield outside the city, Wang Yaowu arranged heavy troops to garrison.
In general, Wang Yaowu's deployment is reasonable, and his judgment is basically correct.
Our army's siege plan
The siege group of Huaye this time has a total of 4 main field columns, namely the 3rd, 10th, 9th, and 13th columns of Huaye, plus the troops of Luzhongnan, Bohai, and Jiluyu Military Region, accumulating 140,000 people.
There is no doubt that the main force is the 4 main columns, and the commanders of the columns are all vying for help as to who plays the main attack.
The final results came out, by
Sun Jixian 3 columns, Song Shilun 10 columns
The first goal of the formed Western Group was to seize the airport and cut off the last passage between Jinan and the outside world.
composed
Nie Fengzhi 9 vertical
As an assist, launch an attack from the east of Jinan, hold the troops of the enemy's eastern garrison, and preferably attract enemy reinforcements.
whereas
Zhou Zhijian's 13 columns
Then he is responsible for serving as a reserve team and waiting for the opportunity to move.
After reading this deployment, the reader may have questions,
Why Hua Ye does not follow
East and west
What about launching an onslaught at the same time?
Doesn't this put more pressure on the enemy and attack the city faster?
The simultaneous onslaught between the east and the west is bound to be faster, but there are a large number of cement fortifications built on the east side of Jinan, and there are two core positions that are easy to defend and difficult to attack, Maoling Mountain and Yanchi Mountain, and if our army attacks from the eastern front, it may cause great casualties.
Ruins of the Maoling Mountain Bunker
Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, it was decided that the western front would be the main attack and the eastern front would be contained.
Hua Ye was obviously deployed as an assist on the Eastern Front, so why did the Eastern Front fight more and more fiercely, and the offensive once overshadowed the Western Front?
Nie Fengzhi changed his assist to the main attack without authorization
In this battle, Nie Fengzhi's 9 columns were originally served
Assists
But Nie Fengzhi thought to himself, when did I play an assist in the 9th column, and I hit Meng Lianggu that year
Zhang Lingfu reorganized the 74th Division
, I 9 columns are the main attack.
Nie Fengzhi
And later in a series of battles in Jiaodong, the 9 columns were all the main attacks, so Nie Fengzhi, who was unconvinced, made a bold decision-
Changed assists to main offense.
So when the battle order was down to the 9th column,
With a big stroke of the pen, change the assist to the main attack.
Nie Fengzhi's explanation to the following division commanders was:
"Assist" to "main attack", one does not increase the number of people, the other does not add guns, these are unchanged, to become a mental state.
In order to break through the defensive line from the east, we must first take the two core positions of Maoling Mountain and Yanchi Mountain. Nie Fengzhi gave the task of the main attack to the 74th Regiment of the 25th Division of the 9th Column, and Nie Fengzhi asked
That night, Maoling Mountain and Yanchi Mountain were taken
Under the cover of the regiment's howitzers, at midnight on September 16, the 74th Regiment launched a fierce attack on Maoling Mountain.
It only takes two hours
He took his position, and Yanchi Mountain was also taken that night.
Heard that two mountains were lost, a little
Unbelievable
Before the war, he also inspected the position, and the fortifications were so strong that Wang Yaowu conservatively estimated that he could hold out for half a month, but he lost them all overnight.
Hua Ye's 9 column's ability to attack is indeed to let go
Wang Yaowu was caught off guard
Wang Yaowu, who had fought all his life, was also blinded at this time, was his previous judgment all wrong? Hua Ye is the main attack in the east?
Wang Yaowu made a major mistake in his decision-making
The increasingly dense artillery fire on the Eastern Front, as well as the urgent war reports sent from the Eastern Front, made Wang Yaowu in the command deeply suspicious.
Wang Yaowu, who had not slept all night, only thought of one explanation,
"The eastern front is the main direction of Huaye's attack, and the main force of Huaye's siege should be in the east."
Wang Yaowu's judgment was actually reasonable, because the Eastern Front fought so fiercely, and the Strength of the Eastern Front's attack was even higher than that of the Western Front.
Therefore, Wang Yaowu redeployed, so that the 211st Brigade on the western front moved closer to the commercial port area, and the 19th and 57th Brigades immediately supported the east, and cooperated with the reorganized 73rd Division to retake Maoling Mountain and Yanchi Mountain.
But this time, Wang Yaowu's decision was one
Huge decision-making mistakes
At this time, there were two columns on the western front, Huaye 3 and 10, and the 13th column of the reserve team and the Luzhongnan column were also engaged in the western battlefield, while the eastern front only had 9 columns and the Bohai column.
Wang Yaowu drew troops from the western front to the eastern front, while Xu Shiyou was increasing his troops to the western group, and this increase and decrease gave Hua Ye an absolute superiority in troops on the western front.
At this time, only the reorganized 84th Division of Wu Huawen's 96th Army was left in the western position of the Kuomintang army, while the three main columns of our army were assembling at the airfield on the outskirts of the western front.
Wang Yaowu's troops were already stretched thin, and his main force was already all pressed on the Eastern Front. Wang Yaowu could only turn again
Chiang Kai-shek
Ask for help, plead quickly will
Air freight to Jinan.
Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing strictly ordered Liu Zhi, the commander-in-chief of Xuzhou, to airlift all the reorganized 74th Division to Jinan within a week.
At this time, at Xuzhou Airport, 600 miles away, the transport planes on the runway had been assembled, and the vanguard troops of the first batch of the reorganized 74th Division that rushed to Jinan's aid had already boarded the plane.
So can the reorganization of the 74th Division in Wang Yaowu and other places play a role? How did his 74th Division perform in the Battle of Jinan?
In the next period, the Battle of Jinan will continue to be reviewed.