On November 17, 1948, the battle of Nianzhuang was not over, and the battlefield was full of smoke. On the position of the 449th Regiment of the 150th Division of the 44th Army of the Huang Baitao Corps, only the sound of motors was heard from far and near, and three tanks were seen parked not far in front of the position.
I saw a man inside stretch out his half-cut body and shout:
"We are from the Second Corps, and we have come to contact Commander Huang, which zhuang is your corps headquarters in?" Which unit are you? ”
oh? The troops of the Second Corps Qiu Qingquan, did the reinforcements really come? The officers and men of the 449th Regiment on the position were very happy when they heard this, thinking that they had been saved. In fact, they did not know that these three tanks came from the tank brigade of Huaye Special Column.
The tank brigade rushed to the aid of the mill village
Speaking of the establishment of the Huaye Special Column Tank Brigade, it is indispensable
Transport Brigade Captain
Chiang Kai-shek's
"Credit"
。 In the Battle of Lunan in 1947, Su Yu commanded Hua Ye to completely annihilate the 26th Division and the First Rapid Column of Chiang Kai-shek's Ma Liwu Army, and captured a large number of American equipment, including more than 20 tanks. It was precisely by relying on the tanks "sent" by Chiang Kai-shek that huaye's first armored corps was formed.
On November 11, 1948, Su Yu commanded Huaye's 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 13th Columns to encircle and annihilate the main force of Huang Baitao's Corps. However, the first stage of the battle did not go well, and the Huang Baitao corps could not move the turtles and shrink into a regiment. To the west of Nianzhuang, Qiu Qingquan and Li Mi's two corps were trying their best to move closer to Huang Baitao, so the battle at Nianzhuang could not be delayed for too long.
The reason why Huang Baitao's regiment could not be moved was very simple, that is, the fortifications of the mill were very tricky, and Hua Ye was hastily launched an attack, so the casualties were very large. The most effective way to deal with the enemy's fortifications is to bombard them with heavy weapons.
On November 15, huaye special artillery crossed the river one after another on the canal next to Nianzhuang, and the Huaye tank brigade, which had traveled a long way, also rushed to the outskirts of Nianzhuang.
After the first phase of the attack, Su Yu had a clearer understanding of Huang Baitao's corps, and Su Yu believed that the 25th Army and 64th Army, located in the north and east, were not easy to fight. The 100th Army in the west and the 44th Army in the south were weaker, especially the 44th Army, which was obviously much weaker than other armies.
The 44th Army is the old department of the Sichuan Army, a typical miscellaneous army, with poor equipment and small numbers. According to Wang Zejun, commander of the 44th Army, the artillery of the whole army has only 11 old Japanese 75 mm mountain guns.
Persimmon specializes in picking soft pinches, and for the shrunken Huang Baitao Corps, it is obviously unwise to spend a lot of effort to fight the stubborn 25th Army and 64th Army at the beginning, and we must find his weak ribs and open the breakthrough by attacking the weak ribs.
The 44th Army in the south is the weakness of Huang Baitao's corps, and although the 100th Army in the west is the central army, its strength is also weak, because its main force, the 44th Division, has been completely annihilated in Cao Baji, and now there is only one 63rd Division left in the whole army, and its strength has been greatly reduced.
Therefore, Su Yu made the following arrangements: concentrated the 13th, 6th, and 9th columns of Huaye to attack the positions of the 100th Army and the 44th Army in the west and south directions of Nianzhuang, and assigned the Huaye Tank Brigade to Wang Bicheng's 6th Column. The 4th and 8th Columns were responsible for containing the attack on the other two enemy forces.
Go deep into the enemy camp
The Huaye Tank Brigade was assigned to Wang Bicheng's 6th Column 17th Division, which was the main attacker, and the division commander was Liang Jinhua. Master Liang was worthy of being a fierce general under Wang Bicheng, and he was as bold and not afraid of death as Wang Tiger when he fought.
Liang Jinhua
In order to find out the specific deployment of the 44th Army and to better distribute troops when attacking, Liang Jinhua decided to personally take a tank and go deep into the Huangtan area of the core position of the 44th Army to conduct reconnaissance.
So Liang Jinhua asked the soldiers to find several sets of nationalist clothes, and the livery of the tank was still the style of the original Kuomintang army, and after the drivers changed into the clothes of the Kuomintang army, it was difficult to distinguish between true and false.
At dusk on November 17, division commander Liang Jinhua rode in a tank to the front position of the 44th Army, which is the scene that appeared at the beginning of the article. The person who leaned out to speak was None other than Liang Jinhua, commander of the 17th Division of the 6th Column.
Liang's superb acting skills deceived the Nationalist soldiers in front of the position, only to see them come out of the trench to say hello, and one of the company commanders wanted to come forward to contact. Just as the company commander was about to walk up to the tanks, a man on the position shouted:
"The situation is not clear, you are not allowed to speak to him, everyone, immediately enter the position."
Speaking was a battalion commander named Zhang Qihan from this position, who was very alert. In the absence of certainty as to whether it is a friendly force, it is not easy to tell others about the deployment. However, the 449th Regiment of the 44th Army did not rush to attack the tanks that Liang Jinhua and others were riding on, and if it was really Qiu Qingquan's troops, they would not be able to explain it afterwards.
Liang Jinhua saw that the enemy in front of the position was vigilant, and presumably he must have reported to his superiors, so he had to hurry up and seize the time, otherwise he would be exposed. So he directly led the tank to reconnoiter deep into the rear of the position, and the tank reached the area around the Yellow Beach, turned around a large circle, and found many enemy bunkers here, presumably the core position of the 44th Army, and its front-line command should also be here.
After finding out the enemy's general deployment, Liang Jinhua quickly led the tanks to rush out and returned to our army's position without any danger.
Open the breakthrough
With the previous approach reconnaissance, when the general attack was launched, Huaye's tanks carried out a precise attack on the enemy's bunker fortifications, destroyed multiple fire points, and cleared a large number of obstacles for the infantry charge.
On the evening of the 17th, the core position of the 44th Army was shaken, and the remnants of its 150th Division retreated to the Houhuangtan position where the headquarters of the 44th Army was located, which was the location of the 44th Army's military headquarters, and the commander Wang Zejun and others commanded the operation under a huge bunker. Huang Baitao gave him a death order to hold his position, otherwise the south side of the village would be completely exposed.
The enemy in the bunker could not use heavy weapons, so it could only fight the charging infantry, and there was nothing we could do in the face of the tanks, so our army carried the demolition man to the bunker, placed the explosive package on the bunker, pulled the fuse when the tank started, and with a loud noise, the bunker was trampled.
The commander of the 44th Army fled in a hurry and ran all the way to the nearby 484 regiment command post. But the monk could not run the temple, the position was already surrounded by the People's Liberation Army, and Wang Zejun successfully became a prisoner. At that time, Wang Zejun still wanted to mix among the prisoners and pretend to be a platoon leader, but he did not expect to be seen through by the SOLDIER soldiers, and he had to confess honestly.
When Wang Bicheng learned that Wang Zejun had been captured, he immediately received him in the headquarters and asked him to write a letter of persuasion to surrender, asking the remnants of the 44th Army to lay down their weapons and surrender, and finally under the influence of this letter of persuasion, the remnants of the army surrendered.
At the same time that the 44th Army lost its position, the 100th Army could not resist, and Pengzhuang, the headquarters of the 100th Army Commander's Army, was occupied by the 13th Column of Huaye. His commander, Zhou Zhidao, broke through in a hurry, wounded by stray bullets on the road, and his chest was penetrated, and he was carried out by his guards.
The positions in the west and south were all lost, and the location of Huang Baitao's corps had been completely exposed, and although the troops of the 25th and 64th Armies had been dispatched to defend The Mill Village, Huang Baitao knew in his heart that the Mill Village could not be defended.
Huang Baitao continued to send urgent telegrams to the General Headquarters of Xuzhou and the Nanjing Ministry of National Defense, either without a reply or told that they must hold on, and that reinforcements will arrive tomorrow.
Tomorrow and tomorrow, Huang Baitao no longer had much hope for reinforcements, and his 7 Corps was going to be finished.