When the Battle of Huaihai broke out, the Kuomintang army xuzhou had four mobile corps under its command, and these four corps were assembled near Xuzhou in a T-shape. Li Mi and Sun Yuanliang were in the center, while Qiu Qingquan and Huang Baitao were on both wings, just like the left and right arms of Xuzhou.
Previously, we have analyzed the general situation of Huang Baitao's corps, and now let's take a look at the formation of the Qiu Qingquan Corps, which is known as the strongest corps in Xuzhou.
Background of the establishment of the Qiu Qingquan Corps
Soon after the end of the Battle of Eastern Henan, the Kuomintang top brass realized that Huaye's large corps was already very strong in field combat. Therefore, in August 1948, the Kuomintang army decided to form a field mobile corps to concentrate the use of field troops to avoid being divided and annihilated by the Platon Army.
Qiu Qingquan's Second Corps was born in this context, when the Kuomintang Army formed a total of thirteen mobile corps, and Qiu Qingquan's 2nd Corps was the best of them. In addition, the more famous liao yaoxiang 9th corps, Huang Wei's 12th corps, Huang Baitao's 7th corps, Zhang Kai's 3rd corps and so on.
The Second Corps was formed on the basis of the 5th Army, one of the five aces of the Kuomintang Army. In addition, there were the 70th Army, a sister army of the 5th Army, the 74th Army of the former Ace Royal Forest Army, the rebuilt 72nd Army, the old 12th Army of the Northeast Army, an independent cavalry brigade, and some direct subordinate units, with a total number of about 120,000 troops.
The first commander of the corps was Du Yuming, who was later succeeded by Qiu Qingquan, commander of the 5th Army, so it was customary to call it Qiu Qingquan Corps.
After the establishment of the Second Corps, it was stationed in Shangqiu and was subordinate to the Xuzhou General. In the minds of Chiang Kai-shek and Liu Huan, commander-in-chief of xuzhou, the Second Corps was an ace corps. It is characterized by strong attack ability and sharpness in field combat. So Liu Yi used this corps as a trump card.
Looking at the strength on paper alone, it is true that the Qiu Qingquan Corps can be called the strongest unit of Xuzhou Suppression, so what is the combat effectiveness of the various armies under its command?
The ace of aces – the 5th Army
The 5th Army was brought out by Du Yuming and was Du Yuming's starting force, so when Du Yuming went to Xuzhou to command the battle, he trusted the 5th Army very much and called it the ace of aces.
From the beginning of its formation, the 5th Army was doomed to be no ordinary unit. At the end of 1938, the 5th Army was established in Xiangtan, Hunan, under the jurisdiction of the 77th Division, the 200th Division, and the newly formed 22nd Division. Among them, the 200th Division was China's first mechanized unit, equipped with a chariot unit, which was Chiang Kai-shek's baby knot. The combat effectiveness of the newly formed 22nd Division was also not bad, and later the new 22nd Division of Liao Yaoxiang was used as the backbone to expand the New 6th Army, which was also one of the five aces of the Nationalist Army.
During the Liberation War, the Fifth Army changed its armor and entered the East China Battlefield, fighting against Huaye and Nakano many times, and experienced more than three hundred large and small battles, but it was never struck by annihilation.
The East China Field Army had repeatedly sought to annihilate the 5th Army, but it had never found a suitable opportunity, which made the arrogant Qiu Qingquan even more arrogant, and vigorously advocated that Hua Ye "did not fight every fifth day", that is, when it encountered the 5th Army, it avoided fighting. In this regard, many veterans of Huaye were grumpy about the 5th Army.
At the time of the Battle of Huaihai, the 5th Army had the 45th Division, 46th Division, and 200th Division, with a total number of more than 40,000 people, and a 105 howitzer battalion directly under the military headquarters in terms of heavy weapons, with 12 American-made 105 howitzers. Each division was also assigned a battalion of 75 mm mountain artillery, also 12. The regimental level is also equipped with anti-aircraft guns and heavy mortars.
The heavy firepower of the 5th Army was far superior to that of the miscellaneous troops, and it was also much stronger than the general Central Army, so it was called the ace of aces.
The sister army of the 5th Army, the 70th Army
The 70th Army was also established during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and after the victory of the War of Resistance, it was stationed in Taiwan and surrendered. After the outbreak of the all-out civil war, he was transferred to the East China Battlefield and reorganized into the 70th Division. In the Battle of Southwest Lu, the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Field Army commanded by Liu Deng suffered a annihilating blow, and the division headquarters and the main force, the 140th Brigade, were completely annihilated.
Battle of Lunan
After that, the 96th Brigade was reorganized from the 5th Army to rebuild and reorganize the 70th Division, and the 96th Brigade was also an old and powerful brigade, which participated in the expeditionary force and had a certain combat effectiveness. Therefore, with the 96th Brigade as the backbone, the 139th Brigade and a newly formed 32nd Brigade were transferred to reorganize the 70th Division, and Gao Jiren, deputy commander of the 5th Army, was transferred to the division commander.
In 1948, the reorganized division was changed to an army, the reorganized 70th Division was restored to the 70th Army, and the three brigades under its command were also changed to the 32nd Division, the 96th Division, and the 139th Division, and continued to be stationed in the southwest area of Lu. Because it had long fought alongside the 5th Army, it was called a sister army of the 5th Army.
Once the ace of the Royal Forest, the 74th Army
Mention of the 74th Army, Presumably everyone has heard of it, the fame of the 74th Army is really too big, and the former 74th Army, as the Royal Forest Army in Nanjing, can be described as an infinite scenery. However, in the Battle of Menglianggu in 1947, the main force of the reorganized 74th Division led by Zhang Lingfu was completely annihilated by Hua Ye. The 74th Army became the first ace unit of the Nationalist Army to be annihilated.
The battle of Meng Lianggu caused the once invincible 74th Army to fall to the altar. However, at that time, the 74th Army still had three new corps left in the rear to train, so the Nanjing side immediately rebuilt the 74th Army with these three infantry regiments as the backbone, with Qiu Weida, the former deputy commander of the 74th Army, as the commander.
Although some veterans have been gradually gathered, the combat effectiveness of the 74th Army has been greatly reduced. After several months of short training, Chiang Kai-shek was anxious to mobilize the 74th Army to participate in the war in early 1948 due to the stretching of troops in the Central Plains battlefield. According to Qiu Weida's recollection, at that time, the training of the 74th Army was not yet mature, and 80 percent of the officers and men were new recruits, lacking combat experience, and even half of the combat strength had not yet recovered.
In early February 1948, the 74th Army fought a battle with Nakano in Fuyang, and fought fiercely with Nakano for several days, achieving certain results and training the troops. After the battle, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram of condolences, believing that the combat effectiveness of the 74th Army had matured, and was immediately transferred to the Xuzhou Suppression General And incorporated into qiu Qingquan's Second Corps.
During the Battle of Huaihai, the 74th Army had two divisions, the 51st and 58th, and the weapons were mixed with Japanese weapons. Although the equipment is not as luxurious as before, and the quality of the soldiers is not as good as that of the previous 74 Army, the overall combat effectiveness is not weak, and it can be regarded as the level of the second-class main force.
The rebuilt 12th Army and 72nd Army
The 12th Army and the 72nd Army were both units rebuilt after being annihilated, with weak combat effectiveness and mainly serving as garrisons. First, let's take a look at the 12th Army, which was originally the old headquarters of Zhang Xueliang's Northeast Army, but was later annexed by Chiang Kai-shek and gradually centralized, which was a miscellaneous army in the Central Army. Not only is the equipment poor, but the combat effectiveness is also very low.
In May 1948, it was almost completely annihilated by the East China Field Army, and the remnants and the Shandong local security forces rebuilt the 72nd Army, which was even weaker in combat effectiveness, and basically did not differ much from the combat effectiveness of the security forces.
The 72nd Army was completely annihilated by Huaye in the Battle of Tai'an in 1947, and then immediately rebuilt, so there were more recruits, lack of combat experience, and had always been on garrison missions, and its combat effectiveness was a little stronger than that of the 12th Army.
Comments
If the combat effectiveness of the five armies under the command of Qiu Qingquan's corps is comprehensively compared and the various armies are ranked, the general situation is as follows.
The most powerful first gear: the 5th Army; the second gear with slightly weaker combat effectiveness: the 70th Army and the 74th Army; and the third gear with the weakest combat effectiveness: the 72nd Army and the 12th Army.