In 1937, Wang Yaowu's 51st Division (under the jurisdiction of zhou zhidao's 151st brigade and Li Tianxia's 153rd brigade) and Yu Jishi's 58th division (under the jurisdiction of Wu Jiguang's 174th brigade and Qiu Weida's 172nd brigade) merged to form the 74th Army, and Yu Ji was the first commander of the 74th Army.
(Yu Jishi)
The 74th Army is the brightest star in the Kuomintang ace, winning the titles of "Anti-Japanese Iron Army", "Tiger Ben Division", "Royal Forest Army" and other titles, and twice won the highest award during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression - "Flying Tiger Banner".
In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Yu Jishi led the 74th Army to make many meritorious achievements. During the Battle of Wuhan, he once looked down on Xue Yue and picked a son, fortunately, the 74th Army was quite strong at that time, thus saving the decline of the battlefield, so Chiang Kai-shek transferred Yu Jishi away from the front line and served as its chief of guard.
(Wang Yaowu)
In 1939, Wang Yaowu, who was born in the 74th Army, replaced Yu Jishi as the commander of the army, and since then, the entire 74th Army has been deeply influenced by Wang Yaowu's combat style and is known for its tenacious and courageous battle.
(Zhang Lingfu)
In the 1947 Liberation War, the 74th Army of the National Revolutionary Army was reorganized and transformed, and later changed to the reorganized 74th Division, zhang Lingfu served as the commander of the division, and the 74th Division, which carried out a key offensive in Shandong, ventured forward, and later found that the communist army had the intention of encircling its own army and retreated to Menglianggu.
After receiving the report, Chiang Kai-shek believed that the 74th Division occupied the commanding heights, had strong combat effectiveness, and had strong peripheral troops nearby, and wanted to fight a decisive battle with the main force of the East China Field Army, and the center blossomed! However, the foreign aid was desperately blocked by the intercepting troops of the field army, and the heavy losses failed to break through in time.
Chen and Su mobilized the five main columns of the East China Field Army, the 1st Column, the 4th Column, the 6th Column, the 8th Column, and the 9th Column, and at all costs annihilated the 74th Division before being counter-encircled by the Nationalist army. On May 8, menglianggu was fully encircled by the East China Field Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. In the end, after four days of fierce fighting, there was no aid and no water and food, and the 74th Division was completely destroyed on May 16, the division commander Zhang Lingfu committed suicide with a gun, and the deputy division commander Cai Renjie and the 58th Brigade brigade commander Lu Xing also committed suicide.
After the news of the total annihilation of the 74th Division and the death of its commander Zhang Lingfu reached Nanjing, it was a great shock to the Kuomintang government. The 74th Division was annihilated, chiang kai-shek lamented that this was an "irreparable loss," and Chen Cheng and Wang Yaowu also deplored it.
Defense Minister Xu Yongchang once wrote in his diary that the loss of the 74th Division had a great impact on the military.com. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek found Wang Yaowu and hoped that Wang Yaowu would come forward to reorganize the reorganized 74th Division.
In addition to selecting the two regiments that escaped by chance in the Battle of Menglianggu because they were guarding the airfield and the officers and men of the former 74th Division who were wounded and healed, Wang Yaowu also dispatched the Shandong Second Garrison Brigade, with this brigade as the backbone to form the 57th Brigade under the Seventy-fourth Division, and the Guangdong Aviation Garrison Brigade to form the 58th Brigade, and a small number of remnants of the reorganized 74th Division and the wounded soldiers to form the 51st Brigade, forming the scale of the two integrated brigades under the command of the department.
Although it has always been rumored that the combat effectiveness is not good, in the Battle of Fuyang, the Nationalist army defending the city was the 58th Brigade of the newly reorganized 74th Division, and the People's Liberation Army besieged Fuyang with two columns in The Middle Field and the Independent Brigade of the Yuwan Soviet Military Region, and eliminated two and a half battalions of the 173rd Regiment stationed outside the city and preparing to withdraw to Fuyang during the outer war. However, due to the stubborn resistance of the enemy army and the full support of xuzhou's "suppression general", the People's Liberation Army failed to conquer Fuyang in a fierce battle for 5 days and nights, and went away with regret.