On the morning of May 17, 1947, the Intelligence Office in the Revolutionary Base Area of Yan'an, Shaanxi Province, received a front-line war report from the Luzhong Battlefield, and Chairman Mao's secretary Hu Qiaomu hurriedly handed it over to Chairman Mao for inspection. Then, Chairman Mao exclaimed: It is worthy of being our "divine general.", I never expected it!
At the same time, the office of the chairman of the National Government in Nanjing also received an urgent telegram from Gu Zhutong, commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Army, and Chiang Kai-shek was shocked after looking at it, and then issued a long sigh: "Alas, I never expected it!" ”
What happened on the battlefield in Luzhong that shocked Mao and Jiang? Who is chairman Mao's "god general"? Why did Mao and Jiang shout "unexpected"?
A million nationalist troops attacked Shandong Wolf's ambitions
On June 26, 1946, Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang Military Commission, disregarded the "Double Tenth Agreement" and, with the military support of the rear of US imperialism, relied on superior troops to take the lead in launching a fierce attack on the Communist Liberated Areas in various places, with the intention of eliminating the Communist army in one fell swoop. However, in the face of the huge disparity between the enemy and ourselves, the Chinese People's Liberation Army skillfully adopted the strategic principle of "fighting while retreating" to preserve our strength.
In this way, the offensive front of the National Revolutionary Army was passively lengthened, and the balance of the war situation began to gradually tilt towards the PLA side. To this end, Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to abandon the initial tactic of "all-front combat" and aim the spearhead of the attack at the Shandong and northern Shaanxi regions, with the intention of opening up the gap in the Chinese People's Liberation Army from Luzhong, using this as a stronghold to break through the dilemma of the stalemate between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and swallowing up the CENTRAL Organs in one bite, that is, the "Decisive Battle in Luzhong" plan.
In early March 1947, Chiang Kai-shek gathered the strength of all fronts, a total of 3 mobile corps under 24 integrated divisions, led by Gu Zhutong, commander-in-chief of the army, marched from south to north from Xuzhou to luzhong mountainous area, and made a big statement, threatening, "In just three to six months, the National Revolutionary Army will be wiped out of the People's Revolutionary Army led by the Communist Party." ”
To this end, Chiang Kai-shek did not hesitate to draw one of the five main forces of the National Revolutionary Army, as the "blade" team of the National Revolutionary Army, with Tang Enbo, a backbone general of the Huangpu department, as the commander-in-chief, and the main force attacked all the departments in Shandong, and even the "ace unit" commonly known as the Kuomintang army, the integrated 74th Division, was also included.
As a result, the ambitions of a million nationalist troops Chen Bing Shandong and Chiang Kai-shek's faction were clearly revealed.
In early April 1947, the National Revolutionary Army successfully took the Lunan Liberated Area into its pocket and quickly opened the Jinpu Railway from Xuzhou to Jinan, with the muzzle of gun pointing directly at the Luzhong MountainOus Area. For this reason, the people of Shandong, who learned of the war situation, wondered why the National Revolutionary Army made such rapid progress, and in only one and a half months, it took Lunan for its own use. Is the East China Field Army, known as the "ace" of the People's Liberation Army, so vulnerable?
Actually, not really.
The Guanzhiguo military, 8 integrated divisions and 20 brigades, and the vanguard of the "Royal Forest Army" totaling more than 450,000 people, as well as the fine armament of the teeth, the National Revolutionary Army can be described as well-equipped and prepared. On the other hand, Marshal Chen Yi and General Su Yu have less than 400,000 troops that can be quickly concentrated, and the equipment is still "millet plus rifles". It can be seen from this that our absolute strength is undoubtedly at a disadvantage.
Therefore, the Hua Field Army stationed in the Liberated Area of Shandong has been in a passive retreat situation in this battle. However, if the "death penalty" of the East China Field Army is judged only on this basis, it will be too much to underestimate the true strength of our army's "ace troops."
In fact, all this was in the layout of General Su Yu and Marshal Chen Yi.
As one of the revolutionary strongholds of the early Red Army, Shandong's communist army has long been as close as the local fathers and elders, which has provided a strong support for our army's intelligence system, which the National Revolutionary Army can never match.
As early as during the battle with the National Revolutionary Army, General Su Yu dispatched Qi Jinhu, a reconnaissance platoon leader, to infiltrate the enemy's interior during the scuffle between the enemy and us, steal the enemy's confidential documents, and find out the enemy's military arrangements.
Therefore, when the National Revolutionary Army was victorious one after another and thought that it could "return to the DPRK" as soon as possible, their combat intentions had already been well understood by Su Yu and others, and they made meticulous countermeasures. However, according to previous combat experience, the cunning combat strategy of the National Revolutionary Army made it impossible for General Su Yu to determine its ultimate goal, so General Su Yu boldly made a combat strategy of "whirling left and right, moving to catch the aircraft".
At the same time, the Central Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee also urgently issued instructions to the General Headquarters of the Chinese Field Army stationed in the Liberated Areas of Shandong: Only when the enemy forces have the upper hand in a concentrated way can we give full play to our intelligence superiority and wait for an opportunity to move. He also stressed again and again: Do not divide the troops unless necessary, and patiently wait for the opportunity to annihilate the enemy.
For this reason, Marshal Chen Yi laughed and said, "Don't kill them now, in order to fatten them up and kill them again!" ”
Captives escape secrets on an improvised basis
In late April 1947, in the face of the menacing Nationalist army, General Su Yu made a decision that surprised the Nationalist army - he swung his troops south and directly approached Nanjing. As soon as General Su Yu's decision was reported, Marshal Chen Yi laughed and said, "This boy is going to give the Nationalist army a 'sound attack from the east to the west'!" ”
Subsequently, General Su Yu sent three columns to Advance nanjing, made an offensive to pretend to attack Nanjing, and then sent two more troops to the south of Shandong to unite the defenders in Shandong, and once the main force of the Nationalist army went south to support, it was immediately interspersed, which would divide the Nationalist army into two and disrupt its own steps.
However, the weather is unpredictable. Originally, everything was in general Su Yu's deployment, but what Su Yu did not expect was that a Kuomintang prisoner who had accidentally escaped actually speculated about Su Yu's military deployment of "pushing straight south and attacking the west" based on what he saw and heard in the march of the People's Liberation Army, and leaked it all to the command of the Nationalist army.
For this reason, Su Yu's brilliant plan was ruined. When General Tang Enbo of the Nationalist Army learned of the marching route of the People's Liberation Army, he immediately proposed a "decapitation plan", not only hiding an ambush in the marching route of the East China Field Army, but also attempting to use their heavy strength advantage to eliminate the East China Field Army in Tanbu.
Subsequently, Tang Enbo dispatched several bombers to the skies over Tanbu to strafe, intending to shoot the East China Field Army without spending a single soldier. However, what Tang Enbo did not expect was that it was precisely because of this so-called "shooting" that General Su Yu sensed the mistake, immediately checked the whole army, and targeted the escaped prisoners.
After learning of the mistake in the strategy of "attacking the west with sound from the east," General Su Yu did not lose his position, but immediately commanded all the units of the East China Field Army to stop marching south, give play to the "one martial art" learned during the War of Resistance Against Japan, and stay in Tanbu to prepare for guerrilla warfare.
Since then, the People's Liberation Army and the Nationalist Army have once again fallen into a stalemate of "you come and go", and the battle line has been repeatedly prolonged. To this end, Tang Enbo, the commander of the 1st Corps who was anxious to "behead", had a bad intuition and decided to change the tactics of warfare and adopt the tactics of the group to attack the Tanbu area.
At the beginning of May 1947, Su Yu urgently adjusted his deployment and withdrew the main force from Tanbu and hid it in the area east of Laiwu and Xintai, while the 2nd, 6th, and 7th columns were hidden near Juxian and Pingyi, waiting for the opportunity. To Su Yu's surprise, it was precisely because of this transfer that the People's Liberation Army brought a good opportunity to annihilate the enemy.
Soon after Su Yu's troops were dispatched and retreated, Chiang Kai-shek and Gu Zhutong, commander of the Luzhong battlefield, thought that the East China Field Army could not afford to fight for a long time, and the army's morale was broken, and it was no longer able to fight. Therefore, instructions were issued to the armies: The enemy army is no longer able to fight, and our army can advance boldly and rapidly.
Subsequently, the nationalist reorganized 48th Division and the 7th Army marched toward Yishui as the left wing of Tang Enbo's 1st Corps, and then the reorganized 25th, 65th, 74th, and 83rd Divisions lined up along the road as the right wing and marched towards the area south of Tanbu, while the Nationalist reorganized 11th Division and the 75th Division attacked west of Tanbu respectively.
The "scissors" offensive of the Nationalist army is tantamount to squeezing the East China Field Army into a "dead end", and the PLA is given only two choices: either fight or retreat, and retreat undoubtedly means abandoning the Shandong Liberated Area, which is the biggest loss for the PLA.
Therefore, this battle is crucial.
Tianluodi net around Huaye will be counted
In the face of the enemy troops pressing on each other step by step, the situation on our side was not optimistic, and while Su Yu was pondering the next move of the Nationalist army, the reconnaissance team sent "good news."
It turned out that Qi Jinhu, a scout sent to the Nationalist army earlier, had captured the confidential staff officer of the Nationalist army alive and intercepted a confidential document, which included the deployment and combat plan of the Nationalist army's current march.
For Su Yu, the timely arrival of this information was tantamount to enhancing Su Yu's confidence in platooning.
The intelligence explains in detail the national army's battle plan; The 1st Corps charged forward with the integrated 74th Division as the blade, Huang Baitao's reorganized 25th Division and Li Tianxia's reorganized 83rd Division were used as the left and right wings respectively, protecting the left and right flanks of the 74th Division at a distance of 7 kilometers, while the reorganized 65th Division occupying Mengyin and the 7th Army occupying Yishui defended the flanks of the reorganized 25th Division and the 83rd Division from the left and right flanks respectively, in case the Platon Army penetrated, the two sides could arrive within 1 day and give the East China Field Army a heavy blow, while Wang Jingjiu's 2nd Corps and Ou Zhen's 3rd Corps were respectively in the rear.
After learning about the nationalist army's battle plan, Su Yu was not so relieved, he sighed: The nationalist army is pressing our army step by step to confront it!
Based on previous combat experience, Su Yu originally decided to break through by attacking the flank of the 48th Division of the Gui Clan, but Soon Su Yu gave up this idea.
The reason for this was that Su Yu had suffered the losses of the 48th Division in the Lianghuai Campaign before, so he was well aware of the "moodiness" of this contingent, and he could not fight and run, and his temper of exploding when he was in a hurry was not conducive to our army's breakthrough. The reorganized 74th Division is located in the most prominent position of the deployment of the Nationalist army, and it happens to have the largest gap with the left and right armies, and it is easiest to divide and annihilate.
However, the reorganized 74th Division, known as the "Royal Forest Army" of the Nationalist Army, not only has a full set of advanced US armaments and equipment, but also receives special training from the US Military Advisory Group for a long time, and even once became a military benchmark within the Nationalist Army. All indications are that this hard bone is not easy to gnaw.
To this end, General Su Yu specifically asked Marshal Chen Yi. After looking at Su Yu's report, Marshal Chen Yi immediately patted the table and said: "Well, we will not leave, we will fight the 74th Division!"
After receiving the affirmation of Marshal Chen Yi, General Su Yu was like eating a reassuring pill and began to show his skills on the sand table.
On 11 May, Su Yu quickly dispatched Tao Yong's 4th Column and "Death Squad" Xu Shiyou's 9th Column as the main force in attacking the reorganized 74th Division and carrying out a frontal attack on the 74th Division; Ye Fei's 1st Column and Wang Jian'an's 8th Column respectively blocked the connection between the reorganized 25th Division and the Reorganized 83rd Division from the left and right; Wei Guoqing's 2nd Column covered the safety of the 8th Column's flank; the 3rd, 7th, and 10th Columns blocked the Xintai 11th Division, the Yishui 7th Army, and the 5th Army respectively, to prevent them from forming a left-right attack on huaye's main force.
At this point, Su Yu's "Linglong Chess Game" has been successfully laid out, and Su Yu and others are waiting for the 74th Division to take the bait, commonly known as the "Fierce Tiger Cutting Heart" plan. But why was Su Yu so sure that the 74th Division would definitely take the bait?
In fact, everything originates from the human heart. Although Zhang Lingfu, commander of the reorganized 74th Division, was hailed as Chiang Kai-shek's number one "love general," he himself had always regarded himself with a very high opinion, was self-conscious, and had already had a gap with the major officers in the army. If the 74th Division is attacked, most of the supporters from all sides will have the heart of "watching jokes" and delay the assistance, and this also provides the opportunity for our army to completely annihilate the 74th Division.
On May 12, after the 74th Division quickly occupied Yangjiazhai and Foshanjiao, Zhang Lingfu thought that our army's "inability to resist" had become an established fact, so he ordered the whole division to march rapidly in the direction of Tanbu, take Luzhong in one fell swoop, and eliminate Huaye. However, because Zhang Lingfu's instructions were not agreed to by his superior, Tang Enbo, this caused the 74th Division to assist the 25th and 74th Divisions far behind, and this also became an opportunity for our army to annihilate the 74th Division.
The "invisible forces" made a strong attack and won a complete victory
On May 13, the 74th Division was already more than a hundred miles away from the 25th And 74th Divisions, and had become a "lone ship" detached from its backup. At this moment, the horn sounded, and the columns of the East China Field Army began to attack. The 1st, 4th, 8th, and 9th columns served as the front of the 74th Division, and the 2nd, 3rd, 7th, and 10th Columns served as the left and right encirclements of the 74th Division. At this point, Zhang Lingfu, who had been attacked by the onslaught, thought that there was still a way to retreat under HuaYe's left and right attacks, so he urgently fled in the direction of Meng Lianggu and Duozhuang.
However, what made Zhang Lingfu most unexpected was this "back road". In fact, as early as the beginning, Su Yu had already organized an "invisible force" as a "strange soldier" to march rapidly in the direction of Duozhuang, and this team was the 6th Column that had been feuding with the 74th Division for a long time.
As early as in the liberated areas such as Ripple and Laiwu, the 6th Column had fought against the 74th Division and lost many times, which made the 6th Column Wang Bicheng and others hate Zhang Lingfu bitterly. And it was through the hatred of the 6th Column for the 74th Division that Wang Bicheng 6th Column took charge of the arduous task of raiding the 74th Division.
To this end, Wang Bicheng and all the others marched 120 kilometers without sleep, vowing to "run through the enemy's wheels with their legs", and finally arrived at Duozhuang 8 hours in advance, and left Zhang Lingfu with a heavy blow to quickly occupy Duozhuang. And this is the most crucial step to determine the victory of the Battle of Menglianggu, commonly known as the "surprise attack on the stacked village".
On the 15th, after occupying Duozhuang, the 6th Column did not stop there, and according to General Su Yu's "roundabout and interspersed" battle plan, Wang Bicheng and others immediately contacted the 1st Column that blocked the 25th Division, and surrounded the reorganized 74th Division retreating to Menglianggu on all sides in the lushan and Menglianggu areas.
At this point, the strong attack of the "invisible troops" made Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division completely fall into the dilemma of "embattled". However, Zhang Lingfu did not give up the struggle, but instead ordered the troops to retreat to the main peak of Menglianggu, using the mountain peak as a base, waiting for the support of the surrounding nationalist forces, and copying the East China Field Army from the four breads to realize the initial "total annihilation plan".
To this end, Zhang Lingfu specially sent a telegram to Tang Enbo of the 1st Corps: Our army is afraid of being surrounded and annihilated, and all parties should be ordered to urgently rescue them.
However, after this telegram was sent, Tang Enbo did not dispatch troops to rescue in time, but instead asked Zhang Lingfu to do his best to fight with the East China Field Army and delay the arrival of reinforcements.
However, Zhang Lingfu finally underestimated the hearts of the people, and because of Zhang Lingfu's arrogant personality in the early stage, all the officers were dissatisfied with him for a long time. At this moment, Zhang Lingfu was trapped, and most of them marched slowly, hoping that the East China Field Army would wear down the pride of the 74th Division.
Everything was as General Su Yu thought, after Zhang Lingfu was trapped, the 25th Division and the 83rd Division did not make much action. Therefore, at 3 o'clock on the 15th, General Su Yu issued a final order: All columns rushed! Be sure to nibble down this hard bone quickly and well!
The East China Field Army launched a general attack on Meng Lianggu, and each column attacked left and right, attacking back and forth, and launched a surprise attack on the 74th Division.
Under the surging offensive of the East China Field Army, the 74th Division lost a large number of positions within half a day, tens of thousands of people were besieged on the peak of the main peak of Menglianggu, only 3 kilometers long and 2 kilometers wide in the narrow caves, food supply and ammunition replenishment had become a problem, and the 74th Division was already "isolated and helpless".
At this time, Ou Zhencai, the 3rd Corps of the Nationalist Army, urgently ordered all sides to rescue the 74th Division in the direction of Meng Lianggu. However, Meng Lianggu had long been controlled by the columns of the East China Field Army, and the demise of the 74th Division had become an established fact.
On the morning of the 16th, the entire reorganized 74th Division was annihilated, and the division commander Zhang Lingfu was also killed. According to incomplete statistics, our army annihilated more than 32,000 enemy troops in this campaign, and this "decisive battle between Luzhong and China" finally ended with our side's complete victory.
On the 17th, the situation of the Shandong battlefield was transmitted back to Yan'an. When he learned that the 6th Column was like a "heavenly divine soldier" and set the cornerstone for the victory of the 74th Division, Chairman Mao was overjoyed and even more appreciative of General Su Yu.
Chiang Kai-shek was shocked to learn that one of the main forces of Chen Bing, a million troops in Shandong, had been annihilated, and even his most beloved major general had been killed. He also immediately decided to rectify the internal affairs of the nationalist army and remove individual officials from their posts and investigate them.
But in any case, the five main forces have lost one of their strength, which undoubtedly shows that our army is not only brave in combat, but also in wisdom!