In 1948, when the news of Huang Baitao's death on the Huaihai battlefield reached Chiang Kai-shek's ears, Chiang Kai-shek, who was visiting the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, wept. Although Huang Baitao was not born in the Whampoa Military Academy, he already regarded him as his descendant in Chiang Kai-shek's heart. The news of Huang Baitao's death in the Huaihai battlefield also made Chiang Kai-shek understand that he was powerless to return to heaven on the mainland, and he wrote in his diary that there was no shame in the Kuomintang, there was no possibility of victory, and he was ready to find a suitable place to start over.
When I saw Lao Jiang, I was mistaken for life
Speaking of which, Huang Baitao was born in a military family, his grandfather was a local general in the Qing Dynasty, his father was a general of the Huai Army, and he became a general in the Kuomintang army like fate.
Huang Baitao served as a herald for the Beiyang warlord Li Chun when he was a teenager, and was deeply appreciated by Li Chun for his diligence and good at greeting. Li Chun even married his maidservant to Huang Baitao as his wife, which also laid the foundation for him to enter the fifth phase of the Jinling Officer Training Corps sponsored by Li Chun in the future. After graduation, he served as a platoon commander and company commander in the Jiangsu Provincial Defense Force.
When Zhang Zongchang occupied Jiangsu, because Zhang Zongchang had been the commander of the Jinling Officers' Training Corps and had a teacher-student friendship with Huang Baitao, Huang Baitao took refuge in Zhang Zongchang and rose from battalion commander to brigade commander in Zhang's department. In 1928, Huang Baitao defected to Chiang Kai-shek with Xu Yuanquan, the commander of the Sixth Army of Zhang Zongchang's department, and served as the division commander. It was also during this period that Huang Baitao was able to meet Chiang Kai-shek.
Huang Baitao served as a lieutenant general and senior staff member of the Military Commission during the Anti-Japanese War, and was appreciated by He Yingqin for writing an award-winning military thesis. He recommended him to be the chief of staff of Gu Zhutong, commander of the Third Theater of Operations. At the beginning of 1941, he took an active part in the Southern Anhui Incident. Later, he served as the commander of the 25th Army, and in order to keep his position, he always charged forward and retreated behind in the war, showing great courage and determination. His efforts gradually won Chiang Kai-shek's trust.
Lu Nan will die in battle, and his friends will not die in poverty
As the war of liberation deepened, Chiang Kai-shek gradually realized that he had gradually lost his advantage in the face of the PLA, so Chiang Kai-shek planned to concentrate his forces to fight two major battles to save the situation. In 1947, Chiang Kai-shek gathered 23 divisions to launch the Lunan Campaign, vainly hoping to annihilate the East China People's Liberation Army in one fell swoop.
In order to concentrate superior forces to annihilate the enemy's living forces, the PLA army abandoned Linyi on February 10 and attacked Laiwu in the north. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) successfully annihilated the Li Xianzhou group. At the time of the demise of Li Xianzhou's corps, Huang Baitao had not yet arrived at the expected rescue site.
In order to recover the declining situation, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized three corps, Tang Enbo, Ou Zhen, and Wang Jingjiu, as well as 13 integrated divisions, to "focus on attacking" the Yimeng Mountains. Huang Baitao's troops belonged to the sequence of Tang Enbo's First Corps in Linyi, and together with Zhang Lingfu's integrated 74th Division, they were regarded as the main attacking force of this offensive. However, on 12 May, when the 74th Division arrived at Taowei and Mengyin, they were placed under the command of Huang Baitao.
Huang Baitao originally planned to integrate and reorganize the 83rd, 74th, 25th, and 65th Divisions, connect with each other, and hold Tianmaling and Shrimp Toad Ridge. However, Zhang Lingfu relied on his background in Huangpu and was an elite soldier of his descendants, so he insisted on going deep alone, gave up Tianmaling, and occupied Menglianggu, a dangerous place sixty miles southeast of Mengyin, alone.
The People's Liberation Army (PLA) quickly severed its ties with Huang Baitao and other units with superior forces, cut off its rear routes, and closed the encirclement. Although Huang Baitao led his troops to rescue the 74th Division under Chiang Kai-shek's strict orders, he was unable to merge with the 74th Division under the resistance of the People's Liberation Army. In the end, on 16 May, the 74th Division was completely annihilated, and the arrogant Zhang Lingfu was also killed.
m淮海战役前夕
In June 1948, the People's Liberation Army had liberated the eastern Henan region, so it pursued the victory and pointed at Kaifeng. The Kuomintang troops were already rumored to be in the dust, and the People's Liberation Army annihilated more than 390,000 enemies in the First World War.
The news of the loss of Kaifeng made Chiang Kai-shek uneasy, and he urgently transferred Huang Baitao to lead his troops to eastern Henan. In order to further cooperate with Huang Baitao's operations, Lao Jiang ordered the Third Rapid Column and the Second Brigade of the Traffic Police Army to be unified under Huang Baitao's dispatch, and the Huang Baitao Corps was formally established.
Huang Baitao led the corps to advance westward, but when he arrived in the Diqiudian area, he was besieged by five columns of the People's Liberation Army. Huang Baitao led his troops to resist and fight to the death for eight days and nights, with countless casualties and demoralization, and Huang Baitao himself was wounded. At this time, Huang Baitao's life should not be extinguished, and he insisted until Hu Lian's 18th Army and Qiu Qingquan's corps came to the rescue, and Huang Baitao found the opportunity to break through.
For this reason, Chiang Kai-shek awarded the Order of the Blue Sky and White Sun at the Nanjing Military Conference, and Huang was grateful, saying that he would "never give up" to serve Chiang Kai-shek in the future. As the saying goes, the world is unpredictable, and it was this Blue Sky and White Sun Medal that saved Huang Baitao's life after he died in battle.
Huaihai died in battle, and Lao Jiang shed tears
After the Huaihai Battle officially broke out, the East China People's Liberation Army marched south with seven columns, and the spearhead was directly aimed at Huang Baitao's corps. The People's Liberation Army launched a fierce attack, focusing on the position of the 44th Army on the front of the southern part of Nianzhuang, and destroyed it all in a short time. Huang Baitao hurriedly dispatched the 40th Division of the 25th Army to strengthen the defense of the Lianzhuang Station, but the fierce fighting continued.
Gu Zhutong, chief of staff of the Kuomintang, flew over Nian Zhuang on the 15th and airdropped a letter written by Chiang Kai-shek to support Huang Baitao. However, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) rushed day and night to repair the imminent fortifications and approached the Huangbu position through netted trenches and tunnels. Despite the strong military pressure, Huang Baitao still did not come to his senses, and even used the cover of the air force to concentrate on the battalion commander and above to give a lecture, claiming that he would "repay the country with death".
Huang Baitao still ordered artillery to bombard the positions that had been lost, completely destroying them, and he ignored the lives of the people in the village, and let them starve to death without releasing them. Under the fierce attack of the People's Liberation Army, the 44th Army and the 100th Army were completely annihilated, and the encirclement gradually narrowed. The remnants of the 25th and 64th armies ran out of ammunition and food, and their morale was low.
In the early morning of the 20th, Huang Baitao fled to the stronghold on the compound, and then moved to the Wuzhuang stronghold in the afternoon, trying to break through to the northwest. However, he found that the strongholds had been divided and surrounded by the PLA's reticulated trenches. In the face of such a desperate situation, Huang Baitao deeply felt that the general trend had gone, and said to his colleagues in despair: "Although the world is big, it will be difficult for me to bear it." By the evening of the 22nd, the remnants of the besieged Kuomintang army were all annihilated, and Huang Baitao attempted to break through the siege, and finally killed himself with a gun.