In the Battle of Hengbao, which broke out between September and October 1949, our army successfully broke through the Hengbao defense line personally deployed by Bai Chongxi, a big man of the Gui clan, and further compressed the living space of Bai Chongxi's Gui troops in the grand strategy, laying a solid foundation for the later great detour and great encirclement and the total annihilation of Bai Chongxi's Gui troops in Guangxi. From the perspective of the scale of the campaign, although the scale of the Battle of Hengbao was not very large, our army achieved great results, and the 7th Army, the main force under Bai Chongxi, suffered heavy losses, not only exhausted, but also a number of senior generals were captured.
Moreover, the victory in the Battle of Hengbao shattered the dreams and illusions within the Kuomintang, especially the Gui troops led by Bai Chongxi, who could still fight a war and divide half the wall. In this regard, after the Battle of Hengbao, the prospects of the Kuomintang army were even worse. This can be seen from the Guangxi campaign that broke out later, our army showed a trend of destruction and decay, while Bai Chongxi's Gui troops showed a trend of defeat and total inability to withstand the fierce offensive of our army, and they were completely defeated at both the general strategic level and the specific tactical level.
Having said that, among the many senior generals of the Gui army captured by our army in the Battle of Hengbao, the highest ranking officer was Ling Yunshang, who was then the deputy commander of the Gui 7th Army. The 7th Army was the unit on which the Gui clan was based, it was established during the Northern Expedition, and its first commander was Li Zongren, a big man of the Gui clan. Later, the 7th Army of the Gui clan went through the Great War of the Warlords of the Central Plains and the War of Resistance Against Japan, and was known for its tenacious will to fight, which was comparable to Chiang Kai-shek's five major ace armies such as the New 1st Army, the 18th Army, and the 74th Army. It can be said that without the 7th Army of the Gui clan, there would be no Gui clan that could compete with Chiang Kai-shek, let alone Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi's call for wind and rain within the Kuomintang.
During the Battle of Hengbao, the commander of the Gui 7th Army was Li Benyi, who later fled to Guangxi with the defeated remnants of his army, and was soon defeated and captured in the Guangxi Campaign, while Ling Yunshang, deputy commander of the Gui 7th Army, was captured in the Battle of Hengbao. Although Ling Yun's fame was not as good as Li Benyi's, he was also a beloved general under Bai Chongxi and a fierce general in the Gui army. Ling Yunshang was a native of Guiping, Guangxi, who had been serving in the Gui army led by Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi since rong, and had also been sent to the Whampoa Military Academy to study in rotational training classes, and had experienced the Northern Expedition And the Central Plains Warlord War.
During the period of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Ling Yunshang followed the Gui troops to participate in the Battle of Songhu, the Battle of Xuzhou, the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Suizao, the Battle of Zaoyi, the Battle of Yuzhong, the Second Battle of Changsha, etc., and successively served as the commander of the 1033rd Regiment of the 48th Army of the Gui Clan and the deputy commander of the 173rd Division of the 7th Army. During the Battle of Xuzhou, Ling Yunshang led more than 2,000 officers and men of the 1033rd Regiment to block the Japanese invaders in Mengcheng, Anhui Province, and fought with the Japanese invaders for three days and three nights, and finally only more than 100 people were left to break through. Although the 1033rd Regiment on Lingyun failed to successfully stop the Japanese invaders, it slowed down the Japanese invaders' encirclement of Xuzhou and bought time for the main force led by Li Zongren to move.
During the Liberation War, the 7th Army of the Gui Clan was reorganized into the Reorganized 7th Division, and Ling Yunshang served as deputy division commander and brigade commander of the reorganized 172nd Brigade. Later, the reorganized 7th Division was restored to the 7th Army, and Ling Yunshang served as the deputy commander of the 7th Army and the commander of the 172nd Division, which was subordinate to the battle sequence of the Third Corps of Zhang Gan of the Gui clan, and was under the command of Bai Chongxi, who was then the commander-in-chief of the Kuomintang Central China Suppression Army. In April 1949, a million male divisions of our army crossed the Dajiang River and launched the Battle of Crossing the River, and the Kuomintang Central China Suppression General Reorganization was reorganized into the Central China Military and Political Governor's Office, under the leadership of Bai Chongxi, retreated to the southern part of Hunan, and built the so-called Hengbao Defense Line, in an attempt to resist stubbornly and prevent our army from continuing to advance to the central and southern regions.
Between September and October 1949, the Battle of Hengbao began, and our army broke through the Hengbao defense line in one fell swoop and severely damaged the Gui troops led by Bai Chongxi. Among them, the headquarters of the 7th Army, which was known as the main force of the Gui clan, was annihilated, and Ling Yunshang, deputy commander of the 7th Army, was taken prisoner after the defeat of the army, becoming the highest-ranking general of the enemy captured by our army in the Battle of Hengbao. After Ling Yunshang was captured, he was soon sent to the Central China Military and Political University to study and reform, and then was assigned to the 2nd Infantry School as a teacher. Later, Ling Yunshang was sent back to his hometown in Guangxi to work as a farmer, and died of illness in his hometown in Guangxi in 1969.