In "Armageddon", Que Hanqian, commander of the 54th Army, angrily rebuked Luo Qi, the overseer of the Tashan front: "Dismantle the taiwan and fight for each other; Luo Qi reports to Chiang Kai-shek that the 54th Army does not exert its strength. So, who are the two people lying? None of them lied.
Luo Qi wanted his old unit to make the 95th Division stand on its own, and in the end, the more difficult it became, he had to push the responsibility to Que Hanqian; the 54th Army really did not work hard, but the reason was all due to Que Hanqian, who not only withheld military pay, but also hid selfish intentions. Of course, the inability of the EastWard Advance Corps to break through Tashan also had a certain relationship with Hou Jing: it did not listen to the opinions of its subordinates and changed positions in time.
Que Han Qian stills
Since Hou Jingru went to the headquarters of the 17th Corps (in Tangshan) to pick up his old 92nd Army, the battle two days before the attack on Tashan was commanded by Que Hanqian (October 10 and October 11, 1948). However, at this time, there were two problems within the 54th Army.
First, soldiers were not paid. Que Hanqian exchanged the soldiers' salaries for gold bars, bought a large amount of steel at the steel mill on the north bank of the Daling River, and then sold it to Tianjin and Shanghai, making a lot of money. In the end, the soldiers got all they had in their hands were a bunch of depreciating gold coupons. So the soldiers said indignantly, "As much as you give, you will fight as much as you want." This negativity of the Kuomintang soldiers was also reflected in Armageddon.
Second, preserve the strength of their old troops. At that time, the 54th Army had three divisions under its command, namely the 8th Division, the 198th Division and the Provisional 57th Division. Among them, the 198th Division was the basic unit of Que Hanqian, and the 8th Division was formed from the former Hu Zongnan's troops. In the first two days of fighting, Que Hanqian always let the 8th Division take the lead and consume first, which made the officers and men of the division carry great emotions. Everyone knows that Que Hanqian wants to use the 8th Division as "cannon fodder", and the 198th Division will go to grab the first place.
The internal discord within the 54th Army, coupled with the unusually tenacious resistance of the soldiers of the Four Columns of Dongye, made Que Hanqian's wishful thinking of grabbing the head fail. From this point of view, the Kuomintang army could not break through Tashan, and Que Hanqian needed to bear a lot of responsibility. After all, his "head cannon" did not fire, and it still led to so many problems.
By the time the battle resumed on October 13 (the armistice on October 12), Hou Jingru, commander of the Eastern Advance Corps, had already taken office. In addition to the increase of reinforcements from the Kuomintang army on the battlefield, the frontal flat pushing method of warfare was not changed. In fact, at the operational meeting on October 12, Yang Zhongfan, chief of staff of the 54th Army, proposed a new method of warfare, which was only rejected by Hou Jingru and Luo Qi.
Roach stills
Yang Zhongfan suggested that instead of attacking the frontal position of Tashan, he should mainly attack the area west of Baitai Mountain. The terrain there is flat and open, which is not only conducive to the attack of its own mechanized corps, but also can detour to Tower Hill. Objectively speaking, if Hou Jingru really adopted Yang Zhongfan's suggestion, the defense of The Four Columns of Dongye was bound to encounter more trouble. So, why did Hou Jingru and Roach reject this offer?
Roach's reason for opposition is simple: the current plan has been approved by Chiang Kai-shek and cannot be easily changed without the permission of the president. In Roach's view, no matter how tenacious the Northeast Field Army was, it was really not worth mentioning in the face of the attack of the four armies. As for Hou Jingru, he had other considerations.
Hou Jing truthfully did not want to be this commander, and at the same time he also had a basic judgment on the war situation in Jinzhou. Even if the Eastward Advance Corps can break through Tower Hill, what's next? They still have to face hundreds of thousands of Dongye troops, and it is likely that they will still be unable to change the fate of being annihilated. However, as long as the EastWard Advance Corps did not meet with the Jinzhou defenders, there was still room for maneuver, and the best result was to form a tug-of-war between Tashan and Dongye. Therefore, subjectively speaking, Hou Jingru did not want the EastWard Advance Corps to break through The Tower Mountain so quickly, not to mention luo qi's support.
The fourth right in front is Hou Jingru
In the course of the Tashan Blockade Campaign, there were many contradictions within the Kuomintang army, just like Que Hanqian said in "The Great Armageddon": "Fight for each other and dismantle each other." Hou Jingru and Luo Qi did not make timely adjustments according to the changes in the battlefield for their own reasons. As for Que Hanqian's accusations against Luo Qi, why didn't he do it himself?
[References]: Wang Shuzeng," "Liberation War"