In August 1948, Chiang Kai-shek formed the Twelfth Corps, an elite mobile corps. Most of the Kuomintang generals believed that the commander of the corps was none other than Hu Lian. Unexpectedly, after Ren's order came down, the commander was Huang Wei, and Hu Lian was only the deputy commander. Hu Lian took a leave of absence to go to Wuhan in anger, and Yang Botao, the new commander of the Eighteenth Army, saw that the old commander had suffered such a situation, and in anger, he also said that he was ill and hospitalized.
Huang Wei went to the Twelfth Corps, which had a great impact on the morale of the corps. Because when the corps was formed, the basic unit was the reorganized Eighteenth Army, of which Hu Lian was the commander. There is still a difference between this integrated Eighteenth Army and the Eighteenth Army, one of the "five main forces", and in 1946, when the Kuomintang Army was reorganized, the Eighteenth Army was reorganized into the reorganized Eleventh Division, with Hu Lian as the division commander. At the end of 1947, the Nanjing Ministry of National Defense reorganized the reorganized Third Division, which had been annihilated in the Battle of Longhai Road, with the reorganized 18th Brigade as the backbone, and together with the reorganized 11th Division, formed the reorganized 18th Army, with Hu Lian as its commander (also known as the "Hu Lian Corps"). After that, the reorganized Tenth Division was also temporarily under the command of Hu Lian.
Huang Wei in the drama version of "Armageddon"
When the Twelfth Corps was formed, the reorganized division was changed back to the military level, and the reorganized Eleventh Division became the Eighteenth Army, the reorganized Third Division became the Tenth Army, and the reorganized Tenth Division became the Fourteenth Army. It can be seen that the three corps at the beginning of the formation of the Twelfth Corps were all assigned to the command of Hu Lian, especially the core unit of the Eighteenth Army, who served as the commander of the army (division) for a long time. Soon after, the Eighty-fifth Army and the Fourth Rapid Column were also assigned to the corps. As a result, the 12th Corps had a total of 4 corps and 1 rapid column, with a total strength of 120,000 people, which was the strongest and best equipped corps of the Kannai Nationalist Army. For this mobile heavy armored corps, Chiang Kai-shek had high hopes, and it was also his heart-meat unit.
Some people compare the Qiu Qingquan Corps (the Second Corps) with the Huang Wei Corps, believing that the Qiu Corps has five corps at most and should be stronger than the Huang Wei Corps. But in fact, the basic unit of the Qiu Corps was the Fifth Army, and the other four corps were uneven. Among the four armies of the Huang Wei Corps, the Eighteenth Army, the Fourteenth Army, and the Tenth Army were all expanded based on the Eighteenth Army of Chen Cheng's period, and the Eighty-fifth Army, of which Wu Shaozhou was the commander, also belonged to Tang Enbo's personnel system, and the equipment of these four armies was very good. In addition, the Huang Wei Corps also had a strong fourth rapid column.
The Fourth Rapid Column, also the elite of the "Civil Engineering System", was expanded by the 118th Division of the Eighteenth Army, a mechanized unit consisting of motorized infantry and tank troops. The column had equipment that other Nationalist units envied: the American M-1 105mm howitzer (24 guns), the American M3A3 light tank (24 vehicles).
It can be seen from this that most of the Twelve Corps is Chen Cheng's "civil engineering" unit, and its equipment and firepower are superior to that of Qiu Qingquan's corps; in fact, from the difficulty of encircling and annihilating Huang Wei's corps, and comparing Chen Guanzhuang's du yuming group with Qiu Qingquan's corps as the backbone, it can be seen that the will to fight and stubbornness of the Huang Wei corps are stronger than those of Qiu's corps.
Such an elite corps, commanded by Huang Weidang, was a matter of criticism by the senior Kuomintang generals at that time, because although Huang Wei had a clean name, he was also good to the soldiers when he was the chief military officer, but this person was too stiff in fighting and lacked adaptability. The general view is that Huang Wei can go to the military academy to be a good instructor, but it is really difficult to control a corps.
In the drama version of "The Great Armageddon", Chiang Kai-shek actually compared Huang Wei to Zeng Guofan
Huang Wei's ability to become the commander of the corps is actually the result of competition from all sides. At the beginning of the Nanjing Ministry of National Defense, the candidate was Hu Lian, after all, the integrated army at that time was equivalent to a reduced version of the corps, and the People's Liberation Army also called the reorganized Eighteenth Army "Hu Lian Corps". However, Bai Chongxi, commander-in-chief of the Central China "Suppression General" and He Yingqin, minister of national defense, resolutely opposed it, while Gu Zhutong, chief of staff, actively supported Hu Lian.
Bai Chongxi's opposition is well understood; most of the troops under his command as the "General Commander of suppression" in central China, except for the Zhang Gan corps of the Gui clan, are mostly Chiang Kai-shek's concubines, and now that they have joined another twelve corps, the more the gui clan will suffer. The elite of the Twelve Corps was not false, but if Hu Lian was made the commander, Bai Chongxi was afraid that he would not be able to control it.
So how could He Yingqin, who had been the chief instructor of the Whampoa Military Academy, oppose Hu Lian, a Huangpu IV student? The crux of the matter lies in the fact that Hu Lian is the hardcore backbone of Chen Cheng's "civil engineering system," and He Yingqin and Chen Cheng have been fighting for many years and are in the same situation. In 1944, He Yingqin lost the battle with Chen Cheng, and was replaced by Chen Cheng, who had been the minister of military affairs for more than ten years, and in May 1946, He Yingqin simply removed him from his posts of chief of staff and commander-in-chief of the army, and was sent abroad by Chiang Kai-shek to investigate, until the spring of 1948. Because Chen Cheng was swept away by the People's Liberation Army in the northeast, lost his troops, lost his city and lost ground, and was forced to hide in Shanghai to recuperate, He Yingqin felt a lot of evil in his heart, so how could he support Hu Lian in the selection of the commander of the Twelfth Corps?
Both Bai Chongxi and He Yingqin opposed it, and Chiang Kai-shek had to abandon Hu Lian, and after repeated deliberations, proposed that Huang Wei take office, and Huang Wei was preparing to create a so-called new-style officer school, and the official military position was deputy commander-in-chief of the joint logistics headquarters of the Ministry of National Defense.
"Pei me" is the word given to Huang Wei by Chiang Kai-shek
In Bai Chongxi's view, Huang Wei was obviously much easier to deal with than Hu Lian, and he agreed. As for He Yingqin, opposing Hu Lian is actually because of his identity as a "civil engineering department", although Huang Wei is also Chen Cheng's system, but he Yingqin is honest, He Yingqin is also satisfied with this candidate, after all, Huang Wei is from the Huangpu phase I, and for the first phase of life, He Yingqin and Chiang Kai-shek both have a special feeling in it.
In this way, the "honest man" Huang Wei became the commander of the Twelfth Corps, and he did not want to go at first, and before taking office, he told Chiang Kai-shek that after the battle, he would continue to return to the military academy to teach. After Huang Wei arrived at the Twelfth Corps, he saw that Yang Botao and other Hu Lian's cronies were very angry, so he said that he was only a temporary agent, and after a while he handed over the corps to Hu Lian.
Chiang Kai-shek formed the Twelfth Corps, initially hoping to use this mobile corps to operate on the outskirts of Wuhan and achieve the purpose of mobile defense. Bai Chongxi believed that after liberating the Xiangfan area, the People's Liberation Army might launch a larger offensive, so in early October, he asked Huang Wei's corps to set off from Zhumadian and search and attack along the way, trying to find the main force of the Central Plains Field Army.
Huang Wei's corps swung around for more than twenty days, and they were unable to find the main force of the People's Liberation Army. By early November, just as Huang Wei's troops were preparing to rest, the People's Liberation Army launched the Huaihai Campaign.
On November 8, Zhang Kexia, He Jifeng, and other deputy commanders of the Third Appeasement District led more than 20,000 people to revolt on the front line of the canal, so that the gates of the eastern line of Longhai were wide opened. Stunned, Chiang Kai-shek decided to transfer Huang Wei's corps to Xuzhou as a strategic reserve.
After Chiang Kai-shek's order was issued, Huang Wei did not even hold a military meeting, and after calling the commander of all the troops, he asked the corps to march rapidly north. From this point, it can be seen that in terms of obeying Chiang Kai-shek's orders, Huang Wei is indeed one of the best among the generals of the Nationalist army. However, it was precisely this unconditional obedience and the inadequacy of the enemy's response that allowed the Huang Wei Corps to go north to easily burrow into Nakano's cloth pocket.