Regarding the Battle of Menglianggu, there has been a saying for a long time that Zhang Lingfu was arrogant and led the reorganized 74th Division to go deep alone, but as a result, he fell into the encirclement of Huaye and died in Menglianggu.
Is that right?Of course not, Su Yu expressed his opposition in his memoirs, saying:"In a number of materials, it is said that our army's record in capturing Meng Lianggu was sent to the door by the enemy's reorganized 74th Division. This statement does not conform to the reality of the battlefield and does not reflect the enemy's combat intentions and movements, nor does it reflect our army's foresight and campaign decisions.
"Due to the enemy's intention to carry out a breakthrough against us, the situation of the enemy's 74th Division is bound to be slightly prominent, but before the campaign is launched, the enemy's two flanks are only four to six kilometers away from the 74th Division.
"The above statement may be due to ignorance of the process of creating and capturing our fighters, and imagining the battlefield situation from the method of transmission that our army usually adopts is inevitably enough to cut the performance and think too stupidly about the enemy. ”
Su Yu's words really told the real situation at that time.
Although Zhang Lingfu has an arrogant personality, he is still very shrewd on the battlefield, and he does not fight uncertain battles, and the reason why he "goes deep alone" is actually after careful consideration, and the purpose is to attract the main force of Huaye to besiege him, and then let the Kuomintang peripheral troops carry out counter-encirclement, and blossom inside and outside, in order to win a complete victory.
It should be said that Zhang Lingfu's tactic is still very feasible, and with the super combat effectiveness of the reorganized 74th Division, it is enough to support the arrival of peripheral troops, and then the internal and external attacks will still have a great chance of victory.
However, Zhang Lingfu overestimated the degree of cooperation of the "friendly forces", and also underestimated Huaye's ability to send reinforcements.
Our army has a tried and tested tactic, that is, "encirclement points to send reinforcements", this Menglianggu battle, Su Yu arranged 5 columns to besiege Menglianggu, and also arranged 4 columns to be responsible for blocking reinforcements, therefore, the Kuomintang peripheral troops could not get in for a long time, although there were reasons for them to preserve their strength, but they were also inseparable from the strong reinforcements of our army, so that they could not get over even if they thought about it!
* At the time of mobilization before the war, it was clearly stated:"The difficulty in taking the rank of general from the million-strong army is that it is necessary to rip out this 'general' from the 'million-strong army' and then besiege it, and at the same time resist the reinforcements of the enemy's ten integrated divisions behind it, and the task is extremely arduous. We must make up our minds, not afraid of sacrifice, smash pearls for agate, and we must wipe out all the 74th Division!”
Su Yu also said that this battle is like pulling teeth out of a tiger's mouth"The tiger's mouth did not open on its own, there was only a little gap, and we had to cut into it hard, like a bridge with a hard bow, to stretch the enemy's left and right wings, and dig out the 74th Division from the enemy's heavy army group and annihilate it!”
This is the real situation of the Menglianggu Battle, there are not so many accidental factors, Zhang Lingfu went deep alone, not by accident "rash advance", but with the confidence of victory, and the reason why Huaye was able to completely annihilate and reorganize the 74th Division was not entirely because of the lack of reinforcements from the Kuomintang, but made all kinds of preparations, effectively blocked the reinforcements from coming in, and also held the confidence that he would win.
On the last day of the campaign, **personally hit the commanders of the various columns**, sternly:"The safety of the Shandong Liberated Area will determine whether the 74th Division can be eliminated within one day, and you must complete the task at any cost!”
In the final analysis, this is a hard-fought battle, a pinnacle duel between the physical strength and will of the two sides, no one is opportunistic, and in the end our army can achieve a big victory, which is also the result of the desperate death battle of the Huaye soldiers.
Therefore, when Su Yu saw those self-righteous views in his later years, he specially clarified in his memoirs, restored the truth of history, and also gave an explanation to the Huaye soldiers of that year.
(Reference: "The Battle of Menglianggu", "The Biography of Su Yu and Chiang Kai-shek's Ace General Zhang Lingfu").