In early May 1948, the Kuomintang army realized that the Central Plains war situation was in an unfavorable state, in order to recover the decline, Chiang Kai-shek mobilized 13 integrated divisions, deployed in the Central Plains to serve as defensive tasks, and transferred another 12 integrated divisions and 4 fast columns to take up mobile combat missions.
At that time, the strength of nearly 10 integrated divisions of the Kuomintang Army was concentrated in the southwest of Shandong, including the five main forces such as the Fifth Army, and it was unrealistic to swallow them in one bite, so the higher authorities ordered Huaye to quickly attack and extensively mobilize the enemy, so as to disperse the enemy's forces and seek opportunities to annihilate the enemy. After Hua Ye realized the situation of the enemy's main force gathering, he temporarily decided that the main force would not attack Qiu Qingquan's Fifth Army, but instead attack Kaifeng, which was defended by a total of more than 30,000 troops in the first division of the integrated division.
Chen Tang Corps as the main force to attack Kaifeng, at that time there were also the Fifth Army, the Ou Shounian Corps and Hu Lian's integrated 11th Division, in order to contain the attack of Hu Lian's corps, the 10th Column of Song Shilun, which was resting west of Henan, was ordered to rush to Shangcai to block Hu Lian's corps.
Hu Lian's integrated 11th Division is one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang Army, and its strength is basically not weaker than that of the Fifth Army and the integrated 74th Division, and the division commander Hu Lian is even more cunning and cunning. Therefore, the pressure faced by Song Shilun's 10 verticals can be imagined.
As a unit of Huaye, the 10th column has always been famous for being good at fighting blocking wars, and the 10th column has the saying that "the artillery does not move, it must be the tenth column", Song Shilun and Hu Lian are the same as Huangpu graduates, Hu Lian is a period earlier than Song Shilun, both sides have heard each other's names, Hu Lian's cunning is like a fox in Song Shilun's heart, and Hu Lian is a younger brother than himself, and he is also deeply touched, after all, it is a task that makes the Kuomintang army deflated many times.
After realizing that our army was attacking Kaifeng, Hu Lian's 11th Division was immediately dispatched to aid Kaifeng, when Song Shilun realized that with Hu Lian's cunning and cunning, he would definitely expect the possible resistance on the way, if Hu Lian crossed Shangcai and went straight to Kaifeng, with 10 longitudinal distances to Shangcai, it would not be able to catch up anyway.
Reconnaissance came with information, and sure enough, Hu Lian's reorganized 11th Division was very fast, and even the whole had crossed the Honghe River, even if Song Shilun had already led the 29th Division to set off at that time, it was basically impossible to stop Hu Lian in Shangcai. However, Song Shilun was ingenious, according to the intelligence from reconnaissance, although most of Hu Lian's 11th Division had crossed the Honghe River, the division headquarters of the 11th Division was located in Shangcai, intending to use Shangcai as a headquarters.
Considering Hu Lian's suspicious nature, in line with the idea that the enemy must be saved, Song Shilun believed that as long as he led his troops to attack Shangcai County, Hu Lian's 11th Division would inevitably not have the energy to rush to the aid of Kaifeng, so that the enemy was firmly absorbed, which was not a way to block reinforcements, so on June 17, after Song Shilun led the 10th Vertical and 29th Division to Shangcai, he immediately ordered the troops to attack, but at the same time demanded that "it must be fought hard, but it is not allowed to really fight, only a feint attack."
Although the 10th Column was inferior to Hu Lian's 11th Division in terms of equipment, and after a day and night march, the people were sleepy and the horses were lacking, and the ammunition consumption was huge, but it still played a tiger and a tiger, especially after Hu Lian realized that he was besieged, he specially ordered the three brigades to go north to immediately turn around and rush to help Shangcai, and the 10th Column after a bloody battle, annihilated more than 5,000 people of the 11th Division, and realized that he might be in danger, Hu Lian led the 11th Division to evacuate Shangcai, which strongly supported our army's action to conquer Kaifeng in the Eastern Henan Campaign.