In the Battle of Menglianggu in 1947, the 74th Division, one of the five main forces of the Kuomintang, was wiped out, and no one was spared. From the division commander Zhang Lingfu to ordinary men and grooms, 3Almost all of the 20,000 people were killed or captured.
The victory in the Battle of Menglianggu led to the destruction of the 74th Division, bankrupted the Kuomintang's key offensive against the liberated areas of Shandong, and also made Chiang Kai-shek deeply distressed. At the war reflection meeting, Chiang Kai-shek was furious with Li Tianxia and Huang Baitao, who were ineffective in rescue and sat on the mountain to watch the tiger fight, and even prepared to shoot them on the spot.
So in this battle, what did Li Tianxia and Huang Baitao do wrong to make Lao Jiang so angry? This needs to be analyzed from the specific situation of the Menglianggu Campaign.
Before the Battle of Menglianggu, the situation of the enemy and us was quite unfavorable. In the previous Laiwu Campaign, the Kuomintang army fully comprehended the East China Field Army's movement and fought fiercely.
They found that as long as they showed a flaw a little and "advanced alone" a little, they could be annihilated by our army's concentrated superior forces. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek abandoned the previous tactic of "splitting the road and attacking together" and instead adopted the tactics of intensive close-up, steady and steady attack, and gradual advancement.
That is, to fight in a daze, to harden the village, to brake quietly, like a stone mill, to smooth the Shandong Liberated Area.
In the face of 450,000 elite enemy troops, our army has only 360,000, poor equipment and lack of food and clothing. Originally, it was planned to annihilate the weak Seventh Army and the reorganized 48th Division, but Su Yu believed that these two armies would be difficult to capture and would easily turn into a war of attrition.
On the contrary, Su Yu believed that the 74th Division was an excellent opponent. After deciphering the enemy's telegrams, it was ascertained that Tang Enbo took the 74th Division as the center, and the two flanks were the 25th, 83rd, 65th, 84th and 7th Divisions, with the intention of using the 74th Division as the arrow to make a breakthrough.
Su Yu formulated a clever plan of "black tiger digging out the heart", the fourth column and the ninth column were facing the 74th Division head-on, and the sixth column, under the leadership of the tiger general Wang Bicheng, seized the battlement village southwest of Menglianggu and cut off the retreat of the 74th Division.
At the same time, the first. 1. The 8th and 2nd Columns launched attacks on the enemy's left and right flanks of the integrated 25th Division and the integrated 83rd Division, making it impossible for the enemy to judge the direction of our army's spearhead. Finally, the first.
II. III.
7. The 10th Column blocked the enemy on the periphery of the enemy's left and right flanks.
Despite hunger and fatigue, the whole army was unanimous and orderly, and they bravely interspersed and finally formed an encirclement of the 74th Division on the morning of May 14.
On the critical 15th, Wang Bicheng's sixth column slaughtered from Lunan to Duozhuang within 48 hours, and finally annihilated the defending enemy. However, when Zhang Lingfu attacked the battlement, he found that this place had been occupied by Huaye's troops for an hour.
In desperation, Zhang Lingfu had no choice but to give up modern equipment, retreat to Menglianggu to resist, and wait for the arrival of reinforcements. Although Su Yu was clever and successfully surrounded the 74th Division, there was no guarantee that the 74th Division would be completely annihilated.
Because when the 74th Division was surrounded, the superior forces of the Kuomintang also surrounded Huaye, forming a complicated situation of "I encircle the enemy, and the enemy encircles me." If the Kuomintang is united, it may not be able to fight back and kill the main force of our Huaye.
In fact, both Zhang Lingfu and Chiang Kai-shek thought so. After Chiang Kai-shek learned that the 74th Division was surrounded, he eagerly telegraphed Tang Enbo and other units to go all out to rescue and realize the "national revolution", but in the face of reality, Chiang Kai-shek and Zhang Lingfu's plan fell through.
Because there are many contradictions within the factions of the Jiang army.
The Chiang family started with a gun, but he was actually the head of the warlords. After the Great War in the Central Plains, on the surface, the major warlords were all subdued, but in fact, they secretly disobeyed the yang and the yin, digging the foot of the wall. There were also many factions within the Kuomintang army, such as the Chen Cheng Civil Engineering Group, the He Yingqin Group, and the Hu Zongnan Group.
In essence, the Kuomintang army is a warlord army, and if there is an army, there is a good luck, and if there is none, it is like a bubble. In previous wars, each faction was interested in preserving its strength, and friendly forces were often in danger.
In the War of Liberation, although the Kuomintang had superiority in numbers and equipment, it rarely broke the siege. The 74th Division was surrounded, although it was attacked by the Huaye Five Columns, but the reinforcements on the left and right flanks were only 4 columns, and the distance from the friendly forces was only 10 kilometers, which could have lifted the siege and realized the flowering of the center.
However, the thunder and rain of friendly rescue made Zhang Lingfu anxious. In the end, Zhang Lingfu and Li Tianxia fought fiercely, but the result is unknown.
Many people believe that the Kuomintang army was mainly responsible for the defeat of the Kuomintang army in the Battle of Menglianggu, and some people even think that he was an undercover agent of our army in the Kuomintang army.
But in fact, Li Tianxia has been determined to be an enemy of the Communist Party since the Whampoa Military Academy, and there is no possibility of being an undercover agent or a ****** at all. He didn't do his best in the Battle of Menglianggu because he had an inextricable hatred with Zhang Lingfu.
Before the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang Lingfu brutally killed his wife and was imprisoned. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek released Zhang Lingfu and made him the head of the 305th Regiment.
Zhang Lingfu made a surprise attack on Zhang Gushan in the Battle of De'an, became famous in the first battle, and finally became the commander of the integrated 74th Division. Li Tianxia is jealous of Zhang Lingfu, the two of them are comparable in seniority and military exploits, but Li Tianxia is domineering, cunning and greedy for money, and likes to preserve his strength in war, while Zhang Lingfu is absolutely obedient to his boss.
In the Anti-Japanese War, Wang Yaowu transferred Li Tianxia to the commander of the 100th Army and appointed Shi Zhongcheng as the commander of the 74th Army. Li Tianxia thought that she would become the next commander of the 74th Army, but she was robbed of this opportunity by her junior Zhang Lingfu.
In the War of Liberation, the two were not used to each other, and Zhang Lingfu often scolded Li Tianxia in person. These clashes eventually led to Li Tianxia's death in the Battle of Menglianggu.
Zhang Lingfu asked Li Tianxia why he did not move and personally hit the 83rd Division, informing him that there was a problem on the right flank and that an encirclement had been formed. He reminded Li Tianxia that she should take action and be responsible.
Worried that his tone was too heavy, Zhang Lingfu softened his tone later. Li Tianxia insisted on refusing to take large-scale action, and only sent the 57th Regiment, which had the weakest combat effectiveness, into battle. The 57th Regiment was completely annihilated in the Battle of Northern Jiangsu and was reorganized by the puppet army.
Li Tianxia took the lead with this regiment, and if he won the battle, he could take it as his own credit, and if he lost, he would not damage the strength of the whole division, and he could also report to him. Obviously, Li Tianxia has bad intentions. In the end, the 57th Regiment not only did not rescue the 74th Division, but was completely annihilated by the People's Liberation Army, and even the regiment commander became a prisoner.
This laid the groundwork for Li Tianxia's later exoneration. Although Huang Baitao tried his best to rescue, it was to no avail.
Did Huang Baitao really work hard in the Battle of Menglianggu? According to the recollections of Wu Zhijing, colonel and deputy brigade commander of the 148th Brigade of the 25th Division, Huang Baitao did not wholeheartedly rescue the 74th Division in the Battle of Menglianggu, but preserved his strength.
Although Huang Baitao argued that he had done his best, Wu Zhijian's recollection shows that he used only one-half of his forces and placed the other two brigades in advantageous defensive positions.
Huang Baitao believed that Zhang Lingfu would not necessarily follow his command, so he did not go all out. With regard to the Kuomintang army's behavior of mutual restraint and self-preservation, "The Art of War" pointed out that victory can only be achieved if the upper and lower levels have the same desire.
Zhang Lingfu deeply felt the bad habits of **, and he expressed his dissatisfaction many times in letters to his old boss Yu Jishi. He foresaw his bleak future and was mentally prepared for the eventual demise of the 74th Division.
In the Battle of Menglianggu on May 16, 1947, Wang Bicheng led the Sixth Column to kill and wound the main peak, and Zhang Lingfu was also killed in the battle. Except for the Kuomintang troops who were killed, the rest of the soldiers were captured.
Su Yu adopted a risky strategy in a critical moment and eventually won the victory. This victory is inseparable from the assistance of Li Tianxia and Huang Baitao. The destruction of the 74th Division dealt a huge blow to Chiang Kai-shek, and his plan for a focused offensive came to an end.
Subsequently, the Kuomintang army began to settle accounts after the autumn. Chiang Kai-shek ordered the dereliction of duty Li Tianxia to be shot on the spot, and Huang Baitao was escorted to a military court for trial. However, Li Tianxia and Huang Baitao have their own umbrellas.
In the end, they ended differently.
Li Tianxia saved herself in the crisis and was eventually awarded a medal and position. However, in the Battle of Pingtan Island in Fujian, he once again faced a life-and-death crisis, but the running of the old army saved his life, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and was later sent to Kinmen Island as a small soldier.
Huang Baitao saved his life under the help of Gu Zhutong and performed prominently in the Battle of Eastern Henan, but eventually committed suicide in the Battle of Huaihai. This non-compliance with the law may have been one of the reasons for Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in Taiwan.