On May 16, 1947, after three days and three nights of fierce fighting, our army had successfully basically eliminated the main force of the ** reorganized 74th Division that was stubbornly resisting in the corner of the Menglianggu Heights.
The soldiers of the Sixth Column Special Service Regiment, the vanguard of our army, have successfully surrounded Zhang Lingfu's headquarters, and the battle of Menglianggu has also entered the final stage. At this time, the commander-in-chief of the East China Field Army** learned that the soldiers had successfully surrounded Zhang Lingfu, so he hurried to the Menglianggu Heights.
* I once saw the couplet written by Zhang Lingfu in the study of Wang Yaowu, the commander of the second appeasement zone, and he felt that the couplet was magnificent, and he had always admired Zhang Lingfu very much.
Therefore, before the start of the battle, ** ordered Zhang Lingfu to be captured alive, and the purpose of his trip to Menglianggu Heights was also to personally persuade this ** ace general to surrender.
* During the climb, I heard a fierce gunfire from the top of the mountain, and I felt uneasy, so I accelerated the pace of going up the mountain. When he arrived at Zhang Lingfu's headquarters, he found that there was already a cold corpse.
He Fengshan, deputy head of the Sixth Column Special Service Group, excitedly reported to him the news that Zhang Lingfu had been killed. **Suddenly asked sharply: "Who killed Zhang Lingfu?" This surprised the fighters present, not knowing whether they saw that the commander was angry or there was some other reason, they did not speak.
As a result, the cause of Zhang Lingfu's death has become a mystery that has not been solved for many years. Later, after the defeat of the Battle of Laiwu, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the reorganization of nearly 600,000 troops including the 74th Division, the 11th Division, and the Fifth Army to attack the liberated area of Shandong.
Before Gu Zhu marched with his troops, the strategy of the Kuomintang army was to fight together with mixed troops, and they planned to use superior forces to directly attack the city, which the Kuomintang army called this tactic"Rotten grapes with hard walnuts"。
If our army wants to attack"Rotten grapes", then it will be around"Hard walnuts"Encircle; And if our army wants to concentrate superior forces to attack"Hard walnuts"and will be again"Rotten grapes"We dragged on.
With such tactics, the Kuomintang army has always maintained a stable posture. However, Zhang Lingfu believed that his 74th Division was the trump card of trump cards, and was unwilling to cooperate with other Kuomintang troops, believing that the People's Liberation Army would not use his hard bones.
He led the 74th Division to advance at a breakneck pace, and soon disconnected from the rest of the Kuomintang army. Zhang Lingfu has caused many troubles to our army in the past, and has long been regarded as a thorn in the side and a thorn in the flesh.
And Su Yu was worried that he couldn't find a chance to teach him a lesson, but he didn't expect him to take the initiative to send it to the door.
After learning the news that the 74th Division was out of touch, ** and Su Yu quickly formulated an operational plan to encircle and annihilate the division. ** said that like Guan Yu during the Three Kingdoms period, he would behead the enemy in the midst of thousands of troops and horses, and resolutely defeat Zhang Lingfu.
As a result, Huaye 1st Column and 8th Column quietly infiltrated the junction of the 74th Division and the 25th and 83rd Divisions in the dark night, and successfully isolated the 74th Division. At the same time, the 4th and 9th columns completed the distribution of troops, and the main forces had all arrived at the front of the 74th Division.
The Sixth Column in the Lunan area also received an order from the Huaye Command to immediately march north from Tongshi in order to cut off the retreat of the 74th Division. In the previous "Lianshui Campaign", there was a deep hatred between the Sixth Column and the 74th Division, many comrades-in-arms sacrificed, the number of the unit was insulted, and even the commander of the column, Wang Bicheng, was almost dismissed.
Therefore, the Sixth Column had the strongest desire to fight and became the best of the five main forces.
The team led by Wang Bicheng was the first to attack Zhang Lingfu's headquarters. Zhang Lingfu was excited when he found out that he was surrounded, he thought that as long as the 74th Division could hold back the main force of the PLA, the other ** troops would be able to achieve counter-encirclement.
At this time, he planned to join forces with the 74th Division and break through from the middle to eliminate the main force of Huaye. Indeed, Zhang Lingfu's personality is very arrogant. However, it has to do with his past experiences.
Zhang Lingfu was born in the fourth phase of Whampoa, was a descendant of Chiang Kai-shek, and was deeply respected by the old Chiang. In 1935, Zhang Lingfu shot his wife Wu Hailan for no reason, causing a huge sensation.
But Lao Jiang still protects his students, ostensibly putting him in prison, but in reality just letting him find a place to take refuge. After the start of the Anti-Japanese War, Zhang Lingfu was reactivated by Chiang Kai-shek, and since then he has embarked on the road to success.
By the end of the Anti-Japanese War, he had been promoted from a small regiment commander to the commander of the 74th Army, and entered the inner circle of the first army.
In the autumn of 1946, when the Soviet-Chinese battlefield was defeated one after another, Zhang Lingfu received an order from Chiang Kai-shek to lead the 74th Division, which had just been reorganized, into battle. He seized the opportunity that the main force of the Central China Field Army was completely taken away by Su Yu, and led the 74th Division to carry out a night attack on Huaiyin, the capital of the Central China Liberated Region.
Although ** had realized that the situation was wrong before the 74th Division's offensive was launched, and urgently dispatched the Ninth Column and other teams to return for reinforcements, it was too late. Under the onslaught of the 74th Division, ** had to lead the troops to withdraw from Huaiyin.
Zhang Lingfu took advantage of the victory to pursue and conquered Huaiyin and Huai'an successively. Since 1947, ** has lost a lot of cities, and now that he has captured two cities, he is naturally very proud.
Although the People's Liberation Army retreated in a big way, he did not take advantage of the victory to pursue, but arrogantly shouted "poor Kou Mo chase". Zhang Lingfu changed into the military uniform left behind when our army evacuated, and returned directly to Nanjing to ask Chiang Kai-shek for credit.
In Chiang Kai-shek's office, Zhang Lingfu, who was like a rainbow, took the initiative to lead the entire 74th Division to attack Lianshui, in an attempt to completely drive our army back to the liberated area of Shandong.
Zhang Lingfu attacked Lianshui for the first time on October 19, 1946, but suffered a crushing defeat due to the enemy's use of the tactics of direct penetration in the middle, losing more than 7,000 people and fleeing in disarray.
However, he soon regrouped and attacked Lianshui City again. This time, he used the strategy of attacking from the east to the west, ordering the 28th Division to make a feint attack in the south of Lianshui, while he personally led the 74th Division to attack from the west.
In the course of the battle, the 28th Division continued to attack south of Lianshui for 11 days, attracting the attention of the main forces of the PLA. At this time, Zhang Lingfu's 74th Division suddenly appeared west of Lianshui, so that the western flank of our army's weak defense was quickly broken.
Despite the tenacious ** of the Huaye Sixth Column, Lianshui City was finally lost, and the main defensive force of the Sixth Column was ** more than 5,000 people in this battle. These two battles made Zhang Lingfu's name resounding all over the country, and at the same time made him arrogant.
He despised the People's Liberation Army, believing that they were just a group of "chickens and dogs", and the poor combat effectiveness of the previous ** troops made the People's Liberation Army appear strong. He also threatened to "drive the fish into the East China Sea".
At the same time, he also looked down on the Kuomintang troops, believing that all other units had been defeated by the PLA, and only his 74th Division could achieve successive victories, and the other units were "garbage".
Because of his arrogance, his relations with many generals were strained. His arrogance eventually led to his defeat and death in Menglianggu. The Kuomintang was full of factions, and many generals had their own selfish intentions, and often disobeyed the orders of their superiors, resulting in the appearance of strength in the execution of tasks, but in fact internal disintegration.
In addition, Zhang Lingfu thinks very highly of himself, looks down on other ** generals, and often makes arrogant and arrogant remarks, which makes his relationship even more strained. Therefore, when Chiang Kai-shek and Gu Zhutong ordered the rescue of the 74th Division, most of the surrounding troops only symbolically sent a unit over to create momentum, but they were actually watching the excitement.
On the morning of May 15, the East China Field Army successfully encircled the 74th Division and forced Zhang Lingfu to the Menglianggu Heights. With the order of **, a total of five columns of the first, fourth, sixth, eighth, and ninth launched a fierce attack on the Menglianggu Heights from all directions.
Although the 74th Division was an elite unit of the Kuomintang, they still put up stubborn resistance despite being extremely inferior in numbers. Under the high-intensity offensive of our army, the barrels of many ** soldiers were red, and many positions changed hands repeatedly.
However, the 74th Division always insisted on resisting, and even Zhang Lingfu himself picked up the Thomson submachine gun to participate in the battle on the front line. But after all, our army gathered five times the strength of the 74th Division, and after a day and a night of fierce attack, the main position of the 74th Division was completely lost, leaving only a few small units scattered in the dying struggle.
Other troops were still charging head-on, and the Sixth Column Special Service Group had quietly touched Zhang Lingfu's headquarters under the leadership of He Fengshan. The enemy's headquarters is located in a cave, and our artillery can't blow it up, and as long as the hole is not lost, no one can enter it, so it is very safe.
Unexpectedly, before our army retreated, the enemy was already caught off guard by us. Swiftly, we cleared the enemy from the entrance to the cave and surrounded their headquarters.
Although we received orders from our superiors to capture Zhang Lingfu alive, He Fengshan did not immediately launch a fierce attack. Instead, he asked the instructor to persuade him to surrender. However, Zhang Lingfu was stubborn, and he not only refused to surrender, but also shot at the hole with a submachine gun.
As a result, the instructor of the third company and several other fighters instantly fell in a pool of blood. In this situation, we were forced to fight back, and the scene suddenly fell into chaos, with gunfire and gunsmoke filling the air.
When everything finally calmed down, someone shouted: "Zhang Lingfu is dead!" He Fengshan immediately asked the soldiers to enter the cave to search, and finally found Zhang Lingfu's body in a pool of blood.
After the confirmation of Zhang Lingfu's entourage, this is him.
He Fengshan bravely killed the enemy's commander-in-chief, which was a feat on the battlefield. However, when ** asked who killed Zhang Lingfu, the scene was silent, and no fighter was willing to stand up and admit it.
In the end, although the news of our army's killing of Zhang Lingfu was reported, how Zhang Lingfu died became an unsolved case. There are many theories about Zhang Lingfu's death.
One of the most accepted by the outside world is the theory of killing on the spot, which is also a statement that our army has always publicly and confirmed. According to the report of the front-line reporter of "People's **", on May 25, 1947, after Zhang Lingfu was killed by our army, his body was identified, and it was confirmed that the back of his head was blown up by Tom's bullet, and his blood and brain had dried up.
At the same time, He Fengshan also described in detail the process of killing Zhang Lingfu in his memoirs. Although this statement is conclusively proven, it remains a mystery why the soldier who killed Zhang Lingfu did not dare to stand up and take credit at the scene.
After the Battle of Menglianggu, there were various theories about the cause of Zhang Lingfu's death. Among them, the suicide theory is widely respected in the Kuomintang, but there is a lack of evidence to support it. Another theory is that Zhang Lingfu chose to surrender after being surrounded by Huaye's forces, but was killed in the process of surrendering.
This statement was confirmed by Kanekoya, who served as a staff officer at the Huaye Command that year. However, despite the passage of more than 60 years, the KMT has not yet released the so-called "suicide note of Zhang Lingfu", which is enough to show that the credibility of the suicide theory has been greatly reduced.
Zhang Lingfu was the commander of the 74th Army, one of the five main forces, and was later captured alive by the Sixth Column Special Service Regiment of our East China Field Army in the Battle of Menglianggu, but finally died under the gun of a cadre of our Sixth Column.
There were many opinions about this until 2004, when an old man named Ge Zhaotian suddenly came forward and said that he was the one who killed Zhang Lingfu. Although 57 years have passed, the old man Ge Zhaotian still vouches for his personality and says that all this is true.
This revelation gives us a deeper understanding of this history.
Ge Zhaotian was a veteran of the Huaye Sixth Column, and his company took the lead in attacking Zhang Lingfu's headquarters on the afternoon of May 16, 1947. The instructor of the third company shouted to the enemy troops by persuading them to surrender, and Zhang Lingfu learned that our army had surrounded the headquarters, and walked out of the cave with a dead face, ready to surrender to the PLA.
However, when he saw that there were only a few people at the entrance of the cave, he rekindled his hope and raised his submachine gun and began to fire. The instructor didn't have time to dodge and was injured by Zhang Lingfu.
Seeing this, Ge Zhaotian immediately picked up a gun and shot at the ** of the "fake surrender". Zhang Lingfu wanted to escape after being shot in the chest, but was shot in the back of the head by Ge Zhaotian and died on the spot.
The remaining enemies saw that the division commander was already dead, and immediately dropped ** and raised their hands in surrender. At that time, Ge Zhaotian didn't know that he was killing Zhang Lingfu, but when he saw that this officer was full of medals on his chest, he felt that he must be a senior officer.
He beats me, I don't beat him? Lao Jiang beat me, and I dare to shoot? Dai Wenxian's reproach and Ge Zhaotian's resistance made the original plan to capture Zhang Lingfu alive fail, making Dai Wenxian even more angry.
Ge Zhaotian was not convinced, insisting that he shot out of self-defense, so he left without looking back. Later, when he asked who killed Zhang Lingfu, Ge Zhaotian looked at the corpse on the stretcher, wanting to admit it but was afraid of Deputy Division Commander Dai's punishment, so he finally chose to remain silent.
* The general's description raises questions about the cause of Zhang Lingfu's death. Later, in the Korean War, Ge Zhaotian enlisted in the army again, and revealed in a chat that he had shot and killed a Kuomintang ** in the Battle of Menglianggu.
He was asked to be punished by the deputy division commander, but he wasn't sure if that ** was Zhang Lingfu. It wasn't until he talked to Zhu Fanyou and recalled the appearance and rank of that ** that he realized that it was Zhang Lingfu.
The mystery of Zhang Lingfu's death was finally solved, and it turned out that he died at the hands of "an inconspicuous People's Liberation Army", which undoubtedly brought great irony to the conceited Zhang Lingfu.