It should be said that He Shuai's Battle of Tai was quite beautiful. He annihilated five regiments of the 71st Division of the 33rd Army of the Democratic Party and the 46th Division of the 33rd Army near Shouyang, a total of 20,000 people. After that, he took the initiative to go south and north to mobilize surrounding reinforcements of the Democratic Party to eliminate more than 20,000 people. After one battle, he annihilated more than 40,000 enemies, which was equivalent to eliminating a full army of the Democratic Party. Not only did he start a good start for the War of Liberation, but he also seriously isolated Taiyuan and controlled a vast area in eastern Jin.

Of course, the scale of the Zhengtai Battle was relatively small and its influence was limited. The greatest significance was to stabilize the situation in western Hebei and avoid the restraint of Yan Laoxi's troops on North China, so that the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei-Shandong-Hebei-Hebei-Shandong-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-Hebei-He

In Shaanxi, the Northwest Field Army led by General Peng began to roam around with Hu Zongnan in northern Shaanxi. Although Hu Zongnan won the so-called Yan'an victory, he was essentially in a strategic passive manner and could only blindly follow the baton of the Communist Party Central Committee and General Peng. Although the Northwest Field Army was quite weak, it restrained Hu Zongnan's more than 200,000 troops. It has to be said that this is a miracle.

Of course, the key battle to win and lose the War of Liberation is not in northern Shaanxi, but in the Central Plains and East China, whether the main force of the Democratic Party army can be eliminated and slaughtered in this area and reverse the balance of enemy and us.

The first major war broke out was the Dawenkou Battle that encircled and annihilated the reorganized 74th Division. As mentioned earlier, Zhang Lingfu was very proud and careless, and he was surrounded. Nine regiments of his three brigades were stationed in the shape of a pin around Dawenkou Town, and resisted the siege of nine divisions of the three columns of the People's Liberation Army in the open plains. It can almost be said that General Su used one division to attack Zhang Lingfu's regiment, and had an absolute advantage in military strength.

Let me briefly talk about Zhang Lingfu's defensive posture. The 51st Brigade was stationed in Dawenkou Town north of the Dawen River to face the Ninth Column of Xu (General Luo BH's second Column was responsible for blocking the aid). The 57th Brigade was on the south side of the 51st Brigade, which was the south bank of the Daqing River, while the 58th Brigade was located in the triangle area at the intersection of the Dawen River and the Daqing River. It was equivalent to saying that the two rivers divided the 74th Division into three pieces, and Zhang Lingfu's three brigades almost fought in their own battle. Such a military configuration method is really inexplicable. It can even be said that Zhang Lingfu was digging his own grave at the beginning, and how could General Su let go of such a good opportunity? As soon as he got up, he quickly cut off the connection between the 58th Brigade and the 51st Brigade and the 57th Brigade.

It was the turn of monk Xu's turn to show his power. Along the highway, the Nine Column conquered five villages in a row and tore a large hole of two kilometers wide and three kilometers long on the enemy's position. Zhang Lingfu was so scared that he concentrated all the heavy firepower and carried out a firepower coverage for three hours to curb the crazy offensive of the Nine Column. However, although this solved the urgent problem, it also consumed a large amount of shells. Once the troops like the 74th Division lost their advantage in heavy firepower, it would be difficult to stalemate with Pla head-on.

On this day, not only was the 51st Brigade in a bad situation, but the divided 57th Brigade was in a more critical situation. After losing contact with the 51st Brigade and the 58th Brigade, the brigade commander Chen Xuyun had not thought of resuming contact. At one time, under the cover of artillery fire, the 57th Brigade regained some ferries, but soon the Sixth Column and the Seventh Column drove Chen Xuyun's troops away with more fierce artillery fire suppression. Chen Xuyun was shocked. He could not have imagined that the Communist Party was not a guerrilla force, but a powerful force no less than the 74th Division.

The 57th Brigade was resisting tenaciously throughout the day and night. The two sides fired tens of thousands of shells at the same time, almost razing the entire Fangshan Town to the ground. At this time, it highlighted the consequences of Zhang Lingfu's failure to prepare for battle. At the intersection of the Daqing River and the Dawen River was an alluvial plain, a flat land with no danger at all. It was an open area that was beneficial to offense but not conducive to defense. It was a life-threatening area here.

If Zhang Lingfu was not so proud and was not so indifferent to the actions of the Second Column, he not only had the opportunity to break out of the encirclement, but actually was Mount Kolai on the east side of the Dawen River. If the position he was defending was located in Mount Kolai, the conditions would be much better to stick to the mountain.

Unfortunately, Zhang Lingfu has never been a wise general. This is not a trampling on General Zhang, but a statement from General Zhang's subordinates and colleagues. Wu Yuan, who was once the head of the Personnel Department of the 74th Army, commented on Zhang Lingfu: "It is okay for him to be a battalion officer, but it is difficult for him to be a military officer, but it is difficult for the division commander to be a military officer. Li Tianxia usually says that he is Zhang Fei, brave but not a resourceful. He is usually not practical, specializing in art, likes to ride horses, practice calligraphy, buy antique calligraphy and paintings, and hangs portraits of Genghis Khan, Napoleon and others in the room, as if he is a Confucian general... But at a critical moment of combat, he cannot come up with a way, and sometimes he only knows "storm". He fully shows the appearance of a "a martial artist".

Wu Yuan's portrayal of Zhang Lingfu is very impressive. This is how he performed in the Battle of Huaiyin. When the siege was blocked, he was helpless and wanted to lead the guard battalion to charge, showing his brave but not the plan.

This is even an important reason why Wang Yaowu recommended Zhang Lingfu as the commander of the 74th Army, because compared with Li Tianxia, ​​the simple-minded Zhang Lingfu is easier to control, which is conducive to him continuing to control the 74th Army behind the scenes.

This is not what a person said. Dong Qiwu, who studied at the Army University with Zhang Lingfu back then, also felt that Zhang Lingfu was not very good. He recalled: "At the training at the Mainland University, each general of the foreman could bring a staff officer according to regulations, but Zhang Lingfu in our class brought two staff officers to school. He only taught one class a day, and asked the staff officer to take the rest of the classes for him. He spent 7 million yuan to buy a foreign building near Chongqing, where he was pampered every day.

You, eat, drink, gamble. One Sunday, he invited me to his place. When I arrived, I saw it, it was magnificent and dazzling, like a palace. It was a dance hall and a restaurant, which made me dazzled. I, a general who was on the front line outside the border, couldn't sit still, so I hurriedly pretended to be in trouble to the master. How could such a general fight against Japan and not lose the hearts of the people and the army? How could such a government not bring disaster to the national crisis? How could the country not be destroyed? "

Zhou Gengsheng, who was formerly a member of the 74th Army, also wrote an article to reveal Zhang Lingfu's old truth. He said that Zhang Lingfu was strict in his military management and violent in ways that often warned him: "When he was a division commander, he once said to his regiment commander Liu Guangyu: 'Tomorrow commemorating Zhou, how many are there in your regiment (his usual term is how many officers and soldiers are there to be shot)?' Commander Liu said: 'I don't have it in my regiment.' Zhang Lingfu said: 'Your regiment always has no. Tomorrow, you must find a few for me.' Liu also said: 'Your regiment is the only way to shoot me.'"

Even after Menglianggu, Mr. Jiang couldn't help but complain about Zhang Lingfu. On May 19, 1947, ****, when talking about Menglianggu's lessons, said: "At this point, I want to put forward the last lesson to tell you, this is the process of the 74th Division fighting in Menglianggu. This time, the 74th Division attacked Tanbu, a bandit base in central Shandong. The attack was not captured for two days, and found that the enemy's main force had surrounded him, so the entire division retreated to 30 miles from Mengyin.

A mountainous land, Menglianggu. At that time, the entire division had six regiments. If the division commander had high-level tactical cultivation, could choose appropriate terrain, configure troops, and form a thorough fire net, no matter how strong the enemy's troops were, we would never be able to solve it within one day. However, at that time, the division did not guard the mountain pass, but only guarded the mountain, and the mountain was a stone mountain and had no drinking water. Therefore, the enemy's artillery fire doubled, and our army suffered greater casualties, and even the entire failure."

From this we can see that Commander Zhang is not very smart in war and relies entirely on reckless actions. As for military literacy, it is probably just that. I am afraid that the military management will rely even more on sticks. When such a person who can only show off his courage and does not care about it, he can only sit back and wait for death.

On the second day after Zhang Lingfu was surrounded, his mental state underwent a fundamental change. If he was proud and confident before, but was really panicked, he kept sending telegrams to Tang Enbo and Wang Yaowu, urging reinforcements over and over again. Wang Yaowu was a little annoyed that Zhang was too embarrassed by the 74th Division. Damn it was so messy that he had just been surrounded for a day. Does he still look like a trump card main force?

Of course, no matter how annoyed, Wang Yaowu could not watch his direct 74th Division fall into slaughter. He quickly contacted Tang Enbo, hoping that Tang Enbo would immediately draw one or two reorganized divisions to rescue the 74th Division.

Tang Enbo was actually quite annoyed. In addition to the 74th Division, his progress was actually quite smooth. He was invincible all the way. He recaptured more than a dozen counties including Tai'an and were besieging Jinan. This was the happiest time, but the 74th Division was usually bragging about the sky and started to get diarrhea as soon as it arrived in actual combat. The work behind the palace was a mess, and the traffic line was cut off by ****, but he was shamelessly surrounded. Instead, he had to mobilize troops to rescue him. Isn't this a pig teammate who is pulling his legs!

However, Tang Enbo did not dare to really not save the 74th Division. After all, this is the heart of the commissioner. If he had given it to the Communist Party at his hands, he would definitely have to lose his life. So even if he was reluctant, Tang Enbo still pulled Li Tianxia's reorganized 83rd Division out and joined forces with the reorganized 65th Division to rescue Zhang Lingfu.

Perhaps in Tang Enbo's opinion, the two reorganizers could rescue Zhang Lingfu, and among them were Li Tianxia, ​​who was born in the 74th Division. This person should not be afraid of being saved, right?

Unfortunately, Tang Enbo was really wrong about this. Li Tianxia and Zhang Lingfu had a very bad relationship, because Li Tianxia was older than Zhang Lingfu, and was still Zhang Lingfu's old superior. When Zhang Lingfu was the regiment commander, this was the deputy division commander and brigade commander. But in the end, Li Tianxia was squeezed out of the 74th Army by Zhang Lingfu, the subordinate Zhang Lingfu, and could only go to the 100th Army to be the commander. When the civil war broke out, Zhang Lingfu actually climbed to the same level as Li Tianxia and commanded the 74th Division, one of the five main forces. It can be said that Li Tianxia was very angry. As mentioned earlier, this Li Tianxia is really not a good person, and it would be quite a scam if she was bad!

How could Li Tianxia be able to save Zhang Lingfu sincerely? After receiving the order from Tang Enbo, Li Tianxia drew a regiment from his reorganized 83rd Division and ordered the regiment to move forward in Tai'an. In Li Tianxia's words, it was a loud and loud move forward.

In addition to this noisy regiment, Li Tianxia's main force of the reorganized 83rd Division either continued to stay in the northern part of Tai'an to rest or burn grass valleys on the spot (that is, to go to surrounding villages and towns to rob, Li Tianxia's army discipline is very bad). All this was unknown to Nanjing's Army General Command and the Ministry of National Defense. They only knew that Li Tianxia had gone to rescue Zhang Lingfu as ordered. The vanguard had arrived in Tai'an, but they didn't expect that the so-called vanguard was so pitiful.

Li Tianxia was slanderous, and the reorganized 65th Division was naturally not much better. In addition to launching several attacks on the second column on the first day, the next two days were full of heavy thunder and little rain. Each attack was at most one or two regiments. Once it was strongly counterattacked by the second column, it would stop and rest immediately. Anyway, it was just a fight and stop.

Then why is this? The main reason is that Zhang Lingfu is not a person and very arrogant. He has never taken his brother troops seriously. He is the best in the world. He is the most idiot in the world. Moreover, since he entered northeastern Shandong, there have been many frictions with the 74th Division. For example, when he went to the countryside to rob the 74th Division and seized a big head and didn't even give the 65th Division. For example, when allocating supplies, the 74th Division relies on its five trump cards to occupy more. Anyway, there are many trivial matters. Not only is the two sides not dealing with this matter, but more importantly, the 65th Division is not the central branch. It comes from the Guangdong military system and is a miscellaneous brand. The Central Army and the miscellaneous brand army have conflicts. The 65th Division has a joke. Now that the 74th Division is in trouble, do you think the 65th Division may go out and help?

This is simply impossible, so the 65th Division, which is close to the close, worked hard for two days, and only two kilometers closer to the 74th Division was equivalent to advancing one kilometer a day. Zhang Lingfu in the encirclement was jumping straight and cursing. But what's the use? Even if Zhang Lingfu could report to the top, the 65th Division would make excuses to shirk responsibility, saying that the T-communist blocking force was strong and powerful, and used the "human sea tactic" to charge forward crazily regardless of casualties. The battle was very difficult. Li Zhen, the commander of the 65th Division, directly said to Tang Enbo: "My 65th Division has only the 3rd Brigade and the T-communist has at least two columns on the opposite side, which is multiples to me. It is difficult to succeed without assistance."

Li Zhen said that there were two columns of Pla opposite the 65th Division, which was correct. The Second Column was blocking him, and the Ninth Column was beating the 51st Brigade of the 74th Division. Who can say that Li Zhen’s statement is wrong?

Anyway, it's just a matter of quarrels. If the miscellaneous army doesn't even know how to talk, then there's no way out.

Of course, not all miscellaneous brands are as good as Li Zhen’s responsibilities and are not working hard. Some miscellaneous brands are also quite powerful. This miscellaneous brand is Huang Baitao’s reorganized 25th Division mentioned earlier. Some comrades may wonder, isn’t Huang Baitao’s troops affiliated to the Third Corps responsible for attacking eastern Henan? How could they be involved in the 74th Division?

The reason is very simple. After the 74th Division was surrounded, the most urgent person was Wang Yaowu. The 74th Division was the army that Wang Yaowu started with was also his greatest military capital. He was able to overwhelm Tang Enbo as the director of the Jinan Pacification Office. The main reason was that the 74th Division was. Not to mention that the 74th Division was surrounded and annihilated, even if it was injured, Wang Yaowu could not stand it. So when he heard that the 74th Division was in trouble and the surrounding troops were not rescued in time, Wang Yaowu immediately had to use his brain to think of a solution.

However, Wang Yaowu didn't think of many ways, because the troops he had was also tight, and he had only two troops left, one was the third fast column (i.e. the Air Force Paratrooper Column) and the Second Traffic Police Corps. Adding one of these two troops was a strengthening level of the reorganized brigade (division). Not only did the troops not have enough troops, but most of the main forces of these two troops were still between Dingtao in Shangqiu, which was a distance from Tai'an. Using them to rescue the 74th Division was equivalent to using far water to save nearby fires.

But the living person cannot let the urine suffocate to death, right? Wang Yaowu immediately looked around the map, and soon he saw the reorganized 25th Division on the map. At this time, Huang Baitao led the 25th Division to rush to the front of the Third Corps with his 25th Division. The main force was located west of Yanggu County, which was really not far from Tai'an.

Although Huang Baitao belongs to the Third Corps, his mission is to sweep the junction of Shandong, Henan and Hebei, and wait for an opportunity to capture Handan. However, the current battle on this side was slack and slack, and he did not find the main force of the Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan Field Army. At this moment, rescued the 74th Division was much more important than their original mission. Wang Yaowu immediately sent a telegram to Gu Zhutong and made this suggestion. Gu Zhutong naturally would not refuse to agree. After all, he is the director of the North China headquarters. If something really happened to the 74th Division, he would not explain to Jiang. He would temporarily second the 25th Division to rescue the siege, and then return it to Ou Zhen's paratrooper regiment after it was used up.

Wang Yaowu made a request, Gu Zhutong agreed, and Jiang, who was going to rescue the first Tianzi Army, naturally would not disagree. So Huang Baitao, who was advancing north with all his might, immediately received the latest instructions from the third corps to turn to Tai'an to rescue the 74th Army.

After receiving the order, Huang Baitao was not vague. He immediately gathered the main force in Yanggu County, and then divided into four groups to cross the Yellow Flood Zone to advance eastward. It was mentioned before that the Yellow Flood Zone was quite difficult to walk at that time. When the floating soil passed by a ruler, the slightest wind would cause sand and dust to cover the sun. The sun was soft and sandy on sunny days, and the rainy days were even muddy. What made the reorganized 25th Division the most headache was that the mountain cannons and field cannons of the division were all ghost-style, and they were equipped with iron wheels instead of rubber tires, so they were often stuck in the mud and sand and unable to move.

What made Huang Baitao and the reorganized 25 even more angry was that the officers and soldiers were responsible for rescue with them. Although there were many cars available for use in the Third Fast Column of the 74th Division, which was responsible for the rescue of the 74th Division, had many cars available, but they were just laughing at them. Even if Huang Baitao came forward and begged, the drivers did not give any face at all. In the end, the two camel transport links that were established during the War of Resistance Against Japan played a role. These more than 100 camels are worthy of being the Desert Boat, which solved the urgent needs of the reorganized 25th Division... (To be continued.)

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Chapter completed!