Su Yu's decisive battle with Meng Lianggu

Seventy years ago, in the face of the large-scale attack of the Kuomintang reactionaries, Su Yu, under the guidance of Mao Zedong's military thought, wiped out the 74th division of the Kuomintang ace in Meng Lianggu with the heroic spirit of "taking the head of a million troops", smashed the Kuomintang army's key attack on Shandong, reversed the war situation in East China, created miracles in the history of Chinese and foreign wars, and accelerated the victory of the Chinese revolution.
 

Chen Yi: "Commander Su's orders are my orders"
 

In 1947, Su Yu, who had just turned 40, was in high spirits as the deputy commander of the East China Field Army. As everyone knows, at this time, Su Yu is facing unprecedented pressure. Chiang Kai-shek mobilized the elite army of the Kuomintang 450000 in order to drive the Huaye led by Chen Yi and Su Yu across the Yellow River and out of Shandong. At this time, Su Yu was in a dilemma: to retreat was exactly what Chiang Kai-shek wanted. To fight head-to-head, there is no certainty of victory. What do we do?
 

Su Yu studied the map every day and finally came up with a way. That is: stop and stop, hide and seek with the Kuomintang army in Yimeng mountain area, go around in circles, and look for fighters in repeated roundabout interludes. I, Hua Ye, either east or west, south or north, spent more than two months in a circle with the enemy. Gu Zhutong and Tang Enbo, who were in charge of the "suppression of the Communist Party" in Shandong, were extremely impatient. They mobilized the head of the five main forces of the Kuomintang, Zhang Lingfu's reorganized 74th Division, to attack my main force in Hua Ye.
 

Su Yu is determined to mobilize all the main forces to surround and annihilate the 74th Division. He kept on giving battle orders to all the columns in Hua Ye. The deputy commander of the 6th column, Pi Dingjun, had suffered from Zhang Lingfu in the Huaiyin Battle. Seeing that the opportunity for revenge came, the column headquarters was full of joy. However, Su Yu's idea is very risky even from today's point of view: even if Hua Ye's 9 columns surround the 74th Division, 400000 Kuomintang troops are eyeing the periphery covetously. If Hua Ye cannot end the battle in the fastest time-wipe out the 74th Division, then the 400000 Kuomintang troops outside will inevitably surround Hua Ye in turn. At that time, the inside and the outside will join forces, and Hua Ye will inevitably face the danger of total annihilation.
 

Chen Yi and Su Yu began to cooperate during the New Fourth Army. As the commander and political commissar of Hua Ye, Chen Yi was convinced of the ability of this old subordinate, so he gave the most important battle command to Su Yu, the deputy commander. Chen Yi said firmly and confidently, "Commander Su's order is my order". When Su Yu told Chen Yi about the idea of encircling and annihilating the 74th Division, Chen Yi slammed his hat on the table and said, "I won't leave now, just fight the 74th Division. Take the head of the general among the millions of troops."
 

Prior to this, Zhang Lingfu had commanded the reorganization of the 74th Division to act as a pioneer and won a series of battles against Huaye, forcing Huaye to withdraw from the Lianghuai River and enter Shandong. Chiang Kai-shek was very pleased with this. To Su Yu, an opponent, Zhang Lingfu was somewhat belittled. His attention at the moment was all on his own. After entering the Yimeng mountain area, the advantage of reorganizing the 74th division could not be brought into full play-Zhang Lingfu hoped to control the main force in the plain area, but he must abide by the orders of his superiors. For this reason, he once complained: "I am heavily equipped with troops, fighting in the plains, my artillery can exert its power, Chen Yi's 200 thousands or 300 thousands people come to beat me, and I can handle it. Now letting me fight in the mountains is tantamount to leading a buffalo to the stone mountain and having a hard time with me. If I must die, I will die for them!" Perhaps, this is just an angry remark, but it can be seen that Zhang Lingfu's situation against the enemy and me is still very clear in his heart. But as a professional soldier, it is a bounden duty to obey orders. In this way, he step by step into the encirclement of the PLA.
 

　　Seizing the first opportunity to cut off the enemy's rear
 

In order to eat the 74th division, Su Yu took out all nine main columns of Hua Ye. More than 200,000 troops traveled at the same time, interspersed with the fastest speed, moving closer to the 74th Division. Due to reliable information, the interspersed routes of the columns were extremely accurate, which unwittingly isolated the 74th Division from the Kuomintang army and cut off its ties with friendly forces. But just as the war was about to break out, an unexpected event that no one expected almost made this large-scale battle soak.
 

At more than 7: 00 p.m. on May 13, 1947, Hua Ye Column 1 began to interspersed between the 74th Division and the 25th Division of the Kuomintang Army. Just as I was advancing in depth, the 74th Division of the Reorganization met them unexpectedly. One on the hillside and the other under the hillside, the two armies facing each other. Two hostile armies marched on the same mountain, but they were in peace and went their own ways, which made a great wonder in the history of war. Zhang Lingfu thought this unit was a friendly army, but he didn't take it to heart at all. How could he have expected this unit to be the People's Liberation Army!
 

On May 14, the battle officially began. A few hours later, Zhang Lingfu simply took his reorganization of the 74th Division to Meng Lianggu. The local people in Yimeng call the high and flat mountain "Gu". The advantage of pulling the troops to Meng Lianggu is that they are condescending, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and all the enemy's situation can be seen, but the disadvantage is that once they fall into a situation where they run out of ammunition and food, there is only a dead end. Zhang Lingfu, who is good at using the strange soldiers and daring, is determined to use himself as bait to attract the main force of Hua Ye.
 

After getting the news, Su Yu could not help but secretly admire the courage and determination of this old opponent. However, for this method to be successful, there must be a prerequisite, that is, the reorganization of the 74th Division must be able to hold on for a long time, and the surrounding reinforcements must also be able to come in time. If it can, it means that the inside should be combined with the outside, and the best plan is Tiancheng; if not, the result is very likely to cause catching turtles in the urn and waiting for death. In the face of Zhang Lingfu's move, Su Yu, who has always been cautious in using troops, has no choice but to order his troops to attack with all their might and try to eat the 74th Division as soon as possible!
 

However, Zhang Lingfu also faintly felt the danger of being surrounded, so he left himself a trick to get rid of the predicament in advance, which was to send troops to control a small town beside Meng Lianggu-Duozhuang. Although this town is small, it is a strategic point for the integration of the 74th Division and the large rear forces. Zhang Lingfu sent a regiment to garrison here. Once the war situation was unfavorable, he could quickly pass here to rendezvous with the large troops, so that he could advance and retreat. At that time, even if Su Yu had three heads and six arms, he could only do nothing. Zhang Lingfu thought well, but he didn't expect that his opponent also thought of this and acted faster than him. For a long time, whenever fighting, Su Yu's greatest hobby is to carry maps, every grass and tree on the battlefield, every bridge and every trench will not fall, but also to conduct on-the-spot investigation, remember the terrain near the battlefield by heart, and ask his subordinates to do the same. At this time, facing Zhang Lingfu's backhand, Su Yu had already had a countermeasure. With a wave of his flag, he ordered to hide in South Shandong's Huaye 6 Starry Night and make a direct trip to Duo Zhuang. At dawn on May 15, the 6th vertical captured Duozhuang, thus completing Hua Ye's encirclement of the 74th Division.
 

"Take the head of a general in a million army"
 

The 74th Division began to fight hard. During the battle, our army suffered heavy casualties. The enemy's intention was not only to rescue Zhang Lingfu and restructure the 74th Division, but also to take the opportunity to wipe out the main force of Hua Ye. Therefore, for Chen Yi and Su Yu, the top priority is to annihilate the 74th Division with the fastest speed, otherwise, once the time is prolonged, it may be destroyed. At this time, Su Yu, who had always been modest and gentle, was in a hurry. He said to the commanders of the columns, "Even if the columns were all beaten up, as long as they could wipe out the enemy... Whoever attacks Meng Lianggu will be a hero! Now there is only charge, and retreat is death!"
 

In contrast, although Zhang Lingfu is also a famous generals, he has made a series of fatal mistakes. When Duo Zhuang was lost, Zhang Lingfu was surprised, but he didn't think so. After all, he was well-equipped and friendly troops were close at hand. Even if he was surrounded, it should be out of the question to stick to the reinforcements with the super-strong equipment and combat effectiveness of the 74th Division. But he forgot that Meng Lianggu was a stone mountain, and he could not build fortifications on hard rocks. His troops could only be exposed to the intensive fire of Huaye. Every stone splashed by a shell was in mortal danger.
 

Zhang Lingfu also made another most serious mistake: he forgot that the nearest reinforcements to him were the 83rd Kuomintang Division, and the division commander was Li Tianxia. Zhang Lingfu and Li Tianxia both graduated from Huangpu and were close associates of Wang Yaowu, commander of the 74th Army (the predecessor of the 74th Division). However, before that, the two of them had fought over and over for the position of commander of the 74th Division. As a result, Zhang Lingfu pushed Li Tianxia down, and Li Tianxia had always held a grudge against it. When Zhang Lingfu fought hard on Meng Lianggu, although Li Tianxia was only 10 kilometers away from him, Li Tianxia only symbolically sent a company to the east side of Meng Lianggu, while the rest stayed put and watched Zhang Lingfu being beaten.
 

Despite Li Tianxia's negative response, Zhang Lingfu's other reinforcements, Huang Baitao's Reorganized 25th Division, tried its best to rescue Zhang Lingfu and launched an attack on the Huaye Intervening Forces at full speed. The casualties of the Huaye attack force are increasing, and the ammunition supply is also difficult. The commander had already proposed: stop the attack and withdraw from the battle to prevent the enemy from making dumplings... Su Yu made it clear that it was only the commander's determination that decided the direction of the war at the moment. He ordered no one to retreat and must take Meng Lianggu within 24 hours. The final general attack was launched in the early hours of May 16, and the fierce battle lasted 16 hours before it ended. Hua Ye finally captured Meng Lianggu, Zhang Lingfu was killed, and the 74th Division was reorganized and declared destroyed.
 

The news of the destruction of the 74th Division and the death of Zhang Lingfu shocked the ruling center of the Kuomintang like a bolt from the blue. Chiang Kai-shek lamented that "this is the most sad and graceful thing since our army suppressed the bandits". And this battle also achieved Su Yu's feat of "taking the head of a general in a million troops.

November 13, 2017 Source: Learning Times