In the major battlefields at the beginning of 1947, the Kuomintang army with the strongest heavy firepower was not any of the so-called "five main forces", but the integrated 26th Division, the integrated 51st Division, and the 1st Rapid Column in Lunan.
The Kuomintang army originally had two American 105 mm howitzer regiments during the period when it was stationed in India, each regiment had three howitzer battalions, and four of the howitzer battalions were attached to the above-mentioned troops, with a total of 48 American 105 mm howitzers.
Among them, the 26th Division was equipped with 2 battalions, the 51st Division was equipped with 1 battalion, and the 1st Rapid Column was equipped with 1 battalion.
In addition, the integrated 26th Division has a field artillery battalion directly under it, and the two integrated brigades under it each have a mountain artillery battalion; The integrated 51st Division is directly subordinate to the mountain artillery battalion plus two integrated brigade artillery; The 1st Rapid Column also theoretically also had a mountain artillery battalion (the artillery battalion of the 80th Brigade was reorganized).
In addition to the above-mentioned mountain, field, and howitzer units, the 1st Rapid Column is also equipped with the 1st Tank Battalion, which is reorganized from the 1st Battalion of the original Indian Army Combat Vehicles, and is all equipped with American M3A3 tanks.
Because the American howitzer is towed by a car, the entire artillery battalion is actually a motorized artillery battalion; The 1st Rapid Column also required all motor marches, so it was equipped with two additional automobile battalions, so that there were still a large number of vehicles in the whole force.
Of course, because of the large number of tanks, artillery, and automobiles, the troops were also very arrogant, believing that our army would not dare to move them.
It was precisely because of extreme carelessness that on New Year's Day on January 1, 1947, Ma Liwu took a team of more than 200 officers to the rear of Yixian County to listen to the opera for the New Year.
In fact, at that time, our army in East China had already decided to fight it, and even the intelligence office of the reorganized 26th Division detected the accumulation of a large number of troops nearby.
As a result, Ma Liwu was very confident, and said: If they don't come, I will still look for them, the more they gather, the better, in this plain area, our chariots are easy to use, they gather a lot, can they touch the chariots?
The division commander said so, and the lower one was naturally relaxed; However, in this situation, our army in East China gathered 27 regiments and launched an offensive on the night of January 2.
The battle went well, and by the morning of January 4, most of the strength of the two integrated brigades of the 26th Division had been annihilated; The 1st Fast Column was also finished.
Ma Liwu, who was in the county seat of Yixian County at that time, was very anxious and hurriedly integrated the troops in the city and tried to hold on.
According to various sources, the troops in Yixian County include:
reorganized the field artillery battalion directly under the division of the 26th Division (8 guns); 1 integrated brigade mountain artillery battalion (9 guns); as well as the remnants of the divisional headquarters and the remaining institutions;
The city also has the headquarters of the 114th Brigade of the 51st Division and 1 battalion of the 342nd Regiment under its jurisdiction; reorganized the 52nd Regiment of the 33rd Brigade of the 98th Division; and armed forces such as military stations and local security regiments.
The total number of these troops is more than 10,000, and the number alone is quite large.
At that time, the Kuomintang army generally believed that our army lacked artillery fire, so the siege would be a problem, and at that time, a small number of tanks fled back to Yixian, and it still had some armored troops available.
Ma Liwu lost the main force, and naturally wanted to fight a turnaround battle in the defense of the city, and he could explain it to some extent.
However, we can see from the composition of the garrison that there are not many combat units in it, and most of them are not their own soldiers of the 26th Division, and other formations do not buy Ma Liwu's orders.
And a small number of technical troops, Ma Liwu doesn't know much about it, for example, he gave the famous "go to the city wall" order to the tank, how can you do this!
What Ma Liwu didn't expect was that our army in East China really came up with a powerful artillery unit.
As we mentioned earlier, the reorganized 26th Division and the 1st Rapid Column were equipped with three American 105mm howitzer battalions, and after the above-mentioned main forces were annihilated, many of these artillery battalions were captured with guns.
Some of the guns could not be used immediately due to damage, but 26 guns were available, which is equivalent to more than two artillery battalions.
And through the mobilization of the liberation fighters, some artillery was willing to immediately join our army and play a role in the siege of Yixian.
In addition, in order to successfully attack the city, our army in East China also concentrated the rest of the mountain artillery and mortars and organized them into artillery groups.
In the general assault on January 10, in just 30 minutes, the siege artillery group fired 3,000 shells.
Although most of these shells were mortars, some of them were American 105mm howitzers, which were almost the most powerful shells at the time.
A large number of shells struck, and the temporary patchwork in the city was psychologically stunned when they saw this kind of formation.
Subsequently, our infantry commandos attacked the city in many ways, and the battle ended quickly, and Ma Liwu, the commander of the integrated 26th Division, was also captured.
After being captured, Ma Liwu talked about the situation when defending the city:
The artillery fire of your army was fierce, and the spirit of the attack was vigorous, which was really beyond my expectations, and only the command post of the division hit 200 shells on the left and right, and some of the guards were still resisting at that time, and I led a small number of followers to highlight the courtyard, and the soldiers of your army rushed to the front, and since I had lost the ability to resist, I thought about the safety of my life.
In particular, it should be noted that this is the first time that our army's American howitzer has participated in the war, but it was still used temporarily at that time; Soon after, the East China Field Army Special Forces Column was established, the official establishment of American-style howitzers was finalized, and the subsequent use was more formalized.