Meridian Ridge Campaign - 3rd Battle

3rd Battle

In the morning of August 16, 1947, the vanguard of the nationalist force, the nationalist Independent 5th Cavalry Regiment caught up with the slowing moving communist 4th Column, whose retreat was bogged down with enormous supplies it carried. The battle broke out around 10:00 AM, between the nationalist Independent 5th Cavalry Regiment and the communist rear guard, the 5th Regiment of the communist 3rd Brigade, which immediately occupied the peaks of the mountains as the position of the blocking action, covering the main communist force to continue their retreat eastward. As the battle ensued, the nationalist commander-in-chief Ma Jiyuan (马继援) ordered scouts to be dispatched to find out the exact strength of the enemy.

By noon, nationalist heavy weaponry had arrived. Ma Jiyuan (马继援) ordered the Reorganized 100th Brigade to attack the enemy positions but the nationalist assaults were repeatedly beaten back. After an hour futile efforts, Ma Jiyuan (马继援) then changed his tactic by ordering the 1st Regiment of the nationalist Reorganized 8th Cavalry Brigade and the Independent 5th Cavalry Brigade to outflank the enemy, while the 2nd Regiment of the nationalist Reorganized 8th Cavalry Brigade would bypass the enemy position to continue the pursuit of the main enemy force in retreat. At 1:00 PM, the nationalists launched another round of offensive with their new tactic.

Huang Luobing (黄罗斌), the commander of the communist 3rd Garrison Brigade leading the communist 5th Regiment, realized that the blocking action was no longer meaningful since nationalist cavalries had begun to bypass the communist positions to pursuit the main communist force in retreat. He also realized that the nationalists were encircling his troops, which were in danger of being wiped out. Commander Huang Luobing (黄罗斌) immediately ordered his troops to retreat northward to Locust Tree Village (Huai Shu Zhuang, 槐树庄), and the former-guerilla soldiers acted so swiftly that by 4:00 PM, they had completely shaken off the nationalists in pursuit. However, they had withdrawn too fast, that not only the enemy lost contact with them, but their comrades in other communist units lost contact with them as well. Compounding the problem, the retreating 5th Regiment of the communist 3rd Brigade did not even bother to make contact with other communist units after reaching safety, which resulted in disastrous consequence: the communist main force led by Wang Shitai (王世泰) in retreat was later caught up by the pursuing nationalist cavalries.