This was the only battle in the history of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in which the entire Japanese division was completely annihilated, and it was also an unprecedented fierce battle on the battlefield in northern Jiangxi. It not only shattered the dream of the Japanese army to quickly annihilate China, but also created an unprecedented victory in the history of KMT-CCP cooperation. This is the "Battle of Sadness Ridge" that shocked the entire Japanese government and the opposition, and it is also the Battle of Wanjialing, which is known as the Great Victory of Pingxingguan and the Great Victory of Taierzhuang.
In June 1938, Japan began trying to start a decisive battle with the Nationalist government in Wuhan in order to realize its plan for the rapid destruction of China. Upon learning of this news, the Nationalist Government quickly gathered about 1.1 million naval, army, and air forces, with Chiang Kai-shek personally in charge, concentrating all military forces to defend Wuhan.
So far, the Wuhan War, the longest and largest war of resistance against Japan, officially began. But it was not until July 26 that Jiujiang was lost, and the Japanese army began to attack De'an and Nanchang in three ways. If Nanchang falls to the enemy, the Japanese army can make a detour to attack Changsha and then encircle Wuhan, so Nanchang will never be lost!
Commanded by Xue Yue, a famous anti-Japanese general, the soldiers of the First Corps of the Ninth Theater of the National Army were stationed on the Nanxun Railway and were responsible for defending Nanchang. They relied on the favorable terrain on both sides of the local Lushan Mountain to launch a bloody battle with the Japanese 106th Division for seven days and seven nights. The Japanese offensive was thwarted, the offensive was slow, and had to rest near the town of Shahe.
By 20 August, Japanese forces had launched another offensive and occupied Xingzi County, northeast of De'an, and the Chinese forces were forced to shrink. They began to reorganize their defensive lines in the area of the mountain pass and Mahuiling, north of De'an, and engaged in a hard battle with the Japanese army. However, since the goal of the Japanese army was a quick decision, the tug-of-war with the Chinese army clearly did not serve their purpose.
Therefore, the Japanese commander Ninh Okamura could no longer sit still. He began to command the Japanese 27th Division to attack Wuning in the west of De'an, trying to bypass the left rear of the Chinese army from Wuning, forcing the Chinese army to move westward, creating an opportunity for the Japanese 106th Division to actively move south.
However, Xue Yue soon realized Okamura Ninji's intentions and urgently sent two teachers to occupy Nanping Mountain, cutting off the rear route of the Japanese 27th Division. Upon learning that the 27th Division was surrounded by Chinese troops, Okamura Ninji quickly ordered the Japanese 106th Division, Harukuro Matsuura, to lead four wings to the rescue.
The battle of Wanjialing is about to break out
On September 28, the 106th Division of the Japanese Army penetrated alone into the Wanjialing area in the west of De'an. After Xue Yue found out about this division, he thought that this opportunity was rare. He immediately sent a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek asking for instructions, hoping to take this opportunity to annihilate the division in one fell swoop. Chiang Kai-shek quickly telegraphed back to agree, so after formulating a plan to encircle the Japanese army, Xue Yue personally sat on the front line and commanded, and transferred about 100,000 troops to surround the Japanese army in the Wanjialing area, and a bloody battle was coming.
After the Japanese 106th Division was encircled, Xue Yue immediately prepared to launch a fierce attack, but at this time, Okamura Ningji, who was in Jiujiang, discovered Xue Yue's pocket formation for the 106th Division from the air force reconnaissance, so he immediately ordered the 106th Division to turn north to the 27th Division.
At the critical moment, the Japanese army was full of loopholes.
At the same time, the 27th Division was ordered to break through the direction of the 106th Division, trying to take advantage of this closed trend and break the current dangerous situation. The commander of the Japanese 106th Division unknowingly, after Lieutenant General Harorokuro Matsuura received the order, he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat. He hurriedly wanted to mobilize his army, but at a critical moment, Harorokuro Matsuura found that he didn't understand maps at all.
It turned out that in the Wuhan War, the map used by the Japanese army was stolen by Okamura Ninji from Sun Chuanfang in 1926. After being stolen, the staff printed and sent to the troops. Many places are inaccurate, and the Japanese army, who is not familiar with life here, simply cannot correct it according to the references.
In this way, Harorokuro Matsuura fell into a more passive situation, and he tried to use the compass to calibrate the direction. But coincidentally, there are abundant magnet minerals here, and the compass does not work at all. In this way, in the mountains without maps and directions, the 106th Division went on a rampage like a headless fly, blocked everywhere by the Chinese army, but never found a way to live.
After two days of running aimlessly in the mountains, on October 7, Xue Yue decided that it was time to annihilate the Japanese army in person. So the order for a general attack was given. At 8 o'clock that night, the horn of the general attack sounded as scheduled, and countless soldiers launched a fierce attack on the 106th Division. Among them, the competition in the Zhang Gushan position was the most intense.
The Japanese army's negligence in guarding against it provided a good opportunity for our army
The soldiers of the 74th Division of the 51st Army were responsible for occupying the position of Zhanggushan. Under the command of division commander Wang Yaowu, the soldiers launched several attacks on the commanding heights of Zhanggushan, which were occupied by the Japanese army. Zhang Lingfu, commander of the 305th Regiment, led a crack team to attack from the cliff of the back mountain where the Japanese army had neglected to defend itself.
After a tragic white-knuckle battle, the Nationalist army successfully captured the position of Zhanggushan, but the next morning, the Japanese launched another counterattack and recaptured the position for a time. Under the bombardment of more than 20 Japanese aircraft, the reserves of the 305th Regiment were exhausted, and the battalion commander Wang Gan was killed. There were many casualties below the company commander, but Zhang Lingfu was unwilling to give up. Even if his leg is injured, he will lead his troops to fight to the death and will never get out of the line of fire easily. In this way, under the stubborn resistance of the soldiers, Zhang Gushan's position once became a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
On October 9, under the strong pressure of the Chinese army, the Japanese 106th Division suffered huge losses, especially the casualties of Japanese junior officers reached their peak, and the commander of the Central China Military Region (tián) Shunliu personally organized and airdropped more than 200 officers below the rank of wing commander to the Wanjialing area to strengthen the strength of the wing, which was unique in the entire history of the Chinese War of Resistance against Japan.
But even so, they did not redeem their defeat, and after a fierce battle, Zhang Gushan's position was still firmly in the hands of the national army. And after this battle, the Japanese army only left more than 4,000 corpses in front of the battle. At the same time, the 27th Division, which was originally responsible for rescuing the 106th Division, was frustrated in many attacks on Baishui Street, and the entire division simply ignored Okamura Ninji's order, found an excuse, and turned to Xintanpu to the west and left the 106th Division regardless of the life and death of the 106th Division.
Fight a decisive battle with the Japanese army bare-chested
In the evening, Xue Yue organized a final full-scale attack. At the same time, all the ministers and officials were commanded at the front, and Xue Yue himself came to the front. In order to avoid accidentally injuring himself when it was dark, Xue Yue ordered the soldiers to take off their coats. As soon as they touched their clothes on the battlefield, they were sure that the Japanese army would have to fight fiercely.
At 19 o'clock in the evening, under Xue Yue's order, all the troops rushed one after another. After a night of bloody fighting, the defensive positions of the 106th Division completely collapsed. In a fierce and fierce bloody battle, the advance guard of the Fourth Army broke through the enemy camp in Wanjialing, only 100 meters away from the headquarters of the 106th Division. However, due to the darkness of the sky and the heavy casualties, the Fourth Army was unable to find Harukuro Matsuura in time and finally let him escape, which was also a pity for this war.
However, even so, the Chinese army still won the Battle of Wanjialing. The Battle of Wanjialing lasted 12 days, annihilating more than 10,000 enemies, capturing hundreds of them, and destroying the entire Japanese army. This is unprecedented in the history of the Japanese Army, which not only dealt a great blow to the arrogance of the Japanese invaders, but also strengthened the determination of the Chinese people to resist Japan.