<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="145" >Introduction:</h1>
The beginning of 1938 was the darkest hour of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
At that time, the Kuomintang frontal battlefield collapsed, the fall of Nanjing in February was unscrupulous, the national shame was remembered, the Japanese army bombed Zhengzhou on the day of the Lantern Festival, and in March, the puppet regime supported by Japan, the Republic of China Restoration Government, was established.
One by one, the whole country was filled with grief and indignation, desperately waiting for a victory to boost morale, and then victory came.
In March 1938, the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army captured a map of the Japanese military deployment.
On this operational map, the Japanese army used nine arrows to mark the strategic points of the Taihang base areas such as Liaoxian, Yushe, Wuxiang, Xiangyuan, etc., and the appendix of the arrow was also accompanied by the number of the Japanese troops. According to the map, the Japanese army prepared 8 infantry companies to cooperate with one or two companies of cavalry, engineers, and artillery to plan a large-scale attack on southeastern Jin.
After learning of the intelligence, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army immediately reported to the Second Theater of Operations, and then under the unified command of Zhu De, commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, and Peng Dehuai, deputy commander-in-chief, launched a vigorous counter-siege operation in southeastern Jin.
(Stills of the Japanese army invading China)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" >: Unity of purpose, the Eighth Route Army attended classes. </h1>
At that time, it was the honeymoon period of the second Kuomintang-Communist cooperation, and the two parties could be described as enemies in the face of the Japanese invasion of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.
In addition to the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army and the 344th Brigade directly under the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, the units participating in this counteroffensive operation in southeastern Jin were also the friendly forces of the Kuomintang forces of the First and Third Columns and the Eastern Route Army of the Second Theater.
Compared with the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, the Kuomintang friendly forces were extremely nervous.
When they saw the counter-siege idea formulated by the Eighth Route Army, which was mainly based on guerrilla warfare and mobile warfare, their expressions were very dazed, for no other reason than that this was not their usual position defense or position offensive tactics.
In view of this, in order to unify the morale of the army, it is conducive to coordinated operations.
Zhu Laozong and Peng Dehuai decided to hold a combat conference in Xiaodongling and invited the generals of the Kuomintang Second Theater East Road Army to attend the meeting.
At the meeting site, I looked at the representatives of Yan Xishan, Wei Lihuang, and Chiang Kai-shek of the Second Theater who attended the meeting. Commander-in-Chief Zhu and General Peng talked about the essence of the counter-siege tactics, and the representatives of the Nationalist army frequently nodded.
So why is Mr. Peng so confident? In fact, this is closely related to the tactical experience summed up during the five anti-encirclement and suppression periods.
Mr. Peng once said something in an internal recollection, which roughly means the following.
Two armies clash, assuming that the two sides have equal strength, how to win?
The method is very simple, our side first uses a quarter of the strength of the enemy to attract the main force, at the same time as this part of the troops, send the main force around the flank rear to carry out a surprise attack, and strive to eliminate a quarter of the enemy's strength, so that the ratio of our army and the enemy's strength to 4 to 3, the original battle of equal strength, has become our superior strength.
The essence of accomplishing this strategy and tactics is the theory of mobile warfare and guerrilla warfare.
After saying this, after the meeting, many generals of the Second Theater of the Nationalist Army took the initiative to say: The Eighth Route Army was required to hold training courses on guerrilla warfare, mobile warfare, and political and military work, and to teach relevant courses for the Nationalist Army.
After listening to this, Peng Dehuai tirelessly personally gave tactical explanations and ideas for military and political work to the generals of the Nationalist army.
The generals of the Second Theater of the Nationalist Army, who had benefited greatly, finally relaxed their minds and began to go back to prepare for battle.
(Mr. Zhu and Mr. Peng)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="138" > two: combat readiness, deployment first. </h1>
After a round of tactical training after the meeting and the meeting, the counter-siege battle entered the formal implementation phase.
As planned, the Japanese army besieged the southeastern Jin dynasty, and the attacking Japanese forces were mainly based on the Japanese 18th Division, encompassing four divisions.
The four divisions and regiments were divided into nine routes, trying to attack the occupied points in the southeastern Jin region by first using the method of dividing and occupying, and then unfolding the formation to achieve annihilation after compression.
The deployment of the Japanese army, due to intelligence leakage, was already expected by Zhu Laozong and Peng Zong.
To this end, they drew up the battle plan of the Eastern Route Army overnight.
In this plan, the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army will be the main force, moving to the outside of the enemy's encirclement line to hide and wait for the opportunity, looking for the enemy's weak area to launch a fatal blow. The enemy retained some troops in the encirclement line, and acted together with the friendly forces of the Second Theater of Operations to contain the enemy troops and cover the attack of the main force.
After the deployment was completed, Mr. Peng said with unfinished thoughts: Let's first swim around under the eyes of the devils, swim until there are one or two enemies who are bold and arrogant, and then pick it up with a hammer.
(Chen Geng stills)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="139" > three: Chen Geng, the most regular day of the Eighth Route Army. </h1>
After the strategic deployment has been determined.
On April 7, 1938, the Eighth Route Army took the lead, and the 129th Division, led by division commander Liu Bocheng and deputy division commander Xu Xiangqian, marched east from the south of Liaoxian County, and arrived at the northern part of Xiangxian Outside the Encirclement Network before the Japanese army could move.
After a three-day break, the 129th Division set up an ambush along the Area of Jimingpu on Handan Avenue on April 10, intending to disrupt the Japanese rear supply line.
Who would have thought that they would have waited for more than twenty hours, but they did not see the shadow of the Japanese army.
Chen Geng, the commander of the 386th Brigade, who was waiting for no results, also lamented when he observed with a telescope while waiting: This day is the most regular day of our Eighth Route Army."
Could it be that the Japanese changed the course of their march, or changed their tactics?
In fact, the enemy army did not change the established nine-way siege tactics, but the reality of successive ambushes by the Eighth Route Army made them march extra carefully, not only in the Jimingpu area, but also in the Japanese army on the necessary road of Handan Road.
The ambush was not successful, and the battlefield continued.
Around 10 April, the Japanese army, which was divided into multiple armies, began to attack.
This attack was not smooth under the obstruction of the inner line troops of the Eighth Route Army and the friendly forces of the Second Theater of Operations.
When the Japanese army saw that the Eighth Route Army and the Second Theater of Operations had long been equipped, they were also panicked, and the strategic deployment began to appear chaotic.
The strategic chaos of the Japanese army allowed the 129th Division to see an opportunity.
Commander Liu Bocheng decided to lead a large army back to the flank of the Japanese army and look for an opportunity to fight a fierce battle.
On April 11, the 129th Division moved to the town of Tongyu, south of Liaoxian County, and set its sights on the 104th Brigade of the Japanese 18th Division.
(Liu Bocheng Deng Xiaoping stills)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="140" >4: Liu Bo took over the enemy. </h1>
The 104th Brigade was an elite unit of the Japanese Army, and in the earlier Three-Way Japanese Attack on Linfen, the 104th Brigade was the first to attack Linfen.
Because of this battle achievement, the brigade commander tomamidi on the fourth floor also received a medal issued by the Japanese base camp.
The fourth floor of this tomame is also a rare general in the Japanese army, who is well versed in guerrilla warfare of the Eighth Route Army, and seems to be arrogant but actually cunning and tight.
In the face of the Enemy's Retreat tactics often adopted by the Eighth Route Army, he invented a method of dragging knives and knife warfare, which made the guerrillas suffer a lot.
The tow knife tactic is similar to the tow knife meter!
What is the meaning of the dragging knife meter, everyone who has seen the Romance of the Three Kingdoms knows, that is, pretending to retreat when the opponent is attacking, and when the opponent is about to catch up, turn around and attack.
The fourth floor of the Tomamidi, which applied this method of warfare to practice, often set fire to the houses of the Eighth Route Army after attacking the base areas of the Eighth Route Army, pretended to retreat, and waited for the guerrillas to return to extinguish the fire, but he set up ambushes and sieges on the guerrilla marching route.
The fourth floor of the tomami land used this tactic, tasted the sweetness several times, and thought that the world was invincible.
(Japanese Kou stills)
However, he met Liu Bocheng.
For the tow knife meter on the fourth floor of tomachi, Liu Bocheng also used an anti-drag knife meter.
The tactical principle is very simple, when the Japanese army attacks and then pretends to retreat, our army hides and tracks, and does not easily engage the Japanese army until the Japanese army thinks that no one is pursuing or attacking, and then relaxes its vigilance before launching an attack.
This counter-siege operation in which the army moved in unison gave Liu Bocheng the opportunity to practice tactics.
Knowing that the 129th Division was active on the fourth floor of Tomamidi near Liaoxian and Licheng, he had long imagined that he would meet the main force of the Eighth Route Army.
In the case that the large Japanese troops were not yet in place, the arrogant he led the 104th Brigade, the 105th Kudo Regiment and the 117th Takagi Regiment to attack the hinterland of the base area and premeditated an attack on the 129th Division.
Every move of the enemy army was in Liu Bocheng's hands.
Liu Bocheng decided to avoid his attack and lured Rikou to the vicinity of Liao County and Wuxiang. The 129th Division moved to the enemy's side in a targeted manner, ready to attack.
With no intention, the cunning fourth floor of the tomami was unaware of Liu Bocheng's tactical intentions, but instead marched straight ahead.
On April 14, the troops were divided into two routes, and he personally led the right-wing Kudo United to capture Liaoxian County, and the left-wing Gaoshu United to capture Wuxiang.
As Liu Bocheng expected, the Japanese enemy ventured forward, which also allowed Liu Bocheng's 129th Division to obtain fighters.
After Consulting with Xu Xiangqian and Deng Xiaoping, Liu Bocheng issued a battle plan for the main attack of the 129th Division, the 334th Brigade, and the Zeng Wanzhong Department of the Second World War Zone.
The tactical objective is to attack the enemy-occupied Wuxiang City.
Strategic objectives, through the siege of Wuxiang City and then surround the point to help.
This battle plan was quickly approved by the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, and the 689th Regiment of the 344th Brigade was ordered to cooperate with Liu Bocheng's unified operations.
(Eighth Route Army Attack)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="141" > five: catch up and fight</h1>
The next day, the investigators of the 129th Division received an important piece of information from a fellow villager in Yushe County.
The Gaoshu Regiment was transferred from Wuxiang City to Yushe, because Yushe City was empty and had no supplies, and the road to Liaoxian was damaged and could not march, so it could only be transferred back to Wuxiang City.
Seeing the latest intelligence, Liu Bocheng, who did not dare to entrust the big one, immediately sent investigators to confirm the intelligence.
After confirming that Rikou had returned to Wuxiang, Liu Bocheng jumped happily and said excitedly: Birds into cages, turtles into urns, there can be a big battle under this!
After the excitement, Liu Bocheng sent a company to Wuxiang first, and the next day Liu Bocheng personally led the main force of the 129th Division and the 389th Regiment to march into Wuxiang City.
In the evening, Liu Bo received the news that Gao Shu's team had returned to Wuxiang.
However, rikou stayed in Wuxiang until dusk, and then abandoned the city and went along the Zhangzhang River to the direction of Xiangyuan.
Do cooked ducks have to fly?
Liu Bocheng asked Chief of Staff Li Da: How far are we from Wuxiang County now?
After hearing that there was only a distance of more than ten miles, Liu Bocheng thought about it, the devil's soldiers were heavier, the ox cart was slower, and there was still a chance.
Moreover, this devil's action is so strange, and he has not encountered the attack of the Eighth Route Army, it will not be defeated, it may only be that there is no supply and must go.
It was already nine o'clock in the evening, and Liu Bocheng, who deeply felt that the time was not waiting for me, after consulting with Xu Xiangqian and Deng Xiaoping, immediately ordered a rapid march to leave this ghost behind.
The pursuing troops then set out in two directions.
The left wing consisted of the 772nd Regiment and the 689th Regiment, pursuing along the north bank of the Zhanghe River.
The right flank consisted of the 771st Regiment, pursuing along the south bank of the Zhanghe River.
However, the order to "catch up and fight" had just been passed to the left wing troops, and before they reached the 689th and 769th regiments, the telephone line was actually broken.
Because of the interruption of communications, the two regiments set out a little late and did not pursue to the intended location at the first time.
This delay made the war change slightly.
However, the Japanese army moved too slowly, and still allowed the Eighth Route Army to catch up with the Japanese army without any danger.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="142" >6: The Eighth Route Army pursued</h1>
Chen Du, commander of the 772nd Regiment of the Right Route Army, who was ordered to lead the pursuit, found the Japanese garrison near the village of Changle, forty miles from Wuxiang.
In view of this, he immediately stopped pursuing and became secretive.
This Changle village is located in the upper gorge of the Zhangzhang River, the terrain is high on both sides and low in the middle, and the highway is in the middle, which is very advantageous for interception.
Seeing that the terrain was like this, Chen Du, who could not wait for reinforcements, immediately ordered an attack.
The 1500-strong Gaoshu Regiment was attacked by the 772nd Regiment in the area of Changle Village, and was beaten to a terrible end.
A small number of Japanese troops tried to rush to the high ground and occupy the commanding heights, but they were defeated by the Eighth Route Army before they could rush far.
Blocking the road by large wagons in the rear also hindered the japanese movement, and a large number of Japanese troops could only rely on the cover of the large wagons to launch resistance.
All this made Chen Du at a high place see clearly.
He personally commanded the mortars and targeted the Japanese who were hiding behind the big wagons.
At this time, the 771st Regiment also rushed to Changle Village, and in order to end the battle as soon as possible, Liu Bocheng ordered the two regiments to charge in full line.
With the cooperation of loud military trumpets, countless officers and cadres bravely rushed forward to the avenue, and many soldiers, in order to charge as soon as possible, encountered cliffs to block the road, and rolled down without hesitation under the leadership of commanders and fighters.
The soldiers who rushed down the road engaged in a white-knife battle with the Japanese army.
(White Blade Battle)
The white-knife battles of the Japanese Kou were well fought, and they were no different from the Eighth Route Army.
In a round of white-knife fighting, Dou Dezhen, the instructor of the Fifth Company, saw that his soldiers had suffered losses, shouted and rushed into the enemy army, stabbed several enemies in succession, and sacrificed himself heroically.
For a time, the two banks of the Turbid Zhanghe River shouted to kill the heavens, and the Japanese troops who were cut into several sections suffered many casualties.
After discovering that the main force had been intercepted, the Gaoshu United Had already rushed back to support through more than a thousand people in Changle Village, and launched a fierce attack on the Dai Jia'an position of the 772nd Regiment. At the moment of crisis, Chen Du dispatched 10 companies of the 772nd Regiment to block the enemy.
Ten companies of more than a hundred people, facing the attack of nearly a thousand enemy troops, still fought to the death.
Company instructor Qin Zhongyu was seriously wounded in seven places and was still fighting endlessly, and Deng Bingyan, a correspondent of the regimental headquarters, came to the position to contact, and when he encountered the enemy's attack, he also immediately threw himself into battle, holding five grenades and rushing towards the enemy army.
After four hours of fighting, ten companies repelled many enemy attacks, and finally lost the Dai jia'an position due to excessive casualties.
Although the position was lost, the 689th Regiment, which arrived at noon, became a new force.
Han Xianchu, the commander of the 689th Regiment, was a famous fierce general of the Red Army, and as soon as he saw that his position was lost, he immediately organized a counterattack.
After seven or eight hand-to-hand combat battles, he finally took back the Dai Jia'an position
Liu Bocheng, who was watching the battle from a distance, saw everything clearly with his telescope and excitedly said to Xu Xiangqian: You see how well the 689 regiment is fighting!
(Japanese reinforcements are coming)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="149" >6: Another change, the enemy came to the rescue. </h1>
In a fierce battle, in your struggle to win, the advantage gradually shifted to the Eighth Route Army.
At this time, the war situation changed again, and the Japanese commander in Liao County, Tomamidi, began to command the Kudo United to reinforce Changle.
The Third Army of Zeng Wanzhong, which was responsible for blocking the Kudo Wing, was weak in its will to fight, and actually allowed the Japanese army to easily break through the Panlong position.
After breaking through the defensive line, kudo's unit divided into two routes and launched a counterattack on the positions of the 689th Regiment and the 772nd Regiment.
This sudden change made the war situation fall into passivity, and Liu Bocheng indignantly said: What a famous thing Zeng Wanzhong did!
Subsequently, after consulting with Xu Xiangqian, Liu Bocheng decided to draw troops from the 772nd Regiment and attack the enemy reinforcements from the flanks.
On the encirclement position, gunfire was everywhere, and the Eighth Route Army had the advantage.
On the reinforcement positions, there was countless smoke and smoke, and the Eighth Route Army struggled to resist.
The battlefield was momentarily scorched.
(Soldiers preparing for battle)
At five o'clock in the afternoon, more than a thousand reinforcements of the Japanese army appeared in the direction of Liaoxian County, and several regiments of the Eighth Route Army participating in the battle were no longer able to draw out their fresh forces to block the enemy, and the war situation was in trouble, and the casualties on both sides of the enemy and us were very heavy.
Liu Bocheng, who had been in a state of tension, his eyes were covered with blood, seemed unwilling to give up, and finally Xu Qiangqian suggested that in order to avoid too much sacrifice, he finally issued a military order to retreat slowly and assemble at Haobi Village in Yushe.
The failure to completely annihilate the enemy army in Changle Village became a regret of the Eighth Route Army.
If the Nationalist army had cooperated well with the Wanzhong Department, the battle situation might have been different, but the matter had come to this point, and it would be useless to say more.
Although the Eighth Route Army concentrated the strength of one division and one regiment, forming a situation of fighting more and fighting less, it was still more difficult to completely annihilate a company of Japanese Kou.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="143" >6: Postwar</h1>
In the Battle of Changle Village, Xu Xiangqian believed that more than 1,500 Japanese troops were wiped out, while others said that there were 2,000 people.
These data may not be accurate, but according to the hundreds of military horses abandoned on the post-war positions, as well as the corpses of the Japanese army in seven vertical and eight vertical lines, it is a fact that the Japanese army suffered heavy casualties.
During the battle, the Eighth Route Army also captured three boxes of documents, including a letter from the fourth floor of the tomachi to her daughter.
The leader of the Japanese Kou said triumphantly to his daughter in the letter: The emperor gave me a medal, and I look at you like Mussolini when I wear it?
Mussolini didn't look like him, and the letter couldn't reach his daughter.
The arrogant fourth floor of tomami and his troops withdrew from the Taihang Mountain base area shortly after the Battle of Changle Village.
This battle also became a decisive battle in the anti-siege operation in southeastern Jin, which will forever be recorded in the annals of history.
The tomamidi brigade, the elite of the Japanese army, suffered heavy battle losses, so that the Japanese army besieged the strategic target of the Ninth Road into the air, and the Japanese troops stationed alone in various places were afraid of encountering a similar siege and also retreated.
Even the Japanese 18th Division, which was stationed in Changzhi, took the initiative to withdraw from Changzhi.
When retreating, it was also blocked by the Eighth Route Army, and after losing nearly a thousand people, it fled in a daze.
(Commander Liu of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, Political Commissar Deng)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="144" > epilogue:</h1>
On April 29, 1938, after more than 30 days of fighting, the anti-siege operation in southeastern Jin was over.
In this battle, a total of more than 4,000 Japanese troops were annihilated, and 18 county seats were recovered, of which 12 were recovered by the Eighth Route Army and 6 by the Second Theater.
The 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army also gained a firm foothold in the Taihang Mountains because of its achievements in this war.