Author: Zhang Xiuming
Zhang Xiuming
From 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. on November 29, 1948, more than ten regimental, battalion, and company cadres of our regiment (the 28th Regiment of the 4th Column and 10th Brigade of the Central Plains Field Army) conducted pre-war reconnaissance of Li Weizi, mistakenly entered the enemy's defensive position in Xiaoguozhuang, and then escaped safely.
To clarify this matter and its causes and consequences, we have to start from the afternoon of the 28th.
From 15:00 to 24:00 on the same day, there are the following six situations:
The first is the location of Xiaoguozhuang, 100 meters southeast of Li Baji and 200 meters northeast of Li Weizi. Xiaoguozhuang itself is divided into two small Guozhuang in the north and south, there are eight small Guozhuang in the south, and only two households in the north Xiaoguozhuang. The distance between the two small Guozhuang in the north and south is about seventy meters, and it is worth mentioning here that the south Xiaoguozhuang is a good starting position for attacking Li Weizi;
Second, after the Thirty Regiment received the defense of Li Baji of our regiment on the 28th, it only sent a battalion to defend Li Baji's position according to the instructions of the brigade, and did not explicitly send troops to defend Xiao Guozhuang, so the Thirty Regiment did not defend Xiao Guozhuang, nor did it report to the brigade, nor did the brigade inspect and question. In this way, an important position between the enemy and us was omitted and occupied. Our regiment is not aware of this. When we made the survey plan, we still drew up the survey plan according to Xiao Guozhuang under the occupation of our army;
Third, on the evening of the 28th, the enemy's Fourteenth Army sent the commander of its Tenth Division to lead thirty regiments to Li Weizi to strengthen Li Weizi's defenses. After the enemy arrived at Li Weizi, he sent his thirty regiments and one battalion to secretly occupy Xiaoguozhuang in the north and south at night. This important situation was not discovered by the first battalion of our thirty regiments, nor did the brigade commanders know it, so they failed to inform the regiments;
Fourth, when the brigade met on the evening of the 28th to deploy an attack on Li Weizi, its deployment was still based on xiaoguozhuang under the occupation of our army, and the deployment of the brigade was: the twenty-eighth regiment attacked from the south Xiaoguozhuang to the northeast corner of Li Weizi, and the twenty-ninth regiment occupied the starting position on the west side of the pine forest northwest of Li Weizi and attacked the northwest corner of Li Weizi. It can be seen from this that the brigade also confirmed at that time that the north and south of Xiaoguozhuang were still under the occupation of the Thirty Regiments of our brigade;
Fifth, after our regiment received the combat task of attacking Li Weizi, it conducted a study that night, and finally decided that the regiment would have the first and third battalions as the main attack. According to the time when the brigade scheduled to start the attack at dusk on the 30th, the troops needed to enter the attack starting position south of Xiaoguozhuang before dawn on the 30th. Time was pressing, and the regiment needed to organize pre-war reconnaissance during the day on the 29th, study the enemy's terrain on the spot, and determine the deployment of troops, the selection of breakthrough points, fire support, and other issues. In order to do so, it is necessary to advance to NanxiaoGuozhuang at dawn on the 29th (Nanxiaoguozhuang is too close to the enemy and needs to take advantage of the darkness of the night to enter). In order to settle down the matters at the spot at one time, the regiment studied and determined that Zhao Huaqing, regimental commander, Wang Fei, deputy regimental commander and chief of staff, battalion commanders (without battalion commanders to deputy battalion commanders), company commanders of two battalions in one echelon, and regimental artillery company commanders, plus a total of twenty others, went to the spot to conduct pre-war reconnaissance. Considering that thirty regiments of troops were already defending the area, there was no need to take a cover detachment, but only to go to a reconnaissance group to serve. From the reconnaissance plan of the cadres of our regiment before the war, we can also confirm that Nanxiao Guozhuang is still defended by our 30 regiments;
Sixth, at 23:00 on the 28th, our regiment reported the reconnaissance plan to the brigade, and asked the brigade to notify the defensive units of the thirty regiments to give cover, and after the brigade received the report from our regiment, it immediately instructed three points: 1. The brigade agreed to your regiment's pre-war reconnaissance plan; 2. We notified the thirty regiments to be responsible for covering you; 3. Deputy Brigade Commander Zhou Xueyi went to your regiment to participate in pre-war reconnaissance.
After assembling in Dinghetao, more than 20 of us set off on time at 4 o'clock on the 29th. The order of march was that I led the reconnaissance group in the front, followed by Commander Zhao and Deputy Commander Wang, and then the battalion and company commanders. At 5 o'clock, our party arrived at the position of the Thirty Regiments southeast of Li Baji, and I thought it was okay not to enter the village, but we should give a word to the sentries on the position to avoid misunderstanding. Thinking of this, I whispered to the fourth squad leader of the reconnaissance group: "Go slowly, and I'll go and say something to the sentry." I was only ten meters away from the sentry, and I had only spoken to the sentry three times in the past. I asked, "Are you from the Thirty Regiments and One Battalion?" The sentry replied, "Yes," and I said, "How many companies are in front of you?" The sentry replied, "There are no of us in front, I am at the front," and I said, "Let's go to the front and look at the terrain, don't get me wrong. I listened to the doubts in my heart and wanted to tell the two chiefs of Zhao and Wang, but commander Zhao was not happy that I was slow to contact and walk, so I urged the reconnaissance group to go forward, and the sentry of Northern Xiaoguo Zhuang shouted: "Stop!" Don't move! Which part of you are? Commander Zhao became angry and said loudly, "What's it called?" Ignore him and go! "When the reconnaissance group heard the regimental commander get angry, they said something even harder, scolded even harder, and went inside while scolding. The sentry was confused by the words and actions of our gang and did not dare to ask again. Our group originally thought that this was our friendly neighbor Thirty Regiment and One Battalion, so we swung into Xiaoguozhuang.
We walked to the south side of North Xiaoguozhuang, and the troops of South Xiaoguozhuang did not allow the reconnaissance group to enter the village. When Commander Zhao stopped to look at the terrain, the cadres scattered, and they walked as casually as if they were on their own positions, each looking at each other, each saying its own thing, and without any vigilance. Zhao Huaqing, the head of the regiment, stood in the open space on the edge of the village and watched Li Weizi ponder the problem. Deputy Regiment Commander Wang Fei stood in the doorway smoking a cigarette, and Wang Wenhui, deputy battalion commander of the first battalion, went to the east to defecate, and when he saw a sentry guarding the east still wearing the coat of arms of the Kuomintang army, he said loudly: "Who told you to wear this?" The sentry replied, "Sir, this was sent to me by the squad leader." He did not ask the sentry again, but also said to himself: "Look at the discipline of the Thirty Regiments!" "This is because since we participated in the Battle of Huaihai, the troops have suffered a lot of casualties, and in order to replenish the troops, the enemy soldiers captured in the battle have been replenished after a short period of education. At that time, the clothes and hats of the people who made up for the liberation fighters were all the original of the Kuomintang army, and it was only necessary to replace the kuomintang army's blue sky and white hat with our army's red five-pointed star hat emblem. According to Wang Wenhui's tone, he did not think that this was the enemy at all, but decided that this was a battalion of the Thirty Regiments of my brigade.
Are Xiao Guozhuang's defenders enemies or friends? Judging from the fact that the sentries of the first battalion of the Thirty Regiments just now said that there were no more of them in front of them, the tone of the shouts of the sentries of Xiao Guozhuang, and the direction of their vigilance was to the north and east, it looked like the enemy. I must quickly find out whether Xiao Guozhuang's troops are enemies or friends. With this in mind, I went to the northbound guard post. This is a re-post, on one side of the road dug two lying bunkers, facing us, I crouched down to see, two people are wearing Jiang Jun's hat micro, this is the enemy! I asked in Jiang Jun's idiomatic language, "Brother, which division are you from?" The sentry replied, "Answer sir, it's the Tenth Division!" "Your division commander's surname?" The sentry replied, "The division commander's surname is Zhang." "But Major General Zhang Yongbin?" The sentry replied yes. I further asked, "Where did you come from?" The sentry replied, "Our Thirty Regiment came up from the village of the military headquarters tonight, and the division commander took us to Li Weizi to strengthen the defense of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, and sent our first battalion here in the middle of the night, with the task of guarding the north." "Enough, asked this I am sure this is the enemy. I wanted to stand up and leave, but when I thought about it, I stood up and said to the sentry, "You two are very dutiful, and when I see you division commander, I will definitely praise you both in front of him!" The enemy sentry stood up and said, "Thank you sir for your compliment!" I said, "Go ahead and do your mission!" "This hundred percent is the enemy, and it was only a few hours ago that Xiaoguozhuang was occupied, but the cadres of these twenty regiments, battalions, and companies that we came in did not know that they were in the enemy position. These twenty or so people are the backbone and essence of the military command of my Red Army, and if something goes wrong, it concerns the whole regiment, and it will inevitably affect the overall situation of the whole brigade and the four columns. The situation is very dangerous, and what is even more dangerous is that these people do not know that they are in the enemy's position, and if they are mishandled or discovered by the enemy, the consequences are really unimaginable! I felt a thousand pounds of weight on my shoulders! We must find a proper way to rescue these cadres. Finally, I thought to myself that in such a dangerous situation, first, we must not panic and talk nonsense; second, we must take the leaders of the situation reporting team and them to take the cadres out of danger; third, I will serve as a cover, and only I can take on the most dangerous task of this danger.
The escape plan was decided, and I quickly walked to the south of the village to find the head of the regiment to report. Walking to the south of the village, three situations occurred in succession: First, Li Yimin of the reconnaissance group came to report: Our group was blocked outside the village in Nanxiaoguo Village and was not allowed to enter the village. I said to Li Yimin to go and bring the whole group, this has a task! I think that when the reconnaissance team comes, there are six people in me, and the cover mission can be completed. Of course, it is better to go out in secret without fighting, that is, to be discovered by the enemy, and the six of us are sure to shoot down the enemy's platoon, and the problem of covering the cadres out is not too big. Second, Li Yimin had just walked a few meters when an enemy officer came out of his room and met me face to face at the door. We were two meters apart, and although it was still dark, we could clearly see him wearing a large brimmed hat, an officer's uniform, and a submachine gun in his hand. I held a Canadian pistol in my hand, alluding to the chest of the enemy officer, and the two of them did not say a word and looked at each other. I could not go at this time, and as soon as I left the enemy officers strafed us with submachine guns, they would cause great casualties to the cadres, and at the same time the cadres did not know that this was the enemy, and there was no need for great chaos. I must keep an eye on this officer so that he cannot give orders, he cannot command, he cannot pull the bolt of the submachine gun away. Why didn't I beat him to death at that time? I killed this officer effortlessly. I have developed a habit in war that pistols are in any case on top of the fire without safety, and fingers can move, but it is better not to fight until they have reported to the chief. I confronted the enemy officer for about two minutes, and I judged that by this time the enemy officer might have seen my octagonal hat and red five-star. Third, two enemy soldiers came out of the room carrying a light machine gun and mounted the machine gun on the ridge of the courtyard, and the two soldiers stood behind the machine gun, they obviously had not yet received the firing task, and now I was even more inseparable, as long as the enemy officer was given the opportunity to say a word, it could cause great losses. Of course, as long as the enemy officer made any slight move, I had to kill him first. But before he said that he did not move, although I was anxious in my heart, I could not get out of my body at that time, so I had to endure. About a minute later, Li Yimin came, and as soon as he saw me and the enemy officer facing each other, he also saw the machine gun, and he understood. Li Yimin was a veteran of the army in the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, who served as a platoon leader in the Ji'nan army, returned to his hometown in Jincheng after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, and returned to our regiment in early 1948, and was placed in the reconnaissance platoon as a scout. He is experienced in combat and can adapt to changes. When he saw this, he did not report to me about the reconnaissance group, but took a step forward with his pistol and kept an eye on the enemy officer, and I came out to find the chief.
At about 5:40 a.m., I met Deputy Regiment Commander Wang Fei, and I only reported three sentences to him: "This is full of enemies, you quickly inform the regimental commander to take the cadres out, I will leave cover!" Deputy Commander Wang said, "Okay." I went back with my guns and went to monitor the enemy officers and machine guns. When I reported to Deputy Commander Wang, Wang Wenhui, deputy commander of the first battalion, also heard it, and he directly withdrew first. I was afraid that he would panic through the enemy sentry and spoil the big thing, so I quickly went to the rearguard and told the enemy sentry: "We have an urgent mission to the north, we have to run, you don't shoot!" The enemy sentry replied, "Yes!" Sir, don't shoot. At this time, Commander Zhao just went out through the enemy sentry. I came back and looked at the enemy officer with Li Yimin. After that, the cadres of our regimental battalion and company went out in pairs, and before they saw Deputy Regiment Commander Wang Fei come over, he walked behind because he wanted to inform the cadres of the whole regimental battalion and company. The cadres of our regiment have finished, and finally Deputy Regiment Commander Wang and two cadres have also passed by my side to the rearing post position, and dozens of military cadres of our regiment have escaped from danger! At this moment, Li Weizi and Nan Xiaoguozhuang suddenly shot loudly. Probably hundreds of machine guns fired together and swept north. The enemy officer wanted to run home, and Li Yimin and I fired at the same time, killing the enemy officer first and then killing the two machine gunners. When the cadres went out, I didn't have any burden, I swept into the room with a machine gun, Li Yimin threw a grenade into the house, I dropped the machine gun after the machine gun magazine bullets were finished, and then I hit it with a pistol. At this time, the enemy's machine guns in North Xiaoguozhuang rang out, they were in the room to fight north, I saw that it was already dawn, and the last people we went out had also run out of four or five hundred meters, and we should go outside. With a gesture, Li Yimin ran outside with me, and saw that the two sentries were still crawling there and shooting north. I went up and took him two results. At this time, the machine guns in the room on the right were sweeping north, and it was impossible to go north, only to the east. But how did these machine guns get by? I tried to go east against the back wall of the house, because this back wall was north, and the south was a dead end for Xiao Guozhuang and Li Weizi, and the key was how to cross the gun hole. I tried to raise my legs across a perforation and it was ok! Just like this, one by one, Li Yimin also learned from me, one gun hole after another. We crossed four machine gun perforations and reached the northeast corner of the village, and as soon as I saw a collapsed wall ten meters to the northeast, the wall was twenty meters past a north-south ridge, and both places could be invisible. But the machine gun in a perforation next to us was rattling and blocking there, and I fired a shot at the gun hole with my pistol, and we both flew toward the ridge, and I don't know whether the machine gunner was shot or frightened, and the machine gun did not sound. We crawled north along the east side of the mound, about two hundred meters like this, flipped over the mound, jumped into a ditch, and we both came out safely.
After we arrived at the ditch, I did not have the heart to sit down and rest, my eyes were fixed on the main road from North Xiaoguozhuang to Dongpingji, and I searched repeatedly section by section to see if the cadres from my regiment were injured on the road, so I watched for more than ten minutes, and indeed no one was lying on the road, and they were all safely out of danger. I turned back and asked Comrade Li Yimin, I told you to withdraw your group, and in the end I didn't see you come back. Li Yimin said: When I went to call them, the squad leader had already taken a person to the camp headquarters of Nanxiao Guozhuang to contact him. The group leader said that when the squad leader came out, he would come to you together, and I would report to you first. I saw you confronting the enemy officers, and I didn't report to you. When we covered for the cadres, I did not see our group leader and the scout come out. As I was talking, I heard that Xiao Guozhuang's machine gun was still shooting intermittently, and the sound of the gunshot was shooting to the east, was it to block the place where we ran out of hiding? Looking closely, it is not more than fifty meters away from the village of Xiaoguozhuang in the north, and the enemy must suspect someone, so why not send someone out of the village to search? Enemy machine guns rang out again, and I looked east with the sound of the gunshots when I suddenly saw two plainclothes men running east in the flat ground, much like our scouts. As soon as the enemy machine gun fired, the two men fell down, and as soon as the gun stopped, they ran. I asked Li Yimin who do you think the two people running in the field are? He looked at it for a while and said that it was our group leader and Xu Ziming. At this time, they were already four hundred meters away from Xiao Guozhuang, and I asked Li Yimin to quickly go along the river ditch to call the two of them. I asked the squad leader and another scout about the situation, and he said, "When we reached the north intersection of Nanxiaoguozhuang Village, we were blocked from entering the village, and we said that we were here to see the terrain, or not to let us in, stopped for ten minutes, and more than a dozen people came out and said that only two people were allowed to go to the battalion headquarters to contact." The squad leader took a man with him, and they went in for almost half an hour before they came out. At this time, many people ran into the position. The two of us lay down on the side of the road and waited for them to come out. After that, the enemy began to fight, and we ran backwards without seeing the chiefs, so we ran east. After running for about two hundred meters, I was hiding in a dirt ridge to observe, and it was dawn, and I had not yet seen our squad leader come out, and the chiefs were gone. The enemy didn't shoot, so we decided to run back, and that's what happened. I asked, "When did you know it was an enemy?" Xu Ziming replied: "After the gunshot, I knew it was the enemy." Indeed, it was after the reconnaissance squad leader went into contact with the battalion headquarters that the enemy learned that we were more than twenty military cadres of the Twenty-Eighth Regiment of the Tenth Brigade of the People's Liberation Army to look at the terrain. When the enemy battalion commander reported the situation to the regiment, the regiment reported to the division, which took a lot of time. The enemy's division commanders, in order to wipe out all the cadres of our regiment who were looking at the terrain, launched a unified organization at 6 o'clock. The fire of the hundreds of machine guns attacked, trying to crush us to the ground with fire and not move, and then come to destroy us. The plan of Zhang Yongbin, commander of the Enemy Tenth Division, was very vicious, and he wanted to slaughter us step by step, and it was based on the fact that we confirmed that he was a friend and neighbor and had entered his grasp. He never expected that among these people, there was another person who had discovered that this was the enemy before him, and had informed the chief and cadres in advance that they had escaped from danger, so that dozens of military commanders of the Red Army army were spared this dangerous and dangerous disaster.
The military cadres of our regiment ran to Yang Laojia, four miles north of Xiaoguozhuang, where they stopped and assembled, checked the number of people, and by 6:30 a.m., the regimental commanders, deputy regimental commanders, and battalion commanders and company commanders of each battalion had all arrived. When they said this, the cadres looked at Xiao Guozhuang with both eyes, the people were gone, the guns did not sound, and Zhang Xiuming covered us... They all thought that I had died in Xiao Guozhuang, but they all looked at Xiao Guozhuang and did not want to leave. At about 8 o'clock, I came with three scouts, and when someone saw that it was me, they shouted happily: "Staff Sergeant Zhang is coming!" Staff Sergeant Zhang is here! Even the cadres of the battalions gathered around and asked, "How did you come out?" We all thought you were.... "Afterwards, I heard that the deputy brigade commander of our brigade, Deputy Brigade Commander Zhou, also went that day, because he left a little late, and only arrived at Li Baji at 6 o'clock, encountered enemy fire attacks, hid in the fortifications, and did not enter the tiger's mouth, which can be said to be a blessing."
Two days afterwards, our regiment gave me another great meritorious deed for this purpose, and published in the field tabloids the name and situation of my first great contribution in the Battle of Huaihai.
The full text is excerpted from "Beacon Life"
Chapter Five: "Decisive Battle of Huaihai"
Minzu Publishing House
First edition, October 2004
