The Battle of Loess Ridge was an ambush battle fought by the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region of the Eighth Route Army and the 120th Division against the Japanese army in the Loess Ridge area southeast of Laiyuan County, Hebei Province.
In early November 1939, the Japanese army Dazuo led the Japanese army to form a mixed second brigade of nearly a thousand troops, from the direction of Laiyuan along the south and other places, the troops divided into three roads, to the direction of Shuibao, Zoumayi and Yinfang direction siege, ready to annihilate our troops stationed in Jinchaji and the command system in one fell swoop, our army received information, has long known about the enemy's large-scale sweeping operation, and then General Yang Chengwu thought that this was a good opportunity, after getting the specific action planned by the Japanese army, immediately ordered preparations for counter-sweeping, it is bound to hit the enemy by surprise. It was planned to use the favorable terrain to rely on the mountainous terrain in the mountains south of Laiyuan to ambush the Japanese troops who had come to sweep.
On the morning of the third day, our army sent guerrillas to try to lure the enemy, at that time there were five hundred Japanese troops stationed at Jianjianling, and the guerrillas launched an attack on the Japanese army from three directions, fighting while retreating, luring the enemy into our army's ambush position. At the three forks, the Japanese army made the biggest mistake, the soldiers pursued in three ways, and our army was already ambushing in the direction of Baishikou, Ditch Gate, and Beidao Gate, and our troops had already occupied positions and prepared for ambush.
The next night, the Japanese troops gathered on the mountain ridge west of sanchakou and Yansu Cliff, the next morning, the Japanese army attacked Zhangjia tomb and other places in a big way, the main force of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region has been waiting for the best time in ambush, and the first day guerrilla attack made the Japanese army suffer from the enemy on its belly and back, and it was difficult to sleep well at night and had to be on guard during the day, so angry that the leader of the Japanese army at that time, Abe Norihide, ordered the encirclement and suppression of our army, and on the sixth day, the Japanese army marched along the mountain road in the direction of Loess Ridge, and that night attacked the Loess Ridge and Shangzhuangzi area, and the head of our military region immediately gave an order. Relying on the loess ridge to be polite and taking ambush measures to annihilate the enemy army. The first battalion of the 1st Regiment blocked the Japanese troops at the Loess Ridge position, the main force of the 1st Regiment and the 25th Regiment attacked from the northwest to the south, and when the 3rd Regiment occupied the southern mountains of the Loess Ridge, the 120th Special Task Force Regiment of the support force was deployed to replace the 3rd Regiment, and the 2nd Regiment followed the Japanese army ready to attack the enemy at any time.
On the morning of the seventh day, the main force of the Japanese army set out from the Loess Ridge and moved along the valley to the east, and at about three o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy troops had fully entered the encirclement circle of our army, and the ambush units of our army waited as planned for the enemy to penetrate deep into the ambush circle and then launched an offensive.
Speaking of Abe Norihide, he was known as the 'Flower of Famous Generals' by the Japanese army, good at using various new tactics, especially mountain warfare, as a Japanese expert in mountain warfare, Abe Norihide in the attack on the Loess Ridge, let the troops alternately enter, first send a bunch of scouts to the front to confirm safety and then lead the remaining troops forward, although this way of marching is very slow but it is indeed very safe, Abe Norihide did not expect that the generals of our army are more calm than they thought.
When Abe Norihide slowly walked into the ambush circle at Yansu Cliff, the ambush troops at that time were two main battalions led by Yang Chengwu, when Abe Norihide's brigade all entered the ambush circle, Yang Chengwu immediately ordered a fight, so that the enemy mistakenly thought that this small ambush circle was the location of all the main forces of our army, Abe Norihide thought that he had found a large number of troops of our army, and randomly ordered an attack. The self-righteous Abe Norihide let the troops line up in a long snake formation, and when the generals of our army saw Abe Norihide like this, their mouths became flowers, wasn't this a waste of money to send people's heads, who knew that Abe Norihide, who prides himself on being an expert in mountain warfare, would also make such a mistake.
Yang Chengwu immediately adjusted the battle plan, divided the enemy army, fought wave after wave, scattered the Japanese army, and then encroached on it in turn, the battle began, Abe Norihide was caught off guard, the gunshots all over the mountains could not distinguish where our army's weak points were for a while, the Japanese army was gradually encroached upon by our army, just when the encirclement circle was repeatedly compressed, the Japanese army used poison gas bombs and wanted to open the gap through poison gas, at that time our army had a gas mask. You can only tear up a piece of cloth and sprinkle some water around the nose, this kind of dirt method can only delay the inhalation of poisonous gas, at that time, there was a soldier named Wang Dashan in the troops surrounding the enemy's hinterland, who in a coma confusedly pulled a grenade and threw it into the enemy team, which blew Abe Norihide out of the sea of people.
If you don't say that he was unlucky, he was just discovered by the regimental commander Chen Zhengxiang, who let the Japanese general fight and carry a knife, the regimental commander reported to his superiors, Yang Chengwu immediately let the mortar hit Abe Norihide three times, three shells hit the past, directly to Abe Norihide to send the Western Sky. In this battle, more than 1,500 enemy troops were annihilated, and more than 500 casualties were inflicted on our army, and in addition, lieutenant general Abe Norihide was killed, which was the first time in the War of Resistance Against Japan that senior generals were killed and gave the Japanese army a painful blow.
In fact, in the real anti-Japanese battlefield, the mortars of the Chinese army were so brilliant, not only Abe Norihide fell under the cannons of the Chinese army, but also a 'flower of famous generals' was also killed by the Chinese army with mortars, which is still painful in retrospect.
The first one to be withered was the famous Norihide Abe, who graduated from the Japanese Army Officer School at a young age, and the Japanese wartime ideology was seriously corroded, and he went all the way to the rank of general by virtue of his own combat achievements, in addition, Abe Norihide was also proficient in mountain warfare, and what he did not expect was that such a mountain expert was suppressed by our military mountainous area.
On August 2, 1937, Norihide Abe was promoted to major general, and was transferred to the Japanese Kwantung Army as the brigade commander of the 1st Brigade, and only two years later he was promoted to lieutenant general by virtue of his outstanding military achievements, and after his promotion, he was touted by the Japanese army as the "flower of famous generals".
Just such a flower, in the Battle of Loess Ridge, relying on his reputation as a mountain expert, was surrounded in the mountains by the Eighth Route Army, and his command post was built in the most conspicuous place of loess ridge, in the loess soil that spread over the mountains, and as soon as the battle began, the chaotic Abe Norihide was seen by the artillery of our army, bang bang, and three companies of mortars were killed.
Gunner Li Erxi hit Abe Norihide continuously, and only after the fight did he know that he had killed the famous Japanese general Noboru.
Since then, Li Erxi has also been called the 'Sharpshooter' by the army, and the mortar that killed Abe Norihide has also been placed as a first-class cultural relic in the Chinese Military Museum in the future, and people can still see this large mortar.
After Abe Norihide, there is another flower, Yokoyama Takehiko succeeded Abe Norihide, becoming the second famous general of the Japanese brigade, this Yokoyama Takehiko is not famous, committed a lot of things, the famous anti-Japanese general Zhang Zizhong died at the hands of Yokoyama Takehiko.
After he killed General Zhang Zizhong, he was promoted to deputy commander of the Major General, and after Zhang Zizhong's martyrdom, the remaining subordinates were bent on avenging General Zhang Zizhong, and finally, on March 17, 1943, he Jifeng and the remaining generals learned that this Yokoyama Takehiko would pass through Dangyang on his way to Jingmen, so several people together felt that the only way to prepare for Hengshan Takehiko with a mortar, that is, the Dalin Fort of Dangyang's Huaixi River, hid in the surrounding forest and ambushed.
On the eighteenth day, Takehiko Yokoyama entered their ambush circle according to the predetermined route and time, and a few shells blew up Takehiko Yokoyama on the spot, although Takehiko Yokoyama was posthumously awarded the title of lieutenant general, but his reputation as a famous general was real within the Japanese army.
The Battle of Loess Ridge was another victorious battle after the Pingxingguan Victory, and the Battle of Loess Ridge and the Yansu cliff ambush battle were similar in time, equivalent to two consecutive battles, and the impact was much greater than that of the Pingxing Pass Victory, and the significance of the Loess Ridge Campaign was not only to destroy a large number of enemy troops, but also to kill a senior general of the Japanese army, mountain warfare expert Norihide Abe, who was the highest rank Japanese general killed by our army in the War of Resistance Against Japan at that time, and this station also overturned the slander of our army's troops. This battle was enough to see the bravery of our army's officers and men in killing the enemy, greatly encouraged the people's confidence in resisting the war, dealt a blow to the fighting spirit of the Japanese army, and was of great significance to the War of Resistance Against Japan.