1942 was the most difficult time for the world's anti-fascist front, when the U.S. Navy was so badly wounded in the Battle of Pearl Harbor that it had to take a defensive position against the Japanese Combined Fleet in the early days of the Pacific War, and the Soviet Union at that time also struggled to resist the German attack.
In the battlefield behind enemy lines in North China, the Eighth Route Army, which was active on the enemy rear front, also faced great difficulties, and in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese army quickly defeated the Nationalist army on the frontal battlefield with strong mechanization, after which Yan Xishan's Jin Sui army had to retreat to the southwest of Jin to establish a defensive line, while Lao Jiang's central army retreated to the Area of Zhongtiao Mountain under the leadership of Wei Lihuang to establish a defensive line.
However, in the "Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain" in 1941, the old Chiang Linjin changed the commander, transferred Wei Lihuang, who had many years of experience in the struggle against Japan, with He Yingqin, known as "He Mother-in-law", and the Japanese army in North China took this opportunity to launch an offensive against the Central Army.
In the "Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain", the 270,000 Central Army only killed and wounded more than 3,000 enemy people at the cost of 80,000 killed, a 26:1 gap.
After this battle, the situation in North China further deteriorated; in the previous Hundred Regiments War, the Eighth Route Army relied on the masses behind the enemy in North China to launch various tactics such as large-scale "sabotage warfare" and "guerrilla warfare," which caused serious trauma to the Japanese army behind the enemy in North China and caused great damage to the communication lines behind the enemy in North China.
However, it was precisely because of the "Hundred Regiments War" that the Japanese army began to face up to the combat effectiveness of the Eighth Route Army again, and at this time the North China Front also realized that the main enemy of the Japanese army in North China was no longer the lingering Central Army, but the Eighth Route Army, which was deeply supported by the masses.
After the new commander of the Japanese North China Front, Okamura Ningji, took office, he immediately carried out a cruel "sweep" of the Eighth Route Army behind enemy lines in North China, and at the same time formulated a cruel "Three Lights Policy" that was inhumane.
For this great sweep, the First Army of the Japanese Army in North China dispatched more than 30,000 people, and at the same time, various crises cooperated with the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army.
The cruelty of the "Great Purge" is described very cruelly in "Bright Sword": the new regiment lost one-third, the independent regiment lost half a regiment, the new second regiment suffered as many as two-thirds of the casualties, and a large number of people died in the "massacre" of the Japanese army, and in this great sweep, many senior party cadres also unfortunately died:
In May 1942, He Yun, the president of Xinhua Daily, was unfortunately shot and killed in the breakout battle;
On May 25, 1942, Zuo Quan, deputy chief of staff of the Eighth Route Army, died in the front line of command of the operation, at the age of 37.
On September 1, 1942, during the Battle of Xuecun, Chang Deshan, commander of the Eighth Sub-district of the Jizhong Military Region, and Wang Yuanyin, political commissar, were killed.
So why did this "sweep" lose so much? Only a year ago, in the "Hundred Regiments War", the Japanese army was still beaten by the Eighth Route Army, why was it only a year later that it was able to clearly grasp the position of the eighth route army headquarters?
On August 20, 1940, an unprecedented large-scale guerrilla operation behind enemy lines was launched in the base areas behind enemy lines in North China, in order to combat the arrogance of the Japanese Kou, the Eighth Route Army launched a large-scale sabotage war behind the enemy lines, the railway tracks along the Pinghan Line, the Zhengtai Line, the Tongpu Line and other railway lines were destroyed by the Eighth Route Army, and the communication system suffered unprecedented heavy damage.
The success of the "Hundred Regiments War" shocked the Chongqing government and the North China Front, and they did not expect that the Eighth Route Army, which they had not looked at in the past, had actually developed to such a point in just three years, and it was precisely because of the "Hundred Regiments War" that the Japanese army had to re-examine the strength of the Eighth Route Army.
For the Eighth Route Army behind the enemy lines, the Japanese army has always been a headache, and in the past battles, the Japanese army has not been without "sweeping".
But the problem is that when you carried out a large-scale sweep, you could not even see his shadow, but when you let your guard down, there were troops of the Eighth Route Army everywhere, although the Japanese army had occupied a large area of land in northern China at that time, but it was only some important cities along the railway line, and the Japanese army in the remote countryside could not maintain its rule for a long time.
Just when the new commander of the Japanese North China Front, Okamura Ninji, was at a loss, Yoshio Iwamatsu, then commander of the First Army of the North China Front, formulated a huge conspiracy, so a notorious "C battle plan" was placed in front of Okamura Ninji, and all the operational objectives of this plan were only one:
Destroy the organization of the Eighth Route Army and all important command structures, and assassinate senior generals of the Eighth Route Army.
On the one hand, the Japanese army dispatched a large number of Japanese puppet troops to carry out a "great sweep" of the base areas, and at the same time, under the "three lights" policy of the new commander Okamura Ningji, the military and civilians in the base areas suffered heavy losses, and in order to cover the transfer of ordinary people, a large number of soldiers sacrificed on the way to the relocation and retreat of ordinary people.
In addition to the large-scale sweep on the surface, at that time, the Japanese North China Front secretly sent two units into the base area behind enemy lines, dressed in the clothes of the Eighth Route Army, painted brown, wearing straw shoes, and disguised as military and political personnel of our army to infiltrate behind enemy lines.
When they see ordinary people, they will also take the initiative to "deal" with the people, and then take the opportunity to steal intelligence.
At that time, many people were indeed blinded by these two groups of enemies, and by the time they woke up, it was too late.
But no matter how deeply they hide, ghosts are ghosts after all, and they will never become human. Soon some highly alert warriors had already discovered that something was wrong:
Although they were poorly dressed, and even no different from the ordinary Eighth Route Army, they carried "military radios" on them, which was a rare thing at that time, and many regiment-level units did not have this thing, and some instructions from the headquarters could sometimes only reach brigade-level combat units, like the regimental level could only rely on correspondents for communication.
The soldiers of our army also learned from subsequent intelligence that the Japanese troops of these two units respectively called them the "Mashiko Advance Team" and the "Dachuan Advance Team," and their combat task was to infiltrate the enemy's rear to explore the location of the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army and cause chaos in the party and government organs.
It was precisely because of the existence of this unit that the retreat of the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army at that time added a lot of pressure, and the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army had to change the route of the march at any time.
On the night of May 24, 1942, when it was learned that the Japanese army was about to close the encirclement, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army knew that the military situation was urgent, so it had to order the transfer.
However, due to the very large scale of the transfer organs, the transfer speed was very slow, and at that time, in addition to a small number of fighters, there were hospitals, party schools, Xinhua News Agencies, wounded and various logistics materials that needed to be transferred, so the transfer speed was very slow.
When they reached the cross ridge area, the Japanese sweeping forces quickly surrounded them, and the entire headquarters of the Eighth Route Army was in danger.
In order to get more than 10,000 people of the Eighth Route Army organs to jump out of the enemy's encirclement as soon as possible, General Manager Peng and the Chief of Staff of the Left Committee decided to immediately convene an extraordinary meeting, knowing that the target of such a large-scale collective action was too large, and at this time only by dispersing to break through from the weak points in all directions of the enemy could they escape the enemy's encirclement.
So in the end, according to the resolution, General Peng Laozong, Yang Lisan, and General Luo Ruiqing each led a team to break through from the northwest, southeast, and north sides of the Devil's encirclement.
However, on the issue of the rear of the palace, the left deputy chief of staff, who had always stood with Peng Laozi, had a dispute with General Peng for the first time: because the task behind the palace was the most dangerous, he not only had to cover the safe transfer of the personnel of the front organs, but also to meet the comrades in the rear who had not yet successfully broken through, and at the same time, he had to fight with the enemy at any time, and he had to be prepared for the danger of being surrounded by the enemy at any time.
Both Peng Laozi and the left deputy chief of staff hoped that the other side would be able to escape the enemy's encirclement, so they both competed for the position behind the palace.
In the course of the dispute, the left deputy chief of staff finally had to use a "tough" way to let Tang Wancheng, the commander of the headquarters guard battalion, frame Peng Zong to retreat, while he left his command troops to continue to fight with the devils.
At two o'clock in the afternoon of May 25, The battalion commander Tang Wancheng, who had previously covered the transfer of the boss, returned again, informing Peng Zong that he had successfully broken through, and at the same time they also received an order from Peng Zong to cover the breakthrough of the left deputy chief of staff as soon as possible.
However, he was rejected by the deputy chief of staff of the left side, and at this time, thousands of fighters from the Northern Bureau, the Central Party School, and the Xinhua News Agency did not withdraw from the encirclement.
So he gave up this opportunity to break through, continued to command the troops on the job to break through, and after more than four hours of continuous fighting, the remaining troops finally withdrew from the enemy's last blockade line.
The dawn of victory was in sight, but at this moment, a shell landed on the side of the deputy chief of staff, and the stars fell on Matuling in Liaoxian County.
The sacrifice of Zuo Quan was a huge loss for the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, but at this time, the remaining fighters had no time to be sad, and the troops had to temporarily place the body of the deputy chief of staff of the left in a hidden bush in order to make an emergency breakthrough.
When Mr. Peng learned the news of Zuo Quan's sacrifice, the iron-boned general left tears, he and the left deputy chief of staff had known each other for a long time and worked together for many years, and when he saw the chief of staff's pistol, he refused to take it for a long time.
After the end of the sweep, Mr. Peng immediately asked the soldiers to take back the body of the left deputy chief of staff, and at this time, because the situation was still very tense, Mr. Peng only buried the body of the left deputy chief of staff without any ceremony.
With an incomparably sad mood, Mr. Peng reported the news of the sacrifice of the left deputy chief of staff to the central authorities with difficulty, and when he learned the news of the sacrifice of the left deputy chief of staff, the chairman and the premier did not enter the water for a whole day: "The sacrifice of the left power, the northern sky folds the pillar." ”
In order to take into account the morale of the soldiers at that time, the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army did not announce the sacrifice of Zuo Quan to the public at that time, and only said in the military newspaper that the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army suffered heavy losses.
But what the leaders of our army did not expect was that the frenzied Japanese army inadvertently learned the news of the death of the left deputy chief of staff from the telegram of our army, and at the same time, in order to hit the morale of the Eighth Route Army, many people did something indignant about the body of the left deputy chief of staff.
After the Eighth Route Army successfully escaped from the enemy's encirclement, the Masuko advance team continued to disguise themselves as the Eighth Route Army and took the opportunity to explore the tomb of the left deputy chief of staff, and after successfully finding the tomb of the left deputy chief of staff, they dug up the body of the deputy chief of staff and took various insulting photos.
When General Manager Peng learned of this news, he gritted his teeth in anger, and the sacrifice of the deputy chief of staff had a great relationship with them, and now that the deceased had passed away, this group of beasts actually refused to let him go, so it would be a matter of new hatred and old hatred.
At the memorial service of General Zuo Quan afterwards, in order to let the deputy chief of staff rest in peace, General Peng gritted his teeth and said: "This vendetta is not shared by heaven, and the blood debt must be paid with blood." ”
After this, Peng Zong dealt with the affairs of General Zuo Quan on the one hand, and on the other hand, he began to carry out crazy retaliatory actions against the Japanese army.
He ordered the 129th Division to carry out guerrilla warfare throughout Northern China, but this alone was not enough, to make the devils feel fear of the Eighth Route Army from the bottom of their hearts, so that they could not be at peace even if they lived in the county seat.
So after that, Mr. Peng personally arranged to organize a death squad to kill this Mashiko advance team to avenge the deputy chief of staff.
So under the leadership of Ou Fufu, the leader of the special task force regiment, the death squad secretly infiltrated the county seat of Qixian County to pay attention to the movements of this group of ghosts.
At the end of December 1942, our military detectives heard an important piece of information that the Mashiko Advance Team would hold a celebration banquet in Chinese New Year's Eve, and when peng learned of this news, Heung immediately hinted that the death squad killed them to avenge the deputy chief of staff.
In order to successfully carry out this mission, the members of the death squad did not carry guns and ammunition and decided to use daggers and short knives to give the group of ghosts a "blood lesson".
So the members of the death squad secretly disguised themselves as ordinary people and entered the county seat of Qi county, some of them were hotel waiters, some were businessmen, but everyone
at ten o'clock in the evening of the Chinese New Year's Eve, when the group of devils were drunk at the banquet, the daredevils who had already been ambushed took out their daggers in their hands and inserted them into the heart of the enemy, and the members of the advancing team were caught off guard by the sudden ambush, and all the members of the advancing team who had been present for only half an hour were killed.
In order to deter the Japanese army, the death squad members cut off all the heads of the Japanese.
On the morning of the first day of the Chinese New Year in 1943, the city gate tower in Qixian was hung with the heads of the advancing team, except for Qixian County, the city gate towers in Changzhi, Shanxi and even too far away were hung with the heads of devils, and for a moment the entire North China Japanese army was terrified.
Okamura Ningji, then commander of the North China Front, was also frightened by Peng Zong's action and immediately decided to disband Mashiko's advance team.
At this point, general Zuo Quan's great vendetta was finally repaid.