Author: Ding Tingxin
About the author: Ding Tingxin (1916 - April 3, 2002), formerly known as Wu Peide, used the name Wu Qing. A native of Wuqiang County, Hebei Province. At the time of the "May Day" anti-"sweeping" campaign, he was the secretary of the Gaoyang County CPC Committee. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he successively served as the mayor of Baoding City, the secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, the deputy director of the Provincial Water Conservancy Department, the director of the Rural Work Department of the Provincial Party Committee, the deputy director of the Provincial Revolutionary Committee, and the deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress. He retired in 1985.
In 1942, when the "May Day" "sweep" began, the targets of the Japanese army were concentrated on the banks of the Tuotuo River, the hinterland of the party and government organs in Central Hebei and the main activities of the Eighth Route Army. At that time, Gaoyang County, where I was located, was on the outskirts of the key area of the "sweeping", and the temporary situation was relatively relaxed. Therefore, we took the opportunity to carry out some activities to disturb the enemy in order to contain the enemy.
In early June, the focus of the enemy's "sweeping" shifted to the area north of the Tuotuo River and south of Baiyangdian, where Gaoyang County was located. Although there was no main force of the Jizhong armed forces here, the enemy still used tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, etc. At that time, some of the tunnels were along and through the streets, and they were all crushed by the enemy tanks. Subsequently, the enemy built roads, dug blockade ditches, and built 44 strongholds and watchtowers in 160 villages in the county, forming a spider's web situation and surrounding the villages. After the enemy completed the deployment of the war situation, he further launched an extremely cruel "liquidation and suppression," established pseudo-organizations, and implemented the daxiang system and the method of defending the armor and sitting in a company, in a vain attempt to divide from large pieces to small pieces, so as to achieve the goal of destroying the anti-Japanese organizations.
After implementing the "strengthening of public order" five times, the Japanese army then launched the "New National Movement" and determined that Gaoyang and Renqiu counties were used as surprise demonstration areas. Soon, a group of spies were trained from the Beiping enemy Kou gendarmerie, and along with the activities of the "New National Movement" general association in Beiping, a group of traitorous lackeys of the Baoding New People's Association were stationed in the old city stronghold of Gaoyang. These executioners, who killed people without blinking an eye, cooperated with the local enemy and puppet personnel to carry out a frenzied "liquidation" and "sweeping", successively going to Liangcun and Yongcheng to kill and set fire to people, and arresting dozens of people. Then the people of all villages in the county were forced to go to the city for a meeting, threatening that the meeting was to maintain the situation, and after listening to the speech, they would come back, and if they did not go, they would kill and burn it all. Under the persecution and deception of the enemy, more than 7,000 people entered the county seat. The enemy adopted extremely brutal tactics, severely torturing innocent people and asking the villages about the names, tunnels, and guns and ammunition of the anti-Japanese cadres in various villages. For seven days and seven nights, the masses were not allowed to eat or drink, and many people were maimed and died. The strong masses, facing the threat of the enemy's butcher's knife, were unyielding, tight-lipped, and did not expose any secrets. After the enemy's plot failed, the masses had to be released, but then they created more brutal repression and carried out "liquidation" from village to village. Every time the enemy went to a village, he first dug a few large pits for burying people, and gathered the masses to fight and ask questions. In all the villages to which the enemy visited, people were buried alive. If you don't see anyone in the village, you will tear down the house and set it on fire. The "New National Movement" carried out by the enemy in Gaoyang and Renqiu brutalized 835 anti-Japanese cadres and masses, beat and maimed 1,900 people, and burned more than 4,300 houses.
In order to protect the safety of the masses' lives and property and smash the enemy's beastly behavior, commander Wei Hongliang of the Ninth Sub-district held an emergency meeting and decided that the forty-second district team and the county and district guerrilla units would look for fighters and eliminate the "demonstration team" of the Japanese army at all costs.
In early November, a reinforced japanese army squad and two puppet army squadrons in the old city stronghold took the captured civilians through the Xiliangdian Lilong River ferry to renqiu County to conduct a surprise demonstration. After burning and looting, the enemy returned to the stronghold on his toes.
The order of the enemy's march was that the civilians were in front, the puppet army was in the center, and the Japanese army was in the rear. I ambushed the troops in Xiliangdian in advance, and after letting go of the civilians and puppet troops, I gave the Japanese army a head-on blow, beating the enemy's flesh and blood, fleeing east and west, and making a mess.
After the puppet soldiers who were walking in front of them got on the ferry and heard the gunshots, they planned to raise their guns and shoot at the village, but the clever boatman immediately stopped: "Don't fight, once you expose the target, you will be hit by condescending blows, and your life will be difficult to protect, so it is better to hide in the boat and cross it safely." The puppet soldiers obediently obeyed the boatman's mercy. As soon as he reached the river, the boatman jumped on the shore and propped it up with a pole to make the ferry float into the river. Subsequently, a report was made to my troops lying in ambush on the embankment. In this way, without spending a single shot, this puppet army was captured alive. The captured men also actively cooperated in the battle, capturing the enemy who was fleeing in all directions. Except for a few Japanese troops who escaped, all but a few of the Japanese escaped.
A few days later, in Jilang, the enemy of the "surprise demonstration" was killed, 4 were wounded, and 12 were taken prisoner. Subsequently, the enemy who entered the "assault demonstration" of Bagozhuang killed 3 people, wounded more than 20 people, and captured some of the booty.
After these several battles, the arrogance of the enemy was destroyed. The enemy chieftains who led the movement fled back to Beiping in a panic, and the "New National Movement" that lasted for nearly half a year was completely smashed.
The confidence of the broad masses of soldiers and civilians in the victory of the anti-Japanese resistance has also been increasingly strengthened, and they have often and continuously ambushed the enemy's bunkers. Some of the watchtowers were destroyed, some of the puppet troops on the watchtowers surrendered, and most of the watchtowers were forced to withdraw. By the spring of 1944, the enemy was forced to shrink in the isolated city of Gaoyang County.
In this difficult and difficult struggle, we have always insisted on relying on the party's leadership and relying on the broad masses of the people. At the beginning of the "May Day" "sweeping-up," in accordance with the "Instructions of the CPC Central Committee on Persisting in Guerrilla Warfare in the Plains," the mode of struggle was promptly changed, the unity of the masses was strengthened, the revolutionary "two-sided policy" was extensively combined with small-scale and concealed armed struggle, and the personnel of county and district organs were streamlined, some of whom were sent to the base area west of Pinghan Road to study, and some of whom were temporarily hidden at home and with the masses to carry out covert struggles. Incumbent county and district cadres are scattered to various districts for activities, relying on secret transportation to communicate with each other, exchange work information, hold small meetings from time to time, study deployment tasks, and communicate them separately. At the same time, the anti-Japanese organizations in various villages continued to persist in their work.
According to the needs of the struggle situation, each village has successively established organizations to respond to the enemy, including pseudo-village chiefs and liaison officers, who use legal forms as cover, ostensibly serve the enemy, and secretly carry out anti-Japanese activities. These "white-faced and red-hearted" personnel took advantage of the opportunity of their activities in enemy strongholds to collect the enemy's movements and report to us in a timely manner. The liaison officers established by the enemy become our scouts and intelligence officers. Whenever the enemy went to the village to "clear and suppress" extortion, they were to deal with it. Sometimes, when we encounter personnel of our side who do not know each other, they will also show up to receive them, and then report to the anti-Japanese cadres, find out the true face, and then make proper arrangements to prevent the enemy from being confused.
Once, the old city stronghold sent several puppet troops disguised as the Eighth Route Army to huangxinzhuang for activities, and after careful investigation and identification, it was determined that the enemy was impersonating, so they took out sticks and beat the enemy hard, and shouted loudly, "We do not accept the Eighth Route Army." The enemy was beaten straight to the head and bloodied, and they fled in a daze, and they thought that this was a manifestation of loyalty to the "Imperial Army" and the result of the implementation of the "New National Movement"!
No matter how the form of struggle changes, the main factor in victory is to rely on the masses and wage a people's war. After the "May Day" and "sweeping up," the military and people of the whole county were closely united, indomitable, born into death, and followed in the footsteps of the former servants, overcoming all difficulties and obstacles and winning the final victory, which fully demonstrated the great strength of the people. In the struggle, many heroic deeds that can be sung and wept have emerged.
In Chen Zhuang, near the enemy stronghold in the old city, there was an old lady with the maiden name Yan and the in-laws' surname Chen. People honored her as Grandma Guan. Her grandchildren have left home one after another and gone to the front line of anti-Japanese resistance. Holes were dug in the house, and county and district cadres and guerrillas often lived in her house. There are also many wounded and sick people, who are also hidden in her home, and Grandma Guan has become a close nurse. Because there are many people coming and going here, and the grandmother of the official knows more about the situation, an intelligence station and a contact point for cadre activities have been formed here. If the cadres lose contact with each other for a while, they will soon be able to contact them through the official grandmother. She also analyzed the law of the enemy's activities and guided the anti-Japanese personnel to shift their direction and places of activity.
Once, some soldiers of the district squad hid in her house, and when they encountered the enemy's "clearance and suppression" team coming to the village to sweep up, there were many soldiers, and there was no room in the cave, so they were ready to rush out, but they were stopped by the grandmother of the official, who said: "The enemy situation is unknown, and the danger of a hard charge is great." You may lie in ambush in the room, and I will go out to understand the enemy situation and tell you at any time. If the enemy enters the compound, strike hard and then rush out. Fortunately, the enemy circled around the village and left.
Afterwards, someone asked her: "If the enemy enters the courtyard and there is a fight, the enemy will definitely burn down your house." Grandma Guan replied very crisply: "Protecting the warriors is the top priority, and after burning down the house, it can be built again." What is the loss of point property, in any case, you can't be a slave to the country. The deeds of The official grandmother spread everywhere, and later she was rated as a model of supporting the army, and in the winter of 1944, she attended the group meeting held by the sub-district.
In the late autumn of 1942, the guerrillas of the third district of Gaoyang, led by deputy squad leader Meng Rong, lived in a livestock shed in Gaozhuang Village, which had a "toad squat" (ground hole) that could accommodate more than a dozen people, and used the bottom of the livestock trough as the hole. At dawn, surrounded by more than 40 puppet troops stationed in Gaoyang City, the warriors hid in the cave. Suddenly, the opening of the cave was opened by the enemy, and the masses were captured to force them to dig a hole in the ground, and the situation was very urgent. At that time, Meng Rong instructed the soldiers to be calm and calm, and try to break through.
The masses who dug holes in the ground, at the suggestion of the village cadres, dug everywhere, except for the places where there were holes in the ground. After a while, the enemy wanted to find out what was going on in the cave, but they did not dare to go down, so they forced a mass to go down to the cave to reconnoiter, which gave us an opportunity. Those who went down briefed the soldiers on the situation and explained that the masses were trying to deal with the enemy and protect their safety.
So Meng Rong and the people who went down the cave discussed a plan to break through the enemy, let the people in the cave stay in the cave for a while, got full of dirt, and then climbed out of the hole and lied to the enemy: "This hole is long, I even climbed and took it away, it took so long, and there was no mold to the head." Inside the black hole hole, you can't see anything. ”
At this time, the warriors in the cave except Meng Rong guarded the entrance of the cave, and the rest of the people used bayonets to dig a skylight at the tail end of the cave. When the enemy heard that there was no one in the cave and did not find any movement, he sent a puppet army to reconnoiter the cave.
The crowd shouted, "You will understand when you go down and look at it." The shouting was particularly loud, with the aim of reporting to the warriors in the cave. As soon as this puppet army hit the hole, it was picked to death by Meng Rong with a bayonet. At this time, the skylight was also dug, under the command of Meng Rong. A battle for a breakout began.
Meng Rong killed the puppet army standing at the mouth of the cave to watch. The enemy heard the sound of gunfire and shot at the opening of the cave with their guns. The soldiers came out of the newly opened skylight, threw several grenades in succession, picked up the rifles at the entrance of the hole in the thick smoke and rushed out, and continued to drop grenades, and the crowd shouted loudly. The enemy was dizzy and scurried around, some jumping down from the room, falling with a blue nose and swollen face. As a result of the battle, 2 puppet soldiers were killed, more than 10 puppet soldiers were wounded, and one long and short gun was captured. Under the cover of the masses, the fighters turned the danger into a disaster and broke through safely.
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Off-topic: I have no experience before and can't get it, I don't know if I can send links to previous articles, causing some readers to read incoherently. I will send related articles to further reading in the future. Thank you all for your support.
Further reading: About the New National Movement:
Crushing the Japanese "New National Movement" in 1943
Crush the battle in the New National Movement to eliminate Kokubo of Eshu:
Okubo, the leader of the Ghost Squad in Yushu, is destroyed
The Anti-Japanese Struggle of the Military and People of Gaoyang:
The Eighth Route Army attacked Gaoyang City at night during the Mid-Autumn Festival
Beacon remembers Gao Yang