In January 1938, the Japanese army launched an offensive in the southern section of Jinpu, and Dingyuan and Bengbu were lost one after another. Li Zongren was urgently dispatched by Xuezhong to lead the 51st Army to deploy on the north bank of the river. The 51st Army was the Northeast Army, and although there were only two divisions, the 113th and 114th Divisions, the anti-Japanese sentiment of the troops was strong.
On February 10, 3,000 Japanese troops forcibly crossed the river from the west of Yangongmiao on the American side of Linhuai, and captured the villages of Chongsakazi, Wangzhuang, and Qianbanzi on the north bank of the Huai River, and The commander of the 114th Division, Mu Zhongheng, and the brigade commander of the 342nd Brigade, Li Zhouxue, commanded the front line, and all the defenders launched a counterattack, and the battle began at 10:00 a.m. and lasted around 3:00 p.m. After several chargebacks, all the lost villages were retaken.
On the morning of the 11th, the enemy's 13th Division concentrated its main forces to cross the Huai River again and launched a fierce attack on the positions of the 114th Division and the 113th Division. The positions of the 114th Division were broken through by the enemy in many places, and the troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties. The reserves of the whole division have been exhausted, and all the officers and men have not eaten and slept for two days and nights, failed to recover the lost positions, and were forced to move to the mouth of the Mohe River and the line of the four shops to continue to organize resistance. The positions of the 113th Division were also attacked by the Japanese army, and Xiao Bengbu had been repeatedly fought four or five times, the officers and men of the 674th Regiment of the defenders had suffered casualties, the regimental commander Zhang Rubin was seriously wounded, and Xiao Bengbu had fallen into the hands of the enemy.
The 51st Army's defensive line was torn apart, and the battle situation was very critical, Yu Xuezhong analyzed the battle situation and decided to take advantage of the unstable foothold of the Japanese troops crossing the river to launch a general counter-offensive and retake the lost positions. Yu Xuezhong readjusted, deployed troops, and organized a counter-offensive.
He called an emergency military conference, arranged a counteroffensive, and mobilized before the battle. Yu Xuezhong said to the generals with a heavy heart: "Only by fighting more resolutely can we survive, peacefully compromise, and the result is always destruction." The pain of our northeastern province in the past few years is unforgettable. Only a death-defying battle can serve the country. An inch of mountains and rivers, an inch of flesh and blood. We fought the front, delaying the enemy's progress by an hour, which strengthened the positions in our rear by an additional hour. ”
Speaking of hometown, the backlog of hatred suddenly broke out, and the officers and men of the whole army were full of enthusiasm and were determined to fight with the enemy to the death. The officers and men expressed their stance one after another, vowing to fight the enemy to the death.
In the early morning of February 13, the 51st Army launched a general counteroffensive. Commander Yu Xuezhong, Commander Zhou Guanglie of the 113th Division, And Commander Mou Zhongheng of the 114th Division, as well as four brigade commanders, all came to the front to command the battle and ordered the units to retake their lost positions. After eight hours of bloody fighting, the Japanese troops on the Linhuai Pass side were forced to retreat to the south bank of the Huai River, and the positions of the 114th Division were all retaken. The counterattack on the Small Bengbu side lasted for a day, and the Japanese troops crossing the river were surrounded by two wings of the 113th Division's troops, and the battle was extremely fierce.
Just at this time, reinforcements Zhang Zizhong's 59th Army arrived and took over the 51st Army's defense line. The 51st Army, which suffered heavy casualties, withdrew from the line of fire and moved to The Slope of Nanxi Temple in Suxian County, where the 59th Army was fully responsible for the Huai River defense line.