Some people say that during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the armed forces led by the Chinese Communists fought guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines, and there were no major casualties. Not really. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army made great sacrifices, and the two regimental commanders of the 344th Brigade of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army alone died heroically in the battle against the Japanese army.
Who are they?
At the beginning of 1938, the 344th Brigade of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army was ordered to drive to the line of Luxian, Pingshan, Huolu, Jingxing, and Zhengding north of Zhengtai Road to carry out guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. During this period, the 344th Brigade added another 689th Regiment on the basis of the original two regiments and a guard battalion, with Han Xianchu as the regimental commander and Kang Zhiqiang as the political commissar.
Subsequently, the 344th Brigade engaged in two major battles with the Japanese.
Once in Niucun, Luxian County, the 687th Regiment was the main battle, commanded by the regimental commander Zhang Shaodong, and the battle was a movement war. Although he annihilated some of the Japanese troops, he suffered heavy casualties.
The other time was in Wentang in Pingshan County, which was mainly fought by the 688th Regiment. The leader of the regiment was named Chen Jinxiu. Due to the illness of the brigade commander Xu Haidong, the battle was commanded by political commissar Huang Kecheng. In the Battle of Wentang, the plan was to completely annihilate 500 Japanese troops in Wentang, but the various units did not cooperate well and the battle was not fought well. In the fierce battle, the Japanese sent five or six hundred reinforcements, carrying heavy artillery to bombard the positions of the 688 regiment. The whole regiment lacked experience in dodging Japanese artillery and suffered heavy casualties, and the regimental commander Chen Jinxiu was killed by shells.
This was the first regimental commander of the 344th Brigade to die.
After this battle, in early March, the 344th Brigade was ordered to move south to the southeast of Jin and enter the Taihang Mountains to fight. When crossing zhengtai road and reaching the area of Pingding and Xiyang in Shanxi, Xu Haidong and Huang Kecheng led the 688th and 689th regiments to the front and the 687th regiment to the rear. Unexpectedly, Zhang Shaodong, commander of the 687th Regiment, and Lan Guoqing, chief of staff, were pessimistic and disappointed in the situation of the war and wanted to pull the regiment away and defect to the enemy.
However, all the political cadres of the regiment resolutely refused to follow Zhang and Lan and managed to stabilize the troops. As a result, Zhang Shaodong and Lan Guoqing only took away one battalion commander and several company and platoon commanders, and all the troops were brought back by political work cadres.
In this way, within three months, the 344th Brigade had three regiments and two regiments without a regimental commander.
After Chen Jinxiu's death, the commander of the 688th Regiment was transferred by Wei Jie, head of the Special Agent Regiment of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters, and the political commissar was still Liu Zhen. After Zhang Shaodong's rebellion, the 687th Regiment was promoted from deputy regimental commander Tian Shouyao to regimental commander, and the political commissar was changed to Wu Xinquan.
Unfortunately, Tian Shouyao later became a brigade commander (the 8th Brigade of the New Fourth Army developed from the 687th Regiment), and in 1943, he encountered the Japanese army in northern Jiangsu, was wounded in battle, and died honorably, becoming the second old regimental commander among the generals who worked in the 344th Brigade.
If Tian Shouyao did not die, he would at least have the rank of lieutenant general.
In the spring of 1938, when he was promoted to regimental commander, Wei Jie and Han Xianchu, the other two regimental commanders of the 344th Brigade, were awarded lieutenant generals in 1955 and Han Xianchu was made a general; kang zhiqiang and Wu Xinquan, political commissars of the three regiments, were lieutenant generals, and Liu Zhen was made a general.
It is also worth mentioning that Zhang Shaodong, the regimental commander who fled and surrendered to the enemy, ran to the Dabie Mountains with more than a dozen people and defected to the Kuomintang. During the liberation of the whole country, Zhang Shaodong was captured by the People's Liberation Army and shot immediately. If he had firmly believed in the revolution at the beginning, he would have reached the rank of lieutenant general or above in New China.