Many generals in our army like to fight wars every New Year's Festival and unexpectedly punish the enemy, such as Nie Fengzhi (I personally wrote a small article about his fighting on the New Year's Festival a few years ago, and later he was carried and washed by many "self-media writers" many times). I'll talk about one more today.
He is Major General Zhang Zhenxiu.
After the first detachment of the New Fourth Army advanced behind enemy lines to establish the Maoshan base area, Yanling became an important passage for the New Fourth Army to advance east and north.
In order to remove this stronghold, Chen Yi gave the task to the 2nd Regiment. The 2nd Regiment again gave the task to Zhang Haoxiu, the commander of the 1st Battalion. Zhang Zhenxiu believed that Yanling had become a strong defensive stronghold after more than a month of japanese troops' construction of bunkers and fortifications, and it was not appropriate to rush to attack, so he chose the attack time on February 17, the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve of the old calendar. Because the Japanese also had a Chinese New Year's Eve, it was easy to launch an attack unexpectedly when the puppet army and the Japanese army were drunk and full of food, which was easy to work.
The Japanese troops in Yanling were a squad of 28 men from the 8th Squadron of the Aoki Brigade of the Ikeda Wing of the Tangsong Division, stationed in the grain depot in the east of the town. The puppet army stationed in the west of the town and the southeast of the changguo temple in the east of the town was about 100 people. The grain depots where the Japanese were stationed were surrounded by high walls, and the walls that were one foot thick and more than a foot high were all made of fire bricks. Easy to defend and difficult to attack. Zhang Haoxiu decided to first surround and annihilate the puppet army with a two-to-one force, adopt the method of long-distance attack, attack it unprepared, and quickly take the second step after winning the hand - to attack the Japanese army with nine times the strength.
At 7 o'clock in the evening of the 30th night of the 30th month, Zhang Zhenxiu led the 1st battalion to march towards Yanling Town in the rain and snow.
At about 11:00 p.m., the 1st Battalion, led by its guide, entered the town in three ways. The 1st Company waded through the Jiandu River from the east side of the Baoqing Bridge to the south of Changguo Temple, quickly solved a pseudo-police squadron, and directly inserted itself into the Zhennan Bridge, cutting off the Japanese-pseudo-Japanese contact. The 2nd and 3rd companies then followed suit, entering the west side of the Jiandu River wharf, annihilating the puppet army in the west of the town, and continuing to insert to the south, the 2 companies surrounded the puppet army garrison on the north side of the commercial street in the west of the town, and the company commander took a squad to touch the front of the bunker. The puppet army had eaten the New Year's meal, drunk Chinese New Year's Eve wine, and was drinking five or six drinks and gambling in the bunker. The warriors leaned the ladder prepared in advance against the bunker, climbed into the bunker one by one, took off all the guns of the puppet army hanging on the wall, and then shouted to the gambling puppet army: "Don't move!"
Stunned, the puppet army obediently raised his hand and became a prisoner.
The puppet army that was sentry on the top floor of the bunker found a situation and hurriedly fired a gun to alarm, but it was too late, and it was twisted by several soldiers who rushed up.
The puppet army on South Street heard the guns fired from the north and also randomly put up their guns. The 3rd Company soldiers were divided into two ways, and without much effort, they surrendered their weapons. The Japanese troops in Hedong heard the sound of gunfire and sent a squad to rush over to the south bridge of the town, but were hit back by a burst of grenades from the 1st Company.
Zhang Yuxiu ordered the 1st Company to attack the Japanese troops stationed in the warehouse, with 2 companies assisting and 3 companies attacking from the west of the town to the east of the town. Peng Shousheng, commander of the 1st Company, led a platoon to destroy an outpost bunker south of the Japanese garrison and continued to attack the enemy warehouse. However, the Japanese used gun holes on the high walls of the warehouse and the gun holes on the courtyard wall to shoot with intensive fire and also fired grenadiers, forcing the three companies of the New Fourth Army to advance and be blocked.
Zhang Chengxiu said to the commander of the 2nd Company: "Send some people with me to dig a hole in the west wall, dig through it, and go inside to fight with the devils." ”
Unexpectedly, the wall was made of fire bricks and was difficult to open.
As soon as the Japanese army saw the New Fourth Army punching the hole in the wall and concentrating its fire strafing, Zhang Haoxiu had to leave a squad to continue to drill the hole, and ordered the other soldiers of the 1st Company to climb on the roof of changguo Temple and throw grenades at the devils. At the same time, people were sent to the homes of ordinary people to buy kerosene and prepare to burn the devils.
When the 2nd Company squad hit the hole in the wall, the main force took advantage of the enemy's fire transfer to throw a "pole grenade" (many grenades tied to the bamboo pole), stuffed a Japanese gun hole, and blew a gap in the wall. The Japanese did not wait for them to rush in, blocked the gap with fire, and lit the light with kerosene cotton at the gap to prevent the New Fourth Army from attacking through the gap.
Zhang Haoxiu found two barrels of kerosene and firewood, and ordered the fire to be set on fire at the Changguo Temple, which was close to the Japanese garrison. Kechangguo Temple is too high, the firewood and grass are burned out, and the big temple cannot be burned. It burned for two hours, the roof had not yet been lit, and the warehouse had not been "affected". The drilling of the wall has not worked. Zhang Haoxiu was extremely anxious, so he had to order each of them to take turns to charge and strive to annihilate all the devils before dawn. However, the attack lasted about half an hour, but due to the fierce fire of the Japanese army, it was still unable to break through. Zhang Had to order the troops to retreat to their original positions.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, the great temple suddenly burst into flames, and the fire became bigger and bigger. Zhang Haoxiu was a little confused, it turned out that a soldier surnamed Yang braved the enemy's artillery fire, raised a burning bamboo pole, and reached into the Japanese warehouse, causing the enemy warehouse to burn. The fire came out of the roof of Changguo Temple and burned towards the Devil's Station.
Flames threaten the devils. Deputy Battalion Commander Luo organized personnel to shout at the devils and carry out a political offensive. But the Japanese refused to surrender. Zhang Haoxiu ordered: "Each company must step up the drilling of holes, and must completely annihilate the devils." ”
The warriors who dug holes in the walls took the opportunity to fight hard to punch holes.
"Report! The hole in the wall has been opened, and the warrior Ge San has rushed in! ”
"Rush in!" The 2 company commanders ordered excitedly.
Soldiers of the 2nd Company rushed into the courtyard from the hole in the wall and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese army.
Then the 1st and 3rd companies also opened the walls of the warehouse and rushed in to fight with the devils.
Soon, the ghosts in the courtyard were solved, and the ghosts in the warehouse panicked and prepared to break through. Two devils rushed out of the warehouse and were immediately killed by 2 companies of grenades in the corner. Warriors rushed into the warehouse and fought with the devils. A platoon leader of the 1st Company rushed to a room and saw that the battalion cook was fighting with the Japanese squad leader Ryumu, and came forward to assist, and the two killed the enemy and captured a Browning pistol.
A soldier of the 1st Company rushed into another house and was about to take off the Type 38 rifle on the wall when suddenly a Japanese soldier emerged from under the bed and held him by the waist, and the two wrestled together. The other warriors quickly arrived and captured the Japanese soldier alive.
The remnants of the enemy fled to the river north of Changguo Temple, covered with machine guns, pounced on the Baoqing Bridge several times, and were attacked by the New Fourth Army's more intensive strafing, defeated and retreated, and had no choice but to change the direction of the breakthrough, open the way with machine guns, and bombard with grenadiers in an attempt to break through the Jiandu River. Zhang Yuxiu ordered the encirclement to be narrowed, and soon all the Japanese troops were killed by the river and in the middle of the river.
The Battle of Yanling lasted 5 hours, the 1st Battalion of the New Fourth Army only sacrificed 2 people, seriously wounded 2 people, and slightly wounded 7 people, completely annihilated a small group of Japanese troops and a squadron of puppet troops in Yanling at a small cost, killed the Japanese squad leader Liu Mu and the medical officer accompanying the army, and captured 1 Japanese soldier.
At dawn, the people of Yanling Town went out of their homes and went to the grain warehouse to help carry the wounded, assist the troops in cleaning up the battlefield, and carry the captured guns and military supplies.
In order to prevent the enemy from retaliating, on the morning of the first day of the lunar new year, Zhang Haoxiu led his troops to clean up the battlefield and immediately withdrew from Yanling.
The New Fourth Army pulled out the Japanese stronghold of Yanling and shook the four directions. When Chen Yi heard the news of the victory, he said happily: "This battalion commander is willing to use his brain, and Chinese New Year's Eve night to send troops to surprise him, he can become a general." ”
Zhang Haoxiu later really became a founding general and became the commander of the military region.