In "Bright Sword", Li Yuntuan took a fancy to a cavalry battalion of the puppet army in Wanjia town, and secretly used the strength of a battalion to vote for the superiors, and collected the equipment of this cavalry battalion. In the advance preparations, there was how to hide from the superiors and how to conceal the newly arrived political commissar Zhao Gang, but there was not much ink on how to prepare for battle, because in the words of Commander Li, the puppet army "is not even second-rate in terms of combat effectiveness." Kong Jie said that taking a battalion, running fifty kilometers, and two hours can solve the battle, so it can be seen that in the whole incident, the enemy's combat effectiveness is not the primary consideration. But is the puppet army really so vulnerable? The Eighth Route Army in Shandong suffered a heavy loss at the hands of the puppet army.
On August 16, 1945, the day after Japan's surrender, the devils of Linyi withdrew to Zaozhuang, leaving behind a large amount of weapons and ammunition and hundreds of thousands of catties of grain. Xu Lansheng, the leader of the puppet army security brigade in Linyi, immediately pulled the puppet army stationed in Fei County and Yi Prefecture into the city, and the three puppet armies were merged, and the number reached more than 4,000. Sun Jixian, commander of the Yimeng Military Subdistrict of the Eighth Route Army, also received news and prepared to capture Linyi, and the two sides launched a fierce battle.
In the early morning of August 17, the Luzhong 11th Regiment of the Yimeng Military Sub-district took the lead in launching an attack on Linyi, and the 4th Binhai Regiment and the Linmu Independent Regiment of the Binhai Military Sub-district supporting the operation were still on the way. The 11th Regiment of Luzhong fought fiercely for more than 5 hours, blowing up a hole in the north gate of the city wall, but the enemy fire was too fierce, and the casualties of the troops were relatively large, so the 11th Regiment decided to temporarily rest and launch an attack together after the arrival of the support troops.
【Classic puppet army image - Commander Tang】
On August 19, the 4th Binhai Regiment and the Linmu Independent Regiment attacked Linyi again from the south of the city and the 11th regiment of Luzhong from the north of the city. Linyi City is strong, there is a moat outside, the enemy has enough ammunition to defend according to danger, our army lacks offensive weapons, and the battle situation has been very unfavorable to our army from the beginning. The 4th Binhai Regiment climbed the city wall twice, both of which were defeated by heavy enemy fire. The attack of the 11th Regiment of Luzhong was also frustrated at the same time.
The three regiments were unable to attack for a long time, and the superiors were in a hurry. The Shandong Military Region sent the chief of staff to lead the special task force regiment to rush to the rescue, and the number of attacking troops increased to 4 regiments. In the early morning of the 21st, the Special Agent Regiment and the 4th Binhai Regiment attacked again from the south of the city and the 11th regiment of Luzhong from the west of the city, and the battle was very fierce, according to the recollection of the veterans, the grenades thrown on the head of the city were like hail. In the whole battle, only the soldiers of the Special Service Regiment boarded the city once, but all were sacrificed. The 11th Regiment carried out 4 blasts of the city wall, but it was too thick to succeed.
【Eighth Route Army Frame Ladder Siege】
Enemy fire crushed the attacking follow-up troops to the open ground outside the city, and the warriors who rushed to the city first had to jump into the moat to avoid bullets. After several days of fighting, the warriors were tired and hungry, and they could not stand in the water, and the warriors could only throw their nests into the river to fill them with hunger, and they did not use the cover of night to withdraw from the river until dark.
The superiors learned of the situation on the front line and thought that it was impossible to win in a short period of time. The troops were ordered to rest in place, and at the same time, the military district was ordered to deploy 1500 kilograms of explosives and 20,000 grenades to support. The previous method of setting up a ladder to attack the city could no longer be used, and the troops decided to dig tunnels to blast. After the local people heard about it, they rushed to support, and with the joint efforts of the masses and the troops, they dug a 300-meter-long tunnel for 15 days, and the 11th regiment spent another day to move all 1500 kilograms of explosives into the tunnel and put it on the bombing point.
【The city wall was blown down for a while】
At dawn on September 10, accompanied by a loud noise, the city wall west of Linyi City was blown down by 20 meters, and the 4th regiment took the lead in rushing through the gap. The puppet army in the city desperately resisted, the 4 regiments were attacked on three sides, and the casualties were huge for a while, and the superiors could only order the 11th regiment and the special service regiment to replace the 4 regiments. Most of the puppet armies were rabble-rousers, but the puppet armies in Linyi were an exception. Even if the city wall was blown down, there was a street battle with the Eighth Route Army, and almost every meter forward, there were soldiers sacrificed. The enemy even organized death squads, overseers and the Eighth Route Army to fight, with this bloody nature, why should it be a puppet army in the first place?
【Eighth Route Army of Luzhong Military Region】
The battle lasted until 7:00 a.m. on the 11th, when our army attacked the city from the west, south, and north, and most of the enemy defenders in the city were annihilated, and Linyi finally returned to the hands of the people again. In this battle, more than 3,000 enemy soldiers were annihilated, and their own casualties reached more than 3,000, and no one would have thought that the most tragic battle fought by the anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians in Shandong would be fought by the puppet army after the surrender of the devils. Although the Eighth Route Army lacked the weapons to attack the strongholds, it was still very rare for the puppet army to "dare to fight."