At the end of April 1940, in order to control the traffic of the Yangtze River and cut off the water transportation line from Hubei to Chongqing, the Japanese Kou gathered heavy troops and launched the Battle of Zaoyi. In this battle, General Zhang Zizhong, who was then the commander of the 33rd Group Army and also the commander-in-chief of the Right Wing Corps of the Fifth Theater, personally led the pistol battalion and two infantry regiments across the Xiang river to kill the enemy, but unfortunately fell into the siege of the Japanese army in the town of Banqiaodian in Yicheng City, and died heroically at the age of 49.
The body was buried by Rikou in the back hill of the division headquarters
After the death of General Zhang Zizhong, the Japanese troops cleaning the battlefield found a pen inserted in the left chest pocket of the body, which was engraved with the words "Zhang Zizhong", so they quickly arranged for someone to find a stretcher and carried the body all the way to Chen Jiaji, 20 miles away, where the regimental headquarters of the Japanese 39th Division was located. The chief of staff of the division, Zhuan Tian Shengshou, had known General Zhang Zizhong, and at this moment, he personally verified Zhang Zizhong's identity.
Out of admiration for the heroism of General Zhang Zizhong, the commander of the 39th Division, Murakami Kaisaku, ordered the military to scrub his body with alcohol, and rushed to make a coffin from a nearby carpenter shop to put it into a coffin, and buried it on the slope behind the division headquarters, and a tombstone was erected on the grave, which read: "The Tomb of Zhang Zizhong, the Great General of Zhina." That evening, the Japanese radio station in Hankou interrupted normal broadcasting, interjected the news of Zhang Zizhong's death, and said: "The brave generals who died in the battle were given the most sincere and reverent silent prayers, and the remains were solemnly buried in the coffin, and it was planned to transport Hankou by special plane." ”
The old men launched a night raid to retrieve the remains
The news that Zhang Zizhong's body was buried in the Japanese occupation area spread quickly, and the 33rd Army, especially the 59th Army, was agitated. This is Zhang Zizhong's basic unit, from the 29th Army period the department has not been expanded so far, Zhang Zizhong has successively served as division commander, commander and other positions, and led this unit to participate in the Battle of Taierzhuang, under Linyi City, severely damaged the elite 5th Division of the Japanese Army, which was praised by the whole country.
Huang Weigang, who later served as the commander of the 59th Army, was now serving as the commander of the 38th Division of the Army, and he immediately sent a death squad to rush to Chen Jiaji, desperately launching an attack on the back hill of the headquarters of the Japanese 39th Division, and finally found the body of General Zhang Zizhong, opened the coffin and took out the remains of Zhongzhong and transported them back. According to the Japanese army, [the remains] "were taken away by hundreds of Chinese soldiers that night by night raids."