In the first half of the last century, the Japanese army invading China, under the banner of imperialism, arbitrarily left a thousand holes in the land of China.
Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Chinese military and civilians are all soldiers. The Eighth Route Army continued to fight, and the New Fourth Army rose even higher and stronger.
The anti-Japanese heroes, who held 40,000 red patriotic hearts, faced their flesh and blood with sharp knives and spears against the Japanese, and exchanged their fresh lives for the victory of the anti-Japanese resistance.
In March 1943, when the spring cold was still steep and the claws of the Japanese army once again reached the land of China, the 82 martyrs of Liu Laozhuang in Huaiyin, northern Jiangsu, rose up to meet the enemy.
Facing 3,000 Japanese troops led by Kawashima, they blocked several fierce charges with their bodies, and 82 soldiers fought from dawn to dusk.
The gates of Huaiyin city opened widely
In the spring of 1943, there was a small village called Liu Laozhuang in Huaiyin, northern Jiangsu Province, where a group of leading organs and masses covering the party, government, and army had just been safely transferred.
Because it is located on the right side of the Huaishu Highway and its strategic geographical location is very important, Hu Bingyun, commander of the 19th Regiment of the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Division of the New Fourth Army, arranged for a company of troops to be stationed at Liu Laozhuang. The company's mission was to block the battle and slow down the progress of the Japanese invasion in the north.
The 4 companies had a total of 82 New Fourth Army soldiers.
The company commander was named Bai Sicai, a native of Jiangxi, who joined the Red Army at the age of 16 and participated in the Long March, and he was also present in the Battle of Pingxingguan in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a veteran of the Anti-Japanese War who had experienced several battles.
The company's instructor was named Li Yunpeng, who joined the Anti-Japanese Propaganda Brigade in 1939 and joined the Communist Party of China at the same time.
After receiving the task, the 4th Company of the New Fourth Army never slackened off for half a minute, and firmly stationed itself in a village where this person was only a hundred households and less than 100 acres of land. However, in this era of fire, the crisis is like a nightmare lurking in the night, quietly approaching this military strategic point.
On the night of March 17, 1943, the Japanese 25th Division, led by Kawashima, opened the gates of Huaiyin, and 3,000 Japanese troops silently infiltrated Huaiyin.
Before attacking Liu Laozhuang, Kawashima had sworn an oath, "This time we must sweep away the head organs of the Communist Party." Not a net, no collection of troops; no exhaustion, no collection of troops! ”
He gathered all the elite troops and firepower of the enemy-occupied areas of Huaihai and tried to take this seemingly low-hanging fruit by means of a surprise and rapid attack in order to satisfy the ambitions of the northern invaders.
Struggled to crush the Japanese three charge
At dawn on March 18, 1943, the sky in the east was bright, and the sharp soldier company of the Japanese army on Kawashima took the lead in attacking, and the long knife directly attacked the sentry checkpoint stationed in Liu Lao Village. The sentries of Liu Laozhuang's company did not have time to report to their superiors after discovering the enemy situation, and immediately fired their guns to warn the invaders of their arrival.
A sharp gunshot broke through the sky, waking up this dangerous land. At this time, the radius of the Japanese ambush circle was less than 100 meters.
At the moment of a thousand gunshots, Bai Sicai, the commander of the company, held up the heavy machine gun in one hand, and with the other hand, he propped himself over the inner trench, and a roar was pressed under his throat, and the firepower of the whole company was scattered for a while. The Japanese sharp soldier company that had just stepped into the village panicked for a moment, unable to resist the sudden fall of the guns and artillery pieces, and the follow-up troops did not dare to take half a step forward when they saw the situation, and each fled.
In the face of the Japanese surprise attack, none of the companies suffered any casualties.
The oath to take down the head organ of the Communist Party in one fell swoop still echoed in Kawashima's ears, and anger burned in his heart, and he immediately ordered the teams to surround the entire Liu Laozhuang, hoping to regain their strength by virtue of their numerical superiority.
3,000 Japanese troops quickly formed an encirclement in preparation for the first charge to be launched.
At this time, the company commander Bai Sicai immediately determined that the number of enemy troops far exceeded the number of Liu Laozhuang's company, and in order not to be surrounded by japanese troops, he immediately decided: "Withdraw from Liu Laozhuang!" ”
The whole company quickly moved to an open area north of the village, chose an optimal defensive position in the "anti-Japanese ditch", and re-held it. However, due to the large size of the enemy army, the company still failed to avoid the encirclement of the Japanese army.
At nine o'clock in the morning, Kawashima ordered the first charge. The guns and artillery of the Japanese army were like countless evil tigers, rushing to the anti-Japanese trenches of the four companies at the same time. However, before the enemy could approach, the soldiers of the four companies used fire to suppress the enemy less than thirty meters north of the village, and the first charge of the Japanese Kou ended in failure.
Before the first charge, the Japanese fire was concentrated on the west side of Liu Laozhuang. After the defeat, Kawashima sent a squadron of the division to transfer some of its fire to the eastern side of the village to form a front-and-forth attack posture.
The sun had fully risen in the east, and the 25th Division of Chuandao launched another onslaught on Liu Laozhuang for a second charge.
At this time, Liu Laozhuang completely woke up from the chill of early spring, and after crushing the first charge, the morale of the four leagues as a whole was high, and the commander of the White Company keenly commanded the defensive combat task.
The Japanese squadron quickly approached, and when it was a hundred meters away from the position, Bai Sicai commanded the grenades to concentrate on the enemy's fire point, the attacking Japanese lost fire cover, and the soldiers of the four companies took advantage of the situation to organize light and heavy machine guns to fire together, blocking the enemy troops rushing in front of the squadron.
The enemy army had no cover, and it was difficult for our army to defend with fierce firepower, and the complete offensive momentarily collapsed and fled. The sharpshooters of the fourth company took advantage of the enemy's retreat and aimed and shot many Japanese troops invading China.
After the failure of the second japanese charge, it was almost noon.
Kawashima's ambitions were trampled upon again, and as he watched his soldiers become swordsmen, he was enraged, and immediately gathered the firepower of two stormtroopers to launch a third onslaught.
Our army fought with our lives again, crushing one fierce aggression after another, and the third charge again ended in failure.
It was already 2 p.m., and Kawashima was shocked by the defeat of the three charge attempts, and became angry. While suspending the attack, he shot a young man named Yamamoto, using the radical method, which provoked the entire division to kill, and decided to launch another general attack with more intense firepower.
The whole company fought hard and martyred Liu Zhuang
Although it is early spring, the land of China is still chilly, but this land in northern Jiangsu is burned by the fire of war.
After Kawashima suspended the charge, in this silence that did not seem to stop, the soldiers of the four companies looked resolute, clutched steel guns in their hands, pressed their chests against the solid trenches, and their hearts beat dull and powerful, resting and coexisting with the land of China.
"I order that all the mountain artillery, mortars, infantry guns, and grenadiers be concentrated and that fire on the positions of the Chinese and blow them to the ground." At the order of Kawashima, a thousand bullets broke through the sky and whistled through every corner of Liu Laozhuang.
From heaven to earth, Liu Laozhuang within a radius of two miles became a hell on earth filled with smoke. A defensive trench, only 5 feet wide and 4 feet deep, was almost destroyed by Japanese artillery fire.
As the minutes and seconds passed, there were constant casualties in the four companies, and various military projects and bases were hit by guns one by one and collapsed in front of the soldiers.
Bunkers were destroyed, trenches were blown up, but the 82 warriors of the four companies were like steel giants that would never fall, repairing fortifications, using backpacks as cover, and repeatedly facing their living bodies towards the enemy's bullets.
The lightly wounded bandaged their wounds and continued to fight, the seriously wounded dragging their legs to press bullets for their comrades, handing grenades, and after more than six hours of shelling, the positions of the 4 companies remained standing.
The onslaught continued until the afternoon of the 18th, when commander Li Yunpeng was seriously wounded and still shuttled through the traffic trenches, at which time the total number of soldiers in the four companies was sharply reduced from the initial 82 to 30. Looking at his dead and wounded comrades, a wave of anger surged into his heart again.
Li Yunpeng rushed up with a rifle with only a bayonet, and in the shout of death, the warriors also raised their bayonets, jumped out, and engaged in a white-knife fight with the enemy.
After this terrible white-knife fight, 82 fighters of the four companies fell on the bloody ground.
Night fell slowly again, and the rumbling shelling gradually subsided, except for a few gunshots from time to time, and there was no sound.
Kawashima, the commander of the Japanese 25th Division, looked around at the enemy and walked toward the blood-colored trench, secretly happy that he could take the main force of the Communists in one fell swoop.
However, when he stepped into this land where the war was not stopping, he found that there was not a single Chinese soldier alive, and according to the statistics of his subordinates, the "Communist Army" he thought was only 82 soldiers in front of him.
He turned his head to look at the more than 600 soldiers with casualties in front of him, and roared angrily at the sky: "The Eighth Route Army, it is very bad!"
The bad news of the sacrifice of all 82 soldiers of Liu Laozhuang reached the headquarters of the New Fourth Army, and Peng Mingzhi immediately named the 4th Company "Liu Laozhuang Company".
In the memoirs of Huang Kecheng, commander of the 3rd Division of the New Fourth Army, a line was written: "82 commanders and fighters of the 4th Company of the 19th Regiment of the 7th Brigade fought fiercely for days, repeated hand-to-hand combat, and killed more than 170 enemy people, all of whom died heroically."
Today, in that once smoke-filled hot land, a monument commemorating 82 martyrs has been erected, and the handwriting on the monument is as bright as the patriotism of the 82 soldiers in those days.
From northern Shaanxi to northern Jiangsu, the enemy behind the British name chuan eight roads; From dawn to dusk, the whole company fought hard and martyred Liu Zhuang.