After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance in 1937, the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Nationalist army in North China were quickly defeated, and a large part of the country fell.
In this context, the communist Lü Zhengcao led the main force of the 691st Regiment of the Northeast Army to "retrograde" north, and then changed its name to the People's Self-Defense Army; almost at the same time, Meng Qingshan, the commander of the Red Army, was ordered to carry out guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines and organize the Hebei guerrilla army.
In April 1938, after the establishment of the Third Column of the Eighth Route Army and the Jizhong Military Region, the units under its jurisdiction were mainly the former People's Self-Defense Army and the Hebei Guerrilla Army.
By 1940, of the more than 30 main regiments of the Eighth Route Army's Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, the Jizhong troops accounted for nearly half.
The so-called Jizhong region was located between the Pinghan, Jinpu, Pingjin and Cangshi Roads at that time, with about 60,000 square kilometers, about 40 counties, and a population of about 8 million.
Because it is located in the plain, the economic conditions in Jizhong are better, the transportation is convenient, and the products are also very rich. Once this area fell into the hands of the Japanese army, it would become a war base for its war support. If Jizhong is controlled by our army, it is a sharp knife inserted into the heart of the enemy army, and at the same time, it also provides great manpower and material support for the persistence of the mountain base areas.
It is precisely because of this crucial role in Hebei that since the end of the Battle of Wuhan, the focus of the Japanese offensive has shifted to the stage of stabilizing the occupied area. From November 1938 to April 1939, five large-scale sieges were launched against Jizhong.
From 1940 to 1941, the Jizhong Military Region was also the focus of the Japanese siege. By 1942, the Japanese army concentrated more than 50,000 mobile troops to launch an unprecedented scale of "May Day sweep" in Jizhong, the sweep lasted for 2 months, the Japanese army burned everywhere, and then directly built a stronghold bunker, and no longer easily withdrew.
In this sweep, the Jizhong Eighth Route Army lost more than 10,000 people, the main force was forced to move to the outside line, and the masses were killed and arrested more than 50,000 people.
The Japanese army built 1,750 bunkers in Jizhong, built more than 7,500 kilometers of new roads, dug more than 4,000 kilometers of blockade ditches, and implemented the so-called "cage" policy of five-in-one points, pillars, roads, ditches, and walls for the entire Central Hebei Plain. The Japanese army's strongholds or watchtowers divided Jizhong into 2676 pieces, creating an extreme environment of "looking up to see the watchtowers, stepping onto the highway, no village without filial piety, and households hearing the cries".
Under these circumstances, except for the main force of the 24th Regiment of the Eighth Route Army, which remained in Hebei, the regional units of various sub-divisions, as well as the backbone guerrillas and militias, were still fighting tenaciously.
The regional team here is a unique organization of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, which is equivalent to a small regiment, directly under the jurisdiction of 3 to 5 companies, and active in two or three districts and counties under the sub-district.
Most of the regional detachments were formed by the regular Eighth Route Army in combination with local basic guerrilla units, and generally did not wear military uniforms, which was an important form of formation for the war of resistance behind enemy lines.
After painstaking perseverance from 1942 to 1943, the Eighth Route Army in Jizhong survived the most difficult period. By 1944, the base areas had basically returned to the situation they had in 1940.
Like most anti-fascist battlefields in the world, by 1944 we had begun a local counteroffensive in the battlefield behind enemy lines. With the continuous expansion of the scope and scale of the counter-offensive, it is necessary to have a new field regular army. The new field army in Jizhong was upgraded from the regional teams left at that time. After the local army was promoted to the main force, it was supplemented by the basic guerrillas, and so on.
As far as the Sixth Military Subdistrict of Jizhong is concerned, the original 31st Regional, 40th and 44th Regional Units were all reorganized from the 2nd Regiment of The Former Garrison and the basic company of the 1st Guerrilla Corps.
In the years of struggle against Japan, the regional team has trained a set of hard skills for fighting in villages and plains. Many of the cadres who led the regional detachments in combat in those years will be fierce generals and tiger generals of the main forces of our army in the future.
For example, the famous General Xu Xin served as the district captain of the 44th Regional Team in Jizhong in 1944.
The 44th Regional Brigade was established in September 1941 as the Shu Ji Ning heng (referring to the area of activity of the regional team) regional team, and later changed to the Zhao Gaoluan Regional Team, which was jointly organized by the 10th Company of the 2nd Regiment of the 2nd Regiment of the Sixth DivisionAl Security Brigade and the 1st Battalion of the Guerrilla Corps.
After the formation of the unit, there were 4 infantry companies and 1 reconnaissance platoon (also known as the 5th company directly under the district team), and later the 1st and 4th companies were combined into the 1st brigade, the 2nd and 3rd companies were combined into the 2nd brigade, and the total number of the whole district team was 425, and the slogan was "Kill the devils, seize the 38th, and orient the weapons and equipment."
In fact, the brigade of the 44th Regional Team at that time was a full company, which was also common in other regional teams in Central Hebei, but due to the complicated enemy situation. Some regional teams have always been called companies, while others have been called brigades, so it is basically equivalent to a brigade.
In the May Day anti-"sweep", the 44th Regional Team was reduced to less than 300 personnel, and then some personnel were replenished to restore the formation. After the most difficult period passed, the size of the 44th regional team also continued to expand, and by the time of Xu Trust District Captain, there were 5 brigades, and soon after, the 6th Brigade was added, with a strength of more than 1,000 troops.
Speaking of this Xu Xin, in fact, he was not from the Eighth Route Army in Jizhong Province, but from the Eighth Route Army in Beiyue District. Moreover, Xu Xin was only 23 years old when he was the captain of the 44th District, and the key was that he joined the army after the all-out War of Resistance, which can be described as a hero out of a teenager.
After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1937, Xu Xin joined the Eighth Route Army with several other fellow villagers, and changed his original name from Xu Lianchen to Xu Xin in the order of "benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom letters", when he was only 16 years old.
Xu Xin (back row, second from left)
However, Xu Xin was brave and resourceful in battle, and grew up quickly in the Eighth Route Army, and by 1941, xu Xin, who was only 20 years old, was already an instructor of the guard company directly under the first sub-district of Jin-Cha-Ji, and of course, the commander of the first sub-district, Yang Chengwu, was only 27 years old at the time.
In the counter-sweep in September 1941, it was Xu Xin who led the guard company to break through the Japanese encirclement, and then led a small force to lead the Japanese army away and cover the transfer of the headquarters, which performed extremely well.
After the re-establishment of the Jizhong Military Region in 1944, Yang Chengwu was appointed commander, and Xu Xin was also transferred to Jizhong as the captain of the 44th District.
However, Xu Xin did not stay long in the position of captain of the 44th District, and a few months later prepared for the counter-offensive for the purpose of large-scale training. Various sub-districts in Central Hebei set up training corps to go to western Hebei for reorganization, of which the sixth sub-district training corps was combined with the 1st and 2nd brigades of the 44th regional team and the 3rd and 4th brigades of the 31st regional team, with a total of more than 700 people, with Xu Xin as the regimental commander.
After the completion of the training, this unit was organized into the 32nd Field Regiment, with the number of party members accounting for 38.7%, the original 4 brigades were changed to 4 companies, and later the 5th company was added.
At that time, the counter-offensive of the battlefield behind enemy lines had begun, the first target of the 32nd Regiment was xianxian county, and after solving 2 puppet army squadrons, the rest of the Japanese puppet army abandoned the city and fled, and our army successfully recovered the county seat of Xianxian County.
After the liberation of Xianxian County, the 32nd Regiment was ordered to go to Daguang'an in the city of Dacheng to block the Japanese puppet army, and later to the horse farm southeast of the city to block the Japanese puppet army.
Blockade warfare was characterized by high attrition and low capture, and before the second blockade battle, the 32nd Regiment had only 5 rounds of ammunition left on average per soldier and had to load sorghum poles into bullet belts. In battle, because there are fewer bullets, grenades and bayonets are used to hit the enemy.
After the completion of the blockade battle, the 32nd Regiment was ordered to attack the puppet army stronghold in Duliu Town, at which time the average soldier had only 2 rounds left in his hand.
Defending the town of Duliu was the 20th Regiment of the Puppet Appeasement Army, which contained an ammunition depot and 5 bunkers with a wall outside the bunker and a blockade ditch outside the wall.
The puppet army here acts as a lackey of the Japanese, burning and plundering the masses, which is extremely bad. Like the Japanese army, they even went to nearby villages to abduct women, brought them back to the strongholds, and then took turns to abuse them, so the masses hated them to the bone.
After hearing that the 32nd Regiment was going to attack the Duliu Town stronghold, the masses sent 9 big pigs with mouths, each with a nail on its head, and a note hanging from the nail that read, "Pull the nails and eat meat."
Xu Xin's deployment was to fight with 5 companies and local armed forces, and to attack the stronghold with the main force of 4 companies.
However, at that time, the 32nd Regiment had only 2 rounds of ammunition per person on average, and there were no artillery, so how could this stronghold be taken with such weapons and equipment alone?
Naturally, it is not possible to attack strongly, but there are still ways.
The first was the siege, and then the cutting off of the water source in the puppet army stronghold, while the deputy instructor of the 1st Company led the team to dig tunnels. In addition to one watchtower where the women were imprisoned, four tunnels had to be dug into the other four watchtowers.
At that time, although our army did not have artillery and bullets could not be replenished, there were still explosives in the late stage of the War of Resistance, so by digging tunnels and using explosives to blow up the enemy's bunkers was a tactic often used, and the popular saying of the masses was to let the enemy's turret "dance".
At that time, although the 32nd Regiment had few bullets, it had thousands of kilograms of explosives in reserve, which was Xu Xin's bottom card to play Duliu Town.
Xu Xin was full of confidence, and the puppet army in Duliu Town was also relatively stubborn.
The commander of this group of puppet troops, Jin Kui, knew that he had committed many evil deeds, and he also believed that he had watchtowers and arsenals as a basis, and the Eighth Route Army could not break in. Moreover, for the Eighth Route Army's method of digging tunnels, the puppet army here also responded, laying wooden stakes under the gun tower and placing large urns.
However, none of this stopped the tunnel excavation of the 32nd Regiment, and a few days later the tunnel was dug under the turret, burying a total of 48 boxes and thousands of pounds of explosives.
After the preparations were completed, according to the custom, Xu Xin launched a political offensive against the besieged puppet army.
This was one of the procedures for our army to fight at that time, and even for such a hard-line puppet army as Duliu Town, it could at least play a role in disturbing the hearts and minds of the army.
Xu Xin shouted: "Commander Jin listen, you should quickly surrender your guns!" If we don't hand over our guns, we're going to let the watchtower dance!"
The pseudo-legion leader Jin Kui was very arrogant: You have the ability, just jump to show me!
The warriors also shouted: Come down, we will treat you preferentially, there is meat here.
The die-hards in the puppet army replied: Come on, we have a bunch of big girls here.
The enemy was so stubborn that Xu Xin ordered the demolition to make the puppet artillery tower in Duliu Town really "dance" it. As a result, after a few loud noises, all four turrets went up to the sky, and only the last one did not explode because of the crowd.
The warriors concentrated on the first-class shooters when they didn't have much ammunition, shooting key targets, while the other fighters attacked with bayonets and grenades. In the end, he successfully took the stronghold and rescued more than 10 young women who had been captured by the puppet army.
The battle lasted five days from the beginning of the siege to the end of the battle, completely annihilated the 20th regimental headquarters of the puppet appeasement army and its 1st battalion, and captured more than 200 enemy people in addition to being killed or wounded.
It is worth mentioning that this puppet army is well equipped and has an arsenal in the stronghold, so it has captured a lot, including 1 mortar, 1 radio, 3 heavy machine guns, 21 light machine guns, hundreds of rifles, and more than 50,000 bullets for the most critical bullets.
Therefore, after the Battle of Duliu Town, the entire regiment of the 32nd Regiment was replaced with new guns, and each soldier received nearly 100 rounds of ammunition. In the end, in addition to handing over a part, a part was also returned to the troops of the sixth division.
After this battle, the enthusiasm of the masses was also very high, and some students made up songs to sing.
Yang Chengwu, commander of the Jizhong Military Region, also made a speech to the 32nd Regiment a few days later:
Comrades of the 32nd Regiment, you have fought well! After coming out of the mountains, you fought the mighty style of the Eighth Route Army, and you were a brave regiment, a glorious regiment, and a regiment with great combat effectiveness!
After the battle of Duliu Town, the 32nd Regiment continued its counter-offensive together with its brother troops, and finally ushered in the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan. Later, in the Liberation War, the 32nd Regiment merged with other units and became part of the 63rd Army of the People's Liberation Army.
Xu Xin, the former commander of the 44th District and the commander of the 32nd Regiment, also continued to fight in the 63rd Army. At the time of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, Xu Xin, who was only 30 years old, was already the commander of the 187th Division. In the battle to break through the Linjin River and hold on to the Iron Plains, the Yan Zhao disciples who dared to hit the artillery tower with two bullets per capita would also make the Ace Army of the United States and Britain suffer.