Text/Kingdom Building
In January 1942, the 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, under the command of its commander Li Yutang, dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army attacking Changsha City and won a great victory in the Third Battle of Changsha Defense. In recognition of the heroic performance of the 10th Army in the Third Battle of Changsha, the Nationalist Government praised the 10th Army as the "Taishan Army" and awarded the Flying Tiger Banner, the highest military glory banner of the three divisions under the 10th Army. The 10th Army was the first military-level unit to receive three Flying Tiger Flags at the same time during the entire War of Resistance Against Japan.
1. The anti-Japanese tiger will make meritorious contributions to the crime
During the Second Battle of Changsha in September 1941, the 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army, of which Li Yutang was the commander, was deployed by Xue Yue, commander of the 9th Theater, to the jinjing, Gaoqiao, and Fulinpu lines on the outskirts of Changsha to block the Japanese attack. The 10th Army arrived at the defensive position on 23 September, and before it could make adequate defensive preparations, it was fiercely attacked by three divisions and regiments of Japanese troops the next day. After two days and nights of fierce fighting, the 10th Army lost the Positions of Jinjing and Takahashi after the death of a division-level officer (Lai Chuanxiang, deputy commander of the 190th Division of the 10th Army) and nearly 2,000 casualties. In desperation, Li Yutang withdrew his troops to the city of Luoli, south of the Laodao River, to take care of and rectify, and immediately deployed a second blocking position. In the next 4 days, the 10th Army launched a fierce offensive and defensive battle with the Japanese army on the front line of the Laodao River, withstood many crazy attacks of the Japanese army, and finally waited for friendly reinforcements, repelled the Japanese army, and won the second victory in the defense of Changsha.
Logically speaking, the 10th Army, regardless of its own casualties, blocked the many attacks of the superior Japanese army, and made great contributions to the defense of Changsha City, which should be commended. However, Xue Yue, commander of the 9th Theater, believed that the 10th Army had lost the Jinjing position, making it impossible to implement the battle plan carefully formulated by the theater command and should bear corresponding responsibility. Therefore, he ordered that Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Army, be removed from his post and transferred to the theater headquarters for an idle post, and at the same time transferred Li Yutang's Huangpu classmate Zhong Bin to take over the post of commander of the 10th Army.
After reaching the 10th Army under the orders of the 9th Theater Command, the officers and men were indignant and rioted. The commanders of the three divisions under his command expressed dissatisfaction with the punishment of the theater command and refused to accept the appointment. This is embarrassing, the big war is imminent, the commander of the main army is withdrawn, and the successor commander does not dare to take office, so it has been deadlocked for nearly 2 months. At this time, the Japanese army had mobilized heavy troops, redeployed its strategy and tactics, and was about to launch the Third Battle of Changsha. To be replaced by a miscellaneous unit, Xue Yue had already drastically rectified military discipline, but this 10th Army was the ace unit of the Central Army, and the military commanders were all protégés of Chairman Jiang (graduates of the Whampoa Military Academy), and they were not good enough to provoke or provoke. For the sake of the overall situation of the War of Resistance, Commander Xue suppressed the anger in his stomach and withdrew his punishment for Li Yutang. However, at this time, Li Yutang was even more angry, and he insisted on not coming to his post, and the 9th Theater Headquarters was anxious to turn around. Seeing that the general was not in harmony with the general and was going to miss a big thing, Chiang Kai-shek could not sit still, and in mid-December 1941 he personally called Li Yutang, and only then did he "invite" the general out, and the content of the call between their teachers and students was as follows:
Jiang: "Are you Li Yutang, commander of the Tenth Army?" "
Lee: "Yes."
Jiang: "Are you a huangpu phase I student?" "
Lee: "Report to the principal, yes. "
Jiang: "Well, then Changsha City will be handed over to you." "
The phone immediately hung up, and Li Yutang rushed to Changsha to take up his post.
2. In the bloody battle of Changsha City, the Taishan army was as stable as Mount Tai
On January 1, 1942, the well-prepared 3rd Division of the Japanese Vanguard, under the command of the commander of the 11th Army, Anan Weiji, rushed to Changsha City. The 10th Army, which was responsible for the defense of Changsha City, under the command of Commander Li Yutang, deployed all three divisions to the first-line positions, and asked the three division commanders to personally command the operations on the first line. The command and deployment of the three divisions of the 10th Army were: Zhou Qingxiang, commander of the 3rd Division, stationed at Tianxin Pavilion, Zhu Yue, commander of the 190th Division, stationed at Xinghanmen, and Fang Xianjue, commander of the Reserve 10th Division, stationed at the South Gate. The soldiers shook their fists and looked forward to a decisive battle with the Japanese army with the spirit of sacrificing their lives and forgetting their deaths.
On January 3 of the same year, the Japanese army broke through the outer positions of Changsha City, the 3rd Division reached the East Gate to the South Gate section, the 6th Division reached the North Gate to the East Gate, and the defense of Changsha entered a white-hot situation. Due to the inferiority of weapons and equipment, the Chinese army has been in a passive defensive state, but an unexpected gain has caused a 180-degree reversal of the situation in the defense of Changsha. It turned out that in a combat operation, the 10th Army killed a young soldier from the Kato detachment of the Japanese army who attacked the attack, and from this young man, he found the japanese army's battle plan information and combat orders, and learned that the Japanese army's attack on Changsha was not only insufficient, but also extremely short of ammunition.
If Li Yutang obtained the treasure, he immediately submitted these top-secret materials to the 9th Theater Command. After reviewing these materials, Commander Xue Yue immediately revised the campaign deployment and dispatched superior forces to encircle and suppress the Japanese 11th Army, which was advancing alone. In order to support the operations in the 9th Theater, the Military Commission of the Nationalist Government even handed over the 74th Army, which was directly controlled by itself, to the command of Xue Yue, which showed the determination of the Chinese Supreme Command and the 9th Theater Command to encircle and suppress the Japanese 11th Army. Of course, to encircle and suppress the 11th Army of the Japanese Army, the first thing to do is to hold Changsha City, so that the Japanese army can not get air support, otherwise once Changsha City falls, the Japanese army can rely on several large airfields in Changsha City to implement air supply support, and then it will not be the Japanese army but the national army that is only afraid of being encircled and suppressed. This shows the great pressure of the 10th Army to defend changsha city.
The commander of the Japanese 11th Army, Anan, launched the Third Battle of Changsha as a military adventure, and he knew better than the Chinese commander that whether he could capture Changsha City in time was the key to the success or failure of this battle, so Anan would only attack Changsha City with the main force of the army without artillery support and air force assistance. Unfortunately, Anan only met Li Yutang, and his strategic intentions were exposed prematurely and were difficult to achieve. Although some Japanese troops of the Japanese 3rd Division, 6th Division and 40th Division attacked the walls of Changsha city several times, they were heroically repelled by the officers and men of the 10th Army. At the height of the fighting, both Sides organized commandos and death squads to engage in white-knife battles on many occasions, and countless people died in the battle.
On the night of January 4, 1942, the Japanese army attacking Changsha City had reached the end of the crossbow and began a large-scale retreat. Xue Yue immediately organized elite troops to follow in pursuit, and even the 10th Army, which had been fighting hard for many days without repair and replenishment, participated in the pursuit and encirclement of the Japanese army.
At 7:00 a.m. on January 5, all Japanese troops around Changsha City had withdrawn. The 6th Division was able to withdraw smoothly due to its position behind, and the 3rd Division, which attacked too fiercely, suffered a heavy loss, and was cut off by the Nationalist 79th Army and the 4th Army during the retreat, and was surrounded and attacked, suffering heavy casualties and losing more than 3,000 soldiers. The unit then rendezvoused with the 6th Division and on 7 January broke through to the north bank of the Laodao River. When the Japanese 40th Division was retreating from the Gimjeong area, it was fiercely attacked by the Nationalist 37th Army and the 78th Army, and only after killing two captains and thousands of casualties did it break out of the battle.
Beginning on January 8, 1942, more than 10 armies of the Chinese army pursued and suppressed the retreating units of the Japanese 11th Army until January 16, when the Japanese army withdrew north of the Riluo River.
In this battle, the Chinese army achieved a huge victory in annihilating 56,944 enemy (33,941 killed and 23,003 wounded) at the cost of 31,346 casualties. This victory was also the first major victory achieved by the Allies after the outbreak of the Pacific War, so it had a very significant influence internationally. The 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army was also praised by the Nationalist government as a "Taishan Army" as stable as Mount Tai because of its heroic performance in this battle.
3. Won three flying tiger flags alone, and the Taishan Army was famous
After the victory of the Third Changsha Battle, the Nationalist government awarded honorary banners and medals of honor to meritorious troops and individuals. Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Army, was awarded the Order of the Qingtian White Sun No. 95 of the National Government for his meritorious service in commanding the troops in battle, and was awarded the Order of the Qingtian White Sun no. 95 of the Nationalist Government, and the only senior general who won the award with him was Xue Yue, commander of the 9th Theater (No. 94 Qingtian White Sun Medal). The three divisions under the jurisdiction of the 10th Army dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army because of their bravery in fighting the Japanese army, and made great contributions to the victory of the entire battle, and were awarded the highest military organization, the Flying Tiger Banner, by the Nationalist government. The specific units that received the flag were: Zhou Qingxiang, division commander of the 3rd Division of the 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army; Zhu Yue, commander of the 190th Division of the 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army; and Fang Xianjue, division commander of the 10th Reserve Division of the 10th Army of the National Revolutionary Army. The 10th Army was the only military-level unit under its command that was awarded the Flying Tiger Banner at the same time for three divisions during the War of Resistance Against Japan.