On June 23, 1944, the Defense of Hengyang began, and Fang Xianjue led more than 16,000 soldiers and 100,000 soldiers of the 10th Army to fight for 47 days and nights, killing nearly 30,000 enemies, which greatly exceeded the total strength of the 10th Army. The defense of Hengyang dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese Kou, and in this battle, the 10th Army emerged many heroes who could sing and cry, and Zhang Deshan, commander of the 7th Company of the 30th Battalion of the 30th Regiment of the 10th Division, was one of them.
Zhang Deshan is a native of Hebei, Xiao Yong is good at war, likes to drink alcohol, and is known as Zhang Fei in the army. During the defense of Hengyang, he was ordered to lead the whole company to hold the garrison mountain and gaoling in the southwest highlands outside the city. Zhang Deshan divided the entire company's troops in two, and a platoon leader Li Jianquan held Gaoling with a total of 50 men, and he himself led the remaining two platoons to hold the garrison mountain. Although the stop was only more than 100 meters high, it was surrounded by depressions, and the Japanese had to attack upwards, so that the defenders had the advantage of the terrain.
In addition, Zhang Deshan also built machine gun bunkers and hidden trenches on the position, and laid barbed wire and minefields in the front of the position. In the early morning of June 26, the Japanese 117th Brigade began to storm The Garrison Hill and Gaoling. Zhang Deshan commanded the troops to calmly respond to the battle, and when the Japanese army was blocked by outer trenches, barbed wire and minefields, and could not advance quickly, Zhang Deshan saw the opportunity and ordered the light and heavy machine guns to suddenly open fire, and the ghosts fell down like mowing grass. The Japanese Kou paid a heavy price before rushing to the front of the 7th Company's position tens of meters, and the condescending soldiers threw out rows of grenades, and the Japanese ghosts cried wolf.
In this way, Zhang Deshan led the soldiers to repel several Attacks of the Japanese Army in succession, and the corpses of the devils lined up the hillside. From early morning to dusk, the Japanese paid the price of hundreds of casualties at The Truce Mountain and The High Ridge, but made no progress. The commander of the Japanese 116th Division, Sakuma, was furious and cursed his subordinates. Under the angry rebuke of the division commander, the Japanese army had to attack again at any cost. In the fierce battle until the early morning of the 27th, a platoon guarding Gaoling suffered casualties, all of which died for the country.
Zhang Deshan fought bloodily at The Cease-Fire Mountain and the Japanese Kou until about 5 p.m., at this time, there were only 4 soldiers left by his side, and all of them were wounded. They retreated to a relatively intact bunker and called to bid farewell to Ge Xiancai's division commander (Zhang Deshan had once served as Ge Xiancai's messenger). On the phone, Ge Xiancai ordered Zhang Deshan to break through and prepare to send 30 regiments to meet them. Unexpectedly, Zhang Deshan refused, saying: No need, there is no need to let the other brothers take risks. I went up to The Stop Hill and wasn't ready to go down alive. My shell gun still has more than 60 rounds of ammunition, and now the only hope is to run out of bullets and die, just wait for the little devil to come up!
Ge Xiancai on the other end of the phone was in tears, and he was proud to have such a subordinate. Soon after, the Japanese army once again launched an attack on the Stop Mountain, and after running out of all the bullets, Zhang Deshan jumped out of the trench with 4 wounded soldiers, rushed into the enemy group like a tiger descending the mountain, and fought with the Japanese Kou to the death, and finally all of them died heroically. At the cost of the death of the entire company, the 7th Company killed and wounded more than 700 Japanese Kou, adding a brilliant page to the defense of Hengyang.