To say that the Japanese army of the War of Resistance was the most afraid, that province of our country, we can only say that there is an area that makes the Japanese army tremble with fear, and every time it comes out, it is cautious, and the engineers must open the road before they dare to come out. That is the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Border Region.
It was a whole guerrilla zone, where more than 80,000 battles were fought over an 8-year period. Basically every year, 10,000 ups and downs, attacks, sneak attacks and other military operations occur. Make it difficult for the Japanese army to sleep and eat, like sitting on a needle felt.
Our army marched into the Jin-Hebei Luyu Border Region, established close relations with the broad masses, successively established relevant organizations in various localities, developed and expanded the anti-Japanese armed forces, and laid a solid anti-Japanese foundation in the mountainous areas and plains. The enemy could not achieve its intended goal with the strength of only a few divisions and brigades.
Although the Japanese army repeated dozens of large sweeps in this area, small sweeps are even more numerous. However, it has not been able to successfully control this area, and our army has also recovered a large amount of land, including the 4th Military Subdistrict recovering Bin County, and the 11th Sub-district of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Border District recapturing Feng County and Shan County.
The 10th Military Subdistrict of Luyu in Jinji recaptured Yucheng, Zhanhua County, Guan County and other places. The 2, 6, 9, and 10 military sub-districts captured Jiaohe County, Guantao, Wucheng, Julu, Fei County, Fugou County, and other county seats. The Eighth Route Army captured a total of 105 counties.
In the form of warfare combining guerrilla warfare, sabotage warfare, mobile warfare, and other forms, we have effectively carried out anti-sweeping and anti-counterfeiting operations, annihilated a large number of enemies, and tempered and strengthened ourselves and expanded our base areas in countless operations.
The Jin-Hebei Luyu Border Region includes four districts: Taihang, Taiyue, Jiluyu, and Ji'nan. In the end, it has become a vast area including a total of 15 special districts and 115 counties. In 1941-1942 alone, the Jin-Hebei Luyu Border Region defeated 534 Japanese sweeps.
The regular army of the Jin-Hebei Luyu Border Region suffered more than 107,000 casualties in the war, and the guerrillas also paid great sacrifices. In tens of thousands of battles, 420,000 Japanese puppet troops were annihilated. The liberated population is more than 24 million people. More than 100,000 guns of various kinds were surrendered, and the troops grew from more than 10,000 to 290,000.
At that time, the counties and towns in North China and the larger villages and towns were occupied by enemy and puppet troops. While mobilizing the masses, waging an anti-Japanese guerrilla war, and expanding and enriching the main forces, the Eighth Route Army attached greater importance to the building of local people's anti-Japanese armed forces. In addition to about 1 brigade (3 regiments) of troops, each military sub-district also has a county brigade in each county, and each district also has a district squadron, and with these units as the backbone, they lead the guerrillas, self-defense units, militias, guerrilla groups, etc. in townships and villages to stand guard, set up sentries, and interrogate pedestrians; reconnaissance, extermination, and anti-counterfeiting; sabotage the enemy's railways, highways, water traffic, and communication lines, and use mountains, water networks, villages, complex terrain, and nighttime to attack and disturb the enemy.
Anti-Japanese armed forces such as military sub-districts, county brigades, or independent regiments, district squadrons, township militias, and guerrilla units took root among the people and mobilized young and middle-aged people, women, and children to participate in the struggle against the enemy, forming a magnificent scene of war.