In May 1939, nearly 3,000 local cadres of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army were divided into nine routes by more than 8,000 Japanese puppet soldiers and besieged in a narrow mountain pass with an area of less than 10 square kilometers near the village of Lufang in Feicheng. The 115th Division faced the Jedi, but when they broke through, they did not take the country road, but drilled into the arms of the enemy, and jumped out of the encirclement in a way that almost humiliated their opponents with faith and discipline.
It is estimated that it was besieged by the Japanese army
Since ancient times, Shandong has been a place of contention for soldiers, especially the area west of Mount Tai, which is not only rich in land, but also a transportation hub between the north and south of China. After the Lugou Bridge Incident in 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shandong along the Jinpu Railway, and Han Fuyu only made a slight resistance before leading an army of 100,000 people to flee south, and the shandong tribe fell into the hands of the Japanese army.
At the time of national peril, the headquarters of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, the direct subordinate units and the 686th Regiment of the 343rd Brigade, under the leadership of Acting Division Commander Chen Guang and Political Commissar Luo Ronghuan, advanced into the Luxi area in the name of the "Eastward Detachment" to help the local military and people establish the Luxi Revolutionary Base Area.
After the 115th Division went to Shandong, it annihilated 1 regiment of the puppet army in the first battle at Yuncheng Fanba, captured the regimental commander Liu Yusheng alive, and then took the grass bridge one after another and uprooted the Japanese strongholds such as Ningyang Geshidian and Dongping Weili, which not only dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese army, but also seriously threatened the safety of Jinan and the Jinpu line occupied by the Japanese army.
At that time, Lieutenant General Ogaka Kamezo, the commander of the 12th Army, the supreme commander of the Japanese army in Shandong, was already a little restless in the face of the influx of war reports. Because on September 25, 1937, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army set up an ambush at Pingshiguan to annihilate more than 1,000 Japanese troops, and its prestige had already deterred the enemy.
At the end of April 1939, Otaka Guizang wanted to give the Japanese army some face, so at the end of April 1939, he personally gathered the main forces of the two brigades and regiments and more than 8,000 Japanese puppet troops stationed in 17 places such as Jinan, Yanzhou and Tai'an, and at the same time dispatched more than 100 cars and tanks, and carried more than 100 mortars of different calibers.
Since the 115th Division had just entered Shandong or was still marching in the enemy-occupied areas, it was still somewhat inaccurate in its grasp of intelligence, and in addition to the fact that the speed of the Japanese encirclement and the strength of its sweeping ability were somewhat underestimated, it failed to detect the Japanese encirclement plan in advance, and it was somewhat late when it was discovered that the situation was not good.
On May 9, the Japanese puppet army advanced into the mountains between Feicheng and Ningyang. At that time, Luo Ronghuan was not at the division headquarters at the meeting of the Dongwen detachment, and after Chen Guang found that the enemy had tightened the encirclement, he urgently consulted with Duan Junyi, the captain of the sixth detachment of the Shandong Column of the Eighth Route Army, and wanted to break through to the southwest across the Wen River to Dongping and Wenshang.
Unfortunately, Chen Guang led the 115th Division and the 686th Regiment to the halfway point, found that there was an enemy situation on the south bank of the Wen River, and decided to move north to Dafeng Mountain. Perhaps Chen Guang realized that the southwest direction for the plain was conducive to the enemy's mobility, and only then did he decide to drill into the ravine. Who expected that the enemy had long estimated that the 115th Division might go to Mt. Dafeng, but there were already heavy ambushes here, and it was all Japanese devils.
In this way, 3,000 people, including the headquarters of the 115th Division and local cadres, penetrated into the encirclement circle of the Japanese army and were trapped in the area of Lufang Village, only 10 kilometers away from the Yanma Village of the Otaka Kamezo Command. Instead, the six detachments of the mountain column broke out smoothly from the southwest.
The situation of the 115th Division is critical, but after all, it is the main force that has experienced five anti-encirclement and suppression campaigns at Jinggangshan, the 25,000-mile Long March, and the Pingxingguan Victory, which not only has rich combat experience, but also has super combat effectiveness, and has aroused its fighting spirit in the face of desperate situations.
Lufang Village is like a basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, and there is only a gap in the southeast direction, which is more conducive to our perseverance. Therefore, Chen Guang deployed a plan to desperately hold out until the night of the 11th, and then look for an opportunity to break through, and handed over the task of defending the division headquarters to Zhang Renchu, commander of the 686 regiment, and Liu Xiyuan, political commissar.
Take risks
At 570 meters above sea level, Fat Pig Mountain is the highest peak near the land house. If the enemy occupies the high point of Fat Pig Mountain, he will soon be able to command the land house area from a commanding height. Therefore, Zhang Renchu focused his defense on Fat Pig Mountain, and Wang Liusheng, instructor of the 1st Battalion of the 686th Regiment, led 3rd and 4th companies to seize Fat Pig Mountain; Xu Jingyuan, deputy battalion commander of the 1st Battalion, led 2 companies to occupy Fat Pig Mountain Outpost Mountain; and 2 Battalion occupied Hongshan, Phoenix Mountain, and Hengshan Mountain south of Lufang Village. At the same time, the division's special agent company and the Jinpu detachment also quickly occupied the commanding heights east and north of Lufang Village.
Sure enough, after dawn, the main direction of the Japanese army's attack was Fat Pig Mountain, and intensive artillery fire poured down on Fat Pig Mountain. The soldiers of the 686th Regiment quickly withdrew to the halfway point of the enemy attack with their backs, choosing the dead end of the ballistic arc to hide.
Only when the enemy artillery fire suddenly stopped and the black pressure pressed the Japanese army towards the outpost of Fat Pig Mountain, the soldiers of the 686th Regiment leaped out from the side of the rock, behind the trees and the cliffs, and hit the enemy with grenades and shuttle bullets. In this way, our army skillfully made use of the enemy's situation and terrain, chose the best time to repel the enemy's crazy attacks again and again, and at the same time preserved its own strength to the greatest extent while killing and injuring a large number of Japanese troops.
The Japanese army saw that the attack on The Mountain was fruitless, and then came towards the Fat Pig Mountain. Zhang Renchu saw that the situation on Fat Pig Mountain was critical, so he actually left the regimental headquarters and personally went to the main position of Fat Pig Mountain to ask the 3rd and 4th companies to avoid the enemy's sharp qi, hide in groups, and open fire at close range. The 3rd and 4th companies fought according to Zhang Renchu's requirements, and sure enough, they repelled the enemy's attacks again and again.
At the end of the battle, Zhang Renchu jumped out of the trench with a large knife and fought with the soldiers at close range with the Japanese army. Zhang Renchu, who had been a guerrilla leader in Dabie Mountain in 1927 and had been wounded 11 times, was killed in battle. Lu Fang's breakthrough made Zhang Renchu famous in the first battle, and he was given the nickname "Zhang Crazy".
From morning to noon, all the positions of our army were filled with murderous sounds. Although the officers and men of our army have not yet advanced, the fighting mood is still high. Zhang Renchu called for ammunition support, and did not forget to tease: "... Tell them not to be frightened, there is a battalion, they can't be prisoners..." Liu Xiyuan also laughed loudly next to him.
Finally, at dusk, the Japanese army had thrown more than a thousand corpses in front of the positions of our army, so they chose to shrink their strength and rest on the spot. The Japanese army arranged heavy troops to light bonfires at various intersections, and the helmets and bayonets of the Japanese soldiers were clearly recognizable in the light of the fire.
Although the Japanese army suffered heavy casualties, the number of its remaining troops still far exceeded that of our army, and if it was allowed to regain its strength, how long could our army hold out? So Chen Guang decided to take advantage of the Achilles heel of the Japanese army's poor night combat and break through overnight.
Soldiers are dangerously recruited to break through the land house
Luo Ronghuan, because there was no enemy situation around the village of Longgu in Dongping, suggested that the 115th Division break through to the southwest. But how should the 115th Division get out of the mountain pass?
According to a local villager, you can break through through two roads: first, you can take a country road with complex terrain that is easy to hide, if you are found, you can also force a breakthrough, and the number of enemy fires is estimated to be not too much; the second is to take the mountain path to the commanding heights, but this road must pass through the Japanese camps lined with fires, and if it is discovered, it will fall into a state of upward attack, and if it is not good, it is impossible to destroy the whole army.
Chen Guang faced two choices instead of choosing the country road that seemed to have a higher chance of winning, he chose the path to the top of the mountain. At each junction of this path, there were not only Japanese fires, but also Japanese patrol cavalry shuttling back and forth. Therefore, the soldiers of the 115th Division broke through at night, and there must be no noise, and the slightest carelessness would mean death.
If a few thousand troops wanted to make no noise, it would be extraordinary. Therefore, Chen Guang ordered that in addition to sending a vigilance detachment to the blockade line of the Japanese puppet army to confuse the enemy, the rest of the people and horses should gradually move closer, and then not only bury the bulky materials, arrange the wounded so that they can be lightly armed, but also tie the materials that are easy to collide and make noises on the grass balls, and the cavalry wrap the horseshoes in cotton, in short, no sound or light can appear under any circumstances.
Everything was ready, and at 22:00 that night, the 115th Division began to break through in three ways: one was the 686th Regiment to cover the division headquarters and cross the Wen River to the southwest to Dongping Wuyan Village; the middle road was for the heavy troops to cross the Wen River to the east of Wenshang City via Xiazhuang and Sun Bo to the east of Wencheng; and the other was for the Jinpu detachment to cover the Taixi Prefecture Committee and the Luxi District Party Committee, starting from zhaizi and moving south to Ronghuashu Village via the Motianling Duwen River.
On this road of the division headquarters, Chen Guangqin led a cavalry company to explore the road in front, and then Liu Xiyuan led 1 battalion in the front, the division headquarters was in the center, and Zhang Renchu led 2 battalions behind the palace. The mountain road was rough and uneven, the soldiers were one foot deep and one foot shallow, and from time to time some people fell, but none of them said a word. The person in the back only stared at the white towel on the arm of the person in front of him, and almost did not walk on his feet, but silently tiptoed to speed up his pace.
Rao is like this, and this road is also full of dangers. The fire lit by the Japanese was nearby, and even the shouts of japanese sentries could be clearly heard, and from time to time, Japanese cavalry rushed past the sneak troops of the 115th Division. The 115th Division, on the other hand, lay down on the spot, holding its breath, hiding with the undulating wheat waves. The Japanese cavalry passed by without finding any trace of the 115th Division's breakthrough, perhaps they were confused by the small group of troops of the 115th Division that remained in Lufang Village, thinking that the 115th Division was still in its encirclement.
At dawn on 12 May, the breakthrough troops of the 115th Division had crossed the Wen River to Nantaocheng and Wuyan Village, east of Dongping, where they joined Luo Ronghuan. At the same time, the Jinpu detachment and the Taixi Prefectural Committee were also safely transferred to the south bank of the Wen River. By this point, nearly 3,000 commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army and local cadres had retreated from under the eyes of the Japanese army.
At this time, the Japanese army began to aim its artillery at Lufang Village to prepare for fire attack, but when the Japanese climbed to the top of the mountain, they found that there was still the figure of the Eighth Route Army. How could Ogao Guizang believe it, so he had to go to Lufang Village to investigate, and as a result, he was so angry that he could only leave the classic line "cunning and cunning".
In the First Battle of Lufang, the Japanese army itself admitted that there were more than 1300 casualties, including more than 50 officers, and even 1 Daisa wing commander. However, in order to falsely report the achievements of the battle, the Japanese army forced more than a dozen villagers in Lufang Village to put on the costumes of the Eighth Route Army and take pictures and kill them, in order to advocate its "great achievements" in eliminating more than 10,000 Eighth Route Army.
In fact, the 115th Division was besieged with nearly 3,000 local cadres, and the number of casualties was 340. Of course, there are also 360 people, more than 200 people and other statements. But no matter what, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army performed quite brilliantly in the Lufang Breakout Battle, and even Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to President Zhu with a telegram of "Special Praise and Comfort."
If we look at the process of the 115th Division's breakthrough of the entire land house, if you choose the country road, it seems that you have a better chance of winning, but there is a high probability that you will encounter the Japanese army and need to fight hard to break through, which may cause more casualties. The choice of the hilltop path was indeed very dangerous, making people sweat, but the 115th Division, with its firm faith and strict discipline, turned the impossible into possible, and saved the backbone of the 115th Division at the lowest cost.
epilogue
The seemingly simple land breakout battle was of great significance, not only smashing the Japanese army's attempt to annihilate the 115th Division and the Taixi Prefectural Committee and other local organs, but also greatly enhancing the belief of the local military and civilians in the victory of the war of resistance through the classic example of the Jedi counterattack with fewer victories and more surprise victories.
For a time, there was a boom in fathers sending sons, wives sending men, and brothers competing to join the army in various parts of western Thailand, and as more new forces joined in, the Shandong anti-Japanese base area was correspondingly consolidated and expanded, so that it could unite with central China in the south and Pingjin in the north, forming a three-legged momentum with the Jinji-Hebei Luyu and Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base areas. At the same time, the Eighth Route Army also won the legal status of entering Shandong through the First Battle of lufang breakout.
If we analyze the reasons for the victory of the 115th Division's Land House Breakthrough: it is not only the rational use of its strategy and tactics of making full use of its strengths and avoiding its weaknesses and flexible maneuvering; it is not only that its terrain advantages in relying on the mountains are not conducive to the entire Fire Offensive of the Japanese Army; it is not only that the 686 Regiment is the most elite unit of the Eighth Route Army, which has experienced hundreds of battles and has super combat effectiveness and extremely high military attainment; it is not only that the 686Th Regiment has captured a large number of Japanese weapons through the pingxing Guanda Victory and the three victories in Shanxi, which has provided strong support for holding the position of Fat Pig Mountain.
There are two most crucial reasons for the breakthrough of the 115th Division's Lufang, one is that there is faith in the heart and strength under the feet.
It was precisely by virtue of its firm revolutionary faith that the 686 Regiment established the determination to win the bloody battle to the end. The instructor of the 7th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 686th Regiment was wounded in the head, still relying on amazing perseverance to fight with the Japanese army with bayonets, and finally wrestled with a Japanese soldier and rolled to the edge of the cliff, due to lack of physical strength, he resolutely held the Japanese army and jumped off the cliff to return to the end. This fearless spirit of the Eighth Route Army is the fundamental guarantee of victory.
Second, the military and the people are mixed, and the local people firmly stand behind the Eighth Route Army.
The 686 regiment needed more than 1,000 catties of military food, and the local people were all ready in just 3 hours. The 115th Division needed to break through, and the local people not only competed to be guides to guide the way, but also enthusiastically helped the Eighth Route Army bury the heavy loads and resettle the wounded. After the war, Otaka Guizang launched a frenzied revenge on Lufang Village, not only burning the cottage, but even killing 126 innocent villagers, but the villagers would rather their homes be destroyed and their relatives die to protect the safety of more than 70 wounded members of the Eighth Route Army. Water can carry boats, but also can overturn boats, and the strength of the masses of the people is the greatest source of victory.
There is no divine operation that can be accomplished overnight, and it is precisely because the soldiers and civilians of the 115th Division who have put their lives in this way to the ground of death and the afterlife work together to carry out the divine operation to the end. And it is precisely because of such a warm-blooded son and daughter who has always adhered to the concept of "profiting from the life and death of the country, and avoiding it because of misfortunes and blessings" that China can drive the Japanese out of their homeland.