Chen Kang, known as the "Fist of Commander Chen Geng", became a subordinate of the famous general Chen Geng in October 1940. Prior to that, Chen Kang served as a battalion commander and chief instructor at the 129th Division's camp school.
At that time, Chen Geng was the brigade commander of the 386th Brigade and the commander of the Taiyue Military Region, with the 772nd, 16th, 17th and 18th Regiments under his command. The reason why Chen Kang was able to transfer to the 386Th Brigade was precisely because of his excellent military and political quality. The cadet team in charge of leading the team at the camp school won six first places in the examination, so the division headquarters transferred him to the Chen Geng Brigade as the deputy commander of the 17th Regiment.
Chen Kang, a native of Wuxue, Hubei Province, was born in 1910, joined the Village Red Guards at the age of 17, later joined the county guerrillas, and joined the 4th Column of the 8th Army of the Red 3rd Army in 1930, becoming a formal Red Army soldier. Later, the unit was organized into the Red 15th Army, and finally into the Red Fourth Front, becoming a regimental commander of the 276th Regiment of the 91st Division of the Red 31st Army, and he was already a 26-year-old youth.
Chen Kang did not study much, but he was smart and studious and had a strong sense of responsibility, and he dared to charge forward when fighting, and when he was still serving as the squad leader, he was known as the "squad leader who couldn't fight". Therefore, his superiors also intended to train him, and twice he was selected to be sent to the Red Army University for further study, so he fought, marched, and studied at the same time, conscientiously studied strategic tactics, party building, and other courses, and improved his military and political quality day by day.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Kang, who graduated from the "Kang Da", was assigned to work in the New Fourth Army, serving as the commander of the Zhugou Supplementary Battalion and the leader of the political training team of the military department. Because Chen Kang was eager to return to work in the old army, he was transferred back to the 129th Division's camp school to teach in the following year.
This time, after he was transferred to Chen Geng's 386 brigade as deputy regimental commander, he quickly made many meritorious achievements. Once, when Chen Kang was leading the escort team, he encountered the Japanese puppet army on the hill west of Dugou Village in Jiaocheng County, Shanxi, and the troops, under the command of Chen Kang, adopted flexible tactics to kill and wound more than 110 Japanese troops and take 11 prisoners.
In May 1942, Chen Geng transferred Chen Kang to the head of the 772nd Regiment, and from then on became a fist for Commander Chen Geng to strike at the Japanese Kou.
As everyone knows, the 772nd Regiment was an old unit of the Eighth Route Army when it was reorganized, and it was the main regiment of the Eighth Route Army. At that time, the 386th Brigade consisted of two regiments, the 771st Regiment and the 772nd Regiment, which were the two fists of Brigadier Chen Geng. Without excellent ability, Chen Geng would not have put him in this position. Of course, Chen Kang lived up to Chen Geng's high expectations, and in the subsequent anti-Japanese "sweeping" campaign, he made great contributions many times, so at Chen Geng's nomination, Chen Kang was promoted to acting commander of the fourth sub-district of Taiyue.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Kang served as the brigade commander of the 4th Column and 13th Brigade of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region.
In Chen Kang's long military career, there are many remarkable classic examples, but in the author's eyes, the most worth mentioning is that the "digging pits and increasing the stove" method he adopted in the "Yuxi Morning Glory" against the Kuomintang Li Tiejun's 5th Corps in November 1947 directly dragged Li Tiejun's corps down and beat him to the ground.
In ancient China, there was a Qi military expert named Sun Zhi, who, when commanding the Battle of Maling, used the tactic of retreating and reducing the enemy to go deeper. Sun Bing's approach was to build a 100,000-man stove on the first day in the process of retiring, reduce it to 50,000 people on the second day, and reduce it to a stove for 30,000 people on the third day... Their purpose in doing so was to give the enemy the illusion that the number of troops was decreasing during the retreat, so as to paralyze the enemy, lure the enemy to Maling, and finally let the light enemy's opponent enter the ambush circle and then annihilate. Therefore, the Wei general Pang Juan fell into this trick, not only was his elite annihilated, but he also had to commit suicide.
So how does Chen Kang's "digging pits and increasing the stove" do?
In November 1947, Chen Xie's corps had just crossed the Yellow River south to reach the western Henan region, but at this time, more than 30,000 people of the 5th Corps of the Kuomintang Li Tiejun rushed towards Chen Xie's corps. Because Chen Xie's troops were unstable, Chen Geng decided to send a force to disguise the main force in order to confuse Li Tie's army and lure him to the south and tail to pursue, while the main force moved in disguise.
This was known as the "Western Henan Morning Glory" mission to lure the enemy, and it was handed over to Chen Kang, who, in addition to his own 13th Brigade, gave the 25th Brigade of the 8th Column a total of more than 6,000 people under his command.
6,000 people to lead a 30,000-person "cow", once it is not done well, not only will the "cow" not be successful, but it will be injured by the "cow". Therefore, this was an act of wit and courage, and for this reason, Chen Kang and they finally figured out a method of "digging a pit and increasing the stove" to lure the enemy deeper.
Aren't you Kuomintang troops looking for our main force to fight? We will pretend to be the main force, and the bigger he is, the better.
Then, on the way to command the troops to the south, Chen Kang instructed the troops to make a big noise, and the marching troops deliberately divided into small groups from multiple roads, forming a wide front to advance forward, and for a time on the main roads and small roads, everyone saw the PLA troops everywhere. When stationed in the village, let the company lead the mules and horses in and out continuously, take a detour back, and enter and exit the village again and three times.
When he was camping, he instructed a large number of pits to be dug to increase the stove: one in the company, one in the platoon, one in the class, and even several in some classes. Cooking cooking, boiling water, not cooking and not boiling water, but also to light a few piles of fire.
In this way, they created a sign that a large army was moving, and finally confused Li Tiejun, making him think that this time he had finally captured the main force of the communist army. Therefore, almost every day after that, the 13th Brigade "led" in the front, li Tiejun followed them in the back, stop and go, stop and go, the distance was only half a day, not more than three or five miles, sometimes even just a river across. In this way, Li Tiejun, the "big bull", was always led to the Funiu Mountains.
It was not until the end of November, when the main force of Chen Xie's army won a great victory in the break of the Pinghan Railway, that Li Tiejun realized that he had been deceived and immediately withdrew to the eastern aid, but it was too late. Chen Kangbu, who was already holding cattle, had been transformed into cattle chasers and cattle killers, and in Xiping County, Zhuwangzhai and Jingang Temple, they were finally wrapped up in "beef dumplings" by our army.
Chen Kang's "digging pits and increasing the stove" and Sun Bing's "retreating troops and reducing the stove" seem to be opposite in practice, but they have the same magic, and their purposes are both to confuse and paralyze the enemy in order to achieve their own strategic goals.
So, what happened to Chen Kang afterwards?
Later, Chen Kang was promoted to deputy commander of the 13th Army of the Second Field Army, and led his troops to participate in the Battle of Huaihai, the Battle of Crossing the River, and the major battles to liberate the Southwest. He was awarded the rank of lieutenant general in 1955 and died on 23 May 2002 at the age of 92.