After the July 7 Incident in 1937, the Independent 21st Division of the 17th Army of the National Revolutionary Army was ordered to reinforce the 29th Army of Song Zheyuan to resist the Japanese. Li Xianzhou, commander of the independent 21st Division, had two brigades under the division's command, Lu Xiangyun, commander of the 62nd Brigade, and Zhao Lin, commander of the 63rd Brigade. Each brigade has two regiments under its jurisdiction, and the whole division has about 10,000 officers and men. Li Xianzhou led his troops to North China, encountered the Japanese army at Badaling, and immediately launched a battle for Badaling.
At Badaling, the Japanese took turns to bombard and strafe the positions of the Independent 21st Division with dozens of aircraft, heavy artillery continuously bombarded, and infantry launched multiple charges. The officers and men of the 21st Division engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Japanese army, the enemy suffered heavy casualties, the 21st Division also paid heavy casualties, the commander of the 62nd Regiment Liu Fanggui was killed, and the battalion, company, and platoon commander suffered more than 20 casualties. The 21st Division fought hard against the Japanese army for three days and nights, and finally was ordered to move to Shanxi to participate in the Battle of Xinkou. Li Xianzhou immediately led the whole division to Xinkou and was placed under the command of Hao Mengling, commander of the 9th Army. All the officers and men of the division wore armbands with the words "Xinkou Unit" on their sleeves.
In October, a brigade of the Japanese Itagaki Division attacked Xinkou. All the officers and men of the 21st Division were highly motivated and actively prepared for battle. Relying on aircraft and artillery, the Japanese army, with the strength of a company, first seized a mountain beam on the flank of the northwest highlands of Xinkou, posing a great threat to the whole division. The commander of the army, Hao Mengling, immediately sent an order: "Do everything in your power to retake the mountain beam and completely annihilate the enemy." After receiving the order, Li Xianzhou immediately personally led the 63rd Regiment (regimental commander Miao Ruiti) to launch a fierce attack on the Japanese army.
Due to the good equipment of the Japanese army and the strong physical strength and quality of the soldiers, the disparity between the enemy and ourselves is very large. Although the defenders were superior in numbers, they could not resist the Japanese attack. Li Xianzhou was supervising the battle in the forward position, and seeing that the troops had suffered heavy casualties, he was very anxious, so he personally went down to the trenches to fight with the soldiers. The soldiers saw the division commander enter the trenches, fearing that he was in danger, so they advised him to hurry back to the headquarters shelter. Li Xianzhou refused to leave, saying that everyone was fighting the devils together, and he was no exception. When the officers and men listened, their morale was high, and their desire to kill the enemy grew stronger.
At this time, the Japanese sent out planes to bomb, and the Japanese planes flew very low, swooping down and strafing, so low that they almost touched the sorghum poles that had not been cut in the ground. Due to the lack of air superiority, the Japanese aircraft were rampant, and the officers and men of the 21st Division suffered heavy casualties, and several companies and platoon commanders were changed in the morning. At noon, the final gang members came to support, transporting bullets and wounded soldiers.
After three days and three nights of fierce fighting, the Japanese reinforcements could not be picked up, the Japanese troops who held the hill were annihilated, a small number of remnants of the enemy fled, and the 21st Division finally conquered the hill. When Li Xianzhou and Miao Ruiti, the commander of the 63rd Regiment, rushed to the commanding heights of the hill, there was only one officer and one soldier left in the garrison of a japanese brigade. The soldier ran down the hill and was shot dead by the officer, who finally drew his knife and committed suicide by dissecting himself.
After retaking the position, Commander Hao Mengling came to inspect, adjusted the deployment, and prepared to counterattack the Japanese counterattack. Commander Hao Mengling demanded that the position be held to prevent the Japanese from breaking in. Just as Li Xianzhou was accompanying Hao Mengling in deploying defense on the position, suddenly an enemy plane flew in from south to north, and the Japanese plane dropped a white belt over the position and quickly left. Obviously, this is a signal from an enemy aircraft indicating the target.
When Li Xianzhou saw the situation, he immediately moved to hide with Commander Hao Mengling. A few minutes later, the Japanese fired thirty or forty rounds of shells, blowing up the place where they had just been in the air, and the smoke billowed out. Due to the frequent aircraft bombardment by the Japanese army, the change of troops had to be carried out at night.
At dawn the next day, the Japanese army launched a rampant counterattack, the mountain artillery and the pursuit gun fired at the same time, and the aircraft cooperated with the ground troops to fiercely attack the defenders' positions. The defenders fought back bravely, repelling several successive enemy attacks, and the positions were still in their hands. The fighting was quite fierce that day, and the officers and men of the 21st Division bravely rushed to kill, and a white-knife battle occurred in the forward position for a time.
At noon, after the battle had eased slightly, Li Xianzhou took Zhuang Zhuangfu, the commander of the 64th Regiment, and accompanied Commander Hao Mengling to observe the enemy situation halfway up the mountain. When Li Xianzhou and the head of the Zhuang village were talking, they suddenly felt that something touched the left chest, and they didn't care at the time, so Li Xianzhou climbed with them to the top of the mountain. After climbing to the top of the mountain, Commander Hao Mengling suddenly noticed that there was blood on Li Xianzhou's back, so he shouted loudly: "Commander Li, you are injured!" Li Xianzhou said, "It's all right, it seems that something touched me." Commander Hao Mengling then said, "It's okay, the bullets are all coming out of your back!" Commander Hao said that he had given Li Xianzhou some white medicine, and at that time Li Xianzhou was still awake, and when the conscripts came to bandage the wound, Li Xianzhou was already unconscious.
After Li Xianzhou was injured, he was immediately carried down the mountain, and the military doctor suggested that he be carried down the mountain head down, so that the blood could flow out and ease the injury. The soldiers did not agree, because the slope was very steep, the division commander was seriously injured, and we could not bear to let him face down. As a result, it was still lifted head-up to the rear mountain division headquarters. At the headquarters of the Houshan Division, Li Xianzhou woke up, and he summoned the brigade commanders Zhao Lin and Lü Xiangyun, the regimental commanders Miao Ruiti, Zhuang Zhuangfu, and Liu Hongci to ding: "I am injured and cannot fight with everyone." You must defend your positions well, fight in coordination with friendly forces in accordance with the arrangements just made, and everything will be commanded by Deputy Division Commander Huang Zuxuan and Chief of Staff Cai Rong. ”
Subsequently, Li Xianzhou was taken to a hospital in Fenyang. The president of the hospital, Zhou Yide, is a former friend of Li Xianzhou, who is highly skilled in medicine, and Li Xianzhou's surgery is done by him personally. Zhou Yide told Li Xianzhou that his injuries were very dangerous, and his life was between breaths. The sniper's bullets entered from the front of the left chest and came out of the back. In general, this situation is dead at that time.
But it was just climbing the mountain, and when the bullet came, it was the moment of exhalation, at which time the heart contracted back, and the bullet penetrated through the middle of the lung lobe. If you inhale, the bullet will penetrate the lungs, and it will be finished. Zhou Yidi told Li Xianzhou that it was absolutely a miracle that he could retrieve a life.
Li Xianzhou was lying in the hospital, the blood in his chest could not be discharged, and the situation was still dangerous. There was no way, Zhou Yide could only forcibly drain the blood, at that time with a hose inserted into the lungs, forcibly pumping out 570cc of black blood. After drawing out the black blood, Li Xianzhou adjusted for another week before his injuries gradually improved. After Li Xianzhou's injuries improved, Jiang wrote a handwritten letter of condolences to let him rest well and sent him 50,000 yuan in nursing expenses. Li Xianzhou used the money to buy medicines and transfer them to the troops.
Soon after, Li Xianzhou was transferred to Xi'an to recuperate. At this time, he received the news that Commander Hao Mengling and Commander Liu Jiaqi had been killed in Xinkou, and When Li Xianzhou heard that Commander Hao mengling and Commander Liu had died, he felt sad in his heart and could not help but shed a few tears. If it weren't for Commander Hao Mengling finding out that he had been shot in time that day, he was afraid that he would have died already.
In Xi'an, Li Xianzhou met a regimental commander who had returned to recuperate from his wounds on the Xinkou front, and the regimental commander told Li Xianzhou. At the bottom of the mountain they climbed that day there was a village called Nanhuaihua, where the Japanese brigade command post was located. The reason why Li Xianzhou was sniped by the Japanese army must have been discovered by the Japanese army in southern Huaihua, and the Japanese army only shot and killed them. At that time, Li Xianzhou was at the forefront, Commander Hao Mengling was in the middle, and Commander Zhuang was at the end. Therefore, the Japanese army mistakenly thought that Li Xianzhou was the highest-ranking of the three, so they shot and sniped.
It was precisely because Li Xianzhou was in the forefront that he blocked this bullet, and it was precisely because of this that Commander Hao Mengling, who was walking behind him, saw at a glance that his back was bleeding, and the bullet passed through his back. Li Xianzhou felt that the situation on that day was so thrilling, if it were not for Li Xianzhou blocking this shot, Commander Hao Mengling might have been hit. Unfortunately, later, Commander Hao Mengling was still hit by the Japanese army and died heroically. After recuperating from his wounds in Xi'an for two months, Li Xianzhou returned to the army and was promoted to commander of the 92nd Army.
In the Battle of Xinkou, Li Xianzhou was sniped by the Japanese army, and he survived between breaths, which had to be said to be a miracle. It can be seen that in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the battlefield was so dangerous that almost every minute it was in danger. In the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese army had accurate marksmanship and high combat quality, and many commanders were sacrificed under the sniper muzzle of the Japanese army. The hardships of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the hard-won victories can be seen.
References: Li Xianzhou, "Twenty-first Division in the Battle of Xinkou", "Frontal Battlefield and Battle of Xinkou"