Recently, the anti-Japanese theme movie "Eight Hundred" will be officially released. The film tells the tragic battle with the Japanese army after the Kuomintang army collapsed from Shanghai in 1937, when a battalion of the Kuomintang army led by Xie Jinyuan held out at the Sihang Warehouse on the banks of the Suzhou River, and this film once again aroused the people's admiration for the anti-Japanese rescuers who came forward in that great era and a new round of patriotic enthusiasm.
Today we also tell the story of a patriotic Kuomintang anti-Japanese general who was beheaded by a cruel enemy after his sacrifice and was revered as the "severed head general".
Chen Zhongzhu
He was Chen Zhongzhu, commander of the 4th Guerrilla Column of the Lusu-Anhui Border Region of the National Revolutionary Army, whose original name was Chen Weirang. In June 1941, he was martyred in the Battle of Takegazawa.
Chen Zhongzhu was born in 1906 to a peasant family in Yandong Village, Chenkan Township, Yancheng County, Jiangsu Province (now Caoyankou Town, Jianhu County). In 1927, Chen Zhongzhu was introduced by his cousin Chen Duzhen, who served in the Nationalist Army, and was admitted to the Nanjing Army Officer School, where he was a police scientist of the fifth team of the officer research class. During his time at school, Chen Zhongzhu joined the Kuomintang. At the end of his studies in 1930, Chen Zhongzhu's department belonged to the 6th phase of the Whampoa Military Academy. In 1931, Chen Zhongzhu went to the National Central University as a military instructor, and later served on the Bac Ninh Railway and the Jinpu Railway. In the autumn of 1936, Chen Zhongzhu was transferred to the National Revolutionary Army as the commander of the 2nd Regiment directly under the Army, and began his career as a horseman.
In 1937, when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out, Chen Zhongzhu was full of patriotic enthusiasm, actively participated in the anti-Japanese salvation movement, was appointed as the commander of the major general regiment, and went to Taierzhuang to carry out field work. After the Battle of Taierzhuang, Wang Shangzhi, commander-in-chief of the Nationalist Government's 2nd Route Army, invited Chen Zhongzhu to serve as the commander of the 2nd Brigade. Chen Zhongzhu recruited thousands of soldiers in Xuzhou, Ganyu, and the Lunan region of Shandong, and successively expanded three regiments to cooperate with Li Mingyang, commander-in-chief of the Second Guerrilla Zone in northern Jiangsu, to carry out anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare along the Anhui, Xuzhou, and Jinpu railways. At the end of 1938, more than 2,000 people under Chen Zhongzhu were placed under the jurisdiction of Li Mingyang, the guerrilla commander of the Lusu-Anhui Border Region, and Chen Zhongzhu served as the commander of the 4th Column major general, insisting on anti-Japanese guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines in northern Jiangsu.
On the left is Chen Zhongzhu's business card, and on the right is the road strip he wrote on the back of the business card
The general guerrilla headquarters of the Lusu-Anhui Border Region was located in Taizhou, with Li Mingyang in command and Li Changjiang, deputy commander-in-chief, and the locals called them "Taizhou Erli". In 1941, Li Changjiang defected to the enemy, and the 4th Column led by Chen Zhongzhu insisted on following Li Mingyang and cooperating with the New Fourth Army to carry out guerrilla operations against Japan in central And northern Jiangsu. Chen Zhongzhu was well aware of the great righteousness, and once risked the danger to rescue zhao Jingzhi, an underground party member, and others, and actively carried out propaganda to save the country and save the dead. Go to the New Soviet Middle School and the Forward Theater Troupe to publicize the anti-Japanese resistance and encourage patriotic young students and the masses to join the War of Resistance.
Li Changjiang's rebellion greatly weakened Li Mingyang's military strength. In early June 1941, the invading Japanese army mobilized more than 10,000 people from Jiangnan and northern Jiangsu, with the commander of the Japanese division, Nanfang Xiangji, as the commander, and attacked Li Mingyang's garrison in five ways.
The fierce battle lasted for 3 days and 3 nights, and Chen Zhongzhu resolutely commanded and inspired the soldiers to kill the enemy heroically. On the evening of the 6th, the commander-in-chief Li Mingyang was surrounded by enemy troops in the area of Wujiaze, and the situation was very critical. Chen Zhongzhu rushed to the rescue with his troops, and he personally supervised the troops to attack the enemy position. In order to get Li Mingyang out of danger across the river, Chen Zhongzhu organized a night attack on the enemy in the predicament of being surrounded, and Xiao Yong was abnormal.
The next day, the Japanese puppet army once again surrounded Chen Zhongzhu's troops from the five roads of Taizhou, Xinghua, Dongtai, Hai'an, and Gaoyou in northern Jiangsu. More than a dozen motorboats came in a menacing manner, machine guns and shells roared in, and Chen Zhongzhu shouted, "Fight me!" Hit hard!" The general took the telescope, took the lead, charged ahead, and desperately commanded the battle. After leading his troops to kill and wound more than 600 Japanese puppet troops, he was finally shot by the Japanese machine guns at Takegazawa, and he was shot 6 times, and he was martyred at the age of 35.
After the general's death, the enemy brutally cut off his head and brought him back to Taizhou to ask for credit to Xiangji in the south. Chen Zhongzhu's headless body was buried in a coffin nailed by the local people with a door panel and inserted with a wooden plaque that read "General Chen Zhongzhu".
Chen Zhongzhu and his family
Later, Chen Zhongzhu's wife Wang Zhifang heard the bad news, resolutely stood up pregnant, and went alone into the Japanese military camp in Taizhou to ask Xiangji in the south for her husband's head. Nanfang Xiangji was shocked to learn of Wang Zhifang's intentions and expressed deep respect for this strong and resolute woman. Eventually, Xiangji returned the head of Major General Chen Zhongzhu to Wang Zhifang. Wang Zhifang took her husband's head and buried it with his body.
After Chen Zhongzhu was martyred, he was posthumously awarded the title of lieutenant general by the Nationalist government. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Nationalist Government held a solemn memorial meeting for General Chen Zhongzhu in Nanjing.
In 1987, the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the People's Republic of China posthumously recognized General Chen Zhongzhu as a revolutionary martyr, and in the same year, the cemetery of General Chen Zhongzhu was moved to the Yancheng Martyrs' Cemetery.
The heroes who sacrificed their lives for the country in the War of Resistance Against Japan are immortal!