General Yang Chengwu
In November 1939, Yang Chengwu, commander of the first sub-district of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, fought a beautiful annihilation battle at the Loess Ridge Command Post in Laiyuan, Hebei Province, and killed Lieutenant General Norihide Abe, known as the "Flower of Famous Generals" of the Japanese army.
As early as the autumn of 1938, the Japanese army shifted its strategic focus from the frontal battlefield to the rear of the enemy, and adjusted the operational policy from the previous long drive straight to gradual advancement, gradual compression, division and "clearance and suppression", and each breakthrough. However, its front line was too long, and the weakness of its weak troops was also fully exposed; after continuous attacks by our Eighth Route Army, militia, guerrillas, and other anti-Japanese forces, the Japanese army suffered heavy casualties and was passive everywhere.
On October 31, 1939, Yang Chengwu received information that Lieutenant General Norihide Abe, the commander of the Second Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army, sent more than 1,000 Japanese puppet troops into Laiyuan City, intending to "sweep" the hinterland of the first sub-district in three ways.
Yang Chengwu was in command
On November 3, the Japanese army did come in three ways. Under the command of Yang Chengwu, all the units of the First Division were prepared to block the enemy's two roads, concentrate their forces on annihilating the enemy all the way at Yansu Cliff, and eliminate more than 500 Japanese troops.
According to Yang Chengwu's experience: The Japanese are not willing to fail, and the more miserable the failure, the more fierce the retaliation.
Sure enough, as Yang Chengwu expected, on the same day, the defeated Japanese army once again gathered more than 1,500 troops still along the route of the destroyed Japanese army, trying to find our main force for retaliation. Lieutenant General Norihide Abe personally led the elite soldiers into battle.
On the night of the 4th, the Japanese army rushed to Yansu Cliff, and the reconnaissance officers of the Eighth Route Army found that the Japanese army had exhumed the bodies of the Japanese troops that had been buried by the Eighth Route Army and poured gasoline on them. The valley is full of burnt smell.
On the 6th, the Japanese army entered the Loess Ridge area at dusk, set up tents, and began to cook on the fire. That night, the Japanese army detected that the main force of our Eighth Route Army was assembling near it, and had a premonition of being annihilated.
On the morning of the 7th, the Japanese army changed its original attempt to annihilate the main force of the Eighth Route Army and began to take a detour back to Laiyuan City. At 15:00, the Japanese army entered the ambush area of our army in Loess Ridge. Our ambush troops suddenly attacked from multiple directions, and the two sides exchanged fierce fire.
At this time, Chen Zhengxiang, the commander of the 1st Regiment of the First Division, found from the telescope a separate courtyard with a number of Japanese commanders active, and some people raised their telescopes to look up the mountain, and he judged that this might be the Japanese command post. He immediately found the divisional artillery company and pointed the target from the telescope to the artillery company commander, who would understand. With a few cannon shots, a puff of smoke rose in the courtyard, and there was no longer a figure in the telescope. After several hours of fierce fighting, the Japanese army was annihilated by more than half, and the Japanese army broke through more than ten times in a row without success.
On the 8th, Japanese aircraft began to airdrop ammunition supplies, and ground troops began to come to reinforcements. In order to avoid falling into passivity, Yang Chengwu accepted it as soon as he saw it was good, and the command post department took the initiative to withdraw from the battle. In this battle, more than 900 Japanese troops were killed or wounded.
The hero cannon that killed Norihide Abe
The next day, Commander Nie Rongzhen of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region called yang Chengwu and said, "To tell you the good news, Yan'an sent a congratulatory telegram saying that you had killed Lieutenant General Norihide Abe and congratulated us. ”
After Abe Washu was killed, the Japanese government and the public were shaken, and the Asahi Shimbun mourned with the headline "The Flower of the Famous General Withers on the Taihang Mountain." A relative of Norihide Abe, who held a high-ranking position in the Japanese army, once threatened: "Do not eliminate Yang Chengwu and die without blindness." Yang Chengwu smiled after hearing this, and only sent him two words: "Bragging!" ”
Later, when recalling the battle, General Yang Chengwu said that because the Eighth Route Army was an army that inherited and carried forward the glorious traditions of the old Red Army, it had high morale and the courage to forge ahead. Many soldiers of the Red Army who did not fall after the twenty-five-thousand-mile long march braved the artillery fire of the Japanese invaders and sacrificed themselves on the front line of the battle for national independence and freedom.