History is the memory of things that have been said and done. —Carl Baker
On July 7, 1937, the Lugou Bridge Incident broke out, and China entered the stage of all-out war of resistance, in fact, six years ago, that is, when the September 18 Incident occurred in 1931, China and Japan were in a military confrontation, but it was only a local confrontation at that time. Of course, the aggressiveness of the Japanese army is no longer satisfied with doing so, and the Lugou Bridge incident is their full showdown.
37 days after the Lugou Bridge incident, Japan launched a large-scale offensive against Shanghai, the center of China's economy. The Chinese army fought bravely and opened the Battle of Songhu, which lasted for three months.
On August 9, 1937, two officers and men of the Marine Corps stationed in Shanghai and Japan drove into Hongqiao Airport to carry out armed provocations, and were immediately killed by the Chinese defenders. On August 13, the Japanese used this as an excuse, under the command of Kiyoshi Hasegawa, commander of the Third Fleet, to attack the Chinese defenders stationed around the Bazi bridge, and at the same time, Japanese warships began shelling downtown Shanghai in the Huangpu River.
At dawn on the 14th, General Zhang Zhizhong commanded the 87th and 88th Divisions to return fire; at the same time, the air force bombed the Japanese Marine Corps and its headquarters, injuring the flagship Izumo, which was on the Huangpu River. The National Government issued the Declaration of Self-Defense and Resistance. The Kuomintang government successively mobilized more than 700,000 people from 6 group armies to resist and won the initial battle.
On August 15, the National Government issued a general mobilization order. Chiang Kai-shek was appointed Supreme Commander and divided the country into 5 theaters. Shanghai belonged to the Third Theater, with Feng Yuxiang as commander (later Chiang Kai-shek himself concurrently served as commander of the Third Theater), Gu Zhutong as deputy commander-in-chief, and Chen Cheng as the commander-in-chief of the former enemy in the Third Theater, concentrating 300,000 troops to fight. Under the fierce counterattack of the Chinese army, the Japanese army only held the Gongda Spinning Mill and the narrow position of Hongkou, and relied on strong fortifications to wait for help.
From August 23 onwards, the Japanese landed several times at the mouth of the Yangtze River, attacking the left flank of the defenders, and were stubbornly resisted. Subsequently, the Japanese army increased its troops one by one to strengthen the strength of the Shanghai dispatch army. The Chinese military has also been reinforced and constantly adjusted and deployed.
On 23 August, the battle entered its second phase. Matsui Ishigen, commander of the Japanese Shanghai Dispatch Army, led 2 divisions and artillery and aviation units to forcibly land at Zhang Huabang and the Chuanshakou on the Yangtze River to engage in fierce battles with the Chinese army.
On September 21, Chiang Kai-shek readjusted his deployment and increased his strength to more than 400,000 troops. By this time, the Japanese army had also increased to 100,000 people, carrying out a joint army, navy and air force attack. However, the Chinese defenders still insisted on the north station, Jiangwan, Miaoxing, and Luodian.
On October 26, Dachang was lost, the defenders north of The Suzhou Creek were attacked on their backs, the Chinese army began to retreat, and the battle moved to the third stage. The next night, Xie Jinyuan, deputy of the 524th Regiment of the 88th Division of the Chinese defenders, was ordered to lead 800 officers and men to hold the Sihang warehouse and cover the retreat of the main force. Xie Jinyuan led a lone army to calmly respond to the battle, insisting on 4 days and nights after being ordered to break through and retreat to the concession. In early November, the Rear of the Chinese defenders was threatened by the Japanese and forced to retreat across the board.
At dawn on September 30, the Japanese launched a fierce attack on the Chinese army, and the Chinese garrison was caught in a bitter battle, suffering heavy casualties.
On the night of October 26, more than 400 people from the 2nd Battalion of the 524th Regiment of the 88th Division of the Chinese Army guarding the Dachang Defense Line (the press propaganda was called "Eight Hundred Heroes", which was estimated to be the headline effect of media people, which sounded more powerful), under the command of Deputy Regiment Commander Xie Jinyuan and Battalion Commander Yang Ruifu, they were ordered to hold the Sihang Warehouse on the north bank of the Suzhou River to cover the westward retreat of the main force overnight. Under the heavy encirclement of the Japanese army, the Chinese army guarding the Sihang warehouse fought alone, vowed not to retreat, insisted on fighting for 4 days and nights, and repelled dozens of attacks by the enemy under the cover of aircraft, tanks and artillery.
One of the details is quite spectacular: on October 28, the Japanese army vowed to eat the roadblock tiger of the Sihang Warehouse, strengthen the offensive force, and the firepower was extremely fierce, and the attack and defense of the Sihang Warehouse immediately entered a white-hot situation. After breaking through the positions on the outskirts of the Sihang warehouse, more than a dozen Japanese troops sneaked to the bottom of the warehouse and attempted to blow up the bottom wall with high explosives, opening the breakthrough. And this place happens to be a shooting dead end, if the Japanese operation is successful, the defense of the Sihang warehouse will end immediately, Xie Jinyuan and others are anxious. At this critical juncture, the daredevil Chen Shusheng was bundled with grenades, pulled the fuse, jumped from the sixth floor into the middle of this group of Japanese troops, after a loud noise, Chen Shusheng and more than a dozen Japanese troops died together, heroic, martyr!
On November 5, a Japanese army landed from Hangzhou Bay, detoured to the side of the defenders, and encircled Shanghai. The Shanghai defenders were forced to retreat, while the defenders of the Sihang Warehouse broke out of the siege and retreated into the British concession, trapping the lone army camp, and eventually, Xie Jinyuan was assassinated and the other soldiers were captured.
On November 12, downtown Shanghai fell. The fall of Shanghai, the financial center, seriously threatened the rule of the Kuomintang government, which was forced to carry out the War of Resistance, and from then on, the whole country entered the War of Resistance Against Japan.
The Battle of Songhu was one of the most tragic battles in the eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, because it occurred in the early days of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the experience of fighting against Japan was insufficient, the casualties were higher than those of the Japanese army, which lasted for 3 months, and the Japanese army participated in the battle with more than 250,000 troops, with more than 50,000 casualties; the Chinese army participated in the war with a total of more than 700,000 troops and more than 100,000 casualties.
The Battle of Songhu was of great political significance, and the Chinese military and people fought bitterly and bloodily, smashed Japan's arrogant plan of "destroying China in three months," and bought time to move a large number of factories and mining machines and strategic materials from Shanghai and other places, which played a major role in persisting in the long-term War of Resistance in the later period.