At noon on March 31, 1938, in the Xiangtangpu area on the road line from Handan to Changzhi in Shanxi, a fierce battle had just ended. On one side of the battle were the four main regiments of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, namely 770, 771, 772, and 769, and the commanders were Xu Xiangqian, deputy division commanders, and Political Commissar Deng. On the other side, the Japanese 14th Division was heavily armed, driving 180 vehicles and 170 armed escorts. As a result of the battle, the Eighth Route Army won the battle at the cost of 317 casualties.
What about the casualties on the Japanese side? First of all, the drivers of the 180 cars were all killed. The armed escort troops of 170 people ran thirty, and the rest were all wiped out, so the Japanese casualties were only more than 300, and the proportion of battles was still the same as that of the Battle of Pingxingguan, which was one to one. Not really. When the Eighth Route Army fought this convoy, there were not many casualties. When blocking the Japanese reinforcements, the casualties were large.
It turned out that as soon as the Battle of Xiangtangpu began, the Japanese reinforcements were dispatched, not from one place, but from both ends. One was from the direction of Licheng, where the Japanese transport convoy departed, and the 772nd Regiment of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army was responsible for blocking the attack. The other end was from Xiangxian County, and the 769th Regiment of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army was responsible for blocking the attack. The 772nd and 769th Regiments destroyed a Japanese military vehicle during the blockade, so the result of this battle of the Eighth Route Army was the annihilation of more than 400 Japanese troops, the burning (destruction) of 181 vehicles, the capture of more than 300 long and short guns, more than 10 light machine guns, 4 mortars and a large number of military supplies.
Please note that in the previous sentence, there is the term "a large number of military supplies", at that time, in the main battlefield, although the Eighth Route Army did not lose too many personnel, but the 180 vehicles, loaded with things, how important for the Eighth Route Army, in order to remove these military materials, the 772nd and 769th Regiments blocked the time extended, so the losses were also large. It was precisely because there were "a large number of military materials" that, no sooner had the battle ended than Political Commissar Deng sent an urgent telegram to Commander Liu Bocheng, who had just returned from a meeting at the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army, requesting reinforcements.
Some readers may wonder, the battle is over, what reinforcements are needed? It turned out that in the telegram, Commissar Deng asked for reinforcements from migrant workers who could come to carry military supplies. After receiving the telegram, Commander Liu immediately ordered that the cadres and fighters of the headquarters and the logistics department immediately go out to lead the strong and strong people to carry the captured military supplies.