At the turn of the summer and autumn of 1940, the Eighth Route Army launched the "Hundred Regiments War" in the history of the BiaoBing Army in North China, dealing a heavy blow to the Japanese from all aspects. Since then, the enemy has launched a retaliatory "sweep" of unprecedented scale.
In view of this grim situation, Nie Rongzhen, commander and political commissar of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, decided to lead the troops to the outer line, looking for opportunities to attack the enemy while avoiding the enemy's attack.
The first problem facing Nie Rongzhen was how to break through the siege from the pursuit and interception of the Japanese puppet army.
The entire force was about 10,000 people, and many livestock and supplies had to be transferred with the army.
This morning, after several hours of troops from the garrison, the situation was extremely bad - the Japanese planes suddenly appeared, bombarded the ground indiscriminately, and before long, about 17,000 infantry were dispatched and pounced from all directions.
Chief of Staff Tang Yanjie used a telescope to observe from a high place, and eagerly ran over and said: "Commander, there is no doubt that we are now under siege, and the troops should take advantage of the fact that the enemy has not yet completed the assembly and look for the weak point where the enemy's strength is weak and immediately break through!" ”
The other cadres also said, "Commander, hurry up and give the order!" ”
Nie Rongzhen stared at the map for a long time before he raised his head and said to the crowd, "No, now is not the time to break through!" ”
"What?" Tang Yanjie was stunned, "If you don't break through, will you sit back and wait?" ”
"Did you find out?" Nie Rongzhen said grimly, "This time the Japanese army came very strangely -- they know our marching route very well, almost not going around in circles, but directly and accurately tracking and chasing us, and even showing signs of driving us to the designated area and then a pot, don't you think this situation is really abnormal?" ”
Tang Yanjie thought about it carefully, and indeed this was the case, and said in surprise, "Yes! The enemy is indeed prepared! ”
Zhu Liangcai, deputy director of the Political Department, frowned and said, "Is it someone who has tipped off?" ”
Nie Rongzhen shook his head, "Even if someone had informed him, the Japanese army wouldn't have been able to come so quickly." ”
"So what the hell is going on? This situation is really weird! The more the crowd pondered, the more strange it became.
Just then, a scout hurried to report that the Japanese plane had scattered some pieces of paper nearby, with a lot of Japanese characters written on them, mixed with many Chinese characters.
Immediately afterward, several scouts came from other directions to report that they had also found pieces of paper scattered by Japanese planes with exactly the same words.
Although Nie Rongzhen did not systematically learn Japanese, he often fought with the Japanese army over the years and could understand some simple Japanese. He looked at it carefully and inferred with certainty: "This is a marching notice of the Japanese army, requiring the troops searching the mountain to retreat immediately. ”
"The Japanese are about to withdraw?" That's great! Many cadres and fighters were overjoyed when they heard this.
Tang Yanjie said happily, "Commander, it is almost dark, is it time to prepare for a breakthrough?" ”
Nie Rongzhen said, "Don't worry about it first, let the troops rest in place, and then talk about it after eating first." ”
"This..." Tang Yanjie said in surprise, "If you delay too long, you are afraid that you will miss the opportunity to break through, then the problem will be serious!" ”
"If we are in a hurry to break through, the problem will only be more serious!" Nie Rongzhen said, "If you think about it, the Japanese army has already sent planes to bomb and strafe us twice, indicating that they have locked in the target of pursuit, how can they suddenly retreat inexplicably?" ”
Tang Yanjie shook the piece of paper in his hand and said, "Commander means that the order for the Japanese army to retreat is fake?" ”
Nie Rongzhen nodded, "There must be deception in it, the enemy has made strange moves, it is very likely that he deliberately released smoke bombs to confuse us and take the opportunity to narrow the encirclement." ”
After a while, sure enough, scouts came to report that the Japanese had indeed withdrawn, but they withdrew about five miles and turned around and killed a "back carbine."
At this moment, everyone admired Nie Rongzhen and threw themselves to the ground, saying that if the commander had not discovered the enemy's cattiness, we would have been caught in the plan, and the consequences would be unimaginable!
Nie Rongzhen said very seriously: "Now that the crisis has not been lifted, the situation is more severe, we must find out what the enemy is doing to accurately pursue, and what the problem is!" ”
He pondered for a moment, then suddenly looked up and said, "Check the radio station right now, I suspect the problem is on the radio!" ”
Surprisingly, this was indeed the case - after inspection, it was found that the military radio station may have been hit by a collision, causing the indicator light to malfunction, but in fact it was not turned off. The Japanese must have searched for radio signals through their direction-finding machines, so they kept clinging to it.
This negligence made the radio crew feel extremely guilty, and they kept apologizing and turning off the station.
"Don't turn it off!" Nie Rongzhen hurriedly stopped it.
"Huh? Didn't the radio expose our whereabouts and attract enemy pursuits? Why not turn it off? The crowd was puzzled.
Nie Rongzhen smiled slightly, and said confidently, "Why don't we continue to drive it and make a plan?" ”
The crowd suddenly realized, "It's still the commander's trick!" ”
Subsequently, he instructed the troops to break through immediately, and at the same time dispatched several elite personnel as suspect squads, carrying radios in the opposite direction of the troops' march, attracting the attention of the enemy's direction finder, and leading the enemy's nose like a morning glory.
This move had an immediate effect, and due to the containment of the radio squad, a large force of more than 10,000 people, under the cover of night, took advantage of the familiar terrain and quickly successfully broke through from the weak point of the Japanese army and moved to safety.
After the war, the soldiers praised one after another: "The Japanese army even made strange moves, fortunately the commanders were recognized, and they successfully broke through with a strange move!" ”
Reference historical materials: "The Battle History of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army and the Shandong Military Region", "Nie Rongzhen in Jinchaji", "Records of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army", etc