History has its own life, it is like a person, both easy-going and self-respecting. ——Yu Qiuyu
The movie "Eight Hundred" lies in the super hardcore of the anti-war historical facts of the eight hundred lonely troops guarding the four lines.
First, Shanghai has become a Jedi, why send a lone army to hold on?
In August 1937, one of the largest battles in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the August 13 War of Resistance, began.
The Japanese and the Kosovars concentrated more than 200,000 troops to attack Shanghai, and Chiang Kai-shek mobilized more than 800,000 people from the Central Teaching Corps and the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Armies to defend Shanghai, and fought a bloody battle against the Japanese army at any cost.
By the end of October, the Nationalist army was constantly defeated and retreated, and the Zhabei area was attacked by the Japanese army in multiple ways. If the resistance continues in unfavorable terrain, hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops may be annihilated by the Japanese army. At the military level, it is necessary to withdraw as soon as possible in order to preserve strength.
But politically, the Nine-Power Pact conference will be held in Brussels on October 30 to find the best way to resolve the Sino-Japanese conflict. Chiang Kai-shek pinned his hopes on the United States to mediate the Sino-Japanese war. In order to enhance the international image, the Chinese military must maintain its last presence in Shanghai, otherwise Zhabei will be lost and only the concession will be left, which may cause unfavorable public opinion in the world.
Japan is also targeting this political event, trying to make a quick decision in order to enhance its right to speak.
Chiang Kai-shek, in spite of his absolute military inferiority, ordered a final insistence on the Zhabei region. His specific request was that most of the Chinese army retreat south of the Suzhou Creek and disperse the resistance with only one force in Zhabei.
Gu Zhutong, deputy commander of the Third Theater, approached Sun Yuanliang, the commander of the 88th Division, and asked him to lead his troops to hold out at Zhabei.
Unexpectedly, Sun Yuanliang rejected it based on the intuition of a professional soldier.
Sun Yuanliang said: "If we die one person and the enemy dies one person, even if we die ten people and the enemy dies one person, I am willing to stay in Zhabei and stick to Shanghai." The most worrying thing is that we are isolated here, and after the fierce battle, the cadres are killed or injured, the communication is cut off, and in the state of disintegration of the organization, the lack of food and ammunition, the chaos and no command, and the enemy is arbitrarily slaughtered, then it is not worth it, let alone honor! Although the morale of the 88th Division is high, and it has shown a record of holding Zhabei for two months, we have also been replenished five times! Although the recruits are equally loyal and patriotic, they have a short training time and lack the skills to fight for themselves. ”
However, after all, Shangfeng's order could not be violated, and Sun Yuanliang sent the chief of staff of the division to meet with Gu Zhutong and suggested that if only the international view was considered, then there was no need to leave a large force here for the Japanese as a target, and a small number of troops could be left to show a sense of existence.
Gu Zhutong asked, how much is the small amount?
Chief of Staff replied: A regiment.
Two, eight hundred lone armies know that they will die and must hold out
The Kuomintang top brass eventually agreed to a regimental strategy of staying behind. Sun Yuanliang, commander of the 88th Division, selected the 524th Regiment of the 262nd Brigade. The regiment had been fighting fiercely with the Japanese in frontal positions, and the situation was relatively familiar.
When arranging the troops, Sun Yuanliang found that the casualties of the 524 regiment were relatively large, and most of the supplements were new soldiers, and if the whole regiment was placed in Zhabei, it would be extremely difficult to organize resistance. After further consideration, Sun Yuanliang decided to take the 524th Regiment and one battalion as the backbone, strengthen it into three infantry companies and a machine gun company, a total of 450 people, and xie Jinyuan, who was attached to the regiment, was in charge of command.
Xie Jinyuan (1905-1941), a native of Jialing, Guangdong. Whampoa Ivy graduate, then attached to the lieutenant colonel regiment. At that time, in the formation of the nationalist army, the infantry regiment did not have the post of deputy regimental commander, but set up a lieutenant colonel regiment attached to the regiment and a major regiment attached to one person, who was actually responsible for the work of the deputy regimental commander.
Xie Jinyuan organized 450 officers and men to garrison the Sihang Warehouse, the headquarters of the 88th Division.
The first battalion of the 524th Regiment still claimed that the whole regiment remained behind, and was called the original 800 people of the regiment, and the 800 lone army was derived from this.
Why choose to stick to the four-line warehouse?
First, the Sihang warehouse is a material warehouse built by four banks, with reinforced concrete to build the main structure, very strong, resistant to artillery bombardment. This 5-storey building, higher than the surrounding buildings, is easy to observe.
Second, the east side of the Sihang warehouse is only one way away from the public concession, and there is only one Suzhou Creek between the south and the concession, and the Japanese army does not dare to rush to fire artillery, otherwise it will cause resistance and even military counterattack from Britain, Russia and other countries stationed in the concession.
Third, there are a large number of grain soybeans in the warehouse, which can support a long period of entrenchment.
Xie Jinyuan led a lone army into the warehouse and reinforced the original fortifications. The Japanese detected the withdrawal of the 88th Division and immediately launched an attack.
Although the eight hundred lone troops held favorable terrain, they also knew that the disparity between the enemy and our troops was huge, and they held out to the end, basically having no hope of survival. However, when the country was in crisis, since Xie Jinyuan and below, the officers and men did not have the ambition to die and martyr the country.
The Japanese attacked for four days and four nights in a row, and did not achieve much success except for occupying positions outside the warehouses.
But the process was quite tragic. The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 was at the peak of its combat effectiveness, and its infantry tactics were both flexible and resolute. On the first day of the small force trial attack, the Japanese army found that there were many dead ends in the firepower of the four-line warehouse, insufficient lighting facilities, and weak defense on the river surface, and carried out a targeted attack.
Although the Japanese did not dare to bombard the warehouse with artillery, heavy mortars and flat-firing guns also caused great damage to the warehouse.
On the third day of the attack, a small group of more than twenty Japanese troops even sneaked close to the warehouse and climbed into the second floor, although it was discovered and eliminated by the lone army in time, but the defensive situation became increasingly dangerous, and the whole camp of the lone army knew it very clearly.
Xie Jinyuan ordered all the officers and men of the battalion to write a suicide note, collect it in a centralized manner, and send it to their homes when conditions permit.
The Japanese attack became more and more fierce, and many soldiers in the lone camp embraced the cluster bombs and jumped into the Japanese position to die with them. The soldiers on the perimeter defense refused to surrender after being captured and refused to surrender, and were shot by the Japanese on the Suzhou Creek.
The tragic deeds of the lone army left behind have been watched by the people of the concession. Whenever the Japanese army was killed alone, the people cheered loudly.
The Shanghai Municipal Chamber of Commerce in the concession learned of the lack of materials in the warehouse and immediately organized a collection of support for the lone army. Girl Scout Yang Huimin took a big risk, entered the warehouse from the south bank of the Suzhou River, and sent a national flag to the lone army camp (the specific details are actually different, some parties recalled that Yang Huimin sent the national flag to the smaller, Xie Jinyuan tuan attached in order to show the effect, contact the Chamber of Commerce and send another big national flag) The lone army camp immediately raised the national flag on the top of the warehouse the next morning.
At that time, the north bank of the Suzhou River had all fallen, and the Japanese army hung sun flags in high-rise buildings everywhere. This Chinese flag was raised, and the citizens of Shanghai saw it, and the crowd was full of emotion and tears, and they were excited by the indomitable ambition of the Chinese army!
Post-war detention: torture more brutal than war
Since October 26, the Lone Army Camp has fought fiercely with the Japanese for four days and four nights. Considering that the effect of insisting on resistance had been achieved, the Nationalist army ordered the withdrawal of the lone army camp through the public concession.
The concessionary side initially agreed to withdraw from the concession and return to the rear to return to the 88th Division. However, the Japanese army gritted its teeth at the lone army and threatened the concession, and if any country's army assisted the Chinese army in retreating, the Japanese army would also enter the concession to chase.
Although there were all countries in the concession, the number of troops was limited, and under the intimidation of the Japanese army, the lone army was detained in the concession after disarming, and a vacant land of tens of acres was selected near the present-day Yuyao Road to detain the lone army in the concession.
When the citizens of Shanghai heard that the lone army had withdrawn safely, they were overjoyed, and during the transfer of the lone army, more than 10,000 citizens sent each other across the road, and after witnessing the heroic gestures of the anti-Japanese heroes, the citizens shouted long live the anti-Japanese heroes. This scene, even if it is recalled more than eighty years later, is still fascinating.
Although the lone army camp has been surrendered its weapons, it has been detained and suspended, and it still adheres to normal training exercises, and Xie Jinyuan leads the team to exercise every day. The guarding of the isolated barracks was the responsibility of the Russian army designated by the Merchant Corps of Nations.
After the fall of Nanjing and the establishment of the Japanese puppet regime, the lonely military camp that persisted in the struggle on the isolated island of Shanghai has become a spiritual temple encouraging the military and the people of the whole country to unite and resist Japan.
Chen Gongbo, a traitor of the Great Han Dynasty, personally sent a letter to Xie Jinyuan, asking him to defect to the Wang puppet regime and guarantee his personal safety.
When Xie Jinyuan was in a fierce war and was not afraid of death, how could he bow to the traitors. The Japanese and puppet sides then tried every means to buy off the four traitors in the lone army camp and asked them to try to kill Xie Jinyuan.
In the early morning of April 24, 1941, Xie Jinyuan led a team out of the morning exercise, was suddenly attacked by the traitor Hao Mou and others, four traitors stabbed Xie Jinyuan with bayonets, and then violently hit Xie Jinyuan in the head with a pickaxe, causing him serious injuries. At about 6 p.m. on the same day, national hero Xie Jinyuan was seriously injured and died.
In December 1941, the Japanese army broke into the concession and took over the lone army camp. The Japanese army forced the lone army camp to serve as coolies, and in order to break the will of the Chinese to resist, it also sent the lone soldiers to various places in batches. At first, there were more than 330 officers and men of the Lone Army Battalion, but after being assigned one by one, the officers and men of the Lone Army Camp were either killed or tortured to death, and some fled to the new Fourth Army garrison to join the New Fourth Army, and after the victory of the War of Resistance, only more than a hundred people survived.
In 1946, the surviving lone soldiers reunited in Shanghai to commemorate the sacrificial comrades and the commander of Xie Jinyuan Regiment. The Nationalist government posthumously awarded Xie Jinyuan the rank of major general.
However, the Kuomintang side did not attach enough importance to the surviving orphans, and even the basic living conditions of the officers and men of the lone army could not be solved, and most of them later chose to return to their hometowns to work as farmers.
On December 16, 2010, the last lone soldier, Yang Yangzheng, was a retired employee of Chongqing South Bank Vice Food and Fisheries Company, and died peacefully at home at the age of 96.
The hero is gone, but the hero lives on!