History has its own life, it is like a person, both easy-going and self-respecting. ——Yu Qiuyu
After the Anhui Incident in January 1941, the New Fourth Army Was re-established under the jurisdiction of the Third Division, the anti-Japanese democratic base area was established, and various anti-Japanese undertakings were vigorously carried out.
During this period, Yancheng was the military, political, economic and cultural center of the anti-Japanese base area in central China, and was known as "Little Yan'an in Northern Jiangsu".
The Japanese army adopted a gradual approach strategy, successively occupying Dongtai, Sheyang, Baoying, Xinghua and other places. In the summer of 1941, the Japanese army dispatched the 11th Brigade of the 15th Division and the 12th Independent Brigade, plus the puppet army of Li Changjiang and Yang Zhonghua, gathered nearly 20,000 people, divided into four roads, and attacked Yancheng, the situation was very critical.
The enemy was menacing, and Huang Kecheng, commander of the Third Division, suggested that the military headquarters move quickly, and the Third Division also jumped out of the encirclement circle of the Japanese army and launched guerrilla warfare, and when the enemy's troops were scattered and exhausted, they would concentrate their forces and eat the enemy bite by bite.
Acting Commander Chen Yi pointed to the military map and said: "The terrain of northern Jiangsu is favorable to me, it is a water network area, there are many rivers and ditches, the terrain is complex, the transportation is inconvenient, and it is difficult for the enemy's modern weapons to play a role." He believes that Yancheng is the base camp of our base area in central China, and the people of the whole country are watching here, and they cannot keep Yancheng, and we are not good at explaining it to the party Central Committee and the people of the whole country.
Under the direct command of the military headquarters, the Seventh and Eighth Brigades of the Third Division of the New Fourth Army stubbornly defended themselves with the tactics of blocking, flanking, and ambushing. On July 22, the Japanese army occupied Yancheng. From the 23rd, enemy armored motorboats cruised in the river, aircraft reconnoitred in the air, and infantry and cavalry pursued the main force of the army and the Third Division.
In order to prevent being caught by the Japanese army, Chen Yi and Liu Shaoqi were forced to act separately. Liu Shaoqi, accompanied by Lai Chuanzhu's chief of staff, moved with a company to the northwest of Funing, while Chen Yi stayed behind to deal with the aftermath.
In a critical moment, the military department asked for the support of the First Division. Su Yu adopted the strategy of "encircling Wei and saving Zhao" to attack the enemy's central Soviet region.
In order to contain the enemy, the First and Third Brigades of the First Division launched an attack on Huangqiao, Jiangduo, Qutang, Jiangyan, and other places on the southern front of central Jiangsu, directly approaching the city of Taizhou, leaving the enemy in a situation of losing sight of one or the other. At the same time, Wang Bicheng led the Second Brigade to the north and temporarily returned to the command of the Military Department.
After arriving in Yancheng, the 2nd Brigade was stationed in the area of Liuzhuang, and when it learned that the Japanese and puppets were coming, they organized layers of resistance, making it difficult for the enemy to move. Under the leadership of Wang Bicheng, the 2nd Brigade turned passive into active, constantly harassing the enemy and "shooting black guns." In this way, the Japanese carried out this "sweep" with great fanfare, and in the end it was still a bamboo basket to hit the water. I had to return to the station in a sad way.
Seeing that the Japanese were withdrawing from the battle, Wang Bicheng decided to take the initiative to attack and attack a tough battle.
In the south of Yancheng, there is a Yuhua town with less than 1,000 people, but its geographical location is very important. It is located on the coastal north-south traffic line. In the town, the Japanese army built fortifications, the main fort reinforced concrete structure, located on the high pier, with a two-story building high, condescending, wide view, easy to play the firepower advantage. To the south of the stronghold there is a crescent-shaped deep-water pond more than 10 meters wide, and only in the southwest corner there is a dam about 1 meter wide that connects to the street.
On August 15, the 4th Regiment of the main attack entered the position at a rapid marching speed from dozens of miles away, cutting off Yuhua's contact with the outside world. At the beginning of the battle, the puppet army strongholds were first attacked, and these puppet troops did not fight, some laid down their weapons and surrendered, and some took off their military uniforms and fled in the dark night. In less than an hour, the puppet army stronghold was conquered.
After removing the perimeter obstacles, how to conquer the bunker is a difficult problem. Around the bunkers, except for ditches and ponds, it is open land, and it is very difficult to meet the enemy, and long-distance charging is bound to bring great casualties. The command decided to approach the enemy fort by digging a snake-shaped passage, and after the serpentine passage was dug, it was already before dawn on the 16th. Four regiments of commandos simultaneously attacked the enemy from the southwest dam mouth and the trenches to the northeast, and the enemy threw tear gas and gas, and the first attack was frustrated.
During the day on the 16th, while resting, our army held a "Zhuge Liang meeting" to study the plan for the attack. At the same time, the masses were mobilized to send cotton wool tires and large tables, door panels, stretchers and other materials to prepare for the attack at night.
In the early morning of the 17th, the signal flares took off. Immediately, bamboo skewers and grenades with cotton wool and kerosene flew towards the enemy fort. In an instant, flammable materials such as deer bricks and houses were on fire. The sound of rushing and killing is intertwined with the sound of gunfire and grenade explosions, which is earth-shattering and powerful. Faced with a sea of smoke and fire, the enemy panicked.
Xu Desheng, the commander of the three platoons, rushed to the bunker with the "earth tank" and pulled out 9 grenades tied to his body to blow up the bunker. Soldier Li Baohui and 6 other people rushed to the enemy's main fort with a "dirt tank" composed of three square tables wrapped in a wet quilt, rushed to the front of the enemy's main fort, pulled a grenade, and died with the enemy.
With a loud noise, the enemy's machine guns suddenly became mute. The warriors rushed to the enemy fort in the cry of revenge for their comrades. At this time, the Japanese invading army, which had not been killed by the explosion, was like a group of crazy beasts, howling and rampage, and engaged in a white-knife battle with our army. The soldiers of our army are brave and tenacious, and bravely kill the enemy.
The battle was over, and the enemy on the battlefield was covered with corpses, blurred with flesh and blood, lying horizontally and vertically on the ground in front of the bunker. The regimental commander ordered that the enemy bodies be examined one by one. As a result, two serious injuries, two minor injuries and one pretending to be dead were found in the body. These captives were poisoned by the spirit of "Bushido" and refused to surrender, they shouted "Dead la, dead", and bit and kicked people, and the warriors had to tie them to the door panels and carry them away.
On the 16th, after our army launched a battle, the Japanese army was anxious like ants on a hot pot, constantly firing signal flares for help. At dawn on the 16th, the Japanese army went out and rushed to Yuhua Town by land and water, but was violently attacked by our army. Our army resolutely launched a charge, engaged in a fierce battle with the enemy on the land and on the Erzhu River, and destroyed one of the enemy ships. After the enemy's first reinforcements were repulsed, a second and third reinforcements were launched, both of which were repulsed by our army. Subsequently, our army followed the pursuit and took advantage of the victory to attack the big middle group.
Late on the night of the 16th, the first battalion of the fourth regiment and the special agent company attacked from the north gate and the east gate, and the first battalion of the sixth regiment attacked from the south gate, annihilating most of the enemy in the big middle group.
This was a great victory for our army in the anti-sweeping campaign, which uprooted the Japanese strongholds, annihilated nearly 600 enemy troops, including more than 60 Japanese troops, captured 7 Japanese troops, and annihilated more than 400 puppet troops, including more than 160 prisoners. During the battle, a total of 3 heavy machine guns, 8 light machine guns, 4 grenadiers, more than 400 rifles and short guns, more than 30,000 rounds of ammunition, and 1 wheel and tugboat were captured.
During the battle, our army suffered more than 70 casualties, including Jiang Xiaomao, deputy company commander of the regiment's special service company, Xu Desheng, commander of the third platoon, and Zhang Honggen, deputy platoon commander.
Under Su Yu's deployment, Ye Fei led the First Brigade of the First Division to continuously attack the Japanese puppet armies of Jingjiang, Rugao, Nantong, Hai'an, and Taizhou, and conquered the strongholds of Jiang Duo, Huangqiao, Guxi, Jiali, Jijiashi, Tianxingqiao, and Gushan; the 1st and 3rd Brigades surrounded Taizhou from three sides. The commander of the 12th Independent Brigade of the Japanese Army, Nanpu Xiangjie, saw that the back road was copied, and worried that the base camp was not protected, and hurried back to Taizhou.
After the Third Division moved to the Japanese and puppet flanks, it successively captured some of the towns occupied by the enemy and the puppets, and pinned down the enemy's actions. Under the control of the First Division of central Soviet Union, the enemy's forces began to move south, and the main force of the Third Division immediately turned to a comprehensive counterattack, and in response to Central Soviet Union, successively recaptured funing, Donggou, Jianyang and other towns, so that the enemy would lose sight of one another.
By the end of August, through the coordinated operations of the military and civilians of northern Jiangsu and central Jiangsu, more than 30 enemy armored steamboats were sunk, the Japanese Kou swept up, and a great victory was achieved in annihilating nearly 4,000 enemy troops.
Upon receiving the news of the Japanese retreat, Liu Shaoqi and Chen Yi were very happy and sent telegrams to Su Yu, Ye Fei, and Wang Bicheng, thanking them for their skillful solution to the siege of the military headquarters.