After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression entered the stage of strategic stalemate, the battlefield behind enemy lines began to develop into an important battlefield in the War of Resistance Against Japan, and during this period, in the Jilu Border Region of Qilu, a strong brigade of the Eighth Route Army was active, that is, the 6th Brigade of the 115th Division, and the supreme leader of this contingent was Xing Renfu, commander and brigade commander of the Jilu Border Military Region, and Yang Zhong was the director of the Political Department, and the brigade had two regiments and one special service battalion under its jurisdiction.
In order to carry out the instructions of the higher authorities to open up the eastern part of Northern Lu and open up the connection with the Qinghe District, and to connect the two anti-Japanese base areas together, this contingent carried out several consecutive campaigns to open up the battle.
For the first time, more than 2,000 people marched south to the Yellow River to carry out the task of "opening up" the two districts, but unexpectedly, China was separated by the yellow river and the Tujiao River, and there were heavy Japanese troops stationed and Liu Jingliang, commander of the Kuomintang's recalcitrant Lubei security, who were entrenched in obstruction, and it was difficult to "open up" the connection between the two districts.
The second time, Yang Zhong, director of the Political Department, led the main force of more than 5,000 people to the south again, reaching the area of Xinglong Town, Jiaqiao, and Wujia in Shanghe County on the north bank of the Tujiao River, but was intercepted by the enemy. Our army relied on the terrain of the Tujiao River to engage the enemy in a fierce exchange of fire, and from the next morning onwards, fierce battles between various units and the enemy were fought one after another. In the afternoon, nearly 10,000 Japanese puppet troops reinforced from Jinan, Huimin, Shanghe, Dezhou, and other places arrived one after another, and tanks and armored vehicles also joined the battle.
Yang Zhong, director of the Political Department, led his troops to block the incoming enemy in front of Xinglong Town, taking advantage of the favorable terrain such as houses and embankments to repel the enemy's charge again and again. Regimental commander Yang Chengde was hit in the left arm by the enemy in the forward position and continued to command the battle. In order to avoid heavy casualties, under the cover of dusk and night, the troops were reduced to pieces and safely evacuated the riverside of the Tujiao River, which had been fiercely fighting for a day.
Two consecutive "opening-ups" were blocked, and the higher authorities realized the limitations of our army's lack of base areas along the Yellow River and the Tufa River, and once again demanded that the 6th Brigade be instructed to persist in mobilizing the masses, relying on the masses, and establishing party organizations and political power, so that the enemy-occupied areas would gradually become guerrilla areas and base areas of our army.
However, the several times our army went south, which caused panic among the Japanese and Kou, who knew very well that if the two anti-Japanese base areas were to be joined, the Japanese army here would be greatly threatened, so they hurriedly gathered thousands of troops, 50 cars, and more than 20 mortars, and "crusaded" in six ways and adopted a strategy of gradual compression.
Yang Zhong led his troops to Jiahe Village and Chen Niuzhuang under the north bank of the Tujiao River in Zijiao Town, Huimin County, and stationed themselves for rest, while the headquarters organs were stationed in Jiahe Village in the hinterland of the enemy-occupied area, and another unit was stationed in Chen Niuzhuang, preparing to carry out the third task of "opening up." Unexpectedly, the Japanese Kou received information that the Eighth Road was stationed here, hurriedly mobilized heavy troops from Huimin, Jinan, Shanghe, and other places, and together with thousands of stubborn troops led by Liu Jingliang himself, divided into six roads and took more than 50 cars to suddenly launch a long-distance encirclement of our army's garrison.
When our army found itself surrounded by heavy troops, the battle had already begun at the eastern end of the village. Yang Zhong, director of the political department who was brave and good at war, led the brigade and government organs and the 1st battalion stationed in Jiahe to quickly organize troops to break through to the north of the village after repelling the enemy's attack. As we passed through an open field, dense gunfire suddenly rang out. It turned out that the cunning enemy had already set up an ambush here, concentrated more than a dozen light and heavy machine guns, and formed a powerful network of firepower by virtue of the favorable terrain, blocking the way forward of our army, and many fighters fell.
After Yang Zhong led his troops out of the encirclement, he rushed to meet the 3rd battalion of Chen Niuzhuang in the north. Just after arriving at Chen Niu Village, a fierce burst of bullets swept over, and several cavalry running in front of them were caught off guard. It turned out that Chen Niuzhuang had also been attacked by the enemy, and the correspondent sent by Zeng Xuqing to deliver the letter to Jiahe Village was killed halfway. In order to contain and attract the enemy and reduce the pressure on our army's Jiahe Village, Zeng Xuqing led his troops to retreat to the northwest while fighting.
At this time, the dense Japanese puppet army surrounded them, and Yang Zhong saw the situation and shouted: "Go fast!" He shook his reins and rushed southwest with his troops. After passing through Zhoujia Village, when they first arrived at a bean field at the southern entrance of Lijia Village, an ambush appeared again, and the enemy blocked their breakthrough path with fierce machine gun fire.
When the narrow road met the brave and victorious, Yang Zhong ordered his troops to concentrate all their firepower and open fire on the enemy, and the cavalry warriors braved the enemy's bullets, brandished their battle knives, shouted, and a gust of wind blew past, taking advantage of the enemy's panic, the warriors rushed straight forward. The opening of the breakthrough was torn open, and just when he was about to rush out of the dangerous situation, the enemy's machine gun screamed again, Comrade Yang Zhong was swept off his horse, and he was seriously injured, struggling to crawl deep into the bean field...
In the afternoon, the gunfire stopped, and nearby civilians risked their lives in the fields to search for wounded Eighth Route Army officers and men. Li Zhenrong and others in Lijia Village found the body of Comrade Yang Zhong in the bean field, and from the relics on his body (a pocket watch and a private seal), they identified the martyr as the famous Commander Yang. They respected this anti-Japanese hero so much that they buried the remains of the martyr with tears.
The bad news of the martyr Yang Zhong's sacrifice reached the base area of the Jilu Border Region, and the vast number of soldiers and civilians were immersed in grief. The party and government leaders of the border areas held a solemn memorial meeting to commemorate the heroic deeds of martyr Yang Zhong, established a martyrs' cemetery in the place where Martyr Yang Zhong fought and died, re-held a solemn burial ceremony for the martyrs, and engraved the four characters of "Jingzhong to serve the country" on the tombstone of martyr Yang Zhong.
The heroic martyrdom of Yang Zhong, it has to be said that Xing Renfu, the brigade's number one brigade commander and commander, began to be proud and complacent as his status and prestige improved, and he gradually gave up his strict requirements for himself and did not want to live a hard life. What is particularly intolerable is that the front is fighting with blood and stubborn struggle, but he enjoys himself in the rear, and even finds a desert island on Wangzi Island on the seashore of Xinhai County, asks the soldiers and migrant workers to build houses and fortifications on this island that is less than two miles in circumference, builds a personal comfort nest for him, and regardless of the fact that he has a wife and three children at home, he has taken a fancy to Song Kuiling, a young female member of the army propaganda team, and often asks Song Kuiling to go to his residence to play with him, and then he even ignores party discipline and military discipline, openly accepts Song Kuiling as a partial house, and becomes his little wife.
Of course, many acts of injustice will kill themselves, and later, Xing Renfu's deeds were exposed, and soon after he fled to Tianjin with his young wife Song Kuiling, in order to mix a bowl of rice to eat, Xing Renfu shamelessly defected to the Japanese Kou in exchange for the position of commander of the six counties in Jinnan. After the surrender of the Japanese Kou, Xing Renfu changed his life, and under the pseudonym Luo Zhen, he became the leader of the first-class major group of the Kuomintang Tianjin Military Command Station, the commissioner of the Third Special Bureau of Hebei Province, and the commander of security.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Xing Renfu was arrested and brought to justice, and this great traitor and shameful traitor, whose hands were stained with the blood of martyrs and full of evil, ended his shameful life and left him with a stink for thousands of years at the public trial meeting of 10,000 people in the east of his hometown of Yanshan County, with a crisp gunshot, the commander of the Jilubian Military Region of the Eighth Route Army, whose life degenerated into a shameful traitor and a big traitor.
And the heroic deeds of the martyr Yang Zhong, director of the Political Department of the 6th Brigade, will forever be recorded in the annals of history, and the heroic name will shine for thousands of years, leaving an eternal monument to future generations!