Pingxingguan is located on the Pingxing Ridge on the demarcation line between Lingqiu County and Fanzhi County in Shanxi, and the reason why this place has become famous in modern times is that the Eighth Route Army fought a pingxingguan victory here, which was the first big victory won by the Eighth Route Army since it came out of the division, which greatly encouraged the people throughout the country to resist the war. This brings us to the intensity of the battle.
Founding Lieutenant General Ouyang Wen was then the chief of the organization unit of the Political Department of the 686th Regiment of the 343rd Brigade of the 115th Division, and he led his troops to participate in the Battle of Pingxingguan, and decades later, Ouyang Wen recalled: Before the war, we mobilized the soldiers, saying that we wanted to give preferential treatment to the prisoners, and we were ready to capture 1,000 prisoners to send them to all parts of the country for exhibition, but none of them were caught.
After the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance, in September, the Japanese army has captured Datong, Shanxi and the surrounding counties, Shanxi Wang Yan Xishan led his troops to fight heroically with the Japanese Fifth Division, the battle was very fierce, the enemy failed to advance for three days, after that, the Japanese army sent a report to Itagaki Seishiro for support, at the same time, Yan Xishan asked the Eighth Route Army for help, hoping to cooperate with the Nationalist army, Chairman Mao agreed, soon, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army was ordered to fight an ambush battle near Pingxingguan.
The 115th Division has more than 15,000 people under the jurisdiction of the 685th Regiment, 686th Regiment, 687th Regiment, 688th Regiment and Independent Regiment, and the division commander Lin Biao has held many meetings and asked everyone to fight well in the Pingxingguan War" "The Chinese nation is undergoing a huge test! We Communists should shoulder and will certainly be able to shoulder this heavy responsibility of saving the country and the people! In the early morning of September 25, all the troops under the command of Lin Biao entered the pre-ambush position and waited for the arrival of the Japanese army.
On the 7th day of the same day, the follow-up troops of the 21st Brigade of the Japanese Army came to the ambush area, the 685th Regiment, 686th Regiment, and 687th Regiment, which had long been ambushed, saw the enemy army enter the designated area and immediately opened fire, Zeng Xiansheng, commander of the 5th Company of the 685th Regiment, led the first to charge, in 20 minutes, the whole company blew up more than 20 Japanese cars with grenades, and in the white-knife battle with the Japanese army, he killed more than a dozen ghosts by himself, and finally, because of his wounds and fatigue, when the Japanese army surrounded him, he pulled open the grenade tied to his body and died gloriously.
The soldiers of the Eighth Route Army fought with the Japanese army very fiercely, our soldiers ran out of bullets, they used bayonets to fight with the enemy, the bayonet was broken, they used the butt of the gun, if the butt was broken, then they and the enemy hugged in a group to fight, the two sides killed the red eyes, facing the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army, the Japanese army felt fear for the first time since the invasion, they had never encountered such a tough unit.
The 686th Regiment was ordered to seize the Laoye Temple, and Lin Biao explained to the regimental commander Li Tianyou: "You must rush down the highway, cut the enemy into several sections, and seize the Laoye Temple with a battalion, and take this commanding height, so that we can condescend to destroy the enemy in the ditch!" After the battle began, Li Tianyou led his troops to a fierce battle with the Japanese army, and the three battalions received orders to capture the Laoye Temple, which had already been occupied by the Japanese army.
When the soldiers fought with the Japanese army, most of them rushed to the road, and then began a white-knife battle with the Japanese army, when the battle was half an hour later, the Japanese army first appeared weak, they hid under the car, our soldiers shouted "surrender the gun and do not kill, preferential treatment to the prisoners" The Japanese army can not understand the Chinese language, in addition, they are still diehards trained by Japanese imperialism, many people would rather die than surrender, Ouyang Wen recalled, "I personally watched a deputy battalion commander of our regiment carry a ghost wounded man back, As a result, the devil bit off his ear, and a platoon leader next to him was so angry that he cut off the devil's head with a knife.
In the Qiaogou ambush battle, Qin Erlang, commander of the second platoon of the third battalion of the 687th Regiment, led the entire platoon of fighters to rush to the enemy position and fight with the Japanese army, when he stabbed two enemies to death, a Japanese soldier also stabbed a bayonet into his waist, at this time, Qin Erlang stared wide-eyed, and tried to stab the bayonet on the enemy, and then the two fell to the ground together.
The stubbornness of the Japanese army alarmed the leaders of the troops, after the Battle of Pingxingguan, our army did not catch a prisoner, it can be seen that the degree of engagement between the two sides was fierce to what extent, after the war, our army carried out statistics, a total of more than 1,000 enemy people, captured dozens of cars, as well as a large number of military supplies, this battle, but also gave the main force of the Japanese army Itagaki Division the greatest blow,
The Battle of Pingxingguan was of far greater strategic significance than the actual significance for our China, and Ouyang Wen said, "In the First Battle of Pingxingguan, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army became famous at once, and after the war we went to Jinnan to recruit troops." Our regiment's recruiting office was next to the Kuomintang's, and there was no one there at all, and we recruited more than 3,000 people in a week.