In 1944, in the face of a local offensive launched by the enemy's anti-Japanese forces, the increasingly tight Japanese army began to systematically abandon its strongholds in the marginal areas of the first line in order to strengthen the defense of communication lines and strategic points in order to avoid being broken by our army. The Japanese army also actively adopted the so-called strategy of "using China to govern China," vigorously supported the puppet regime in the occupied areas, enriched its troops and equipment, and attempted to use the puppet army as a garrison to liberate the Japanese garrison, form a mobile unit, and seek a decisive battle for our army.
▲ Our army recaptured the enemy's strongholds
Zhu Xinzhai, deputy commander of the pseudo-security brigade in the Rizhao area of Shandong, was a hardcore traitor selected by the Japanese army, and the devils gave up their territory to him after withdrawing from the Shigou Cliff stronghold near the base area. Zhu then led 3 puppet army squadrons and puppet district offices to occupy Shigou Cliff. On the basis of the original Japanese fortifications, Zhu Bu further strengthened them, and the puppet army requisitioned a large number of local compatriots and forced them to build fortifications, turning the ShigouYa stronghold into a nail that seriously threatened the north-south connection of our coastal base area.
▲ Mortar positions of the Eighth Route Army
With the support of the Japanese army, the puppet army at Shigou Cliff frequently attacked the local troops and grass-roots political power in the base areas, hunting down and killing party members and cadres, and posing a great threat to the base areas. In order to clear this stronghold, in January 1944, the Coastal Military District ordered the 6th and 13th Regiments, as well as local troops, to work closely together to pull out the shigou cliff puppet stronghold and resolutely eliminate this puppet army.
At dusk on January 21, the units of our army secretly rushed to the puppet army stronghold. By the early morning of the 22nd, without the puppet army noticing, the stronghold was secretly surrounded, and all the preparations before the attack were completed. The blocking forces on the outside line entered the designated position, cutting off the passage through which enemy reinforcements might come.
▲The enemy's stronghold was hit and set on fire by our army, and our army took the opportunity to launch an attack
The 6th Regiment then attacked first, and the demolitionists, under the cover of fire, carried out continuous blasting of the fortifications outside the enemy stronghold, opening the way for the attacking troops to make a surprise attack. Then our army began to launch a general attack. He Wanxiang, commander of the 2nd Company of the 6th Regiment, personally led the demolition detachment and marched towards the enemy's bunker with explosive packs.
The puppet army blocked the outer trenches close to the bunkers with heavy fire in an attempt to block the attack of our army. In order to avoid the fire of the puppet army, the company commander ordered the demolition team to first hide in the enemy's shooting dead end, and he himself jumped into the outer trench under the cover of night, crawled forward, climbed to the side of a bunker, and then stuffed the grenade into the gun hole, and quickly blew the puppet army inside the bunker to death or injury, and smoothly tore a hole in the enemy's defense line.
▲ Our army is attacking enemy strongholds
The company commander then ordered the 8 squads to suppress the enemy's fire, and he took advantage of the opportunity of the enemy's fire being attracted by the 8 squads to quickly approach the other bunker, and did the same, stuffing grenades into the perforations and killing the enemy. In this way, the three of them blew up 6 bunkers in a row.
After the puppet army's defense line was torn apart, its morale quickly collapsed, the enemy left dead bodies and wounded, and the rest abandoned their positions and weapons and turned around and fled. With the cooperation of the 6th Company of the 2nd Battalion, the 1st Battalion broke through the outer positions of the puppet army and rushed into the core position.
▲ The Eighth Route Army was welcomed by the masses
At this time, it was already late at night, and the hardcore traitor Zhu Xinzhai commanded the troops to fight the trapped beasts, and even personally carried a ghost head knife in one hand and a barge gun in the other hand to lead his elite special task force to counterattack our army in an attempt to force our army out of the core position.
The 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion borrowed firewood and peppers from their fellow villagers' homes, and after lighting the fire in the direction of the upper hand, they attacked the artillery tower with the tactics of fire attack, and the puppet army soon could not hold on under the smoke and fire, and shouted to surrender, Zhu Xinzhai shot several people in succession, but still could not suppress the crowd, and finally saw that if he did not surrender, he would be burned to death, and Zhu Xinzhai had to surrender.
▲ The turret that was burned down by our army
In this battle, our army killed 2 Japanese advisers, 118 puppet troops, and captured 409 puppet troops below Zhu Xinzhai alive, completely destroying a stronghold of the enemy that penetrated deep into our base area and improving the situation in the base area.
Editor/Zhou Hongxin
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