After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese invading forces quickly occupied the main large and medium-sized cities and communication trunk lines in North China; in order to further plunder China's resources in order to provide them with "war to feed the war," and also to strengthen the division and encirclement of the enemy's rear base areas in North China, from July 1940 onwards, the Japanese and puppet sides began to build the Shide Railway from Dezhou, Shandong province, to Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province.
In order to smash the Japanese army's road construction plan and delay its construction progress, starting in August, the troops of the Hebei Southern Military Region of the Eighth Route Army launched continuous attacks, frequently launched attacks on the Japanese puppet troops along the railway construction line, fought more than 20 consecutive battles, annihilated more than 300 enemy troops, captured 2 Japanese lieutenants, and destroyed all the roadbeds that had been built in the northwest of Dezhou City.
Due to the repeated attacks of our army, the construction of the Shide Railway was repeatedly delayed, and the headquarters of the North China Dispatch Army of the Japanese Army severely reprimanded the Okashima Wing Commander, who was in charge of railway vigilance. On August 22, Okajima, who was furious, decided to personally lead a team to sweep up the villages along the railway line in an attempt to intimidate the local people with "three lights".
After receiving the information, the 19th Regiment of the New 7th Brigade of the Ji'nan Military Region planned to take advantage of the "Hundred Regiments War" to annihilate this Japanese army. At about 10:00 a.m. on August 2, the Japanese army rushed south from the Qinglan Station on Shide Road along the traffic ditch, and more than 100 Japanese troops divided into two columns to open the road in front, followed by an artillery squad of the Japanese army, with 8 horses carrying a Type 38 field gun, which was the most advanced field gun of the Japanese army at that time, with a range of about 10 kilometers. Behind the artillery was a large group of ox carts escorted by more than 400 puppet troops, ready to be used to transport stolen supplies.
Due to the narrow road and the large number of people, the gun carts and ox carts moved unusually slowly, and the Japanese troops at the head gradually threw the rear team away, and the line grew longer and longer. When the Japanese army approached the vicinity of The Village of Yinli, Okajima ordered his troops to divide into three routes and attack the Eastern and Western Takasai and the North and South Ridge Trails at the same time.
The Japanese troops who pounced on the North Ridge trail made contact with the 2nd Battalion of our 19th Regiment, and after being blocked, the Japanese army launched a battle formation to press towards the 2nd Battalion in an attempt to completely annihilate it, and the 2nd Battalion retreated from the side of the battle, gradually attracting the Japanese army to the preset battlefield of our army. The Japanese troops who attacked Xigaocai also engaged in a fierce battle with the 2nd Battalion of our 25th Regiment. Several Japanese surprise attacks were repelled by our army and fell into a predicament, but the Japanese army was not willing to lose, and still formed a confrontation with our army, trying to wait for the arrival of the main force to launch a fatal blow.
Seeing that the Japanese army had fallen into the encirclement as our army had envisioned before the war, the troops of the 19th Regiment and the 2nd Battalion of the 25th Regiment quickly divided their troops and cut off their retreat routes after directly inserting themselves into the Japanese flank, forming a trend of closing the door and fighting dogs.
After the siege was completed, the 7th Brigade ordered the troops to attack in full line! Suddenly, the smoke around Donggaocai Village was filled with gunfire, the sound of killing was everywhere, and the sound of gunfire was tremendous. The Japanese puppet army was completely trapped in the ditch north of Donggaocai Village, blindly shooting at our army in the south, north, and west directions.
Okajima panicked after the troops were surrounded, and constantly fired flares into the air for help. However, the enemy troops in the nearby strongholds were blocked by our reinforcements and could not advance. Seeing that the general trend was gone, Okajima commanded some of the Japanese puppet troops to gather around the field artillery, and he tried to break through with the field artillery.
However, at this time, the puppet army had collapsed, the Japanese army could not collapse, and everyone could not care about the field artillery, but only cared about their own lives.
In order to seize the field artillery, the troops of the 2nd Battalion and the 4th Company launched a white-knife assault on the Japanese army, Okashima was anxious, he was afraid that the field artillery would fall into the hands of our army, personally pulled out the command knife to lead the counterattack, but the Japanese army just rushed out of the ditch, the grenades of our army blew up the people on their backs, Okajima desperately tried to block the defeated soldiers, but to no avail, in the battle he was also killed by our army.
By noon, most of the Japanese puppet army was annihilated, and our army was also busy transferring the field artillery that had just been captured, and the 8 horses pulling the cannon were killed 7 in the battle, and the soldiers had to borrow 4 cattle cannons from their compatriots. The Japanese lost their artillery, morale was lost, and finally under the reinforcements of the Japanese army from Texas, a small number of people broke through the siege.
In this ambush battle, which lasted 8 hours, our army won a complete victory, and then the troops of our 9th Brigade quickly moved to the base area on the other side of the Qingliang River with field artillery.
Resources
History of the War of the Southern Hebei Military Region
Editor/Zhou Hongxin
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