At the beginning of April 1942, under the leadership of political commissar Zeng Xuqing, the main force of the 2nd Military Subdistrict of the Hebei-Hebei Lubian Military Region went to the border areas of Linyi County and Qihe County to mobilize the masses and prepare to open up new base areas. At that time, the headquarters of the sub-district was located in the southwest of Tiankou Town, and the 1st Company of the Basic Cadre Battalion of the Military Region was responsible for the protection work. The 1st Battalion of the 17th Regiment was responsible for finding fighters to annihilate the enemy and open up the situation in the local area.
▲ The Eighth Route Army crossed the Yellow River in the east to open up a base area behind enemy lines
Located about 6 kilometers east of Qingyun County, north of Bandaying Street, Xinglong Temple is an ancient temple that is said to have been built in the Tang Dynasty, and after the fall of Qingyun County in 1939, the Japanese army set up a stronghold here, guarded by 1 squad of Japanese troops and 1 squadron of puppet troops. One day at the end of April, Hirota, the japanese squad leader of the Xinglong temple stronghold, decided to take his troops out and take a turn around the area around the stronghold, on the one hand, to show the local people the military prestige of the "Imperial Army" and warn them not to cooperate with the Eighth Route Army, and on the other hand, to come out and rob by the way.
At noon that day, Hirota led 1 small group of Japanese troops and 1 squadron of puppet troops into the town of Taguchi and plundered. After learning of the enemy's situation, the 2nd Division Headquarters felt that this was an opportunity, and the enemy took the initiative to leave the stronghold, which was a good opportunity to annihilate the enemy army in the field battle. The command immediately decided that 1 company would take the lead. 3 platoons of sharp knife platoons were directly commanded by the instructors of 1 company, and 7 squads were used as sharp knife squads. In order to strengthen the strength of the sharp knife squad, the combat backbone was specially dispatched to supplement the 7 squads, so that the number of the squad was increased to 16, and divided into 3 combat groups, from the west gate of Tiankou Town to attack the Japanese puppet army head-on; 2 platoons as the second echelon, commanded by the company commander, ambushed in the southeast of Tiankou Town to monitor the enemy, and at any time to respond to 3 platoons; the 17th Regiment and 1 Battalion were divided into three directions outside Tiankou Town to intercept the fleeing Japanese puppet troops and block the enemy reinforcements who might come to reinforcement.
However, after the forced army arrived at Tiankou, after preliminary observation, it did not find the enemy outside the town, and the 7th squad then rushed into the town, but still did not find the enemy situation, so the instructor commanded the troops to search street by street to the east, and when the troops searched to the east, they found that hundreds of Japanese puppet troops were eating outside the east gate.
The instructor immediately issued an attack order, and the 3rd platoon immediately rushed out of the east gate to directly attack the enemy who was busy eating, first a row of grenades blew up the Japanese puppet army to the point of crying wolf, and then launched a white-knife assault on the enemy. The Japanese army tried to counterattack our army after a little calm, but at this moment, an incident that shocked both the Japanese army and our army occurred, because the puppet army was in a hurry to flee into the field, they collided head-on with the counterattacking Japanese army, and these traitors who usually saw the devils and feared the lion and tiger were actually like tigers descending the mountain when they fled for their lives, completely dispersing the Japanese army's combat formation, and even fleeing with the Japanese army.
The dizzy Japanese army fled in this way, and the Japanese army fought and fled under the command of Hirota in an attempt to regroup. However, our army is in desperate pursuit, fighting and chasing at the same time, so that the enemy is completely powerless to resist and cannot breathe. In the fierce pursuit battle, Hirota and his squad were all killed by our army, and these puppet troops who "made a contribution" to our army's annihilation of the Japanese army could not escape, and were finally completely annihilated by our 1st battalion. During the battle, our army captured 1 Japanese light machine gun, 1 grenadier, and a batch of other guns and ammunition.
Resources
Linyi County Chronicle pp437
The Battle History of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army and the Shandong Military Region
Editor/Zhou Hongxin
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