In the summer of 1941, the Japanese army's "North China Dispatch Army" intensified its efforts to divide and encircle our base areas in Central Hebei, and the Japanese army constantly used its superior forces to encroach on the surrounding areas of our base areas, installed strongholds, and tried to restrict the activities of our army, so as to achieve the goal of trapping our army to death and starving to death.
Under these circumstances, the troops of the Jizhong Military Region frequently organized troops to attack the enemy's newly established strongholds in an attempt to destroy the enemy's unstable foothold, and for this reason the two sides launched a fierce tug-of-war. The troops of the 2nd Regiment of the Guard Brigade of the 6th Division of our Jizhong District have been fighting continuously for several months in the battle to defend the summer harvest of that year, and the troops are quite tired. In early September 1941, the troops of the 2nd Regiment moved from The North of the Road to the South of the Road, and continued to fight tenaciously against the division and blockade of the Japanese Army, at a great cost.
▲ The geography of the Jizhong Plain was very beneficial to the Japanese army to exert its mobility advantage
At the end of October, the Japanese army occupied Wuqiu in Jinzhou, and set up a stronghold in the local area, installed an artillery tower, and took this as a foothold to continue to attack the deep area of our base area, and the nearby masses were deeply affected. In order to express their will, the masses specially sent whole pigs to the troops, and nailed a nail on the head of each pig, which means that to eat pork, they must "pull out the nails." After careful consideration at the brigade headquarters, it was agreed that 2 regiments would take Wuqiu, and 1 regiment and 1 battalion would be responsible for blocking the enemy troops who might set out from Shenxian to reinforce Wuqiu.
The Japanese stronghold in Wuqiu was in the northeast of the village, where it was originally a tall temple, the terrain was higher than the surroundings, and the enemy's turrets were high, and the terrain was very unfavorable to the attack. At that time, our army did not have heavy weapons, it was difficult to suppress the enemy's firepower, close to the outer wall of the stronghold to carry out blasting, although the scene found several large vehicles, on the car spread wet cotton quilts to make "earth tanks", by the "earth tank" escort demolition hand to the courtyard wall to send explosives, but due to the enemy's crazy resistance, the explosion has never been successful. The two sides fought fiercely for 9 days.
Since at this time our army's attack had lost its suddenness and had become a war of attrition with the enemy to fight for firepower and troop strength, the war situation began to develop in a direction unfavorable to our army. The Japanese puppet army in Shenxian County did indeed come to the aid of Wuqiu, and the troops of the 1st Regiment and 1st Battalion, who were responsible for blocking the attack, actually withdrew from the position without firing a shot or greeting, and as a result, the enemy's reinforcements smoothly entered the south of Wuqiu Village, forming an angle with the enemy at the stronghold, making the 2nd Regiment troops fall into the dilemma of being attacked by the enemy on both sides.
At this time, the Japanese army took advantage of the fact that our army could not be attacked for a long time, and successively increased its troops in the strongholds around Wuqiu, in an attempt to take Wuqiu as the center, and the 3 enemy troops advanced in parallel to encircle the main force of our 2 regiments. After sensing the enemy's intentions, our army took the initiative to withdraw from the encirclement, and broke into pieces and prepared to seek opportunities to concentrate on annihilating the enemy. However, due to the continuous combat of the troops, they were too tired and did not move quickly enough, and the enemy was fierce in several ways, our army had not yet concentrated, and the enemy's encirclement situation had already taken shape. In the case of passivity, our army had no choice but to change its plans and order the troops to move quickly.
However, in the process of transfer, the enemy troops from Shenxian County bit the 2nd Regimental Headquarters, the Special Agent Company and the 1st Battalion, and in order to cover the transfer of the Regimental Headquarters, the 2nd Battalion and the Special Agent Company engaged in fierce battles with the enemy and dragged the enemy army. Subsequently the regimental headquarters moved north, but on the way to the transfer, the 2nd Regiment headquarters again encountered the large group of Japanese troops, in the breakout battle, the Japanese army with machine guns, mortars and grenadiers on the breakthrough troops fiercely fired, the 2nd Regiment political commissar died in the breakthrough, the regimental commander finally took 1 company to use the communication trench to get rid of the enemy's fire to successfully break through.
In this battle, our army paid an extremely heavy price, while the Japanese army only suffered more than 50 casualties, which was a complete defeat. However, after a period of time, the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment took advantage of the enemy's negligence to launch a surprise attack in the dark of night, caught the Japanese army by surprise, and captured the Wuqiu stronghold in one fell swoop, killing and wounding more than 20 enemy and capturing 2 enemy, and our army only suffered more than 10 casualties.