Known as the "Red Cossack", he single-handedly built the most elite cavalry regiment of the New Fourth Army!
Cavalry, as an ancient service that has lasted for thousands of years, was once the master of the battlefield in the era of cold weapons, but with the development of hot weapons, its role has become smaller and smaller, and it has long been replaced by armored vehicles, and only exists in some remote areas of border defense with inconvenient transportation and some national etiquette.
In the War of Resistance Against Japan, the Sino-Japanese battlefield was not as magnificent as the collision of steel on the European battlefield, and the cavalry still played a pivotal role. During the war, both The Chinese and Japanese armies formed a large cavalry force to carry out mobile strikes. Today, we are going to tell the story of a cavalry regiment of the New Fourth Army.
In 1941, the 4th Division of the New Fourth Army, under the leadership of division commander Peng Xuefeng, engaged in an unusually fierce battle with the Qinghai 8th Cavalry Division, which was controlled by Tang Enbo and subordinate to Ma Bufang, at the west of Jinpu Road. Under the impact of the fierce northwest cavalry, the enemy on horseback had a huge advantage, they swept by like the wind, and the tower-like warriors, often only looking at the enemy, were cut to the ground with a saber with great inertia.
The New Fourth Army, which lacked automatic firepower, suffered extremely heavy losses, thousands of officers and men of the 4th Division were killed and wounded by the enemy's sabers, and the famous old 32nd Regiment was almost wiped out, in addition to these losses, the most regrettable thing was that more than 200 cadets of the Anti-University Fourth Branch School also died in this battle. This was the biggest defeat of the New Fourth Army since the "Anhui Incident"!
After this battle, Peng Xuefeng, commander of the 4th Division of the New Fourth Army, was indignant and formed the first cavalry regiment in the history of the New Fourth Army, known as the "Red Cossack". In just four months, the formation of the cavalry regiment was completed, and the regimental commander was Zhou Chunlin, who was transferred from Xinjiang, and his division was from the Cavalry of the Soviet Red Army, and the cavalry techniques and tactics were quite exquisite. For the weapons and equipment of the cavalry regiment, Peng Xuefeng, who has learned martial arts since childhood and is proficient in knife skills, did not use the Soviet saber, but personally designed a saber in combination with the suggestions of all parties, with a slender body and a thin back made of stainless steel, which is extremely sharp. This saber that came out of nowhere, the warriors were overjoyed, loved it, and called it the "Snow Maple Knife".
In 1942, in the summer harvest in the Hongze Lake area to eliminate the Japanese army in Shashan to collect grain, the cavalry regiment strictly obeyed the orders of the division commander Peng Xuefeng, and waited for the enemy to leave the village and away from the villagers before starting its first battle, and the "Red Cossacks" became famous in the first battle. In just 9 minutes, more than 300 Japanese troops who were grabbing food were cut down by the windy cavalry regiment, and more than 80 Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner.
On October 20, 1944, the Cavalry Regiment finally ushered in its days of revenge. At the junction of Shuicheng in Henan and Woyang in Anhui, the cavalry regiment of the 4th Division of the New Fourth Army and the enemy's 8th Cavalry Division encountered each other again, and began a deadly white-knife battle. "One long, one inch strong", the new type of saber equipped by the "Red Cossack" cavalry regiment was one inch longer than the wide-bladed sabre of the enemy cavalry division, and it was this inch that laid the foundation for victory, and soon, the enemy army was defeated, and the cavalry regiment won a great victory, a shame of 3 years ago.
On the eve of the imminent comprehensive victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan, General Peng Xuefeng, who had made outstanding achievements in battle, unfortunately died. On September 11, 1944, when our army won a steady victory in the battle of Balizhuang by the troops of the New Fourth Army, General Peng Xuefeng, who was in the front command of the front line, was unfortunately hit by a stray bullet and died heroically, at the age of 37.