Author:Junyi
In mid-May 1940, the New Fourth Army advanced into the column and came to Wujiaqiao, the capital of Jiangsu. Before the officers and men could catch their breath, they were besieged by more than 500 Japanese puppet troops at dawn on May 17.
Due to the long time that the "Standing Column" had been stationed here and there were field fortifications dug up, the Three Charges of the Japanese Puppet Army failed to break through our army's position. The fighting began at dawn and continued until noon, and the fighting was still intense.
The New Fourth Army Advancing Column was a unit formed by Ye Fei's old 6th Regiment, and although the Japanese army had the advantage in firepower, the New Fourth Army was the fighting force of the hard state. The battle was intense and fierce, and naturally there was no time to eat lunch. As far as Ye Fei's troops were concerned, it was very normal that they could not eat lunch for two or three days, and the Japanese army was a bit overwhelmed, they made several charges in the morning, the consumption was very large, and they did not eat lunch at noon, and the momentum was much weaker at once.
Ye Fei was keenly aware that the fighter was ripe, so he ordered his troops to shift the offensive and launch an attack. The New Fourth Army rushed to the ground with one charge, and the troops fought all the way to a small village five miles away from the Fairy Temple, fought another night, and eliminated a bunch of Japanese troops. However, the New Fourth Army was also tired after a day and a night, and the casualties were not small.
【Ye Fei】
The Fairy Temple is only 30 kilometers away from Yangzhou, which is the headquarters of the Japanese brigade and regiment, and the enemy can come to the rescue at any time. Once it fell into a stalemate, it was likely to turn passive, at which point Ye Fei ordered him to withdraw from the battle. Our army withdrew, and the Japanese puppet army also fled back to the fairy temple stronghold.
The Japanese carried the bodies to be cremated and burned them all night. The next day, the Japanese army returned to Yangzhou with more than a hundred stretchers to carry the wounded soldiers.
At that time, the situation was very clear: after the Japanese army suffered heavy losses, it was bound to gather forces again to carry out retaliatory "sweeping". To the north of the Wujiaqiao area is the Tongyang River, which flows from Yangzhou to Taizhou via the Fairy Temple and Yiling, and then flows east to Nantong. The main armament in this area was the troops of Jiang Jun'er Li. At that time, the Conditions in the Wujiaqiao area where the New Fourth Army's advancing column was located were extremely harsh, and there was very little room for maneuver, and more importantly, the Japanese army already knew that Wujiaqiao was the base of the New Fourth Army, and after this battle, it was impossible to go back. The only way to go is to jump to the Guocun area north of the Tongyang River to rest and wait.
To cross the Tongyang River, you must cross the Yiling Bridge. Yiling Town is the location of the second column headquarters of the Lusu-Anhui Border Guerrilla General Command, and Commander Yan Xiuwu was relatively friendly to our army, and when he learned that our army had fought fiercely day and night and severely damaged the Japanese army, it was urgent to rest, so he agreed to our army's request. Li Changjiang, the deputy commander-in-chief, ordered Yan Xiuwu to set up machine guns and blockade the Yiling Bridge. Li Changjiang said: We must not allow the advancing column to reach the area north of the Tongyang River, and if the "vertical column" wants to cross the bridge, it will be fought!
There must always be a place to stand in the War of Resistance, and the advancing column cannot return to the south, but can only go north! After lunch, the troops advanced towards Yiling in a fighting posture. Yan Xiuwu sent people to negotiate and prevent our army from crossing the bridge. The pioneer of this time is still Liao Zhengguo, chief of staff of the First Regiment. Liao Zhengguo saw this situation and decided to make two preparations. On the one hand, Liao Zhengguo said: "Brothers, we are all Chinese, we have just fought with the Japanese army for a day and a night, and we have given the New Fourth Army a place to rest. ”
While convincing people with reason, they were also ready for battle. Liao Zhengguo immediately sent a platoon to control the bridge, and the vanguard troops took the road and advanced. Yan Bu was intimidated by the arrogance and righteousness of our army and was prepared, so he could only give way and compete on both sides of the road to witness the anti-Japanese heroes striding through the town of Yiling.
【Liao Zhengguo】
However, Li Changjiang formed a bond with the New Fourth Army because of this incident. On May 17, after the advancing column entered Guo Village, Li Changjiang sent people to reclaim Guo Village several times. In late June, Li Changjiang unexpectedly sent an "ultimatum" to withdraw from Guo Village within three days. The ostensible reason is that "Guocun belongs to our ministry's defense zone," but in fact, Li Changjiang was carrying out the "Guidance Plan for Eliminating Illegal Activities in the Huai River Valley and the Areas South of the Eastern Section of Longhai Road" personally planned and formulated by Jiang Renoun: "The 89th Army ... Yi Yi and one of Li Mingyang's troops expelled the illegal activities of different parties in the area around the Bridge and the Fairy Temple (jiangdu county). After that, they went north and south of Hongze Lake to cooperate with the 21st Army and the 92nd Army to eliminate illegal activities in the area. The diehards and capitulationists are complicit in calling our anti-Japanese army a "different party" and will be "expelled" and then quickly!
In order to avoid conflict as much as possible, our army sent representatives to Taizhou for negotiations according to The Telegram from General Manager Chen. Li Mingyang, an old fox, had a very good set of rules, and he did not want to offend the New Fourth Army, and he was not willing to let the New Fourth Army take root next to him, so he used the excuse of holding a meeting without seeing the representatives of the New Fourth Army. Li Changjiang, a man who did not have so many city governments, did not look up to the New Fourth Army at all, and said unashamedly: "You are only two or three thousand people, even if you are a heavenly soldier and a heavenly general, so many of my troops have also supported you to death." ”
At dawn on June 28, Li Changjiang launched an attack on Guocun with a total strength of 13 regiments. On the same day, Han Deqin issued an official telegram: "We will definitely annihilate the bandit army in the territory of jiangdu and liangtai counties, east and west of the canal, and the north and south areas of Hongze Lake." In addition to the tasks assigned to the 89th Army and other armed offensives, the telegram also stipulated: "With the command post of Commander Li (Ming Yang) and the troops of Zhang Xingbing, He Keqian, and Zhang Shaohua, and the Taizhou Standing Brigade, they will quickly annihilate all the bandit armies in Jiangdu and Taixian." Han Deloitte could really understand Chiang Kai-shek's intentions and simply called the New Fourth Army a "bandit army"!
The troops of our army defending Guocun, because the fourth regiment of the "standing column" went to Toad Wei to receive the chen yusheng detachment of the uprising, only the first regiment and the column teaching brigade. The ratio of strength between the enemy and us is 13:1.5, and the real enemy is outnumbered.
But Li Changjiang wanted to destroy the New Fourth Army, but it was not so easy. On June 28, the two sides fought all day, And Li Changjiang, determined to win, was also eager to make meritorious achievements, and used all 13 detachments (regiments) in a vicious way, but the attack failed to succeed, but was annihilated by two brigades.
On the first day, he suffered a loss, and the next day Li Changjiang once again attacked in general. Li Changjiang issued a death order that Guocun must be taken, and told the soldiers to take Guocun for three days off, and openly allowed the soldiers to burn and loot after the war. Although the enemy was mad, the New Fourth Army was not intimidated, but on the contrary, it stimulated the fighting spirit.
During the defense of Guo village, Liao Zhengguo, chief of staff of the First Regiment, was suffering from malaria, with a high fever of 40 degrees and lying groggy. Hearing the sound of gunfire closely, getting closer and closer, he stood up hard, stumbled to the special agent company, was already sweating, the military uniform was soaked, but he actually had a high fever and receded, and his mind was very clear. His voice hoarsely shouted, "Quick! Follow me! The commanders and fighters of the special agent company had already lined up and stood by, and Liao Zhengguo followed them out of the village entrance, stumbled, fell, got up and ran forward. The commanders and fighters all knew that Chief of Staff Liao was attacking with illness, and everyone bravely took the lead, beating Li Changjiang's troops to the point of being swept away and expelled from our army's position. After a fierce battle, the "Tingzhong" finally repelled the attacking enemy to Wangjiazhuang, two miles away from Guo Village.
Liao Zhengguo
On the 30th, it was relatively calm. Ye Fei estimated that Li Changjiang's two attacks were ineffective, and he would pause for a while and then organize the attack, and it was very likely that he would take advantage of the thin strength of our army and the large gap in defense to sneak attack from the eastern section where the rivers and ditches intersected. At the combat meeting of cadres at and above the regimental level, he saw that Liao Zhengguo had also come, and he couldn't help but say: "You are sick, and it is time to rest and rest!" ”
Liao Zhengguo said: "Fighting is more effective than taking medicine, a counterattack, a big sweat, Li Cannabis repulsion, illness is better!" There are no combat missions assigned to me though! Ye Fei estimated that it would be most appropriate to send Liao Zhengguo to the eastern section to strengthen his command, and decided that he would take a battalion with him.
When Liao Zhengguo arrived at the eastern section of the position, it was already dusk, and while renovating the fortifications, he sent out small sentries in front of the positions, and at night he sent more swimming sentries, and the swimming sentries found that Li Changjiang's troops were moving. Liao Zhengguo was overjoyed in his heart: You have also started a night battle, this is not playing a big knife in front of Guan Laoye! Immediately taking the initiative to attack, short troops, driving the attacking enemy out of the distance of several miles, Li Changjiang's third offensive was crushed before it was formed, but the greater crisis was behind.
That night, Ye Fei received an urgent telegram from Secretary Liu of the Central Plains Bureau: The Fifth Column of the Eighth Route Army could not arrive as scheduled due to the "sweeping" of the Japanese army; the five detachments of the New Fourth Army were also blocked by the Great Knife Society and could not be reinforced. However, our army in Jiangnan was being attacked by the Kuomintang army Leng Xin at XitaShan, and could not cross the river for a while. Chen Yi, who "crossed the river in plain clothes", was blocked from Xinlaozhou. Guocun's army has become a lone army in the ground! Ye Fei said later: At that time, I was really anxious to break into a cold sweat!
On this night, Tao Yong led the Suwan detachment into Guo Village. After Receiving the telegram from Chen Yi of the Jiangnan Command, Tao Yong immediately led his troops across tianyang road, crossed Shaobo Lake at night, crossed the Japanese blockade line, and traveled two hundred miles day and night, promptly solving Ye Fei's worries.
The arrival of the Suwan detachment greatly boosted the fighting spirit of the soldiers and civilians in Guo Village. But everyone also knows that there will be no other reinforcements for a while. The battle had been fought for three days, and reinforcements had arrived. How to fight is placed in front of the command level of the New Fourth Army, whether to fight a war of attrition with the enemy or to think of another way, this has become a question for Ye Fei and the commanders to consider. It was not advisable to top the cattle, Li Changjiang had troops, and the New Fourth Army would have difficulty in obtaining other reinforcements for a while and a half. At this time, qiao Xinming, a regimental commander, said that now that we have seven battalions of troops, we do not need to take all the troops to fight defense, we can draw some troops to fight counterattacks and win the opportunity to break the enemy's encirclement.
Ye Fei felt that this method was very good, so he decided that Qiao Xinming and two battalions would set out overnight to penetrate the side of Li Changjiang, capture Yiling, open the gap and quickly sweep over from the rear of the enemy, directly destroying Li Changjiang's command system.
Before the New Fourth Army could fight, Li Changjiang himself was in chaos. Li Changjiang's Chen Yusheng detachment launched an uprising on the battlefield and immediately sent the Yangtze River passage to the New Fourth Army. Another brigade and machine gun company went directly into the battlefield of Guo Cun and Li Changjiang after the uprising. In this way, the strength of our army is equivalent to five regiments, and it has broken the encirclement of Li Yangtze River. When the battle was fought like this, it was clear who was who was who was, and Li Changjiang's army was getting fewer and fewer people engaged in friction, while the New Fourth Army, which insisted on resisting the war, had more and more troops.
However, Li Changjiang did not repent at this time and decided to personally go to the front line of Guo village to supervise the battle. This time, Li Changjiang had laid down the blood, and the whole regiment and battalion launched a group charge against Guo Village. In this case some positions began to waver. But the New Fourth Army also understood that in the last 5 minutes of the battle, Tao Yong, Liao Zhengguo and other fierce generals were on the position, commanding white-knife fighting many times.
Li Changjiang was already a red-eyed gambler, desperately throwing the last strength to Guo Village, but in the end he could not change the outcome of the final defeat. When the fierce battle between the two armies was in full swing, Qiao Xinming, who attacked from the flanks, led two battalions into the battlefield from the flanks, and the recalcitrant army suddenly began to collapse, and Li Changjiang immediately left his troops and ran back to Taizhou when he saw that the situation was not good.
On July 3, Chen Yi also arrived at Guo Village and deployed a counter-offensive. General Manager Chen agreed with the young general's suggestion, and did not do one thing at a time, and then did not stop, expanded the results of the battle, and attacked Tangtou. He said, "Very well, that's it. However, the pursuit could only reach the nine-foot ditch and was not allowed to enter Taizhou City. He consciously looked at the indignant Tao Yong, Liao Zhengguo and others, and emphatically said: "Leave room for it!" As for Er Li, don't force them into a corner, if they follow, we will punish them, let them learn a lesson, and dare not easily provoke our army. It is to force them all to get on Han Deloitte's thief ship, which is harmful. ”
Before the smoke of the battlefield had dissipated, Chen Yi wrote to Li Mingyang again, releasing the prisoners and returning some of the guns. Li Mingyang also returned to Taizhou from Xinghua to clean up the mess and rebuild the old ones.
At that time, many people were very puzzled by The order of General Manager Chen not to attack Taizhou, because taking advantage of the victory to eliminate "Lu Suwan" and sweeping through the areas along the river could establish a large base area. However, a few months later, in the Battle of Huangqiao, everyone admired The order of President Chen. In this battle, the New Fourth Army closed in time, which made Erli fearful of the New Fourth Army and also began to be half-hearted about Han Deloitte's actions. In the decisive battle of The Yellow Bridge, the second Li Zuo looked up and down, which greatly reduced the pressure on the New Fourth Army. The significance of the Battle of Guocun, as Mr. Chen reported to Yan'an, enabled our army to have a starting point for the attack on northern Jiangsu and laid the foundation for the beginning of a firm foothold in northern Jiangsu.
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