The city is the only memorial city of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in the country, and the battle that took place here is known as the "Moscow Defense War in the East" as the battle with the largest number of casualties on both sides in the history of the Chinese War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and it is the only time recorded in the history of Japanese warfare that the Casualties of the Japanese Army exceeded that of the Chinese army.
In the case of the superiority of the Japanese army's strength and firepower, the Chinese fighters stuck to their positions and fought until the last person, killing and wounding more than their own total Japanese troops, which is a miracle in the history of war!
Today, we will return to this city of blood and fire together to explore the truth of the Battle of Hengyang!
In 1944, the Japanese army issued an order code-named "Operation No. 1" to open up the so-called "mainland communication line". If the sea line of communication from Southeast Asia to Japan is cut off, this mainland communication line from Southeast Asia to Busan, North Korea, will be the last lifeline of the Japanese Kou.
But the lifeline passes through Chinese mainland, including Henan, Hunan and Guangxi, which are still under the control of the Chinese army. The so-called "No. 1 Battle" is also the Battle of Yuxianggui in the history of the Chinese War of Resistance, the Battle of Hengyang occurred in the second stage of the Battle of Yuxianggui, and the defenders of Hengyang City were the Tenth Army of the Nationalist Army commanded by Fang Xianjue, with a total strength of eight regiments of about 17,000 people.
The Japanese army successively invested four divisions, the Sixty-eighth Division, the 116th Division, the Fifty-eighth Division and the Thirteenth Division had a strength of about 90,000 people. In addition, the Japanese Army also had the Fifth Air Force to fully cooperate with the operation, and the ratio of strength between the enemy and us was 5.3:1. At that time, the operational order issued by the Central Military Commission to Fang Xianjue was: "Delay the Japanese army's attack, defend Hengyang for two weeks, and effectively block the enemy's deepening."
The Battle of Hengyang officially began:
On June 23, 1944, the 68th and 116th Divisions of the Japanese Army launched an attack, and the Battle of Hengyang, the most tragic in the history of the War of Resistance, quietly began.
Chinese soldiers live standing and dying:
Ge Xiancai asked him to abandon his stronghold and withdraw to the main position, but Zhang Deshan refused: "I would rather the enemy's bayonet be inserted into my chest than be killed from behind by the enemy on the way back, even if I withdraw to the main position, I still have to fight with the devils, and I will not be willing to go far." Please rest assured that the pre-10 division does not have a single breed! ”
On June 28, the Japanese army mobilized reserves to the front line and launched the first general attack on Hengyang City, and the Japanese not only mobilized air power and ground fire to form a suppression, but even used spurned poisonous gas to attack. This fierce offensive and defensive tug-of-war lasted for five full days and nights.
The offensive and defensive tug-of-war begins:
The first-line positions of the Chinese defenders, only the tile flat west of the city was breached, and the number of Casualties of the Japanese Army had reached 5,000, with an average of more than 1,000 casualties per day, and the first general attack of the Japanese army on Hengyang City ended in failure. Subsequently, the Japanese transferred four brigades of field artillery and two brigades of mortars to replenish the troops. The Japanese launched a second general offensive on July 11, and the bloody tug-of-war between attack and defense began again.
In the bombing of the Japanese army, the fortifications of Hengyang were fragmented, and even could only be built with corpses scattered throughout the mountains, the captain of the 133rd Wing of the Japanese Army was killed and wounded, 11 of the 12 squadron leaders died under the guns of the Hengyang defenders, and the Japanese army dropped a large number of shells and poison gas bombs on Hengyang City, but still failed to attack the core area.
For this, they paid the price of 8,000 casualties, and the second general offensive launched by the Japanese army ended in failure. At this time, the encirclement of the Japanese army had been compressed under Hengyang City, and the Central Military Commission ordered on July 12 that the Seventy-ninth Army and the Sixty-second Army should rush to the aid of Hengyang City, which was the hope in the hearts of Fang Xianjue and the generals of the Tenth Army.
On the 20th, the reinforcements had even reached the outskirts of Hengyang, but the full resistance of the Japanese army forced the reinforcements to retreat, and the time entered August, the situation in Hengyang City was gradually deteriorating, the ammunition had long been in short supply, and even food could not be eaten after losing supplies. Many soldiers were malnourished, and the wounded were even worse.
The soldiers regarded death as a homecoming:
At this time, the number of wounded in the city had reached 8,000, and the number of seriously injured exceeded 1,300, and the shortage of medicine could not be solved, and the wounded could only scrub their wounds with salt water, and the gauze to stop the bleeding had long been gone. Fang Xianjue said: "It can only be washed and disinfected with the soldier's leggings." ”
The sun in Hunan, which enters the summer, is like a fire, and the wounds that cannot be treated in time will soon become inflamed and festering, and the light wounded are very difficult to survive, and the seriously injured seem to have only waiting for death. Under such circumstances, Fang Xianjue and the soldiers gritted their teeth and insisted.
However, what they were waiting for was not reinforcements, but the third general offensive of the Japanese army, the long-unable to conquer Hengyang City, which alarmed the Japanese emperor and the base camp, and mobilized the Fifty-eighth Division and the Thirteenth Division for reinforcements. At the same time, the viability of the Tenth Army was largely depleted, and the lightly wounded, the cooks, the grooms, and all those who still had the ability to fight were all in the line of fire.
On August 4, the commander of the Japanese Eleventh Army, Isamu Yokoyama, personally supervised the battle, mobilized the strength of four divisions, and launched a final attack on Hengyang City from the south, north, and west, and the subordinates suggested a breakthrough, but Fang Xianjue refused: "We broke out, what about the remaining 8,000 wounded soldiers?" Can you bear to leave them for the Japanese devils to slaughter? Die, we die together, to kill ourselves, I will do it first! ”
On August 6, Hengyang City was breached, and in the absence of communication lines, the various units in Hengyang City fought separately, and after running out of bullets, they could only engage the Japanese in close combat. At this time, the situation on the battlefield can no longer be described by the word tragic. After the commander of the engineer company of the Tenth Company was killed, his comrades gathered his body in the coffin, and before they could bury the coffin, they were shattered by shells, and the comrades found one of his bones and put it in a crock pot. The crock pot was shattered by shells that night.
The fall of Hengyang City is only a matter of time, and Fang Xianjue sent a message to the Central Military Commission: "Our army has now exhausted its ammunition... This electricity is the last one, see you in the next life! ”
The two sides reached an end-of-war agreement:
On August 8, the battle ended in an unexpected way, and the Japanese army, which had been unable to conquer for a long time, was also physically and mentally exhausted, and for the Chinese defenders who were not afraid of death, the admiring Japanese army sent representatives to negotiate and proposed an "end of the war" agreement on the condition of retaining the title of the Tenth Army and preserving the safety of all the remaining defenders.
Fang Xianjue could not give up the lives of his soldiers, and in order to save the last elite of the Tenth Army, he finally accepted the "final battle" agreement. The 47-day Battle of Hengyang came to an end, with more than 15,000 Chinese defenders suffering casualties, almost the same as the number at the time of the war. The Japanese suffered more than 19,300 casualties, which was the result of the soldiers of the Tenth Army fighting for their lives.
Before that, there was basically no battle in which the Casualties of the Chinese side were less than the casualties of the Japanese side, and we did not have to be too harsh on Fang Xianjue's final choice, he led the soldiers who were far less numerous than the Japanese army to hold Hengyang for forty-seven days, and he was already a hero worthy of heaven and earth. The exploits of every officer and soldier of the Tenth Army should not be erased, but should be inscribed in history.
As the "National Salvation Daily" said at that time: "In the eight years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, at least hundreds of thousands of heroes and martyrs died on the battlefield." And there are not a few people who defend the land and die unyieldingly. However, its great contribution to the country and the decisive role in the overall victory or defeat should be the defenders of Hengyang. ”
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