The anti-Japanese base area in the Jizhong Plain is an important part of the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area. The Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base areas include major areas such as western Hebei (i.e., Beiyue District), central Hebei, and eastern Hebei, as well as the Jire-Chaliao region. The Jizhong Plain also has favorable conditions for a vast region, abundant products, abundant manpower, relatively developed culture, and high mass consciousness, and plays a major role in whether the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base areas can persist until victory. Because Jizhong is located between Beiping, Tianjin, Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Cangzhou and Dezhou, it is the heartland of the Japanese army's rule of North China. If the enemy cannot control this area, the major cities and communication lines will be seriously threatened, and it will be difficult to ensure the occupation of north China. Therefore, the Japanese army stationed a huge armed force in North China, and from 1938 onwards, it continuously mobilized heavy troops to besiege, sweep, divide, blockade, and encroach on the Japanese base areas, and the Base Area of the Jizhong Plain became the focus of the Japanese army's main siege and sweeping.
In particular, in early December 1941, after the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Japanese army was anxious to turn North China into a military base for its war of aggression. To this end, the leader of the Japanese army, Okamura Ningji, concentrated a huge force of more than 50,000 people, and from May 1, 1942, he carried out an unprecedented and brutal sweep of the anti-Japanese base areas in the Jizhong Plain for two months. After the "May Day" sweep, the situation in Jizhong took a sharp turn for the worse, and the original consolidated base areas became guerrilla areas and occupied areas. In order to achieve its strategic objectives, the Japanese army further strengthened the "total force war" of the military, political, economic, and cultural four-in-one, and implemented the fortress policy of combining points, lines, ditches, and walls.
The enemy has established more than 1,700 strongholds in more than 8,000 villages and towns and more than 60,000 square kilometers of land in Jizhong, built more than 7,500 kilometers of roads, and dug more than 4,000 kilometers of blockade ditches; there are groups of pillboxes around the strongholds, and the watchtowers along the railways and highways are densely packed with each other, and the points, pillboxes, roads, and ditches are connected to each other, and they are densely packed like spider webs, dividing the base areas in Jizhong into more than 2,000 pieces, and each piece is placed under fire blockade. Then the sub-districts carried out "liquidation and suppression" piece by piece; villages and villages established puppet political power, strengthened secret service organizations, expanded the formation of puppet armies, plundered on a large scale, and carried out enslavement education. The Jizhong Plain has become a terrifying world of "looking up to see the watchtowers, stepping on the highway, no villages and no filial piety, and wolf smoke everywhere".
How difficult was the situation of struggle in Hebei at that time? According to Yang Chengwu's recollection, he went to Jizhong as the commander of the military region until the japanese surrendered, and did not wear military uniforms, but wore plain clothes. And he doesn't talk much, and when he speaks, he shows his stuffing, because he is not a northern accent (Fujian Changting). There are always more than a dozen people in action, a few staff officers, plus a guard squad, 1 bicycle per person, more than 100 miles a day, and most of them are evening activities. In order to prevent the principal leading cadres of the party, government, and army from being swept away by the enemy, he and Lin Tie, Jin Cheng, Luo Yuchuan, Sha Ke, Li Zhimin, and others marched together and divided into three roads. Every village is inhabited by a fortress household, either the branch secretary's family, the deputy secretary's or committee members' family, and the lowest is the family of the party group leader, which is not only politically reliable, but also has a relatively good tunnel. As soon as you enter the village, you will first sweep away the bicycle print. He usually slept on the top floor of the room, and when he slept, the pistol was placed at the head of the bed, the guards put up a sentry, pulled a rope to the top, tied a bell, pulled a few rings to find the situation, a few shots to find the situation, a few shots to the enemy into the village, a few shots to drill tunnels.
Yang Chengwu pointed out that at that time, in short, it was one thing: relying closely on the masses, it was difficult for the masses to move forward. The masses are truly great, and the masses are the real heroes. Looking back at the history of struggle, there are two periods, one is the period of the 25,000-mile Long March, and the other is the period of the anti-Japanese struggle in the Jizhong Plain, and the feeling is the most profound. The struggle in Hebei is the most arduous, the whole plain is boundless, there is no danger to base, and the enemy's situation is so serious that it is relying on the masses of the people to overcome the enemy's difficulties, and the core is party members and cadres. The masses in Jizhong are very good, what do they give us, and they care for and care for their children and soldiers meticulously. At the time when the enemy was at its maddest, it was hidden among the masses, hidden in tunnels, and on the surface there was not a single Eighth Route Army, but in fact there was everywhere, and it persisted in an armed struggle with staggered canine teeth. The leader of the Japanese army also had to admit that there were two Jizhong, one above ground And one underground.
In an extremely cruel and extremely dangerous environment, the people of Jizhong shed blood, sacrificed, fought heroically, and persisted for a long time under the leadership of the party, making extremely important contributions to the national war of resistance, and at the same time paying an extremely high price. According to statistics, more than 50,000 officers and men (including local guerrillas and militias) were killed by the anti-Japanese armed forces, more than 10,000 local cadres were sacrificed, more than 500,000 people were killed, and more than 200,000 young adults were arrested by the Japanese army as laborers. The number of houses burned down by the Japanese army and looted supplies is even more difficult to calculate.
Since the ancient Hebei Duoyishi, never Yan Zhao Duohaojie! Jizhong Plain, heroes everywhere! The heroes of the War of Resistance are immortal!