During the Battle of Changde, the Ninth Theater, in order to coordinate the battle of the Changde defenders, ordered the 92nd Division of the Ninety-ninth Army stationed in Yuanjiang to send troops into the enemy's rear, cut off the enemy's supplies, and prevent the commander of the enemy's 274th Regiment Zou Pengqi from leading the regiment's two battalions into one detachment, and the battalion commander Li Jinxin brought a reinforced battalion with less than two battalions of troops as another detachment, which was under the command of Zou Pengqi, and the task was to pass through Yazi Harbor and Liuhuakou and enter the line of NiubiTan.
After receiving the order, Li Jinxin led his detachment to quickly take Duck Harbor, at which time the regimental commander Zou Pengqi sent a telegram order, to the effect that he learned that there was a warehouse in Liuhuakou and that the enemy was only a squadron, asking Li Jinxin's detachment to attack and annihilate the defending enemy. Enemy aircraft were spotted at dawn, and in order to avoid costless sacrifice, the troops dispersed and concealed, taking advantage of the opportunity to rest. At this time, Li Jinxin was quite anxious in his heart, mainly because the enemy situation was unknown, the terrain was unknown, and the Japanese army at Liuhuakou definitely had more than one squadron, and the 200 Japanese troops who escaped from Duck Harbor were likely to sneak into Liuhuakou, and it was feared that they would suffer heavy losses if they rushed to attack.
Li Jinxin immediately reported the situation to Commander Zou and asked for instructions to bring the other troops closer together, so as not to fight alone and lose to the Japanese army. Having just laid the duck harbor, Commander Zou's attack spirit was extremely strong, and he did not take the Japanese army into account, and Commander Zou's reply was: "Even though the enemy has a large group, two detachments of our army still have the advantage, and it does not hurt if the situation is unclear. Finally, Commander Zou ordered Li Jinxin to quickly advance towards Liuhuakou, and he then led the team to reinforcements.
Before dawn the next day, Commander Zou came with two battalion commanders, and they caught an enemy detective on the road, this enemy detective was a Yueyang man, and the situation of the Japanese army at Liuhuakou was known from this enemy detective's mouth. However, the information provided by the enemy detectives was two days ago, the situation was not reliable, and for the sake of prudence, it was necessary to go to Liuhuakou to find someone to inquire into the news.
During the day's reconnaissance, Li Jinxin and others saw from the telescope that Liuhuakou was a small street with only a few dozen houses, most of which were huts on the embankment, and there were several tile houses on the slope of the embankment, no cooking smoke, no pedestrians, and quietly almost a dead street. The terrain of Liuhuakou is complex, and there are obstacles, which are easy to defend and difficult to attack. It took Li Jinxin and others more than 1 hour to find two old ladies, and the old lady found a middle-aged fisherman who lived in Liuhuakou. The fishermen told Li Jinxin that there were no more people in Liuhuakou, that the three large tile houses built by the Japanese army on the embankment were warehouses, and that he did not know how many ghosts there were.
Although the information provided by the fishermen was simple, it was very useful, first of all, to relieve the defenders' fear that the attack would accidentally injure their compatriots, and secondly, to confirm that there was a Japanese warehouse in Liuhuakou, which belonged to an important supply base for the Japanese army. In order to further understand the firepower and strength of the Japanese army, Li Jinxin decided to personally lead three platoons to attack in three ways to force the Japanese army to open fire.
At 4:00 p.m. on the same day, Li Jinxin led three platoons to launch an attack at the same time, and was immediately blocked by fierce enemy fire, with heavy machine gun fire at the north and south street entrances and three tile houses, and more than twenty light machine guns fired from south to north on the street, but no shelling was seen. Judging from the firepower, the enemy strength is by no means more than one squadron that has never used artillery, and it does not look like a brigade, it is likely to be a few hundred infantry (about 300 people) together. Once the situation was roughly understood, the attacking troops were scattered back. More than a dozen battalion and company commanders of the detachment immediately studied the attack plan.
Everyone agreed that the capture of Liuhuakou would be extremely valuable to the Battle of Changde, but the enemy had favorable terrain and well-equipped firepower, and the attacking troops would suffer heavy casualties. Therefore, some people advocate encircling rather than fighting, and cutting off the communication between the front and rear of the enemy, so as to avoid excessive sacrifices and complete the task, and many people are in favor of this plan. Li Jinxin held that there is not only one way to contact the enemy before and after the enemy, and it is not enough to cut off this road to cause the enemy to die, and it is of little significance; if the Liuhuakou is captured, it will pose a mental threat to the enemy troops who have committed crimes against Changde, and it will really be conducive to the battle, and it is worth sacrificing more than the larger, and it is the duty and ambition of the soldiers to shed blood for the survival of the nation.
This opinion was supported by the overwhelming majority of the people, and Colonel Zou immediately approved it. After several deliberations, an attack plan was drawn up, the main points of which were to concentrate 10 mortars from the two detachments under the unified command of the artillery company commander to cover the infantry attack; the target of Li Jinxin's detachment was the north entrance of the street and two adjacent warehouses; the Zou regiment attacked the south entrance of the street and a neighboring warehouse with one battalion; any one of them was put into the reserve to expand the results; and the attack began in the early morning of the next day under the personal command of commander Zou.
At 5:30 a.m. the next day, the detachment's artillery began firing, and a few minutes later the infantry attacked and broke through the enemy's net. The battle was not easy to fight, and despite the cover of artillery, progress was still very slow, and each further step cost several lives. At half past seven, three low-flying strafing enemy planes were fired, and the detachment's offensive was frustrated. During the attack, Li Jinxin found that the enemy fire at the north entrance of the street was weaker than that of the warehouse, so he resolutely transferred the troops attacking the warehouse and focused on the breakthrough towards the north entrance of the street.
At nine o'clock, it was slightly past the north entrance of the street, but after entering the street, the resistance of the Japanese army was more fierce, and the two sides were in a state of glue. Fortunately, the enemy's warehouse caught fire, the flames soared into the sky, and the explosion was deafening, forming a mental pressure on the enemy. The detachment took this opportunity to attack again, but only advanced more than twenty meters, and suffered more than thirty casualties, and could no longer advance. In the afternoon, there were also several fires in the street, but the enemy still resisted. House by house was fought until sunset, and only more than twenty houses were captured. Zou Tuan's troops were still on the embankment against the enemy and failed to capture the South Street Pass.
Night came, and the battle fell silent. Li Jinxin believed that even if such a style of play could capture the whole street, it would inevitably cause casualties of three or four hundred people, and the plan must be changed. Therefore, he found Commander Zou and suggested that he adjust the deployment, abandon the plan to capture the south exit of the street, transfer the troops to the northern section of the street, leave a way for the Japanese army to escape, so that the enemy will no longer hold on, and then, with absolute superiority, sweep south from the north entrance of the street, and make the defending enemy flee south. In this way, although the enemy cannot be completely annihilated, it can greatly reduce the casualties of the detachment and facilitate the subsequent battles.
Commander Zou thought about it for a long time, adopted Li Jinxin's suggestion, and redeployed it at night. At six o'clock the next morning, the detachment suppressed the Japanese army from north to south with a thunderous momentum, fighting house by house, and the battle was extremely fierce. Before nine o'clock arrived, most of the street had been captured, and the Japanese army abandoned the last warehouse and set fire to the house. The remnants of the enemy turtle shrunk in the south of the street, burned the house and burned the body, and immediately fled. In this battle, the Japanese suffered nearly two hundred casualties, the detachment suffered twice as many casualties as the enemy, and a Liuhuakou Street was completely flattened, which was terrifying.
At the Battle of Liuhuakou, the Chinese defenders besieged three hundred Japanese troops with three full battalions and 10 mortars, and besieged the Japanese army with three times the enemy's strength, but even if they paid twice the sacrifice, they could not completely annihilate the Japanese army, and finally had to open a road for the Japanese army to escape. It can be seen that in the War of Resistance Against Japan, the combat effectiveness and combat quality of the Japanese army were so high that it was not easy to completely annihilate the Japanese army.
In the 70s of the last century, Li Jinxin wrote about this incident in his memoirs and commented on the Japanese army: "Japanese soldiers are harder to fight than imagined!" Without four or five times the strength of the troops, it is difficult to inflict heavy damage on the Japanese army, let alone completely annihilate. This is the reality of the War of Resistance. ”