In August 1942, the Shandong Column was ordered to divide a division to form the Luzhong Military Region, with Wang Jian'an and Luo Shunchu as commanders and political commissars.
In the Luzhong Military Region, the old 1st Regiment can be said to be a solid ace unit. Although the Japanese army was equipped with heavy artillery, heavy machine guns and other heavy fire equipment, the old 1st Regiment was able to win many battles. The main reason for this is that the tactics are flexible and diverse, relying on night battles and melee battles to crush the opponent, and directly implementing a white-knife charge without waiting for the opponent to launch heavy firepower, hitting the enemy by surprise. It is also because of this feature that the fighting masters who dare to fight and move rapidly in the old 1 regiment are the undisputed backbone and are highly valued.
The 3rd Company of the regiment had a platoon leader named Hou Yingjun. In the whole regiment competition, he won the first place in the assassination project. The regimental commander happily quipped that Hou Yingjun could change his name to "Hou YiDao". In the old 1st Regiment, which is good at close combat and is as good as a forest, being able to be given such a nickname by the regimental commander really makes the comrades envious.
In fact, in the old 1 regiment, there are so many stabbing masters, and the regiment leader said that Hou Yingjun is "Hou Yidao", which will certainly make people dissatisfied, after all, in the war years, it cannot be said that the strength is the first because of a competition. But Hou Yingjun quickly proved with his strength on the battlefield that his "first knife" was not in vain.
In the anti-Japanese base area, the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who practiced the art of stabbing
In August 1944, troops of the Luzhong Military Region captured the Japanese army in close combat
In September 1944, the old 1st Regiment was ordered to set up an ambush at Gezhuang, northwest of Yishui, to attack the passing Japanese army. Before the battle, the regimental commander ordered: "If the enemy does not surrender, annihilate him on the spot!" The sharp knife platoon led by Hou Yingjun was at the forefront of the position, and each soldier fired two additional grenades, and once the bullet was dropped, he had to rely on the bayonet to "speak."
By dusk, more than 300 Japanese troops dragged several artillery pieces and slowly walked into the ambush circle. Among them, there is an artillery with 8 horses waiting, which is particularly eye-catching. When the regimental commander saw this, he instructed the platoon leader Hou Yingjun that the task of the sharp knife platoon was only one, that is, to seize the 8-horse cannon at all costs.
The Japanese troops who were walking in the front stepped on the mines, and the slopes on both sides of the road were immediately filled with gunfire. The Eighth Route Army began to "warmly greet" the Japanese with grenadiers, mortars, and even stones on the top of the mountain. After a fierce battle, the Japanese army was swept to pieces, and for a while it was chaotic.
This Japanese army was attached to the 43rd Independent Infantry Brigade of the 53rd Brigade of the 59th Division, and the current commander was named Kiyoshi Kusano. Previously, he had been fighting against Jiang's army in the Xianggui battlefield, and his opponents were mostly Tang Enbo's troops, and as soon as the attack began, the speed of Jiang's army's rout could not even catch up with the shells. Because he had never fought the Eighth Route Army, Kusano Kiyoshi was a light enemy. The "sweep" of these days has found nothing but burning some villages. When the people were sleepy and tired, they did not expect that the Eighth Route Army would launch an attack at this time.
Kiyoshi Kusano was relieved and ready to command his troops to fight back, and grenades flew around him, blowing up several Japanese troops around him. Seeing that the situation was not good, Kusano Kiyoshi quickly led the surviving Japanese troops down the mountain to escape. Before he could catch his breath, he ran to the west of the river again. But the mortars of the Eighth Route Army seemed to have long eyes, and they drove him from Hexi back to the Hedong Highway.
When the Japanese army was on the verge of collapse, Hou Yingjun and his sharp knife platoon appeared.
Map of the situation in the anti-Japanese base area in Shandong
Fight the Japanese with bayonets
After Hou Yingjun led the sharp knife platoon to drop the last grenade, he carried a large knife and a bayonet to the road, ready to seize the cannon.
The horses responsible for the cannon were either dead or wounded, and the Japanese gunners relied on the corpses of the horses to resist stubbornly, and the "Hou Yi Dao" rushed into the enemy position one by one, and the soldiers followed close behind, and launched a white-knife battle with the Japanese army in a triangular formation. A Japanese gunner shot at Hou Yidao as he ran, and he flashed past him. Hou Yingjun rushed to the front and kicked the gun in his hand. The Japanese army was also unwilling to tie up its hands and capture it, and when it changed hands, it was about to pull a grenade, and Hou Yingjun cut off his head with a knife.
A Japanese soldier wearing glasses stabbed Hou Yingjun sideways, and the blood of the first Japanese soldier who killed him was just splashed on his glasses. Taking advantage of the enemy's kung fu of taking off his glasses, Hou Yingjun turned around and slashed at him, resulting in him.
There were three more Japanese troops, forming a triangular formation and forcing Hou Yingjun. The leader of the group, emboldened, stabbed at Hou Yingjun, was kicked to the ground by one of his sweeping legs, and then hacked to death. When the second Japanese soldier was about to stab him, he was shot in the head by the instructor who arrived in time, and he cried out for his life. The last Japanese soldier saw that the situation was not good, and was ready to slip away, and Hou Yingjun picked up the "three eight big covers" that fell on the ground, which was a shot, right in the back of the head of the Japanese army.
Not long after, 5 Japanese soldiers fell under Hou Yingjun's knife and gun. Under the onslaught of the Eighth Route Army, there were few recalcitrant Japanese troops left. Hou Yingjun ran toward the river bank with a large knife, and a small and sturdy "old Japanese army" ran in front of him. The man drew his battle knife and screamed at Hou Yingjun. Looking at the bad one, Hou Yingjun resisted with a mouthless combat knife, while pulling out the "box cannon" and "banging" two shots, resulting in this guy. After the investigation, the "old Japanese army" who was killed was a squadron leader of the Japanese army.
After the last Japanese soldier on the artillery position was eliminated, Hou Yingjun rushed up excitedly and led the soldiers to surround the artillery. The "big guys" with 8 horses were pushed back by more than a dozen people. After hearing the news, Wang Jian'an, commander of the military region, also specially praised Hou Yingjun.
Wang Jian'an
The spoils of war captured by the Eighth Route Army
After this strange artillery was handed over to the regimental headquarters, no one understood what it was. Dragged to the military sub-district, everyone looked at the Japanese characters on the gun, still wide-eyed and small-eyed. Finally dragged to the military region, commander Wang Jian'an looked over, but still could not accurately say why. Finally, Commissar Luo Shunchu called the Japanese friends of the Anti-War Alliance to identify them.
Sakatani, a veteran artilleryman who served in the Japanese army, recognized the gun and said that it was a "41" mountain gun produced in 1942 and had a maximum range of 6 kilometers. This artillery piece also became the first long-range artillery piece captured by the Luzhong Military Region from the Japanese army for the first time. Hou Yingjun, the hero of the artillery, became a combat model of the military region.
Japanese Type 41 75 mm mountain gun
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Eighth Route Army in the Shandong region was reorganized, and the armed forces of the former Luzhong military sub-districts and counties and districts formed the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Brigades of the Garrison and began a new battle. However, Hou Yingjun, a model fighter, was killed in a battle with the Japanese in August 1945 at the age of 31. This legendary "Hou Yidao" fell on the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and became a major regret for his comrades-in-arms.