On the morning of October 1, 1938, the headquarters of the Second Detachment of the New Fourth Army was studying the arrangement of a combat mission. Zhang Dingcheng and Deputy Commander Li Yuzheng, As well as Chief of Staff Luo Zhongyi, and other chiefs of staff, as well as regimental commanders and political commissars of the regiments under their command, all attended the meeting.
When Zhang Dingcheng announced the meeting, Luo Zhongyi said according to Zhang Dingcheng's instructions: "This is the information sent by the reconnaissance unit we sent, and I will first read it to you: In recent days, on the Jingjian Highway from Nanjing to Lukou and Lishui via Moling Pass, there have been several Japanese cars coming and going every day. At about 8 o'clock on October 2, the enemy's cars had to pass near Lukou, and there was no Japanese defense from Lukou to Lishui, and there were only about 180 Japanese troops in Moling Pass. In addition, the Bridge of Lukou has not yet been repaired. ”
After listening to Luo Zhongyi's introduction to the enemy situation, the theme of the meeting was very clear, and after thorough study, everyone unanimously decided to ambush the enemy's transportation troops between Lukou and Moling Pass the next morning, and strive to eliminate them in one fell swoop.
After the struggle of the commander of the Fourth Regiment, Huang Mars, he accepted the combat mission.
Huang Mars returned to the regimental headquarters and immediately made arrangements, and the first and eighth companies were ordered to march to Jiangwu Village in the northeast area of Hengxi Bridge that evening.
The next morning, when the troops were passing through a village near Lukou, a local citizen provided an important piece of information, saying that half an hour earlier, a Japanese car carrying 11 soldiers had driven into Lukou from the direction of Nanjing. These enemies were now living in a two-way building on the street with no sentries or guards.
Leading the New Fourth Army in completing its combat tasks was Jiang Xinzhong, a staff officer sent by the regimental headquarters, who believed that if this Japanese army was not eliminated, it would have a negative impact on the masses. Under such circumstances, Jiang Xinzhong immediately ordered the messengers to quickly return to the regimental headquarters and report in detail on the plan of the troops to temporarily decide to eliminate this Japanese army.
Although this was only a temporary decision to fight a battle by the way, Jiang Zhongxin made a very thorough arrangement for the battle: he sent 10 reconnaissance officers as the vanguard force, 400 meters from the rear troops, to lukou, ready to try to capture the Japanese army; a company followed as a commando team, equipped with light machine guns to cope with the sudden situation; the eighth company was on guard in the direction of Moling Pass to cover the safety of the assault troops.
Scout Ma Feng took the lead in entering Lukou Street, and as soon as he reached the intersection, he found two Japanese soldiers wandering the street with bare hands.
"Oops, these two dog bastards are tall, tiger-backed and bear-waisted, and I alone must have beaten him, so I had to use weapons." Ma Feng thought in his heart, and naturally pulled out his pistol in his hand.
With the sound of two gunshots, one Japanese soldier fell to the ground like an upside-down door panel and died, and the other Japanese soldier was wounded and ran out of the street to flee into the wilderness.
Due to the sound of gunfire, the Japanese troops in the room were alerted, and when the commando sharp platoon rushed to charge the Japanese room, it was blocked with preparation. The New Fourth Army immediately suffered three casualties and was unable to rush in for a while. The Japanese army and the New Fourth Army were only separated by a brick wall to form a confrontation, the Japanese army blocked the door with machine guns, and the New Fourth Army used shell guns to shoot to prevent the Japanese troops from coming out.
"His grandmother's, how dare a dozen devils be so rampant?" Chen Qijiu, the commander of the first platoon of the first row, had red eyes, cursed the Japanese army in his mouth, and commanded the whole class of soldiers to follow him to try to approach the door, and a company threw more than 30 grenades and shot dozens of rows of bullets, in one fell swoop, all the Japanese troops guarding the front door were solved, and the machine guns set up by the Japanese army in the front hall were also blown up.
Several soldiers quickly lit a fire in the room, and after the front room was burned down, the Japanese army quickly retreated into the back building, closed the door of the back building and dug a hole, and used light machine gun fire to block the New Fourth Army.
At this time, the commanders and fighters of the New Fourth Army discovered that the information provided by the masses before was wrong, the Japanese army here was not more than 10 but more than 30, and the other side held heavy machine guns and other weapons, and the ammunition was also extremely abundant.
Under such circumstances, the battle reached a stalemate, and the officers of the New Fourth Army fought fiercely for about an hour without progress.
Because the Japanese firepower was too fierce and hiding in the shadows, everyone thought that it was difficult to eliminate this Japanese army for a while, and the Moling Pass Japanese army, which was only 15 miles away from Lukou, was likely to be setting out for reinforcements, so it was decided to withdraw from the battle.
This battle was only a temporary and incidental battle, annihilating 13 Japanese troops and several wounded Japanese troops. Although this achievement is not brilliant, it has three important significances.
First of all, the Japanese army did not expect that the New Fourth Army would be able to take the initiative in the daytime and win. What the Japanese army could not expect was that the New Fourth Army dared to quietly chase and ambush the main force of the Japanese camp and operation!
Secondly, in the mouths of the Kuomintang troops at that time, there was a general idea of fearing the enemy like a tiger, in their minds, the Japanese army was very strong in combat effectiveness and was "difficult to defeat", and many Nationalist troops often had not yet seen the shadow of the Japanese army. The New Fourth Army was able to take the initiative to attack the Japanese army, which undoubtedly taught them a good lesson.
Moreover, this battle also fully demonstrated to the broad masses of the people the combat effectiveness and spiritual strength of the New Fourth Army in daring to stand firm against the Japanese army and being able to win the battle, which had an extremely positive impact on boosting the confidence of the Soviet and Chinese military and people in resisting Japan.