If you like the classic movie "Bright Sword", you may have a very deep impression of a team called "Yamazaki Brigade" in the early stage of the TV series, in the TV series, several regiments of the Eighth Route Army surrounded the Yamazaki Brigade, launched a series of strong attacks, but they all suffered huge losses, and finally until Li Yunlong's independent regiment came on the field, the enemy was completely annihilated.
This makes people wonder how many officers and soldiers there are in the Yamazaki Brigade of "Bright Sword"? Why can't several regiments of the Eighth Route Army win?
This siege battle in the TV series actually has a prototype, that is, the Battle of Guanjia'an that occurred in 1940. On October 30 of that year, the Hundred Regiments War had reached the third stage, and the Battle of Guanjia'an became the largest offensive battle in this stage.
The template for the Yamazaki Brigade was actually the "Okazaki Brigade" led by the Japanese commander Okazaki Ken by Nakasa, with a total of 540 people. Another view is that this team can only be counted as the "Okazaki Detachment", because it was composed of Japanese soldiers drawn from the 37th Division in Yuncheng, Shanxi, and the main force came from three infantry squadrons of different companies, and no regular number had been established, or even the infantry artillery squad necessary for the brigade.
It should also be noted that the commander of this team, Okazaki Kentoshi, was also temporarily appointed, and previously served as the deputy wing commander of the 226th Wing of the 37th Division, in charge of training and logistics. However, in October, as the Japanese army mobilized tens of thousands of troops to carry out a retaliatory sweep of the anti-Japanese base areas in North China, Okazaki Kensuke also participated in the operation with this temporarily drawn team in the absence of troops.
When the squadron marched into the Yellow Cliff Cave, it immediately attracted the attention of the Eighth Route Army, which was where the arsenal was located, so the Eighth Route Army immediately mobilized its men and horses to work on encircling and annihilating Okazaki's troops.
Okazaki also found that something was wrong with the surrounding environment, and then fled, came to the Guanjiayuan Heights to hold on, waiting for reinforcements, and set up machine guns on the position, forming a tight fire network.
If the Eighth Route Army wanted to gain something, it had to eliminate the Japanese troops stuck here before the Japanese reinforcements arrived, and for this reason, under the command of the troops, the 8 regiments under the 386th Brigade and the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army mobilized one after another, organized 10,000 people to carry out a strong attack, and blocked their escape route.
Unfortunately, due to the well-equipped And favorable terrain of the Japanese army, several death squads organized by the Eighth Route Army were repulsed, and in addition, the Japanese army even mobilized aircraft to support the battle. After a day of fierce fighting, the soldiers suffered heavy casualties, at the same time, the outer blockade battles also began, more than 2500 Japanese troops from Wuxiang and Liaoxian sent reinforcements to Guanjia'an, they were stubbornly blocked by local troops, but the Japanese army's excited comparison still broke through the heavy defensive lines and finally approached the position of Guanjia'an. Seeing that the enemy army was about to carry out a counter-encirclement, the Eighth Route Army could only retreat with regret.
According to Chen Geng's later recollections, in this battle, the Eighth Route Army killed 589 people and wounded more than 1,570 people in the Battle of Guanjia'an, a total of more than 2,160 people, and more than 280 corpses of the Japanese army (including 2 senior lieutenant officers and 5 middle and second lieutenant officers). This battle, although surrounded and attacked with the superior strength of the Eighth Route Army, still suffered heavy casualties, which also reflected the gap in combat level and equipment, providing important experience and programs for the follow-up troops, and it was not as smooth as "Bright Sword", which was a microcosm of the history of the difficult War of Resistance.