At the end of February 1939, the 60th Army was ordered to sail from Liuyang, Hunan to the area of Fengxin and Gao'an in northern Ganbei to block the Japanese troops advancing along the Xianggan Highway. The 550th Regiment of the 184th Division of the 60th Army was responsible for defending the enemies of Mifeng Mountain and Phoenix Mountain in Fengxinya ridge. After entering the position, the Japanese 106th Division attacked the position of the 550th Regiment from time to time, but was repulsed. During the Attack on Phoenix Mountain in June, the 550th Regiment dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese, which was described by the Japanese as a tragic battle.
One day in June 1939, The regimental commander Zesheng told his aide-de-camp Chang Shaoqun: "On the road in front of our army's position, the yellow ash is covered in the sky, and the cars rumble, as if the Japanese army is mobilizing troops and attacking our regiment. You hurry up and climb up to the observatory to see the enemy situation in front of you. If you find something, call me immediately. After Regiment Commander Zeng finished speaking, he turned and walked into the command post.
Chang Shaoqun received the order, so he led 2 people to climb up the Yajiu Ridge. As they climbed to the top of the hill, Japanese shells began to bombard the top of Crow Ridge, intending to destroy the observation post of the 550th Regiment. The Japanese shells landed on the top of the mountain, blowing up the rocks and trees, and Chang Shaoqun quickly hid in a small rock frame behind the top of the mountain to hide, waiting for the Japanese shelling to stop.
The Japanese shelling lasted about 20 minutes before it stopped, and the false observation post on the hill was destroyed by the Japanese, and because the officers and men hid in the caves, there were no casualties. According to the custom, after the Japanese shelling, it is inevitable to launch an attack, and the commander of the regiment ordered all the units to prepare for battle, be careful of the enemy's attack, and pay special attention to the Japanese artillery attack.
At about two o'clock in the afternoon, a Japanese infantry brigade launched an attack on the 550th Regiment. The third battalion was the first-line combat unit, and the battalion commander, Zheng Zuzhi, was an older, experienced, and well-commanded member of the regiment. In accordance with the intention of the regimental headquarters, Commander Zheng focused on deploying troops in deep ditches and high fortifications, and strictly prepared for the enemy who attacked. When the Japanese army entered the fire network of the 550th Regiment, Lu Battalion Commander ordered the fire to open fire, and for a time the bullets rained down, killing the Japanese army on their backs, and the front of the position was full of the corpses of ghost soldiers.
After the Japanese were breathing for half an hour, they gathered their ants and pounced on the position of the 550th Regiment, and the third battalion was still the first to bear the brunt. Although the third battalion built a tight firepower network and killed and wounded many Japanese soldiers, the devils who were deeply poisoned by militaristic ideas rushed forward without a life, and when a devil was wounded, he would lie down on the spot and raise his rifle to show the way to his comrades in the back; a Japanese soldier was killed, and the devils in the back would not care, and still rushed on the body of this devil.
Under the onslaught of the devils, the position of the third battalion was under great pressure. Soon after, the Japanese sent three tanks to cover the infantry to rush into the position of the third battalion, the officers and men of the third battalion saw that the position was difficult to hold, the soldiers rushed out of the trenches, with grenades and bayonets to fight the Japanese army, the ninth company commander Zeng Daocheng, platoon commander Liu Guozhu, as well as the platoon leader surnamed Long and the platoon leader surnamed Shi surnamed Zhao, the division surnamed platoon leader, and others all took up submachine guns and repeatedly charged with the Japanese army.
During the fierce battle, a platoon leader surnamed Su was hit by a bullet through his nostrils and palate, but he still insisted on fighting until he was shot through the throat by a Japanese bullet. There was a sergeant squad leader surnamed Duan, who took a machete made in Yunnan and killed several Japanese soldiers in succession, his hand was finally cut off by the Japanese army with a bayonet, and after his arm was broken, the Su platoon leader fell in a ditch, touched the pistol and shot at the back of the devil who was fighting, killing 2 Japanese soldiers in a row.
After more than an hour of fierce fighting, the Japanese troops who rushed to the position were repelled, and the three tanks of the Japanese army were blown up by the "live bomb" (human bomb) of the death squad, and 2 of them were blown up, leaving one to flee in a hurry. The third battalion was mostly damaged, the company platoon commander was sacrificed, and the position of the third battalion was piled with at least a hundred corpses that the devils had not been able to transport.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, the Japanese army launched a fierce attack on the 550th Regiment with the strength of two brigades, and the Japanese army concentrated dozens of various mountain artillery, artillery and mortars to carry out intensive bombardment of the 550th Regiment's positions, and the forward positions were seriously damaged by the dense shelling of the Japanese army, and the situation was quite dangerous. Commander Zeng immediately ordered the first battalion to brave The Japanese artillery fire to reinforce Phoenix Mountain, and in just about ten minutes, Wang Sizhi, commander of the third company of the first battalion, Yang Xipei, the platoon commander, and the platoon commander surnamed Ding of the second company were all seriously wounded and carried down. Jin Zenghua, commander of the Fourth Company, calmly commanded, personally operated a heavy machine gun to strafe the devils, killed a Japanese officer on the spot, and wounded many Japanese soldiers.
After half past five, the Japanese army began to attack and advance again, and the devils still bombarded the positions of the 550 regiment with artillery, and the first and third battalions suffered heavy casualties, and the disparity between the enemy and our forces was huge, and the regimental commander had to drive the second battalion of the last reserve. The second battalion commander Ling Fahao led the team to the front, and the fifth company commander Han Weizhong and the officers and men of the various companies followed closely behind the commander of the Ling battalion and engaged in a fierce fight with the Japanese army.
When the officers and men of the first and third battalions saw the arrival of reinforcements, their morale was immediately boosted, and they continued to fight with the strong enemy. At this time, Chen Weihan, commander of the Seventh Company, was wounded in his left arm, bandaged and descended to the regimental command post. He reported to the regimental commander: "The front has become a state of melee, the situation is quite sinister, when I was wounded, I saw the strength of about a company of Japanese troops on the way, detouring to the left rear of our regiment, as if encircling the command post, please the regiment commander quickly retreat to the command post, it is safer." After the regimental commander heard this, he immediately said to Chen Weihan, "No! As soon as the regimental command post was withdrawn, as soon as the telephone was interrupted, the command was broken, and the whole regiment was doomed! This is equivalent to crushing yourself! I am determined to coexist and die with the position and will never take a step back! You go to the back to recuperate! ”
The bloodiness of the regimental commander was touching, and the company commander Chen Weihan continued: "If the regimental commander is not willing to retreat, please send someone to the rear of the yakou defense!" Commander Zeng said: "Now there is no team to dispatch, only the flag guard platoon serves as the vigilance of the regimental command post, and the flag guard platoon only has 14 combat soldiers. If the Japanese army comes, it will fight him to the death! ”
After a few minutes, after the commander of the Regiment had finished speaking, he immediately thought of a way to have the best of both worlds, he ordered Chang Shaoqun to take 2 soldiers to guard the pass, and once the Japanese army surrounded him, he fired a gun report and shot at the Japanese army, pretending to be a suspect. Of course, the Japanese did not dare to attack the pass, and they would certainly conduct fire reconnaissance and search. Once the Japanese army could not sneak into the pass in time, the regimental command post could calmly respond.
Chang Shaoqun felt that this was a way to get the best of both worlds, so according to the request of the regimental commander, he took Lai Chunrong and Tang Chaorong's two soldiers to guard the pass and prepare to stage an "empty city plan". Less than half an hour after Chang Shaoqun and the others arrived at Yakou, the sky was completely dark and no enemy situation was found. The gunfire of Phoenix Mountain and Mifeng Mountain in front of them also gradually stopped, and the Japanese army finally slowly retreated. Chang Shaoqun saw the Japanese army withdraw and returned to the regimental headquarters with two messengers.
After returning to the regimental headquarters, he saw that the commander of the regiment was listening to the battalion commanders report on the dynamics of the enemy situation in the front, and the commander of the regiment told the battalion commanders that the Japanese troops were only temporarily withdrawing from the positions and would definitely come to attack at night, so he ordered the battalions to have dinner in advance, the battalions to re-rotate the positions, and quickly strengthened the fortifications of the positions, and sent three patrols to patrol the night and keep a close vigil.
That night, the Japanese army did indeed attack, and this Japanese army should be a Japanese squad that came to reconnoiter. After the devils sneaked into the position of Yajiuling, they were immediately hit by the fire of the various units of the 550 Regiment, the devils left more than 10 corpses and fled in a hurry, and several Japanese soldiers fell off the cliff in a panic and fell to pieces on the spot. Until ten o'clock the next day, the Japanese army did not move again, and the devils did not launch a new attack.
Zeng Zesheng's pistol
After climbing a small hill and using a telescope to see that there were no more Japanese vehicles on the road down the hill, he determined that the Japanese army had fled back to their old nest, so he ordered the battalions to quickly clean up the battlefield, bury the corpses of the soldiers on the spot, put up signs, and count the number of enemy killed by our side and the booty of each battalion. At noon, the score was statistically calculated, the 550th Regiment suffered more than 400 casualties, and there were more than 300 Japanese corpses in front of the position, among which the officer killed by company commander Jin Zenghua was Takashi Suzuki of the Japanese Artillery Wing, who was the supreme commander of the Japanese army who was killed in this battle. After the war, Japanese newspapers called the battle a "tragic battle."
At the Battle of Fengxin Yagu ridge, the 550th Regiment of the 60th Army blocked the Japanese army for a whole day, killing more than 300 Japanese people under Takashi Suzuki. In this battle, Zeng Zesheng, the commander of the regiment, commanded well, calmly and confidently, courageously and strategically, commanded the officers and men of the whole regiment to block the repeated attacks of the two brigades of the Japanese army, and achieved the record of killing more than 300 enemy troops.