Beginning in August 1940, Peng Dehuai commanded 105 regiments of the Eighth Route Army to launch a large-scale counteroffensive against the Japanese army in north China, breaking the communication lines behind the enemy lines of the Japanese army, and also restraining the speed of the Japanese army in north China to the south, effectively attacking the Japanese invaders. After the End of the Hundred Regiments War, Chiang Kai-shek also gave high praise and praise, but Chiang Kai-shek did not think so in his heart, and in order to limit the development of the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and other units, he began to engage in frequent friction.
On October 19, 1940, Chiang Kai-shek asked He Yingqin and Bai Chongxi to call the Eighth Route Army in the name of the National Revolutionary Military Commission, Ye Ting, Xiang Ying, and other units of the New Fourth Army, ordering the Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, and other units south of the Yellow River to open the area north of the Yellow River for reorganization within a month, from 500,000 people to 100,000 people, and at the same time ordered Tang Enbo, Li Pinxian, Han Deqin, Gu Zhu and other units to frequently engage in friction with the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army, and reduce the strength of the Eighth Route Army.
In order to take into account the overall situation, the New Fourth Army headquarters and its direct subordinate units still moved to the north, preparing to transfer all the troops in southern Anhui to the north. The New Fourth Army in southern Anhui initially wanted to cross the Yangtze River from Fanchang, Tongling and other places to the north, and also told the Kuomintang side the marching route, but the Kuomintang side wanted to use the hand of the Japanese army to eliminate the New Fourth Army, and secretly told the Japanese army about the marching route of the New Fourth Army. In this case, the New Fourth Army decided to detour through Maolin and Langxi to Liyang to find an opportunity to go north.
Chiang Kai-shek also ordered Gu Zhutong, commander of the Third Theater, and Shangguan Yunxiang, commander-in-chief of the 32nd Group Army, to gather seven divisions of 80,000 troops to prepare to ambush the Japanese army, and Shangguan Yunxiang also drew heavy troops from the elite troops facing the Japanese army to fight the New Fourth Army. When the Japanese army learned of the Kuomintang's attempt, they sat on the mountain and watched the tiger fight, watching the Chinese army kill each other.
On January 6, 1941, when the New Fourth Army arrived in the Maolin area, it was ambushed by the 52nd Division and the 40th Division of the Nationalist Army, and Commander Ye Ting was determined to attack Xingtan and kill a bloody road to continue to advance. Unfortunately, this opinion was not adopted, and the fighter was delayed, and he was forced to return to the west of Piling by the same route. On January 8, Shangguan Yunxiang ordered the Kuomintang army to launch a general attack on the New Fourth Army, and intensive artillery fire burned the entire mountain. On the night of January 12, Ye Ting personally led his troops to break through, and a unit of the New Third Regiment also rushed into the headquarters of the Nationalist 144th Division. However, due to the fact that the enemy was outnumbered and the deputy commander Xiang Ying repeatedly opposed Ye Ting's breakthrough plan, the best time to break through was lost, and finally the military commander Ye Ting was detained during negotiations with the enemy, and the deputy commander Xiang Ying, the chief of staff Zhou Zikun, and the director of the political department Yuan Guoping were sacrificed, and the New Fourth Army headquarters and two directly subordinate columns were almost completely destroyed.
However, the besieged New Fourth Army was not completely annihilated by the Nationalist army, and the column marching on the left wing at that time did not suffer heavy losses. At the beginning of the battle, the radio was destroyed and lost contact with the military department, but the commander Fu Qiutao did not panic, he quickly called a meeting of cadres, and in just a few hours decided on the breakthrough route, and the last column had more than 2,000 people successfully broke through, leaving seeds for the reconstruction of the New Fourth Army, while the military department lost the best time to break through because of disagreements, leading to the final tragedy. In 1955, Fu Qiutao was awarded the rank of general.