In October 1945, the number of the 386th Brigade of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army was cancelled, as we all know, the anti-Japanese ace of the 386th Brigade, the Japanese army once shouted the slogan of "specializing in the 386 Brigade", the first brigade commander of the brigade was General Chen Geng, so what happened after the cancellation of the brigade number?
After the cancellation of the "386 Brigade", the new name of the unit was the 10th Brigade of the 4th Column of Liu Deng's Army, when Chen Geng was promoted to commander of the 4th Column, and the commander of the newly reorganized 10th Brigade was Zhou Xihan, who was originally the chief of staff of the 386 Brigade and Chen Geng's right-hand man.
Among the generals of the Eighth Route Army, Zhou Xihan was quite prestigious, and Liu Bocheng even called him "Zhao Zilong", that is, in the Hundred Regiments War, the eighth route army won the first stage of victory, the Japanese army sent elite troops to retaliate, and the North China Bureau led by Liu Bocheng was pursued by the enemy.
At that time, Liu Bocheng had only one battalion of guards around him, and when Liu Bocheng was worried, Zhou Xihan led the army to kill, and Liu Bocheng said happily: "Zhao Zilong is coming!" Zhou Xihan led his troops to engage the Japanese army, fought fiercely until dark, and successfully covered the retreat of Liu Bocheng and other organ personnel.
Zhou Xihan's bravery was even more vividly manifested in the Liberation War, and when fighting the Huang Wei Corps, the last enemy stronghold in the southeast of Shuangduiji at that time was called Yang Weizi, which contained the headquarters of Chiang Kai-shek's 14th Army and the 10th and 85th Divisions under it, which were well-equipped troops.
Xiong Shouchun, commander of the enemy's 14th Army, stubbornly resisted and did not surrender, and wanted to rely on Yang Weizi's area to hold out openly until reinforcements arrived, Zhou Xihan naturally did not give the enemy a chance, and he commanded his troops to adopt "trench tactics", that is, Yang Weizi dug many communication trenches to the east, north and west.
The trench gradually moved closer to the enemy in Yang Weizi, until December 11, 1948, when Zhou Xihan commanded his troops to dig a traffic network around Yang Weizi, Xiong Shouchun was completely surrounded inside and could not move, and at 4 p.m. on December 11, the attack on Yang Weizi began.
Hundreds of artillery pieces of our army opened fire together, and because the trenches were close to the enemy, the enemy was all covered by the artillery fire of our army, and suddenly the enemy Yang Weizi became a sea of fire, and along with the smoke of gunfire, Zhou Xihan launched an attack under his command, and it took only ten minutes to capture the enemy position of Yang Weizi.
After killing the enemy 14th Army commander Xiong Shouchun, on December 13, Zhou Xihan once again commanded his troops to attack Yang Wenzhuang, the last stronghold northeast of Huang Wei's corps, and in this crucial battle, Chen Geng personally went to Zhou Xihan to supervise the battle, and Zhou Xihan finally conquered Yang Wenzhuang.
Subsequently, Huang Wei's army was completely annihilated, and in his later years, Zhou Xihan often said: "Although Huang Wei was not captured by my brigade, he was defeated by Lao Tzu!" According to statistics, he captured a total of 64 Kuomintang general-level officers in the Liberation War, and in 1955, Zhou Xihan was awarded the rank of lieutenant general.