When it comes to Guangxi people, many people will think of the western mountainous areas, and the poverty and backwardness. In fact, guangxi people are known in Chinese history for their bravery and tenacity, ability to fight good battles. Guangxi soldiers were known as "wolf soldiers" during the Ming Dynasty, and they have always been the elite troops of the state, and their heroic bloodiness has always been talked about. In the history of modern times and the Republic of China, the army composed of Guangxi people has created more miracles of war, and I will not list them here!
Now, let's take a look at the glorious achievements left by Guangxi soldiers in the history of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. That is, in the 1939 Japanese army's "Nanning Raiders Operation", the Guangxi military and civilians almost completely annihilated the Japanese "steel army" - the 12th Brigade of the Fifth Division Regiment in the Battle of Kunlun Guanzhong, an important pass about 50 kilometers northeast of Nanning, and also killed Major General Masao Nakamura of the 21st Brigade of the Fifth Division.
This Masao Nakamura is a very big man and is a well-known japanese general. Born in 1892 in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, he attended the Army Early Childhood School, Japan's famous military school preparatory high school. It can be seen that when Nakamura was young, he made it his dream to be a professional soldier.
Later, Masao Nakamura attended the Japanese Army Non-Commissioned Officer School, an alumnus of Chiang Kai-shek, and graduated in May 1913 as a second lieutenant in the Army. Because of his outstanding talent, he went to the Japanese Army University for further study.
You know, the Japanese Army University is a school for training elite Japanese soldiers, and the goal is to train senior officers. Masao Nakamura was able to enter this school, representing a military talent of Great Importance in Japan. Later, Masao Nakamura graduated from the Japanese Army University in November 1920.
At that time, Nakamura Masao was less than thirty years old, but he was able to graduate from a first-class military university early, which fully proved that he was outstanding. Masao Nakamura is not only a countryman who stays in the island country, he has served as a martial arts museum in the French and Italian embassies, and he has also seen the world drink foreign ink.
Moreover, Masao Nakamura has always been highly regarded by the Japanese military. His military career was smooth sailing, such as successive positions as the commander of the 18th Infantry Regiment and the chief of staff of the 12th Division. In 1939, Masao Nakamura was promoted to major general and served as commander of the 21st Brigade of the Fifth Division.
The title of major general in the army, which is equivalent to a deputy ministerial cadre in China today, that is, a deputy position equivalent to the central ministry and bureau, can be described as a figure in Japan's highest authority. Moreover, the Fifth Division regiment was the first-class division of the Japanese army, and the first-class division regiment of the First Division was more than a dozen throughout the country. Moreover, this Fifth Division was also the steel army that defeated the Russian army in the Russo-Japanese War. Masao Nakamura was able to lead this elite force, which can be described as a high-level talent of the Japanese military.
Moreover, at that time, Nakamura Masao was only 48 years old, and Japan had always paid attention to seniority, and rarely served as a division and regimental cadre at the age of fifty. It is conceivable that if he had not died in the Battle of Kunlun Pass, he might have risen all the way to become the top officer in Japan and the highest center of power in Japan.
But the so-called "devil is one foot tall, and the tao is one foot higher." Masao Nakamura, a rising star in the Japanese military circles, was killed by Guangxi soldiers in the Battle of Kunlun Pass, which fully proves that Guangxi soldiers are more powerful. Let's see, what kind of strength did the Guangxi soldiers, in the case of weak strength, kill the Fifth Division of the Steel Army of the Japanese Golden Armor and kill the Japanese military leaders?
First, the origin of the Battle of Guinan
Let's first look at the source of the Battle of Kunlun Pass, which killed Masao Nakamura. Japan, which won the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, relied on the territory of the island countries to secure its position as the hegemon of East Asia and the Far East. In 1937, Japan launched an all-out war of aggression against China, with the goal of unifying East Asia and establishing the so-called "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."
In 1939, the Japanese military saw that this was because after the outbreak of the War of Resistance, along with the fall of large areas of land in the east and central part of China, Chongqing, as the capital of the Nationalist government during the War of Resistance, could only rely on Vietnam and Burma in the southwest to transport materials. In order to cut off the material supply lines of the two major supply lines in southwest China, namely the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and the Yunnan-Burma Railway, it was necessary to occupy Guangxi, which borders Vietnam.
At that time, Japanese War Minister Kyoji Tominaga frantically called the Guinan Campaign: "This is the last battle of the China Incident." This sentence shows the determination of the Japanese army to launch the Guinan Campaign. The "China Incident" here refers to the war of aggression against China, and the "final war" means that the war of aggression against China will be brought to an end through this battle. It can be seen that at that time, the Japanese army wanted to quickly occupy Guangxi with the help of the Battle of Guinan, and then cut off China's transportation routes, strangle the Chinese anti-war government and military and civilians to death, and achieve the purpose of rapidly occupying China.
Therefore, on November 16, 1939, the Japanese army took the lead in capturing the coastal Fangchenggang area, occupying Qinzhou on the 17th, and occupying Nanning on the 24th. On December 4, the Japanese captured Kunlun Pass with the main elite Fifth Division. The Fifth Division was also a first-class elite unit of the Japanese Army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, participating in the battles of Pingxingguan, Taiyuan, Shanghai, Taierzhuang, and Guangzhou in the war of aggression against China, and undertaking the main offensive tasks such as "the bird in the head".
Kunlun Pass is located 50 kilometers northeast of Nanning City, Guangxi Province, between Kunlun Mountain and Lingbing Mountain, that is, in binyang County. According to legend, Kunlun Pass was built in the Qin and Han Dynasties, surrounded by mountains, zhongtong pass, high in the north and low in the south, and dangerous terrain, which is the throat of southern Guangxi to the north-central part of Guilin Liuzhou, and has been a place where soldiers and families must fight since ancient times. The Nationalist government headed by Chiang Kai-shek also knew the importance of victory or defeat at the Battle of Kunlun Pass for the anti-Japanese resistance. Therefore, Chiang Kai-shek also made up his mind and mobilized more than 200,000 troops to attack Kunlun Pass, with the purpose of recovering Kunlun Pass and thus recovering Nanning.
At that time, Du Yuming, who was the main attacker of Kunlun Pass, was Du Yuming, who served as the commander of the Fifth Army of the Thirty-eighth Group Army. The Fifth Army was the Central Army that belonged to Chiang Kai-shek, the first mechanized unit established during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which Chiang Kai-shek had built at great expense. Under the Jurisdiction of the Fifth Army was the 200th Division (Division Commander Dai Anlan), the Honorary First Division (Division Commander and Deputy Commander Zheng Dongguo), the Newly Organized 22nd Division (Division Commander Qiu Qingquan), and the Infantry Supplementary Regiment and the Heavy Regiment.
Although the fifth county is the central army, because the military headquarters is set up in Jeonju County, plus Guangxi recruited many new recruits. This also makes the junior officers and low-level soldiers of this army mostly Guangxi. It can be said that this was a battle between the soldiers composed of Guangxi people and the Japanese army, and it was also a battle between the soldiers and people of Guangxi and the Japanese army under the command of senior Kuomintang officers.
Second, the people of Guangxi won the battle with unity and heroism
We are looking at the Battle of Kunlun Pass, which is also a battle with a huge disparity in strength. At that time, in order to defend the territory of Kunlun Pass, the Japanese army built strong bunkers, trenches, bunkers and other fortress fortifications at the Kunlun Pass Pass and the mountains full of mountains. In the Battle of Kunlun Pass, the initial number of troops involved in the battle was more than 30,000, and in the later period it increased to more than 70,000. At that time, defending Kunlun Pass was not only the Fifth Division of Japan's elite troops, well-armed, coupled with the cooperation of the air force and the naval fleet, which could be described as strong combat strength and arrogance.
At that time, the people of Guangxi, relying on the unity and heroism of the same enemy, defeated the arrogant Japanese invaders. In order to assist the Chinese army in resisting Japan, the mountain post roads and field paths in Kunlun Pass were groups of local people, both men, women and children, carrying rice, vegetables, eggs, rice dumplings, sugar cane, and tea to the front line to supply the patriotic soldiers' food and personally go to comfort the patriotic soldiers.
At that time, there were also the Guangxi Anti-Japanese Student Army, which was composed of CPC members as the backbone, the nanning and other local war workers' regiments, and the enthusiastic young people of the Guangxi Local Construction Cadre School Field Service Corps, who also personally rushed to the front positions of Kunlun Pass and the rear of the Japanese army to publicize and mobilize the broad masses to resist Japan together. At the same time, these student armies also organized various consolation teams or transport teams to cooperate with the regular Kuomintang troops.
It can be said that at that time, the enthusiasm of the Chinese military and civilians in the anti-Japanese battle in Kunlun Pass was high. The support of the people of Guangxi for the Anti-Japanese Resistance of the Chinese Army can be seen from the example of the "Fire Bull Array". At that time, the Fifth Army of the Nationalist Army fought with the Japanese for many days, sacrificing many soldiers, and the hope of victory was far away. Therefore, Du Yuming thought of a tactic, that is, the "fire bull array", which requires more than a hundred cows.
But for farmers, cattle are the work of ploughing the fields and the family's greatest possessions. At that time, senior Chinese military officials also felt that the implementation of this tactic required ordinary people to cut off their own assets, which was very difficult. Unexpectedly, however, the farmers of the local Binyang County heard that more than 100 cattle needed to be collected to attack the Japanese army, and they expressed their willingness to donate cattle and give strong support.
Moreover, when a donated cow sneaks home halfway, the owner of the cow hears it and catches the cow back with his family and rushes it to the front line together. In the end, the local farmers donated a total of 180 cattle to fight the Japanese Kou, and looking at the dedication of the people, the military commander Du Yuming was also moved.
In order not to affect the implementation of the "Fire Bull Array" tactic, the township chief of Binyang County at that time organized 45 rural youths and other people to risk their lives to cooperate with the sappers of the Fifth Army of the Nationalist Army. This kind of coordination is very dangerous, at the risk of enemy bombs being killed and machine gun fire being sacrificed. But these recruited young men were fearless and brave enough to fight alongside the officers of the Fifth Army.
According to incomplete statistics after the war, in order to support the anti-Japanese resistance in the Binyang area of Kunlun Pass at that time, more than 60,000 young and strong laborers and a large number of vehicles were put into support activities, and more than 300 people directly participated in the army. Among them, about 200 people sacrificed their precious lives. In order to support the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the people took the initiative to transport ammunition for officers and men countless times, transported tens of thousands of wounded people, purchased 2.7 million kilograms of military grain, donated more than 2,100 kilograms of various meats, cultivated hundreds of cattle, donated more than 10,000 kilograms of ginger, donated 25,000 yuan, and donated 315 kilograms of grain.
The third army and civilians joined forces and killed Masao Nakamura
At dawn on December 18, 1939, under the command of Commander Du Yuming, the Kuomintang Fifth Army launched an attack on the enemy troops stationed at Kunlun Pass, and after a fierce battle, repeated rushes and short troops, the Nationalist army finally occupied Kunlun Pass in the evening.
At that time, Imamura Tsu, the commander of the Fifth Division of the Japanese Twenty-second Army sitting in Nanning, heard the news of the loss of Kunlun Pass, and immediately sent a large number of aircraft reinforcements, sending Nakamura Masao to lead the elite troops, in a vain attempt to retake Kunlun Pass.
At 10:00 a.m. on December 20, Nakamura masao led the 5th Division to support Kunlun Pass. When he reached Binyang Liutang, he was blocked by a regiment of the newly organized 22nd Division of the Nationalist Army, and he could not move for two days, and was in a dilemma. At this time, the Japanese army dispatched a number of aircraft to bomb kunlun pass, a position captured by the nationalist army. At the same time, supplies were also airdropped to reinforced Japanese troops. Fortunately, the materials dropped by the air were intercepted by the Nationalist army and the local people, which made the reinforcement Japanese army in an embarrassing situation of no food and no materials.
At that time, in order to get rid of the embarrassing situation, the Japanese major general Masao Nakamura led more than 700 people to forcibly break through, secretly encircling the mountain road from Qitang to Batang to explore and advance, and encountered the attack of the Nationalist army. Only in the early morning of the 22nd could he retreat to the high ground north of Qitang to temporarily get rid of the pursuit of the Nationalist army.
Nakamura Masao's first attack was at 11:00 a.m. on December 23, about 2 kilometers northwest of Qitang, when he was wounded by a bullet fired by the Nationalist army, injuring him on the left cheek of his face. After a simple operation by the marching doctor, he continued along the country road.
On the afternoon of December 24, when Masao Nakamura was observing the terrain on the mountain lawn, Zheng Tingji, the commander of the 3rd Regiment of the Honorary First Division of the Nationalist Army, saw through a telescope that there was a Japanese officer speaking on the lawn next to the road, and ordered all the machine guns to be fired here.
The Japanese officer that Zheng Tingdi saw through the telescope was Masao Nakamura. Due to Zheng Tingji's gun fire, the Japanese army led by Masao Nakamura was attacked. Some of the Japanese were shot and killed, some escaped, and Masao Nakamura was also shot and wounded on the spot. At that time, the bullet penetrated Masao Nakamura's left chest to the abdomen, and part of his liver was also exposed to the ground, and the blood immediately poured down.
At that time, Japanese medical personnel sent Masao Nakamura to a house in a nearby street (formerly Jiutang Elementary School, now Jiutang Middle School) for surgery and rescue. Because the faint light of the house attracted the attention of nearby villagers, some villagers also reported it to Zheng Tingji, an officer in the Nationalist Army. Zheng Tingji observed from a distance, estimating that the house was a fleeing Japanese army, and ordered the artillery to fire forward.
Therefore, when the shells fell on the roof, they were surrounded by tiles and dust, and the smoke was scattered, which also hindered the operation of the military doctor. Due to the prolonged duration of surgery, as well as wound infection. In the end, masao Nakamura, the leader of the invasion and the executioner stained with Chinese blood, stopped breathing at 5:18 a.m. on December 25, 1939, ending his life of sin and shame.
Fourth ending
As the saying goes: "People's hearts move together.". It was the concerted efforts of the military and people of Guangxi, in coordination with the Kuomintang officers, who united as one to defeat the Fifth Division, which became famous in the First World War, and killed Masao Nakamura, who claimed to be "invincible in killing all over the world".
As Masao Nakamura wrote in his final battlefield diary on the night of December 23:
"The reason why the Twelfth Brigade of the Fifth Division of the Imperial Army won the title of Steel Army in the Russo-Japanese War was because our tenacity defeated the tenacity of the Russians. But, at Kunlun Pass, I should admit that I met an army stronger than Russia. ”
The brave and tenacious army praised by Masao Nakamura was the Fifth Army of the Nationalist Army led by Du Yuming, and the lower officers and soldiers were all from Guangxi. From the course of the operation, it can be seen that it is precisely the concerted efforts of the officers and men of Guangxi and the people that have created a more powerful combat force than the Russian army and become the tiger and wolf division that the Japanese army fears.
After Masao Nakamura was killed, the morale of the Japanese troops stationed in the rest of Kunlun Pass was weakened. Subsequently, the Fifth County of our army has maintained a strong enthusiasm for fighting, and with the support of the people in various places, after twelve days of fighting, Kunlun Pass was finally recovered on the last day of 1939.
In this Battle of Kunlun Pass, our army annihilated more than 4,000 enemy troops, causing more than 85% of the officers and casualties of the entire 21st Brigade of the Japanese Army, except for Major General Masao Nakamura. For this reason, the Fifth Army of the Nationalist Army also paid the price of 10,000 casualties.
In 1942, Commander Du Yuming built a cemetery for the soldiers of the Fifth Army who died in the Battle of Kunlun Pass and wrote an inscription of more than 400 words. When the reporter came to interview, Du Yuming also said at that time:
"You have all seen the victory of this War of Resistance on the battlefield, so please publicize it truthfully and do not need to exaggerate it. However, there is one point that needs to be emphasized, that is, it is necessary to emphasize that the army is the armed force of the people, and the people are the fathers and elders of the army. Therefore, if you want to record this victory, you must take a stroke, because the victory of this army is actually a victory of the people. ”
Commander Du Yuming concluded that this battle was a victory for the people, and it was also a high praise and affirmation for the contributions made by the people of Guangxi to the War of Resistance.
At that time, Du Yuming also erected a tombstone for major general Masao Nakamura, who was killed in the Japanese army, at the Kunlun Pass Martyrs' Tomb, which read:
"The tomb of Major General Masao Nakamura, who was killed in the Battle of Kunlun Pass."
This tombstone is also a historical witness to the Japanese invasion of China and its shameful end.
Masao Nakamura's tombstone
Probably it is the infection of the spirit of unity of Nakamura Masao's family for Chinese. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, three members of Nakamura Masao's family traveled thousands of miles to Kunlun Pass in Binyang County, Guangxi Province, to pay homage to the tomb and express their gratitude to the Chinese people for their kindness to Japanese war criminals.
It can be seen that the heroism of the Guangxi people naturally created the glory of the victory in the Battle of Kunlun Pass, and also made the families of Japanese war criminals deeply feel guilty. We believe that the heroic spirit of Guangxi people not only creates a legend that Guangxi people can fight a good battle, but also will inevitably bring a better blue sky for the development of Guangxi people!