In January 1949, 22 divisions of 5 columns of the Northeast Field Army launched the Tianjin Campaign under the command of chief of staff Liu Yalou (founding general).
The primary obstacle for our army to break through the south of Tianjin was a large stronghold called The Town of Ash Dui. There are many open and dark bunkers built in the town, covered with barbed wire, deer, and densely packed with mines on the main traffic routes, which not only form an independent defensive system, but also form a crossfire network that can support each other with the Tianjin city defense.
This is the focus of the construction of the enemy lieutenant general Chen Changjie's "great Tianjin fortress", known as the "ash pile small fortress". The enemy stationed in the town of Ash Dui was 4 security regiments and 1 detachment under Major General Bai Yingjie, with a total of 4,000 people.
It can be said that Ashdui Town is like a sharp canine tooth protruding from Tianjin City, blocking the way of the siege troops. The removal of this canine tooth and the removal of obstacles have become the first chess piece for our army to break through in Jinnan.
Xiao Quanfu, commander of the 137th Division of the 46th Army (founding major general), accepted the heavy responsibility of participating in the capture of the town of Ashdui.
In accordance with the deployment of the army, Xiao Quanfu decided to use the 411th Regiment and the 414th Regiment of the 138th Division to break through south of the town of Ashdui; the 410th Regiment was directly inserted between the town of Ashdui and Tianjin to resist the reinforcements of the enemy in Tianjin City, and to prevent the defenders of The Town of Ash Dui from escaping to the city of Tianjin; the 409th Regiment was the reserve.
In order to ensure the victory of this battle, Xiao Quanfu repeatedly sent reconnaissance personnel to inquire into the enemy's situation and find out the specific defense of the enemy in the town of Ash Pile, but many operations were to no avail.
Seeing that the three days of preparation for the attack were fleeting, Xiao Quanfu was anxious and could not sleep or eat.
Although Zuo Yufeng, commander of the 8th Company of the 411st Regiment, was not a reconnaissance officer, he looked at the division commander and frowned because he could not get the enemy's intelligence, and he was determined to "not do the right thing" and go deep into the tiger's den alone to see if he could get some useful information back.
That night, after all the commanders and fighters of the company had fallen asleep, Zuo Yufeng crossed the forward position alone and quietly crawled down the ditch toward the enemy's stronghold.
Just as he was about to approach the stronghold, he happened to encounter an enemy sergeant squad leader coming to inspect the post. Zuo Yufeng rushed away with an arrow, and before the enemy squad leader could return to his senses, he locked his neck with his left arm.
Then, Zuo Yufeng bluffed and issued an order: "Second squad leader pay attention to the right!" The three squad leaders blocked the left side and opened fire as soon as there was a situation! ”
Zuo Yufeng held the gun in his right hand against the head of the enemy squad leader, squeezed his left arm downwards, clamped his neck like an iron pincer, and whispered, "Quick! Shout into the stronghold and get your men to come out and surrender! ”
The enemy squad leader dared not obey, and shouted in a hurry: "Brothers, brothers... The People's Liberation Army has come in, quickly lay down your weapons and surrender! ”
When the 6 soldiers heard the squad leader shouting this, they were all panicked and all obediently walked out of the stronghold to surrender their weapons.
In the face of a 7 "tongues" that shrugged his head, Xiao Quanfu, who was tossing and turning, suddenly felt that his spirit was multiplied and overjoyed, and he greatly praised Zuo Yufeng: "Although your boy acted without authorization this time and did not do the right thing, I will give you a great merit after the battle!" ”
After some interrogation, Xiao Quanfu made the enemy's defense situation clear, and he immediately found a solution to win the battle and annihilate the enemy: "We must hurry to build a communication trench leading to the town of Ash Dui, so as to ensure that the offensive action of the troops is hidden and rapid, and to reduce casualties." ”
Time is of the essence and the task is arduous. Xiao Quanfu commanded the 411st Regiment to build a traffic trench overnight! The role of this communication trench was soon demonstrated by the practice of combat.
On the night of January 5, the commanders and fighters of the 3rd Battalion of the 411th Regiment, who were on a surprise mission, entered the communication trenches and waited for the attack.
Although the soldiers stayed on the open ground in front of the enemy position for a full 7 hours before officially attacking, they did not suffer any casualties due to the protection of the communication trenches.
At the same time, the 410th Regiment, which was tasked with interspersed blockade, secretly entered between Tianjin and Ash Dui Town according to Xiao Quanfu's instructions, and used a cemetery to build fortifications, preparing to first seize the paper mill northwest of Ash Dui Town before launching a general attack on Ash Dui Town, in order to cut off the retreat of the enemy defending Ash Dui Town.
At 6:30 a.m. on January 6, the 410th Regiment launched a surprise attack on the paper mill. After 3 hours of fierce fighting, the first battalion of the regiment occupied the paper mill; the second battalion occupied the workers' dormitory of the factory; and the 3rd battalion also occupied favorable terrain, ready to resist the breakthrough of the town of Ash Andi and the enemy reinforcements in Tianjin.
At 8 o'clock, the artillery preparations for the main attack on the town of Ash Pile began.
At 8:05, the 411th and 414th regiments simultaneously launched a fierce attack on the town of Ashdui.
At 8:10 a.m., the 8th Company, the 9th Company, and the 7th Company of the 414th Regiment occupied the breakthrough point and continued to develop to the two wings.
The defenders of Ashdui Town frantically counterattacked, in a vain attempt to close the breakthrough. However, several attempts were frustrated.
In the fierce street battles, the enemy in Tianjin repeatedly used artillery fire to support the enemy to break through the town of Ashdui, resulting in the 410 regiment being hit in the abdomen and back, and the situation was extremely critical.
However, the officers and men of the 410th Regiment did not chaotically, fully carried forward the spirit of fighting hard and fighting hard, and stubbornly smashed the two enemies' impacts again and again, just like a copper wall and an iron wall standing in the area of the paper mill, cutting off the road for the enemy to break through and reinforce the town of Ash Dui and Tianjin, and effectively cooperating with the main attack troops in the battle to seize the town of Ashdui.
At 13:00, nearly 4,000 enemy defenders in ash dui town were all annihilated, and more than 3,200 people under Major General Bai Yingjie of the first detachment of Jinnan were captured alive, and 45 60 guns, grenadiers (units), 120 light and heavy machine guns, and 2,090 long and short guns were captured.
The victory in this battle uprooted the largest fortress south of Tianjin and laid the foundation for a great victory in the Tianjin Campaign.
At the battle summary meeting, Xiao Quanfu commended Zuo Yufeng, who had single-handedly broken into the Tiger's Den and captured 7 prisoners, praised him for single-handedly solving the dilemma for the whole division to conquer the town of Ash Dui, and personally gave him a first-class merit.