On December 22, 1935, the Red Second and Sixth Armies marched to Wawutang (wawutang) under the snowy peaks in Hunan (present-day Suining County, Shaoyang City, Hunan Province), and were attacked by the 62nd Division of the Kuomintang Tao Guang Column.
The Fifth Division of the Second Red Army was ordered by its superiors to block this enemy force and cover the safe passage of the main force of the legion.
After receiving the combat task, He Bingyan, commander of the Fifth Division, and Tan Youlin, political commissar, immediately organized the whole division to heroically block the enemy with firepower.
The enemy's Sixty-second Division brought in the main team to engage the Red Fifth Division in a fierce battle. Shells, light and heavy machine guns, bullets, and grenades intertwined into a web of fire and poured westward toward the positions of the Fifth Red Division.
It didn't take long for enemy fire to strip the trees off the hill, and the positions were submerged in smoke, blood and flesh, shrapnel howls, and blood and silt solidified into brown ground.
The enemy positions were littered with fragmented limbs and wounded lying horizontally and vertically. Clouds of smoke and thunderous shouts swept over the positions, a landslide fight.
Political Commissar Tan Youlin led the soldiers to the front, the shells fell around them, the trees around them were blown off, and the frozen soil blocks and shell skins raised by the shells were scattered in the air with a sharp whistle, and some fell on Tan Youlin and the soldiers.
The officers and men of the Fifth Red Division swore to hold their positions to the death, and the enemy's repeated charges were repelled.
On the blood-soaked dirt, there were bare corpses of flesh and blood everywhere, clothes and cotton wool that had not yet burned out, and blood-dripping bayonets and broken gun handles stood on the scorched earth, and the scorching mountain wind filled the air with the smell of blood and blood.
After a brief pause in battle, the enemy launched an even more ferocious attack, and the wave-like impact was like a terrifying wave crashing on the shore. Although the Fifth Red Division repelled the enemy, the casualties were very serious.
Subsequently, the enemy launched another charge, and the shells overwhelmed the sky.
During the fierce battle, Wang Shangrong, a fierce general of the Red Army and the commander of the 15th Regiment, who was in front of the position, was wounded.
What made the division commander He Bingyan and political commissar Tan Youlin even more anxious was that after successive fierce battles, the Red Army soldiers had already paid a great price in casualties, and the ammunition in the hands of the soldiers who were still fighting was running out.
At this time, the situation was very critical - if the Red Fifth Division could not withstand the enemy's onslaught, then the main force of the legion was bound to be attacked by the Kuomintang army, and the red army's growing troops in the Qiansu area of Xiang'echuan would be severely damaged!
It can be said that this battle can only be won, and it will never be allowed to lose!
And the most difficult and critical moment is at stake, the survival of the entire legion!
At this extremely critical moment, Commander He Bingyan left his command position, threw away the shell gun that had run out of bullets, snatched a machine gun from the hands of a soldier, stood up violently, and fired the machine gun bullets at the enemy!
According to common sense, the division commander, as the commander of the whole division, should be responsible for directing the troops to fight, and it is not his primary duty to kill the enemy at the front.
However, no one expected that He Bingyan's seemingly irrational move would actually make the combat effectiveness of the commanders and fighters of the whole division explode in an instant, and the troops would be defeated and won!
"Commander, it's too dangerous to fight like this!"
"Come down, Commander!"
Tan Youlin and the warriors not far behind them saw this scene and exclaimed in unison.
He Bingyan's exhausted face hung loosely, his collapsed eyes looked terrible under his unkempt hair, and he shouted hoarsely, and no one could hear what he was calling.
At this moment, the shells overwhelmed the sky, like a sudden rolling storm across the hill!
The earth made a muffled sound, and shrapnel, sand, broken limbs, flame-burning branches, smoke-filled cotton wool, and broken guns flew everywhere like a whirlwind of death.
At this time, the whole earth was trembling, every inch of the land was emitting a thunderous roar, and death and life were tumbling in the struggle...
Commander He Bingyan's entire right arm was broken, and the large blood hole in the cup mouth exposed Bai Sensen's bones, and blood spurted out of the broken wound. His face was instantly sallow, and then he fainted.
The commander of the division disregarded the danger and the heroic act of killing the enemy in the front shocked the commanders and fighters of the whole division, and they roared at the same time at this moment, and the people with guns shot all the bullets in their guns at the enemy, and the people without guns rushed towards the enemy with their large knives and spears in their hands, setting off a fierce and fierce wave of shouting and killing!
In the face of the overwhelming momentum of the Red Army soldiers, the enemy was terrified and hurriedly retreated. The Fifth Red Division finally repelled all the enemies under the spiritual inspiration of He Bingyan and the continued command of Tan Youlin.
Subsequently, this iron-blooded division covered the main force of the legion to take Wuyang in the south, and the Red Second and Sixth Armies occupied Jiangkou and Shiquan in eastern Qiandong, and then participated in the famous Battle of Wumeng Mountain.
In 1955, the one-armed general He Bingyan was awarded the rank of general. In the decades of the general's military career, his feat of breaking his arm in the Battle of Wawutang was praised endlessly and became a classic shot in military history.