In the autumn of 1932, at the Battle of Nanxiong Shuikou in Guangdong Province, the Fifth Red Army was ordered to pursue six divisions of the Guangdong warlord Chen Jitang.
Zhao Bosheng, chief of staff of the Fifth Red Army and commander of the Thirteenth Army, personally led three regiments to pursue more than 20,000 people led by Wu Qiwei, commander of chiang's fourth army, overnight.
At first, the remnants of Wu Qiwei, who had been beaten badly by the Red First Army and the Red Third Army, fled south in a desperate way.
Later, Wu Qiwei saw that the Red Army was clinging to it, and that the strength of the red army was only about one-sixth of his strength, so he simply did not run, ordered the troops to build fortifications, and posed a posture of desperately fighting with the Red Army.
After Zhao Bosheng learned of these situations, he commanded the Red Army to seize the favorable terrain and strike at the enemy fiercely.
The enemy's strength was equivalent to six times that of the Red Army, and the disparity between the enemy and us was too great, and the fierce battle lasted for three days and three nights, and there was still no distinction between victory and defeat.
Zhao Bosheng saw that the soldiers were all red-eyed, and there were not many weapons and ammunition, so he decided to change the method of combat and win by coincidence.
He thought about it again and again, and immediately found three regimental commanders to analyze the battle situation together.
Zhao Bosheng first listened to the reports of the regimental commanders, and then said decisively: "We must quickly resolve the battle, and if we continue to fight, we will suffer losses." We have few people, we can't fight hard, we can only outwit. I have an idea, do you think it's okay? ”
At this point, he opened the map he had just drawn, which marked the deployment of enemy and enemy forces.
Everyone gathered around, and Zhao Bosheng said so and so, and several regiment leaders even claimed praise, saying: "Good plan, good plan, just do it!" ”
Near dusk, one company of the Red Army, some two platoons, divided into dozens of detachments, quietly moved toward the enemy's position, forming a semi-circular encirclement of the enemy.
With Zhao Bosheng's order, the Red Army launched a fierce attack on the enemy, and mortars, machine guns, and grenades opened fire at the same time, causing the enemy to turn around blindfolded and shrinking the position a lot.
At this time, the sky gradually darkened, the enemy was trying to organize a counterattack, the Red Army suddenly stopped the attack, and the gunfire disappeared.
According to Zhao Bosheng's orders, each squad lit more than a dozen bonfires on their respective positions. Piles of fire reflected half the sky, and the warriors lay on the ground, stretched their limbs, and even slept.
When Wu Qiwei saw this scene, he naturally became suspicious: The Red Army's attack was very fierce at dusk, and the battle was not over at this moment, so why did they suddenly stop attacking and sleep on the position? What's going on here?
He asked the staff officers around him, and the staff officers were also confused for a while, scratching their ears and scratching their cheeks one by one, saying that it might be the reinforcements of the Red Army arriving, and advocated breaking through the siege overnight.
Wu Qiwei asked them to choose the direction of the breakthrough, and some of the staff officers said east and some said west.
Wu Qiwei groaned for half a minute, and had no choice but to say: "The Red Army is haunted, the situation is unknown, if it acts rashly, it will inevitably be calculated; and our army is not accustomed to night fighting, and the Red Army may have reinforcements." It is better to hold the position for the time being, sit back and wait until the situation is discovered before making a decision. ”
In this way, a strange scene appeared on the battlefield -- the enemy was overwhelmed by the Red Army that had slept a lot, and they did not dare to break through, but they were afraid that the Red Army would suddenly launch an attack at night, so they had to wait with their eyes open and big guns in their arms.
By the second half of the night, the bonfires on the Red Army's positions were still burning, and the surrounding area was quiet, and the Red Army obviously had no intention of attacking.
Slowly, the enemy soldiers let down their guard and fought with their upper and lower eyelids.
Speaking of the Red Army soldiers, I slept beautifully. Just as the enemy soldiers were napping, they quietly gathered, divided into left, center, and right roads, and touched the enemy's position.
Before leaving, Staff Officer Huang Shunjie said to Zhao Bosheng: "Chief of Staff, you have not slept all night, I went to the front to accompany the army to raid, there is a situation at any time to report to you, you can rest assured for a while." ”
"How does that work?" While sorting out his clothes and hats, Zhao Bosheng ordered the guards to bring weapons, and said to Huang Shunjie: "I don't have the habit of sitting in the command headquarters to direct the battle, or you come to the command headquarters, pay attention to summarizing the situation on all sides, and report to me at any time, I am in the middle road." ”
At dawn, the enemy was sleeping dazedly with a gun, when suddenly a shout sounded from all directions: "The Red Army has arrived, and you are surrounded!" "Shoot and don't kill!" "The Red Army gave preferential treatment to prisoners..."
With the shouts, the Red Army soldiers rushed to the front like fierce tigers.
The enemy thought that it was really the arrival of the red army's large troops, and some turned around and ran; some ran to the red army queue in a vacuum...
The Red Army soldiers were not at all polite and killed a painful one. The enemy pushed me and bumped, and many people were tripped and fell.
Just as the so-called "defeat of the army is like a mountain," the enemy soldiers on the front position are in chaos, and the rear is also confused and cannot be blocked by the officials who are running around in a chaotic manner.
Although Zhao Bosheng was hit by a stray bullet in his left arm, he did not care, no matter how much the guards persuaded him, he refused to go down to rest.
Inspired by Zhao Bosheng's spirit, the officers and men of the Red Army rushed forward and killed even more courageously, defeating the enemy and defeating them.
After the battle, Zhao Bosheng commanded the troops to suddenly stop attacking, and the strange tactic of sleeping on the position spread among the red army units.
The generals praised one after another: Chief of Staff Zhao's strange move was really wonderful, the Red Army soldiers slept on the position, and even overwhelmed the enemy army, and finally defeated the enemy army with six times the strength and won a big victory.
Shortly after the end of the Battle of Nanxiong Shuikou, it was the first anniversary of the birth of the Fifth Red Army and the first anniversary of Ning Duqi (Yi). The Central Military Commission decided to award Zhao Bosheng a general commendation and a Red Banner Medal among all the Red Army.
It is worth mentioning that in the Battle of Changyuan Temple in January 1933, Zhao Bosheng died heroically at the age of 36. In 2009, he was named one of the "100 Heroic Models who made outstanding contributions to the founding of New China".