Zeng Youcheng ,a general who was awarded the rank of lieutenant general in the Air Force in 1988 , was a battle-hardened general who left many wonderful battle stories in his military career , the most legendary of which was undoubtedly the strange experience of the New Fourth Army "allying" with the tigers and dealing with the Japanese army during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.
Zeng Youcheng was born in 1924 in Hankou, Hubei Province, and joined the New Fourth Army in 1939. In the 1960s, when he was deputy chief of staff of the Fuzhou Military Region's Air Force, he told people about this strange incident of the Tiger Alliance.
In November 1944, at the age of 20, Zeng Youcheng was already a platoon leader in the third battalion of the third battalion of the second regiment of the Seventh Division of the New Fourth Army. On the orders of his superiors, he led three platoons to uproot the Japanese Taqiao stronghold in Shilidun Township, Wuwei County, Anhui Province.
The Japanese army set up a stronghold in Taqiao, mainly to destroy the communication line of the New Fourth Army and obstruct its anti-Japanese activities. To this end, the Japanese built a turret and built a very strong fortification around it, stationed there by a small team, and sent people to patrol the vicinity regularly every day.
After Zeng Youcheng led people to reconnoiter the enemy situation, he decided to ambush the Japanese patrol first, and then take down the Tower Bridge Gun Tower.
But what is puzzling is that Zeng Youcheng and his soldiers guarded the necessary road of the Japanese army for three consecutive days, but they never saw their figures.
On the fourth day, a civilian husband who was arrested by the Japanese army and repaired the fortifications in the artillery tower for several days was released by the devils.
Zeng Youcheng asked this man about it and learned that the reason why the Japanese army did not come out to patrol for several consecutive days was because a ghost sentry inexplicably disappeared at night, which scared the Japanese army out of the night patrol.
Zeng Youcheng couldn't help but wonder: During this time, the New Fourth Army did not attack the Tower Bridge stronghold at night, and what kind of divine was it that killed the Japanese sentry?
"Maybe it wasn't someone who did it?" The man said.
"It wasn't done by people, it was..." Zeng Youcheng and the warriors were all surprised.
"I heard the devilish translator say that it seems that some beast took away the sentry."
"Beast?" Zeng Youcheng suddenly realized, "That's right, there are indeed tigers in the Ten Mile Dun." ”
He guessed correctly, the mysterious disappearance of the sentry in the Tower Bridge stronghold was indeed the work of the tiger.
This also blames the Japanese army for being unlucky, but building a stronghold near the nest of a South China tiger.
At that time, the tiger had just finished laying its cubs, and it was the time when it was the most aggressive. It was inadvertently disturbed by the Japanese sentry, and could not help but make a big fuss, dragging the sentry back to the nest to feed the cubs.
When the Japanese troops in the turret heard the noise and came out to investigate, there was no shadow of any sentry, only a pool of blood left on the ground.
In the next few days, the Japanese army conducted an in-depth investigation and confirmed that the tiger had done this, and everyone was scared silly.
The reason is simple, the Japanese army is really afraid of such a large beast as a tiger.
As we all know, Japan is an island country surrounded by the sea, and the largest beast in the territory is the dog bear, and it is much smaller than the Chinese dog bear.
It is no exaggeration to say that the adult South China tiger in the eyes of the Japanese army is a giant, and the best of them weigh three or four hundred pounds and are close to 2.5 meters long.
After the sentry was dragged away, the tiger occasionally roared a few voices near the stronghold, which frightened the Japanese army to death, and where did they dare to go out of the stronghold, even patrolling was saved.
Aren't the enemies of the enemy friends? In this way, the tiger actually became an "ally" of the New Fourth Army, and this situation really made Zeng Youcheng cry and laugh.
The Japanese army did not leave the stronghold, and their plan to ambush the Japanese army had to be shelved for the time being.
A few days later, Zeng Youcheng learned of a new situation: suddenly more than a dozen cars drove from Chaohu Lake, sending more than 100 Japanese troops into the Taqiao stronghold.
This made Zeng Youcheng a little embarrassed: the New Fourth Army only had one platoon, and the total number of Japanese troops was nearly 150, so the disparity in strength was so great that it was obviously difficult to deal with it if they really had to hand over.
But the scouts of the New Fourth Army were surprised to find that the Japanese army had not come to attack the New Fourth Army, and they suddenly transferred their troops just to kill the South China Tiger.
The Japanese first dispatched military dogs, sniffed out that the tiger was hiding in a forest not far from the stronghold, more than 100 people ran out to surround the forest, and then searched step by step with guns.
It wasn't long before the scouts suddenly heard a burst of gunfire in the woods, followed by a terrifying roar of tigers.
After a while, they saw the Japanese running out of the woods in panic carrying a stretcher.
It seems that the Japanese army launched a siege, which angered the tiger, and under its counterattack, one of the ghosts was seriously injured.
It is reasonable to say that with so many Japanese troops armed with advanced weapons, it should be no problem to deal with a tiger.
However, many Japanese soldiers saw the living big tiger for the first time, and they were more or less frightened.
In their stunned efforts, the lightning-fast tiger had already escaped from the encirclement, leaving only a few tiger hairs for the Japanese to take back to the mission.
In the next few days, the Japanese army went out several times to hunt and kill the tiger, but each time it failed.
This was because the tiger was frightened by the first siege, its vigilance was greatly increased, and its sense of sight and smell was far more developed than that of humans, and the Japanese army could no longer approach it.
However, the Japanese army had limited troops, and it was impossible for these more than 100 soldiers to spend a long time in the Tower Bridge stronghold because of a tiger, so they withdrew after several failed round-ups.
The Japanese troops who remained in the stronghold had to capture a large number of civilians and set up wooden stakes and barbed wire fences on the perimeter of the turret to prevent tigers from coming to take revenge. Their patrols no longer dared to go out of the turret.
After Zeng Youcheng and the soldiers learned of these situations, they simply "gained inches" and built a military station near the Taqiao stronghold to monitor the movement of the Japanese army and to ensure the operation of the troops' communication lines.
Due to the change of color of the Japanese army, for a long time afterwards, the Tower Bridge stronghold was basically useless, allowing the troops of the New Fourth Army to move freely.
In other words, the "alliance" between the tiger and the New Fourth Army made this Japanese stronghold completely ineffective. As a result, this South China tiger was also called the "Heroic Tiger of The Anti-Japanese Resistance" by the officers and local people of the New Fourth Army.