At 19:00 on April 16, 1950, the Battle of Hainan Island, a rare sea crossing operation in the history of our army, officially began.
The 25,000 elites of the 40th Army and the 43rd Army of the People's Liberation Army's Siye Army, divided into more than 380 wooden sailing ships, marched on Hainan Island with unstoppable momentum.
At 8 o'clock the next day, after breaking through the enemy's three-dimensional defense line of sea and air, all the sea-crossing units of the two armies successfully landed.
The commander-in-chief of Chiang Kai-shek's army stationed on Hainan Island would be Xue Yue, commander-in-chief of the "Hainan Defense Command", who quickly gathered a force of 40,000 or 50,000 people and surrounded the landing troops of the Forty-third Army.
Han Xianchu, a famous general of our army, commanded forty arms to rush to the aid and counter-encircled the enemy in the Meiting area, and the two sides launched a fierce battle in the history of the famous military, which is called the "Decisive Battle of Meiting."
Shortly after the battle began, Zhao Xingyuan, commander of the first battalion of the 353rd Regiment of the 118th Division of the 40th Army of the People's Liberation Army and a famous combat hero, received an order from the regimental headquarters to lead the whole battalion to annihilate the defenders of the southwest mountain of Bailian City.
As for what the enemy's name was and how many troops there were, these questions were not known, so they were not explained in the orders of the regimental headquarters.
Zhao Xingyuan led a battalion of commanders and fighters to march for more than 100 miles in a row, and finally reached the foot of the southwest mountain.
When Zhao Xingyuan climbed to a higher place and took out a telescope to observe the enemy's situation, the scene that appeared in the camera surprised him -- the ant colony-like enemy came out from all directions and surrounded a unit of our army, and the situation was extremely critical!
At this time, Zhao Xingyuan fully understood the intention of his superiors to let him lead the whole battalion to attack the southwest mountain, which would play an important role in leading the besieged friendly forces. If you can occupy the high ground of the southwest mountain, you can launch a condescending attack on the enemy, which will greatly relieve the pressure of the besieged friendly troops, and even successfully rescue them!
Zhao Xingyuan knew very well that this was undoubtedly an extremely arduous and significant task, and he must lead the whole battalion to fight this battle well!
This means that if a battalion wants to deal a heavy blow to the enemy in the southwest mountains, or even annihilate them all, it must win with wisdom and ingenuity, and it cannot fight hard and bury its head in recklessness.
The question is, how can we outwit the enemies of the Southwest Mountains?
Zhao Xingyuan continued to observe everything around him with his telescope by the morning sun in the sky and the light of the enemy's artillery fire, and his brain was also running rapidly, thinking hard about ways to break the enemy.
Suddenly his eyes lit up, his face was joyful, and he almost cried out in excitement, there was a way!
It turned out that he found from the telescope that there were radio antennas set up in the enclosure at the top of the mountain, and behind the mountain were the enemy's field artillery and mountain cannons constantly bombarding.
Zhao Xingyuan immediately judged that the siege at the top of the mountain must be an important command center of the enemy! If this command center is taken, it will not only deal a heavy blow to the enemy, but also hope to rescue the friendly troops who are surrounded under the mountain!
Of course, if we want to hit the enemy's command center, we must not do anything recklessly, because the enemy's mountain artillery is a great threat, and our army is fighting across the sea, without the accompaniment of powerful artillery.
Zhao Xingyuan carefully observed the situation on the battlefield and believed that the enemy's frontal defensive firepower was very fierce, and it was necessary to take it by surprise and carry out a flanking breakthrough.
After consulting with the cadres of the various companies and platoons, he decided to send a platoon of troops with a machine gun squad to rush up from the front to stick to the enemy and entangle and wrestle with the enemy, so as to cover the main force of the battalion to carry out a surprise attack.
Duan Jinxin, deputy company commander of the Second Company, and Dou Yongbo, a platoon leader, took the initiative to ask for help and accepted this important task.
In fact, Duan Jinxin and Dou Yongbo knew very well in their hearts that there was basically no going back to carrying out such a diversionary task.
However, they did not hesitate, and immediately led a reinforced platoon to quietly approach the mountain, rushed to the front of the village with lightning speed, and launched a fierce battle with the enemy.
In just a few minutes, almost all 55 people in the platoon were killed.
When the enemy was fighting with a platoon, Zhao Xingyuan led the main force of a battalion and quickly pounced from the flank upwards, forming an encirclement of the enemy from behind.
Suddenly, the entire hill was full of killing, and the enemy's command post and artillery position were quickly destroyed by a battalion of commanders and fighters.
At this time, Zhao Xingyuan knew that this was the main force in the decisive battle of Meiting, the headquarters of the Sixty-second Army of Chiang Kai-shek's army.
This sudden blow by the first battalion achieved far more than expected results, and it inadvertently neutralized the next miracle - to destroy the enemy's army headquarters and artillery regiment in one fell swoop.
The enemy was already overwhelmed, and when he learned of this news, he was even more chaotic across the board, scrambling to flee.
In this way, the effect of "encircling Wei and saving Zhao" was produced, and the fraternal troops surrounded by the enemy were not only all rescued, but also became a fresh force to pursue and annihilate the enemy.
In the end, the enemy's Sixty-second Army was completely annihilated in the Battle of Hainan Island. After the war, Li Tiejun, commander of the Sixty-second Army, lamented: "The military headquarters guarded by four divisions under me (the 151st Division, the 153rd Division, the 163rd Division, and the Instructor) were actually destroyed by a battalion in the PLA area. ”
In the Battle of the Southwest Mountain in Bailian City, a battalion was originally to rescue friendly troops, but inadvertently made an amazing miracle. And Zhao Xingyuan, the military merit book of the combat hero, has added a brilliant stroke.
It was this battle that made Zhao Xingyuan, an excellent grassroots commander, the number one combat hero of Siye.
In the same year, the whole army held its first heroic model congress, and the delegates were elected at the first level, and Zhao Xingyuan was expected to be elected as the captain of the Shiye heroic model representative team.
It is worth mentioning that at this conference, Zhao Xingyuan won two glorious titles at the same time - "a comprehensive hero of both culture and martial arts" and "a glorious battle flag that will never fade".
In the history of our army, the heroes who have possessed these two honors at the same time can be said to be unique. In 1988, Zhao Xingyuan was awarded the rank of lieutenant general.