On July 7, 1938, a regiment of the Kuomintang 10th Division was besieged by the Japanese army in the Fanting area of Qingcheng County (present-day Yicheng County), Shanxi, and appealed to the 3rd Column (later reorganized into the Taihang 3rd Military Subdistrict of the Eighth Route Army) led by the underground Communist Party member Rong Zi and the Shanxi New Army under the leadership of rongzi.
At that time, the main force of the decisive third column was relatively far away from Fanting, and the column commander Rong Zi and for a moment did not have time to draw the main force, so he ordered Chen Xiao, the instructor of the tenth guerrilla detachment of the decisive third column, to lead the detachment to the nearest aid to friendly troops.
Unexpectedly, when the column's messengers conveyed this order, they actually mistook "Fan Ting" as "Fan Dian".
In general, the misplaced order was extremely rare in the war years. However, due to the extreme urgency of the situation at that time, Rong Zihe hurriedly ordered the order to be dispatched as soon as possible in order to send out the troops without confirmation.
And this messenger soldier happened to go to Fan Ting often, was not familiar with Fan Ting, and was anxious to complete the task, and the ghost in his brain made the god messenger generally misremember the word "Fan Ting", so that he passed on the wrong order in a vague way.
Since the detachment leader at that time, Chen Yanqing, was recuperating from his wounds, the tenth guerrilla detachment was actually commanded by Chen Xiaolai. After receiving this wrong order, he knew that the current was a critical period of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists, and it was necessary to go all out to rescue the friendly troops, so he did not dare to slacken off at all, and immediately led his troops to Fandian.
Unexpectedly, after the scouts of the ten detachments arrived at Fandian, they found that the wind and waves in the vicinity were calm and there was no sign of the nationalist army being surrounded.
After Chen Xiao learned of this information, he was puzzled: Could it be that the order given by the column commander was wrong?
He asked the scouts to investigate again to see if the Japanese siege of the Nationalists was over.
However, after visiting the surrounding villages, the scouts confirmed that there had been no fighting in the Fandian area recently.
Chen Xiao thought bitterly for a long time, and finally realized that it was most likely that the messenger sent by the column commander had passed on the wrong order, but because the ten detachments were not equipped with communication equipment such as radios and telephones at that time, it was too late to send someone to ask the column leader for instructions.
Under such circumstances, Chen Xiao made a decisive decision: on the one hand, he sent someone to verify the situation with the leader of the column, and on the other hand, he would attack Fandian by mistake, and destroy this enemy first!
Fandian originally stationed two squadrons of the Japanese army, and most of the squadrons were transferred two days ago, plus a cavalry detachment and station personnel, and more than 130 people. There are more than 150 people in the ten detachments, and it can be said that the strength of the two sides is basically equal.
After personally reconnoitring the terrain at fandian stronghold, Chen Xiao made combat arrangements: a company commander, Zhao Baoshan, led 10 squads to attack from the front of the stronghold, that is, from the northeast; Chen Xiao took the southwest of the village to cooperate and acted at the opportunity.
After Chen Xiao took the troops to the designated position, he found that the wall was very high and it was not easy to climb. Walking east along the wall, I suddenly found a small hole under the wall with a diameter of more than a foot, which was used by villagers to enter and exit animals such as cats and dogs.
Chen Xiaoming's team members widened this hole slightly, and then drilled into it one by one, and then through an open field, they reached the edge of the second wall.
Only to see that the enemy at the gate of the village had released double guards, the team members sneaked to a small land temple near the gate of the village to observe, a large soldier standing, a sentry sitting at the base of the wall and dozing off.
Chen Xiao let one squad take cover, and the others were ready to pounce on the sentry.
Unexpectedly, as soon as this side moved together, one of the soldiers in the cover squad accidentally went off the fire, frightening the enemy sentry to jump up and shoot in a hurry, shouting while stepping into the gate of the village to seal the door. The team members sped forward, preemptively stuck in the gate and rushed in.
At this time, the main attack troops led by Zhao Baoshan in the northeast heard the sound of gunfire, and for a while there was also a loud gunfire.
On that day, it was dark, the team members entered and occupied a courtyard behind, did not see the enemy, and were searching, suddenly there was a machine gun sound overhead, just returned a shot, and suddenly several high places also shot machine guns.
Only by the light of the gunfire could it be seen clearly that in order to prevent our army from sneaking in, the enemy put machine guns on several trees and formed a fire net to block the key place.
Chen Xiao suddenly observed that there were just a few wheat straw stacks next to the big tree near the enemy's machine gun, and he was in a hurry and ordered the team members to attack with fire.
In an instant, the wheat straw pile was ignited, and the fire was soaring, crackling, and the smoke was burning, so that the enemy fell from the tree and escaped with a rolling belt.
The troops led by Zhao Baoshan over there took advantage of the situation to plunge in and hit hard, and the enemy saw that the situation was not good, and did not know the situation of our army, so they quickly broke through the encirclement and fled to Zhang Fan's stronghold 20 miles away.
This small guerrilla group finally captured the enemy Fandian military station, and also captured a lot of guns, ammunition, food, clothing and other booty. Some logistics and political workers who were waiting outside the village also heard the noise and mobilized some people to help carry them.
The battle had just been fought, and the people sent to the column to verify the situation had also returned, and Chen Xiao knew that it was indeed the messengers who had passed on the wrong order, and that what should have been "Fan Ting" had been said to be "Fan Dian".
Just as Chen Xiao was preparing to send people to Fan Ting to rescue friendly troops, the column commander Rong Zihe sent some good news: Due to the great momentum of the ten detachments attacking Fan dian, the Japanese troops besieging Fan Ting were afraid of being attacked by our army, and they hurriedly withdrew from Fan Ting in the situation where they had the original superiority.
That is to say, the ten detachments mistakenly attacked Fandian by mistake, and actually made a crooked attack to relieve the siege and make meritorious contributions to the friendly forces, which can be said to be a rather peculiar example in the history of the War of Resistance.
After the end of this battle, after the death of the commander of the Third Column, the Kuomintang Second Theater Command gave a general order to commend the ten detachments that successfully rescued the friendly troops, and also gave Chen Xiaoji, the instructor of the detachment, a great meritorious service.
Reference historical materials: "Shanxi Youth Resisted the Enemy and Died in the Third Column Historical Materials", "Shanxi New Army Decisive Death Third Column Memoirs" and so on