In the summer of 1941, in order to deal with the New Fourth Army, the Japanese army specially dispatched Major General Nanpu Xiangji, who was known for his proficiency in the art of war, and asked him to lead his carefully trained independent Twelfth Mixed Brigade to attack the Funing and Yancheng areas in northern Jiangsu and launch a so-called "great sweep", claiming to adopt the means of "blitzkrieg warfare" to "destroy" the rebuilt New Fourth Army headquarters in one fell swoop.
In late July, after some planning, Nanpu Xiangji mobilized more than 170 million people and horses, and successively invaded Yancheng and Shanggang.
In the face of the Japanese army's step-by-step approach, the officers and men of the New Fourth Army fought with the enemy and fought back, and launched a vigorous anti-"sweeping" war.
Just when the New Fourth Army was heroically resisting the Japanese army, Han Deloitte, a diehard member of Chiang Kai-shek's army who was originally sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger fight, took advantage of the fire to loot and mobilized troops to suddenly attack the flank of the New Fourth Army.
As a result, the New Fourth Army headquarters fell into the predicament of being attacked by the enemy on its stomach and back, and the situation was extremely critical!
At that time, Ye Fei, a famous general of the New Fourth Army and the commander of the first brigade of the First Division (who became the founding general in 1955), led the troops to the area of Guocun, although he was bent on solving the danger of the military headquarters, but he was too far away from the military headquarters, and the whip was out of reach, so he could only do it in a hurry.
When many regimental and battalion cadres learned of Han Deloitte's news of taking advantage of the danger of others, they were all angry, anxious, and indignant.
The crowd was like a needle in a haystack, and they were all worried about the current crisis.
As we all know, the old military headquarters of the New Fourth Army was destroyed at the hands of the despicable and shameless Chiang Kai-shek Army, and now the new army department has been rebuilt with great difficulty, and if it is attacked by them, the consequences are really unimaginable!
It's tolerable, it's intolerable! The more they thought about it, the more angry they became, the more anxious they became, and they could not contain the anger in their hearts, and decided that no matter how much difficulty they overcame, they would also go to the rescue headquarters as soon as possible.
But how exactly should this rescue operation be carried out?
As an excellent military commander, the main general Ye Fei quickly thought of a good way--since it was too late to rush over to directly rescue the military department, it was better to learn from the wisdom of the ancient art of war -- to encircle Wei and save Zhao.
The main point of this move is to attack the enemy's salvation, that is, to attack the rear of the Japanese army's empty strength.
At that time, there were many Japanese puppet army strongholds along the Yangtze River, but most of these troops had been dispatched by Nanpu Xiangji to carry out "sweeping", and if we took the form of a surprise attack on some of its important strongholds, it was possible to force Nanpu Xiangji to return to the rescue.
After repeated research, Ye Fei decided to select this target as the enemy's stronghold in Guxi. A regiment of puppet troops was stationed here, with more than 1,000 troops.
Why do many troops in Guxi still have to fight it? Because this is a very important geographical stronghold, it is close to the important town of Huangqiao in central China, if guxi is conquered, it will form a threat to the yellow bridge, which will affect the strategic layout of the Japanese army, and Nanpu will not fail to understand this.
Ye Fei concluded that once our army attacked Guxi, it was very likely that Nanpu would return to the division to rescue them.
In addition, from the perspective of troop strength, Ye Fei had two regiments under him at that time, and he also had a military superiority over the enemy of Guxi.
Ye Fei agreed with the cadres that without further ado, action would be taken that night. However, he still had one more thing to do, and that was to report to his superiors.
Unexpectedly, shortly after Ye Fei sent a telegram to the division headquarters, he received a reply from Commander Su Yu, clearly stating that he did not agree to Ye Fei going to fight Guxi.
The reason given by the commander of the Su Division was that according to the situation of the enemy and us, the first brigade may not be able to conquer the Guxi stronghold. In case the attack is not successful, it is likely to cause considerable casualties to the first brigade.
In fact, this statement is not unfounded, and the Battle of Caodian more than eight months ago is an example worth reflecting on.
A brigade of people was bent on fighting, but the division commander did not agree, which made Ye Fei embarrassed.
He knew that the key point in the division commander's disagreement with the fight was that he thought that a brigade might not be able to defeat Guxi, but he studied it repeatedly and concluded that the battle of using two regiments against the puppet army and one regiment was completely certain, and it was reasonable to fight.
But the division commander did not agree, and he could not disobey the military order, right? At this time, the full support of many of his generals prompted Ye Fei to make up his mind.
Liao Zhengguo, commander of the First Brigade and the Second Regiment, pointed out: "The situation in Guxi is completely different from that in Caodian, where the fortifications are not strong, and it is not difficult to conquer it. ”
Wang Xuanchun, the leader of the regiment, also believed: "We have fought with these puppet armies many times in the past, and once they break through the frontier, they will easily collapse. ”
Cadres of other regiments and battalions also said one after another that our army was fully sure of conquering Guxi.
Under such circumstances, Ye Fei decided categorically: "We must not watch the army be defeated by the enemy, and this battle must be fought even at the risk of disobeying military orders!" In case something goes wrong, I'll take full responsibility! ”
Everyone said, "Something went wrong, and together we take responsibility!" ”
That night, Ye Fei led a brigade to attack decisively, and the result was that the battle was very smooth, and it took only two hours to completely annihilate one regiment of the Guxi defenders, while the two regiments of our army had less than 10 casualties.
The commander of the division did not agree to fight this battle, but Ye Fei took the risk of disobeying the military order and took a decisive action, leading a brigade of soldiers to win easily!
After capturing Guxi, Ye Fei decided to strike iron while it was hot and march on the victory. Under his personal command and the cooperation of local armed forces, the soldiers of the First Brigade first conquered the Yellow Bridge in one fell swoop, and then besieged taixing City.
In order to completely achieve the goal of "encircling Wei and saving Zhao", Ye Fei personally led the main force of the first brigade into Taizhou City, the "old nest" of Nanpu Xiangji, and formed a three-sided encirclement of the headquarters of his brigade.
Ye Fei's series of actions made Nanpu Xiangji furious, and he had to abandon his plan to destroy the New Fourth Army headquarters, withdraw the main force from the front line of Funing and Yancheng, and quickly return to Taizhou.
When Nanpu was only half a day away from returning to Taizhou, Ye Fei adopted the tactic of "the enemy advancing and retreating" and withdrew his troops from Taizhou and Taixing in time. At this point, Ye Fei's "fighting method" with Nanpu Xiangji ended with Ye Fei's great victory and The complete failure of Nanpu Xiangji's plot. This is undoubtedly a victory in the history of the military.