In December 1941, the 1st Regiment of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army was ordered to move to the area of Ligou and Gaojiajia in the Yimeng Mountains of Shandong Province for recuperation.
One morning, a battalion commander, Wang Wenxuan (Shouguang, Shandong, who later became a founding major general), went to the village entrance in plain clothes to check the sentry, and suddenly saw three people dressed as peasants appearing on the road, walking two in front of each other. But their demeanor looked a little strange: one moment looking straight at the village in shock, the next moment saying something.
When the three of them found that Wang Wenxuan was looking at them, they suddenly accelerated their pace and walked in a panic towards the Qingtuo Temple.
Wang Wenxuan looked at the back of the three people walking away, and his heart was suspicious. He was a very alert veteran soldier, and based on past experience, he judged that these three people were likely to have problems, perhaps finding that there were troops stationed in the village and going to report to the Japanese army. He immediately returned to the battalion headquarters and ordered all his men to prepare for battle.
Sure enough, as Wang Wenxuan expected, he then received information from the scouts of the regimental headquarters: a small group of Japanese troops in the Qingtuo Temple stronghold led more than 60 puppet troops to quietly attack along the river. It seems that the enemy did not know the strength of the Eighth Route Army, and there was only one battalion and one company stationed along the front river.
Wang Wenxuan decided to "shell the golden cicada" first, and immediately ordered a company to quickly move and hide, and when the Japanese puppet army that came to sneak in sneaked into the qianheyan village, they set up an ambush on the way back to the Qingtuo Temple.
It didn't take long for the enemy to show its head, with more than 60 puppet troops in front of them opening the way, followed by a small group of devils flying the sun flag straight to the front river.
However, when the enemy entered the village, what they saw was unexpected: there was not a single figure in the village, and every household was empty. The enemy walked around the village and found nothing, so he had to take out the chickens and ducks raised by the common people.
After half an hour, Wang Wenxuan looked far away from the edge of the front river, and a column of smoke rising above the front river was the enemy setting fire to the house, which was a signal for them to retreat. Wang Wenxuan immediately ordered a company to prepare for battle.
A company of commanders and fighters had been fighting in the Yimeng Mountains for a long time, and they were as familiar with this place as they were with their hometown. They heard the battalion commander's orders, and one by one the guns were bayoneted and loaded, quietly without a sound, creeping on the cold rocks, waiting for the enemy to "come".
The devils and puppet troops pounced on the front river, and for a moment they could not figure out where the Eighth Route Army was going, let alone expect it to appear here, so they were unguarded, and the formation was scattered and intermittent, and retreated to the Qingtuo Temple.
As they entered a company of ambush circles, the warriors, after a burst of machine gun sweeps and grenades, shouted loudly and pounced on the enemy.
The Japanese puppet army was attacked by this surprise and hurried back to the front river along the same road.
At this time, the regimental chief of staff Gao Wenran (Shandong Changleren, founding colonel) led his troops to arrive and coordinated with a company to surround the enemy. After a while, Li Gai, deputy director of the Regimental Political Training Office (a native of Chaling, Hunan and a founding major general), also led the second battalion to rush to the scene and surrounded the enemy regiment, and the two sides launched a fierce battle.
After resisting for a while, the enemy saw that the situation was not good, so he desperately broke through, retreated to the high ground south of Huijiazhuang, occupied the east and west hills, and stubbornly resisted from a commanding height to wait for reinforcements.
Under the command of Gao Wenran and Wang Wenxuan, the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army braved artillery fire to attack the enemy on the mountain, gradually compressing to the high ground and gradually narrowing the encirclement.
The conditions for gathering and annihilating were basically ripe, and Gao Wenran issued a signal to charge, and the first battalion, one company, and the second battalion and five companies quickly attacked the two hills.
The warriors shouted "Bayonets are red!" The time has come to test us, "Let's see how our assassination skills are", and rush to the mountain.
Seeing that the situation was not good, the enemy abandoned the eastern hill and shrunk his troops to the western mountain highlands, which were quickly occupied by the Eighth Route Army. The two highlands were not more than a hundred meters apart, and the enemy organized a circular defense on the western highlands, and our attacking forces were blocked, and each side occupied a high ground and confronted each other.
Due to the high terrain of the highlands to the west, it is easy to exert its firepower, and the small depression between the two mountains makes it difficult for the troops to deploy. After re-examining the terrain, Wang Wenxuan thought it was advantageous to attack from the flank of the mountain, and immediately transferred the five companies to the rear of the flank and concentrated the fire of the whole battalion to provide support.
At about two o'clock in the afternoon, the troops organized an attack. Wang Wenxuan emphatically said: "This time we must resolutely attack and completely annihilate the enemy!" Otherwise, after the arrival of Linyi reinforcements, it is possible to fight a rout battle. ”
The warriors also encouraged each other: "We are the first time to try the battle of bayonets after the big training, we must attack and divide the enemy to see how good our skills are!" ”
Subsequently, ignoring the enemy's dense firepower, the warriors bravely competed one by one, raised their knives, and broke into the enemy's position to engage in a white-knife battle with the enemy.
Li Yongqing, the leader of the seventh squad, took the lead in rushing into the enemy group, stabbing two Japanese soldiers to death in a row, and he himself was seriously injured, but he still gritted his teeth, endured pain, and stabbed another ghost to death.
In addition to picking with bayonets, the warriors also smashed with stones, and the devils also joined each other with bayonets, and some devils were beaten and lost their bayonets, could not find the stones, and took off their large leather boots as weapons to fight with the warriors, known as the "leather boots war".
The ninth squad leader overwhelmed an enemy, took off his boots and slammed into the enemy's head, smashing the enemy's head into blossoms.
After an hour of fierce fighting, the enemy was completely annihilated and two wounded Japanese soldiers were captured. By the time the enemy reinforcements arrived in Linyi, the battle was long over. Most of the puppet troops who fled during the battle were captured by other companies.
This battle defeated the vigor of the Japanese puppet army, and the Eighth Route Army raised its prestige, which was another example of the regiment's battle of completely annihilating the enemy after the Battle of Goi. The officers and men of the whole regiment praised Wang Wenxuan, the commander of the first battalion, for alertly discovering the suspicious points in time, not only allowing the troops to escape the disaster, but also winning the battle.
After the battle, the Luzhong Military Region gave a commendation to the regiment, holding that the commanders and fighters of the regiment fought fiercely and skillfully in this battle of Huijiazhuang, showing high morale and the brave and tenacious spirit of daring to bayonet the red. This kind of spirit is particularly valuable to the Eighth Route Army, which is at a relatively inferior level of physical fitness and technical and tactical level.