In a series of battles against the Japanese puppet army of the 16th Brigade, the story of Hangcun's surrender of artillery is touching.
In the spring of 1944, the Japanese troops in the gate of Guangde County often went to the countryside to brutalize the people. Determined to eliminate harm to the people, our 16th Brigade ordered the 48th Regiment to send two battalions and quietly garrison Hangcun (present-day Xinhang Township) in Guangde North Township to set up an ambush. On the morning of March 29, more than 100 members of the Kobayashi Squadron of the Japanese Nanpu Brigade and more than 300 members of the puppet army, dragged by several warhorses, dragged by a few warhorses to the sides of Guangyi Road near Hangcun, committed evil. Regiment commander Liu Beisheng (pseudonym Fang Ziqiang Commander) heard the report and immediately telegraphed Brigade Commander Wang Bicheng. He immediately ordered the 3rd Battalion to quickly occupy the Cigu Mountain southwest of Hangcai and cut off the enemy's way back. The 1st Battalion was ordered to occupy the niutou Mountain heights southeast of Hangcun and attack the enemy. When the 3rd Battalion ran to the heights of Qigu Mountain, some of the puppet guns were hung with looted chicken and duck belongings, and they had already walked back out of the ambush circle of our army, but most of the puppet army and all the Japanese troops were still in the ambush circle. Xu Chao, commander of the 3rd Battalion, and Zheng Dafang, the instructor, decisively ordered the troops to fire, and Zeng Dansheng, the commander of the 1st Battalion, who had just arrived at Niutou Mountain, and Jiang Tuheng, the instructor, also issued shooting orders almost at the same time. Suddenly, light and heavy firearms were fired in unison, and gunfire was fired everywhere, hitting the Japanese army and the puppet army. The battle was fierce, and Brigadier Wang Bicheng rushed to Niutou Mountain, and the small artillery platoon of the regimental headquarters immediately entered the battle. After Brigadier Wang discovered the enemy's cannon, he immediately handed the telescope to Dai Wenhui, the platoon leader of the small artillery platoon, and ordered: "We are going to use the small cannon to hit the devil's cannon, give you 3 shells, and kill it!" "At that time, the mortars we had captured from the enemy had no sights, and they were fired entirely by visual inspection and experience. Xiao Dai aimed and replied with confidence: "Kill it!" "After the cannon sounded, two shells beat the devil's war horse to death, running and running, and the enemy was in a mess.
Brigadier Wang, Commander Liu, and Commissar Luo immediately ordered the troops to charge. The military trumpets sounded in unison, and the killing sound was tremendous. The offensive of the 1st and 3rd Battalions was overwhelming and unstoppable, compressing the enemy into a wheat field west of Guangyi Road and east of Luxi Village. Instructor Zheng Dafang rushed to the front of the troops and shouted, "Meritorious service for the people, rush!" "Lead the troops to the enemy line and engage in white-knife combat with the enemy." After more than an hour of fierce fighting, more than 70 Japanese puppet troops were annihilated, and a batch of guns and ammunition were captured, and the Japanese 92 infantry guns and 3 shells also became the spoils of our army. However, in the process of seizing cannons, grabbing war horses, and pursuing the enemy, Instructor Zheng Dafang was shot by a ghost who was wounded and pretended to be dead, and died heroically, only 23 years old. His ancestral home is Zhongshan County, Guangdong Province, and when he was in high school in 1938, he joined the New Fourth Army from Rong.
The devil lost the cannon, such as the funeral examination. It is rumored that the division of Kobayashi Squadron is an "honorary" division that has maintained the "imperial prestige of the Imperial Army of the Empire of Japan". In order to save face, the General Headquarters of the Japanese Invasion of China In Nanjing ordered this division to retrieve this cannon. On the second day, the devils dispatched more than 1,000 people, plus a large number of puppet troops and secret agents, looking around for our army to fight a decisive battle, and stepped up the "sweep" with ten times the madness. In line with the principle of "the enemy advances and we retreat," I have already transferred my troops that night, and I have wandered around with the enemy, causing the Japanese army to pounce everywhere. However, due to the rugged mountain road, the heavy artillery, and the inconvenience of the action, from coal mountain to Luo Yue, the cannon was dismantled and transported, or too tired, and finally decided to use several large wooden boxes to install the gun mount, gun wheel, gun leash, and gun rear seat, choose a hidden ravine to bury, and several backbones of the garment factory disguised as fellow villagers to ambush in the Luo Yue area, secretly monitoring the enemy's movements, only the gun body and 3 shells were still carried by the cannon company.
The Japanese army was unable to find us in a decisive battle, and when they learned that the artillery had hit an ambush, they dispatched more troops to dig everywhere; they also posted a wide notice and offered a high reward of 200,000 French yuan to collect the cannon. But those who love money do not know; those who know do not love money. The Japanese tossed and turned for more than 20 days and nights, and the artillery was still missing. In the end, the squadron leader who lost the gun had to be shot. Since then, the evil deeds of the devils in the Guangde area have been somewhat restrained, and the turtles have shrunk in the stronghold and dare not act rashly.
After the end of the Japanese sweep, the 48th Regiment returned to Wentang, recovered the artillery parts from Luo Yue, loaded the cannon for training, and quickly mastered the performance of the cannon. Later, in the Battle of Changxing, the Hexi puppet army stuck to the bunker and refused to surrender; our army used this cannon to shoot, and only 1 shell blew the bunker open, and the pseudo battalion commander obediently raised the white flag. Using this cannon, coupled with the bravery and tenacity of the commanders and fighters, 13 strongholds of the Japanese puppet army were pulled out overnight. In the subsequent anti-stubborn battles and liberation wars, this cannon was full of power and made many achievements. In this way, in 1944, the 16th Brigade of the New Fourth Army launched a series of offensive operations in the Langguang area, such as the Battle of Hangcun, the Battle of Changxing, the Battle of Zhoucheng, and the Battle of Si'an, annihilating a total of 1 squadron of the Japanese army and 10 battalions of the puppet army, killing, wounding, and capturing more than 2,000 Japanese puppet troops, capturing 7 guns, 9 heavy machine guns, 45 light machine guns, and more than 1,400 long and short guns, recovering more than 30 enemy strongholds, and once attacking the three county towns of Changxing, Liyang, and Lishui, dealing a serious blow to the Japanese and puppets. In particular, the Battle of Hangcun stabilized the Langguang New Area, changxing and Si'an great victories restored more than 2,000 square miles of land, and the Battle of Zhoucheng connected the Langguang area and the Maoshan area.
These victories have transformed the southern Jiangsu region from a small guerrilla area that was originally scattered and insisted upon into a large anti-Japanese democratic base area with a population of 3 million, and has opened up a way for Su Yu to lead his division south to establish the Jiangsu-Zhejiang Military Region and develop to the southeast, opening up a way forward and laying a solid rear.