On the night of December 13, 1948, the 142nd Division of the Forty-eighth Army of the Fourth Field Army, under the leadership of division commander Ou Fufu (awarded the rank of major general in 1955), was ordered to start from the first line of the south mouth and advance to the southeast, cooperating with the main force of the Four Fields Army to carry out a strategic encirclement of the enemy.
On a harsh winter night, the north wind whistles and the cold is overwhelming. As the commander of the division, Ou Fufu led the 426th Regiment as the vanguard of the whole division and walked at the forefront of the team.
It was even quieter at night, and the moonlight sprinkled all over the earth. The 142nd Division marched in columns and hurriedly marched on the path northwest of the Lugou Bridge. It was quiet everywhere, and only the sound of footsteps was heard.
Ou Fufu rode his horse while walking and thinking: At present, he is fighting deep into the enemy's belly, the enemy and us are staggered, the situation is complicated, and the army marches at night, so we must be extra careful to prevent accidents.
He was about to summon the attention of the various departments when he suddenly noticed that on the avenue not far from the left flank, a detachment was advancing in parallel with our army.
What kind of team is this? Where did the call come from? What are you going to do... This series of question marks immediately appeared in Ou Zhifu's mind.
He wondered: According to the information he had previously grasped, there were no friendly troops passing through this area except for our army's action!
Ou Fufu thought about it and concluded that there was only one possibility: this team was the enemy!
He carefully observed through the dim moonlight, only to see that the procession was sparse and scattered, everyone was bent over and tired, and from time to time he heard one or two vulgar and vulgar scoldings.
Look at the back of the line, where mules and carts are bustling.
Ou Fufu thought to himself that since approaching the outskirts of the city, our army had changed to a lightly armored and rapid advance, and this contingent was undoubtedly a retreating enemy.
Ou Zhifu immediately made a decision and decided to come to a "surprise, attack it unprepared".
He resolutely ordered: The 425th Regiment attacked the enemy with fierce fire from the flank, the 426th Regiment took the lead, and the 424th Regiment strangled its tail and struck the fleeing enemy hard.
However, at this moment, a strange thing happened -- the 424th Regiment, which served as the rear guard of the whole division, disappeared for no reason and did not know where it went at all!
The correspondent went to convey the order, but before and after running, looking around, he could not find the 424th Regiment.
When Ou Zhifu learned of this, he was puzzled: How could a good-looking division inexplicably lose a whole regiment?
However, at this time, it was necessary to deal with the enemy in front of him with all his strength, and there was no time to track down the whereabouts of the 424 regiment.
Ou Zhifu became unfazed, and calmly transferred a battalion from the 426th Regiment to be responsible for "tail pinching".
Under the brave charge of the two regiments of commanders and fighters, the enemy instantly became a pack of scattered wolves, running around under the cover of night, and those who could not run obediently became prisoners.
Although the encounter was short, it captured more than 100 fleeing enemies and captured a number of weapons.
In the early morning of the 14th, the troops entered the hidden camp near the Lugou Bridge, and for the next whole day, Ou Fufu was still unable to contact the 424th Regiment.
After dark, the troops quickly passed through the Lugou Bridge and turned to the first line of Loess Slope and Huangcun.
According to the experience of the previous night, Ou Zhifu specially explained that the vanguard detachment should pay attention to observation during the march, discover the enemy's situation in time, and annihilate the enemy who was retreating at any time.
Sure enough, as expected, as the troops advanced to the area east of the Loess Slope, they encountered a part of the enemy's security brigade that had retreated overnight.
The 426th Regiment was calm and decisive, preemptively attacking and rushing to kill. The enemy was suddenly struck, panicked, and chaotic, throwing down guns and ammunition one after another to flee for their lives, and collapsed.
Subsequently, the troops went straight to Huangcun. When Ou Zhifu entered the village with the vanguard regiment, another important situation arose.
The people in the village could not tell what kind of team was coming, but they just vigorously said that two hours ago, a group of soldiers had been stationed in the village, and there was no way to station the team here.
They also said that after the soldiers entered the village, they beat and scolded, drove the old and young people of the village into the huts, and are now sleeping in the houses of each family.
Fellow villagers repeatedly begged this unit led by Ou Zhifu not to cause trouble.
According to the situation reflected by the masses, Ou Zhifu realized that he had encountered the enemy again, and it was really a narrow road for the wrongdoers!
He immediately ordered his troops to surround the villages, to search house by house, and never to let a single enemy slip through the net.
The enemy thought that in the outskirts of the city defended by hundreds of thousands of heavy troops, they could sleep without scruples, but they never expected that just when they were snoring like thunder, they had already fallen into a net that was difficult to fly.
After strictly sealing the village and the road junction, the cadres of the regiments and battalions bravely took the lead and led the soldiers to rush into every house in the village in multiple ways, blocking every door and window.
When the sleeping enemy woke up in a roar of "shoot and don't kill", the muzzle of the gun was already aimed at their chest.
The enemy had completely fallen into a desperate situation where they could not fight and had no way to escape, and more than 300 officers and men had to raise their hands in frustration and surrender, and the 6 mortars, more than 300 guns and a large amount of ammunition they carried became the spoils of the 142nd Division.
Founding Major General He Jinnian and Founding Major General Ou Became Rich
At this point, the 142nd Division, with an entire regiment missing, won three consecutive encounters.
In the early morning of the 15th, the military department sent someone to inform Ou Fufu to immediately lead his troops back to Shijingshan to stand by. At this time, Ou Zhifu figured out the reason for the "disappearance" of the 424 regiment.
It turned out that on the night of the 13th, when the 142nd Division was crossing mentougou and advancing toward the Shijingshan area, the 424th Regiment, as the rear guard of the whole division, suddenly received an urgent order from the military headquarters, asking them to stay on the spot and prepare to cooperate with the 143rd Division in encircling and annihilating the defenders of the Shijingshan Power Plant.
Due to the fleeting nature of the fighters and the urgency of time, the military headquarters did not have time to inform Ou Fufu, so when Ou Fufu led the 425th Regiment and the 426th Regiment all the way into the direction of Lugou Bridge, they thought that they were still leading a whole division.
When The military commander He Jinnian (awarded the rank of major general in 1955) learned of this, he said apologetically: "It is an unforgivable mistake that the military department did not contact you in time. Fortunately, your division commander did not panic, and in the case of a regiment that did not know where to go, and constantly encountered the enemy, it fought three victorious battles in a row! ”
[Note]: The real events described in this article in the history of our army are detailed in the book "Documentary of the Southern Expedition of the Fourth Field Army" published by the People's Liberation Army Publishing House in 1993.