Regarding the character of Tang Enbo, he has always been a controversial figure, and there are more black materials, such as one of the four harms in Henan, looting the people, etc., I will not make too much evaluation here. The highlight of Tang Enbo's War of Resistance was the Battle of Taierzhuang and the Battle of Nankou.
This article mainly describes the Battle of Nankou in North China in the early days of the Outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. In fact, the results of the Battle of Nankou were no less than those of the Battle of Taierzhuang, but the popularity was far less than that of the Battle of Taierzhuang.
Although there was a large-scale military conflict between the Japanese North China Garrison army and the 29th Army of Song Zheyuan, the Northwest Army of our Beiping Defenders, because Song Zheyuan had illusions about Japan's aggression at that time and hoped to preserve the territory of the Northwest Army in North China, he hastily retreated after two days of melee and Peiping fell.
At that time, both China and Japan were testing each other's determination, and in the early days the Nationalist government still hoped to settle the Pingjin issue through peace talks and compromise, and the initial attempt of the Japanese side was not to expand the war in an all-round way, but to prepare to set up a military buffer zone, and then promote the autonomy of North China, use force to control Suiyuan, Chahar, North China, and other regions, support puppet puppet regimes, and gradually encroach on northern China through this method.
The Nationalist government in Nanjing saw Japan's ambitions, and if the central government did not intervene in the situation in North China at this time,
Then North China will become the second Northeast.
Therefore, the Nationalist government began to send troops to North China to stop the Japanese army's attempt to go south, and never allow North China to be autonomous.
After the 29th Army of Song Zheyuan's Northwest Army retreated from Beiping to the Renqiu area to reorganize, the mainland's troops in Northern China were extremely empty, and from August onwards, the various units of the Nationalist Army began to march towards Northern China, with the primary goal of holding the Pinghan and Jinpu lines.
Heavy troops from Both China and Japan gathered in North China
In early August, Sun Lianzhong led the 26th Route Army of the Shaanxi Army to zhuo county in Hebei Province; Guan Linzheng led the 52nd Army of the Central Army to garrison Qingyuan and Gaoyang; Wei Lihuang and Tang Enbo led the 13th and 14th Armies of the Central Army to the outskirts of Beiping. The remaining ministries also marched to North China one after another.
Guarding the Pinghan Line were three armies, namely the 2nd, 14th, and 20th Army Groups, and the Second Army
Liu Yin
Command, under the jurisdiction of the 52nd Army, 26th Route Army, 42nd Army, 3rd Army and other departments;
Wei Lihuang
The Fourteenth Army consisted of the 9th, 14th, 17th and 19th Armies. Shang Zhen commanded the Twentieth Army, which was under the command of the Army
Jin Suijun miscellaneous cards
Organized, with low combat effectiveness, it has the subordinate departments of the 32nd Army, the Independent 46th Brigade, and the Independent 14th Brigade, which are mainly left behind in the rear.
The reason for the garrison of the Tsupo Line
29th Army of the Northwest Army
The First Army, which was based on the expansion, was commanded by Feng Yuxiang and had jurisdiction over the 40th Army, the 59th Army, the 53rd Army, the 77th Army, the 49th Army, and the 67th Army.
And Yan Xishan will
The main force of the Jin Sui Army
Together with the 13th Army of the Central Army, it was organized into the 6th and 7th Army Groups, of which
Fu Zuoyi
He led the 7th Army to assemble in the northwest of Peiping, garrisoning the Pingsui Line and blocking the Westward Advance of the Japanese Army. composed
Northern Shaanxi Red Army
Adapted
Group 18
The army, under the command of Commander-in-Chief Zhu De, also marched to the north of Shanxi, assisting friendly forces in defending Shanxi.
At the beginning of August, the Japanese army also began to move frequently, and the Japanese army drew troops from the Kwantung Army to form a group
"Chahar Dispatch Corps"
With Hideki Tojo as the commander, he had the command of the 1st Mixed Brigade of Sakai Hoshiji, the 2nd Mixed Brigade of Honda Masatoshi (formerly the main force of the 1st Division), the 11th Mixed Brigade of Suzuki Shigeyasu, the 15th Mixed Brigade of Seiichi Shinohara (the main force of the former 2nd Division), plus a 2nd Flying Regiment.
Hiratsu area
North China Front
At the same time as the Chinese army gathered in North China, the Japanese successively mobilized the 6th, 10th, and 16th Divisions from the mainland to be incorporated into the North China Front, and by the end of August, the 1st Army had the 6th, 14th, and 20th Divisions; the Second Army had the 4th, 16th, and 108th Divisions. The Front also directly administered the 5th Division and the 109th Division of Itagaki Seishiro.
South Exit! South Exit!
On August 12, 1937, the Japanese 5th Division and the 11th Mixed Brigade of Suzuki Shigeyasu, with the cooperation of the main force of the Chahar Dispatch Corps, simultaneously attacked the east and north sides of Fu Zuoyi's 7th Army, focusing on Zhangjiakou and Nankou.
Let's look at the location of the south mouth and Zhangjiakou, out of the south mouth to the south is Beiping, and out of Zhangjiakou to the outside of the sai, since ancient times, this section of the road is the traffic rush,
"Nine Plugs under heaven"
Next group
Juyongguan
It is located in this section of the road, so the south entrance and Zhangjiakou are like two gates leading from North China to Saiwai. The Japanese army in North China could only expand westward if it controlled these two gates.
Our side stationed at the south entrance is the Tang Enbo Department of the 13th Army of the 7th Group Army, which is a unit of the Central Army and one of the few units in North China with better equipment and a relatively complete personnel establishment. The 4th and 89th Divisions under the 13th Army, as well as the temporary 94th Division, had a full strength of more than 28,000 people, and Fu Zuoyi placed the most elite troops in the south mouth, which showed the importance of its position.
Deployed behind the southern entrance were Gao Guizi's 17th Army and the 72nd Division of the Jin Sui Army, each of which was deployed along the Badaling Great Wall to form a defensive line.
On the Japanese side, the Japanese army first pretended to attack the victory pass with the 11th mixed brigade, and the main force of the brigade attacked the south mouth, and the Japanese army attacked the town of Nankou under the cover of aircraft and artillery, and after two days of fierce fighting, the Japanese army captured the town of Nankou, and the 89th Division of the 13th Army withdrew to the Rear Fang Mountain To deploy. The 11th Brigade had little success after several consecutive days.
Respond to the South Exit
On August 16, the Japanese Fifth Division reinforced Nankou, and the defenders of Nankou were under great pressure, so Chiang Kai-shek ordered Wei Lihuang to lead the three main divisions of Li Mo'an's 14th Army from Hebei to flank the Japanese troops at Nankou and relieve the pressure on the 13th Army. Moreover, the Nanjing side also instructed that the troops stationed in Pinghan and Jinpu could find the right time to launch a counterattack against the Japanese troops in the Pingjin area.
At this time, it was indeed a good opportunity for a counterattack, because at this time the main offensive direction of the Japanese army was at the south entrance, and the strength of the Japanese North China Front at this time was relatively empty, plus the 5th and 6th Divisions were all drawn to the Songhu Battlefield, while the 10th and 14th Divisions were still on the way to North China. At this time, China had three group armies in Pinghan and Jinpu, with more than 200,000 troops, which had an absolute advantage over the Japanese army.
The main force of the Japanese defense of Pingjin was the 20th Division and the 36th Brigade of the 6th Division, but this opportunity and pity were missed, and it was first the Second Army of the Pinghan Line that was drawn from all over the place, and it was not yet able to effectively unify the command. Although the 1st Army on the Tsuura Line was a faction, some of the generals in the department retained the style of the old warlords, thinking only about how to keep their own territory and fantasizing about peace talks with the Japanese army. Although there is
Feng Yuxiang
He was in command, but he had been out of the army for many years, and he could not command these old subordinates of the Northwest Army at all.
Although the plan for a large-scale counterattack was in vain, and the Jinpu Line army did not move, sun Lianzhong's 26th Route Army and Li Mo'an's 14th Army on the Pinghan Line still actively moved north, planning the Nankou Battlefield, and launched a fierce battle with the 20th Division and the 6th Division on the outskirts of Beijing.
Fall back
The 5th Division, seeing that the south mouth could not be attacked for a long time, detoured to the left side of the south pass, and tried to break through our army's front in a flank, attacking the area around Hengling City with the Bantian detachment and passing in the direction of the town border city with the 42nd Wing. Previously, Tang Enbo had ordered the first part of the 4th Division to arrive at Hengling City to garrison, and then the Hebei local troop Zhu Huaibing 94th Division came to reinforcements, so the Japanese army could not break through for a long time.
However, farther away, the 42nd Wing successfully captured the 1390 heights on the outskirts of zhenbiancheng, and the main force of the Japanese Fifth Division immediately broke through in the direction of Zhenbiancheng, while the 11th Mixed Brigade also broke into Juyongguan and engaged in fierce battles with the 89th Division.
On August 20, worse news came that the Japanese Chahar Corps was attacking Zhangjiakou from the south, at this time Fu Zuoyi's 7th Army was attacked by the enemy on its back, while Wei Lihuang's 14th Group Army was deadlocked by the Japanese army in North China on the outskirts of Beiping, unable to meet the Nankou defenders, Yan Xishan's 6th Army did not dare to reinforce the 7th Army of the Pingsui Line, fearing that if its old roots were all lost in Chahar, there would be no troops to defend its own Shanxi.
On August 23, the Japanese 5th Division broke through the defense line of the 72nd Division at Zhenbiancheng, and the defenders of Juyongguan were in danger of being encircled, and on August 5, the Japanese army stormed Hengling City and Juyongguan. The Chinese and Japanese armies fought fiercely on these two points. At 15:00 on the same day, Japanese tanks rushed into Juyongguan. Although the defenders suffered heavy casualties, the Japanese army was still unable to break through.
However, the main force of the 5th Division began to detour towards Huailai in an attempt to cut off the retreat of the Juyongguan defenders, and Tang Enbo ordered that the Juyongguan defenders immediately break through.
On August 27, the battle was all over, and the Japanese army captured Zhangjiakou and Nankou, completing the battle objectives, but the Japanese army also paid a heavy price in this battle, with more than 10,000 casualties and more than 30,000 Chinese casualties.
Conclusion: Although the Battle of Nankou was ultimately defeated by our army, from a later point of view, this battle has been fought very well, and the soldiers have fought bloody battlefields and foiled the arrogant plan of the Japanese army to destroy China for three months. Because at the same time that this battle was fought, the Shanghai 8.13 Incident broke out, the Battle of Songhu began, and the focus of the whole country was concentrated in Shanghai, so the attention of the Nankou Campaign was low, but the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country in Nankou were still worthy of praise.