Chen Kang, a native of Wuxue, Hubei Province, joined the Red Army in 1930 and the Communist Party of China the following year. During the Red Army period, he served as a platoon commander, company commander, battalion commander and regiment commander in the Red Fourth Front. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he went to the New Fourth Army as the commander of the supplementary battalion, and in October 1940, he was ordered to be transferred to the 772nd Regiment of the 386th Brigade of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army as the regimental commander.
By the time of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Kang had grown into a brigade-level commander and fighter who was brave and fierce in battle, and was deeply loved by Chen Geng. General Chen once made an evaluation:
Chen Kang is a fierce tiger
。
At the end of March 1935, the Red Fourth Front crossed the Jialing River and advanced all the way forward. At dawn on April 2, the Eighty-eighth Division of the 30th Army, the vanguard force, arrived at Jiange, and at noon on the same day, the general headquarters of the Four Fronts Army also arrived at Jiange City.
Commander-in-Chief Xu Qianqian received information from telephones left by the enemy that the Sichuan Army defending the Sword Pavilion had three regiments, commanded by Diao Wenjun, commander of the Gendarmerie of the Twenty-eighth Army of the Sichuan Army.
Jianmen Pass is a famous pass that straddles the sword court and Zhaohua, lined with cliffs and only a narrow ancient road at the pass. This dangerous pass connecting Sichuan and Shaanxi has been a place of contention for soldiers since ancient times, the so-called "one pass lost, half of the river is gone". Under the long-term management of the Sichuan warlords, the Sword Gate is lined with bunkers, and the trenches are staggered, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack.
The three regiments defending the Jianmen Pass, one of which was defending the Guandong And the other was defending the Guannan, and the defensive of the main peak of the pass was the Yang Zhuoyun Regiment of the Sichuan Army. Long before the arrival of the Red Army, Diao Wenjun used mules to drive 40,000 oceans to the position, and formulated reward and punishment regulations for "the brave reward the retreaters to kill".
The Eighty-eighth Division of the Thirtieth Army and the four regiments of the Thirty-first Army, which had just arrived at Jianmen Pass, launched a siege in three directions towards the enemy at the pass. At eleven o'clock in the morning, the battle officially began.
The Red Army launched one charge after another against the main peak of Jianmen Pass, and the Sichuan army relied on the precipitous terrain to resist the attack from a commanding height, and the fire was fierce, and the casualties of the 274th Regiment as the forward were increasing, but there was no progress at all.
As the minutes and seconds passed, the Red Army made great sacrifices and still could not break through. Wang Shusheng, deputy commander-in-chief of the Red Fourth Front, who was in command, was very anxious. Once again, the attacking forces of the Red Army retreated.
At this time, Chen Kang, commander of the second battalion of the 274th Regiment, came to Wang Shusheng and said: It is time for us to go! The second battalion was a unit brought out by Wang Shusheng from a guerrilla group of more than a dozen people, and since crossing the Jialing River, it has been following Wang Shusheng as a reserve. Wang Shusheng looked at it with a telescope and said, "Go and prepare!" ”
Under the cover of artillery fire, the second battalion began to attack. Because the fourth company suffered heavy losses when crossing the river, it was used as a battalion reserve, and Chen Kang personally led the fifth and sixth companies to launch a charge against the main peak of Jianmen Pass.
The Sichuan army was condescending and fierce, and as soon as the second battalion began to attack, Chen Kang's left arm was hit by a bullet. When the hygienist bandaged him, he saw several fighters rushing in front of him fall one after another, and the attack was suppressed.
Wang Shu was in a hurry, ran to the artillery position, scolded the artillery company commander, and ordered them to suppress the enemy's fire. Several shells of the artillery company landed accurately on the Sichuan army's blocking position.
As soon as Chen Kang waved his hand, the soldiers of the two companies stood up violently from the tukan behind them and rushed towards the Sichuan army position, and the sound of killing resounded through the sword gate. All the firepower of the 274th Regiment was fired in the direction of the charge of the Second Battalion, and the main peak position occupied by the Sichuan Army was suddenly filled with smoke.
The instructor of the second battalion had just rushed out a few steps before he fell to the ground. This seventeen-year-old boy did not leave his full name, only knew that his surname was Bao, everyone called him "Bao Gu Mi", he was not tall, but he rushed to the front every time he fought.
The Red Army soldiers who rushed to the main peak of the Sword Gate Pass all raised their bayonets and fought with the defending Sichuan army, and some people kept falling off the cliff. When the Sichuan army was compressed by the second battalion in a stone ditch behind the position, hundreds of Sichuan army reserves suddenly surged up. At this moment, the officers and men of the second battalion had all rushed to the main peak, and the grenades were thrown into the stone ditch like rain, and the blood and flesh flew everywhere.
The follow-up troops quickly followed, and Wang Shusheng also climbed at a rapid pace, and along the road were full of soldiers who sacrificed the Red Army, some of whom looked up at the top with their guns. Yang Zhuoyun, the commander of the Sichuan Army, saw that the general trend had gone, and he chose to jump off the cliff when he had no way out. The Red Army captured Jianmen Pass.
In this battle, Chen Kang led two companies to rush to the main position and made the first contribution.
In 1940, Chen Kang was ordered to be transferred to the 772nd Regiment of the 386th Brigade of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army as the regimental commander, which was one of the main combat units in the early days of the Eighth Route Army's reorganization. From then on, under the command of Chen Geng, Chen Kang began to fight against the Japanese Kou, and later participated in the Liberation War, making great achievements for the revolutionary cause.
Whenever he encountered a hard battle or a vicious battle, the first thing Chen Geng thought of was Chen Kang. Chen Kang fought bravely, never shouted bitterly and tiredly, and together with Li Chengfang, Liu Zhong, Zhou Xihan and several other generals, he became Chen Geng's most important general.
In 1955, Chen Kang was awarded the rank of lieutenant general in recognition of the outstanding contributions made by the general of the Hundred Battles to the cause of the revolution. On May 23, 2002, General Chen Kang died in Beijing at the age of 92. The generals saw a powerful new China, and they also saw a beautiful era created by their generation of bloody sacrifices for future generations.