At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army won a complete victory at Pingxingguan, breaking the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese army and shocking the world.
Many people call it the Battle of Pingxingguan. In fact, this statement is inaccurate, it is only the level of battle, and it is more accurate to call it a flat level battle.
That is to say, the Battle of Pingxingguan was part of the Pingxingguan Campaign, which was carried out by the Kuomintang and the Communists, and the Pingxingguan Campaign was part of the Battle of Xinkou launched by the Chinese army.
On September 11, 1937, the most elite Fifth Division of the Japanese Army entered Wei County, Hebei Province, and one of its units attacked westward toward Guangling and Lingqiu in the northwest of Shanxi.
The 17th Army and 73rd Division of the Kuomintang army stationed at the front line of Guangling and Lingqiu were defeated by the Japanese army and withdrew to the first line of Pingxingguan.
Pingxingguan is a pass of the Inner Great Wall, located on the Pingxing Ridge of the dividing line between Lingqiu County (now Datong City) and Fanzhi County (now Part of Xinzhou City) in Shanxi Province. The flat-type pass is square-shaped, surrounded by more than 900 square meters, with a gate placed in the north and south, and the three characters of "Ping-type Ridge" engraved on the front of the door, the terrain is very dangerous.
At this time, the commander of the Jinsui anti-Japanese military was Yan Xishan, commander of the Second Theater appointed by the National Government in Nanjing. Yan Xishan's Jin Sui Army was organized into two armies, the 6th and 7th Group Armies, with Yang Aiyuan as commander-in-chief of the 6th Group Army and Fu Zuoyi as commander-in-chief of the 7th Group Army.
Yan Xishan actively defended the enemy, and he took Yang Aiyuan as the commander-in-chief of the right road and succeeded Tang Enbo as the commander-in-chief; Fu Zuoyi was the commander-in-chief of the left road, and his troops responded as a reserve.
The flat type off the first line of arming is completed.
The main force of the Red Army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China has just been reorganized into the Eighth Route Army of the National Revolutionary Army, which is classified into the sequence of the Second Theater of Operations and has also come to the shanxi front.
The 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, under the leadership of division commander Lin Biao and deputy division commander Nie Rongzhen, arrived at daying town in Pingxing Guannan on September 14, and then advanced to ranzhuang and dongchangcheng villages in pingxing guandong.
On September 21, Toshishi Miura, the brigade commander of the 21st Brigade of the Japanese Fifth Division, led six infantry brigades to attack the first line of Pingxingguan in two ways, in an attempt to break through the Pingxingguan defense line and join forces with the Japanese army north of Yanmen Pass to capture Taiyuan, and then occupy the whole province of Shanxi.
The frenzied attack of the Japanese army was met with stubborn resistance from the 73rd Division, the Independent 8th Brigade, and the 84th Division of the defenders of the Second Theater, and the casualties on both sides were heavy, so that the Japanese attack did not progress for three consecutive days.
The brigade commander of the 21st Brigade, Toshishi Miura, sent reinforcements from Seishiro Sakagaki, commander of the Toshiki Emergency Division. In order to prevent the Japanese army from breaking through the Pingxingguan defense line, Yan Xishan ordered Fu Zuoyi to lead two brigades to reinforce, and called Zhu De, the commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, asking the Eighth Route Army to cooperate in the battle.
Lin Biao, the commander of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, decided to set up an ambush in the area of Pingxingguan according to the instructions of the commander of the eighth route army headquarters and strike a terrible blow to the Japanese army. In order to fight this battle well, Lin Biao went to the area around Pingqiaogou three times to conduct on-the-spot investigation.
On September 23, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army held a mobilization meeting for cadres at and above the company level of the whole division in Shangzhai Village, south of Lingqiu. The meeting stressed: The Chinese nation is experiencing a huge test! We Communists should shoulder and will certainly be able to shoulder this heavy responsibility of saving the country and the people!
Division Commander Lin Biao finalized the specific troop deployment:
The 685th Regiment of the 343rd Brigade occupied the high ground on the south side of the line from Guangou to Laoye Temple, and intercepted the enemy's vanguard troops, that is, "blocking the head";
The 686th Regiment occupied the highlands on the south side of the line from Laoye Temple to Xiaozhai Village, carried out a middle assault, divided the enemy attacking along the road, and then developed the attack in the direction of the east running pool, that is, "cutting the waist";
With the 687th Regiment of the 344th Brigade occupying the first-line positions of Caijiayu, Xigou Village and Donghenan Town, cutting off the enemy's retreat route, that is, "breaking the tail";
With the divisional independent regiment and cavalry battalion entering between Lingqiu and Laiyuan and Guangling, to block enemy reinforcements;
The 688th Regiment of the 344th Brigade was deployed as a reserve of the division at the village of Dongchangcheng.
I have to say that Lin Biao is indeed a great military expert, and he is very strong in strategy and tactics.
On the night of September 24, the 685th Regiment, the 686th Regiment of the 343rd Brigade of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and the 687th Regiment of the 344th Brigade braved the rain to set up an ambush in the mountains northeast of Pingxingguan.
On the morning of the 25th, the first part of the 21st Brigade of the Fifth Division of the Japanese Army and the heavy convoy marched west along the Lingqiu to Pingxingguan Highway. The 21st Brigade, which was loaded with guns and live ammunition, was carried on more than 100 cars, and there were more than 200 heavy cars.
At about 7 o'clock, all of them entered the ambush area of the 115th Division of our Eighth Route Army, and the 685th Regiment, 686th Regiment, and 687th Regiment of the 115th Division, which had long been ambushed, attacked at the same time. Taking advantage of this chaotic opportunity, these three regiments divided and surrounded the Japanese army that was in chaos, and engaged in white-knife combat with the enemy, which was very tragic.
After about 6 hours of bloody fighting, by about 13:00 the battle ended, the 115th Division won a complete victory, the first battle became famous, annihilated more than 1,000 Japanese troops.
In this battle, more than 4,000 Japanese troops participated in the battle, and the strength of the 11th Division of the Eighth Route Army was 4,000 to 5,000 people.
The 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army had five combat regiments: the Independent Regiment and the 686th, 685th, 687th, and 688th Regiments, as well as four directly subordinate battalions and a teaching brigade, with a total of about 15,000 men combined.
But more than half of these people did not participate in the Battle of Pingxingguan. Before the battle began, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army was actually able to command up to 7,000 people, because at that time the teaching brigade and part of the 686th Regiment, as well as a cavalry battalion of the division headquarters, followed Luo Ronghuan to jixi, and the 688th Regiment could not participate in the battle because of the flash flood and could not rush to the Pingxingguan battlefield.
Therefore, when the Japanese army was ambushed at Pingxingguan, the actual units of the 115th Division were only four combat regiments and one cavalry battalion.
Coupled with the need for independent regiments and cavalry battalions to block Japanese reinforcements in other places (the fighting was also very fierce), this led to the eighth route army's strength in the ambush battle was almost on par with the Japanese army.
The Japanese army is well-equipped with weapons and strong individual combat capabilities. What about the Eighth Route Army? Poor is very poor, even the gun can not guarantee one per person, the bullet average of 5 rounds per person, the strength is too disparity, it seems that the Eighth Route Army will undoubtedly lose. When the Eighth Route Army rushed to the Pingxingguan battlefield, it encountered many Nationalist troops who had withdrawn from the battlefield, and they told the Eighth Route Army how powerful the Japanese army was, and in order not to affect morale, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army took the main road. In the end, with their strong morale and belief in victory, they gave the world a miracle.
After the Battle of Pingxingguan, the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army surrounded the Japanese in the basin around Dongpaochi. However, the Kuomintang troops did not attack according to the plan, so that the Japanese troops in the area could not be annihilated, and the results of the Battle of Pingxingguan could not be expanded.
The Kuomintang army was not only poor in cooperating with friendly forces, but also very inactive in cooperating with its own camp.
The 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army won the first battle, breaking the myth of the invincibility of the Japanese army, setting an example for the Chinese anti-Japanese army, and enabling the people of the whole country to see the hope of the War of Resistance Against Japan. In his memoirs, General Yang Dezhi, who was then the commander of the 685th Regiment of the 343rd Brigade of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army, praised the Ping-type Guan's great victory so affectionately: Ping-type Guan is a heroic Pass, because she was washed and dyed with the blood of the martyrs! Heishi-kan is an unforgettable pass because it records the first great victory of the Chinese people against the Japanese! (Liu Jixing)