<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="1" > comic strip series | "People's Warriors- Geng Biao's HorseManship" (23).</h1>
(Editor/Cole Proofreader/Geng Ying)
The great victory of Qingfengdian made the conditions for us to carry out the campaign to liberate Shijiazhuang completely mature. At noon on October 22, just after the Battle of Qingfengdian, Commander Nie Rongzhen came to the front line headquarters of the field army and proposed the idea of taking advantage of the victory to attack Shijiazhuang, and sent a telegram to the Central Military Commission to ask for instructions.
On the 25th, the Former Committee of the Field Army held an enlarged meeting of cadres at and above the brigade level to study the Shijiazhuang campaign plan. Commander-in-Chief Zhu rushed from the central working committee station to attend the meeting, personally listened to the situation report, and gave specific instructions.
Before the meeting, the field army command had already analyzed, synthesized, and studied the materials related to the enemy situation in Shijiazhuang. In particular, a "top secret" grade "Shijiazhuang Semi-permanent Fortifications, Troop Deployment and Firepower Allocation Map" captured in the Battle of Qingfengdian provides us with important information.
The first line of defense in Shijiazhuang is waishigou . The trench, located on the outskirts of the city, is seven metres wide, eight metres deep, and has a circumference of about thirty kilometres, with a minefield and barbed wire fence on the outer edge of the trench;
The enemy cut down all the trees in front of the outer market ditch, so that the fortifications appeared in front of an unobstructed open field, in an attempt to make it difficult for our troops to approach the outer market ditch.
The second line of defense is the inner market ditch. The trench that surrounds the city is five meters wide and five meters deep, and has a circumference of about twenty kilometers. The outer edge of the trench was equipped with a power grid, mines and other obstacles, the bottom of the trench was equipped with sharpened wooden stakes, and the inner edge of the trench was formed by a dense large and small bunker to form a strong position.
The third and final line of defense is the core fortifications of the urban area. The enemy built fortifications at the central railway station, the Zhengtai Hotel, the Great Stone Bridge, and the tall buildings nearby. Each of the three lines of defense is connected by tunnels and communication trenches.
Fortifications such as voltains were built in villages on the outskirts of the city and in all streets of the city. In total, there are more than six thousand bunkers in the city. The enemy boasted that with these bunkers and deep ditches alone, even without reinforcements, they could "hold out for three years."
There were more than 10,000 regular enemy troops stationed in Shijiazhuang, plus an independent regiment of reinforcements airlifted by the enemy from Baoding and miscellaneous armed forces fleeing from nearby counties to Shijiazhuang, for a total of more than 24,000 defending enemy troops. The supreme commander was Liu Ying, commander of the Thirty-second Division.
Commander-in-Chief Zhu pointed out: "Shijiazhuang is a fortified city, we are fighting siege warfare and offensive battles, and it is not enough to rely solely on fierce attacks and fierce attacks, we must study and master the technology of attacking strong points, and defeat the enemy with courage and technology."
We decided to first capture the enemy's strongholds in the four suburbs, build "snake"-shaped trenches, "chicken claw" fire-firing positions, and bunker fortifications to facilitate blasting and approach operations; after breaking through the enemy's outer and inner city ditches, we will directly insert themselves into the core fortifications of the urban area.
The people of the Liberated Areas formed a 100,000-strong army and transported 200,000 kilograms of offensive equipment, 60,000 kilograms of explosives, all kinds of guns, shells, and other materials from all directions to the front line, thus providing a material guarantee for us to win the victory in the Battle of Shijiazhuang.
At dawn on the 6th, our army launched an attack on the enemy's outlying strongholds. After several hours of fierce fighting, more than twenty enemy strongholds on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang were captured, airfields were occupied, and YunpanShan, the commanding heights of the northeastern suburbs, were encircled.
Yunpanshan, the commanding heights in the northeastern suburbs, is an important stronghold painstakingly operated by the enemy. There are three layers of bunkers on the mountain, and at the foot of the mountain, there are two trenches, six meters wide and ten meters deep, and there are two power grids between the trenches. There are traffic ditches between the bunkers and the inner and outer trenches, and there are tunnels leading to the city.
On the afternoon of the 6th, our army launched an attack on the enemy of Yunpan Mountain, but failed to conquer it. On the morning of the 8th, we attacked again, and while concentrating artillery fire to suppress the enemy's fire, we blasted two enemy trenches into a slope through ground blasting and digging tunnels, so our heroic warriors rushed up the hill and occupied the commanding heights of Yunpan Mountain.
Relying on the Yunpanshan artillery power plant, our army cut off the power supply, causing all the power grids set up by the enemy in the outer and inner ditches to be ineffective. Since the night of the 6th, all units of our army, militia, and civilian workers have been engaged in the work of transforming the terrain.
By the evening of the 8th, our army had completely broken through the enemy's first line of defense and occupied most of the enemy's strongholds between the inner and outer city ditches. For a small number of enemy strongholds that have not been conquered, such as Yuancun, Pengcun, Fancun, and Beijiao, only a small number of troops are sent to encircle them, while large troops continue to transform the terrain and approach the inner city ditch.
The first line of defense was quickly breached by our army, causing panic among the enemy forces. Yin Wentang, mayor of Shijiazhuang City, came forward to issue a "speech" boasting that "the city's fortifications have been consolidated"; Liu Ying asked For help from Beiping and Baoding. However, the enemy could not even reach the Qingfeng Shop, so how could he come to Shijiazhuang!
In order to prevent our army from attacking the inner city ditch, the frenzied enemy used all the artillery and, with the cooperation of eleven enemy planes, carried out a frenzied bombardment of our army's positions and the site of the earthwork industry.
At 4 p.m. on the 10th, our army's offensive against the enemy's second line of defense was in full swing. The troops concentrated their firepower to cover the assault troops to use tunnels to blast down the outer edge of the inner city ditch, and after rushing into the inner city ditch, they destroyed all kinds of obstacles in the ditch and the inner edge, so as to first break through the second line of defense.
The enemy built bunkers in the streets and alleys of the city. In order to reduce casualties, the commanders and fighters created a way to break through the walls in the houses on both sides of the street and cross the wall house by house to open the way for the march. After a day and night of street fighting, by the evening of the 11th, most of the city's defenders had been cleared.
Liu Ying, the commander of the enemy division, also led the headquarters of his 32nd Division and the remnants of the 95th Regiment to hide in the core fortifications and continue to resist. The enemy built bunkers all over the Big Stone Bridge and the Zhengtai Hotel, and piled sandbags on the balconies and windows of all the buildings on both sides of the street as a firing fortification to form a crossfire net.
Liu Ying concentrated ironclad cars and tanks near the railway station. The troops attacking the train station destroyed three enemy tanks and ironclad vehicles. The fighters jumped on the bombed tank, opened the tank cover, raised the grenade, and ordered the enemy gunners to turn the muzzle and fire at their own bunkers.
After fierce competition, the warriors of the Eleventh Brigade captured the railway station and the Zhengtai Hotel. Then, the Third Column, the Fourth Column, and the troops of the Jijin Military Region launched an attack on dashiqiao, the enemy's command center, where Liu Ying was entrenched, and rushed into the headquarters of the enemy's 32nd Division, capturing The Division Commander Liu Ying, who had burrowed under the bed.
Liu Ying ordered the remnants of the enemy who were still stubbornly resisting to surrender their weapons and surrender. Therefore, at 11:00 a.m. on the 12th, all the enemy defending the core fortifications surrendered to our army. Fancun, the only remaining enemy stronghold between the inner and outer city ditches, was also occupied by our army. At this point, after six days and nights of victory in the battle of Shijiazhuang, shijiazhuang was declared liberated.
Five days after the liberation of Shijiazhuang, an attack was launched on the defenders of Yuanshi City, about thirty-five kilometers south of Shijiazhuang. Tens of thousands of kilograms of explosives exploded at the same time in the six tunnels under the South Gate of the Yuan Dynasty and the West Gate City, and several large gaps were blown out of the solid stone city wall, uprooting the last enemy stronghold in the liberated areas of Jizhong and Ji'nan.
In the battle of Shijiazhuang and the liberation of Yuanshi City, our army completely annihilated more than 28,000 enemy troops. Shijiazhuang was the first major city occupied by our army nationwide since the beginning of the Liberation War, and it was also the first large-scale offensive battle of our army.
(To be continued...) ）