Cautiously open the flag of the first battle to win
In the early days of the Liberation War, the Central Jiangsu Campaign, which was famous for its seven battles and seven victories, was carried out by the Central China Field Army and the people of Central Jiangsu, under the direct command of Comrades Su Yu and Tan Zhenlin, and in accordance with the strategic intentions of the Central Military Commission of the CPC and Comrade Mao Zedong. In this campaign, under the guidance of the ideology of annihilating the enemy on the inner front and cautiously fighting the initial battle, our army fought seven consecutive battles in a month and a half, winning all battles, annihilating more than 50,000 enemies with flexible and mobile strategies and tactics, heroic and tenacious fighting style of continuous combat, and concentrating superior forces. Our Sixth Division participated in five of the seven wars, and all five battles were successful, annihilating more than 1,600 enemy personnel, capturing 57 artillery pieces of various kinds and more than 7,700 guns of various kinds, and completing the combat tasks entrusted to our division by the head of the Central China Field Army.
Taixing attacked the stronghold
The first battle in the Suzhong Campaign was the Battle of Xuan (Jiabao) tai (Xing). The mission of our division is to attack and annihilate Taixingzhi. In June 1946, the Kuomintang reneged on its promise, tore up the armistice agreement, and launched a nationwide civil war with the support and planning of US imperialism. The East China Liberated Area is one of the main directions of the enemy's attack, with only 500,000 regular troops, of which 11 integrated divisions, 30 brigades, and about 25 garrisons were used to attack the Suwan Liberated Area. 10,000 people. By early July, the enemy, who had attacked the liberated areas of central Jiangsu from south to north, had 5 integrated divisions, 15 brigades, and about 120,000 men in the areas of Nantong, Taixing, and Yangzhou, and was scheduled to launch an attack in four routes on the 15th, in an attempt to first capture Hai'an and Rugao, and then attack Yancheng and Huaiyin.
After detecting the enemy's operational intentions, the commander of the Central China Field Army decided to attack the enemy first on the eve of the enemy's attack and take the initiative to attack and annihilate the enemy in the area where the Xuan and Thai attacks were launched, so as to disrupt their offensive deployment. On July 10, the operational order was issued, and the main task entrusted to our division was to conquer Taixing and cooperate with friendly and neighboring troops to block the enemy who could be rescued by Jingjiang and the port.
Taixing is a county seat along the Yangtze River, located at the southern end of the Central Jiangsu Liberated Area. There are 7 meters high walls, and there is a 30 meters wide moat outside, and the fortifications are relatively strong. There are roads here that can pass through Jingjiang, Yangzhou, Taizhou and other enemy-occupied points, and it is one of the starting areas for the Kuomintang army to attack the liberated areas. After the Surrender of the Japanese Army, it was liberated by our Soviet Central Independent Brigade (the predecessor of the Eighteenth Brigade of our division). At the beginning of 1946, the reorganized 83rd Division of the Kuomintang Army occupied the city according to Chiang Kai-shek's secret order to "advance at night and seize the strategic points". Prior to the campaign, the enemy deployed in the city was the Fifty-seventh Regiment of the Nineteenth Brigade of the Reorganized Eighty-third Division and a mountain artillery company attached to it.
The first battle between the Soviet Union and China has a bearing on the overall situation of the campaign, and we feel that the responsibility is very heavy. In order to win victory in the battle, after on-site investigation, we held a division party committee in the early morning of 12 July, conveyed the operational orders of the head of the Central China Field Army, carefully analyzed the situation of the enemy in person, studied the characteristics of siege operations, determined the combat plan, and assigned combat tasks to each brigade. The specific deployment was: the 48th Regiment of the 16th Brigade was the main attack on the south gate, and the other two regiments were in the area of Zhangjiaqiao and Dashengqiao, southeast of Taixing, to block the enemy who might be aided by Jingjiang and Tianxingqiao. The 52nd Regiment of the Eighteenth Brigade attacked Xiaoximen, one assisted at the Great West Gate, the Fifty-third Regiment attacked the North Gate, one attacked the East Gate, and the Fifty-fourth Regiment was located at the Seven Star Temple to block the enemy who might be aided by the east of the port.
Our division is a unit that has been trained in battle for a long time, and has a fighting style of daring to fight and fighting bravely and tenaciously.
After a long period of ideological education and military training in combat readiness, the quality of the military and government has been newly improved. After the mobilization of the battle, morale was high, and they were eager to fight, and they submitted petitions for war one after another, putting forward loud slogans: "Lay down the city of Taixing and eliminate the reactionaries!"
On the afternoon of the 13th, the 16th Brigade and the 18th Brigade marched along the north side of Taixing (Xing) Huang (Bridge) Road to Taixing, and arrived at the outskirts of the city after dusk. At 21:00, the battle to attack Taixing began. The sudden attack of our army caught the enemy by surprise and was very alarmed. On the morning of the 14th, our division cleared the perimeter and approached the city walls. The enemy in the city relied on the city wall to resist stubbornly, and artillery and machine guns violently bombarded and strafed us from the head of the city.
The troops who took on the task of siege were nervously preparing for the siege. The Forty-eighth Regiment also sent people into the city in disguise to reconnoiter, find out the enemy's fortification structure and troop deployment outside the south gate, and select the main attack point on the defensive area of the enemy's heavy company. After a day of intense work, each regiment completed preparations for the siege. We immediately gave the order to start the siege at 18:00 that day.
In the evening, Taixing City seemed unusually calm. At 17:30, the artillery of our army suddenly opened fire. Rows of roaring shells poured down on enemy positions. At this point, when the enemy saw our artillery advancing, he fired wildly with machine gun fire and threw grenades in succession, two of whom were killed. The comrades shouted the slogan of "resolutely destroy the enemy and avenge the sacrifice of comrades-in-arms" and struck the enemy with more accurate and fierce firepower. First the enemy's bridgehead was destroyed, and then the concentrated fire bombarded the city wall, opening the gap and clearing the obstacle to the infantry's advance. At 18:00, the Forty-eighth Regiment attacked under the cover of artillery fire. The furious warriors were also rubbing their fists, eager to step over the city wall. A company crossed the moat with a brave and swift movement, opening and occupying the breakthrough in only 20 minutes. Comrade Hu Zonglin, the squad leader of the first machine company and a combat hero, took the illness to participate in the battle, used heavy machine guns to cover the infantry impact, and accompanied the assault squad to the city wall to repel the counterattacking enemy and cover the company battalion to develop the enemy's attack in depth. The regiment's three battalions broke through the city walls almost at the same time and quickly penetrated the enemy depths. The second battalion of the second echelon of the regiment entered the city from the breakthrough point and advanced to the east gate to split the enemy's combat deployment.
Night fell, the sound of gunfire shook Taixing, smoke covered the city, and the battle was fiercely going on.
The Forty-eighth Regiment of our Sixteenth Brigade proceeded well, but the Eighteenth Brigade's attack was thwarted and it was held out of the moat. We immediately ordered the Forty-eighth Regiment to develop deep and fiercely, and to support the eighteenth brigade in attacking the city; we ordered the eighteenth brigade to continue to organize the siege. At this time, Yu Damao, commander of the division's operations section who acted as chief of staff of the Fifty-second Regiment, and Comrade Hao Guang, political commissar, immediately convened a meeting of battalion and company cadres, summed up the lessons learned from the two failed sieges, determined siege plans such as "fire cover, exploding the city wall, and erecting ladders to climb the city," and organized commandos. After intense preparation, the attack was launched again. First of all, mortars were used to send explosive packs to bombard the city wall towers, only to see the city walls shining with fire and rubble flying, hitting the enemy screaming and screaming. The tall and sturdy city walls were opened with a gap of 5 meters wide. Yu Damao commanded the commando team of the main attack battalion and began to enter the city. Under the leadership of Captain Xu Changyuan, the "leopard head", the commando team was not afraid of danger, and everyone fought tenaciously and scrambled to climb. Suddenly, a crisp machine gun sounded on the battlements, only to see the "leopard head" Xu Changyuan pick up the machine gun and sweep through, repelling the enemy's counterattack and consolidating the breakthrough. Then, the whole regiment rushed into the city like a fierce tiger descending the mountain. At the same time, our Fifty-third Regiment also took the opportunity to break through the north gate and immediately developed in depth. By midnight, the Eighteenth Brigade had all occupied East-West Avenue and the area north of it. At 4:00 a.m. on the 15th, the Forty-seventh Regiment of the Sixteenth Brigade entered the city and participated in the battle. After fierce fighting, by the afternoon of the 15th, a regiment of the enemy of Taixing was basically annihilated by us, and only one or two hundred remnants of the regimental headquarters retreated to Qingyun Temple. At this time, the enemy had already determined that our main force was in the area of Taixing and Xuanjiabao, and ordered its main force to attack Taixing and Rugao. After learning of this situation, the commander of the Central China Field Army, in view of the fact that the enemy defending Taixing had basically been annihilated, and the enemy's Fifty-sixth Regiment and a mountain artillery battalion at Xuanjiapu had been completely annihilated by our First Division, decisively decided: Our division left a small number of troops to continue to besiege the remnants of the enemy in Taixing, causing the enemy to have the illusion that the main force of our army was still in Taixing, and the main force immediately marched eastward and chose to annihilate the enemy fighters. The Battle of Xuantai ended in victory.
The battles of Taixing and Xuanjiabao were fought by our army on the eve of the enemy's offensive and were unprepared, destroying the enemy's middle road, expanding our army's room for maneuver, and creating conditions for the transfer of troops and continuous combat.
Rush south
After the kuomintang Commander of the First Sui District, Li Mo'an, was unexpectedly attacked by us in the area where the attack was launched, he urgently ordered the reorganized 49th Division, the 65th Division, and the 83rd Division to launch an attack from Nantong, Huangqiao, and Taizhou at the same time, in an attempt to attack the main force of Huaye on three sides. Determined to avoid the enemy in the front, the commander of the Central China Field Army quickly shifted the main force, took advantage of the enemy's lack of preparation, and launched an attack from the flank of its offensive battle formation, annihilating the enemy of Rugao in the north in the movement.
Our division was ordered to move eastward on the evening of the 15th, and the main force was in the yanghuaqiao and Songjiaqiao areas to meet the 79th Brigade of the Left Road of the Enemy's Reorganized 49th Division, and to block the enemy's reorganized 65th Division and the 99th Brigade along the Ruhuang Highway with sufficient troops. Based on this, the division headquarters decided to use the Eighteenth Brigade and command the 46th Regiment of the 16th Brigade to advance along the Yellow Bridge and move through the direction, attack northeast from Hejiaba, and divide and annihilate the enemy's 79th Brigade; the 16th Brigade (owed to the 46th Regiment) along the Yellow Bridge and the line east of the 46th Brigade to block reinforcements of the enemy's integrated 65th Division and the 99th Brigade, in order to ensure the main force to encircle and annihilate the enemy's integrated 49th Division.
Time was pressing, so after we summoned the heads of the brigades and regiments to issue combat orders, we did not wait for the brigades and regiments to convey their tasks, that is, to set off in full gear. On the marching road, the brigades and regiments arranged combat tasks while walking, and carried out propaganda and agitation.
Publicize the heroic deeds of the "Taixing Fortification Company" and Xu Changyuan, Hu Zonglin and others who are not afraid of sacrifice and bravely fight, and inspire everyone with the victory in the battles of Taixing and Xuanjiabao. The party, government organs, and the masses of the people along the way actively supported the front and sent many food comfort troops to encourage us to win more battles and defend the liberated areas. Encouraged by victory and inspired by the enthusiasm of the masses of the people to support the army, the commanders and fighters carried forward the tenacious spirit of bearing great hardships and enduring great hardships and continuing to march and fight, traveled hundreds of miles at night, and marched rapidly to the east. After two nights of rapid marching, it arrived at the intended combat area before dawn on the 18th.
The enemy's reorganized 49th Division attacked Rugao in the direction of Lin Zi and Dingyan. On the 17th, the enemy division led the 26th Brigade into the area of Ghost Head Street and Tianduli; the enemy's 79th Brigade entered the area of Songjiaqiao and Yanghuaqiao. The enemy's reorganized 65th Division and the Ninth Ye'9th Brigade attacked Huangqiao from Taixing and Jingjiang respectively; the enemy's 148th Brigade stationed in Taizhou attacked Jiangyan in the east. Because the main force of our division in Taixing disguised continued to attack the defending enemy, and the secret speed of the main force of our army, the enemy's eastward movement was undetected.
On the 18th, while the 1st Youlin 1st Division surrounded the headquarters of the enemy's reorganized 49th Division and the 26th Brigade in the areas of Ghost Head Street and Tianduli, the 54th Regiment of the 18th Brigade and the 46th Regiment of the 16th Brigade of our division, with the cooperation of local armed forces, surrounded the enemy's 79th Brigade in the Yanghuaqiao and Songjiaqiao areas. That night, our 54th Regiment attacked the enemy of Yanghua Bridge without success. On the evening of the 19th, the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Regiments were added to participate in the battle, and the attack was still effective. At this time, with the cooperation of the main force of the Seventh Column, the First Division of our friendly neighbor had completely annihilated the enemies in Ghost Head Street and Tian Belly, and only division commander Wang Tiehan led a small number of remnants of the enemy to flee into Songjiaqiao. On the evening of the 20th, the commander of the Central China Field Army ordered a regiment of the First Division to cooperate with the Eighteenth Brigade to attack Yanghua Bridge and Songjia Bridge again, giving the enemy a annihilating blow. At this time, the enemy's Sixty-fifth Division and seventy-ninth brigade of the eastern aid were already approaching the combat area, and our division was ordered to stop the attack and withdraw from the battle.
While our Eighteenth Brigade attacked the enemies at Yanghua Bridge and Songjia bridge, the Sixteenth Brigade, which served as a reinforcement, struck the enemy flexibly and flexibly. At 5 p.m. on the 17th, our Forty-seventh Regiment attacked Chen Qiao with two battalions in the movement defense, completely annihilating one battalion of the enemy's Ninety-ninth Brigade, without any casualties of its own. On the 18th and 19th, the regiment withstood the repeated attacks of the enemy's two brigades, and attacked in front of the line with one force, capturing more than ten enemy prisoners. On the 21st, when defending The Pass, Majiazhuang, and Yanjia Lane, he attacked the East and West Baota Temple with some troops and repelled the enemy.
The Battle of Ru nan was the second battle of the Soviet-Chinese Campaign, which completely annihilated the headquarters of the enemy's reorganized 49th Division, the entire 26th Brigade, and most of the 79th Brigade, thus achieving the expected operational objectives. Due to the fact that the troops had been marching and fighting for 10 consecutive days, they were quite tired, and the enemy reinforcements were close, in order to maintain the initiative, the head of the Central China Field Army decided that the battle would end here. After a feint attack on the enemy, our division secretly withdrew from the battlefield and arrived in the Areas of Fu'an and Anfeng on August 1 to recuperate and prepare for another battle.
Westfield ambush
The ambush in the west was an important part of the Battle of Fort Lee, and after the defensive victory of the Hai'an Movement, the main force of our Huaye took advantage of the enemy's occupation of Hai'an to clamor for "victory" and when it was unprepared, it surprised the enemy in the Fort Lee area. This was the fourth battle of the Soviet-Chinese Campaign.
After the battle of Ru'nan, our division and the First Division moved to the northeast of Hai'an to rest and wait. The Seventh Column organized a movement defense in Hai'an and the area south and west of it in order to deplete the enemy, win time, seek fighters, and guarantee the rest of our division and the First Division. From July 30 to August 3, our Seventh Column fought bravely, killing and wounding more than 3,000 enemy troops, creating an excellent example of fifteen-to-one casualties between the enemy and us, and taking the initiative to evacuate Hai'an after the completion of the mission. The enemy's reorganized Sixty-fifth Division, the 1st O5th Brigade, and the New Seventh Brigade successively occupied Hai'an and reported "victory" one after another, boasting of the so-called "victory" and viewing the active transfer of our army as "unable to fight again." The enemy then adjusted its deployment and carried out "liquidation and suppression." The New Seventh Brigade was located in Hai'an, and the reorganized 65th Division and the 1st O 5th Brigade were invaded by Hai'an Dong in the West Field and Ding Jiashou. On the 7th and 8th, it entered the "clearance and suppression" areas of Fort Lee and Jiaoxie. On the 9th, the enemy's 65th Division was ordered to open Taizhou and Huangqiao in the west. On the 10th, the New Seventh Brigade prepared to march eastward to Fort Lee to replace the defense of the 1st O5th Brigade. The enemy's misjudgment and frequent mobilization give our army a great opportunity to surprise and annihilate the enemy. The commander of the Central China Field Army immediately made a decision and decided to use the 1st Division to attack and annihilate the main force of the 1st O 5th Brigade of the enemy at Fort Li and the Angle Angle; the 16th Brigade of our division to attack and annihilate the 1st O 5th Brigade of the enemy dingjia, and the 18th Brigade, located in the northern and southern areas of the Western Field, and cooperate with the 7th Column in the southeast area of Benjia Lane to jointly annihilate the enemy advancing to the east of Hai'an and block the enemy who Rugao might come to the aid.
After receiving the task, our division quickly marched towards the combat area. With a battalion of the Fifty-fourth Regiment of the Eighteenth Brigade. Two battalions and the Fifty-second Regiment were ambushed to form a bag-shaped position west of Lujiajian, north of the highway, and south of the highway, with the Fifty-third Regiment as a reserve, deployed in the area northeast of Xichang and east of Gujiazhuang. The troops were all hidden in civilian houses and green yarn tents, blocking the news to the outside world. We and the brigade commanders inspected the deployment of troops and told everyone to hide well, to be calm, and to wait until the enemy got into his pocket before fighting. At this point, everything is ready, only to wait for the enemy to enter the bag.
At 20:00 on August 10, the 1st Division of Friendly Neighbors took advantage of the confusion of the enemy's change of defense to launch an attack, and by noon on the 11th, it had completely annihilated the enemy's New Seventh Brigade, the 1st O Fifth Brigade, two brigade headquarters, and one regiment each. Due to the rapid offensive of our army, the enemy was suddenly in disarray, and communication was paralyzed, and the enemy in Hai'an knew nothing about this situation. At 9:00 a.m. on the morning of the 11th, the commander of the enemy's New Seventh Brigade led the Twenty-first Regiment to march toward Fort Lee with a big swing and enter our ambush position at noon. Our Fifty-fourth Regiment immediately attacked head-on, and the Fifty-seventh Regiment of the Seventh Column of the Friendly Neighbor seized the Lifa Bridge and cut off its retreat. The enemy was suddenly struck by me, and the chaos was abnormal. At this time, the two battalions of our Fifty-second Regiment and the Fifty-fourth Regiment attacked fiercely, encircling and dividing the enemy into several sections in one fell swoop, so that it was completely trapped in a passive beating situation. At 17:00, our division launched a final attack on the enemy, and only half an hour settled the battle, completely annihilating the enemy's Twenty-first Regiment. The victory in the Battle of Fort Lee broke the enemy's attempt to fight our army in Hoi An and complete the east-west blockade line and consolidate the occupied areas.
After the war, the cadres killed by the enemy, the families of the masses, and the women who were ravaged complained to the troops about the heinous crimes of the Kuomintang army, which greatly aroused the hatred of the commanders and fighters of our division against the enemy and resolved to avenge the martyrs and the victims by annihilating more enemies.
Trick Lin Zi
The Battle of Fort Lee forced the enemy to readjust its deployment, strengthen the dotted line defenses, and carry out divisional "clearance and suppression" in an attempt to ensure the areas it occupied, while actively preparing for the northern invasion of Huai'an and Huaiyin. The specific arrangements of the enemy army were: the reorganized 65th Division and a regiment of the 1st O5th Brigade were located in Hai'an and the area east of it; the remnants of the Reorganized 49th Division were located in Rugao and the area north of it; the 7th Traffic Police Corps (which owed a brigade) and the 10th Brigade were located in the Areas of Dingyan, Linzi, and Dongchen; the 21st Reorganized Division (annihilated by its New Seventh Brigade for us) and the 1st Traffic Police Division were located in the Nantong and Baipu areas; the 83rd Reorganized Division (whose 19th Brigade was annihilated for us) was located in Taizhou, Qutang, and Port; and the 99th Brigade was located in the Huangqiao and Jingjiang areas The reorganized 25th Division was located in the area of Yangzhou and the Fairy Temple.
The enemy's "clearance and suppression" deployment is still relatively scattered, especially in the section from Lin Zi to Dongchen, which is only defended by 7 traffic police brigades, which is even weaker.
After the Battle of Fort Li, the head of the Central China Field Army, in accordance with the instructions of the Central Military Commission and Comrade Mao Zedong, on the one hand readjusted its structure, straightened out its organization, replenished its troops, and carried out ideological education and rest; on the other hand, it studied the enemy's situation, formulated a new operational plan, and resolved to select the traffic police corps with weak combat effectiveness in the Dingyan and Linzi areas, open the gates to yangzhou and Taizhou in the west, threaten Nantong, isolate Rugao and Hai'an, disrupt the enemy's deployment, mobilize the enemies in Yangzhou, Taizhou, and Huangqiao, annihilate them in the course of the movement, and smash the enemy's attempt to commit two crimes in the north. The task entrusted to our division by the field army was to encircle and annihilate Lin Zi and the enemy in his vicinity.
Linzi, 8 km north of Dingyan, is a town on the (south) Tongru (Gao) Highway. The Tongyang Canal (Nantong to Yangzhou) flows through the town, and the width of the river is about 20 meters. There are many main courtyards and temples in the interior of the town, most of which are concentrated on the east bank of the canal, and some houses are scattered on both sides. The water network around the town is densely packed with rice paddies, surrounded by water on the west, south and north sides, and the terrain in the east of the town is open. Before the war, it was learned that the enemy in the town was the first brigade of the eleventh brigade of the traffic police and a security regiment. The traffic police corps was formed by the "Loyal and Righteous National Salvation Army", which was a special agent armed force specially used by the Kuomintang to suppress the people, all of which were equipped with American weapons, light machine guns, carbines, bazookas and other firearms, but no artillery. The enemy is extremely reactionary politically, but has little combat experience and average combat effectiveness. The enemy used the river and the five large bunkers left by the Japanese army at height of 8 to 10 meters in Linzi to build earth-wood launch points and trenches, and also set up intermittent barbed wire fences and deer blocks outside the trenches to form a relatively strong defense.
On August 16, after receiving the combat task entrusted by the head of the Central China Field Army, the two of us immediately convened a meeting to discuss the intentions of our superiors and study the combat plan of our division. We were determined to attack and annihilate the enemy defending Dingyan with the first division of the friendly neighbor, and at the same time attack and annihilate the enemy defending Linzi and the nearby enemy's "clearance and suppression" institutions and local armed forces with the first part of the Eighteenth Brigade; enter the area of Linzi West Field with the main force of the Sixteenth Brigade, prepare to block the enemy who came to the aid of Nantong, and seize Baipu by camera; and another regiment cooperated with the armed forces of the First Military Sub-district to besiege Huangqiao. The attack is scheduled to be launched at 20:00 on the 21st.
On the afternoon of the 21st, the whole division mobilized for battle, and the commanders and fighters were very happy and hoped to hand over a few more American guns and change their equipment. The fighters encouraged each other: "This time our opponent is Chiang Kai-shek's concubine, and we must not be careless. At 17:00, the troops marched towards Lin Zi as planned.
At 9:30 p.m. that night, our 54th Regiment simultaneously attacked Lin Zi from the east, south, and north. When my attacking troops approached the enemy about 40 meters, they were suddenly hit by fierce fire from the enemy's short-range firearms, and their advance was blocked. The regiment organized two more attacks at 1 and 3 p.m. on the 22nd, capturing only a large pillbox north of the town. There was still no progress to the east and south, and a state of confrontation with the enemy was formed. At dawn, after interrogating the prisoners and questioning the masses who had escaped from Lin Zi, it was ascertained that the defending enemy was originally a traffic police brigade. On the afternoon of the 21st, the third brigade of the Seventh Traffic Police Corps arrived in Linzi from Rugao and prepared to change defenses with the first brigade of the Eleventh General Brigade, thus increasing the strength of a brigade. At the same time, it was also learned that the enemy's fortifications were strong on the outside and weak in the middle, and the strongest point was the 3 large blockhouse groups in the southeast. There are many contradictions between the security regiment and the traffic police, and the command is not unified.
In light of the new situation, our Eighteenth Brigade immediately stopped attacking, decided to increase its strength, adjust its deployment, concentrate the strength and weapons of the entire brigade, and adopt the tactics of encircling on all sides, making breakthroughs in key areas, and interspersing and dividing to capture Lin Zi. In order to achieve the goal of quick and total annihilation, we also transferred the Forty-seventh Regiment of the Sixteenth Brigade (owed 1 battalion) and two artillery companies to strengthen the Eighteenth Brigade, and together with the commanders of the brigade and the main attack unit, we went to the scene to conduct a survey, changed the original main attack point, and concentrated our forces to carry out breakthroughs in the grain line and the southeast direction. Before the attack, a pontoon bridge was erected over the Tongyang River and various attack equipment were prepared. Attacked again at 14:00 on the 22nd. First of all, the artillery was concentrated to carry out a rapid fire attack, and by means of close-in flat fire, it destroyed several large bunkers on which the enemy relied and the earth and wood firing points that posed the greatest threat to us. Then, light and heavy machine guns were concentrated on each breakthrough area, firing at the same time, directly covering the first team to launch an attack on the enemy. Our Fifty-third, Fifty-fourth, Fifty-second, and Forty-seventh Regiments successively broke through the enemy's defenses and annihilated the enemies of the Grain Bank, the Shen Jingzhi Compound, the Shen Shuxun Compound, the Shen Danchu Compound, the Guandi Temple, the Shi Hall, and the Guanyin Hall. Finally, concentrate forces to besiege the enemy of Sanyuan Palace and Shibanqiao. At this time, the enemy was already unable to defend, there was no way to escape, there was no way to call for help, and he became a turtle in an urn. Our attacking troops immediately launched battlefield shouting and political offensives, the enemy surrendered one after another, and a small number of remnants of the enemy jumped into the river to escape, all of which were killed by our army in Hanoi. At 16:00, two brigades of enemy traffic police and a security regiment totaling more than 2,200 people were completely annihilated by our division. At the same time, the enemy of Dingyan was annihilated by the First Division of our friend, and the battle ended in victory. This was the fifth battle of the Soviet-Chinese Campaign. This battle was fought cleanly, and we not only captured a large number of American automatic firearms and armed ourselves, but also opened the door to the west, creating conditions for the next step of penetrating the enemy's heart.
Demarcation encounters
Towards the end of the battle between Dingyan and Lin Zi, the enemy advancing east of Suxian Had already occupied Suining and was preparing to attack Huaiyin.
On August 25, the reorganized 25th Division of the enemy in Yangzhou attacked Shaobo to coordinate the attack on the enemy in Huaiyin. In order to ensure the safety of Shao Bo, Gaoyou, and Huaiyin, the Central China Field Army decided to adopt the tactic of "attacking Huang (Bridge) and saving Shao (Bo)" to mobilize the enemy and annihilate them in the movement. In order to realize this determination, the First Division, the Fifth Brigade, the Special Forces Regiment and our division were ordered to advance rapidly westward. When the enemy saw us advancing westward, he judged that our army was going to take advantage of the situation to seize Rugao, and in order to strengthen the defense of Rugao City, he urgently ordered the Ninety-ninth Brigade to advance from the east of Huangqiao to fortify the city and dispatch aircraft to assist in the battle. The commander of the Central China Field Army judged the hour and sized up the situation, seized the fighter, and resolved to fight an expected encounter with the enemy's Ninety-ninth Brigade on the Ruhuang Road, annihilating the enemy in the movement, and then advancing westward. ，
After receiving the task of engaging the enemy on the march, we quickly made up our minds. The sixteenth brigade is on the left and the eighteenth brigade is on the right, along the Ruhuang Highway and the area south of it, secretly and rapidly advancing towards the Yellow Bridge; the sixteenth brigade, with the forty-sixth regiment as the vanguard regiment, once it encounters the enemy, drags the enemy and covers the entire division; the forty-seventh regiment and the forty-eighth regiment cut off the enemy's retreat, blocked the enemy's reinforcements, and attacked the enemy from the flanks and rear; the eighteenth brigade intercepted the enemy head-on, and the main force quickly deployed to the enemy's two wings, blocking the waist and annihilating the enemy at the same time.
In accordance with the characteristics of the rapid changes in the situation of the encountered battles and the fact that it is not easy to grasp, in order to gain the initiative, we first attacked the enemy and adopted the method of marching, mobilizing, and arranging at the same time before the war, and completed the preparation for battle. It is required that the troops conceal our army's attempts before the war, and after the battle is triggered, they must first unfold the enemy, occupy the favorable terrain first, fire the enemy first, and attack the enemy first, so as to completely annihilate the enemy with the tactics of "blocking the head," "breaking the waist," and "striking the tail to block the reinforcement."
On the morning of the 25th, when the forty-sixth regiment of the 16th Brigade's avant-garde made use of the green yarn tent to secretly enter Lujiazhuang, it found that the enemy, under the cover of aircraft, was advancing east along the highway, and the first head had crossed the demarcation line. The regiment immediately advanced from Lujiazhuang to the demarcation attack, dragging the enemy and covering the main force. The Forty-seventh regiment and the forty-eighth regiment immediately ran forward, cutting off the enemy's retreat to the west of the demarcation to block the enemy's reinforcements, and attacking the enemy from the flank and rear. At this time, the Fifty-second Regiment of the Eighteenth Brigade, which was advancing west along the Ruhuang Highway, also found enemy search troops in Qinhu Lake, and the regiment immediately relied on Qinhu to attack the enemy first, regardless of the bombing and strafing of enemy aircraft. When the enemy was confronted, he turned back and ran, and the regiment followed and pursued to the south of the Great Boundary Ditch to confront the enemy. The Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth Regiments advanced rapidly along the north side of the demarcation.
In light of the situation on the battlefield at that time, we immediately ordered the Fifty-second Regiment and the Forty-sixth Regiment to resolutely block the head and tail, take the demarcation as the main direction of attack, carry out a multi-way attack, and annihilate the enemy in the movement; the main force of the Sixteenth Brigade quickly seized Xiao Erfangzhuang, blocked the enemy's reinforcements, and was ready to capture the Yellow Bridge at any time. The brigades were ordered to attack immediately, and that night they occupied the area north of The Great and Small Boundary Ditch, Shenjia Lane, Yangjiadai and Great and Small Yangzhuang. Before dawn, the enemy was compressed in a narrow area of the boundary between Dangli and the east, leaving the enemy in a dilemma and unable to take care of each other.
In order to quickly annihilate the besieged enemy, the commander of the Central China Field Army transferred the first brigade of the First Division and the Special Service Regiment to strengthen our division. On the morning of 26 July, we adjusted our deployment again, determined to concentrate the strength of the 4 regiments of the 16th Brigade and the 18th Brigade, and to carry out the main assault from north to south side by side; to carry out the siege from the east, west, and south with the strength of two regiments; the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division as a reserve, ready to join the main direction of attack and annihilate the enemy who escaped across the river; the special service regiment took over the blockade task of the 16th Brigade's Xiaoerfangzhuang and launched a general offensive at 13:00.
The enemy had suffered heavy casualties, low morale, and chaotic formation after an overnight attack by us, and was now waiting for planes and reinforcements to save his life. Heavy rain fell at noon, and the enemy felt even more desperate. However, the troops participating in the battle were highly motivated, regarded the torrential rain as a good opportunity to annihilate the enemy, and braved the rain to launch a general offensive on time. With a sudden and courageous movement, the units broke through the enemy's defensive positions in one fell swoop and plunged straight into the enemy's heart. The enemy immediately became a chaotic mess, lost command, and broke through separately. Our army boldly wedged into the enemy group, slammed and charged, most of the enemy was annihilated, one jumped south to escape, and was killed by us in the river. A small number of enemies who had fled south were also annihilated by the First Brigade of our First Division in the area north of Lujiazhuang. At this point, the enemy's Ninety-ninth Brigade and an artillery battalion were completely annihilated by us, and the battle ended in victory. When blocking the enemy who broke through, Comrade Chen Ruilin, a machine gunner and combat hero of the Eighth Company of the Forty-sixth Regiment, was resourceful and composed, accurately shooting, and 1 person annihilated more than 200 enemies. Comrade Lu Guocheng, deputy commander of the first battalion of the 52nd Regiment, who was seriously wounded, stabbed 6 enemies to death in succession in a white-knife fight with the enemy, and finally died heroically.
After the demarcation battle, in accordance with the orders of the commander of the Central China Field Army, our Eighteenth Brigade immediately turned its troops to the east and cooperated with the First Division and the Fifth Brigade to annihilate another enemy half brigade. This was the seventh battle in the Battle of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the fraternal forces won the sixth battle, the Battle of the Shaw Defense.
After the Battle of Soviet Union and China, our division, together with its brother troops, moved to Suzhou, Lu, Henan, and Anhui, participated in many major battles, and annihilated a large number of the enemy's living forces.
It has been exactly 40 years since the victory of the Soviet-Chinese Campaign, but the scene of the bloody struggle in that year is still vividly remembered.
At this moment, we deeply miss the comrades who gave their glorious sacrifices in the battle, and their heroic deeds will forever be remembered in history. We all the more miss the good leaders who commanded this campaign, comrade Su Yu and Comrade Tan Zhenlin, the old chiefs. It was they who took the objective material conditions of Suzhong as the stage and directed this drama with sound and color and mighty strength. The victory in this campaign not only provided an important reference basis for the strategic principle of protracted defensive operations on the inner front formulated by the Central Military Commission of the CPC Central Committee and Comrade Mao Zedong later, but also played a tremendous role in thwarting the enemy's offensive vigor, ascertaining the enemy's falsehood, gaining experience in the early stage of the war, stabilizing the situation in the early stage of the war, and strengthening the confidence of the army and people in the Liberated Areas in defeating the Kuomintang army.
(Nanjing, April 1986)