100,000 soldiers went to the battlefield, and several people returned from the mountains.
In 1942, in order to cooperate with the international war situation in World War II and to guard the safety of the Burma Road, the leadership of the Chinese army formed an expeditionary force to fight in Burma. This is the first time in modern times that the Chinese army rushed to a foreign battlefield to fight, the target of the attack was the Japanese invaders with wolf ambitions, the soldiers set out with vigor and ambition, but they did not expect that because they were not familiar with the terrain, the lack of command of the front-line officers, coupled with poor communication with the allies and other factors, the first time the troops were defeated, the casualties of the troops reached more than 50,000 people, only the soldiers who died in the Battle of Savage Mountain were more than 30,000, and only 1,300 soldiers came out of the mountains alive, and only one of them was a female soldier. She is the protagonist of today's story - Liu Guiying. As the only female soldier of the expeditionary force who walked out of the Savage Mountain alive, what did Liu Guiying experience? What kind of scene made her exclaim that "the mountains are more terrible than the Japanese"?
Video link: The only female soldier who walked out of the Savage Mountain, 22 years old, went to the front line to resist japan, and bluntly said that the mountain was more terrible than the Japanese!
Poems commemorating the expeditionary force
The old hero Liu Guiying passed away on November 16, 2021 in Hefei, Anhui Province, at the age of 102. She was born in 1920, her hometown is in Changsha, Hunan, her family is poor, her parents are farmers, to make matters worse, because of the war and poverty, her parents have died one after another, and Liu Guiying, who was a young age, also became an orphan, and later she was sent to the Changsha Poor Women's Home by well-wishers, which is now often called the Love Welfare Home, which has a place to live. The hardships of life allow Liu Guiying to exercise a strong character, she never bowed to fate, the poor women's hospital often has teachers from nearby schools to teach, Liu Guiying is always the most active one, in 1937, Liu Guiying was admitted to Changsha Xiangya Hospital with excellent results, becoming a trainee nurse here, this year she was 17 years old.
Not long after, the Japanese invaders brazenly launched the Lugou Bridge Incident, which ignited a war on the land of Shenzhou, and the anti-Japanese salvation movement of the sons and daughters of China also unfolded. Liu Guiying was very bitter about these foreign invaders who wantonly trampled on the territory of other countries and brutalized innocent people, and he was determined to join the army early on, doing his best to learn medical knowledge during his work, and longing to one day be able to learn and succeed and treat more wounded on the battlefield. Immediately after graduation, she joined the anti-Japanese ranks, joined the 22nd Division of the Kuomintang Army, and became a nurse in a field hospital.
Nurse during the War of Resistance
When the Japanese army first launched an all-out war of aggression against China, it set the ambitious goal of "occupying China within three months," and in the early stage of the war, it was indeed overwhelming, successively attacking and occupying many important towns and important places on the mainland, but they still underestimated the determination of the Chinese military and people to resist Japan, and did not realize the great potential of the Chinese army. The Chinese nation worked together to use various channels to resist the Japanese and The Japanese army not only failed to realize the March plan, but was completely dragged down and plunged into the ocean of people's war. The longer it dragged on, the weaker the advantage of the Japanese army, after all, they were only a projectile island country, and they did not have so many war resources. The japanese army, embarrassed and angry, planned to make a fierce move to implement the inhumane "Three Lights Policy" in China, sweep up the occupied areas, and strike at the anti-Japanese forces of the Chinese military and people. In order to cut off the logistical supply of the Chinese army, the Japanese army used its advantages in sea and air supremacy to block the mainland's transportation fortresses to overseas areas, increasing the difficulty of the Chinese military and people to resist Japan.
In 1942, the Japanese army in the Pacific theater was hit by the Heavy Attack of the American Army, and also blocked the logistics transportation line by sea, in order to save its own decline, the Japanese army turned its target to Burma in the southeast region of Asia, intending to seize the actual control of the Burma Road and establish a land communication trunk line through the Asian battlefield. Burma was a British colony at the time, but the British were hit by the Nazi German army during World War II and could not spare energy to manage this distant colony, and the local armed forces in Burma were not rivals of the Japanese army, and the capital Yangon was soon occupied, and the Burma Road was in jeopardy. The British leadership, an ally of the International Anti-Fascist Alliance, applied to China for cooperation and asked the Chinese army to send troops to Burma to jointly resist the Japanese invaders. The leadership of the Chinese military did not consider long before agreeing, not only because of the allies' calls for help, but also because of the incomparable importance of the Burma Highway to the mainland.
Burma Highway
The Burma Highway connects the southwest region of China, and a steady stream of international aid materials are transported to China through the Burma Highway and scattered to the anti-Japanese battlefield in the interior, especially after the Japanese army guarded the mainland traffic artery in the later period, the Burma Highway became China's only external contact channel. In order to preserve this "lifeline of the War of Resistance" and to prevent the Japanese army from attacking the southwest rear of the mainland along the road line, the leadership of the Chinese army soon organized the establishment of the Chinese Expeditionary Force and entered Burma at the request of the British army.
Liu Guiying was also in the first batch of expeditionary force units, as a medical staff. In the early days, the Chinese Expeditionary Force fought very smoothly, and the leaders of the Chinese army personally went to the war zone in northern Burma to observe the war situation, and the Japanese army suffered several defeats in succession, and the combat deployment was completely disrupted. But the crisis came soon, after all, the operation was to burma, which was not familiar with the land, the expeditionary force officers were not familiar with the terrain, so the marching and fighting had to rely on the British army or the local armed forces to cooperate with the assistance, at the beginning the British army was very cooperative, but when they learned that the capital of Burma, Rangoon, was occupied by the Japanese invaders, the combat attitude changed completely, and the operational requirements of coordination and cooperation were completely forgotten, and in the name of preserving the strength of the troops, they withdrew from the garrison in Tonggu overnight, leaving only the Chinese expeditionary force to fight alone. In the end, Tonggu was occupied by the Japanese army, and the expeditionary force had no choice but to withdraw. In April 1942, due to improper coordination between the two sides, the battlefield showed a one-sided state, the British army began to retreat in full, and the Chinese Expeditionary Force had no other way, divided into two groups, one group of people transferred to India, and one group of people came to Savage Mountain.
Savage Mountain
Why did you come to Savage Mountain? This is because many people want to emulate the guerrilla tactics of the Eighth Route Army, thinking that the Japanese army cannot immediately find their tracks when they enter the mountains, and there are wild fruits and wild vegetables and other things in the mountains to fill their hunger. But these soldiers still think too simple, the danger of Savage Mountain is unimaginable to ordinary people, it is known by the locals as the "green devil's cave of eating people", at first glance, only think that the mountain is high and densely forested is very suitable for concealment, but after a long time, you will find that the horror here is even far more than the Japanese invaders who are chasing after them. Savage Mountain was undeveloped and had no special road for people to pass, and the troops blew up tanks, cars and other large military equipment that could not be carried before entering the mountain, and strived to be lightly armed.
Liu Guiying's medical team belonged to the logistics staff, has been walking in the back of the army, she and the comrades around her were in the middle of May 1942 into the Savage Mountain, just entered by the scene in front of the startled, the original entrance remained more than a thousand charred corpses, the remaining cloth on the corpse told Liu Guiying, these are his comrades-in-arms. The leader of the unit told her that this was chosen by the comrades-in-arms themselves, they were all wounded, they were unable to move easily, they could not travel long distances in the savage mountains, and continuing to stay would only increase the burden on the troops, but they did not want to be captured by the Japanese invaders, so they chose such a tragic way to set themselves on fire and self-immolation, showing their firm determination to die for martyrs rather than be captured.
Tombstone of the Martyrs of the Expeditionary Force
Deeply touched, Liu Guiying stepped into the Savage Mountain, dragging her tired body forward with difficulty, because there was no road, she and several comrades in the medical team could only hold hands and slowly move forward, and within a few days, blood bubbles appeared on her feet, and the pain of the drill heart made her remember decades later. Savage Mountain belongs to the primeval forest, full of towering trees, swamps, wild beasts, and some other dangerous species such as locusts and poisonous snakes, and the miasma spreads. Originally, everyone thought of finding some wild game wild fruits and other fruits in the mountains and forests, but now they did not dare to eat at will, for fear of eating the wrong thing and being poisoned to death. During the day, the Savage Mountain can still be walked, and the sunlight is reflected through the gaps in the woods, but at night, it is surrounded by darkness and fear, and the jackals, tigers and leopards run rampant, making people sleepless at night.
The forest was humid and hot, coupled with the fact that everyone was very nervous, many people began to get sick, but there was a lack of medical treatment on the way to the rapid march, so the soldiers' illness was difficult to control, the sanitary conditions in the mountains were poor, and the plague spread, and even the leaders of the troops almost died of illness. At this time, Liu Guiying was the most sad, she was originally a medical worker, but she could not help those wounded who had no medicine to save, and every time she could only watch them being tortured by illness and watching her comrades die in vain.
Chinese Expeditionary Force
After a while, the military map completely lost its effect, the troops were lost in the vast forest, and what was even more terrifying was that the logistics were completely exhausted, and the expeditionary force ran out of food. Everyone first killed the war horses to fill the hunger, then boiled the belt to eat, and finally the hunger could not stand it, found what to eat, and a large number of soldiers lost their lives due to food poisoning. The further you go, the more miasma spreads, and many people become delirious because of the high fever, lose contact with the large troops, and are forced to stay in a foreign country far away from their homeland, where their lives and deaths are unknown. Liu Guiying has also been ill, and has also fallen off a cliff, fortunately, she has a great life, she also has a certain common sense of rescue, and finally walked through the most dangerous area with her comrades-in-arms, they walked from summer to autumn, and finally saw a tent set up on the cliff in the distance when she was scarred, and At this moment Liu Guiying was in tears, because she knew that she had finally walked out of the dense forest and was saved!
Liu Guiying arrived at a supply depot built by the Allies, where she rested for a while before being sent back to China. Because she was the only female soldier who survived, everyone praised her tenacity and courage, calling her a heroine, but Liu Guiying always modestly said that she was just an ordinary person. Now that Elder Liu has left, her deeds and spirit will be passed down through the ages, let us pay tribute to all Chinese soldiers!
Toss the Savage Mountains