It was the battle in the history of China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in which the enemy and us suffered the most casualties, and it was also the longest battle in which the Chinese army fought head-on. It is known as China's "Moscow Defense War". The Chinese army "took one as ten" and severely damaged the Japanese army of 100,000 with 17,000 people. Although this battle for the defense of the city has long ended, its influence has never dissipated. After all, there is no battle in Chinese history that lasts longer and is more tragic than the Battle of Hengyang.
Battle of Hengyang
How did Chairman Mao call the "heroic Hengyang warriors" win this war with fewer victories and more victories? Why did the Japanese deliberately downplay the impact of the Battle of Hengyang? Why did the Battle of Hengyang become an important part of the world anti-fascist war? Today, I will take you to understand the most tragic defense of Hengyang at the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. The new audience friends remember to like and support it a lot.
In 1944, the Japanese army was already at the end of the crossbow, and after successive defeats in the Pacific Theater, in order to compete for the initiative in the battlefield, they decided to find a breakthrough from China, which was:
Open the mainland communication line from northeast China to Vietnam. To this end, the Japanese army gathered 500,000 troops to launch the "Operation No. 1" plan.
This was the largest attack launched by the Japanese army in the history of the invasion of China. Because the Japanese army placed its main offensive forces in Henan, Hunan and Guangxi, this war was also known as the "Battle of Yuxianggui". The Japanese army adopted the method of "strong army and heavy attack", and quickly occupied Zhengzhou in April 1944, and Luoyang and Xuchang were also lost in May. Changsha fell in mid-June, and the Japanese army quickly and rapidly pointed directly at Hengyang. The defense of Hengyang was on the verge of breaking out.
Isamu Yokoyama
On the eve of the start of the war, the Japanese commander Isamu Yokoyama swore an oath:
"The Japanese army can take Hengyang effortlessly."
To his astonishment, the 10th Army guarding Hengyang was not willing to show weakness and struggled to resist the Japanese invasion, proving that the seemingly weak Zhejiang people could also win such a big battle of corpses and blood. What is the origin of this Zhejiang army that was not originally seen by Yokoyama Yong? Come with me and look down.
The 10th Army seemed to be "weak", with only more than 17,600 soldiers, and most of the soldiers were "Southerners", and they were not very large. But its predecessor was the famous Whampoa Teaching Regiment, known as the Taishan Army. Not only is he the highest honor in the Nationalist army, but he also holds the Flying Tiger Banner, is an elite unit of the Kuomintang, is also one of the most valued armies of Chiang Kai-shek, and is an army with extremely strong combat effectiveness. When Yokoyama First knew that it was the 10th Army guarding Hengyang, he was still arrogant, thinking that the "Southern Army" must be easier to fight than the "Northern Army", but he ignored the hardness that Chinese carved in his bones!
At that time, Hengyang was a central city that ranked in the top three with Chongqing and Kunming, and Hengyang's tax revenue ranked second in the country. Yokoyama's eye is the highly developed economy and transportation here. Once Hengshan Yong successfully occupied Hengyang, it was equivalent to him firmly holding the Guangdong-Han Railway and the Xiangguiqian Railway in his hands. Based on the above reasons, he launched a crazy attack on Hengyang without hesitation. After Yokoyama's attack, Chiang Kai-shek also gave the 10th Army a death order to hold Hengyang for 10 to 15 days no matter what.
On June 1, 1944, after the commander of the 10th Army, Fang Xianjue, led his troops to Hengyang City, he immediately began to evacuate the residents inside and outside Hengyang City from Hengyang by train, and then accelerated the pace of building a semi-permanent large fortification group in Hengyang City to resist the invasion of the Japanese.
Fang Xianjue
On June 21, Chiang Kai-shek called Fang Xianjue, commander of the 10th Army, and asked him about the preparations for the defense of Hengyang. On June 23, when Yokoyama arrived in Hengyang with more than 50,000 people from the 68th Division and the 116th Division, Hengyang had become an "empty city" with only soldiers, and there was no need to worry about injuring the masses by mistake. The 10th Army, which had solved its worries early, saw a large number of Japanese Kou marching in the direction of Hengyang City under the cover of aircraft and tanks, and was angry. However, they still calmed down, obeyed the command of Fang Xianjue, and repelled the Japanese army in an orderly manner.
On June 25, the Japanese 68th Division crossed the Xiang River in Dongyang and entered the southwestern region of Hengyang, and transferred the headquarters of the 68th Regiment to Huangshaling. The 116th Division arrived in the western suburbs of Hengyang on June 27 and 28. Japanese support also entered the area north of Hengyang on the 27th. Hengyang was surrounded to the southwest, west and east by the Japanese.
From June 28, the Japanese army began to formally attack Hengyang, for which the Japanese sent more than 10,000 people and 29 cannons to violently bombard Hengyang's West Bus Station, West Railway Station, and the main position of Wuguiling in Hengyang. Gas and incendiary bombs are also used by any means. However, our army calmly responded, and in the battle, the division commander and chief of staff of the Japanese 68th Division were seriously wounded. The commander of the division, Lieutenant General Saku, died on the way in transit, which undoubtedly gave the invaders a blow in the head. The Japanese 68th Division lost its center of gravity and had to merge with the 116th Division.
In order to fundamentally break the enemy, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 10th Army on July 1:
"Take advantage of the enemy's deep penetration, the rear is empty, and use frontal blockade and flankback onslaught to break through it."
Due to the heroic resistance of the military and people of Hengyang, the various defenders and air force units cooperated effectively to defeat the enemy's attack in one fell swoop. On 2 July, the Japanese 11th Army was forced to halt its attacks and await reinforcements from the following forces. Seeing the Japanese army eating up on the battlefield, the Chinese soldiers knew that their opportunity had come. The 10th Army continued to remain in Hengyang, and Wang Yaowu's corps and other troops of the 62nd Army swept the enemy army in the southern battlefield. By July 10, our army had retaken Yongfeng, Wuqiaopu and other places, and achieved some results.
On July 11, Japanese reinforcements arrived at the battlefield and launched a second attack on Hengyang. This time, the Japanese changed their offensive strategy. Four heavy artillery brigades and two mortar brigades were added, and the concentrated fighting method was adopted, and the combat effectiveness of the artillery and air force was concentrated as much as possible to capture Hengyang in a planned manner. The Japanese 5th Air Force bombed our Liangshan airfield on the 7th and 8th, and on the 9th, 11th, and 12th, it bombarded our airfields in Guilin and Zhijiang. In just 5 days, we have destroyed a total of 140 aircraft. After taking control of the skies over Hengyang, the Japanese began to combine with the ground artillery and poured a large number of shells into Hengyang. The whole of Hengyang turned into a sea of fire, countless houses collapsed in an instant, and the casualties of the 10th Army were close to 4,000.
Although the Japanese Kou used this method to bomb Hengyang City, it achieved certain results. However, the 10th Army was not a vegetarian, and after several days and nights of melee, more than 8,000 Japanese commanders were destroyed, and almost all the middle-level commanders of the Japanese Kou were replaced, and 1 squadron leader and 6 captains were killed on the spot. The Japanese army cooperated with the land and air forces, and the 10th Army guarding Hengyang was under pressure. To this end, Chiang Kai-shek sent peripheral troops to support Hengyang. The 79th Army, the 62nd Army, and the 63rd Army formed a united front and stormed the Japanese defensive line in the northwestern suburbs of Hengyang.
On the evening of July 12, in order to make a quick decision, the frenzied Japanese Kou, assisted by thick artillery fire and a large amount of poisonous gas, pounced on the Longhu Mountain position on the outskirts of Hengyang, and as a result, a small group of Japanese Kou actually entered the Longhu Mountain position, but the small group of Japanese Kou who entered the position was annihilated by our army by more than 500 people. Only Zang Xiaoxia,Losing a company infected by poison gas, only 30 people in the company were still alive at the end of the battle. In addition, there was also an elite Japanese troop of about 2,000 people, which broke through wuguiling in the same way. But we resisted with all our might, and reinforcements arrived quickly. The Japanese had to pay a terrible price for each step forward and had to postpone the attack.
After the second japanese offensive ended on 20 July, our army has been waiting for reinforcements and replenishment of ammunition. Before the follow-up reinforcements of our army arrived, the Japanese reinforcements had already arrived and launched an attack. The 10th Army trapped in Hengyang was trapped in its positions for a long time, and the ammunition was very insufficient, and many soldiers could not sleep day and night, dragging their tired bodies into the day-to-day war. Even though their combat effectiveness was weakening day by day, they firmly believed that they were like this, and the Japanese were like this, and they repelled the enemy's attack several times with a strong fighting spirit.
The Japanese army did not expect that Hengyang would be so difficult to fight. The repeatedly frustrated Japanese army ended the second attack on Hengyang on July 20, and the Japanese base camp blindly blamed the commander Yokoyama Yong for being incompetent, Yokoyama Yong was depressed, the battle was difficult to fight, and the superior did not know the battle situation and wanted to win the battle. He had no choice but to make a desperate bet and launched a third attack on July 27. This time, Yokoyama Yong also transferred the 58th Division and the 13th Division and the heavy artillery unit to launch an attack on the front line of Xiaojialing in Hengyang, and personally commanded the battle situation.
On 6 August, the 58th Division of the Japanese Kou first launched a fierce attack on the Catholic Church located in the northwest corner of Hengyang City. The third battalion of the 568th Regiment of the 190th Division, which was holding out here, had not dripped water for several days. However, he hung with his last breath, but in the end he was unable to defend the Catholic Church, and dozens of Japanese troops successfully entered the Catholic Church under the cover of artillery fire.
In order to guard the church and avoid causing greater damage. The commander of the 10th Army, Fang Xianjue, sent a special battalion to support the soldiers who were dead in the church. After killing dozens of Japanese soldiers who entered the church, he also killed the brigade commander of the 57th Brigade of the 68th Division, Major General Shima Genji, on the spot. The three brigades of the 800 formation Kurose who came to attack were beaten by the Nationalist army and only more than 80 people were left. The bodies of Chinese and Japanese soldiers were so large that they could be built into hills.
On August 7, the Japanese 95th Brigade again sent heavy troops to attack, and after successfully occupying the Catholic Church, it turned to attack Qingshan Street. The third battalion of the 7th Regiment of the 190th Division, which guarded Qingshan Street, fought until it had no survival. At this time, there was a defensive vacancy on our side, and the Japanese troops entered Hengyang City for the first time with the size of a whole team.
The 17,000 generals of the 10th Army guarded Hengyang City for 47 days, of which more than 7,600 were killed, more than 6,700 were wounded, and the remaining nearly 3,000 people were also incapacitated, and they were ultimately unable to resist the fierce artillery fire of the Japanese Kou. When the defenders inside and outside Hengyang could not meet, the Japanese Kou bombarded the hengyang city wall with tanks as the precursor, and successfully entered hengyang city to engage in a melee with the nationalist army. Some of the defenders in the city preferred to die and shot themselves to the end of their lives. Some stomped their feet and beat their chests, crying silently, and watched as Hengyang City, which had been held out for 47 days, was taken away by the Japanese Kou.
In order to save more than 8,000 wounded, Fang Xianjue, commander of the 10th Army, at 3 p.m. on July 7, put up a white flag at the tianma mountain position and surrendered to the Japanese, thus losing Hengyang. On August 8, Fang Xianjue negotiated with the commander of the Japanese 68th Division, Di Sanshunan, and the commanders of the various squadrons on the disposal of wounded prisoners after the war. Fang Xianjue proposed to retain the structure of the 10th Army and the dignity of the disabled soldiers, and demanded that the Japanese army immediately cease fire and not fight again. However, the Japanese side rejected all the conditions proposed by Fang Xianjue, and after putting Fang Xianjue under house arrest, reorganized the 10th Army into the "Xianhe Army". The Battle of Hengyang ended on August 8, and all Japanese troops successfully entered the city.
This was a defensive battle of "victory even though defeated", in which our army of 17,000 people played a momentum of 100,000 people. Chiang Kai-shek's plan to defend Hengyang City for 10-15 days was successfully completed, killing and wounding more than 80,000 Japanese troops. It was the war in the history of the 8-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in which the casualties ratio between the enemy and ourselves was the largest. The Japanese army paid the price, although it occupied Hengyang City, but it was unable to complete the task of opening up the communication line!
As sons and daughters of China, we should always remember those moments of humiliation and passive beating. Because only by not forgetting the national shame, remembering the backs of those heroes who stubbornly guarded Hengyang, and remembering the deeds of the 10th Army in bloody battles, can we be worthy of Chinese! Although they only guarded Hengyang City for 47 days, these Chinese soldiers were worthy of the country and worthy of themselves! You tell me?