Author: Xiao Yu
October 22, 1940, deep in the Taihang Mountains.
When Okazaki arrived at Wenzhuang with three infantry squadrons led by Nakasa, he was blocked by the Eighth Route Army. The Eighth Route Army, which was good at guerrilla warfare, had rarely fought a single position in the past, but this time they were unusually tenacious, which could not help but surprise Okazaki.
Okazaki, who had been mistakenly hit and bumped all the way, did not know that the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army was at the moment in the village of Teoma, 5 kilometers north of Wenzhuang, and that senior generals such as Deputy Commander-in-Chief Peng Dehuai and Deputy Chief of General Staff Zuo Quan were in the village. This is precisely why the Eighth Route Army troops had to block the Okazaki detachment at all costs.
Oil painting showing Peng Dehuai and Zuo Quan
The eighth route army put in the blockade of the 772nd regiment of the 386th brigade of the 129th division and the 25th regiment and 38th regiment of the 1st column, who fought in Wenzhuang for two days and paid the price of more than 300 casualties in order to cover the withdrawal of the headquarters organs. The Okazaki detachment prepared to pursue, but the road was too steep to discourage it.
The Okazaki detachment randomly swept along the area around Qishugou, but the ghost made a mistake to the Huangyadong Arsenal of the Eighth Route Army. The two companies of the Eighth Route Army, which was responsible for the perimeter defense, were carelessly defended, and were easily broken by the Japanese army, and then destroyed the facilities of the arsenal and captured a large amount of ammunition. For the Eighth Route Army, which was extremely short of weapons and ammunition, such a loss could be described as a heartache.
Japanese army
Peng Dehuai was furious! Presiding over the work on the front line of the Taihang Mountains, he was determined to use all resources to completely annihilate this Japanese Kou who was in no man's land in the base area, destroy the enemy's arrogance, and strengthen the prestige of our army!
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > 8 regiments to fight a detachment, the strength of the ratio is 20:1</h1>
Since July 1940, the Eighth Route Army has continued to launch the "Zhengtai Road Breaker War", which has made the Japanese decision-making level exclaim that "there should be a re-understanding of North China", so from October onwards, tens of thousands of troops were mobilized to carry out retaliatory sweeps to the anti-Japanese base areas.
In the Battle of the Hundred Regiments, the Eighth Route attacked the Japanese stronghold
According to the custom, the Japanese sweeping was usually based on 4 squadrons per detachment, but the Okazaki detachment was a temporary patchwork, with only 3 infantry squadrons, plus 1 mountain artillery detachment, 1 engineer squad, 1 heavy infantry squad, 1 radio detachment and 1 combat rescue squad, which were drawn from the 37th Division Regiment, the 41st Division Regiment, the Mixed 9th Brigade Regiment, and the Mixed 4th Brigade Regiment.
The total strength of the unit is 535 people, enough to meet the formation of the brigade, and the reason why it is called "detachment" is because its main composition is three infantry squadrons from different companies, and there is no infantry artillery squad necessary for the brigade level. According to the usual name of the Japanese army, no matter how many troops the unit has in total, it will be called a detachment rather than a brigade.
Okazaki graduated from the 27th class of the Army Non-Commissioned Officer School, and his position was the deputy wing commander of the 226th Wing of the 37th Division, and he had never been a leader, and his experience in independently commanding operations was relatively lacking. The reason why he was sent to lead the team was because the commanders of the Japanese troops had to stay behind to deal with the Kuomintang troops near The Nakajō Mountains, and the only person responsible for the task of sweeping up was the deputy post, which gave Okazaki the opportunity to take the lead.
After destroying the Huangyadong Arsenal, reinforcements from the Eighth Route Army rolled in. Okazaki keenly sensed that this was the first-class main force of the Eighth Route Army because they had mortars. Okazaki's judgment was completely correct, and it was Chen Geng's 386 brigade that killed them.
Okazaki sensed the crisis, so he led his troops to take the road and retreated to the town of Panlong in Wuxiang County, preparing to return to Qin County from here. However, the troops of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army were resting near the town of Panlong at this time, and they could encircle the Japanese army without the need for a large-scale mobilization of troops, and Peng Dehuai naturally did not miss such a fighter.
On the afternoon of October 29, Peng Dehuai rushed to Shimen Village in Panlong Town, where the operational order was formally issued: concentrate one unit of the 386th Brigade, the 385th Brigade, and the newly formed 10th Brigade of the 129th Division, plus the 25th and 38th Regiments of the 1st Column and the Headquarters Artillery Regiment, and launch an attack on the Japanese Okazaki Detachment at 4:00 a.m. on October 30.
The Eighth Route Army in training
In this battle, the Eighth Route Army concentrated more than 10,000 people in 8 regiments to surround and annihilate more than 500 people in the Okazaki detachment, and the ratio of strength between the two sides was close to 20:1!
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > who occupies Willow Hill and who has the initiative</h1>
In the face of the encirclement and blockade of the Eighth Route Army's absolute superiority, Okazaki's immediate priority was to quickly find a place for his troops to hold on to. Therefore, he seized the Guan family an embankment overnight.
Guanjia'an is located 6.5 kilometers north of Panlong Town, the summit is flat, the north is a cliff, the east and west sides are also very steep, only the south slope is relatively gentle. Choosing this place as a defensive position shows Okazaki's sophistication.
The Japanese army during the War of Resistance
The combat effectiveness of the Japanese army was quite strong, and in spite of the fatigue of the rapid march, it immediately threw itself into the earthwork industry, and in a few hours it built a core position, and the positions were connected by communication trenches to form a three-tiered position from the foot of the mountain, the mountainside to the top of the mountain. There are also many very practical "cat ear holes" dug in the walls of the trenches, which can effectively avoid the blows of artillery fire.
Opposite Guanjia'an is a hill called Willow Hill (also known as Lion Brain Mountain), which is at an angle with Guanjia'an, which is of great tactical value and has been occupied by the 2nd Battalion of the 25th Regiment of the 1st Column. Okazaki sent a squadron to sneak up the hill from a remote trail on the west side, taking advantage of the gap between the 2 battalions to suddenly attack, and took willow tree pass effortlessly.
The 2nd Battalion, which had lost its position, wasted too much time preparing for a counterattack until 4 a.m. the next day, and the Japanese used these hours to repair the fortifications, so that the 2nd Battalion's offensive casualties were heavy but in vain.
Heavy machine gun positions of the Eighth Route Army
The failure to stick to the willow tree pass left a great hidden danger for the entire battle of the Eighth Route Army. Arguably, this misstep was fatal. Okazaki dared to divide his troops to capture Yanagi-yaki when the Japanese army was already insufficient, which shows that his tactical quality is indeed extraordinary.
After the fall of Willow Ridge, the attacking troops of the Eighth Route Army were bound to be exposed to the enemy on both sides under the crossfire of the Japanese army, and the battle would become more difficult. Peng Dehuai asked the headquarters special task force to launch an early attack at night, breaking through the middle of Guan Jia'an and Liu Shu'an to eliminate the enemy hidden in the cave. However, this attempt was unsuccessful, and the Japanese army was opening up a row of caves, each of which was a fire point, forming a dense network of crossfire, suppressing the special task force regiment that occupied a row of caves on the southern slope and unable to move.
The fortifications of the Japanese army were exquisitely repaired, and even the regimental commander Ou Zhifu, who had experienced hundreds of battles, had never seen it. Seeing that the situation was not good, he had to order the suspension of the attack.
Peng Dehuai commanded at the front line of Guanjia'an
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the desperate total attack failed</h1>
In order to take guanjiayuan, you must first capture willow embankment. The task of counterattacking Willow Hill fell to the 25th and 38th Regiments of the 1st Column. This task is a heavy responsibility and cannot be lost, so Peng Dehuai personally came to the front to do combat mobilization. Encouraged, the officers and men of the two regiments rushed to kill bravely, and after two hours of fierce fighting, launched 7 consecutive attacks, and finally captured the willow tree at dawn. The front-line combat units of the two regiments were basically exhausted, and dozens of cadres of the battalion company suffered casualties.
The Eighth Route Army units that had occupied Willow Hill encountered even greater difficulties – Japanese planes arrived. The officers and men, who had no experience in air defense, were confused by the blows of the Japanese aviation, and the 25th and 38th Regiments, which had already suffered more than half of the casualties, suddenly collapsed and collapsed to the foot of the mountain under the fierce counterattack of the Japanese infantry.
As a result, while attacking Guanjia'an, the Eighth Route Army had to draw out 3 battalions of troops to counterattack Liushu'an.
Relief work depicting the battle of Guan Jia'an
The frontal attack on Guanjia'an was the 772nd Regiment, the number one main force of the 386th Brigade, who, with the support of 6 mountain guns of the headquarters artillery regiment, attacked along the only path, only to be mistakenly injured by their own artillery due to lack of training in infantry and artillery coordination. By noon, only 3 men were left in the 1st Battalion of the 772nd Regiment, only 3 instructors and 2 wounded were left in the 3 companies, and only 10 men were left in the 4th Company.
After a day of fierce fighting on October 30, the Eighth Route Army suffered heavy casualties but made slow progress. Although the Japanese army is also constantly reducing its personnel, it has always occupied two high grounds, and its combat effectiveness has not diminished in the slightest. At the same time, the blockade battle on the periphery was also fought on the same day, and thousands of Japanese reinforcements were pressing forward step by step.
In the face of the Japanese army's battle of trapped beasts, Peng Dehuai, who had killed the red-eyed Peng Dehuai, was fierce, and each of the 772nd Regiment, 16th Regiment, 38th Regiment, and 25th Regiment, which had been crippled, cobbled together a battalion and launched a final general attack on Guan Jia'an.
Oil painting showing the battle of Guan Jia'an
Beginning at 16:00 in the afternoon, the Eighth Route Army launched 18 consecutive charges, and the corpses of the dead paved the road, and finally rushed to the main position of Guanjia'an at night, and launched a fierce white-knife fight at the top of the mountain. During this general attack, Okazaki was killed. As for how he died, there is no record in the historical records.
The Japanese army did not panic because of the loss of the commander-in-chief, and still stubbornly resisted under the command of their respective squadron commanders, which shows the high tactical quality. The remnants of the Okazaki detachment, which had almost run out of ammunition, completely relied on white-knife hand-to-hand combat to hold their last positions, and repeatedly repelled the attacks of the Eighth Route Army, and supported themselves in a desperate situation until dawn.
Japanese reinforcements were already within reach, and the nearest was only 4 kilometers from Peng Dehuai's headquarters.
The end of the crossbow cannot be worn. The strength of the Eighth Route Army, which had suffered heavy casualties, had been used to the limit, and it was really powerless to annihilate the last few dozen devils. Unwillingly, Peng Dehuai had no choice but to order a retreat with hatred. On 1 November, the remnants of the Okazaki detachment returned to flood town with the help of the Suzuki detachment, and the Battle of Sekigaya came to an end.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > expose serious problems tactically</h1>
Within the Eighth Route Army, the question of whether and how this battle should be fought caused great controversy at that time.
Liu Bocheng, commander of the 129th Division, clearly opposed hard fighting in the course of the battle, and had great opinions on this battle. In his speech at the Seventh National Congress, he held that it was necessary to launch the Hundred Regiments War, but the tactics of warfare were indeed very problematic and needed to be deeply learned lessons.
Liu Bocheng (right)
The Eighth Route Army's attack on the Okazaki detachment was a grasp of the fighters, and there was no question of whether it should fight or not, but it exposed serious problems in tactics. In addition to the inherent problems of poor weapons and equipment, weak firepower, and low training level, the lack of coordination of commanders at all levels is the main reason.
For the Eighth Route Army, which started with guerrilla warfare, mountain offensive warfare was a completely new subject. In specific battles, some commanders have no concept of coordination, not even the concept of time, the attack between the various echelons cannot keep up, the positions that have been so hard to lay down cannot be firmly held, and they are turned back again and again again and again, and they are caught in a vicious circle.
In contrast, the Japanese army has a lot of experience in mountain warfare, and Okazaki's judgment of the battlefield situation and the choice of the battlefield are accurate, reflecting superb tactical qualities. The Okazaki Brigade had long been aware of the actions of the Eighth Route Army, seized Guanjiayuan and Willow Tree Pass overnight, and used their elaborate "cat ear holes" to effectively avoid the casualties of the Eighth Route Army's artillery, so that the Eighth Route Army was forced to attack under enemy fire, and was very passive.
Left right
Being good at summing up lessons and lessons, especially being humble enough to learn from the enemy army, is a good tradition of the people's army. After the Battle of Guanjia'an, Peng Dehuai, Zuo Quan, Liu Bocheng, Chen Geng and others carefully studied the Japanese positions of Guanjia'an and praised them. Since then, the defense system of the Japanese army, especially the technology of the earthwork industry, has been rapidly mastered by the Eighth Route Army. In particular, the unique fortification of the cat ear hole is still widely used by our army.
The combat effectiveness of the army is fought through countless hard battles and vicious battles. The Battle of Guanjia'an was a brave attempt by the Eighth Route Army to attack the mountain offensive, and although it was not successful, it trained the troops. The eighth route army units that had been baptized by the Battle of Guanjia'an later grew into the elite main force of our army.