In July 1941, Okamura succeeded Tada As commander of the North China Front of the Japanese invasion of China, and as soon as he took office, he pointed the spearhead at the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area of the Eighth Route Army and launched a brutal "great sweep" and "three lights" policy.
Since the "July 7 Incident", Okamura Ninji became the 6th commander of the North China Front of the Japanese army invading China, he had been active in China for many years, he was very familiar with China's national conditions and people's feelings, and he was fierce and cunning.
On August 13, 1941, after some careful planning, Okamura Ninji mobilized all the mobile troops in North China of about 70,000 people to launch an unprecedented autumn "sweep" of the Eighth Route Army's Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area, the most famous of which was the Battle of Wolf's Tooth Mountain.
Wolf's Tooth Mountain
At that time, the party and government organs of the 1st Military Subdistrict of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region of the Eighth Route Army and the local people besieged by the Japanese army in the Wolf's Tooth Mountain Area, totaling about 40,000 people. In the process of the breakthrough, the 7th Company of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Military Division served as the heavy task of intercepting the enemy and covering the retreat of the large troops, and a battle related to the survival of tens of thousands of people was fought at Wolf's Tooth Mountain.
Relying on Hengshan and Wutai Mountain, the Eighth Route Army's Jin-Cha-Ji Anti-Japanese Base Area is located in a vast area east of Tongpu Road, west of Jinpu Road, north of Zhengtaishide Road, zhangjiakou, and south of Chengde in North China.
In order to completely destroy the Beiyue and Pingxi areas belonging to the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area in the shortest possible time, Okamura Ninji personally commanded more than 8,000 Japanese troops and adopted the tactic of "iron wall encirclement" to continuously besiege the area of the 1st Military Subdistrict of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region of the Eighth Route Army centered on the guantou of Yi County, Hebei Province.
Everywhere the Japanese army went, they frantically slaughtered villagers, snatched grain, burned down houses, and created one inhumane "no man's land" after another.
Okamura Ninji
This time, the Japanese army's "sweep" was not only large-scale and long-lasting, lasting more than two months, but also had a very clear goal, that is, to target the party, government, and military organs and main forces in the Jin-Cha-Ji base area.
On September 23, the cunning Okamura Ningji suddenly pointed the spearhead of the attack at the Wolf's Tooth Mountains, located in the southwestern region of Yi County.
The Wolf-Tooth Mountain is steep, and the Qifeng peaks are the eastern gate of the Jin-Cha-Ji anti-Japanese base area, occupying an important military position. The Japanese army first deployed heavy troops at the entrance and exit of Wolf's Tooth Mountain, and then advanced step by step along Dongshui Village and West Water Village to Wolf's Tooth Mountain.
In the Wolf's Tooth Mountains, there are about 40,000 party and government personnel and local people of the 1st Military Sub-district, but the number of Eighth Route Army troops here is not large, only a regiment with incomplete organization.
Compared with the Japanese army, this regiment is at an absolute disadvantage in terms of weapons and equipment, as well as the number of troops. If you directly confront the enemy, it is undoubtedly a pebble to hit the stone.
In the early morning of September 23, amid the roar of aircraft artillery, about 3,500 Japanese puppet troops rushed toward the Wolf's Tooth Mountain area.
At noon, the Japanese puppet army surrounded the area of Langya Mountain, and their vanguard troops captured the villages of Nanqi and Beiqi under the mountain, and created a massacre of many villagers.
In the face of the brutal Japanese army, the besieged Party and government organs of the Eighth Route Army and the masses of the people must break through as soon as possible. However, there were still tens of thousands of unarmed civilians here, and the Eighth Route Army had to take them all with them, which made it difficult to break through.
According to an analysis of the situation between the enemy and ourselves, Yang Chengwu, commander of the 1st Military Subdistrict of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region of the Eighth Route Army, drew up a combat plan for "encircling Wei and saving Zhao, and achieved results.
At dusk of the same day, Yang Chengwu sent the 3rd Regiment and the 20th Regiment of the 1st Military Sub-district on the outskirts of Langya Mountain to attack the Japanese troops around Guancheng, Songshan, and Ganhe, prompting the Japanese troops surrounding Langya Mountain to retreat from the northeast to reinforce, thus tearing a large gap of several kilometers in the northeast area.
At nightfall, Qiu Wei, the commander of the 1st Regiment who was recuperating in the cave, took command and led the troops and masses in the Wolf's Tooth Mountains to quickly organize a breakthrough.
In the face of the Japanese army's step by step, if the large troops want to break out smoothly, they must drag the pursuit of the Japanese army to cover the transfer of the main force, and this arduous task was handed over to the 7th Company with the strongest combat effectiveness.
Receiving the task, with the cooperation of the local militia guerrillas, the soldiers of the 7th Company took advantage of the natural dangers of Wolf's Tooth Mountain and the modified terrain to lay mines in advance on the enemy's way up the mountain.
After the battle began, Liu Fushan, commander of the 7th Company, commanded three platoons of fighters to take turns to block the Japanese army and alternately cover.
As a result, the Japanese launched an even more fierce attack. For a time, in the midst of the lofty mountains, the explosion of landmines and the sound of guns on both sides were incessant.
In a situation where the enemy was outnumbered, the soldiers of the 7th Company took advantage of the night to play a clever trick and forged the illusion that the Eighth Route Army was full of mountains and fields, and the party and government organs and the masses of the people of the besieged Eighth Route Army quietly broke through to the empty mouth.
Although the large troops and the masses of the people have jumped out of the encirclement of the Japanese army, they have not yet gone far, and once they are discovered, the enemy will immediately pursue them. Therefore, the 7th Company must delay as long as possible to ensure that the large troops and the masses of the people are completely freed from danger.
On the morning of September 25, after several hours of fierce fighting, more than half of the 7th Company's troops suffered casualties, and company commander Liu Fushan was also seriously wounded.
At 10:00 a.m., the 7th Company began to retreat in groups according to the battle plan. However, the pursuing enemy was close behind, and it was very close, and in order to completely get rid of the enemy, someone must be responsible for the rear, and this arduous and glorious task was entrusted to the 6th class.
There were a total of five soldiers in the 6th squad of the 7th Company, namely Squad Leader Ma Baoyu, Deputy Squad Leader Ge Zhenlin, soldiers Hu Fucai, Hu Delin, and Song Xueyi.
Statue of the Five Warriors of Wolf's Tooth Mountain
In order to attract enemy fire, company commander Liu Fushan ordered two men from the machine gun group to be left to the 6th squad to cover the operation.
At this time, more than 500 Japanese troops attacked Wolf's Tooth Mountain, and two fire points of the machine gun group drew the enemy. The enemy mistakenly thought that the mountain was the main force of the Eighth Route Army, so he launched one charge after another on the mountain, and the five soldiers of the 6th Squad and the enemy engaged in a life-and-death struggle.
At that time, the Japanese army attacking Wolfa Mountain was a mountain unit, that is, it was specially trained in mountain warfare and had more experience in mountain warfare.
Ma Baoyu, Ge Zhenlin, Hu Fucai, Hu Delin, and Song Xueyi took advantage of the dangerous terrain to repel four onslaughts of the Japanese army. At this point, the machine gun group's bullets were about to run out, but the momentum of the enemy's attack did not weaken in the slightest.
Ma Baoyu quickly said to the two machine gunners:
"You go at once, and you must hand over the heavy machine guns to the company intact."
At noon on September 25, it was time for the five fighters to evacuate, facing the enemy who was in hot pursuit behind them, and there were only two roads in front of them, one leading to the direction of the withdrawal of the large troops, and the other to the summit of the cliff on three sides.
They knew very well that the large troops and the masses of the people had not yet gone far, and once they were discovered by the Japanese army, the Japanese army would immediately pursue them. For the safety of the people, the five of them resolutely chose the opposite direction to the withdrawal of the large troops of the 7th Company and ran towards the hilltop chessboard with no way to retreat.
The terrain on Wolf's Tooth Mountain is steep, and the road leading to the mountain is only a narrow sheep's intestine path, and there are cliffs everywhere. The five warriors shoot at the enemy behind them while climbing along the cliff, attracting enemy fire.
The five men encouraged each other to keep fighting, and the enemy attacked again, this time with a particularly heavy Japanese shelling, and even the aircraft were called in to bomb. By the time the sun was to the west, they had retreated to the top of the cliff on three sides.
When the squad leader Ma Baoyu threw the last grenade at the enemy, it meant that they had run out of ammunition, so he began to lift the stones around him and smash them at the enemy, but the stones were quickly used up.
Survived Song Xueyi and Ge Zhenlin
The Japanese army approached the top of the mountain step by step, surrounded by steep cliffs on three sides, and below the cliff was an unfathomable valley floor, and the five warriors had no way out, and the enemy shouted at this time:
"Catch the living"
。
Looking at the Japanese troops gradually approaching, the five warriors smashed the weapons in their hands and jumped off the steep cliff decisively, preferring to die rather than be captured.
Since then, the indomitable figures of the five soldiers who preferred to die have been forever engraved in the history of the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and we should always remember their names.
Class leader Ma Baoyu is 21 years old, from Wei County, Hebei Province;
Deputy squad leader Ge Zhenlin, 24 years old, from Quyang County, Hebei Province;
Hu Fucai is 28 years old, a native of Rongcheng County, Baoding, Hebei Province;
Hu Delin, 24 years old, from Rongcheng County, Baoding, Hebei Province;
Song Xueyi is 23 years old, a native of Qinyang County, Henan Province.
According to historical records, a farmer hid in a nearby cave and witnessed the battle. After hundreds of Japanese troops rushed up the cliff, they found that there were only five fighters who had fought fiercely with them for a day, and they lined up neatly, facing the place where the five soldiers jumped off the cliff, and bowed deeply three times.
Nie Rongzhen, then commander of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region
In the battle of Wolf's Tooth Mountain, the squad leaders Ma Baoyu, Hu Delin and Hu Fucai were martyred in a heroic way, while the deputy squad leaders Ge Zhenlin and Song Xueyi were hung on the branches of the mountainside, and the two survived.
After Song Xueyi and Ge Zhenlin escaped from danger, they walked hard in the direction of the retreat of the main force, and on the way they met Yu Yaofu, a cadre of the Yi County Youth Rescue Association, and sent them to find the main force the next day.
On October 18, 1941, Nie Rongzhen, commander of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region of the Eighth Route Army, ordered that Ma Baoyu, Ge Zhenlin, Hu Delin, Hu Fucai, and Song Xueyi be named
"Five Heroes of Wolf's Tooth Mountain"
And reported the heroic deeds of the five soldiers in the Jinchayi Daily.
In January 1942, the 1st Military Subdistrict of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region of the Eighth Route Army decided to build a memorial tower on the top of the chessboard pass of Wolf-Ya Mountain.
Wolf's Tooth Mountain Five Warriors Memorial Tower
At the end of September of that year, the three-storey Martyrs' Memorial Tower was basically completed, and the front of the tower was engraved with the nine characters of "Memorial Tower of the Five Warriors of Wolf Tooth Mountain" inscribed by Commander Nie Rongzhen.
Fang Bing and Li Haofu created the song "Song of the Five Heroes of Wolf-Tooth Mountain" based on the heroic deeds of the Five Heroes of Wolf-Tooth Mountain, and their heroic deeds quickly spread throughout the land of China along with the song.
"Song of the Five Heroes of Wolf's Tooth Mountain" inspired the anti-Japanese soldiers to heroically kill the enemy and defend their families and defend the country, and it was precisely because of the thousands of fighting heroes like the five heroes of Wolf's Tooth Mountain that they finally won the victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan.