In 1947, under the continuous blows of our Jin-Cha-Ji Field Army, the enemy army in North China lost more than 60,000 troops and was forced to turn from attack to defense. In September, our army in the northeast launched a powerful autumn offensive, and Chiang Kai-shek, in order to save the crisis in the northeast, urgently dispatched three divisions in north China to help. In this way, the enemy forces in North China were even more empty. Under the direct leadership of Comrades Liu Shaoqi and Zhu De of the Cpc Central Committee and Comrade Nie Rongzhen of the Jin-Cha-Ji Central Bureau, we decided to take advantage of the emptiness of the enemy's forces in North China to attack the area north of Baoding again, attack Xushui, lure the enemy to come to his aid, and annihilate the enemy in the movement. In order to cooperate with our army's strategic counteroffensive on various battlefields throughout the country.
On October 11, under the unified order of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, the soldiers and civilians of the Jin-Cha-Ji Liberated Area launched an all-round attack on the defending enemies along the railway and highway north of Baoding. Just when the enemy was in a hurry and was in a state of panic on all sides, I was in the second, third, and fourth columns of the Jin-Cha-Ji Field Army. Like a divine soldier descending from heaven, it suddenly appeared in the northern and southern areas of Xushui.
Xushui was the northern gateway to Baoding, and the enemy was the 15th Regiment of the 5th Division and the artillery battalion of the division. In the past, our Second Column attacked Xushui twice, annihilating more than 2,400 enemy personnel. This time, Noji gave us the task of attacking Xu Shui, and it was really an enemy who saw each other and was extremely red-eyed. At the beginning of the battle, our Fourth and Fifth Brigades quickly swept away the outer strongholds of Xushui with the momentum of the wind and clouds, occupied the North and South Passes, and directly attacked the city with a forced operation.
At dusk on the thirteenth day, with the support of artillery and friendly troops, they shouted from the northwest and southeast sides respectively, and directly attacked the city walls. Our army attacked Xushui fiercely, and indeed mobilized the enemy.
On October 15, Chiang Kai-shek hurriedly transferred back to the forty-third division of the Ninety-fourth Army on the Beining Line, and gathered ten infantry regiments and the third regiment of reinforced chariots from the Fourteenth Army, the Sixteenth Army, and other units, under the personal command of Li Wen, commander-in-chief of the Thirty-fourth Group Army, from north to south, and pounced on our army in Jin-Cha-Ji. The enemy swarmed to help, and we were right around the point to help. The commander of the Noji Division deployed the Third Column, the Fourth Column, and the Seventh Independent Brigade of Jizhong in the area north of Xushui, blocking the enemy on the one hand and seeking opportunities to annihilate the enemy on the other. Li Wen has been fighting with our army for many years and knows very well the severity of our army's movement warfare, so he was very careful when he first came into contact. When attacking, the five divisions marched in unison, never alone; when our army attacked, the hedgehog gathered a regiment, making it impossible for me to attack.
After several days of fighting, none of them were successful. Xu Shui defended the enemy, fought against the high fortress of his city, and at the same time had the enemy of northern reinforcements to cheer up and desperately defended, so that my fourth and fifth brigades attacked the city several times. At this time, Chiang Kai-shek erroneously judged that our army was insufficient and thought that this was a good opportunity to fight a decisive battle with us, so he hurriedly flew to Peiping to personally deploy: Luo Lirong, commander of the enemy's Third Army stationed in Shijiazhuang, led his army headquarters and the Seventh Division, and the Sixty-sixth Regiment of the Twenty-second Division, a total of more than 14,000 people, went north on October 16, secretly killed from behind our army, in a vain attempt to advance north-south, and attacked our army in the Xushui and Gucheng areas. However, Luo Lirong's lone army went north, and it was in the middle of my plan to move the tiger away from the mountain.
The Jin-Cha-Ji Central Bureau and the Yesi Front Committee resolutely changed their determination to annihilate the enemy on the northern front, and ordered all the four columns, the fourth brigade of our column, the sixth brigade, and the third column and the ninth brigade to travel day and night, and march south to rush south before the enemy's Third Army met the enemy in Baoding, and in the Wangdu and Fangshunqiao areas south of Baoding, they would first eat this piece of "fat meat" sent to the door.
On the evening of October 17, I was organizing troops at the front to prepare for another siege of the city, when I suddenly received an order from the chiefs of Noji Yang (Dezhi), Yang (Chengwu), and Geng (Biao): Noji led the main force to the south at eighteen o'clock tonight, and I, Han Wei, deputy commander and chief of staff, and Xiang Zhonghua, director of the Political Department, were responsible for commanding the 7th Brigade and The 8th Brigade of the 3rd Column, the 5th Brigade of our column, and the 7th Independent Brigade of Jizhong to serve as the Baobei Blockade Operation. He also demanded: The victory of Baonan should be regarded as a victory, and the enemy on the northern front should not be allowed to cross Baoding within four days.
The situation came so suddenly that I was happy and worried. Happily, Chiang Kai-shek finally made another mistake, and Luo Lirong was unable to escape by inserting his wings; he was worried that after the main force went south, our army had only four brigades on the northern front, while the enemy's support in the north had increased to five divisions, a total of fifteen regiments, and behind them there was a division of the pseudo-Liu Huanan of Baoding and two regiments of the New Second Army. Our army is in an unfavorable situation of being attacked on both sides. We must be prepared for a bitter and bloody battle.
I immediately held a short meeting with Comrades Han, Xiang, and others to study and formulate a basic plan for defensive operations, and then exchanged views with Comrade Zheng Weishan, commander of the Three Columns, and then ordered all departments to immediately adjust their arrangements and repair fortifications overnight. At dawn on October 18, the enemy dispatched ten regiments of troops and first launched a fierce attack on the Gaolin Battalion, Gaolin Village, and Qilindian line defended by the 3rd Column and 8th Brigade. When the enemy entered the front two hundred meters of our position, my light and heavy machine guns, rifles, and submachine guns hit the enemy's head like hail, and the dense enemy group fell down in a large area. However, the enemy was not satisfied, and they believed that they had many men, guns, and artillery, and changed to a group formation to attack in turn. Under the cover of tanks and artillery fire, the enemy in companies, battalions, and regiments of enemies rushed towards me like a tide of the sea, wave after wave. The position of the twenty-third regiment and a company of our eighth brigade was opened a gap, and the enemy swarmed in and broke through our defensive position. A bloody battle began. My heroic warrior, shouting the slogan of coexistence and death with the position, jumped out of the trench, carried his bayonet, rushed into the enemy group, and engaged in a white-knife fight with the enemy.
The enemy and us wrestled on the breakthrough point, causing the enemy's tanks and artillery to lose their role. Song Yulin, commander of the Eighth Brigade, seized the fighter plane and immediately ordered the two 57th anti-aircraft guns hidden in the fortifications to carry out sudden fire and first beat down the enemy tanks; at the same time, ordered the second battalion of the 13th Regiment to detour from the flank and carry out a counter-attack; and ordered the 22nd Regiment to cut off the enemy's follow-up troops with firepower.
After three hours of fierce fighting, more than 200 people of the enemy's penetrating troops were all annihilated, and our army once again consolidated its position. The sun is setting in the west. The enemy, who had been attacking for a day, left a large body in front of our army position, dragged a large number of wounded soldiers, and retracted in embarrassment.
I was considering organizing tomorrow's battle, and the chief of the confidential section sent a telegram from Noji: My main force in the south has arrived in the Kiyofudian area ahead of schedule, and is now carrying out a campaign against the enemy's Third Army. "Luo Lirong is surrounded!" I couldn't help but shout. But then I felt a heavy pressure: the enemy on the southern front was surrounded, and the enemy in the north must desperately seize the road to the south, and a fierce battle was in front of him. I hastened to consult with Comrades Han, Xiang, and others, and immediately conveyed to the troops the good news that the southern front had encircled the enemy, so as to boost the fighting spirit of the troops. At the same time, he ordered all the troops not to be afraid of fatigue, rush to repair the fortifications overnight, and prepare for the more frantic attack of the enemy.
On October 19, the Forty-third Division continued to attack the frontal position of our Eighth Brigade, concentrating more than thirty artillery pieces of five regiments of the Fifth Division, the 121st Division, and the Ninety-fourth Division, focusing on attacking the north camp of our Independent Seventh Brigade and the position of Hejiazhuang, in a vain attempt to open a gap from one side. At the beginning of the attack, the enemy poured thousands of shells into the positions of the Duqi Brigade. Suddenly, our army's position became a sea of gunfire. As soon as the enemy's artillery fire extended, the enemy in battalions and regiments attacked us in multiple echelons. Our army calmly responded to the battle, relied on fortifications, and stubbornly resisted, and the enemy never broke through our army's defense line. The enemy commander, like a gambling stick with a red eye, ordered the overseer to come forward and press the position, and under the drive of the overseer's saber, the mad enemy once again rushed up. At this time, the light and heavy machine guns of our guard units ran out of bullets, and the enemy took advantage of the weakening of our firepower to rush up and break through the positions of the first and second battalions of the nineteenth regiment of the Seventh Independent Brigade. Surrounded by the enemy on all sides, my heroic soldiers of the first and second battalions turned into the village and engaged in house-by-house and alley-by-alley battles with the enemy.
The battle reached a critical juncture. I hurriedly called the Duqi Brigade and asked Xiao Xinhuai, the commander of the Duqi Brigade, if he could resist, and he shouted loudly: "Please rest assured commander, we guarantee that people are in the position, I will immediately go to organize a counterattack, and ask the commander to support us with some ammunition." In the headphones, there was the sound of "crackling" gunshots and "booming" explosions. It seems that the enemy is already approaching the command post of the Duqi Brigade. I told Deputy Chief of Staff Zhao Guanying to immediately organize personnel to send a batch of guns and grenades to the Duqi Brigade.
The Seventh Independent Brigade began to counterattack, and under the heavy blows of our bayonets and grenades, the enemy retreated, and the fierce fighting continued until dusk. At this time, I received another telegram from Noji: In the south, our army has completed the encirclement of the campaign against the enemy's Third Army, and is now tightening the encirclement. At the same time, chief Noji praised us for the good fighting of the first two days of the blockade, asked us to convey greetings to all the commanders and fighters, and asked with concern whether we could hold out until the evening of the twenty-first day, what difficulties there were, and instructed us to abandon the first defensive area and move south of Xushui to carry out a step-by-step resistance.
I told the chief of the confidential section to immediately send a report to the chief of the Noji Division: Please rest assured chief, we will immediately adjust the deployment and ensure that we will not let the enemy cross the Cao River before dusk on the twenty-first day. Subsequently, I conveyed the praise and greetings of the chief of the Noji to the brigades. He also agreed with Comrades Han and Xiang Xiang that the Seventh Brigade, the Eighth Brigade, and the Duqi Brigade should first send small detachments to attack, and after dark, they would take advantage of the alternating night cover to abandon their original positions and withdraw to the south of Xushui to organize a defense; ordered the Fifth Brigade to abandon the attack on Xushui to defend the enemy and move to the frontal blockade of Hejiadian, LiuXiangdian, and Huangtugang. As night fell, our army quietly moved south. When the enemy found out, our army had formed a new defensive line south of Xushui.
On October 20, our main force in the south gradually shrank the encirclement against the enemy's Third Army. Luo Lirong saw that the entire army was in danger, and begged Sun Lianzhong bitterly to let the northern front help the enemy quickly move closer to him. Sun Lianzhong asked him to quickly organize a breakthrough and move closer to Baoding. At the same time, he ordered Li Wen to break through our army's defensive line and cross the Cao River within a time limit. Li Wen was stubbornly blocked by me for two days, and suffered heavy casualties, and last night it was not easy to enter Xushui, and when he saw the sudden transfer of our army, he was full of doubts and did not dare to rush forward. It was not until 8:00 a.m. on the twentieth that it advanced south from the Xushui line. Our defensive forces, relying on fortifications, ditches, mounds, and villages, resisted step by step, and fought and retreated. Seeing that our army was gradually retreating, Li Wen mistakenly believed that our army could not stop his offensive, so he commanded the follow-up troops to attack the Loess Gang position defended by the first battalion of our fourteenth regiment. Cai Hong'en, chief of staff of the Fourteenth Regiment, who was in the forward position of Loess Gang, commanded the troops to concentrate all light and heavy weapons, put the enemy at a close distance of fifty meters and beat them fiercely, repelled this side, and then concentrated their firepower on the other side. Surrounded by the enemy on all sides, a battalion charged left and right, repelled several enemy attacks, and only took the initiative to withdraw from the position after dusk.
On the same day, Liu Huanan, the enemy defending Baoding, dispatched a regiment to attack the position behind us, in a vain attempt to seize the Caohe Bridge and receive the enemy from the north, and after being severely attacked by the third battalion of our fifteenth regiment and the reconnaissance company of the fifth brigade, he hurriedly retracted back into the city with his tail between his legs. On October 21, our army on the southern front had compressed more than 10,000 people of the enemy's Third Army into a village of less than 400 households in the southwest.
Luo Lirong, who was on the verge of desperation, issued a desperate plea to Sun Lianzhong on the radio, asking the reinforcements from the north to arrive at Qingfengdian on the same day. Sun Lianzhong had no choice but to fly to Xushui to supervise the battle, and strictly ordered Li Wen to concentrate all his forces to attack, even if he lost two or three regiments, he would open the passage. Li Wen opened up his old roots, threw all the ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth divisions of the reserve into battle, concentrated fifteen regiments and hundreds of artillery pieces, and launched a frenzied attack on the positions of Scott Zhuang, Banbidian, Jingtangpu, and Daying on both sides of the road. Battalions and regiments of enemies pressed against our defensive positions under the cover of artillery fire. Immediately behind the infantry were dozens of large trucks full of rescue soldiers and ammunition. People shouted horses, and the noise of cars and horses resounded for more than ten miles. In the face of the enemy's frantic attack, I immediately called the brigade commanders: "Levin is going to fight desperately, this is the last test for us." Tell the comrades that now we are very difficult, but the enemy is even more difficult, we must survive, fight, and persist until dark is victory. ”
The battle reached a critical juncture. The brigade commanders and political commissars of the Fifth and Eighth Brigades went up, as did the regimental commanders and political commissars of the regiments! A deadly decisive battle between the enemy and us was launched. In the column command post, the telephone rang non-stop, and reports of repelling the enemy's attack were constantly coming. Li Wen saw that he could not get through the highway and was in a hurry. He ordered a group of veterans from different formation units to be transferred, paid a heavy reward, formed a "death squad", and rushed upwards with grenades in baskets. These outlaws, regardless of life and death, rushed forward, and the defensive position of the fifteenth regiment was finally broken, and the follow-up enemy followed the swarm and forced it near the regimental command post.
Regiment commander Liu Guangdi immediately organized the cadres, guards, and miscellaneous personnel of the organs to repeatedly charge and kill, highlight the heavy encirclement, and move them to a new defensive position. Near noon, the enemy on the northern front had already broken through the front-line positions of our half-wall store and The Shandong Battalion. The enemy in Baoding, on the other hand, took advantage of the fact that our army was wrestling with the enemy on the northern front and stormed the back of our army, and the distance between the enemy in the north and south was only six kilometers. In the column command post, the air suddenly tensed. We calmly analyzed the situation on the battlefield: At present, our army is in the middle of the enemy's two-sided attack, it is no longer appropriate to hold on to the south of Xushui, and the general offensive of Qingfengdian has not yet begun.
It was decided to order the Seventh Brigade of the Third Column and the Seventh Independent Brigade of Jizhong to immediately move south, and the enemy first seized the first line of Xinyangyi, Dawei Village, and Dabaituan south of Baoding, built fortifications, and established a third defensive area. In this way, even if the enemy in the north joined the enemy of Baoding, he would never be allowed to approach Qingfengdian. The Fifth and Eighth Brigades on the northern front, relying on villages, ditches, earthen hills, and river embankments, continued to stubbornly resist and delay the enemy, and never allowed the enemy of the northern aid to join the enemy of Baoding before dark.
At twelve o'clock in the afternoon, the Seventh Brigade of the Third Column and the Seventh Brigade of Jizhong Independence began to move to Baonan, leaving only the Fifth and Eighth Brigades to the north. In the face of the two-sided attack of the enemy's sixteen regiments, all my commanders and fighters, with the heroism of being invincible and daring to overwhelm all enemies, fought with the enemy to the death, and fought until dark, and strangled the passage of the road to death. That night, I learned that the Seventh Brigade and the Duqi Brigade had reached the first line of Baonan's Luoyangyi, Dawei Village, and Dabai Regiment, and immediately ordered the Fifth Brigade and the Eighth Brigade to move south around Baonan from the east and west.
At three o'clock in the morning of the twenty-second day, our army launched a general offensive to annihilate the Third Army on the southern front, and the fierce battle was fought until eleven thirty o'clock, and the sixty-sixth regiment of the Third Army, the Seventh Division, and the Twenty-sixth Division were annihilated, totaling more than 14,000 people. At twelve o'clock, the advance detachment of fifty cars sent by Li Wen came from the north in a hurry, and before it could make contact with our defense troops, it hurried back to Baoding.
In the battle of baobei blockade, our army attacked the enemy's five divisions in turn with four brigades, maneuvered flexibly, stubbornly blocked the attack for four days and nights, annihilated more than 4,200 enemy personnel, completely smashed the enemy's attempt to meet the north and south, and ensured the victory of the Qingfengdian annihilation battle.
The Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region and the Former Committee of the Noji Division commented on this campaign: "Without the victory of the Baobei Blockade Battle, there would have been no victory in the Qingfengdian Annihilation War." "The Battle of Baobei Blockade and the Battle of Qingfengdian Annihilation together carry the glorious annals of our army!
Comrade Chen Zhengxiang Profile:
Lieutenant General of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (1955). Born on October 25, 1911 in Zhenshang Village, Xinhua County, Hunan Province. He lost his mother at the age of 8 and took on housework before the age of 10. At the age of 15, he joined the army and successively served as a soldier in the units of Tang Shengzhi, Li Zongren, and Zhu Peide, and participated in the Northern Expedition war cooperated by the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. In late September 1930, under the influence and guidance of the CCP's secret organization, he contacted and organized more than 100 soldiers to revolt in the new town of Dayu (now Dayu) in Jiangxi Province, and joined the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. He joined the Communist Party of China the following year. He served as a company commander and battalion commander of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Division of the Red 1st Army, the acting regimental commander of the 5th Regiment of the 2nd Division, and the commander of the 45th Regiment of the 15th Division of the Red 5th Army, and participated in the first to fifth anti-"encirclement and suppression" of the Central Soviet Region. In 1934, he was awarded the Third Class Red Star Medal by the Central Revolutionary Military Commission. In October of the same year, he participated in the Long March and served as the battalion commander and deputy regimental commander of the 2nd Regiment of the 1st Division of the Red 1st Army, and the deputy commander of the 1st Brigade of the Shaanxi-Gansu Detachment. After arriving in northern Shaanxi, he served as the commander of the 4th Regiment of the 2nd Division of the Red 1st Army, and led his troops to serve as the main attack of the position south of The town of Zhiluo in the Battle of Zhiluo, contributing to the total victory of the battle. Later, he served as the commander of the 1st Regiment of the Red 1st Division, and participated in the Eastern Expedition, the Western Expedition, and the Mountain Castle. In early 1937, he entered the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he served as the deputy regimental commander of the 685th Regiment of the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army and participated in the Battle of Pingxingguan. Later, as the commander of the 1st Regiment of the First Military Subdistrict of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, in November 1939, in the Battle of Loess Ridge in Laiyuan County, Hebei Province, he personally commanded the artillery to destroy the Japanese command post and kill lieutenant general Norihide Abe, commander of the independent mixed 2nd Brigade, known as the "Flower of Famous Generals" of the Japanese army. In September of the same year, he was appointed commander of the 1st Detachment, succeeding him as commander of the Southward Advance Detachment, and in March 1940, he led his troops to participate in the Ciwu Shilin Campaign launched by the 129th Division, which was highly praised by the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army and the commander of the 129th Division after the war. Later, he served as the commander of the Fourth and Eleventh Military Subdistricts of Jin-Cha-Ji. At the beginning of the Liberation War, he served as deputy commander of the Ji-Jin-Jin Military Region and the 4th commander of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region, and led his troops to participate in the battles of Suiyuan, Jining, and Northern Jin and the defense of Zhangjiakou. In January 1947, the Baonan Campaign was launched with the column he led as the main force. He then participated in the battles of Zhengtai, Qingcang and Baonan. From August of the same year, he was the commander of the 2nd Column. In October 1948, in the Battle of Qingfengdian, he led his troops to serve as the task of defending the north, and flexibly resisted the repeated attacks of the enemy's 5 divisions with the strength of 4 brigades of our army, stubbornly blocked the attack for 4 days and nights, smashed the attempt of the Kuomintang army to meet the north and the south, and effectively guaranteed the victory of the Qingfengdian annihilation battle. The head of the Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region once spoke highly of the blockade battle, saying: "Without the victory of the Baobei blockade war, there would be no victory in the Qingfengdian annihilation war." After the founding of New China, he served as the first deputy commander of the Railway Corps of the People's Liberation Army and the deputy chief of staff of the North China Military Region. From 1955 to 1959, he was the deputy commander of the Beijing Military Region. He is a deputy to the Fourth National People's Congress, a member of the Third and Fourth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and a standing member of the Fifth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In 1955, he was awarded the Order of August 1, Second Class, the Order of Independence and Freedom, First Class, the Order of Liberation, First Class, and in 1988, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Red Star, First Class. He died in Beijing on December 2, 1993.