Hikiko
*This article is excerpted from "The Record of the Republic of China - The Great Suppression of Bandits", by Liu Dengyuan, the original title of "Songjiang Plain: Capture "A Flower"
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In mid-November 1945, according to the instructions of Comrade Chen Yun, the main force of one regiment of the Liaodong Military Region was transferred to the Songjiang Military Region to accept the task. For this reason, Comrade Xiao Hua, commander and political commissar of the Liaodong Military Region, ordered our Seventh Regiment to set off immediately, take a train to Harbin, and report to the Songjiang Military Region.
The train ran for three days and arrived in Harbin on November 20. Since we were on an open-top coal truck when we went north, and we lay on it with only some straw, and because snow had begun to fall north of Shenyang, many comrades caught a cold on the train.
After arriving in Harbin, we lived in a Japanese elementary school in Duduan Street, Daoli District. At this time, the Songjiang Military Region had already been established, with Nie Heting as its commander, Zhang Xiushan as political commissar and secretary of the Songjiang Provincial Work Committee, and the military region had jurisdiction over four sub-districts: Hadong, Hanan, Habei, and Haxi. The entire military region was expanded and eight regiments were formed. Because our regiment was numbered as the Seventh Regiment when we were in Liaodong, we continued to call it the Old Seventh Regiment after we arrived in Songjiang. After just two days in Harbin, Commander Nie Heting conveyed to me Comrade Chen Yun's order that we should go to Bingu with the Songjiang Provincial Work Committee and the organs of the Military Region, so that we would be responsible for safeguarding the security of the leaders and organs, maintaining public order, and participating in the suppression of bandits. After the first battalion arrived in Harbin, Comrade Wang Liang, deputy commander of the regiment, took it to Shuangcheng, which had been assigned to the Hanan sub-district, and occupied this choke point of the Zhongchang Railway.
Later, it became known that the Soviet Red Army had an agreement with the Kuomintang government, and that power would only be taken over by the Kuomintang, and that the Kuomintang had already sent provincial chairmen and mayors. Therefore, the Soviet Red Army did not agree to the presence of the Communist Party in the city of Harbin. In this way, for the needs of the struggle, we left Harbin and rushed to a new destination, Binxian.
Defend Penn County
On 23 November, the second and third battalions of our regiment drove to Binxian County by car and carriage together with Chen Yun, Nie Heting, Zhang Xiushan, and other leading comrades, as well as the organs of the Songjiang Provincial Work Committee and the Songjiang Military Region. In early November, the Tohoku region has a cold climate with snow-capped rolling mountains. However, our unit had just been formed, and the cotton shoes had not been changed, so most of the comrades on the march did not take a car, so they could only run and walk forward.
When the team was about to reach Shuketu, the Songjiang Military Region received an urgent report from Bin County. According to reliable information, the bandits may have attacked Bin County that night, and the situation was extremely urgent, and they requested the assistance of their superiors. Comrade Nie Heting, commander of the Military Region, immediately ordered our Seventh Regiment to draw one battalion and rush to Binxian County at the speed of a rapid march to prepare for the attack of the bandits. After receiving the order, I studied it with other leaders and decided to send the third battalion to advance lightly and rush to Binxian County. The regimental and the 2nd battalion camped in Chiktu with the leaders and organs, and strengthened vigilance to ensure the safety of the leaders and organs.
Under the leadership of battalion commander Zhang Laifa and instructor Comrade Ding Qinxiu, the third battalion rushed to Binxian County before 9 o'clock in the evening according to the order. When the troops entered the city, the streets were quietly empty, except for a few dog barks occasionally, and the common people were not alarmed, and no one knew when the troops of more than 300 people entered the city. As soon as the troops entered the city, they made contact with the county and took them to a middle school to rest and stand by.
At that time, there were some veteran cadres from the Guannei under the leadership of Comrade Li Shouxuan, deputy commander and chief of staff of the Songjiang Military Region. Three companies of the security forces are responsible for the security work. However, these units are all organized locally, with poor weapons and equipment, weak combat effectiveness, and in particular, a complex composition of personnel, and many bad guys are mixed in the ranks. Therefore, they simply did not dare to rely on it. Although there was also the garrison headquarters of the Soviet Red Army in the city, which was responsible for maintaining public order, there was only one squad. These people are not familiar with the local situation, they do not understand the language, and the bandits are very fierce, so they usually do not take care of things, and they rarely come out at night.
At 11 o'clock in the evening, the bandits outside the city, with the cooperation of some of the mutinous security forces, launched an attack on the city in a coordinated manner. Suddenly, the sound of gunfire and grenade explosions throughout the county became loud. The fighting was fierce, and Comrade Li Shouxuan's residence was also occupied. When the three battalions saw that the bandits were attacking and decreasing, they launched a fierce counterattack against the bandits with the strength of three companies in three directions. This can stun the bandits. The offensive that had been organized just now was immediately chaotic. Wang Zuo, the commander of the eighth company, took the lead and led his troops to charge the bandits. In the fierce battle, he was wounded in seven places and covered in blood, but he still insisted on directing the battle. The morale of the fighters grew, and gradually the bandits could not resist and began to retreat. After more than two hours, except for a few diehards who were still resisting, most of the bandits took advantage of the chaos to flee in the southeast direction of Binxian County.
The battle ended at two o'clock in the evening. Due to the timely arrival of the troops of the third battalion and the counterattack, the safety of the county town was safeguarded. In this battle, we killed and captured more than 40 people, and basically eliminated the bandits hiding in the city and infiltrating the troops, and put an end to the chaotic social order. The troops were warmly welcomed by the common people in Binxian County, and wherever Wang Zuozhou, commander of the Eighth Company, went, some people insisted that he was brave in fighting and that he was a good man.
The next day, Chen Yun, leader of the North Manchurian Sub-Bureau, Nie Heting, commander of the Songjiang Military Region, Zhang Xiushan, secretary of the Songjiang Provincial Work Committee and political commissar of the Military Region, and other comrades, came to Binxian County. Comrade Chen Yun lived in a small church courtyard in the city, and our Seventh Regiment served as a guard. After the chief's guards were transferred to the security team as cadres, we selected a few veterans from Shandong from the regiment to serve as guards. Comrade Chen Yun was very concerned about the building of our Seventh Regiment and often summoned me and Political Commissar Comrade Wang Qiao to learn about the situation of the troops and give instructions on the ideological education and training of the troops. In early December, Comrade Chen Yun again gave a speech to the cadres above the platoon level of our regiment. In his speech, he encouraged us to safeguard the honor of our old Eighth Road and carry forward the glorious tradition of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. It is necessary to educate all the fighters to have a clear understanding of the situation, prepare for hard struggle, and build this North Manchurian base area well. The chief's earnest teachings have greatly encouraged the cadres and strengthened our confidence in the revolutionary cause.
On December 12, 1945, the Songjiang Military Region issued an order to suppress bandits, and decided that the second and third battalions of the Seventh Regiment would be directly under the leadership of the Songjiang Military Region, with the two battalions as the main force to carry out the struggle against bandits, except for the first battalion that would continue to be stationed in Shuangcheng and under the leadership of the Hanan Division. A few days later, the Songjiang Military Region held a meeting of cadres above the platoon level in the Seventh Regiment. Gao Gang and Chen Yun, leaders of the North Manchurian Sub-Bureau, gave us a mobilization report on the struggle against bandits. This report is important. It has made us realize the great significance and sense of urgency of the struggle against bandits for the establishment and consolidation of the base areas in northeast China, thus laying a solid ideological foundation for the arduous struggle against bandits.
The first battle of the eight families
After the mobilization for the suppression of bandits, our regiment immediately began preparations for the suppression of bandits. Under the leadership of Zhang Xiushan, political commissar of the military region, we studied a plan to suppress bandits and decided to attack the bandits stationed in Goryeo Hat near Binxian County first, and then fight Bajiazi. However, when the Goryeo hat was played, the timing was not right, and when the troops arrived there, the bandits had all run away. In this way, we redeployed and decided to adopt the tactics of bull knives and fight the bandits of Bajiazi first. This tactic is played in the following ways: long-distance running, concealed advance, avoiding other enemies, and directly attacking the enemy's main headquarters.
Bajiazi is located in Wuchang County and is a relatively large market town. The bandits stationed here are called the Kuomintang Advance Third Army, with army commander Wang Zhengwu and deputy army commander Zuo Jiantang. This group of bandits, with more than 3,000 people, is scattered in the villages and towns around Bajiazi, and is a relatively strong threat to the Songjiang area. Before attacking this group of bandits, we will first send people to understand the enemy situation in Bajiazi Town. After ascertaining the enemy's situation, the military region decided that political commissar Zhang Xiushan would personally lead the team to fight the bandits. The 2nd and 3rd battalions of our 7th Regiment were responsible for the main attack, and the 1st Regiment was responsible for encircling and pinning down the enemy and cooperating with the operation.
One evening in late December, under the leadership of Political Commissar Zhang Xiushan, we set off. After a night's march, before dawn, the troops arrived at Bajiazi on time.
At dawn, the town of Bajiazi was quiet, and the bandits were still asleep. When the order to attack was given, the warriors rushed like tigers descending from the mountain, bravely rushing towards the bandits on the periphery. The periphery was frightened by the sudden appearance of our troops, and after firing a few shots, they ran towards the town. Our army took the opportunity to expand the results of the battle and rushed into Bajiazi Town in close pursuit of the bandits. At this time, gunfire erupted in the town, and some of the panicked bandits were captured before they could put on their clothes, but most of the bandits ran into a pot compound in the town.
This pot compound is the headquarters of the bandits, and the surrounding courtyard wall is more than 4 meters high, and there are many shooting holes, and a lot of water is splashed on the wall, and it freezes bright and bright under the severe cold. There are also turrets in the four corners of the courtyard, which can be used to block the vicinity of the compound. After the troops entered the town, I set up a command post in a school in the northwest corner of the town, two or three hundred meters away from the Shaoguo compound, from where I observed and directed the attack on the compound.
Wang Zhengwu and Zuo Jiantang's gang of bandits were a rabble composed of policemen, spies, and stragglers during the puppet Manchu period, and their combat effectiveness was particularly poor. But this gang of bandits hated the Communist Party, the Eighth Route Army, and the democratic regime very much. Therefore, it behaves very stubbornly in battle. They held on to the compound, hoping to wait for reinforcements to arrive before counterattacking our army. But they didn't expect that most of the bandits who had rushed to reinforce nearby after hearing the news had fled to other places, except for a part that was annihilated by our group.
After the bandits were pressed into the compound, our troops launched several charges in succession, but, because the courtyard wall was high and slippery, it was impossible to climb up, and we did not prepare explosives, and several charges retreated. Therefore, our army used mortars and grenadiers to bombard the compound of the burning pot, and concentrated three Type 92 heavy machine guns to shoot at the courtyard wall, and after a while, they smashed a hole in the wall. However, the bandits immediately blocked it with the door panel. In this way, the two sides remained in a stalemate until the afternoon. At this time, the casualties of the troops were relatively large, especially the soldiers lying on the snow and suffering frostbite from more than 100 people. Because a few days before the Bajiazi Fight, there had just been a heavy snowfall, the snow was more than 1 foot deep, and the weather was very cold, and the troops of our 7th Regiment had not yet put on cotton clothes, not even cotton shoes and gloves, so there were more non-combat attrition. In this case, we had to change our plans, find ladders and ropes, and prepare to attack at night. In order to prevent bandits from breaking through, we have also strengthened the guard in the south and southwest corners of the main attack.
Unexpectedly, this group of cunning bandits saw that reinforcements were coming, and our army was closely surrounded, and felt that the situation was not good, so they no longer held on to this lair and prepared to escape. When it got dark, they dug a hole in a drainage ditch in the southeast courtyard and slipped out one by one, and the troops who had set up an ambush did not find or block the fleeing enemy. At 9 o'clock in the evening, when we found out, we immediately launched an attack, and by the time we occupied the pot compound, most of the bandits had already fled, and only a few dozen people had been captured, but the bandits' seventy or eighty war horses and some heavy machine guns, grenadiers and other heavy weapons that could not be taken away were all captured.
After the liberation of Bajiazi, the local masses were ecstatic, and they were moved by our army's spirit of eliminating harm for the people, not fearing the cold and freezing, and shedding blood and sacrificing. Many people came to us with white noodles and meat that had been hidden for the New Year, and they went around publicizing the achievements of the old Eighth Road in fighting bandits.
The battle of Bajiazi was the first major battle in the Songjiang Military Region's struggle to suppress bandits. Although this gang of bandits was not completely annihilated, the defeat of the main force of this local army that oppressed the people and did all kinds of evil was a powerful blow to the arrogance of the bandits in vain trying to overthrow our people's political power. At the same time, it has expanded the influence of our army and tempered the troops' ability to fight against bandits in winter, which is of great significance in the entire struggle against bandits.
Capture Zhangjia Oil Mill
After the battle of Bajiazi, the old 7th Regiment withdrew to Binxian County, and the troops were replenished, summing up the experience of fighting against bandits in winter, and at the same time, anti-freezing education was carried out among the troops.
In order to completely wipe out the bandits of the Kuomintang Advance Third Army, after a short period of rest and recuperation, the troops of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions and the 1st Regiment of our Seventh Regiment, under the unified command of the Songjiang Military Region, surrounded the 1 battalion of the Advance Third Army who had fled from the Bajiazi area at Zhangjiayoufang in Acheng County.
After the battle began in the morning, the troops soon entered the village, and the bandits, under the blows of our troops, all retreated to the compound of the Li family, a large landlord at the west end of the village, and used the artillery tower and tall courtyard wall in the courtyard to resist our attack. As soon as I saw that the bandits occupied a favorable terrain that was easy to defend and difficult to attack, and that they would suffer great losses if they attacked hard during the day, I ordered my troops to prepare for an attack at night.
In the second half of the night, I ordered all the mortars to be concentrated and bombarded the Li family compound. In an instant, the whistling shells fell one after another in the compound. The bandits couldn't bear the barrage. They were forced to break through and flee outside the village. At this time, we concentrated our light and heavy machine guns on the fleeing bandits, and this bombardment caused great damage to the bandits. Immediately after that, the troops launched another charge, biting the bandits, and pursued 3 villages in a row, beating the bandits to the point of losing their armor and urinating.
In this battle, more than 200 bandits were eliminated, and only a few escaped in the darkness. Due to the relatively good use of tactics, our army suffered relatively small losses, with only a dozen casualties, and achieved great results at a relatively small cost.
Encircled and annihilated the rebel Liu Mingjiu
After the bandits of Zhangjiayoufang were eliminated, our old seventh regiment was ordered to go to the sugar mill in Bin County with the troops of the first and third regiments to encircle and suppress the rebel Liu Mingjiu. Liu Mingjiu was originally a well-known landowner in Pingshan Town, Acheng County. In September 1945, according to the needs of the struggle, our party sent people to integrate his security team and form the Songjiang Self-Defense Army's Acheng Self-Defense Regiment. In order to unite and transform this force. The party sent a group of cadres into the regiment, and decided to continue with Liu Mingjiu as the head of the regiment and send Chen Keming, a veteran of the Red Army and a member of the Communist Party, to serve as the political commissar of the regiment. Not long after the reorganization, Liu Mingjiu colluded with the bandit leader Liu Shuheng to launch a mutiny and take away seventy or eighty troops. After Liu Mingjiu's rebellion. Take the troops to the full well. There, he recruited troops and openly raised the banner of the Kuomintang bandit armament. After Liu Mingjiu expanded his team to more than 200 people, he and the bandit leader Xu Zhanhai occupied the sugar mill, and the local people were once again brutalized and ravaged by the bandits.
At the end of December, Political Commissar Zhang Xiushan personally commanded one battalion of our Seventh Regiment and a part of the First Regiment and the Second Regiment totaling more than 1,000 people to surround the sugar mill in Binxian County. In addition to some bandits from Liu Mingjiu and Xu Zhanhai, there were also several gangs of bandits such as Liu Shuheng, Shi Yunpeng, and Yan Kejian, totaling more than 600 people.
The battle began at 6 o'clock in the morning. The troops of our 7th Regiment quickly broke through the East Gate and quickly eliminated the bandits inside the East Gate. After we occupied Nanjie, a regiment of troops also broke through to the west gate and rushed towards Liu Mingjiu's headquarters, Fu Yikui's compound. The bandit dog jumped over the wall and began to charge back at us. The enemy and the enemy fought fiercely all morning. By noon, Liu Shuheng and Yan Kejian's gang of bandits broke through our encirclement and escaped from Tangfang Town. There were only about 300 bandits from Liu Mingjiu and Xu Zhanhai left in the town. However, these bandits were very stubborn and resisted desperately in the Fuyikui compound and several turrets. Our 7th Regiment and 1st Regiment attacked several times without penetrating, and suffered some casualties. When the attack was frustrated, we had to withdraw our troops to rest and wait until it was dark before attacking inward.
In the middle of the night, we concentrated our mortars and grenadiers and bombarded the compound and the turrets. The artillery fire set fire to the houses and haystacks in the courtyard, and the firelight reflected the compound red. After a burst of bombardment, our troops attacked from all sides. Under the fierce attack of our troops, the bandits surrendered to our troops one after another. After the bandit leader Xu Zhanhai was wounded in the leg, he was caught by us (later, during the escort, he resisted with a crutch and was killed by the soldiers with a gun), while the traitor Liu Mingjiu was killed by a shell in the fierce battle.
In this battle, although our army suffered more than 100 casualties, it completely eliminated the rebellious Liu Mingjiu bandits, lifted the threat of bandits to the county seat of Binxian County, and also removed a major disaster for the people of Binxian County.
Liberate five counties
In several major battles in Bajiazi, Zhangjiayoufang, and Tangfang, the old Seventh Regiment, a unit with the old Eighth Road as the backbone, gave full play to its leading role. In the course of the battle, the old unit not only tempered its ability to combat bandits, but also brought in a number of newly formed units, thus enhancing the combat effectiveness of the new troops. At the same time, a lot of experience in winter operations was gained.
After these battles, the reputation of the old seventh regiment for being brave and good at fighting spread. The bandits were even more afraid. As soon as they heard that the old seventh regiment was dispatched, they fled and did not dare to fight with us. Therefore, in a short period of time, bandits in this area west of Harbin and Bin County were basically extinct. However, several county towns north of Songjiang, such as Mulan, Bayan, Tonghe, Fangzheng, and Dongxing, were still occupied by bandits, and democratic regimes could not be established. In order to continue to expand the results of the war against bandits and establish democratic political power in various localities, the Songjiang Military Region ordered troops to be sent to liberate this area and assist in the establishment of democratic political power in various counties.
In mid-February, Nie Heting, commander of the Songjiang Military Region, and Li Shouxuan, deputy commander of the Songjiang Military Region, led the second and third battalions of our Seventh Regiment and the regimental pursuit artillery company, totaling more than 1,000 people, to march in the direction of Mulan.
Around the 17th, we crossed the river from Jiaban Station at night, and when we arrived at Mulan County, it was already midnight. As soon as the troops were deployed, we began to attack from the west gate and from the left and right flanks. In a short time, the troops entered the city. Seeing that the county seat had been breached, the bandits fled in the direction of Dongxing County in the north of the city in the dark night. Our troops pursued the victory and eliminated more than 300 people.
In the afternoon of the next day, the troops set out for Dongxing County to pursue the fleeing bandits. When the troops arrived in Dongxing County on the morning of the third day, Mulan's bandits fled again. Another group of bandits entrenched in the county seat, more than 100 people, saw that the army was pressing the border, so they had to surrender with their guns. On February 19, Dongxing County was liberated.
In Dongxing County, after a day's rest, the troops returned to Mulan. He did not stop at Mulan, and marched east along the highway in the direction of Tonghe. Before we arrived, the bandits in this area abandoned the city and fled, and in a short period of time, our army successively liberated the county towns of Nonghe, Tonghe, Bayan, and Fangzheng. At this point, the large bandits in the Songjiang area have been basically eliminated, and the democratic regime and local armed forces have been rapidly established. Although there are still sporadic bandits making trouble, with the deepening of the struggle to suppress bandits and build a government, these bandits have gradually been dismantled, and the situation is developing better and better.
围攻小山子
In March 1916, just as the situation of the struggle to suppress bandits and build a government in several counties around Harbin was booming, banditry activities in the Xiaoshanzi area of Wuchang County were rampant again, and a large group of bandits met there, with frequent activities and very arrogant arrogance, seriously threatening the democratic regime in Wuchang County.
In early April, the higher authorities mobilized the 359th Brigade and several regiments of the Songjiang Military Region to encircle and suppress these bandits. Our 7th Regiment, under the leadership of Wang Kuixian, commander of the Hanan Division, dispatched the 2nd Battalion stationed in Binxian County and the 1st Battalion stationed in Shuangcheng, and also used 10 horses to pull two Japanese field guns.
The 7th Regiment was to take charge of the main attack, while the 359th Brigade and other units of the Songjiang Military Region were responsible for besieging and blocking the fugitives.
The troops marched after a night of rapid marching. Arriving at Xiaoshanzi Town at 7 o'clock in the morning, he immediately ordered: the second battalion will attack from the east gate of Xiaoshanzi, and the first battalion will assist at the north gate. At the same time, two Japanese field guns also began to bombard the wall. However, because the scope was not easy to use, I couldn't hit it accurately after several shots. The attacking troops, unable to rush under the fire of the bandits, had to wait for the night attack.
After dark, the 2nd Battalion continued to attack, but the wall was too high and the fire of the turret blocked it, so it was difficult for the attacking troops to get close. Sometimes, just as close to the wall, they were blown back by a grenade thrown from inside by bandits. One of the bandits in the town was a bandit leader, nicknamed "Yizhihua", who was a woman with accurate guns. Whenever the troops attacked, she shouted inside, "Look at my aunt!" and then swept out with her box guns and knocked down many soldiers. The second battalion sacrificed more than 30 people, and did not rush in after a night of attack.
Due to the heavy casualties of the 2nd Battalion, the next day, we adjusted the siege troops and decided that the 1st Battalion would take the lead in the attack, fighting from the north gate, and the 2nd Battalion would assist at the east gate. The siege troops of the first battalion, under the leadership of the battalion commander Teng Shunqing, learned a lesson, changed their original fighting style, turned over their coats during the attack, put a white cloth on their bodies facing outward, and the whole battalion crawled forward on the snow and quietly touched it. After approaching the wall, they threw grenades into it, and the bandits who were waiting inside the wall were blown up and retreated to the town, and the first battalion took the opportunity to climb over the wall by a ladder and launched a charge into the town.
At this time, the 2nd Battalion, which assisted at the east gate, also took advantage of the situation to attack the town and engage in street battles with the bandits. Under the blows of the first and second battalions, the bandits could not withstand it, and two or three hundred people fled from the south gate. Our army captured several hundred bandits. Seeing that the general trend had gone, the bandit leader "Yizhihua" hugged a child who could just speak, ran to an old lady's house, and forced the old lady to recognize her as her daughter-in-law. Xiao Heizi, the leader of the small artillery squad of the seventh company of the second battalion (I can't remember the name clearly), when the search bandits came to this house, "Yizhihua" was sitting on the kang, and when Xiaohezi asked the old lady to speak, he saw that the old lady was trembling and felt that there was a problem, so he pointed the gun at "Yizhihua" and interrogated her, asked a few words and found no flaws, and asked her to go down to the ground to check. At this time, "Yizhihua" said helplessly: "No need, I am Yizhihua, and the gun is under the buttocks." After the little black man confiscated the gun, he escorted her out of the east gate. Originally, he wanted to send the captured bandit leader to the regiment headquarters, but as soon as he thought of the sacrificed comrades, his heart burned with anger, and he picked her to death with a bayonet not far from the east gate. This heinous bandit leader was duly punished.
After the battle of Xiaoshanzi, a large group of bandits in the Songjiang area were basically eliminated or dispersed. After hard fighting, our army finally won the initiative and took control of the situation in this area.
Xiaoshanzi Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Tower (more than 200 commanders and fighters of our army died in the Xiaoshanzi battle)
Sources:
"Record of the Republic of the Republic - The Great Suppression of Bandits"