Chapter 5 Tackling Tough Problems
The demolition team of our army fearlessly rushed forward in the face of the rain of bullets, the demoman in front fell, and the demoman in the back stepped over the corpse and continued to charge, and the sound of guns, shouts of killing, and the sound of the trumpet of the charge converged in the reverberation of heaven and earth. The thrilling scene and overwhelming momentum made the four sons jaw-dropping and their blood swaying.
December 27, 1945, the 23rd day of the 11th lunar month. The wind and sun in Jinan are beautiful and sunny, and Li Yannian's mood is as refreshing and sunny as the weather. This morning, the Shandong Theater will hold a ceremony for the surrender of the Japanese troops in Jinan, and as the chief officer of the surrender on the Chinese side, Li Yannian will accept the surrender of Lieutenant General Hosokawa Tadayayasu, commander of the 43rd Army of the Japanese Army. This is a moment that will go down in history, this moment will bring his military career to the peak, how can Li Yannian not be high-spirited and energetic! For Li Yannian, Jinan is the place where he became famous. In April 1928, he served as the commander of the 5th Regiment of the 2nd Division of the 1st Army of the National Revolutionary Army, and followed the Northern Expeditionary Army to fight in Xuzhou, Ketai'an, and Jinan. At that time, under the pretext of protecting overseas Japanese, the Japanese troops stationed in Jiji created the May Day Massacre that shocked China and the rest of the world. In order to avoid a conflict with Japan, Chiang Kai-shek ordered him to hold Jinan and cover the Northern Expeditionary Army's detour. Li Yannian then led the regiment to fight with the Japanese army for two days, and finally completed the task. Chiang Kai-shek greatly appreciated him and promoted him to brigade commander. This battle laid the foundation for his later ascension. Li Yannian was familiar with the scriptures in his early years, he was a Confucian general, but he fought fiercely, he was a brave and good tiger general, and at the same time, he was a lucky general who couldn't be stopped by luck. Since Japan's surrender, he has had many happy and good things. Li Yannian was first appointed by Chiang Kai-shek as the deputy commander of the 11th Theater and the commander-in-chief of the Shandong Advance Army, and was given the fat cha of the Shandong surrendered to receive the big man, and led the Kuomintang Central Army into Jinan, where he was greeted by He Siyuan, chairman of the Shandong Provincial Government, and Lieutenant General Hosokawa Tadayasu, commander of the Japanese army, and other officials at the railway station. Then, Li Yannian gained the upper hand in the struggle for power and profit with He Siyuan. When Li Yannian entered the economy, He Siyuan had already received the valuable Nissan, and there was no oil or water to fish. Li Yannian was greatly annoyed, so he issued a proclamation demanding that the Japanese puppet property must be approved by the local degraded official before it could be collected, otherwise it would be punished as corruption; at the same time, he refused to admit that the puppet army that He Siyuan had incorporated in advance was a "national army." He Siyuan didn't dare to turn his face with him, so he had to spit out some of the property he had received. The second is to ensure that the Jide section of the Jinpu Line did not fall into the hands of the Eighth Route Army. After Japan's surrender, Li Yannian ordered the 47th Division of Lieutenant General Watanabe to formally take over the defense of the Jinpu line. In late September, the headquarters of the 131st Wing and the 2nd Brigade of the Japanese Army arrived in Dexian County. In mid-December, Captain Gu led the 1st Brigade of the 131st Wing to the Yucheng Railway Station, and another Japanese army was stationed in Yancheng. Although the county town of Pingyuan was soon conquered by the 1st and 2nd Special Regiments of the Bohai Naval Region of the Eighth Route Army, most of the defense in the Jide section was still occupied by the Japanese army, waiting for the Kuomintang army to receive it. Li Yannian believed that with the strength of the elite 131st Wing of the Japanese army, the Bohai Naval Region of the Eighth Route Army would never be able to conquer Dexian, Yucheng, and Yancheng, so the Tianjin-Pudong Line would certainly become the main transportation channel for the Kuomintang to continuously transport troops to the northeast. In the end, Qingdao was taken over before the CCP army. At the beginning of Japan's surrender, the Shandong Field Corps of the Eighth Route Army led by Xu Shiyou swept through Jiaodong and pointed to Qingdao. At this time, the Central Army was still far away in the interior, and Chiang Kai-shek had no choice but to invite the US army to garrison. On 19 October, Li Yannian flew to Qingdao as a surrender officer of the Japanese army to discuss with the US Navy, which had already landed in Qingdao, the matter of entrusting surrender. On October 25, the surrender ceremony of the Japanese army was held at the Qingdao Racecourse, and the commander of the 6th Division of the US Marine Corps, Sherbur, accepted the surrender of Major General Eiji Nagano, commander of the 5th Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army, and rushed ahead of the Chinese communist army to complete the first surrender ceremony in the Shandong Theater for Li Yannian. The fly in the ointment is that the chief officer of the surrender ceremony in Qingdao was an American, which made the Chinese people somewhat embarrassed and embarrassed. However, this surrender in Jinan was very different, and Li Yannian wanted to personally preside over it as a Chinese soldier. Not only that, but setting December 27 as the surrender day also has another deep meaning: on this day eight years ago, Jinan fell, and since then the Chinese people have been oppressed and humiliated, and accepting the surrender of the Japanese on the same day can be regarded as a form of regaining face, which is called "a shame before the snow". Just as Li Yannian was about to get up and go to the surrender site, the adjutant hurriedly sent a secret telegram, opened it and saw that the content was actually the news that thousands of Japanese troops stationed in Gaoyou, Jiangsu Province had been completely annihilated by the New Fourth Army in one fell swoop yesterday. This greatly diminished his already good mood. Gaoyou County is adjacent to Yangzhou in the south, two Huai in the north, the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, known as "the iron lock of the canal gate", it is a place where soldiers must fight since ancient times. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the military situation in the Gaoyou area was extremely complicated. Instead of surrendering to the surrounding New Fourth Army, the Japanese and puppet armies who were originally stationed here transferred more than 1,000 people from the 626th Brigade of the 90th Brigade of the Japanese Army and the first part of the Second Front Army of the puppet army, which were originally stationed in Yangzhou, to increase the number of defenders to more than 5,000 people in two brigades of the Japanese army and seven regiments of the puppet army. At the same time, the vanguard of the Kuomintang 25th Army had reached the front line of Yangzhou and Jiangdu in an attempt to gather heavy troops to occupy Gaoyou. The 49th Army of the Kuomintang also had the intention of crossing the river from Jiangyin to the north. Once Gaoyou is occupied by the Kuomintang army, the Kuomintang army in Yangzhou will be able to move north along the canal and form a situation of division and encirclement in the liberated areas of central China. The situation is becoming more and more severe, and it is necessary to eradicate the enemy of Gaoyou as soon as possible.
On December 19, Su Yu, commander of the Central China Field Army, personally commanded the 7th and 8th columns of the Central China Field Army and a total of 15 main regiments of the Soviet-Chinese Military Region to launch a full-scale attack on Gaoyou. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th, under the powerful offensive of our army, the supreme commander stationed in Gaoyou and the captain of the 626th Japanese Army, Iwasaki Gakudasa, finally gave up resistance and surrendered. The battle lasted 7 days from December 19 to December 26, annihilating a total of 1,100 Japanese troops (including 892 prisoners) and more than 4,000 puppet troops (including 3,493 prisoners), connecting the liberated areas of Jiangsu and Anhui and breaking the attempt of the Kuomintang army to divide the liberated areas of central China.
The Battle of Gaoyou attracted much attention because of the personal command of Commander Su Yu, and was called the "last battle between China and Japan" by the historians, until the little-known "Battle of Yucheng" entered people's field of vision, and this conclusion became an unsolved case and a controversy occurred. At this moment, the surrender ceremony of the Japanese army in Jinan is about to begin, and Li Yannian can't help but think about it. When he crossed the surrender hall, he was immediately infected by the solemn and sacred atmosphere of the scene, and his spirit was unconsciously lifted, and the dark clouds in his heart were suddenly swept away. At 10 o'clock in the morning, the surrender ceremony of the Japanese troops in the Jinan area was solemnly held in the auditorium of the headquarters of the deputy commander of the 11th theater. The surrender of Jinan, Qingdao, and Dezhou was led by Lieutenant General Li Yannian, deputy commander of the 11th Theater of the Kuomintang, and the surrendered troops of the Japanese army were most of the 43rd Army and the 5th Brigade, the 12th Brigade of the Independence, the 11th Brigade and the Marine Corps (concentrated in Qingdao), and the 43rd Army, the 47th Division, the 9th Garrison, and the 11th Garrison (concentrated in Jinan), and were signed and surrendered by Lieutenant General Hosokawa Tadayasu, commander of the Japanese 43rd Army.
The surrender ceremony of the Japanese army was the biggest news in Shandong at the end of 1945, and the provincial archives still have a detailed description of the surrender ceremony in major newspapers and periodicals (summary):
At 10 o'clock, the surrender ceremony began solemnly, and the military and political leaders who participated in the ceremony were seated in order, and the military attachés all wore military uniforms and medals, and the civilian officials all wore black tunics. Dressed in military uniform and wearing a medal on his chest, Li Yannian led Major General Yang Yekong, deputy commander-in-chief of the Shandong Advance Army, Major General Liang Dongxin, chief of staff of the Deputy Commander's Department of the 11th Theater, Lieutenant General Huo Shouyi, commander of the 12th Army, and Major General Liao Yunze, commander of the 96th Army, into the auditorium. Subsequently, through the guidance officer Major Staff Officer Zhang Tong, the Japanese army signed the surrender on behalf of Lieutenant General Hosokawa Tadayasu, the commander of the division of Lieutenant General Watanabe Yoshiyo, the chief of staff of Kankawa Yoshiyi Osa, the adjutant of Nobuhiko Jimbo, and the staff officer of Junior Commander Suzuki Kazura. After entering, he first took off his military hat and hung it next to the door of the auditorium, then stood side by side, saluted Li Yannian and the degraded officers, and then took his seat. The surrender ceremony begins. Li Yannian first signed the order, and then Liang Dongxin, chief of staff, handed the order to Hosokawa Tadayasu, and Hosokawa Tadayasu and others all stood up to accept it, and Hosokawa Tadayasu read it again, and then signed the order and the certificate of receipt and affixed the official seal. After the signature, Hanchuan Yoshiyi returned the two originals to the demoted official. He came to Li Yannian with the letter of order and the certificate of acceptance, bowed, and handed over the letter of order and the certificate with both hands, that is, he returned to his original position. After carefully inspecting the signature and official seal, Li Yannian asked the Japanese representative who signed the surrender to the Japanese side: "Do you have a complete understanding of the order?" Hosokawa Tadayasu said: "I fully understand and absolutely obey it." Then all the surrender representatives stood up, took off their swords, came to the surrender chief seat to salute, presented their swords, took two steps back and bowed, that is, on behalf of all the Japanese troops in Shandong to disarm and surrender. After the surrender ceremony, Li Yannian deliberately set up a banquet with seven tables in the auditorium of the theater commander's headquarters to entertain the observers. Li Yannian led several demoted officials and stars to shuttle between the wine tables like the moon, frequently raising their glasses, talking and laughing, and celebrating the victory with guests and friends, and the mood was very refreshing. This feast was drunk until the time came. Li Yannian saw off the guests, only then did he feel tired, and was about to go back to his home to rest, the chief of staff reported carefully: Last night, Xiao Feng's division of the communist army in Bohai District suddenly launched a fierce attack on the railway line from Yucheng to Luokou for more than 100 miles, Zhuluotun Station has been breached, the Japanese troops stationed at Yancheng Railway Station have been attacked and harassed, Yucheng County is also besieged by its 11th and 12th regiments today, and Yuan Yelie and Jing Xiaocun led the 1st and 2nd regiments of the Bohai Naval Region to assemble in the direction of Yucheng. According to reliable information, the communist army will launch an offensive tonight. When Li Yannian heard this, he felt like he had been poured a basin of cold water on his head, and he was sleepy, and said to Huo Shouyi, the commander of the 12th Army, worriedly: "Yuan Yelie has used all his old housekeepers this time, obviously to go to the Japanese Valley Brigade stationed at Yucheng Railway Station, this is to echo Su Yu in Gaoyou and pull out the knife stuck in their hearts." If Yucheng Railway Station is captured by it, Yancheng will be lost, and the loss of Dexian County will be a matter of time. At that time, the Jide section of the Jinpu Line will all fall into the hands of Yuan bandits, and the chairman's plan to transport troops to the northeast by railway will also fall through. Therefore, Yucheng Railway Station is our lifeline, but also the death hole of the communist army, and must not be lost. Brother Shouyi, you immediately mobilize the troops in the Luokou area to stand by, ready to cross north at any time, and reinforce the valley brigade at all costs, and you must not let Yucheng become the second Gaoyou. On the day when Li Yannian was full of ambition to hold a grand ceremony for the surrender of the Japanese army, the Bohai Naval Region fired the sound of gunfire for the armed annihilation of the Japanese troops stationed in the Bohai Region, and Yuan Yelie, on behalf of the commander, issued a general mobilization before the war: If the Japanese army does not surrender its guns, it will resolutely and completely destroy them, and they will never be allowed to surrender to the Kuomintang army under the nose of the Eighth Route Army, and still less will these well-dressed beasts who have lost their conscience be allowed to flaunt their might and act recklessly on Chinese soil. On the night of December 27, 1945, on the land of northern Lubei, where the sky was still clear during the day, suddenly overcast and the north wind suddenly rose. Under the cover of night, the Sixth Garrison Brigade of the Bohai Naval Region, under the command of brigade commander Xiao Feng, has surrounded Yucheng County. The operational arrangements of the brigade were: Zhu Yaohua and Yang Aihua led the 11th Regiment to attack the East City Gate; Mao Huiyi and Zhao Chun led the 12th Regiment to attack the South City Gate; Gao Mingxuan led the Yucheng Military Engineering Corps to feint and attack the West City Gate to contain the Japanese Jiteng Squadron stationed in the West Street of the city; and another armed force lay an ambush on the road leading to the railway station in the county town to prevent the valley brigade from coming to reinforce it. On December 10, when the Sixth Police Brigade attacked the county seat for the first time, it had already broken through the city, but was suddenly attacked by the Japanese cavalry at the railway station, and was caught off guard by the enemy in the abdomen, so it had to withdraw from the city. This time, the Sixth Police Brigade attacked the city again, and the strength of the valley brigade stationed at the railway station was even stronger than before, if it poured out, the siege troops would inevitably fall into a passive situation of fighting on both flanks, so we must attach great importance to blocking reinforcements in case of accidents. In the middle of the night, three signal flares rose into the air, and the ensuing gunfire was deafening, the explosion of fire reflected the city wall as if it were day, and the trajectory of bullets and shells was like thousands of silver snakes dancing wildly in the night sky, intertwined into a huge fire net, which was poignant. The city wall of the old city of Yucheng is built during the Qing Dynasty, 6 meters high, 5 meters thick, mixed and tamped with Sanhe soil, solid as a rock, there is a battlement platform every 1 meter on the city wall. The mortar mounts of our 12th Regiment attacking the West Gate fired flat fire from a distance of 100 meters, blasting a gap in the city wall. Our assault team rushed forward with shouts, but was blocked by the enemy's crossfire, and the gap was soon blocked by sacks. The offensive was blocked, and the battle was a stalemate. The attack at the east gate also did not go well. The last time the fourth son entered the city, he had agreed with the fork that when the Sixth Police Brigade attacked the city, the inside and outside should be combined and the east gate should be opened. Unexpectedly, after the fork was killed by Ono because of the cover of the four sons out of the city, the fork's squadron and the squadron stationed at the west gate were temporarily fortified. The new squadron leader, surnamed Diao, was Li Changqing's hardcore confidant, and after the battle began, he put up desperate resistance, making it difficult for our 11th Regiment to ride a tiger and had to carry out a strong attack. Sizi said: "In people's common sense, the image of the puppet army seems to be thinned out instantly when it sees the Eighth Route Army, and it will collapse as soon as it is beaten. In fact, some puppet armies are super strong in combat. Especially before and after Japan's surrender, perhaps they thought that the devils could still return to China if they surrendered their guns, and because they wore traitor hats, surrendering their guns meant a dead end, so many puppet soldiers who had been 'instigated' for many years suddenly showed their blue-faced fangs. In May 1944, in the battle of Chenjiagang, in the face of the fierce offensive of the main force of the New Fourth Army, even the Japanese army surrendered, but the puppet army was desperately resisting. On July 7, 1945, in the Battle of Suining, the puppet army defending the city turned against the guest and launched a counter-charge against our army again and again, turning what should have been a one-sided battle into a tragic street battle, which is completely different from the image of the 'coward' in the anti-Japanese drama, which is really evil. That night, when our 11th Regiment attacked the East Gate, it encountered a group of evil puppet soldiers, led by Li Changqing, who was originally a hardcore traitor who was inseparable from the Eighth Route Army, and there was no need to imagine that he would disarm and surrender. At this moment, he was holding a Type 92 machine gun in his arms and firing wildly into the open field outside the city. The demolition team of our army fearlessly rushed forward in the face of the rain of bullets, the demoman in front fell, and the demoman in the back stepped over the corpse and continued to charge, and the sound of guns, shouts of killing, and the sound of the trumpet of the charge converged in the reverberation of heaven and earth. The thrilling scene and overwhelming momentum made the four sons who followed the brigade commander standing in the command post dumbfounded and their blood was swaying. Seeing the Demoman fall on the way one by one, only one of the little soldiers crawled back alive, holding a fire pipe and shouting excitedly: "Company commander, the explosives bag is ready, get ready to rush." However, 10 minutes passed, and the explosives did not go off. The little soldier gritted his teeth, held the last pack of explosives, and rushed up again, the bullets hit the soil beside him "poof", and the grenades fell from the city wall like. The little soldier picked up the explosives lost on the ground by his sacrificial comrades halfway, bundled them together in three packs, pulled the fuse violently, and watched the blue flames come out of the "boom", and then ran back, and before he could lie down, the huge explosive air flow knocked him to the ground. The commandos rushed into the breach with a shout, like a flood bursting an embankment, and occupied the intersection as fast as they could, dumbing down several machine guns guarding the southern wall from behind. The 1st Battalion of our 12th Regiment, which was storming the south gate, took advantage of the situation to climb up to the gap, attacked inside and out, and crushed the puppet army defending the city. Our 12th Regiment took advantage of the victory to pursue, rushed into the puppet county government, and captured more than 100 puppet government personnel and puppet county district teams. The 2nd and 3rd Battalions of our 11th Regiment rushed into North Street in one go, wiped out more than 800 people from the 8th and 10th Brigades of Security, joined up with our 12th Regiment that rushed into the city from the East Gate, and attacked West Street together, and engaged in a fierce battle with the Japanese Jiteng Squadron, which refused to surrender. The battle lasted until dawn, and the Japanese army finally could not resist the tidal attack of the Eighth Route Army, opened the west gate, and began to flee in the direction of the railway station. Unexpectedly: the county town fought fiercely for one night, and the Japanese troops stationed at the railway station did not send a single soldier to reinforce it, because the cunning valley was afraid that it would be surrounded by our army halfway to help. However, our blocking troops did not find nothing, and at dawn intercepted hundreds of Japanese and puppet soldiers who fled from the county seat to the railway station. At that time, there were two roads leading from the county seat to the railway station: the often taken road went out of the South City Gate, and passed through Nanguan, Mazhuang, Zhaizi, and Qinlaozhuang to the station, and our army intercepted the fleeing enemy on this road. There is another small road out of the West City Gate through Hongbuzhang Village, and then through the horse village to the station, it is difficult to walk and far. Before the war, the fourth son had reminded the troops in charge of blocking and reinforcing the road to pay attention to this path, but it was not taken seriously, and as a result, the cunning Ono led some Japanese troops to seek the near and far, and took this remote path. Ono is worthy of being a veteran of the battlefield, with very rich combat experience, first-class military and psychological qualities, and even if he is defeated, he retreats quite methodically. My pursuing troops thought that the devil must have lost his armor and panicked when he escaped, but Ono actually made a roundabout outflank halfway, killed a horse pistol, and calmly retreated to the train station. When the fourth son learned the news of Ono's escape, he beat his chest and regretted that he did not go to chase and kill him himself.
At dawn, Li Changqing saw that the general trend had gone, hurriedly changed into civilian clothes, hid in a secret cellar under the south wall, and fled to the provincial capital overnight. There is a folk song that sings: "When it comes to Li Changqing, he hates it so much that his teeth hurt, he bullies men and women, and brutalizes the people, the Eighth Route Army entered the city and shot Li Changqing, and the people clapped and laughed, and they were peaceful from then on." (Yucheng Literary and Historical Materials, Vol. 9, p. 270.) The indignation of this people can be seen.
In this battle, 235 Japanese squadron leaders and 235 people under Captain Ji Teng were captured, 25 Japanese soldiers were killed, nearly 1,000 officers and soldiers of the puppet army Li Changqing and the 8th and 10th brigades of the security army were captured, and 5 light and heavy machine guns, 1 steel cannon, 1 82 mortar, 9 small guns, and more than 4,000 long and short guns were captured. In addition, nearly 1 squadron of the Japanese army broke through and fled to the railway station. The cousin of the fourth son, Jin Shan, was captured, and was later released as a meritorious person, inherited his father's business and opened a shop, and died of a sudden heart attack during the "Cultural Revolution" at the age of 50.
On the morning of December 28, the party, government and military personnel of the Pingyu County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Yucheng military engineering team entered the city one after another, and the county was in order, the masses were stable, and the shops were open for business as usual. However, people still have great misgivings in their hearts, and this is because there are still nearly 1,000 heavily armed devils stationed at the railway station who refuse to surrender; the Kuomintang troops, Li Lianxiang, and other local puppet and stubborn forces are still ready to move in the Yancheng area and will counterattack our liberated areas at any time. Therefore, the elimination of Yucheng, Yancheng Railway Station Day, and the puppet army has become a top priority.
The author, Chen Puping, is originally from Yucheng, Shandong, and was born in December 1961. He is a member of the Communist Party of China, a member of the Chinese Writers Association, and one of the top ten theoretical workers in Shandong Province. Former deputy director of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Dezhou City, Shandong Province, and general consultant of the Dezhou Party History Expert Database. He is passionate about the study of party history and literary creation, and has published many works such as "Trek - 1927 Chen Duxiu in Wuhan", "The Death of Chen Duxiu", "Mother's Red Love", "Wordless Tablet", "Soldiers Out of Bohai Bay", "West Wind Spirit", "General's Tears", "Bohai Female Soldiers' Expedition to the West", "Brothers and Sisters in Troubled Times" and many other works, especially good at writing military and historical works, and enjoys the title of "Red Writer". His works have won many national, provincial and municipal work awards, such as the 4th Shandong Provincial Spiritual Civilization Construction "Excellent Project" Award.