On October 29, 1940, the 25th Regiment of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army was ordered by Chen Geng to defend the position at Liushuyuan.
At about ten o'clock in the evening, Chen Geng ordered the 38th Regiment to go to change the guard.
In the dark night, the 2nd Battalion of the 25th Regiment on the western slope of the Willow Ridge position faintly heard a noise in the ravine, and when he got up, he saw that it was a change of guard unit.
Subsequently, he led the fighters of the 2nd Battalion to withdraw from the position on the western slope, and the troops behind him entered the position silently.
But when the 2nd Battalion came to the top of the mountain, the change of guard behind it also followed.
The soldiers of the 2nd Battalion vaguely felt that something was not quite right, so they walked over and explained that they had returned to the position on the western slope, but when they got closer, it was not good, it was actually a group of Japanese soldiers who came over.
In an instant, the Japanese rushed at the fighters of the 2nd battalion with bayonets, and the fighters were taken by surprise and forced to abandon all positions and retreat.
Such an important position was given to the Japanese army in a daze, and this mistake also led to the anger of Mr. Peng later......
Fierce battles
In 1938, after the two battles of Taierzhuang and Wuhan, the Japanese invaders gradually became powerless on the frontal battlefield.
Therefore, on the one hand, they slowed down the pace of the offensive, and on the other hand, they stepped up their attacks on the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army in their rear.
For a time, the base area was swept away, and the barbed wire and fortresses of the Japanese army formed a "cage" in an attempt to trap the anti-Japanese soldiers and civilians.
In order to break the enemy's siege, Peng Dehuai, deputy commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, launched the "Battle of 100 Regiments" in the summer and autumn of 1940.
In early October 1940, the Japanese army in North China gathered tens of thousands of troops to launch a retaliatory "sweep" against our various anti-Japanese base areas, and the Battle of the Hundred Regiments officially entered the third stage.
Japanese sweep
In the process of "sweeping", the Japanese army was like wild beasts, killing people and burning houses on sight, and even wells were sealed and buried or poisoned.
Under the frenzied retaliation of the Japanese army, the masses of the people suffered great losses in some anti-Japanese base areas due to the in-depth mobilization of the anti-"sweeping" campaign, and many villages were burned to ashes by the Japanese army.
The atrocities of the Japanese army aroused the fighting spirit of the anti-Japanese army and the people, and Peng Dehuai, deputy commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, looked at the mass loss figures sent up, and felt like a thousand arrows piercing his heart.
He made up his mind: The Japanese army must not be allowed to continue so unscrupulously, and must fight one or two major battles of annihilation to extinguish their arrogance.
On October 20, the Japanese Okazaki detachment, carrying sufficient supplies and a total of more than 6,000 people, advanced to the hinterland of our Taiyue base area.
The Okazaki detachment was subordinate to the 4th Brigade of the Japanese Army, and the commander was the 37th Detachment of the 226th Division Okazaki Ken Nakasa, a total of 535 people, armed with two mountain guns, and various other high-power weapons.
The detachment had just been formed in August 1940, and in order to deal with the sabotage of the Eighth Route Army, they had never had the opportunity to go out en masse.
In the first two days of the operation, the Okazaki detachment did not encounter our troops due to their hidden whereabouts, but on the 22nd, they happened to come to the area east of Panlong Town and encountered the direct troops of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army.
The headquarters of the 129th Division was nearby, and in order to cover the retreat of the commander and the organs, the 772nd Regiment of the Eighth Route Army and the 25th and 38th Regiments of the Decisive Death started a blocking battle, and the Japanese firepower was fierce and soon repelled the Eighth Route Army.
But because of the steep mountains nearby, they did not dare to continue to pursue deep into the mountains.
So, the Okazaki detachment turned north and fought all the way to the vicinity of the Huangyadong Arsenal of the Eighth Route Army, where the 385th Regiment of the 14th Brigade fought desperately, but the arsenal still fell into the hands of the enemy.
The Japanese army destroyed the equipment of the arsenal and destroyed some machines and raw materials, but fortunately, the Eighth Route Army transferred the materials of the arsenal, so the losses were not too great.
However, this battle also illustrates a problem: the Eighth Route Army is still unable to effectively block the "sweep" of the Japanese army, and it is too passive to fight positional warfare with the enemy.
On the morning of October 28, the Okazaki detachment advanced to the last target of this "sweep" - the town of Flood.
In the afternoon of the same day, the Okazaki detachment arrived here without incident, and carried out frantic sabotage, so that their task of "sweeping" was completed.
Japanese sweep
Okazaki Qian was complacent, he didn't expect the first attack to be so smooth, but he didn't expect that he had become the target of Peng Dehuai, and Okazaki Qian Shou himself would leave his life in Taihang Mountain.
At this time, the Suzuki detachment, which was fighting in coordination with Okazaki, suddenly turned to Tongyu Town, and the Okazaki detachment immediately became a lone army.
Peng Dehuai was keenly aware that the fighter plane had already appeared, so how could he still let Okazaki run away? He issued an order for all units of the 129th Division to begin assembling near Flood Town.
On the morning of the 29th, the Okazaki detachment, which was on the way to retreat, suddenly encountered an ambush, and when the mortar shells of the Eighth Route Army exploded, Okazaki suddenly felt that the situation was not good, because the troops of the Eighth Route Army that could have mortars were definitely the main force.
He did not dare to fight, and immediately commanded his troops to flee.
At this time, the 772nd Regiment and the 16th Regiment of our 386th Brigade, the 769th Regiment of the 385th Brigade, the 25th and 38th Regiments of the 1st Column, the 28th and 29th Regiments of the New 10th Brigade, plus the Special Service Regiment of the Eighth Route Army Headquarters, a total of 8 regiments, had surrounded from all directions.
Soldiers of the Red Army
For a whole day, the Japanese army fought and walked, and finally at 8:30 p.m. that day, they came to the small village that was remembered by history: Guanjiayuan.
At this point, Kenshu Okazaki suddenly felt hopeless, and he saw through his binoculars that the mountains south of the village had been completely occupied by the Eighth Route Army.
If you want to go, you can't go, for today's plan, you can only stick to it and wait for help.
At this time, after many days of sweeping and fighting, the Okazaki Wing still had more than 520 people left in the unit, and his choice was very reasonable when the weapons and equipment were superior.
Guanjiayuan faces a deep ditch and is backed by a hilltop platform, where the east, west and north sides are terraced fields, and there are steep cliffs more than two people high on the edge of each layer of terraces.
Image source network
There are also many caves dug by local villagers, which can be used for rest and weapon reserves.
After determining the strategy of holding on, more than 500 Japanese troops and more than 300 people who were held hostage immediately began to dig fortifications, relying on the Guanjiayuan Plateau, digging a Bagua-shaped core position, and connecting it to the edge of the platform with a communication trench.
The Japanese trenches were dug very deep, and there were also bunkers with enough machine guns and artillery, and at the foot of Guanjiayuan Mountain, they also dug more than 300 foxholes.
However, Guanjiayuan also has its own weakness, directly south of the village, is a deep ditch, across the deep ditch, Guanjiayuan and willow wall face each other.
Although the distance between the two villages is not far in a straight line, the terrain is complex, and if you want to move back and forth, it takes half an hour even to run.
Peng Dehuai did not want to let go of this opportunity and immediately made arrangements: Chen Geng commanded the 386 Brigade and the 1st Column and the Special Service Regiment of the General Headquarters to launch an attack from the left flank; Liu Deng commanded the 385 Brigade and the New 10 Brigade to attack from the right flank; and Peng directly commanded the 1st Artillery Regiment of the Headquarters to provide long-range support.
After the troops arrived at their positions, a general attack was launched at 4 a.m. on the 30th.
However, one undeserved mistake cast a shadow over the whole battle.
Fatal mistakes
The first to arrive was the 25th and 38th regiments of the 1st Column, they seized the position of the willow wall at the first time, and almost at the same time, the Japanese army also discovered the importance of the willow wall, so they sent a squadron to touch the willow wall at night.
At about ten o'clock in the evening, the Japanese troops quietly climbed the mountain along a path on the west side of the willow wall.
At this time, the 25th Regiment was waiting for the 38th Regiment to come to change the guard, but the Japanese came.
The soldiers were in the dark and could not see the clothes of the comers, and in this case, the fighters of the 2nd Battalion of the western position did not ask for the number and password, and took the Japanese army as the 38th Regiment that had come to change the guard.
What happened later is the scene at the beginning.
This situation forced the Eighth Route Army to change its deployment, and at four o'clock in the morning, the 1st Column of Decisive Death took the lead in launching the battle to recapture Liushuyuan.
The 25 regiment rushed to the front, they built a ladder and sent part of the fighters to the edge of the position.
However, the ferocious fire of the Japanese blocked the way, and the 25th Regiment paid a great price to rush under the first layer of the platform, and the two sides fell into a scorching battle until dawn.
At the same time, the special service group of the headquarters also launched a night attack on the Japanese army in Guanjiayuan, and the 2nd battalion and 6th company of the special service group relied on a surprise attack to knock out a machine gun position of the opponent, and then rushed to the cave area on the mountainside.
However, the Japanese army had already dug all the caves, and each cave entrance had become a machine-gun position, and the special service group fought with the enemy one cave after another, and the casualties were huge, but the results were not great.
The regiment commander Ou Zhifu immediately stopped the attack and confronted the Japanese army.
After dawn, all units of the Eighth Route Army had already entered combat positions: two regiments of the 386th Brigade were in the southeast, one regiment of the 385th Brigade was in the northwest, the new 10th Brigade was in the west, and the headquarters special service regiment was in the northeast.
The Eighth Route Army launched an offensive from four directions and launched a fierce offensive and defensive battle with the enemy. The battle of this day was fought until the sky was dark.
In the other direction, the battle at Willow Ridge was also very tragic.
The 25th and 38th regiments organized several offensives, but as soon as the fighters showed their heads, they were hit by enemy fire.
The 1st Column organized a regiment of cadres, attacked 7 times in a row, and finally rushed to the Willow Ridge Terrace at dusk, and the soldiers launched a fierce white-knuckle battle with the Japanese army, but in the end they failed due to physical exhaustion.
The two regiments launched several in-depth attacks, but they were unsuccessful, capturing only part of the positions in the north, forming a standoff with the enemy.
Seeing that he could not take the enemy, Peng Dehuai decided to let the artillery go into battle, but the commander of the 772nd Regiment was too anxious and lacked experience in infantry and artillery coordination, so he rushed forward without waiting for the extension of firepower.
At this time, the artillery fire of the Eighth Route Army fell on their own heads before they hit the Japanese, and the Japanese army took advantage of the situation to attack with heavy firepower again, resulting in heavy casualties in the 1st Battalion of the 772nd Regiment.
More than 100 fighters managed to rush to the ridge line of the terrace, but all of them were killed and wounded under the attack of the enemy, and the 3rd Battalion then launched an attack and fought in conjunction with the 1st Battalion.
As a result, the two battalions repeatedly rushed for 5 hours, and the results were not great, but the casualty figures were still shocking:
In the entire 1st Battalion, only a dozen people remained unwounded;
A company of more than 70 people, only 3 people survived, and the company commander was also killed;
In the 3rd Company, which had more than 50 people, only one instructor and two wounded remained, and in the 4th Company, there were 68 people, and in the end, only 4 people remained.
Looking at the blood of the officers and men of the Eighth Route Army on the terrace, Chen Geng, the commander of the 386th Brigade, picked up the phone and proposed to Peng Dehuai:
"The terrain here is very unfavorable to me, can I lower Okazaki's brigade down the mountain and choose another favorable terrain to ambush him?"
Chen Geng
Peng Dehuai resolutely denied:
"No, once you let him go, it's hard to fight him anymore, you have to destroy him here!"
Chen Geng was anxious, and said almost with a crying voice:
"It's too expensive to fight like this!"
Peng Dehuai said very resolutely: "Even if you fight out, you have to take Guanjiayuan!"
Chen Geng still wanted to object, but Peng Dehuai said:
"There are opinions that can be kept, but orders must be carried out! If you don't destroy this enemy, you will have your head. ”
Under the strong order, the 772nd Regiment had to continue to organize cadre teams to storm the enemy's positions despite the heavy casualties among the soldiers.
After paying heavy casualties, the situation on the battlefield was still the same, and at this time, the division commander Liu Bocheng couldn't hold on, he called Peng Dehuai and said:
"Our casualties are too great, we can't afford to pay if we continue to fight like this! Mr. Peng, you are angry and brutal! I don't agree to fight this battle again!"
Liu Bocheng
And Peng Dehuai was desperate at this time, and he yelled at Liu Bocheng:
"If you can't take Guan Jiayuan, you will revoke the number of the 129th Division, and kill the head no matter how big or small!"
The main force of the Eighth Route Army was strong enough to attack the fortification, but the Japanese army had already begun to deploy troops to relieve the siege of the Okazaki detachment, and the nearby Suzuki detachment and Tanaka brigade were rushing towards the battlefield.
Peng Dehuai was so anxious that he ran to 500 meters in front of the Guanjiayuan position, leaned his back against the edge of the trench, stretched out his right foot, and kicked on the wall of the trench in front.
He raised the binoculars with both hands and carefully looked at the opposite side, the upper half of his body, almost completely exposed to the enemy's firing range!
At this time, Xu Xiaobing, a photojournalist who accompanied the army, did not hesitate to press the shutter and photographed this iconic work of Peng Dehuai.
At 4 o'clock on the afternoon of the 30th, the strength of nearly two regiments of the Eighth Route Army, under the cover of artillery fire, launched the 18th charge against the enemy.
In the end, the 769th Regiment adopted the method of attacking the east and west, allowing some people to attract the attention of the Japanese army, while others dug a secret passage in the direction of Guanjiayuan.
After nightfall, the troops moved through the secret tunnels to the enemy's main position, and fought fiercely with them.
During the battle, the Japanese commander Ken Okazaki was hit by a bullet in the chest and was killed on the spot.
At this time, the time had come to dawn on the 31st, and the Japanese reinforcements were approaching step by step, and even exchanged fire with the reinforcements of the Eighth Route Army.
However, both the Guanjiayuan and Liushuyuan still did not complete the task of destroying the enemy, the casualties of the troops were too great, the blood of the soldiers was almost dry, and the 25th and 38th regiments, each of which had only more than 500 people left to fight.
And with the arrival of daylight, Japanese planes also rushed over and attacked the Eighth Route Army from the air, and finally, with the response of the Suzuki detachment, the remnants of the Okazaki detachment broke out of the encirclement and went to assemble near the town of Hongshui.
In the first battle of Guanjiayuan, the Eighth Route Army gave up its strong sports warfare and used a tough battle against the enemy, which ultimately proved to be ineffective.
The Eighth Route Army concentrated 8 regiments, totaling more than 10,000 people, and besieged a detachment of more than 500 Japanese troops.
In Liu Bocheng's later report, he said:
"There were more than 280 enemy corpses, and 3 piles of human ashes were burned with gunpowder, about 50 people. According to the exhumed bodies, there were 2 officers of the first lieutenant, 4 officers of the lieutenant and 1 officer of the second lieutenant. In addition, 2 wounded Japanese soldiers were captured, and 70 rifles, 9 grenadiers, a bullet and military supplies, and more than 10 war horses were captured. ”
However, the Japanese report recorded that they lost only 151 men in this battle, of which 50 were killed, 99 were wounded, and 2 were missing.
In the war, the casualty figures on the battle report will be exaggerated on both sides, so there is no need to be too entangled, but it is certain that the losses of the Japanese army are definitely within 300 people.
In Liu Bocheng's report, more than 600 soldiers were killed or wounded, but some researchers speculate that the number of casualties of the Eighth Route Army was far more than that.
Otherwise, Chen Geng and Liu Bocheng would not be so anxious to seek a change of place to fight.
Epilogue:
In his later years, Marshal Peng Dehuai once said that he had fought "four defeats", and the Battle of Guanjiayuan was among them.
In this battle, the Eighth Route Army did suffer huge losses, and its strategic goals were not achieved, but there are two sides to everything, and this battle is not without gains.
First of all, by learning the Japanese method of digging fortifications, the Eighth Route Army improved its trenches and learned how to dig horizontally to avoid artillery "cat's ear holes".
In the subsequent War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the War of Liberation and even the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, this technology played a huge role, allowing many soldiers to escape the blow of artillery fire.
After the Battle of Guanjiayuan, when the Japanese army carried out large-scale sweeps, it rarely continued to let the detachment units go deep into the base area, but would use heavy troops, which invisibly made the Japanese army, which was already insufficient in strength, even more timid when using troops.
The last point is that through this battle, many "iron armies" of the Eighth Route Army were played, and the soldiers who participated in the battle of Guanjiayuan generally had a deeper hatred for the enemy, a better understanding of their tactics, and stronger combat skills. The lessons of blood that were exchanged on the battlefield finally gave birth to the flowers of combat effectiveness.
Resources:
"The Tragic Guanjiayuan - An Exhausting and Bloody Battle in the Battle of the Hundred Regiments" is full of party history