Preface
On September 15, 1935, the Red 25th Army led by Xu Haidong finally arrived at Yongping Town, Shaanxi-Gansu District, and the next day met with the 26th and 27th armies of the Northwest Red Army to end the Long March.
After the Red 25th Army arrived in northern Shaanxi, it was combined with the local Red Army to form the Red 15th Army Corps, and in November 1935, most of the cavalry regiments of the Red 15th Army Corps were transferred to the Central Military Commission, and only the 2nd Company of the original Cavalry Regiment was directly under the Red 15th Army Corps.
In June 1936, the Red 15th Army captured the county town of Yuwang in Ningxia and captured a lot of booty, including hundreds of war horses. Xu Haidong allocated the pistol regiment of the corps headquarters and hundreds of captured war horses to the cavalry company and expanded it into a cavalry regiment. The Central Military Commission awarded the regiment the title of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
In August 1937, the 3rd Cavalry Regiment of the Red 15th Army was ordered to be reduced to the 129th Division Cavalry Battalion of the Eighth Route Army. In February 1938, the 129th Division decided to restore the regimental structure of the cavalry battalion. In the autumn of 1938, the cavalry regiment was transferred to the anti-Japanese base area in southern Hebei of the Eighth Route Army and became the fist unit in the hands of commander Chen Zaidao. In November 1942, the cavalry regiment was transferred to the Southern Hebei Military Region, and in December 1943, the cavalry regiment advanced into northern Henan and was under the leadership of the 4th Army Division of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the name of the Jilu-Yu Cavalry Regiment remained unchanged. In November 1945, the troops of the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Military Region formed the 7th Column of the Shanxi-Hebei-Shandong-Henan Field Army, and the cavalry regiment was reassigned to the 7th Column as a cavalry regiment directly under it.
During the Anti-Japanese War, the cavalry regiment dared to confront the Japanese invaders, and its combat style was tough and ruthless, and its prestige was far and wide, which made the Japanese puppet army fearful. At the same time, the cavalry regiment also paid a huge price in casualties, and among the regimental leaders of the regiment, only the political commissar of the regiment saw the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japan, and thousands of soldiers were buried in their hometowns and died heroically at a young age.
In February 1945, the Hebei-Shandong-Henan Border Region held a grand meeting of heroes in Fan County, Shandong, and the Party Committee of the Military Region awarded the cavalry regiment three pennants of "high and courageous art", "Cossack cavalry" and "victory champion", which is the origin of the reputation of "Cossack cavalry".
Bloody Japanese Warriors
The cavalry unit grew up from bloody battles, and successively fought with the Kuomintang Central Army and local warlord troops many times, especially in the bloody battles with the Majia Army in the northwest, and accumulated valuable battlefield experience. In December 1937, the cavalry battalion of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army ambushed the Japanese army in Ma Village, Xibei, Shanxi. For this reason, after the battle, division commander Liu Bocheng personally wrote an article in the "Eighth Route Army Military and Political Magazine" to summarize and promote the experience of the battle in Beima Village in the form of pictures and texts.
Because of the great results of the battle in Beima Village, Liu Bocheng, who was in a good mood, personally cooked a plate of eggs to reward Han Yongzheng, a first-class hero of the Eighth Route Army who emerged in the battle of Beima Village, and this honor was not even enjoyed by Zeng Yuliang, the head of the cavalry regiment, and Guo Yuchun, the political commissar. Why is this fight so classic? Let's briefly recap this fight.
In November 1937, Taiyuan in Shanxi Province had fallen. The cavalry battalion of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army was ordered to march into the area of Zanhuang and Lincheng behind enemy lines of the Japanese army, and constantly attacked and harassed the Japanese invaders with guerrilla tactics. To this end, the Japanese army mobilized more than 200 ace elites on November 30 to drive to Zanhuang in 18 cars, intending to gather and annihilate the cavalry battalion of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army in one fell swoop.
The enemy is menacing and well-armed, and if it is really tough, our army will definitely suffer a great loss. For this reason, as soon as the Japanese army left the city, the 4th Company of the cavalry battalion began to block the Japanese army, constantly harassing along the way. The 4th Company first blew up 1 Japanese car with mines, and then blocked the Japanese army head-on, and after a fierce battle, it retreated while fighting, inducing the Japanese to continue to pursue.
The 4th Company was a cavalry unit, with fast maneuvers, flexible tactics, and the tactics of attacking the west, which caused the Japanese army to be exhausted and exhausted. At dusk, the 4th Company led the Japanese troops to the vicinity of Beima Village, Yuantou Town, Zanhuang County. The Japanese army no longer pursued, and decided to stay in Beima Village and set up camp.
The cavalry battalion decided to attack the Japanese troops who were camping at night, in order to completely annihilate the Japanese army. The cavalry battalion sent scouts to reconnoiter on the spot to find out the situation of the Japanese garrison, and with the help of the villagers, the scouts disguised themselves as civilians and infiltrated the village, mastering detailed and accurate information.
At 1 a.m. on December 1, most of the Japanese soldiers in the camp fell asleep, and even the sentry posts were dozing and napping. The cavalry battalion surrounded Beima Village in three directions. The third company was the first to enter the village, and the platoon leader Han Yongzheng (nicknamed Han Mengzi) led the team to rush into the courtyard, waving the saber and splitting, the first unlucky one was the standing sentry, which was stopped by the saber and split in half.
The devils who were sleeping soundly were quickly smashed by the sabers of the three rows of soldiers, and the other devil soldiers who were awakened saw this bloody scene, and their first reaction was to flee for their lives instead of fighting back. The Japanese fled for their lives in all directions, and were scattered and surrounded by the cavalry battalions that rushed in later.
The machine gunners and some fighters searched and attacked house by house, and they didn't talk nonsense when they caught the devils, and they rushed directly. The cavalry pursued the fleeing devil soldiers all the way, and the second company rushed to the parking lot and burned most of the devil's cars. At this time, it is not easy to make any ace elite, and they are all slashed by the fierce sabers of the cavalry, and they are all killed.
After two hours of fierce fighting, the sky gradually brightened, the enemy reinforcements were approaching, and the cavalry battalion took the initiative to withdraw from the battle. In the battle of Beima Village, the cavalry battalion annihilated more than 140 Japanese soldiers and burned 18 cars. Among them, Han Yongzheng, a first-class meritorious hero of the Eighth Route Army, killed 4 devils alone, and his fierce sword skills were famous, and his fierce combat style was praised and loved by leaders at all levels.
Han Yongzheng is a veteran of the cavalry regiment, he is a left-hander, he has practiced the stunt of the left-handed knife and right-handed gun, and when he was in northern Shaanxi, he followed Xu Hai to the southeast to fight in the north, and has made many military exploits, and is a well-known combat hero in the whole army. After entering the cavalry regiment of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, he followed the troops to recover many county towns such as Zanhuang and Lincheng.
Personally, I think that the most successful part of the battle in Beima Village is the "knife slashing devil", this kind of "steady, accurate, and ruthless" killing disintegrated the enemy's fighting spirit, and played a miraculous effect of "the first battle and surrendered the soldiers". This tactic was again miraculous in the Wang's Staff Breakout on April 29, 1942.
Smash the devil
On April 29, 1942, more than 10,000 Japanese puppet troops in North China secretly attacked the Eighth Route Army's anti-Japanese base in southern Hebei, and surrounded the southern Hebei anti-Japanese army according to the subway wall, and more than 4,000 people in the organs and masses of the Southern Hebei Military Region were surrounded by the Japanese puppet army in Twelve Miles, and the only troops that could be mobilized around Fan Chaoli and Liu Zhijian, director of the Political Department, were less than 1,000 people in the special service group, and the situation was very grim.
At this time, the South Hebei Cavalry Regiment was fighting with the Japanese army in the area of Woodland Tun in the east of the Military Region, and after hearing that the headquarters of the South Hebei Military Region had been surrounded, Zeng Yuliang, commander of the Cavalry Regiment, and Guo Yuchun, political commissar, rushed to Shishilizhuang for reinforcements.
The Japanese puppet army quickly completed the encirclement of Twelve Miles Village, and there was no possibility of breaking through in the east, west and north directions of Twelve Miles Village, only Wang Xing Staff in the south, and the enemy's defensive strength was relatively weak, with only more than 100 Japanese troops and hundreds of puppet troops.
After discussion, Chief of Staff Fan Chaoli and Director of the Political Department Liu Zhijian decided to open a bloody road from Wang Xingcane, with the cavalry regiment opening the way and the special service regiment breaking through behind the palace. At that time, the cavalry regiment was nominally a regiment, but in fact the number was only 300 people, and there was no battalion-level structure.
The cavalry regiment risked death for the first time, but was quickly repulsed by the machine-gun fire of the Japanese puppet army. What's worse is that the failure of the first charge led to the exposure of our army's intention to break through, and the enemy quickly increased his troops to Wang Xingcane, and the situation was extremely urgent.
What should I do? In a hurry, the commander of the cavalry regiment was ready to use the "killer weapon" of the cavalry regiment -- Han Mengzi, a nationally famous combat hero. Han Yongzheng, who was the commander of the fourth company at the time, received an order: "Chop up the machine gunner of the little devil for me!"
Battle hero Han Mengzi (first from left)
Han Yongzheng has already been introduced before, he is not only superb in riding, but also ruthless in attack, and will never show mercy to the little devil's men. As soon as the regiment commander's order was issued, he led more than 30 soldiers to charge, they quickly rushed to the Japanese puppet defense line in a diagonal formation, Han Yongzheng took the lead, rushed to the front of the Japanese machine gunner, raised the saber is a fierce split, the poor devil machine gunner not only had a different body, but also the stump and broken arm were scattered all over the ground, and the other soldiers aimed at the Japanese army was also the same operation, the Japanese army was either cut off from the skull, or was cut off by the waist, or missing arms and legs.
When hundreds of puppet soldiers saw this, they were all frightened, and they all turned around and ran away, fleeing to Wucheng County in one go. As a result, Wang Xingcane's enemy defense line was vacated by a large opening, and the organs and villagers of the Southern Hebei Military Region were able to break through safely. After the war, Han Yongzheng was rated as a first-class combat hero for his merits.
After the war, the chief quipped: "Han Mengzi is really a 'fierce son', I said let him chop, he really knows how to chop!"
Stills from film and television dramas
epilogue
It is a pity that Han Yongzheng died heroically three months later. As the old saying goes: "Yan Zhao has many people who are generous and sad!" The Chinese nation has never lacked heroes since ancient times, and we should know how to respect, respect, and praise our heroes! Forever remember, forever salute!