In April 1939, the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army won a major victory in the North China Plain. They defeated the Japanese Yoshida Brigade and annihilated more than 700 enemies. However, the battle raised some questions. At that time, some people doubted: why were only more than 100 corpses found when so many Japanese troops were eliminated? What is even more puzzling is that not a single enemy gun was captured after the war.
This situation is really puzzling. In such a large-scale battle, it stands to reason that a large number of weapons and ammunition should be captured, but why did nothing be captured? Could it be that the 120th Division deliberately concealed the results of the battle? Or were the corpses and weapons of the Japanese soldiers disposed of in some way? In the face of such a confusing situation, people will inevitably have doubts and suspicions. What is the reason for this paradoxical situation? Let's find out.
On the eve of the fierce battle: the Japanese Yoshida Brigade peeps at the 120th Division
In April 1939, the North China Plain was in chaos. The remnants of the National Revolutionary Army fought guerrilla warfare in this land, fighting against the Japanese puppet army. Although the puppet army was well-equipped, the Eighth Route Army relied on the advantages of the people's spontaneous arming and familiarity with the terrain to build an unbreakable strategic net like an iron bucket. The Japanese occupation zone was nothing more than a few isolated islands that could not be completely ruled.
In this context, the Yoshida Brigade of the 26th Division of the Japanese Army, which was squatting in Hejian County, Hebei, was eager to show a punch. They learned from the underground martial arts organization that the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army was stationed nearby. With only 120 divisions of 2,000 men against 800 battle-hardened Japanese troops, Commander Yoshida was undoubtedly a tiger with wings and a first step.
In order to capture the 120th Division, Yoshida carefully deployed. Intelligence shows that the 120th Division is stationed in the area of Wofotang near Hejian County, Hebei Province, with only more than 2,000 troops and backward equipment. Seemingly a sure prey, Yoshida decided to take command and strike with thunder to annihilate this tenacious North China guerrilla force in one fell swoop.
On the evening of April 22, Yoshida's troops began to load ammunition in an orderly manner, and the operation was swift and orderly. They were loaded with more than 400 rounds of mountain artillery shells, as well as hundreds of grenades, throwing shells, and rifle bullets almost in vehicles. In order to ensure the results of the battle, Yoshida also transferred more than 50 traitors and puppet soldiers as guides. In this way, this Yoshida brigade went to the battlefield in a majestic manner, and the momentum was vigorous.
At the same time, the commanders and fighters of the 120th Division were also prepared. They have long transformed the dwellings in Qihui Village into position fortifications, which are suitable for blocking operations. At the same time, a multi-channel reconnaissance detachment went out to find out the enemy's situation.
On the evening of 22 April, scout Zhang Difei arrived as scheduled to report the enemy situation to He Longyu, the division commander who was at a meeting at the time. He revealed that 800 Japanese troops were on the march, carrying mountain artillery and a large amount of ammunition, apparently to launch a devastating blow to the 120th Division.
Vicious battle Qihui Village
The atmosphere was solemn, with bursts of gunfire and gunsmoke. In the early morning of April 23, 1939, Qihui Village, located in the west of Hejian County, Hebei Province, suddenly became a place shrouded in the smoke of war. As Division Commander He Long had predicted, the Japanese Yoshida Brigade really launched an attack from the west.
The battle was on the verge of breaking out. In the darkness of the night, bursts of gunfire pierced the silence, and gunpowder smoke slowly rose at the edge of the village. The 716th Regiment of the Eighth Route Army was responsible for the frontal blockade at the west entrance, and the firepower of the two sides was fiercely intertwined, and it was difficult to distinguish the victory or defeat for a while. Under the cover of artillery fire, the battle-hardened Yoshida Brigade quickly occupied the villages of Southern Qi Cao and North Qi Cao in the northwest of Qihui, creating favorable conditions for further attacks on Qihui Village.
However, when they rushed towards Qihui Village with great momentum, they suddenly found that this ordinary rural village had been transformed into a fortified city by the Eighth Route Army. The houses in the village are lined with shooting holes, the surrounding traffic ditches are connected in a line, the river ditch in the south of the village is deeply waterlogged, and the north, south and west sides are surrounded by woods and mounds. There is no doubt that this was a deadly trap carefully laid by the Eighth Route Army.
Faced with this situation, the sharpness of the Yoshida brigade was stagnant. They thought it would be a piece of cake to occupy a plain village, but they were met with such stubborn resistance. However, as a veteran of many battles, Yoshida was not discouraged. He decisively gave the order to launch a battle for the position.
As a result, artillery fire came from west to east, and grenades and grenadier warheads also flew into the village. With the bombardment of mountain artillery, Yoshida's soldiers quickly surrounded the village, trying to force their way through from all angles.
However, the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army did not show the slightest timidity. They used the fortifications to block the attack and stubbornly strafed back the fire. The two sides launched a life-and-death duel in the rain of artillery fire and bullets.
During the day, the loess flies and the sound of gunfire is endless. Whenever the Japanese gradually approached with their superior firepower, the 120th Division set up machine guns to block and drive the enemy back. In this way, the two sides were repeatedly entangled in a corner of Qihui Village, and neither could achieve a decisive victory.
By dusk, Yoshida's brigade had suffered heavy casualties, and even the mountain artillery ammunition was running out. Seeing that the situation was gradually becoming passive, Yoshida was so angry that he ordered to throw poison gas bombs at the command post of the Eighth Route Army in the north of the village!
This is a desperate move. The poisonous gas spread in an instant, and He Long and dozens of cadres were poisoned in the command post, showing symptoms such as dizziness, nausea and vomiting. However, even so, He Long still refused to evacuate, gritted his teeth and insisted on directing the battle.
Mysteriously missing corpses and weapons
The dawn was faintly bright, the smoke of gunpowder gradually dissipated, and Qihui Village fell into an eerie tranquility. After a night of fierce fighting, both sides were exhausted.
The Yoshida Brigade suffered heavy casualties, and the remnants of the officers and men could hardly form an effective offensive force. They had to make the painful choice of retreating on all fronts. Under the fierce artillery fire of the Eighth Route Army, the Japanese army desperately broke through the encirclement and fled all the way north.
However, He Long had already prepared and was already waiting for the retreat. The 716th Regiment of the Eighth Route Army cut off the enemy's retreat in time, and Yoshida's brigade fell into layers of encirclement.
A fight to the death ensued. Although the 120th Division was small in number, it was in a strong position and had heavy firepower. The entire Qihui Village was surrounded by gunfire and gunsmoke. Relying on the favorable terrain, the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army were invincible and defeated, and the Yoshida Brigade was defeated one after another.
Unable to find a way to break through, the remnants of the Japanese army had to retreat to some houses and fortifications in Qihui Village. Yoshida saw that the overall situation was gone, so he could only make a desperate bet. He ordered the soldiers to gather all the ammunition together and use the "last ammunition" to fight the Eighth Route Army in a two-way battle.
Faced with enemies on all sides, there was no way to escape, and the Japanese had to fight with all their might. They shot desperately, even burning firewood to create smoke in an attempt to cover themselves.
Despite this, the pace of the Eighth Route Army's contraction of the encirclement continued to accelerate. By dawn the next day, the encirclement had shrunk to the point of only a few tens of meters. The Japanese guns were getting weaker and weaker, and it seemed that they were about to run out of bullets at all. At this time, Division Commander He Long finally ordered: "Completely annihilate the enemy!" Wipe them out completely! ＂
As a result, the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army lined up in a dense formation, gearing up to prepare for the final blow. However, at this moment, a strange silence suddenly enveloped Qihui Village...
When the rescue team of the Eighth Route Army rushed into the village, they only saw empty fortifications and houses, and the enemy completely disappeared, as if the world had evaporated. What is even more puzzling is that apart from dozens of corpses, there is no longer any weapons and equipment left behind by the Japanese army. Where did the more than 700 Japanese corpses go? What happened to their guns and ammunition, and how was there no trace of them?
The scene was a mess, with bullet casings and bullet marks on the ground everywhere, and many houses were destroyed by artillery fire. The commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army began to search the village, intending to clean up the mess. However, no matter how much they rummaged, no more Japanese corpses and weapons could be found.
There are even very few remnants and traces of the Japanese army, as if the evidence that they were stationed here to fight has been deliberately erased. This was too bizarre for the comrades of the Eighth Route Army at that time. Could it be that the corpses and weapons of the Japanese army were really "lost and returned"?
The mystery of the bones is revealed
This is indeed a puzzling mystery. The Eighth Route Army organized forces on several occasions to conduct a thorough search in and around Qihui Village.
At first, everyone thought that the corpses and weapons of the Japanese soldiers were buried in farmland or under mounds. As a result, the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army dug three feet into the ground, digging and rummaging everywhere, but they never found anything. They even burned straw and debris in the surrounding area, and still got nothing.
A few days later, the fighters in charge of the patrol found a suspicious place in a wooded area in the southeast corner. A large pit was dug in the area, and the edge of the pit was filled with burned dead grass and tree bark. What's even stranger is that there is still a small amount of white powder left at the bottom of the pit, which emits a pungent smell.
"Could it be that the Japanese buried the bodies and weapons here? "Many commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army think that this is the most likely place.
So, that night, Division Commander He Long organized a large-scale search team and personally came to this forest to search. Everyone lined up in a long line of snakes, used shovels to dig through the dirt, and began to dig this mysterious hole.
The project was carried out with great difficulty. When the digging was about two or three meters deep, there was a strange smell and pungent gas. Some fighters began to feel dizzy and vomited. Everyone had to stop and wait. He Long ordered people to take out homemade gas masks and distribute them to each soldier.
Despite the gas masks, the smell was unbearable. When the excavation reached a depth of more than five metres, the work was aborted. In desperation, He Long had no choice but to order the soldiers to remove the wooden planks from the pit wall to avoid damage to the contents buried inside.
The next morning, He Long brought people here again, only to find a strange scene - the bottom of the pit was full of rain and mud, and it lost all its smell. The originally small pit seems to have enlarged quite a bit.
Now everyone is even more convinced that there was indeed something buried in the original pit, and it should be left behind by the Japanese army. So, after searching around and finding no other suspicious places, the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army did not hesitate to start dredging mud and rainwater to look for more clues.
Eventually, the effort paid off, and several pieces of Japanese munitions were found in the mud, including a rifle receiver and a pistol without a magazine. Although dilapidated, it certainly confirmed their suspicions.
Next, they continued to search the pit, and found a lot of bones and scraps, and even a complete skull. If you look closely, it turns out to be the remains of dozens of Japanese soldiers!
Facts have once again confirmed that in order to cover up the defeat and crimes, the Japanese army actually adopted such dirty methods. When they were besieged by the Eighth Route Army in Qihui Village, they panicked and buried their dead and wounded comrades in this deep pit together with weapons. However, the soldiers under He Long never thought that the former iron man would fall into such a fate, so they had to be silent.
The truth of the burial tragedy is revealed
In this way, the shocking secret of the 120th Division's defeat of the Japanese Yoshida Brigade in Qihui Village was finally solved bit by bit.
Facts have proved that the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army who reported the good news at that time did not conceal the truth. After a desperate battle, the Japanese army did suffer a heavy blow.
At that time, although the more than 800 Japanese troops led by Yoshida were well-equipped, they were skillfully surrounded and gradually compressed by He Long, and fell into a desperate situation. Eventually, near the village of Qihui, Yoshida and his soldiers were forced to retreat to fortifications and houses for a final struggle.
However, the firepower of the Eighth Route Army was too fierce, and the encirclement gradually tightened, leaving them in a desperate situation. Seeing that there was no way to escape, a large number of Japanese soldiers were killed or seriously wounded. In the end, perhaps for fear of catching fire and for fear that the corpses and weapons would fall into the hands of the Eighth Route Army, Yoshida ordered the living wounded and fallen soldiers to be buried in a deep pit prepared in advance, along with weapons.
Seeing that his subordinates were about to be unable to hold on, Yoshida had no choice but to flee with the few dozen remaining remnants of the soldiers who escaped from death. As Division Commander He Long expected, they went all the way to the north, were cut off by the 120th Division, and were completely wiped out in the counter-encirclement of the Eighth Route Army.
Since the pit was not deliberately buried, the walls of the pit cracked and collapsed due to repeated heavy rains, and some of the bones and weapon residues were finally exposed. As for why the corpses and weapons found were so scarce, it probably had something to do with the size and embarrassment of the Japanese army at that time.
After all, after a brutal fight, there may not be many Japanese dead left. If it weren't for the discovery of this tragedy later, this thrilling battle of the 120th Division would really have been gradually forgotten in the long river of history.
Although this practice of dealing with the situation was cruel, the Japanese army was indeed at the end of its rope when it was in a desperate situation. As for why the soldier said that he saw 700 Japanese corpses, perhaps he misunderstood the actual number of dead in the course of the fierce battle.
end
In any case, the 120th Division's battle did sweep away the threat of Yoshida's brigade and opened a new page. Despite the heavy cost, the battle did deter the Japanese army from occupying North China. In contrast, it is the selfishness and ugliness of the Japanese army that are truly despicable.