introduction
In July 1937, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out, and the Japanese army landed all the way west from the eastern seaboard.
At the same time, in order to open up the situation in the inland areas, in September of the same year, the Japanese army gathered a large number of troops in the border area of Shanxi, intending to attack Guanzhong.
Yan Xishan, the leader of the Jin Sui army, the Tu Emperor of Shanxi, mobilized a large number of troops to prepare for battle. Maybe Yan Xishan didn't expect that the intensity of this battle was a gritted tooth and blood struggle beyond imagination.
1. Background of the Battle of Xinkou
After the Battle of Songhu, the invaders landed in China and gradually gathered inland to fight with the coast as the center, and after the northern region was lost in Pingjin, a large area of northern China was exposed to the enemy's field of vision.
As the first barrier in North China, Taiyuan's role is undoubted, and whether the Xinkou area, as the gateway of Taiyuan, can hold on to the security of the entire northwest and inland.
Just after the Pingjin Battle, in order to gain the operational initiative, the Japanese army decided to attack the inland areas of North China along the railway line and divided the troops into Jinpu, Pinghan, and Tongpu roads, intending to seize control of North China.
In the whole North China, Shanxi is rich in materials, and it is a key railway node, but also a strategic location, and if you want to achieve the goal of occupying the whole of China, Taiyuan is the key point that cannot be bypassed.
In September, after mobilizing a large number of troops and weapons and equipment, the Japanese army began to advance to the northwestern part of Shanxi, where they would face resistance from the Jin Sui army led by Yan Xishan.
Under the fierce offensive of the enemy, on September 12, Datong was torn open by the enemy to attack Shanxi, if it is still unable to form an effective resistance, then the consequence is that the enemy will drive straight in, and the northwest will be in danger.
After the loss of Datong, Yan Xishan, who thought that he should sit firmly on the high platform, finally couldn't sit still, so he sent a telegram to Wuhan to request the mobilization of troops to defend Pingxingguan, and at the same time, the Eighth Route Army also set out from Shaanxi to aid Pingxingguan, and arrived at the Shangzhai area on the right flank on the 15th.
On the 23rd, China and Japan started a war at Pingxingguan, in which the 115th Division of the Eighth Route Army achieved the record of destroying 1,000 enemies, and at the same time captured a large number of weapons and equipment materials, which was the first victory of the Eighth Route Army on the battlefield since the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan.
On the 28th, the enemy went around along the Datong Line to the area behind Pingxingguan in an attempt to block the rear of the Nationalist army, and the soldiers in front could only retreat again and again, and the enemy took the opportunity to occupy Yanmen Pass, Daixian and other places.
In order to block the enemy's footsteps, the Nationalist Government ordered Wei Lihuang to lead the 14th Group Army to rush to Shanxi, and the enemy who attacked Taiyuan at this time had more than 50,000 troops, carrying a large number of artillery and other heavy weapons.
Xinkou is located in the north of Xinding Basin, is a pass between Wutai Mountain and Yunzhong Mountain, about 16 kilometers deep from north to south, the width of the pass is about 3 kilometers, it is easy to defend and difficult to attack, it is the fortress that blocks the Japanese invaders from entering the Jinzhong region.
Our side judged that the enemy might concentrate his forces in northern Shanxi, so the top priority was to concentrate all his forces to hold Taiyuan in order to gain the strategic initiative, so Yan Xishan ordered the government to organize a large-scale battle in the Xinkou area to delay the enemy's westward advance.
At the same time, the senior commander of the Japanese army, Itagaki Seishiro, had gathered more than 60,000 troops to march to the north of Jin, officially took Laoxian on October 7, and launched a full-line attack on the Xinkou area in the early morning of the 13th, and the Battle of Xinkou officially began.
According to Taiyuan media reports on the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Xinkou in 1985, the Japanese army invested about 50,000 troops in this large-scale battle, and most of them were elite troops of the 5th Division of Itagaki and the 11th and 12th Divisions of the Kwantung Army.
On the side of the national army, Yan Xishan's Jin Sui Army is the main force, which is a Kuomintang force with local characteristics that Yan Xishan has been operating for many years, and it is an important support for Yan Xishan to sit on the throne of the "Emperor of Soil".
Under his years of operation, the combat effectiveness and equipment of the Jin Sui Army were definitely in the upper reaches of the Kuomintang army. In terms of armament deployment, Shanxi Province has complete supporting facilities, and even has its own arsenals and gunpowder factories of various types, and there are sufficient combat materials.
According to statistics, the artillery under the command of Yan Xishan had a total of 9 regiments, and each unit was equipped with at least 36 mountain guns.
Among them, the 22nd and 23rd artillery regiments were also equipped with heavy mountain guns that were good at long-range shooting. The 23rd Regiment also had a number of Japanese-made artillery, and at the same time, the artillery unit also had an observation and communications brigade. These elite soldiers and killing weapons were handed over by Yan Xishan to his henchman Zhou Yu for deployment.
Second, the north of Jin and the north of the battle, the decisive battle of Xinkou
On October 11, 1937, the Japanese invaders in the Xiawangzhuang area encountered Kong Fanying's troops in the front, and the two sides fought directly in the open area, Kong Fanying's 161st Brigade held the current position, although the equipment was missing, but it never fell into disadvantage in this battle, and the enemy was always blocked on the railway line in the upper reaches of the Yunzhong River and could not break through.
On the 13th, in order to continue to advance the battle, the Japanese army changed its combat strategy, abandoned part of the frontal battlefield sudden moves, and instead divided its troops to attack the weak parts of our army on the flank, intending to open a breakthrough in the battle.
Relying on the superiority of fighters and artillery, the enemy occupied Nanhuaihua after attacking Chishang Village, and according to the terrain advantage, launched an attack and battle for the commanding heights of our army in the northeast of Nanhuaihua, and the two sides repeatedly fought around this area for most of the time thereafter.
During the fighting, both sides suffered heavy casualties, and during this period, our troops repeatedly engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy in the trenches. The warriors withstood the enemy's onslaught with their flesh and blood, risking their own lives.
In addition, on the day of the 13th, in order to open up the battle situation and gain battlefield superiority as soon as possible, Yan Xishan telegraphed Zhou Ying to put all the nine artillery regiments under his command, including more than 200 artillery pieces of various types, into the battlefield battle, and personally supervised the transportation of artillery shells and other follow-up materials to the Xinkou front.
On the morning of the 14th, as the well-known national army generals Li Xianzhou, Dong Qiwu and other front-line commanders were seriously injured and carried off the position, the Japanese army took this opportunity to finally gain control of most of the position.
On the 15th, our reinforcements arrived in the area of Xiawangzhuang to assist Kong Fanying's troops in the next battle. On the 16th, our army consolidated the existing forces and decided to launch an all-round general offensive on the front of the enemy.
The second round of the offensive was more ferocious than the first battle that began on the 11th, and it also meant that our army had already gained some initiative on the battlefield and had a certain ability to fight first, which was very difficult at that time.
You must know that the enemy has a certain advantage in terms of weaponry and militarized combat effectiveness, and has already occupied the absolute commanding heights, and if you want to launch a fatal attack on it, you must shed more blood and sacrifice.
After the battle began on the 16th, both sides invested their strongest firepower, and many generals who had commanded in the rear rushed to the forefront of the battle, leading the soldiers to fight bravely with the enemy while commanding.
It was also on this day that Hao Mengling, commander of the Ninth Army, Liu Jiaqi, commander of the 54th Division, and Zheng Tingzhen, commander of the Fifth Independent Brigade, were unfortunately shot and killed in the battle under their command, which was undoubtedly a heavy loss for our army.
But for our heroes, they may not be able to prepare before going to the battlefield, especially Commander Hao Mengling has written a suicide note to his wife and children before the battle, vowing to defend his position and be loyal to the country.
In the face of the enemy's fire blockade, our army once took control of the position, but due to heavy casualties, it could not hold on to it, and could only see the Japanese invaders take control.
In this battle, there were corpses all over the field, and there was no time for a truce to rest, and at the time of the heaviest casualties, an average of one regiment of troops was lost every day, and countless wounded and wounded were countless.
Even in the face of such losses and casualties, the Japanese army never achieved a slight advantage, let alone realized the continuous promotion strategy planned at the beginning, and the frontal battlefield was always in a state of fierce stalemate.
The situation on the flank battlefield was also not optimistic, and the fighting in the left flank area began on the 12th, and the enemy successively took Yongxing Village and Yanzhuang, intending to attack our army's Dabaishui position.
On the 13th, under the cover of fighter planes, the enemy launched a general attack on our position, and the 57th Regiment of the 28th Brigade under the command of Chen Munong of the 10th Division first encountered the enemy, and in order to block the enemy's advance, it blocked the enemy's tank route with its body.
Subsequently, the 59th Regiment also suffered heavy casualties in the battle with the enemy, and the 28th Brigade never conceded in the face of the enemy's offensive, and more than half of the casualties of the whole brigade were lost.
The battle on the right flank began on the morning of the 13th, and the Japanese army launched an attack on our army's Lingshan position from the direction of Taoyuan Village, and Ma Qizhen led the 159th Brigade to meet the enemy in the front. However, due to the disparity in strength between the enemy and us, the enemy tore open the breach after resisting for a day.
Subsequently, Xing Qingzhong brought the 191st Brigade to reinforcements, during which he launched a white-knuckle battle with the enemy, suffering heavy casualties, and more than two-thirds of all personnel were damaged, and finally blocked the enemy's march in the area of Nanguoxia Village.
On the 18th, the left flank troops were transferred to reinforce them, and the 15th Army was able to integrate its forces and start a decisive battle with the enemy in the area of Mount Kinabalu, finally blocking the enemy's advance at the cost of 5,000 casualties.
The stalemate on the battlefields lasted until the 24th, until a new batch of 2,000 reinforcements from the Itagaki army arrived on the battlefield, and the third large-scale offensive began, and on October 29, the Japanese sent another mechanized company to reinforce the battlefield, but this time it still failed to gain the initiative in the position, and the enemy could not advance again.
On November 2, with the loss of Niangzi Pass, the Battle of Xinkou was also coming to an end, the front-line troops received an order to retreat, and after holding on for nearly a month, Taiyuan also faced the loss, but fortunately, our army had made preparations in advance and minimized the losses.
Yan Xishan, who was stingy and selfish in the eyes of people in this battle, took out almost all his family funds, knowing that at that time, the strength of 9 artillery regiments was enough to defeat a small country.
However, at that time, it was only to block the enemy's attack, and the artillery only dared to be used at night when the enemy fighters could not detect it, and even then the power should not be underestimated.
However, we must also know that the power of this advanced artillery unit may not have been fully exerted, and then the frontal battlefield was declared defeated, and in the following battle, the national army still failed to achieve victory in a large-scale battle.
This decline continued until it entered the stage of strategic stalemate, just like Chairman Mao's point at the time, the defeat of the Battle of Xinkou indicated that the regular Kuomintang army in North China no longer had an advantage in the frontal battlefield, and that it was about to enter the stage of guerrilla warfare dominated by Communist forces.
3. On the performance of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in the Battle of Xinkou
The Battle of Xinkou was a series of battles in which the national army was in the main battlefield and our army was in the rear battlefield. After the end of the Battle of Pingxingguan, the main force of our Eighth Route Army immediately went to the northeastern part of Shanxi to defend against the enemy.
During the Xinkou Campaign, our army deployed a total of 9 regiments in the area east of Tongpu Road, mainly responsible for blocking the enemy's material supply and cutting off the enemy's transportation lines during the frontal battlefield operation, so as to strive for a favorable advantage in the frontal battlefield.
In fact, the popular meaning is that since it is impossible to improve one's own combat effectiveness in a short period of time, it is better to find a way to reduce the enemy's combat effectiveness and block the invaders in all aspects.
It has to be said that the Battle of Xinkou was able to resist for more than 20 days, and the strategy of "mopping the hind legs" was effective, which once caused a shortage of supplies for the Japanese invaders, and also created a miracle of victory in the battle of Yangmingbao at night.
In the battle of the night attack on Yangmingbao, 24 enemy fighters were burned, so that the enemy lost the air superiority, which also meant that the nine artillery regiments of Yan Xishan's division could finally see the light of day and help our front-line troops gain greater superiority during the day when the battle was most intense.
We can't review the battlefield of that year, but according to the available information, we can feel how heroic this battle was in North China, sacrificing several middle-level Kuomintang generals and destroying more than 20,000 enemies at the cost of losing 100,000 troops on our side.
This battle broke the arrogant posture of the invaders' attempt to "annihilate China in three months", and also bankrupted the Japanese army's battle plan centered on the Hebei Plain, bought time for our army to transfer, and preserved the main force to the greatest extent.
epilogue
The Battle of Xinkou was not only a model of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, but also refreshed the achievements of North China, and its victory to a certain extent inspired the confidence of the people of the whole country in victory.
Whether it was the thrilling battle of that year, or the death of the Chinese soldiers on the battlefield, they may have had disagreements in the past, but in the face of the moment of national peril, the mood of wanting to drive away the invaders was equally enthusiastic.
Our ancestors shed blood and tears for the rise of China, and it was they who forged the glorious road of the Chinese nation with their bodies.
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