On January 15, 1939, on a day of heavy snowfall, He Long led his men and horses to cross the Pinghan Railway from the south of Xinle in the wind and snow, and then divided into 3 roads to the area of Jia Village in Xinglu Town, Anguo County. The next day, the centaurs moved on. He Long rode to the middle of the line, and from time to time rushed from the side of the line, or carried a black-skinned dagger and talked with his comrades.
At Guozhuang, the Great King of Renqiu County, He Long, Zhou Shidi, and Gan Siqi met with Lü Zhengcao, Cheng Zihua, Huang Jing, Wang Ping, and Zhou Xiaozhou. Cheng Zihua went to Jizhong half a month ago to serve as the political commissar of the military region, and the former political commissar Wang Ping has been transferred but has not yet left. Everyone was very happy to see each other.
In the characteristic flat-roofed house in Jizhong. He Long held his wooden pipe and talked cordially with Lu Zhengcao and others. Lu Zhengcao talked about the situation in the anti-Japanese base areas in Central Hebei and the situation of the devils attacking. When he talked about the atrocities of the devils, his hands trembled with anger, and finally he said: "The devils have a half division regiment in the original sac, and now they have transferred the 27th Division of the Elite Bismuth Department, threatening to clear the plains before the green yarn tent grows up." ”
As it got dark, the two generals stepped out of the house. He Long stood at the head of the village, looked up, and saw that in the wind, there were lights in the east, west, south, and north. These lights were the devil's newly built turrets and fires lit to prevent the Eighth Route Army from attacking at night. In the distance, the train roared, and at this moment of night, even the rolling wheels could be clearly heard, which was the environment in Jizhong at that time. He Long sighed after reading it, "I have walked most of China. I haven't seen it yet, such a big plain in the hope, this is really a good place! How can such a good place allow devils to run rampant?! ”
Lü Zhengcao was also infected by He Long's words, and he took a long breath and said, "Commander He, I am an old soldier, I have not engaged in the agrarian revolution, I have not gone through the Long March, I do not understand the Communist Party and the Eighth Route Army, in the future, you will help me more!" ”
He Long laughed and said, "To say old soldiers, you are better than me," and he held out his little thumb. "You are this." He held out his thumb again and said, "I am this, you are a small warlord, and I have been a regimental commander, a brigade commander, a division commander, a town guard, a military commander, and a big warlord." He paused and said, "Since I found the Communist Party, I have known how to take it." ”
On January 27, He Long convened a meeting of leading cadres of the 120th Division and the Central Hebei Military Region to convey the spirit of the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and discuss the course of action. In view of the fact that the enemy is launching a third siege, the Jizhong Military Region has few fighting troops in this area. The 120th Division was quite tired after a long march. At this point, the battle was unfavorable. He Long proposed to avoid its sharp edge, circle the plains with the enemy, and look for fighters to annihilate the enemy.
Various anti-Japanese contingents and groups held a gala meeting at which they gathered for dinner. According to the custom of the 120th division meeting, each table has 5 large pots of meat dishes and large bowls of wine. Everyone ate and sang happily. He Long spoke, he stood up from the middle of the people, hanging six wheels on his body, the military hat lifted a little, and his spirit was just like a veteran who had just come down from the line of fire. When the commander-in-chief of the Nanchang Uprising stood in front of everyone, people warmly applauded, and He Long said: "I He Long have been wandering in the old army for many years, looking around, and finally finding the Communist Party, and it was the party that taught me the magic weapon of the mass line. When I returned to western Hunan after the failure of the Nanchang Uprising, although there were only 7 people, we relied on the masses, and our ranks grew rapidly. Today, when we fight Japanese devils, this is still the old way, relying on the Communist Party on the one hand and the masses on the other. He Long said, "What's so great about the Japanese devil, he's not taller than anyone else!" We hope that the people in China are remarkable. The people of Jizhong demolished the city walls, dug ditches, and changed the plains into mountains, which is a great innovation! Now we have tens of thousands of horses, tens of thousands of guns, and so many good people. The power is not small. As long as our military and people are united, no matter how big or small the devil is, we can defeat it! ”
In the evening, the military and civilians celebrated. On a reed-mat platform hung a few bright and dangling gas lamps. The 120th Division's Combat Drama Society and the Jizhong Military Region's drama clubs all performed their programs. Everyone was very excited. When the troupe of Gao Shiyi's unit sang "Fishing and Killing Families", He Long saw that Lü Zhengcao and other people were not popular, so he asked them what was wrong. Lu Zhengcao said that there were hundreds of large trucks transporting supplies in logistics, and they were very close to the enemy and were not at ease. He Long said, "It doesn't matter, do you want to transfer troops to cover up?" ”
At the moment, He Long called Huang Xinting and asked him to send a battalion to cover. After Huang Xinting left, He Long said to Lu Zhengcao and others, "Don't look at our tattered clothes." We are poor, but we are very poor. ”
Before the play was finished, there was information that the Japanese army had invaded Twenty Mile Shop between Ogō, Shinbashi and He, and said that the Japanese army had signs of attacking The Great King Guozhuang and Huibokou. He said to Lu Zhengcao, "It looks like the devils are really going to attack." ”
This was the beginning of the enemy's third campaign "Siege". The areas encircled by the enemy were between Hejian, Suning, Renqiu, and Dacheng. Its troops, with more than 7,000 troops, dispatched from Cangxian County, Botou, Baoding, Dingxian and other places to attack the area between the Lilong River and the Ziya River.
During the night shift, He Long accidentally fell off his horse and fell injured. However, he still listened carefully to the opinions of all sides in the room, analyzed the enemy's situation in detail, and pointed out: The enemy is coming in a very fierce situation, and it is necessary to deal with it seriously, but it is not possible to fight hard, and it is necessary to avoid its sharp edge, maneuver with the enemy, and seek an opportunity to kill him.
The fighters finally arrived. According to reliable information, the Miyazaki Wing of the Japanese Army stationed in the river and a total of more than 200 people from each unit of the puppet army forcibly pulled more than 100 large vehicles to the nearby villages and attacked from the river to Suning on February 2. He Long was determined to seize this fighter plane and strike at this enemy fiercely. The 716th Regiment was ordered to block the enemy in front of Caojiazhuang.
Caojiazhuang is located about 10 kilometers west of Hejian City. When the 716th Regiment laid an ambush at Caojiazhuang, at about 9 a.m. on February 2, the arrogant Japanese army swung into Caojiazhuang. Three battalions of the 716th Regiment attacked at the same time. The Japanese were caught off guard and were defeated in just one round. After a few minutes, the enemy's artillery fire was again intense, and the commanders and fighters were very calm in preparing for the second counter-charge.
Before entering Jizhong, the 120th Division educated its commanders and fighters on the characteristics of plains combat, and the soldiers knew that plains were different from mountains, firepower was easy to exert, and movement was easy to expose targets. Therefore, no matter how strong the enemy's artillery fire is, the soldiers are calm and do not move, do not get close or fight.
The two sides held each other for two hours, and then the enemy was defeated in two consecutive charges and began to waver. The 716th Regiment took the opportunity to rush out and engage the enemy's short soldiers, but the enemy was unable to support them, and retreated to the cemetery east of Caojiazhuang. The 3rd Battalion of the 716th Regiment went around the enemy's back, and a grenade hit the enemy in a panic and provoked Du Zhongbao. Randu Fort was already occupied by the 1st Battalion of the 716th Regiment. The enemy was again killed by heavy fire, and had to turn to the Zhongbao store.
At 3 p.m., Ren Qiu's enemy reinforced in three ways, but was also repelled by He Long's prearranged troops.
That night, Huang Xinting commanded the 1st Battalion to take advantage of the night and touched the edge of the village of Zhongbaodian. Throw grenades at partition walls. The bombing caused the devils to flee to the river overnight. The 1st Battalion immediately pursued, all the way to Hejian City. The enemy entered the city, and the commanders and fighters of the 1st Battalion followed the city and occupied part of the streets until the next morning when they withdrew from the river.
In this battle, more than 140 Japanese troops were killed and wounded, and a batch of guns and ammunition were captured. The enemy shook. The common people were very happy to see that the 120th Division had won the battle, killing pigs, grinding noodles, steaming cakes, comforting the troops, and saying that He Long had led his troops to Jizhong to save the people.
After suffering losses at Caojiazhuang, the enemy in Hejian became angry and gathered more than a thousand people from Shahe Bridge and Xianxian strongholds, with 10 cannons, led by brigade commander Yu Tian Kai, and on February 4 launched a lecture attack on the position of the 2nd Battalion of the 716th Regiment stationed in Dacao Village. The commanders and fighters of the 2nd Battalion were calm and composed. When the regimental commander Huang Xinting heard the news, he rushed to Dacao Village with Li Shumao, Zhang Lin, Song Renrong, and several other staff officers from Liu Jiayan, where the regimental headquarters was located. Command troops to rely on houses, ditches, and cemeteries to attack the enemy. Chen Hongmo, a liaison staff officer of the Nationalist 120th Division, also came to Dacao Village and said that he would report the battle situation upwards.
On the position of the 2nd Battalion, the battalion commander Cai Jiu led two companies of more than 100 people to engage in a fierce battle with more than 400 Japanese troops. Commanders and fighters played their close combat strengths and repelled enemy attacks 4 times in a row.
The 1st Battalion also left a lot of Japanese corpses in front of the position.
The fierce enemy army, seeing that the attack was impossible, unleashed poisonous gas. For a time, smoke billowed from the position, choking people to tears and snot. The commanders and fighters covered their noses with towels wrapped in snow and continued to annihilate the enemy. The two sides fought fiercely until 11 o'clock in the evening, when the officers and men of the 716th Regiment engaged in a white-knife fight with the enemy, but the enemy was unable to support himself and fled in defeat. Huang Xinting let the horse chase after him, all the way to the hejian city.
In this battle, the enemy suffered more than 300 casualties.
Since it was the first plains operation, the commanders and fighters of the 120th Division were not good at using topographic features, so they suffered more than 200 casualties.
During this period, in accordance with the opinions of the CPC, the Northern Branch of the CPC decided that he Long, Guan Xiangying, Cheng Zihua, Lü Zhengcao, and Huang Dujing would form the Jizhong District Military and Political Committee, secretary of He Longqian. The troops in Hebei were under his unified command.
He Long, a descendant of this poor peasant, had forged flesh-and-blood ties with the people since the revolution with his two kitchen knives, and in the melting pot of the revolution he was tempered into one of the leaders of the people's army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. He was sincerely loved by the people, and he loved the people even more. He was very strict with his troops. Acts that harm the interests of the masses will be dealt with strictly at the slightest.
In northern Shaanxi, during a rapid march, the weather was very hot, everyone was very thirsty, passing through a village, just happened to meet a young woman carrying water, sometimes two staff officers, stopped the young woman, did not allow the woman to put down the bucket, so one person hugged a bucket, put his head into the bucket and drank. It just so happened that He Long was riding past, and after seeing this scene, he was angry. At that time, the two staff officers were severely criticized. He got angry and shouted, "What disrespect for the masses!" Why don't people put the bucket down and drink it? To write a check! Check it out at the party meeting! The two staff officers cried out by his criticism, but his anger never diminished. Afterwards, he found the two staff officers and said in a serious tone: "Comrade, do not forget that we are the people's army!" ”
Cultivated in his style, the 120th Division has completely become a new type of proletarian army. As soon as it arrived in Jizhong, this unit was connected with the flesh and blood of the people here.
The vast Jizhong Plain enabled the devil's mechanized troops to give full play to their advantages, so how could the Eighth Route Army build on its strengths and avoid its weaknesses? He Long held that it is necessary to resolutely implement Chairman Mao's thinking on people's war, mobilize the masses, rely on the masses, dig holes and ditches, and transform the plains.
On March 19, the Japanese Kou began a larger-scale "siege" with all of its 27th Division's Miyazaki Wing, a unit of the 10th Regiment stationed at Pinghan Road, and a total of 9,000 troops stationed at Beining Road, plotting to attack the leading organs of the 120th Division and occupy the three counties of Ayutthaya, Wen'an, and Suning. He Long adopted the tactics of not clinging to the city, but in a circle- and circled, seeking opportunities to annihilate the enemy, so that the Attempt of the Miyazaki Wing was ultimately unsuccessful, and it ended in failure on April 1.
While leading his troops in a struggle against the enemy, He Long also waged a tit-for-tat struggle against Lu Zhonglin, Zhang Yinwu, and other Kuomintang diehards.
In January 1939, Chiang Kai-shek proposed the Measures for Restricting the Activities of Different Parties at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Fifth Central Committee of the Kuomintang Central Committee. Zhang Yinwu saw the excitement and thought that the time had come for him to compete with the Communists for Jizhong, so he sent a group of his cronies to Jizhong to secretly carry out activities to instigate Chai Enbo to defect and break away from the Eighth Route Army.
Chai Enbo was born into a landlord family, served as a company commander under Wu Peifu in his early years, and was a self-interested person. Later, he became the captain of the Xinzhen County Security Team. After the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he was appointed commander of the 12th Route of the Hebei Guerrilla Army by the Baoli Province. He was appointed by the South Central Military Region as the commander of the independent 2 detachments and stationed in the area around Xinzhen. Although Chai accepted the appointment of the Eighth Route Army, he was obsessed with the officials. Secretly colluded with the Japanese and Lu Zhonglin respectively, saw the wind to make the rudder, circled on three sides, and sold at a price.
He colluded with reactionary forces such as Li Qianchun of Wen'an County, Zhang Laiping of Xiong County, and Neng Wandong, the chairman of Zhang Zhen Maintenance. At the instigation of his uncle Wang Zongqi, former governor of Xinzhen County, cc member, Lu Zhonglin, and Fang Pingwu, a representative of Zhang Yinwu's faction, Chai expressed his willingness to defect to the Kuomintang and surrender to Japan, and accepted the post of "commander of the 2nd Division of the Jicha Guerrilla Army" appointed by the Kuomintang. At Lingchuan, Zhang Yinwu received news that Chai Enbo had led his troops to surrender. Very pleased, Zhang said in a telegram to Chiang Kai-shek: Chai Zhoubo, in order to preserve his strength and save the country through the curve, has approached the Japanese army and has been appointed commander-in-chief of the Bandit Suppression in Jizhong Province. Although the name surrendered to the enemy, in fact it still did the work for the party, and when the time was ripe, the department was determined to lead the department anyway.
Relying on the armed support of the Japanese army, Chai Enbo took control of the Xinzhen area, and together with Li Zichun occupied Wen'an County, and Zhang Laizi occupied Xiong County. Under the influence of this counter-current of surrendering to the enemy, some anti-Japanese unstable elements and bandits in the area between the Daqing River and the Yongding River were also like Yang Wenfeng of Xiong County and Wang Fenggang and Wang Dongsheng of Xincheng County. Wang Luxiang of Yongqing County, Liu Fengquan and Huang Xibiao of Baxian County all surrendered to the enemy one after another.
On February 20, Chai Enbo publicly defected, distributing anti-communist manifestos and slogans declaring that he would break away from the leadership of the Jizhong Military Region and defect to Lu Zhonglin. He threatened to "support Chairman Lu and unify the administration of Hebei", and at the same time detained more than 100 political commissars, chiefs of staff, directors of the political department, and all communist party members and cadres of the two detachments. And surrounded the anti-Japanese democratic government in Wen'an County. The governor of Wen'an County, the captain of the brigade, and other leading cadres were detained. He distributed leaflets claiming that the counties of Wen'an and Xinzhen under his jurisdiction were directly under the Hebei Provincial Government.
Whether or not the Chai Enbo rebellion can be correctly resolved has a bearing on Gong Zhou of the anti-Japanese armed forces in Central Hebei. At that time, many "two-faced" armed forces were observing the development of the situation. Immediately after the incident, He Long presided over an enlarged meeting of the Military and Political Committee to discuss a solution. At the meeting, there was disagreement on the use of force to resolve chainpo's rebellion. Some people pointed out that this would affect the United Front policy and the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, because although Chai secretly surrendered to Japan, he openly defected to the Kuomintang. Some people say that Chai's guard battalion has 9 machine guns, and when it starts, it will cause a lot of bloodshed, and some people say that one of Zhu Zhankui's regiments is close to Chai Enbo, Zhu is Chai's brother, and Zhu will help Chai. After listening to everyone's opinions, He Long said very seriously: "Solving Chai Enbo is a matter for the Jizhong troops. It has nothing to do with the Kuomintang. Moreover, Chai collaborated with the enemy to commit treason, detained our cadres, and undermined the Anti-Japanese Resistance, and was an out-and-out traitor. ”
He Long's words made the participants all nod their heads and say yes. However, in terms of how to solve the problem, He Long and Guan Xiangying were still talking about strategy, and he asked Lu Zhengcao to write a letter to Chai Enbo to show his interests and harms. He Long reported Chai's rebellion and plans to deal with it to Chairman Mao and others, and the telegram said that if Chai could not be resolved peacefully, it would be resolved by resolute attacks.
Although chai was working, chai showed no sexual repentance. Lü Zhengcao decided to dismiss it by force. He Long asked Lu, "Do you want the 120th Division to help you?" You want a regiment out of a regiment, a battalion out of a battalion. ”
Lu Zhengcao offered to ask the 120th Division for help. He Long immediately ordered the 1st Battalion of the 715th Regiment to assist the troops of the Three Sub-districts in the Central Hebei Region in quelling the rebellion. Before sending troops, He Long suggested to Lü Zhengcao that Zhu Zhankui be transferred to the military region, and Lü agreed. It just so happened that Zhu went to the military region to ask for instructions. When He Long saw this, he used the excuse to invite Zhu to the 120th Division. After that, the troops attacked. Only a few small battles were fought west of Wen'an County, and the rebellion was quelled. Most of the commanders and fighters of the Aid Chai Department were active in resisting Japan, when Chai's face was exposed. They left chai one after another. Seeing that the situation was not good, Chai took a few of his cronies and openly defected to the Japanese.
Chai's uncle Wang Zongqi handed over some of the cadres to the Japanese headquarters in Xinzhen before the arrival of the rebel forces of the Jizhong Military Region. The detained cadres were unyielding, and just as they were going through the so-called "handover formalities," Li Jianbu, chief of staff of the 2 independent detachments and a detained cadre, stepped forward and killed the Japanese commander who was speaking to them with a hidden pistol. Taking advantage of the momentary chaos, some of the detained cadres escaped from the tiger's mouth, and some of them died on the spot. When Li Jianbu fled to the Daqing River to cross the river in Surabaya, he drowned and martyred because he could not swim and refused to involve his comrades.
After the Chai Enbo rebellion was resolved, He Long and Guan Xiangying telephoned Chairman Mao and others to report on the incident.