From Liaoxian county to the west, along the small ridge bottom ditch into the towering Taihang Deep Mountain Avenue, more than a dozen high-headed horses are hurrying to hurry.
At this time, the stone abduction meeting had just ended 4 days. Moving forward from Liaoxian Pegasus were Liu Bocheng, commander of the 129th Division, Zhang Hao, political commissar, and Xu Xiangqian, deputy division commander of the 129th Division, who returned to the 129th Division after talks with Vice Chairman Zhou Enlai and Yan Xishan.
Xu Xiangqian is an old acquaintance of Liu Bocheng. Liu Bocheng had deep respect for this Red Army general who graduated from the first phase of the Whampoa Military Academy and came out from under the Wutai Mountain, a Buddhist holy site in Shanxi. After the defeat of the Great Revolution, Xu Xiangqian risked great danger to participate in the Guangzhou Uprising, then entered the Hailufeng Revolutionary Base Area, insisted on guerrilla warfare on the Dongjiang River in the white terror, and was later sent by the Central Military Commission to the Dabie Mountains to participate in the work of creating the Eyu-Anhui Revolutionary Base Area. Xu Xiangqian has always been known for being good at fighting hard battles, especially at the time of many dangers, so that the Red Army turned the crisis into safety, out of the predicament, and was rumored by the Generals of the Red Army as a beautiful talk.
At this time, Tang Enbo was stationed at Yushe. Tang Enbo sent people to contact Xu Xiangqian and wanted to discuss coordinated operations with the Eighth Route Army. Now, Liu Bocheng, Zhang Hao, and Xu went west, that is, from LiaoXian to Yushe to meet Tang Enbo.
Along the way, Tombaugh was the main topic they talked about. Liu Bocheng talked about Tang Enbo and couldn't help but laugh and said, "This Tang Enbo is really a baby." ”
Originally, Chiang Kai-shek had transferred him to Shanxi to use this consort force to block the enemy's southward march at Yuci, but when he arrived in Shanxi, he stayed in Yuci and did not leave. His troops had poor military discipline and harassed the common people everywhere, and local officials complained to Yan Xishan. After the fall of Taiyuan, Chiang Kai-shek sent him to the Taihang Mountains in order to allow him to consolidate Shanxi and plan to fight on the Pinghan Front. After he arrived in Yushe City, he called me. As soon as I arrived in Liaoxian County, his phone number also followed. Such a big commander should always be a little personable, but the first question made me angry. ”
"What did he ask you?" Xu Xiangqian asked on the horse.
"Without even saying a word of greeting, he panicked and said to me: 'In the direction of Qinzhou, there is an enemy coming at the head of the West River, which is a great threat to my left back!' You think, I was talking to him in The West Riverhead Village, and he said I have enemies here, can this not be angry? ”
Zhang Hao and Xu Xiangqian laughed as they listened. Liu Bocheng solemnly introduced:
"As soon as I heard it, I looked at him half way shorter. What a legion leader! Like a child, I comforted him and said, 'Commander, our division headquarters is now stationed at the head of the West River, and there is no enemy situation on your left side of your back.' But he was still not at ease, and said to me: 'Thank you very much Master Liu!' I have no worries on my left side. But what about the right? ’”
Xu Xiangqian listened and joked, "He wants you to give him a bodyguard, right?" ”
"The more I listened, the more ridiculous it became. Say to him, 'There is no hostility on your right. From Liuhegou to Shijiazhuang, from Shijiazhuang to the vicinity of Taiyuan, there are our troops. When he heard this, he was surprised and asked, 'Your first division is so wide and frightening to death', and I patiently told him: 'We are fighting guerrilla warfare, and this is the way we fight!' He listened to me before he put his mind at ease. ”
According to Li Jukui, Tang Enbo was very enthusiastic about inviting us this time. He led so many troops to the Taihang Mountains, with the enemy in front and us on the flank, and he must have been afraid of being isolated and helpless, so he offered to discuss with us the issue of coordinated operations. Zhang Hao analyzed.
Li Jukui was the chief of staff of the 386th Brigade, and when he was the commander of the First Division of the Red First Army, he became acquainted with Liu Bocheng as a pioneer in the Long March. After meeting the division of the First and Fourth Fronts, he was transferred to the Thirty-first Army of the Red Fourth Front as chief of staff, met Xu Xiangqian, and participated in the Western Expedition of the Western Route Army, serving as the chief of staff of the Ninth Army. After the defeat of the Western Route Army, Li Jukui single-handedly found reinforcements for the Western Army, and Liu Bocheng and Zhang Hao asked him to return to Lan Eleventh Army as chief of staff. This time, he contacted Tang Enbo and went to Yushe with Liu, Zhang, Xu and Lai Jifa (political commissar of the Qin Lai detachment).
Entering Yushe City, Tang Enbo had already led his officers to greet him at the gate of the headquarters. These nationalist generals rushed forward, all wanting to see the commander of the Eighth Route Army who made the Japanese army tremble.
Tang Enbo knew Liu Bocheng and Xu Xiangqian, and Lao Yuan stretched out his hand, tightly held Liu and Xu's hands, and said:
"Your guerrilla war is well fought, and the Japanese can't eat it!"
Liu Bocheng introduced Zhang Hao to him. At the headquarters, Tombaugh entertained guests with sumptuous meals. Liu Bocheng was well aware of Tang Enbo's unusually warm hospitality and the problems existing in the troops he was currently leading. After the meal, the talks began. During the talks, Liu Bocheng and Xu Xiangqian emphatically pointed out that transforming the armed forces and rectifying discipline is an urgent task at present. They introduced that the War of Resistance is protracted and requires the support of the masses, and without the masses, it is impossible to persist in the War of Resistance. Although the Eighth Route Army is small in number, it has strict discipline, close military-civilian relations, and won the support of the broad masses of the people. As he listened, Tang Enbo agreed and asked the Eighth Route Army to help guide him. Liu Bocheng took advantage of the situation to encourage Tang Enbo to put the overall situation of the anti-Japanese resistance as the most important thing, support the situation of the War of Resistance in Shanxi, and persuade him not to retreat south of the Yellow River. In this regard, Tang Enbo did not answer positively, but only said vaguely: "The duty of a soldier is to obey military orders, and I will do whatever I order." ”
There was no substantial progress in the talks, and the next day, Liu Bocheng and his party braved the snow to return to Xihetou in Liaoxian County.
The most urgent task at the moment is to deploy guerrilla warfare on the Taihang Mountains as soon as possible. Liu Bocheng, Zhang Hao, and Xu immediately deployed after studying forward.
On the 13th, Liu Bocheng, Zhang Hao, and Xu Xiangqian held a meeting of all divisional cadres in Shiquan Town to mobilize for upholding the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in North China, conveyed the instructions of the central authorities and Mao Zedong on the creation of anti-Japanese base areas in the Jin-Hebei Yu Border Region relying on the Taihang and Taiyue Mountains, and specifically arranged various tasks for carrying out guerrilla warfare. After the division headquarters arrived in Liaoxian County on the 15th, the plan began to train cadres and dispatch troops, but because of the talks with Tang Enbo, it was not immediately implemented.
After Liu Bocheng and others went to Yushe, Song Renqiang proposed a dispatch list and consulted Peng Zhen at the division headquarters. After Liu Bocheng and others returned to Liao County, after studying, they decided to immediately take three measures and quickly divide their troops on the Taihang Mountains.
First of all, the various guerrilla units that Qin Jiwei and Lai Jifa had already organized, with the first unit of the Fifth Company of the Divisional Teaching Regiment and some cadres as the backbone, and in coordination with the local party in Taigu, Yuci, Shouyang, Pingding, Yangquan, Xiyang, Heshun, and Qixian Spinning Mills, plus the junior officers and soldiers of the Kuomintang army who had been taken in, were combined into the first guerrilla detachment of the 129th Division, an independent detachment, with nearly a thousand people, presided over by Xu Xiangqian, and announced the formal establishment in Shiquan Town. On the 27th, Xu Xiangqian appointed Qin Jiwei as commander and Lai Jifa as political commissar at the inaugural meeting. The detachment operates in the Jinzhong area. They developed county and district guerrilla forces in various counties, coordinated with local party organizations to establish anti-Japanese democratic regimes in counties, districts, and villages, cooperated with the main forces in combat, and opened up the earliest base area on the Taihang Mountains in Jinzhong District. At the beginning of December, the division headquarters asked Wang Naigui, deputy commander of the 769th Regiment, to lead a part of the cadres and a company to form a second independent detachment with Wang Naigui as the detachment leader and Li Dingzhuo as the political commissar. These two independent detachments are also called the Qin Lai Detachment and the Wang Detachment. The division headquarters also transferred more than 30 cadres from the teaching regiment to form an advance detachment, with Sun Jixian as the detachment leader and Qing Guangyi as the political commissar, crossing the Pinghan Road to the Ji'nan region, contacting Ma Guorui, secretary of the Ji'nan Special Committee, and opening up the work in southern Hebei. This was the first unit sent by the 129th Division to southern Hebei.
Immediately afterward, the division headquarters decided to draw some backbone cadres from the troops, form working regiments and infantry detachments, and under the leadership of Song Renqian, deputy director of the division's political department, Wang Xinting, director of the organization department, and Liu Zhijian, director of propaganda, respectively, go to Qinxian County, Changzhi, Jincheng, Gaoping, Lingchuan, Wuxiang, Xiangyuan, Pingshun, Qinyuan, Anze, tunliu, and other places, in conjunction with the local Communist Party organizations, to mobilize and organize the masses, establish various anti-Japanese organizations and anti-Japanese self-defense forces, establish anti-Japanese democratic regimes, expand the troops, and carry out various tasks. In order to enable the dispatched personnel to better adapt themselves to the changed situation and the environment for carrying out their work independently, the division headquarters and Li Zhuyu, secretary of the Jiyujin Provincial CPC Committee, Li Xuefeng, director of the Organization Department, and Xu Zirong, director of the Propaganda Department, conducted research and opened a guerrilla training course in Xihetou Village to train the personnel of the 129th Division to prepare for dispatch and local cadres at the county and district levels.
The third measure was to deploy the main forces of the division on the east side of Tongpu Road, the south side of Zhengtai Road and the area west of the Shijiazhuang to Cixian section of Pinghan Road, respectively, and to attack the Japanese troops advancing into the Taihang Mountains.
The development of the situation was guessed by Liu Bocheng. After the Japanese army captured Taiyuan, it temporarily stayed in the area north of Pingding, Pingyao, and Fenyang, and reorganized the combat troops while supporting the puppet regime. In early December, under the activities of the Taiyuan Army secret service agency, Nagatani Hagi Nahuaxiong, a puppet Taiyuan Municipal Office with Bai Wenhui as mayor was established; a preparatory committee for the puppet Shanxi Provincial Government, with Tani Nahuaxiong as Gu Jian and Zeng Jigang as chairman, was set up, and put forward the slogan of goodwill and cooperation with Japan and Manchuria and anti-communist annihilation of the party. After the establishment of the puppet Provisional Government of the Republic of China in Peiping on December 14, the puppet provisional government in Shanxi became a local puppet government led by the puppet Provisional Government of the Republic of China. On December 22, the Command of the North China Front of the Japanese Army formulated the "Essentials for the Implementation of Law and Order Maintenance in the Areas Occupied by the Japanese Army", which clearly stated that the focus of the Japanese army's crusade was directed at the communist army, especially the established communist areas, and efforts were made to destroy them as soon as possible." On December 24, the Japanese Cabinet decided on the North China Handling Policy, which designated the areas occupied and consolidated in North China as "parts of Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, and Chahar Provinces." ”
In accordance with the above policy, the Japanese troops stationed in Shanxi proposed in late December that in order to deal with the Eighth Route Army, instead of making passive garrisons in a detailed manner, it would be better to concentrate its forces to eliminate it in one fell swoop. From December 22, the commander of the 20th Division of the Japanese Army stationed in Pingding, Kawagishi Fumizo, gathered more than 5,000 troops, and from December 22, the troops of Taigu, Yuci, Shouyang, Yangquan, Pingding, and Xiyang were divided into six routes, and in a horseshoe-shaped position, they besieged the main forces of the 129th Division south of Zhengtai Road, east of the Yuci to Taigu section of Tongpu Road, and southeast of Shouyang, west of the Pingding to Xiyang Highway. In view of the characteristics of the enemy's activities, Liu Bocheng adopted the main force of the internal line to fight outwards, the main force of the outer line cooperated, and in the form of attacking and ambushing on the flank and back, cutting off its communications, hitting one of its units, and disturbing the enemy's actions, it took only 5 days to crush the enemy's "six-way siege" and kill and wound more than 700 enemy people.
The anti-"six-way siege" was the first major battle independently conducted since the 129th Division was launched. On December 27, the day after the end of the counter-siege, Liu Bocheng wrote an article entitled "Tactical Observations on Repelling the Enemy Advancing South on Zhengtai Road," which analyzed and summarized the operational characteristics and combat experience of the enemy and us, and gave a speech at the cadre meeting. This kind of speedy work of summing up lessons and lessons surprised Deng Xiaoping. After listening to Liu Bocheng's speech, Deng Xiaoping even more sincerely admired Liu Bocheng's profound military knowledge and superb command art. In his summing-up, Liu Bocheng specifically analyzed the enemy's attempts to organize sieges and the mode of activity, and specifically expounded the characteristics of our army's activities in light of the enemy's activities, how it deployed the guerrillas, how the Self-Defense Forces detected the enemy's situation and practiced anti-Japanese martial law, and how the basic cadres exercised specific command over the Self-Defense Forces.
In particular, Deng Xiaoping expressed great interest in Liu Bocheng's section summarizing the characteristics of guerrilla operations. These characteristics are of great guiding significance to the guerrilla units that have just dispersed their activities on the Taihang Mountains. Liu Bocheng said: The guerrillas' actual combat life is mainly to ambush, attack, destroy traffic, reconnoiter, and reconnoiter the enemy's situation. In order to guard against the enemy's attacks and facilitate the attacks of the enemy, the camping method, the liaison law, and the Boryeong secret law mean that they must rely on their own actions to be secret and deceitful, alert, uncertain, tightly guarded, and eliminate the enemy's detectives, so that the deceased people are confused and unable to attack us and guard against our attacks. When the enemy is attacking, it is best to take advantage of its offensive momentum and secretly turn to its side and back to attack it, ambush it, disturb it, and cut off its communication. This is of great significance in cooperating with the basic army in combat.
After smashing the "Six-Way Siege," Liu Bocheng took advantage of the relatively calm time after the war to hurry up and run guerrilla training classes. Combining his many years of practical experience and practical activities since his departure, he wrote lectures and articles such as "Four Basic Tasks of the Anti-Japanese Guerrillas," "Three Basic Tasks of the Anti-Japanese Self-Defense Forces," "Oath of the Anti-Japanese Soldiers and the Self-Defense Forces," and "On Guerrilla Warfare and Movement Warfare." He explained to groups of cadets the strategy of dividing up troops and deploying troops, explaining the essentials of guerrilla tactics and specific fighting methods. What impressed the trainees the most was That Liu Bocheng combined with examples in his explanations, and a simple and funny guerrilla tactics lesson.
One day in late December, Liu Bocheng, accompanied by Chief Staff Officer Li Da, came to a wide square in Xihetou Village. Originally a training ground for Yan Xishan's tun soldiers, it is now an open-air classroom for guerrilla training classes.
Liu Bocheng first gave a general account of the basic tasks of the guerrillas and the general laws of the enemy's performance in combat, and then talked about how the Eighth Route Army, in accordance with the general laws of the enemy's activities, played to its strong points and avoided its weaknesses, and introduced the topic to the theme of the lecture.
"When you go out, you must first organize guerrillas and self-defense forces, which are generally scattered everywhere. In this way, we can use a large number of scattered anti-Japanese forces to deplete the Japanese army to gather to attack us, and cover our main force to assemble to annihilate the enemy's scattered troops. As long as we fight skillfully, we can clamp down on a battalion or regiment of the Japanese army, or even more. ”
Liu Bocheng cited the example of a company of the 771st Regiment of the 386th Brigade winning a battle against an enemy several times larger than itself in Fan Village, Taigu County, on November 26. He said:
"In the Battle of Fan Village, how many people did I have in the 771st Regiment?" There are fewer than one company. The enemy, on the other hand, consisted of five or six hundred infantry, a company of cavalry, six mortars and two vehicles. Our company was familiar with the terrain here, and taking advantage of this, one company was scattered over a vast area of more than 10 miles, three in groups and two in groups. Although the enemy had many men and horses, because the terrain was unfamiliar, they did not dare to disperse, and gathered together to find our troops to fight. We, on the other hand, changed positions from all sides and shot at the enemy team. Our warriors flew around like little sparrows, hitting here and there, hitting only the enemy overwhelmed. As a result, we eliminated nearly a hundred of his men and destroyed a car. And our warriors are safe and sound. Comrades, do not underestimate this sparrow battle, and sometimes a sparrow can make the enemy turn around. ”
Liu Bocheng glanced at the joyful and active students and gave another example.
"A few days ago, Wang Naigui told me the story of a warrior circling with more than a hundred devils. Wang Naigui did not bring 12 people to open up work, but now it has developed into a detachment. When their detachment moved to the junction of Shouyang and Pingding on Zhengtai Road, they sent a soldier to deliver the letter. This warrior walked to the vicinity of Shanglongquan in Shouyang and encountered more than a hundred ghosts. He quickly hid in a stone cave and calmly shot at the enemy, killing a dozen or so devils in a row, but the devils could not hit him. Later, the devil asked the traitor to come out and lure him, and the traitor was almost hit again. The enemy circled the cave for half a day, and there was nothing he could do, so he had to withdraw, and our soldier returned safely. ”
The more the trainees listened, the more fascinated they became, and they gained confidence in the power of guerrilla warfare. Since then, "sparrow tactics" have become a good trick for the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army and guerrillas in various places.
Then, Liu Bocheng talked about "wasp tactics".
"As the saying goes: 'Hornless sheep are oppressed, and wasps with ants have no remorse!' This is its weapon. Once, Li Da and I were riding our horses up the hill when his mount suddenly hissed uneasily. My horse also jumped on all fours as if infected. In an instant, two white horses ran forward desperately. We grabbed the rope so hard we didn't fall. The guards were so frightened that they caught up and asked what was wrong. When we each stopped our horses and stood still, we asked each other, why was this horse suddenly frightened? ”
Liu Bocheng deliberately paused, and the trainees held their breath, waiting to explain the original commission. Those who can take notes are memorizing quickly.
"The guard told us, 'Just now a swarm of wasps came from behind and landed on the horse's butt, on its stomach, and stung the horse.' You see, although the wasp is small, it is very powerful, and it understands guerrilla tactics, and it will attack from the back of the horse's ass, so that the behemoth can't sweep it with its tail, and it is stung all over the body, and it is still painful for a long time, and the heart palpitates. When the enemy comes to attack, isn't it also best to fight against his marching column? Because the eyes are long in front, attention to the back is poor. ”
After the guerrilla training class, batch after batch of guerrilla seeds were sown in the Taihang Mountains. By April 1938, when the Japanese army once again concentrated its forces to launch a large-scale siege of the established Taihang base area, the 129th Division had dispatched 41 of the 64 companies in the main force, accounting for 64% of the total strength.
As a result of the rapid and resolute dispatch of troops by the 129th Division, the flower of guerrilla warfare had bloomed on the Taihang Mountains as winter turned to spring. When the Japanese army found that this unit led by Liu Bocheng, Deng Xiaoping, and Xu Xiangqian had become a strong force in the strategic areas of their occupied areas, a serious threat to the Japanese occupation of north China, and turned back to try to besiege, it found itself in a "pre-embattled" situation.