Ma Benzhai was a well-known anti-Japanese national hero whose life was legendary. He led the Huimin detachment to bravely resist the Japanese Kou and established immortal feats, especially the Huimin detachment he led, with the cooperation of the Hengshui County Brigade led by Jia Diange and Du Lian, organized the "Battle of Kangzhuang", which is a classic of the battle.
In May 1940, the Japanese army was arrogant in the north China battlefield. On the 10th, the Japanese government approved the Shide Railway Line Plan, and wanted to forcibly recruit people to repair the Shide Railway, in an attempt to open the passage between the two major railway trunk lines of Jinpu and Pinghan and further divide and blockade the anti-Japanese base areas. In order to combat the arrogance of the Japanese army and defend and consolidate the anti-Japanese base area in the north of Hengshui County and the southern part of Shen County, in late May 1940, Ma Benzhai led more than 1,000 Huimin detachments in central Hebei to Hengshui in secret, and more than 100 fighters led by Jia Diange, commander of the anti-Japanese guerrilla brigade in Hengshui County, and Du Lian, political commissar, cooperated to face the Japanese troops stationed in Hengshui.
Ma Benzhai
The only way to destroy the enemy is to fight skillfully. The commander's headquarters was located in a milling shed in Kangzhuang Village, and Ma Benzhai noticed this small village, and after several deliberations, a battle plan with Kangzhuang as a battlefield and "luring snakes out of holes and surrounding points to fight for help" was brewing and mature. Kangzhuang Village, located in the north of Hengshui City, was on the road between the Japanese army's large stronghold in Hengshui City and Anjia Village. Anjia Village is twenty miles away from the city, which is the throat area connecting central Jizhong and Southern Hebei, and its location is very important, so the enemy is heavily guarded. In peacetime, the stronghold was garrisoned by a small detachment of Japanese troops and a squadron of puppet troops. Recently, the Japanese squad withdrew to the city, leaving only the puppet army stationed in the stronghold. Between the stronghold and the county seat, the Japanese army forcibly recruited civilians to build roads and install telephones, and once the stronghold was tight, the enemy in the county town could quickly reinforce. The fuse of the "encirclement point to help" plan is the Anjia Village stronghold. The battle plan is: Some troops will be dispatched together with the surrounding villagers and soldiers to surround the stronghold of Anjia Village, prepare more oil barrels, firecrackers, and the like, make a big noise, and put up a posture of attacking and occupying, but in fact encircle but not attack, give the enemy the illusion that our army wants to seize the stronghold, force him to use the telephone to ask for help in the city, wait for the enemy's call for help, then cut off the telephone line, wait for the enemy to enter the Kangzhuang ambush area, and then gather and annihilate it.
On the night of May 28, the Huimin detachment dispatched a squadron and secretly infiltrated the area around the stronghold with guerrillas from the four districts of Hengshui County and more than 300 soldiers from surrounding villages. In the early morning of the 29th, a feint attack was launched, and the enemy of the Anjia village stronghold called for urgent help from Hengshui City by telephone, and after the enemy troops moved, the Huimin detachment cut off the telephone line and blocked the communication between them. At about 8:00 a.m., the Japanese puppet army in Hengshui City, under the command of Japanese squadron leader Shang Tian, rushed to Anjia Village to rescue them. After leaving the city, when passing through Qianmazhuang Village south of Kangzhuang Village, he ordered the troops to stop advancing and set up a cannon to continuously bombard in the direction of Anjia Village, this cannon was a field flat-firing cannon with strong firepower, and the Japanese army went out to sweep and never took it out of the city. After half a day of bombardment, seeing that there was no movement, ShangTian ordered the troops to advance quickly. When the enemy had all entered the Kangzhuang ambush circle, Commander Ma Benzhai gave an order, and suddenly the ambush troops were scattered, the gunshots sounded, and the flames soared into the sky. On the Great Plains, in order to avoid the fierce blows, the enemy sneaked into the ditch more than two meters deep on the side of the road. And this hiding, just in the middle of our army's plan, the soldiers one after another pulled grenades and threw them into the ditch. Because the ditch was straight up and down, narrow and deep, the Japanese puppet army could only shoot at the sky, powerless to fight, unable to escape, and chaotic. In just 40 minutes, a beautiful ambush and annihilation battle was over.
In this battle, 17 Japanese troops were killed, more than 50 puppet troops were killed, more than 50 puppet troops were captured, and only six or seven puppet soldiers escaped. Japanese squadron leader Shang Tian and puppet squadron leader Qiu Zhancai were killed on the spot. One flat-firing gun, one heavy machine gun, three light machine guns and one other military materiel were captured. The Huimin detachment and the county brigade, because commander Ma Benzhai was well organized and properly commanded, did not suffer any casualties, creating a classic anti-Japanese war example. Today, the Battle of Kangzhuang has also been included in the textbooks of military academies as a classic example of warfare.
![The cavalry of the Eighth Route Army captured Japanese weapons and did not want to distribute them to Ma Benzai, resulting in the dismissal of 2 regimental commanders[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)