Written / Context
Editor / Wind Whisperer
"The big knife cut off the heads of the devils, and the brothers of the armed forces of the whole country have come to the day of the War of Resistance..." This battle song is sonorous and powerful, majestic and mighty, and it is sung inspiringly, expressing the indomitable and determination of the Chinese nation to win. During the most arduous period of the War of Resistance Against Japan, all the soldiers and civilians were singing this song, and there were many patriotic young people in that year, because this song joined the army to resist Japan.
This "Big Knife March" is a well-known red classic song, but do you know the story behind this song? In fact, the song is a great hero of the anti-Japanese resistance. He was Zhao Dengyu, the first division commander who sacrificed his life for the country during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in China. "General Cloth" Feng Yuxiang also wrote "General Fighting Tiger" for him in his own handwriting to express his praise for him.
Zhao Dengyu
Zhao Dengyu became a well-deserved "Tiger Fighting General"
Zhao Dengyu was born in 1898 in Heze, Shandong, at an altitude of 1 meter 90, a typical image of Shandong Han. In his early years, because of his family's poverty, he only studied private school for two years, and in order to make a living, he dropped out of school and began to learn martial arts. At the age of 13, under the guidance of the well-known boxing master Zhu Fengjun, he practiced a good kung fu in three years, and more than a dozen people could not get close.
Whether it is tai chi, bagua, Shaolin and other martial arts, or knives, guns, swords and other weapons, Zhao Dengyu is proficient in everything, and it is even more good to grab the sword and gun with his bare hands. In that war-torn era, in order to save the people in the depths of the water, 16-year-old Zhao Dengyu was determined to join the army to save the country.
Therefore, he followed his brother and friends, waded through mountains and rivers, and walked more than 1800 miles for more than 20 days to reach Tongguan in Shaanxi Province, and defected to the door of General Feng Yuxiang, the "King of the Northwest". At that time, Feng Yuxiang's recruitment quota was full, and Zhao Dengyu and his gang temporarily became deputy soldiers who did not have military pay but only took care of food.
In 1916, after two years in the military, Zhao Dengyu began to stand out. During a military parade, Zhao Dengyu's martial arts were fully displayed, which was particularly eye-catching, which attracted Feng Yuxiang's attention. In a training session shortly after the parade, Feng Yuxiang specifically named Zhao Dengyu to compete with his wrestling, and as a result, Zhao Dengyu won three games in a row. General Feng was not angry but very happy, and directly promoted him to be his own bodyguard.
In 1918, Zhao Dengyu followed General Feng to garrison Changde, Hunan, and heard that tigers often appeared in the area and harmed people and animals. Some soldiers were afraid, but Zhao Dengyu hoped that the tiger would come early so that he could eliminate harm for the people and show his skills at the same time. During a break from a field training session, the tiger appeared on the training ground with a big swing.
The soldiers were frightened and scattered, and some people climbed up the trees with a smoke, only Zhao Dengyu stood where he was, calmly unloading his bayonet and holding it in his hand, and a Wusong tiger fight was about to be staged. When his comrades-in-arms saw the situation, they all shouted at him to run quickly, and the company commander jumped to his feet in anger and scolded him for not being a bastard.
The tiger ran to Zhao Dengyu and demonstrated with his sharp teeth. After a moment of confrontation between man and tiger, Zhao Dengyu began to swing his bayonet, and the tiger was enraged and pounced on Zhao Dengyu with a roar. He squated deftly, cleverly dodging his claws, and with his hand, he pointed his bayonet into the tiger's abdomen and rolled over like lightning.
Seeing this scene, the comrades who scattered and fled almost at the same time applauded. The tiger with the bayonet in his abdomen pounced on Zhao Dengyu again with murderous spirits, and he wrestled with the tiger with his bare hands, fortunately, the knife just now stabbed the tiger's key point, and he quickly died. After General Feng heard about it, he ordered someone to restore the scene of fighting the tiger and took a photo. After Zhao Dengyu's sacrifice, in order to commemorate him, General Feng found this photo and personally inscribed "General Of the Seven Years of the Republic of China".
The General of the Seventh Year of the Republic of China
Zhao Dengyu was not only able to fight the tiger with his bare hands, but also in 1921, when he was suppressing bandits in Shaanxi, he shot quickly and violently, directly breaking the neck of the bandit leader Guo Jian. The thunderous move made the name of "Fighting Tiger General" even louder.
Night attack on Xifengkou, becoming a "daytime nightmare" for Rikou
In the spring of 1922, the First Zhifeng War broke out, and Zhao Dengyu, who was then the platoon leader of the top soldiers, led his troops to attack the artillery positions of the Feng army. In only two months, they captured the Fengjun position and won a great victory, and Zhao Dengyu was promoted to company commander and later to brigade commander.
In 1931, after Japan launched the "918 Incident", the three northeastern provinces fell. In early 1933, the Japanese Kou burned the flames of war to the area of the Great Wall of Rehe. Xifengkou is an important pass of the Great Wall AndeHe, and has become a place where soldiers must fight. Zhao Dengyu, then brigade commander of the 109th Brigade of the 37th Division of the 29th Army, was ordered to lead his troops to guard the most important Position of Xifengkou.
On March 9, the Japanese army captured Xifengkou, and in the evening, Zhao Dengyu led the garrison to carry out a strong counterattack, killing and wounding more than 100 Japanese troops and recapturing Xifengkou. The red-eyed Japanese army was willing to give up and fiercely counterattacked the next day with the help of artillery cover. The battle lasted for two days, and both the enemy and us suffered heavy casualties, corpses were strewn across the field, and Xifengkou was once again occupied by the Japanese army.
After Zhao Dengyu analyzed the situation between the enemy and us in detail, he knew very well that the enemy was strong and weak, and that he could not attack strongly, but could only take advantage of the wisdom, so he ordered a sneak attack on the Japanese army at night. At this time, Zhao Dengyu was ready to fight the enemy to the death.
Overnight, he organized a large sword team of five hundred martial arts masters, crossed mountains and mountains, flew over the wall, and wielded a large knife with lightning speed, slashing at the sleeping Japanese army.
Zhao Dengyu organized a large knife team
The battlefield instantly turned into a large slaughterhouse, the blood and flesh of the slashed Japanese army were splashed, and many sleeping Japanese troops, too late to open their eyes, had already returned to Huangquan. Some of the awakened Japanese troops knelt down one after another and begged for forgiveness, and they must not cut off their heads, because they superstitiously believed that beheading would not rise to heaven.
In the desperate struggle with the Japanese army, Zhao Dengyu was shot in the leg and still rushed to the front line, which made the morale of the soldiers even higher. There was a 19-year-old soldier Chen Yong, who hacked 13 ghosts to death in one person. Zhao Dengyu was even more than 60 devils with a single hand blade.
The Battle of Xifengkou killed more than 5,000 Japanese Kou and blew up 18 cannons, achieving the first major victory since "918" and becoming a famous "Xifengkou Victory" in history. Zhao Dengyu became a great hero praised by the whole country, and was promoted to the commander of the 132nd Division of the 29th Army for his merits.
The 29th Army's reputation for this battle was greatly enhanced, and the anti-Japanese enthusiasm of the military and people throughout the country was encouraged. Musician Mai Xin specially composed a "Big Knife March" for them overnight, which was sung for a time and swept the country. At that time, it was this song that sounded the clarion call of the whole people to resist Japan and inspired the fighting spirit of the whole people to fight in blood.
Later, in the "History of Continental Warfare" released by Japan, Zhao Dengyu was evaluated as: a nightmare under the day.
The General of the Tiger Fight is a pioneer, and the people's hero is immortal
The Japanese invasion never stopped, and later extended its claws to Beiping. On July 7, 1937, the Japanese army launched the Lugou Bridge Incident, which shocked China and foreign countries. Since then, the Japanese army has begun a large-scale armed attack on China, which also opened the prelude to the most arduous eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression of the Chinese nation.
At that time, the 29th Army was guarding Wanping City, and on the second day of the incident, the Japanese army launched three more attacks on Wanping City, all of which were strongly resisted by our army. When the Japanese army saw that the strong attack was blocked, it said that it would negotiate and reconcile, but in fact it was secretly dispatching troops and dispatching generals. Under the guise of three negotiations, by July 25, the Japanese army had assembled 60,000 troops.
It was also on this day that Zhao Dengyu, the commander of the Division stationed between the rivers, received an order to quickly return to Beiping to resist the Japanese, and he served as the commander-in-chief. On July 27, he led his men to Nanyuan and was jointly responsible for the defense of Beiping with the deputy commander Tong Linge. However, nanyuan is flat and easy to attack and difficult to defend.
In the early morning of July 28, the Japanese army approached Nanyuan from the east, south and west. They mobilized a division of infantry, a company of artillery, a total of more than 3,000 elite troops. Moreover, more than 20 aircraft and dozens of tanks were dispatched to launch a fierce attack on Nanyuan.
At this critical moment, Zhao Dengyu's division commander took the lead and led his soldiers to repeatedly charge and kill, and the casualties on both sides were heavy. Deputy Commander Tong Linge was unfortunately shot in the thigh by machine guns, but still led the troops to fight bloodily until noon, and was hit in the head by the enemy, and was martyred at the age of 45.
At this moment, Commander Zhao received an order to quickly withdraw to the Beiping counter-offensive. When they retreated to the Dahong Gate to assemble, the Japanese army preemptively circled to the green gauze tent and set up an ambush, blocking the only way for our army to pass. As a result, when Commander Zhao led his troops through, he was ambushed by machine guns, and several bullets fell in a pool of blood, and he was only 39 years old when he died.
Reports on the death of Tong Linge and Zhao Dengyu
On July 31, 1937, after the martyrdom of Zhao Dengyu, he was posthumously awarded the rank of general of the army.
At that time, the "National Salvation Times" commented on him like this: Fighting until the last drop of blood, gloriously completing the duty of defending the country and defending the people, and being a model for the soldiers of the whole country.
Chairman Mao also spoke highly of Zhao Dengyu: He gave the whole Chinese a lofty and great model.
After the founding of new China, Zhao Dengyu was posthumously recognized by the people's government as a martyr of the Anti-Japanese Struggle, and his family was awarded the "Honorable Commemorative Certificate for the Families of Revolutionary Martyrs", which was signed by Mao Zedong himself on the date of "June 11, 1952".
In order to commemorate Zhao Dengyu, after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Beiping Municipal Government named the road from Chongyuanguan South to Taiping Bridge as "Zhao Dengyu Road"; a street on the west bank of the ancient canal in Beipingtong County was named "Zhao Dengyu Street" and has been used to this day.
Zhao Dengyu Road
Zhao Dengyu's short life of fighting horses, the sacrificial spirit of "rather be a ghost in battle than a slave to the country", reflects a poem by Wen Tianxiang: Who has not died since ancient times? Leave Dan in his heart.
In September 2009, Zhao Dengyu was selected as one of the "100 Heroic And Exemplary Figures Who Made Outstanding Contributions to the Founding of New China" by 11 departments, including the Central Propaganda Department and the Organization Department of the Central Committee.
Anti-Japanese heroes, immortal!
Zhao Dengyu Martyrs Monument