Dai Anlan, commander of the 200th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, was full of ambition to serve the country, entered Burma to kill the enemy regardless of his body, and regarded death as if he were returning to the Japanese Kou, and Guo'er forgot his family and eventually became a benevolent.
General Dai Anlan has fought countless battles in his lifetime, and the Battle of Tonggu in Burma is even more powerful. He led his lone army to fight for 12 consecutive days, and finally won more with the 200th Division, fighting a beautiful battle in which the Chinese army fought outside the territory.
The | statue of Dai Anlan
Since the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Communist Party of China has called from top to bottom to unite the strength of the whole nation to fight the War of Resistance, and many international forces that supported China's War of Resistance have also provided human and material assistance to China. The Burma Highway, located in the southwestern border area, was an important passage to ensure the smooth arrival of foreign materials in China at that time.
However, this traffic artery, which took a lot of manpower in 1938 and took nearly a year to open to traffic, became the only transportation "lifeline" for China to the outside world when the Japanese army invaded Vietnam and cut off the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway in 1940.
With the fall of Vietnam, Burma became the next target of the Japanese army. Whether Myanmar can hold on will have a direct impact on china's battlefield. If Burma is captured by the Japanese army, it will not only lead to the cutting off of the Burma Road, but also China's Yunnan is in danger!
However, the battlefield situation is not optimistic for China. At that time, Burma was under British colonial rule, and the British had long been unable to take care of themselves because of the constraints of the European battlefield, and they were even more powerless to resist the Japanese invasion of their Far Eastern colonial countries.
In view of this, the Chinese side is extremely concerned about the situation on the Battlefield in Burma. When the British government submitted a request to our country to send troops to Burma for defense, the then National Government immediately agreed and quickly recruited three armies as the "Chinese Expeditionary Force" to enter Burma to assist the Allied forces in combat.
Pictured| Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the Pacific War broke out. Subsequently, Japan successively invaded the Philippines, Thailand, Malaya and other places. On December 23, representatives of the United States, the United States and britain held an East Asian military conference in Chongqing to agree on how to deal with Japan, and signed the Sino-British Agreement on Joint Defense of the Burma Road.
In February 1942, the Japanese invaded Burma, and the British troops stationed in Burma were defeated and retreated, requesting the Chinese Expeditionary Force to enter Burma. On March 1, Chiang Kai-shek sent a telegram to Dai Anlan, commander of the 200th Division, to rush to Lashio, Burma overnight to receive orders for combat.
The strategic intention of the Japanese army to launch the Burma campaign was fourfold: first, to cut off the Burma Road; second, to enter Chongqing, the capital of the Chinese government at that time; third, to prepare to attack India after occupying Burma and completely drive out the British; fourth, to gain security on the flank of the Indian Ocean.
On March 1, 1942, Dai Anlan was on his way to Burma. On March 2, officers and men of the 200th Division sped from Yunnan to Tonggu, Burma. Under the leadership of Dai Anlan, more than 9,000 enthusiastic young people with the ambition to serve the country arrived in Tonggu in early March 1942. Dai Anlan's task from the military department was: at all costs, to stick to Tonggu and crush the frontal attack of the Japanese army.
Figure | Map of myanmar's ancient location
Tonggu is located between the Yangman Highway and Railway, and is a military strategic point. Holding on to Tonggu would deter the Japanese army from moving north along Yangon to occupy Mandalay, so the 200th Division led by Dai Anlan was of great significance.
After arriving in Tonggu, Dai Anlan realized that it was not easy to hold on to Tonggu, and the british garrison at that time made him deeply worried. In Dai Anlan's diary of March 6, he wrote: "Now that I am going to Tonggu, I met with Scott, the commander of the First Division of the British Army, and inquired about the enemy's situation, but I did not know, and when I inquired about the enemy's tactics, I did not know, and I was so distressed that in the future, it was inevitable that our army would have to take full responsibility." After that, Dai Anlan led the officers and men to actively build fortifications and study tactics against the enemy.
On March 16, the Japanese began to use air superiority to bomb Tonggu for several days. On the 17th, the British troops stationed in Tonggu suddenly informed Dai Anlan that their troops would all withdraw that night. As a result, only the 200th Division remained alone to hold on to Tonggu, and there was no hope of support. On the 19th, the 200th Division confronted the Japanese on both sides of the Pew River. Fierce battles are on the horizon.
Dai Anlan ordered the officers and men to wait until the Japanese troops entered the Pew River Bridge and find a way to blow up the bridge, on the one hand, to prevent the Japanese army from crossing the bridge, on the other hand, to inflict heavy damage on the enemy's main force. The Battle of the Pew River was fruitful. Not only was the enemy completely wiped out, but important information was also obtained from the Japanese lieutenant officers who were killed.
After learning of the enemy's situation, Dai Anlan calmly deployed to deal with it, and at the same time held an oath-taking meeting to express his determination to coexist and die with the same ancients. At the oath-taking meeting, Dai Anlan left behind the order that "the division commander is sacrificed, represented by the deputy division commander, the deputy division commander is sacrificed, and the chief of staff is acting as the commander, and when the chief of staff is sacrificed, the regimental commander is acted as the regimental commander, and so on, even if there is only one person, it is necessary to fight to the end."
Under the leadership of Dai Anlan, before the fierce battle with Gugu, the morale of the officers and men of the 200th Division was high. Dai Anlan left a letter of desperation for his wife. "To dear Hexin: Yu was ordered to stick to Tonggu this time, because the above grand plan was undecided, the contact with the rear was too far, the enemy moved quickly, and now he is fighting alone, determined to sacrifice all of them to repay the country's nourishment, and die for the country, which is extremely glorious."
The Battle of Tonggu was the first battle of the expeditionary force into Burma at that time. Since the South Pacific, the Japanese army has encountered little resistance in Southeast Asia, and in Tonggu it has encountered hard nails. The battle of Tonggu lasted a long time and was very fierce. The terrain around Tonggu is relatively flat, which is not easy to defend, and the crazy Japanese army even used aircraft, artillery, and tanks to occupy Tonggu, but they were met with stubborn resistance from the 200th Division.
Dai Anlan was very clear about the difficulty of this battle, and sticking to Tonggu was destined to be a bitter battle. To boost morale, he personally went to the front line to command. On the night of March 29, Dai Anlan, who was determined to die, received a new order, the new 22nd Division was coming to reinforcements, and the 200th Division immediately withdrew from Tonggu. At this time his troops had been holding out in Tonggu for twelve days and nights.
After Receiving the order, Dai Anlan immediately ordered the organization of an orderly evacuation of officers and men. Since it was night, the evacuation of the 200th Division did not make the enemy aware, and it was not until dawn the next day that the enemy entered the ancient city of Tongcheng. However, the new Twenty-second Division, which had originally rushed to aid Tonggu, was blocked on its way and failed to encircle and annihilate the enemy forces in Tonggu as planned, and the Battle of Tonggu ended.
In the Battle of Tonggu, Dai Anlan led a lone army to hold out for twelve days and won the battle with a sacrifice of one to five, and the arrogance of the Japanese army was severely hit. After the war, a diary was found on the body of the Japanese Ōsa Yokota, who was killed, which recorded: "Since the southward march, there has never been a strong army of Ruozhi, and who is the fierce enemy, that is, the China Army." Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo admitted in the parliament that "the Battle of Tonggu was a bitter battle not seen since the siege of Lushun."
The War of tonggu brought a great shock to the British army and even the whole of Southeast Asia. The people who were suffering from the Japanese invasion re-acquainted themselves with this Chinese expeditionary force that fought outside the territory but had strong combat effectiveness, and the victory of this campaign undoubtedly greatly encouraged the anti-Japanese forces in Southeast Asia.
However, the war situation in Burma was not reversed. Later, due to a series of miscalculations made by the previous general command, the 200th Division, which was supposed to hold on to Tangji, was sent to the west to block the Japanese. By the time they returned, the Japanese had captured Tangji and were advancing northward. On April 24, 1942, the 200th Division, which had lost its lead, received orders to retake Tangji. Under the leadership of Dai Anlan, the 200th Division began to attack the city at dawn.
Tangji is a mountain city, and it is very difficult to capture. The 200th Division launched one charge after another from the bottom of the mountain, and the battle was fierce. After several charges were repelled by enemy fire, Dai Anlan changed his strategy and ordered the artillery to advance, approaching the enemy's fire point, and blowing up the bunker on the hill where the enemy's fire output was the strongest. After the bunker was destroyed, the soldiers of the 200th Division quickly rushed to the city.
After the troops entered the city, Dai Anlan commanded the warriors to engage in another fierce battle with the enemy army day and night, except for a small number of enemy troops who escaped, most of the enemy's living forces were destroyed. By 18:00 on the 25th, Tang Jike resumed. Dai Anlan was thus praised by the Supreme Command, and Chiang Kai-shek personally sent an order to commend him.
At this time, however, the situation in Myanmar was already precarious. The Japanese army in the north was already approaching Lashio, and Watanabe, known as the "king of jungle warfare" on the Japanese side, had begun to detour to a large depth, trying to form a siege of the small city of Tangji. In this situation, the military department ordered Dai Anlan to abandon Tangji and quickly attack north.
Just as Dai Anlan led his troops to quickly move and chase them behind the Japanese to prepare for an attack, he received the news that Lashio had fallen on the 29th. Subsequently, the major cities in Burma were also lost, and Mandalay, Bamo, and Myitkyina were also occupied by the Japanese army, and soon all of Burma fell. Seeing that the war in Burma was unfavorable, the US military staff led by Stilwell quickly retreated to India, and for a time, the Chinese expeditionary force remaining in Burma became leaderless.
Figure | Savage Mountain location map
In this case, the roads that could be walked were blocked by the enemy, leaving only the tragic Savage Mountain standing in front of the 200th Division. Savage Mountain is located at the junction of China, Myanmar and India, in the far north of Myanmar, with a length of 200 kilometers and an area of nearly 300 square kilometers. The mountainous area is mostly undeveloped virgin forest, which means "savage mountain" in Burmese as "where the devil dwells". In Savage Mountain, the rainy season arrives in May every year, and the dense forests of the rainy season are mostly mosquitoes and locusts, and people are very susceptible to illness.
After successive battles with Gu and Tang Ji, the 200th Division only had more than 5,800 people left at this time, and Dai Anlan was determined to bring back these brothers who were born and died with him. After entering the jungle-covered Savage Mountain, there were growing bushes everywhere, and the soldiers of the 200th Division opened a path with their own knives, and in order to prevent anyone from falling behind and getting lost, everyone untied their leggings and pulled them together.
Dai Anlan led this officer and soldier to walk through such a jungle for more than 20 days, the troops were cut off from supplies, there was no food source, coupled with the lack of medical treatment, the soldiers could not be treated for illness, and they had to always be on the lookout for the Japanese reconnaissance troops, and the officers and men endured unimaginable torture every day.
After crossing the Kanka Mountain, it was already dark, and the officers and soldiers saw that there was a small city under the mountain, and there was still the light of electric lights in the city. The cautiously marching 200th Division did not approach the town, but quietly went to the nearby forest to rest, waiting for the scouts to find out the situation.
After reconnaissance, the bus station in this small town called "Langke" was garrisoned by Japanese troops. Dai Anlan, who learned of the situation, was very excited, and did not expect to have the opportunity to fight with the Japanese in Burma, but here he encountered it, and the 200th Division must eliminate this Japanese army and return to China.
Pictured | Dai Anlan
After hearing Dai Anlan's idea, the chief of staff objected. Considering that the officers and men who had traveled long distances were very tired and the troops were in a state of lack of ammunition, the above order was to return home quickly, and it was really not appropriate to make a fuss under such circumstances.
Faced with the dissuasion of the chief of staff, Dai Anlan was very resolute. He said that everyone had never been addicted, and today they happened to encounter this Japanese army, so they annihilated them and returned to China. Therefore, Dai Anlan ordered the rice to be poured out and boiled into porridge, so that the warriors could have a full meal and prepare to attack the city at night.
Losing contact with the military headquarters, traveling through the forest alone, almost running out of food, even in such a situation, Dai Anlan's fighting spirit was not consumed. After dark, under the leadership of Dai Anlan, the officers and soldiers quickly surrounded the station and started a battle. The encircled Japanese army did not react at all, and the 200th Division suddenly appeared in front of them like a divine soldier, and the unprepared Japanese army could only resist in panic.
However, enemy fire was quite fierce, and after a night of fighting, the 200th Division did not take down the station. The two sides fought fiercely until the afternoon, Dai Anlan was anxious, he ordered to attack immediately, must take the station, destroy the enemy. As he spoke, he got up from behind the bunker and braved the enemy's rain of bullets to rush forward, only to be shot in the chest.
In desperation, the 200th Division had to retreat into the forest. Seriously injured, Dai Anlan felt that he might not be able to lead the troops back to China, and he endured severe pain to call everyone to a meeting. At the meeting, ashamed that he had not been able to defeat the Japanese, he ordered his troops to obey the command of the Goji when they returned home, and also arranged the deployment of the troops on the march. The 200th Division continued to march according to Dai Anlan's deployment, and the soldiers carried the division commander Dai Anlan on stretchers.
It was May, and the weather in Myanmar was quite humid and hot. In the sun and rain, the conditions were extremely harsh, and Dai Anlan preferred to endure the pain rather than go out to find medicine for the soldiers, so as not to expose the location of the troops, and soon his wounds deteriorated. After another four or five days in the dense forest, the troops were getting closer and closer to coming out of the Savage Mountain, but Dai Anlan was already dying. Seeing this situation, the troops stepped up their march to strive to return home at an early date.
After arriving in Maobang, the troops stopped to rest. The soldiers found a small temple and placed Dai Anlan in it, and there were many trees near the small temple, and the troops guarded their division commander in the woods. At this time, Dai Anlan was unable to speak, and his eyes had been looking in the direction of the motherland.
He stared to the north for a long time, as if he had seen the majestic Great Wall again, where he had led the 145th Regiment to fight the Japanese Kou for three days, and when he retreated, he saw the Japanese Kou flaunting their might on the Great Wall, and he was determined to drive the Japanese out of China. Unfortunately, however, Dai Anlan's breath remained forever in the small temple that was only sixty or seventy miles away from China, and he could never go back alive.
At 5:40 p.m. on May 26, 1942, in a small temple in Maobang Village, deep in the Savage Mountain, Dai Anlan died of his wounds and died heroically at the age of 38. The officers and men cut down an incomparably hard old longan tree on the mountain, built a large coffin, and buried the division commander thickly, and the soldiers of the 200th Division, who were full of grief, supported the coffin and continued to embark on the road back to China. Later, due to the humid and hot weather and the inconvenience of preserving the remains, the officers and men cremated the remains of the division commander with tears of sorrow and tears and packed the ashes into a wooden box.
According to the marching route set by Dai Anlan before his death, the 200th Division crossed the Ruili River near Moro, passed through Nankan, and passed through the Ba mo highway, returning to the motherland on June 5, 1942. When the 200th Division entered Burma, it had more than 9,000 men, but when it returned home, it had less than 4,000 men. The first extraterritorial operation of the Chinese Expeditionary Force ended tragically and tragically.
When they set foot on the land of the motherland again, the officers and men who had gone through hardships and dangers were mixed with sorrow and joy, and it was difficult for them to sustain themselves. After crossing the border line, the troops came to Tengchong, and the officers and men specially bought a coffin, placed the wooden box containing the ashes of the division commander in it, and re-buried it.
Under the leadership of the deputy division commander Gao Jiren, the troops continued north, escorting the coffin to Kunming. While passing through Anning County on the road, the troops were suspended at the home of an old overseas Chinese. I think that the 200th Division also passed through this place when it went out to Burma, and the division commander at the time, Dai Anlan, also spent the night here. However, after more than three months, only the coffin was there, and the general was not seen.
The old man who was more than a year old was overwhelmed with sorrow when he saw this situation, General Dai was a national hero who was martyred, and after the sacrifice, there was only such a thin coffin, the old man really couldn't bear it, and immediately decided to sacrifice the Nanmu coffin prepared for himself. In this way, the officers and men, who were full of sorrow, loaded the original coffin into the nanmu coffin and buried it again.
Picture | Myomin Pagoda
Located in the western corner of Jeonju At the foot of Xiangshan Mountain, the "first stop in Chu Nan", Xiangshan Temple, is the oldest Buddhist temple in Guangxi, and there is a Miaoming Pagoda in the temple, which was built since the Tang Dynasty and has stood proudly for thousands of years. In that year, after Dai Anlan's linglan was escorted back to China by the officers and men of the 200th Division, it was temporarily placed in the rooftop courtyard next to the Miaoming Pagoda.
In the autumn of the same year, tens of thousands of people rushed to Jeonju to mourn General Dai at Xiangshan Temple, who sacrificed his life for the country, and the leaders of the Communist Party of China and the Eighth Route Army also highly praised Dai Anlan's heroic deeds and heroic spirit. ”
Jeonju is a city of special significance for Dai Anlan. It was once the headquarters of the Kuomintang Fifth Army and the birthplace of the 200th Division. Here, Dai Anlan trained the 200th Division of the Three Armies of the Yongguan Army; here, Dai Anlan also spent the best time of his life with his family.
Photo | Dai Anlan and his family before entering Myanmar
Throughout his life, Dai Anlan fought everywhere, gathering less with his wife and children at home. Faced with the choice of country and home, he has his own opinions. In a letter to his eldest son, he said:
"Dong'er, you always have to think like this, you have a heroic father, of course, often parting. If I were Tian Shelang, then we could be together every day, but which kind of father would you like? I think you must be willing to have a heroic father, so don't pay too much attention to a short parting. ”
However, what people did not expect was that entering The First World War in Burma was a farewell. He used his short but brilliant life to create a great hero in the hearts of his children.
Wuhu, the hometown of General Dai Anlan. The general's spirit tree went through several battles and finally returned to his hometown and was buried in the ochre mountain park in the center of Wuhu. The village of Hongxiang Township, Wuwei County, which is tens of kilometers away from the cemetery, is the place where Dai Anlan was born.
At that time, the country was in trouble, and warlords were everywhere. At the age of 20, he left his hometown with the mood of worrying about the country and the people, and was admitted to the Whampoa Military Academy, determined to save the nation from danger, solve the people's upside down, protect the family and insults, and turn the tide. Therefore, he changed his name to Mingzhi, with the name of "An lan" and the name of "seagull", and always encouraged himself.
It will be outside, the country will be great, and it will be difficult to promise the country with one's body, and it will be difficult to promise the family.
As a soldier, Dai Anlan galloped on the battlefield, and his brave figure was found on the battlefields of Taierzhuang, Zhongtiao Mountain, Kunlun Pass, Wanjialing and so on. However, as a family member, he has no time to take care of his family because of his perennial conquest, but he knows that his family is always holding him, and so is his heart.
He worried about his distant parents, but because he was worried about their parents' safety, he could only send them photos of himself disguised and re-dressed, and chat about comforting thoughts. It was before Dai Anlan received the task of entering Burma that Dai Anlan, who missed his parents in the enemy-occupied areas, contacted a Peking Opera class, and he deliberately asked people to dress themselves as old students, thick oil paint on their faces to confuse the enemy, and then take photos and send them to their parents who were still in their hometown.
The picture | Dai Anlan's letter to his wife
Before the fierce battle with Gu, Dai Anlan's letter to his wife was also full of concerns for his family. In his letter he exhorted: "The old mother who has gone out, has not been able to serve; Duan Gongxian died, and was not buried in time. Your mother and son will live more bitterly in the future. But the four children of Dong, Jing, Hedge, and Cheng, who are extremely intelligent and handsome, will surely have great success in the future. You only have to suffer for a few years, and you will be blessed. Since the day of the beginning, I hope not to think of me; I'm going to deploy to kill the enemy, the time is too busy, I hope you respect yourself! And love your children, and serve your mother! The old father is in Anhui, and there is no need to hear it. ”
After learning of her husband's sacrifice, her wife Wang Hexin was devastated, but remembering her husband's deathbed instructions, she strongly shouldered the responsibility of raising her parents and raising her children. She continued her husband's legacy and cultivated all four children into excellent talents. Not only that, in order to practice the unfinished ideal of "revitalizing China" before her husband's death, Wang Hexin also used the 200,000 special pension issued by the government to establish a vocational school, and the school name was still "Anlan" to cultivate more useful construction talents for the country.
There is no hesitation in insulting the emperor and beating the corpse of the Japanese Kou, and China has this general, and the country is very fortunate and the nation is very fortunate! The monument is always there, and the heroic soul should always exist, and it is precisely because of such heroic martyrs as General Dai that the Chinese nation can continue to overcome difficulties in those arduous years and step by step towards the light.