Chapter 200 6. A battle scene witnessed by writer Wei Wei

At 16:00 on November 8, the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Field Army launched a general attack on Waishigou.After a night of fierce fighting, under the cover of powerful artillery fire, combined with tunnel blasting, all our attacking troops quickly broke through the outer city ditch. The Waishigou was breached, and Liu Ying, commander of the 32nd Shijiazhuang Defending Enemy Division, could no longer hold his breath.He ran here for a while, and ran there for a while, pulling out his sharp Jiangxi accent, yelling that he wanted to shoot this one and that one.He scolded almost all the people who should be scolded.He is determined to defend the inner market ditch, and he also feels that he can hold the inner market ditch.Because Neishigou is Shijiazhuang's second line of defense and also its main line of defense. Its circumference is about 36 miles, densely covered with sharp piles, barbed wire, hanging thunders, deer villages, and there are many blockhouses along the ditch.At the same time, there is also his 32nd Division directly defending here.Once there is a mistake, how can he, a third-term student of Whampoa, be worthy of the principal's cultivation?How can he be worthy of the support of Chief Hu Zongnan?

On the evening of November 9th, Shijiazhuang in early winter was windy and drizzly, making the sky even colder.Under the cover of night, the units of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Field Army braved the wind and rain and started large-scale soil work to transform the terrain and rush to repair traffic trenches and tunnels. In the dead of night, there was a slight noise, and there was a burst of gunfire from the enemy. The crazy enemy, in order to prevent our army from attacking Neishigou, used all the cannons. With the cooperation of 11 planes, they worked on our positions and soil with slogans such as "dig more shovel, less blood" and so on. He kept digging, all night long.All my commanders, militiamen, and migrant workers disregarded the enemy's threat of firepower and proposed "Where the people go, where the fortifications go!"

The next day, when Zhaohui dispelled the morning mist, looking around, the fields that were flat yesterday had changed beyond recognition overnight. Countless bunkers, criss-crossing trenches, and traffic trenches were all over the inner and outer cities. On the open ground with a depth of 2000 meters between the ditch.The main attacking regiments also dug tunnels 60 meters away from Neishigou, reaching the outer wall of Neishigou directly, and built explosive chambers to complete the preparations for internal blasting. All this, the enemy could never have dreamed of.Later, the head of the 94th Regiment of the 32nd Division of the enemy, who was captured by our army, said: At dusk the first day, there was still an open field in front of the position. At dawn the next day, half of our confidence in defense was lost.

At 16:00 on the 10th, the sun was setting and the red light was like fire.My powerful artillery group suddenly roared, and the general attack on Neishigou began.The artillery bombarded violently according to their respective performance and division of labor: mountain shells roared and fired at the enemy's high blockhouses; anti-aircraft artillery and infantry artillery blocked the enemy's blockhouse perforations; mortar shells bloomed everywhere on the enemy's field skirmish positions ; The heavy artillery fires suppressively at the enemy's depth.Internal blasting and external blasting go hand in hand.Shijiazhuang trembled in the deafening sound of gunfire and explosions, with red lights shining everywhere, thick smoke rising everywhere, and debris flying everywhere.

At 16:30, the 7th Brigade of the 3rd Column, which was mainly attacking in the southwest, used ladder tactics to lower the leading company into the ditch, but was killed by the enemy's intensive firepower before the ladder reached the opposite wall.The howling rain of bullets seemed to blow up a bloody whirlwind, spinning and expanding, attacking our commanders and fighters.The commanders and fighters of this company stained the bottom of the ditch with blood and sacrificed their precious lives for the liberation of Shijiazhuang. At this moment, the sound of landslides and ground cracks came from the southwest.The blasting team of the 23rd Regiment of the 9th Brigade of the 3rd Column adopted tunnel tactics, leading the underground passage to the enemy's Neishi ditch, loaded a large amount of explosives, pulled out the fuse, and detonated the explosives after launching a general attack. The Neishi ditch rose into the air like a small volcano erupting, and the fallen soil was deposited, making the ditch walls several feet deep immediately turn into a gentle slope.The tunnel blasting finally opened up the passage.The soldiers rushed to this opening, but because the soil was too loose, the soldiers in front fell into the soil as soon as they stepped on it.However, they used their flesh and blood to pave the way for the follow-up troops.

Ten minutes later, the enemy's 96th regiment launched a crazy counterattack against our 23rd regiment with the strength of a battalion under the cover of tanks. Our 23rd regiment repelled the enemy three times in a row, wiped out most of the enemy, and finally consolidated the vested interests. Position, rushed in from here.Then all the regiments of the brigade rushed in from here one by one, and the momentum was like a tidal wave, making it impossible for the enemy to stop it. The famous writer Wei Wei once conducted an interview during the Shijiazhuang Battle. He witnessed the fierce battle scene at the breakthrough in the southwest of Neishigou, and wrote a prose "At the Breakthrough" full of gunpowder.The text reads:

On November 10th, the dim sunset shone on Shimen.Although the enemy planes strafed and bombed back and forth, our army has already approached the enemy's second line of defense at a distance of more than 50 meters in various forms of positions. At 4 o'clock, the artillery of the general offensive began to sound, and the continuous discharge of intensive artillery fire caused an excited commotion in the entire trench.Everyone squeezed, watched, pointed, and shouted.Seeing that the inner edge of the deep ditch more than two feet deep and covered with electric grids, the dense bunkers and dense gun holes formed by railroad tracks were instantly covered by gun smoke.At this time, the comrades took off their cotton coats one after another, some tied shoelaces, some tightened their belts, and some sharpened bayonets on the soles of their shoes.The trenches were covered with colorful slogans: "Resolutely liberate Shimen!"