Chapter 236 8. Open the gate of Xiangyang City, and our army has zero casualties

In the third pass of Wang Jinshan's "three passes with a knife", the task of capturing the Iron Buddha Temple was snatched by the 1st Battalion and 1st Company of the 50th Regiment.As a result, the enemy on the hill on the right and under the city pass on the left blocked the narrow flat land outside Xiguan with crossfire, but our communication trenches still stretched forward tenaciously.As soon as it got dark, the soldiers jumped out of the trench in twos and threes, leaned over, brandished their shovels, and dug forward vigorously; their shirts and trousers were soaked in sweat, and the bullets hissed and flew overhead. Everyone is like cast iron, with red eyes full of anger, and every heart anxiously looking forward to the moment of battle.

On the night of July 10, 1948, there was a light rain, and the smoke and smoke on the battlefield covered the sky and covered the sky, making it impossible to see each other face to face.Suddenly I heard everyone yelling: "The deputy political commissar has come to mobilize us!" The soldiers were so happy that they beat each other's backs and touched their hands. They squatted in the mud and felt refreshed when the rain hit their faces. The combat mission is really looking forward to.I only heard deputy political commissar Zhang Lianfu say in a hearty tone: "The task of your 1st company is to attack the Tiefo Temple, and you have mountain artillery to cooperate with you. The Tiefo Temple is an important stronghold in Xiangyang City. The enemy has a battalion of troops holding on to the Tiefo Temple. You can take Xiangyang City."

At this moment, the soldiers of the 1st company almost yelled happily, if it weren't for the shells falling outside, they really wanted to jump up.After the chief finished his speech, the soldiers all said: "We must pull out the hard nail of Iron Buddha Temple and open the gate of Xiangyang City!" The enemy's control of the Tiefo Temple is really tight.A large wall was built around the temple, with gun holes of various calibers densely arranged on the wall. The outer layer was barbed wire and deer villages, and the outer layer was buried in various styles of landmines in the fields with a radius of tens of meters. .

The Tiefo Temple is only 50 meters away from the Xiguan Dashi Bridge, and it is at an angle with the enemy on Xiguan City. The enemy's firepower network can block the bridge crosswise. Look at this, if we don't capture the Tiefo Temple, our army will not be able to attack From Xiangyang City.Because the east and north of Xiangyang are close to the broad Han River, which is conducive to the enemy's defense. Ma Zhaoxi, a soldier of the 1st company back then, recalled the battle: In order to annihilate the enemy with certainty, we prepared for this battle for three full days.Our first task is to get as close to the enemy as possible, and dig the traffic trench to the edge of the enemy's den. As soon as the sun goes down, we dig to the enemy's vertical;This traffic trench was dug very deep, wide, and long. It walked straight with no hat on, and just passed it with a stretcher. It took half an hour to walk from the front to the kitchen; Take a nap in the cave, get hungry, pick up the pickaxe when you are full and have a hot meal, the enemy can do nothing for us.Later, the traffic trench was only 50 meters away from the enemy, and the gun holes on the wall of the Tiefo Temple could be counted, and the loud voices of both sides could be heard.The enemy was in a hurry and fired directly at us, but the shells were too far away, and the grenades couldn't reach us, and the machine guns and rifles couldn't even hit us. The enemy didn't dare to charge with bayonets, so they could only stare anxiously.

As soon as the intense trench digging work was completed, we concentrated our efforts on clearing mines.During the day, the comrades of the mine-sweeping team spotted the location of the new soil in the field. When it was dark, they stepped out of the trench, hunched over, and held a bamboo pole fifteen or six feet long with a three-legged iron hook on the top to explore. With the medicine thread, the landmines were smashed.For pedal landmines, we collapse them with grenades.The enemy's light and heavy machine guns fired hundreds of rounds, and some comrades were injured, but the lightning hook was still buckled tightly, as if it was more important than their own lives.My squad deputy accidentally stepped on three landmines and was killed. Our rescue team immediately carried his body back under the risk of bullets.In the end, the mine-sweeping team used iron hooks on the road ahead where no new soil was seen, until it proved that there were no landmines at all.

On the evening of July 13, the comrades of the blasting team and the assault team became active.For the convenience of movement, everyone simply took off their coats and wore only a homemade shirt, the laces on the cloth shoes were tightly tied, and hand grenades were tied tightly around their waists. Some even carried a bamboo basket with more than 30 hand grenades basket.Everyone laughed and said: "This grenade is enough for him to eat, not to mention the mountain cannon!" Our rescue team was also preparing nervously, and said to each other at the meeting: "Wherever the assault team goes, we will follow, unless sacrificed Even if we lose the lottery, we must carry the wounded back.” After dinner, it was already dusk, and we were still familiarizing ourselves with the way forward over and over again, calculating in our hearts: how many steps would we take to reach the Iron Buddha Temple.He stared at the wall of the Iron Buddha Temple with burning eyes.

At about 7 o'clock, our mountain artillery roared, and when the shell exploded on the ground, we jumped up; In half a minute, I heard a rumbling sound, and I thought: "The wall exploded, so fast!" I immediately picked up the two boxes of hand grenades and put them on my shoulders. The first commando group led by Jin Bao went out of the trench, and I followed.When he came to the gap in the fence, Ye Jinbao passed by, and immediately shouted: "Hit the grenade!" He became impatient, and threw three grenades with one hand, boom boom boom!Beat the enemy to run wild.Although I am in the rescue team, there are still two boxes of grenades on my shoulders; but my hands are itchy, so I grabbed two from other people's baskets, gritted my teeth, and threw them out. I only heard creaking in the dark. Yelling, probably knocked down a few.Come over and hold our heads up.The enemy's heavy machine guns stopped at this time. At this time, Ye Jinbao's assault team had already occupied the courtyard and the temple in the east, and was about to develop towards the west temple.Ye Jinbao was furious, and shouted in a rough voice: "Beat that machine gun!" He didn't care about concealment, and with a sharp jerk, he hit the machine gun with six grenades, and the machine gun immediately shut up.But then, a large group of enemies swarmed out from the west hall, as if someone was chasing after them, rushing towards the west hall in a chaotic manner. At this moment, I saw the second assault group led by the platoon deputy Xu Baocai rushing towards the west hall with bayonets in hand. All I heard was "Kill! Kill!" With the sound of several rows of grenades, the enemy was quickly defeated.Seeing that the situation was not good, the remaining enemies desperately jumped out of the wall in the northeast corner and ran along the city river to the Dashiqiao, but they were blocked by the machine guns in our trenches; They fired machine guns and seemed to want them to defend the Tiefo Temple, but they couldn't hold it anymore.Finally, the corpses of those hundreds of people covered the big stone bridge layer by layer.

In more than ten minutes, one company of our 50th regiment wiped out one battalion of the enemy.We didn't have a single casualty in the battle.In this way, the hard nail of Tiefo Temple was pulled out, and the gate of Xiangyang City was split open.