Chapter 138 4. The puppet army suffered an annihilating blow

When the battle between Yuanzhuang and Dafanzhuang was fierce, the battle of Linnan was also in full swing. On the eve of the end of the Battle of Weinan, the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army decided to take advantage of the victory and concentrate on the Taihang Military Region and a part of the Southern Hebei Military Region. The main force of Pang Bingxun and Sun Dianying of the Puppet 24th Army in the southern area of ​​Taihang Mountains. According to the fact that the command of the Puppet Army Pang Bingxun and Sun Dianying was not unified, the deployment was scattered, the morale was low, and there were conflicts with the surrounding Japanese troops, the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army decided to first divide and annihilate the main force of the puppet army in the Lin County area, and then expand the results of the war to eliminate Hejian, At the same time, the puppet troops in Dongyao, Linqi and other places blocked and flanked the Japanese troops who might send aid with a small number of troops.

The deployment of the Linnan Campaign is: the East Group consists of the 13th Regiment of the Taihang Military Region, all of the 771st Regiment of the Southern Hebei Military Region, the 1st, 10th, and 34th Regiments of the Taihang Military Region, each part of the 2nd Regiment of the Garrison Brigade of the Jizhong Military Region, and the Taihang Military Region The 5th Army Sub-district Engineer Platoon was formed to attack the puppet troops in Yaocun, Hengshui, Dongyao and other places near Lin County; 20. Composed of the 32nd regiment and the engineering platoons of the 3rd and 4th military divisions of the Taihang Military Region, they attacked the puppet troops in Lin County and its southwest Hejian, Yuankang and other places, focusing on destroying the puppet 24th Army Pang Bingxun and Sun Dianying's command organs ; use the 129th Division Division Special Service Battalion and the Taihang Military Region 5th Army Division and a local unit to form a Tang'an detachment to block the Japanese and puppet troops that may be sent to Anyang on the front lines of Shuiye and Guantai; The students of the branch school formed a martial arts team, and with the cooperation of the masses, they contained and harassed the Japanese and puppet troops.At the same time, more than 3,000 militiamen in the Taihang area participated in the battle, and the troops of the Taiyue Military Region attacked the Japanese and puppet troops on the Baijin Railway Line to support the battle.

On the night of August 16, the troops participating in the Linnan Campaign set off from Pingshun, Huguan, and Shexian respectively, and hurriedly marched to the west and north of Linxian County to gather in covert areas. On the morning of the 17th, the advance units of the Eastern and Western Corps began to approach the enemy's outpost strongholds, carrying out a feint attack, and then suddenly retreated in the afternoon to paralyze the enemy. After dusk, the official offensive began.The main forces of the East and West Corps of the Eighth Route Army set off from the assembly points respectively, and carried out long-distance raids on Linxian County and the surrounding enemies.

It was a relatively cool night, and the moonlight was not too bright. The main force of the Eastern Corps marched on the rugged mountain road with one foot deep and one foot shallow.After trekking in the middle of the night, the troops avoided the outposts of the puppet army and surrounded the puppet army strongholds such as Lingyang, East and West Xiacheng, and Jiangli in the east of Lin County from the east and west to attract the enemy's attention. The Corps' attack on the county seat of Lin County. After completing the encirclement of the enemy, the Western Corps concentrated its forces and weapons at 0:30 on the 18th, and stormed the enemy's command center in Linxian County. The 769 regiment took the lead in attacking the puppet army stronghold near the northwest of the city. The 20th Regiment took the opportunity to launch a strong attack from the west of the city and the 3rd Regiment from the east of the city at the same time, and entered the city in one fell swoop. However, after dawn, the puppet army counterattacked several times and seized the south gate and the southwest corner, in an attempt to block the advance of the Eighth Route Army with firepower. .

At noon on the 18th, the 20th Regiment and the 3rd Regiment launched a fierce attack on Liu Yueting's former enemy headquarters at the same time.This battle was extremely difficult, and it was not until 18:00 that Liu Yueting's headquarters and the pseudo-security headquarters were resolved.Liu Yueting was wounded and escaped, and his chief of staff, He Guangdi, was shot dead.At the same time, part of the 32nd garrison regiment of the Eighth Route Army wiped out Liu Yueting's garrison battalion, and part of the 769th regiment also conquered the puppet strongholds of Sangyuan and Haojiazhuang in the west of the city.

At this time, there were still some Japanese troops in Linxian County, stubbornly defending and refusing to surrender. At 18:00, after the 32nd Guard Regiment defeated the puppet army in the horse circle outside the city, at 24:00, together with all the 20th Regiment and one battalion of the 769th Regiment, they launched an attack on the besieged Japanese army in the Toudao Battalion inside the city. Seeing that the situation was not good, the Japanese army broke through at night and fled to Nanguan. Lin County was once again surrounded by the Eighth Route Army.By the 19th, except for this part of the Japanese army, all the puppet troops in and around Linxian County were wiped out.In order to rescue this part of the trapped people, the Japanese army mobilized several planes to bombard and straf the attacking Eighth Route Army in turn, until one of them was shot down, and then left angrily.

The Western Corps of the Eighth Route Army saw the strong firepower of the Japanese army, so they left part of the besieged troops, and the main force moved southward, defeated the puppet troops in Hejian and Yuankang in the south of Lin County, and quickly attacked Linqi. At 24:00 on the 21st, the 32nd Regiment of the Eighth Route Army and the 32nd Security Regiment wiped out the 1st Battalion of the Puppet Independent Brigade on the outskirts of Linqi.But as soon as he entered Linqi, he was attacked by the Japanese army from Huixian County, who rushed to help him. In order to avoid the Japanese and puppet attack, the Eighth Route Army withdrew from the battle.

On the 23rd, the Western Corps began to attack the 8th column of the puppet army in Dongxipingluo, north of Huixian County.At 21:00 on the same day, the 2nd Regiment of the Eighth Route Army and the 32nd Guard Regiment began to attack Xipingluo, and the 20th and 32nd Regiments attacked Dongpingluo.But the battle of Xipingluo was very fierce and cruel.The Eighth Route Army once invaded the village and killed a large number of enemies. Later, due to the consumption of too much ammunition, they failed to wipe out all the enemies, and their own casualties were not small, so they had to withdraw from the battle and moved to the Yuankang area for standby.The puppet army in Dongpingluo was forced to abandon the village and flee south on the 26th under the onslaught of the Eighth Route Army, and the area was occupied by the 32nd Regiment of the Eighth Route Army.

At this time, the Eastern Corps of the Eighth Route Army also achieved great results. At 0:30 on the 18th, apart from the Yang Zhenlan Independent Brigade of the puppet army of the Yang Zhenlan Brigade, which was monitored by the first part of the 2nd Guard Regiment to monitor the enemy's frontal outpost strongholds Yaocun and Hejia, the other units successively launched attacks on the puppet army strongholds in front of them. The 771st Regiment and a part of the 10th Regiment directly killed the 10th Regiment, the main force of the Niu Ruiting Department of the 4th Division of the Puppet 5th Army heading north and south to Lingyang.The enemy fought tenaciously with the help of masonry houses, and the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army rose up to charge, fighting fiercely until 13:00, and wiped out all the defending enemies. At 14:00, Pi Dingjun commanded the 1st and 34th regiments to conquer Dongxixia City.

Then, Fang Shengpu, deputy commander of the 7th division of the Taihang Military Region and head of the 1st regiment, led the regiment from the west, and Jiang Kecheng, head of the 34th regiment, led the regiment from the east to attack Qushan together.Qushan is the headquarters of the 4th Division of the Puppet 5th Army. After two hours of fighting, the enemy was defeated, and Niu Ruiting, the commander of the puppet division, fled south.By the evening of the 19th, the puppet troops of Jiangli, Yaocun, and He's family were all wiped out. So far, only the Japanese army surrounded by Nanguan remained near Lin County.

The puppet army Pang Bingxun and Sun Dianying planned to flee eastward because they were attacked repeatedly.For this reason, the Eighth Route Army decided to take advantage of the fact that the main force of the Western Corps would continue to attack the puppet troops entrenched in the north of Huixian County while the Japanese reinforcements had not yet fully arrived. military.Under the fierce attack of the Eighth Route Army, the puppet army ran all the way and fled to the Ping-Han line on the 24th. The Eighth Route Army no longer needed to pursue it. Also on the 24th, the detachment of the Japanese army to aid the trapped troops in the south of Lin County had entered the Lin County area. Among them, more than 1,000 Japanese troops from Anyang even reached Lin County, and more than 400 Japanese troops from Hui County also entered Linqi.The 769 regiment of the Western Corps of the Eighth Route Army blocked it along the way, while the other two regiments approached quickly.Fearing that they would be surrounded and mobilized, the Japanese army rushed across the Qi River in the dark and retreated to the direction of Lin County.At that time, it was a time of heavy rain and flash floods.Under the pursuit of the Eighth Route Army, the Japanese troops crossing the river in a hurry were submerged and washed away more than 100 people. Due to the difficulty of crossing the river, the Eighth Route Army stopped pursuing, and the Linnan Battle ended in victory. The Battle of Linnan started at 00:30 on August 18, 1943 and ended on the 26th. It lasted 9 days and wiped out more than 7,000 Japanese and puppet troops, conquered more than 80 enemy strongholds, and liberated more than 400,000 people. (Xu Shenji: "Linnan Great Victory")