Chapter 156 7. Siege of Xinzhong Station

According to the instructions of the Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei Military Region, Commander Yang Chengwu of the Jizhong Military Region, Political Commissar Lin Tie, and other leaders of the military region decided after research that the general policy for the spring offensive is to give full play to the power of the people's war, implement Chairman Mao's idea of ​​concentrating forces to fight a war of annihilation, and use military Combining strikes with political offensives and economic blockades, first from west to east, from Baiyangdian to the Bohai Sea; then from south to north, sweeping across Pingnan and Jinxi, annihilating the entrenched enemy; and then passing through Yongding River, Ziya River, Jinpu On the road, cooperate with Jidong, Jicha and our army to attack Ping and Tianjin.

The entire campaign kicked off with the capture of the enemy's stronghold Xinzhongyi on the Daming Highway in Beiping. In this regard, Li Jian's reminiscence article included in "A Spark Starts a Prairie Fire" has a wonderful description. Xinzhongyi, located on the Beiping-Daming highway, between Renqiu and Hejian, is an important hub connecting the two places, and its position is very important.The stronghold has solid fortifications, with 2 main blockhouses as high as more than ten feet, as well as auxiliary blockhouses and dark forts.There are outer trenches and barbed wire fences around the stronghold, and two layers of mines and cluster grenades are buried around the outer trenches and barbed wire fences.There are also many enemy defenders. There is the 2nd Brigade of the Puppet Renqiu County Garrison, with more than 150 people, equipped with machine guns and small artillery.There is the Yamada Brigade of the Japanese Army in Dacheng nearby, and the Kato Squadron of the Japanese Army in Renqiu.

Tian Wenming, the commander of the puppet battalion, was originally the battalion commander of the Kuomintang army. After surrendering to Japan, he committed all kinds of crimes.It was he who planned the Shimen Bridge tragedy two years ago, killing more than 40 anti-Japanese people.A primary school teacher with a family of six was thrown into a well by him, then filled with stones and stoned to death.When his animal nature broke out, he would often aim and shoot at the town from the bunker, saying that he was hitting a "living target". For this, the local people hated it deeply, and the people even made up a ballad to accuse Tian Wenming of his crimes:

The people hate and the enemy loves. The leader of the Japanese army greatly praised Tian Wenming, saying: "Arita Wenming defends Xinzhong Station, and the imperial army has nothing to worry about." After research, the head of the 9th Division of Jizhong decided to pull out this nail and eradicate the traitor Tian Wenming . In view of the strict defense of the enemy at Xinzhongyi, there are Japanese reinforcements nearby.In order to capture Xinzhongyi, the division decided to attack the Yamada brigade first, and taught him a lesson so that he would not dare to leave the city easily.

Soon, Yamada led a team to grab grain in Renqiu area.The Division seized this opportunity and set up an ambush in Jinqiao with the 38th Division Team, Renqiu Detachment and Wenxin Detachment. On the afternoon of April 13, when Shan Tian returned from grabbing food, the Eighth Route Army launched an attack, crushing more than 500 devils in the channel of the Xiyang River, unable to lift their heads. It was not until night that the Japanese army put together again, took advantage of the darkness, threw away all the heavy equipment, and fled. In this battle, more than 60 enemy troops were wiped out and more than 100 carts were captured.The things that the devils snatched from the common people were taken away.

After this fight, Yamada became much more honest. After receiving the good news of the victory of the ambush, the division immediately decided to set off with troops to besiege Xinzhongyi.That night, the troops surrounded Xin Zhongyi. Afterwards, the Eighth Route Army shouted to the guarding puppet troops to surrender.Tian Wenming was stubborn, refused to surrender, and called Yamada for reinforcements.Yamada had just been beaten and almost lost his life. He was in a panic and refused to help.Said: "I just escaped from the tiger's mouth, it is really a fluke, this time rely on Captain Tian to save myself!"

Tian Wenming put down the phone, scolded Yamada, and then ordered to stick to it. If the enemy does not surrender, destroy him.The division chief ordered the attack to begin. But after an attack, the troops failed to pass through the outer trench, and the ladder was blown off. Tian Wenming thought that the Eighth Route Army was trying to scare him, but he didn't expect the Eighth Route Army to actually set up the ladder in the middle of the night. If the ladder hadn't been blown off, the Eighth Route Army must have rushed into the town.Afraid that the Eighth Route Army would attack again, Tian Wenming asked someone to set up a large pot, filled it with oil, put a wick on it and lit it, and it immediately lit up everywhere.Tian Wenming still felt uneasy, and asked the soldiers guarding the city to shoot outside from time to time, while he took off his shirt, picked up a big knife, and shouted in the bunker: "We are the Central Army, and I was the Central Army ten years ago." The battalion commander of the army, there are plenty of ways to deal with you idiots. Don't try to find cheap things from me."

The officer shouted, and the soldiers below followed suit: "The rooster is crowing, run away, the imperial army is coming tomorrow, watch your heads." When death was imminent, this group of guys even frightened the Eighth Route Army with devils. Since the Eighth Route Army lacked heavy weapons, it was not easy to take down Xinzhongyi.The attacking troops decided to besiege first, not attack temporarily, and study tactics. One day, Li Jianzheng, chief of staff of the division, and Wang Daobang, deputy political commissar of the division, were summarizing the reasons for the setback of the attack. Li Huiqin, political commissar of the 42nd district team, rushed to say: "Chief of staff Li, someone from the Renqiu district team suggested a solution just now. , said that tunnels can be dug to blow up bunkers, we think this is a good way.”

The masses are the real heroes, and there is no problem that cannot be solved by relying on the masses. Li Jian raised his eyebrows when he heard that, and turned to Wang Daobang, "This method is very good. Renqiu's 3rd and 7th teams have the most experience in digging tunnels. How about digging?" Wang Daobang said happily: "We should adopt this suggestion immediately, which shows that the wisdom of the masses is infinite. Our first attack failed because we did not mobilize the masses to think of more ways. We must use all the active forces among the masses It’s all about playing to win.”

Finally, when Li Huiqin left, Wang Daobang repeatedly urged: "The masses must be widely mobilized to do a good job in these tasks. If we combine tunnel blasting, political disintegration, and night storming, we will definitely be able to take down Xinzhongyi." Once the masses were mobilized, their enthusiasm became even higher.They said: "Comrades, as long as we can get rid of this curse, we will support whatever you need." The militiamen and fellow villagers who dug the tunnels chanted "work hard, don't be afraid of sweating, dig through the tunnels, and go to the west of the bunker". They decided to let the earth method of Tuba Road play a huge role.

Seeing that the Eighth Route Army had set up a heavy siege, Tian Wenming was a little scared and asked the surrounding Japanese troops for help.The Eighth Route Army also estimated the enemy's hand, so they used 2/3 of their troops to fight for reinforcements and 1/3 of their troops to encircle the points.The surrounding Japanese troops were afraid and did not dare to send aid, but more than a hundred Japanese puppet cavalry came out of Hejian County in the south to try it out, and after a face-to-face encounter with the 34th District team, they retreated.The enemies of Dacheng, Renqiu, and Gaoyang never dared to move. One day, the sentry caught a suspicious person and found a letter from him.It turned out that it was given to Tian Wenming by Song Damin, the pseudo-Renqiu county magistrate.The letter said: ... If I send reinforcements out of the city, I will definitely be ambushed and in danger of being wiped out, and the county seat will also be in danger.I tried my best to urge Squadron Captain Kato to lead the Japanese army to help you, but Kato ordered: Xin Zhongyi can give up, Ren Qiu cannot be dispatched... On the same day, Li Jian learned that Renqiu, a small captain of the Kato Squadron of the Japanese Army, was afraid of the Eighth Route Army's offensive, felt that the end was imminent, and his martial arts would not last long, so he committed suicide by caesarean section. Li Jian and Wang Daobang immediately let people shoot the news into the stronghold with arrows, and broadcast it to the enemy with small speakers to disintegrate the enemy army.The puppet army guarding the stronghold is even more panicked all day long. On the fifth day of the siege, there was a commotion in the puppet army.But Tian Wenming is still stubborn.At this time, the tunnel dug by the Eighth Route Army was discovered by the enemy when it was approaching the enemy's outer trench. The puppet army destroyed the tunnel by blasting horizontal ditches and buried cluster grenades.This time, Tian Wenming was even more violent. He chopped off the head of a wavering puppet soldier and showed it to the Eighth Route Army. He stood on the bunker and yelled, "Stop yelling. This is what you will end up listening to!" The soldiers were so angry that Li Xiaolu, the special sharpshooter of the 42nd district team, raised his gun and fired. He heard a "beep", and Tian Wenming's hat was blown away. Tian Wenming was so frightened that he dared not stick his head out again. . Political struggle and tunnel operations were unsuccessful, so Li Jian and Wang Daobang decided to attack. They knew very well that this battle was the first battle in response to Mao Zedong's "expanding the liberated areas", and it was also the first shot to implement the entire combat plan of the military region. It could only be won, not defeated. For this reason, the prefectural committee held another meeting to study, approved the attack plan, and decided that Li Jian would go to the frontier to take specific command. On the night of the 19th, the moon was dark and the stars were sparse. A burst of rapid charge tore through the silent night sky. Commanders and fighters rushed to the enemy bunker with shining bayonets.Li Jian and Wan Zhenxi, the captain of District 42, stood in a small courtyard next to the enemy's outer trench and saw it clearly. Later Li Jian recalled: Since we do not have heavy firearms, ammunition for light weapons is also very short; over the past few years, we have developed a set of methods for ambush, surprise attack, and disguised attack, but there are indeed difficulties in attacking fortifications.I saw with my own eyes that the soldiers rushed upwards like tigers, but the enemy built shelters along the reverse slope inside the outer trench and kept throwing grenades;The troops rushed several times, but were stopped outside the trench by the enemy's intensive firepower.Seeing the current situation, I can't wait to punch all the enemies to death. Li Jian's state of mind at this time is beyond the imagination of ordinary people. It is a complex state of mind intertwined with anger and grief. Li Jian was thinking: Is it really "immature" and "impossible" to attack Xinzhongyi?No, we must try again and never waver. Li Jian spread out the combat sketches to study with everyone, and everyone pointed out that the enemy had a weakness when they charged just now, that is, the enemy concentrated their firepower on our main attack direction.The firepower in the southeast and east is very weak, and there is a gap. Li Jian immediately decided to make more feints, and moved his troops from the tunnel to covertly meet the enemy, so that he would definitely be able to fight.After hearing this, everyone said repeatedly: "Okay, let's do it!" After a short deployment adjustment, a new attack was launched.At this time, the rooster is about to crow, and the distance is already white.This is when the enemy begins to become paralyzed and exhausted. The attacking troops attacked from multiple directions, and the enemy panicked for a while, and their firepower dispersed.At this time, the crowd of men and women within a few miles beat gongs and drums one after another, playing a symphony that shocked the enemy's courage along with the soldiers' shouts of killing. In the slogan "It's time to avenge the people of Jizhong", the soldiers braved the enemy's dense bullets, went forward one after another, jumped over the deep ditch, climbed the ladder, and rushed into the enemy's tower.At this time, soldiers and militiamen who came out of the tunnel also broke into the bunker and started hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. At dawn on the 20th, the enemies of Xinzhongyi were wiped out.After the battle, Li Jian saw two captives carrying a person through the door, and the escorting soldiers reported, "This is Tian Wenming." After finishing speaking, the soldier took off the towel covering Tian Wenming's head. Li Jian took a closer look. Tian Wenming's face was covered with blood and he was dying. severely punished by the people." After recovering Xinzhongyi, Yang Chengwu, the commander of the Jizhong Military Region, and Lin Tie, the political commissar, praised the troops participating in the battle. They said: "This battle has gained initial experience in using tunnel blasting and storming strongholds. It has revealed that the Jizhong area has faced the enemy. The prelude to the counter-offensive." Then under the command of Yang Chengwu and Lin Tie, the Jizhong troops launched Renqiu, Hejian, Wen'an, Xinzhen, Anping, Raoyang, Ziyahedong, Daqinghebei five offensives within three months The campaign, as Yang Chengwu said later: "These five campaigns are an organically connected whole, which develops extremely compactly and rhythmically." While the Jizhong Military Region launched its spring offensive, other strategic regions also achieved major results. Jijin Military Region. In the spring of 1945, he attacked the interior and border areas of the base area, successively captured Pingshan, Fanzhi and Shanyin counties, and wiped out more than 100 Japanese and puppet troops. On March 30, Lingqiu County, an important town in Yanbei, was defeated again. The enemy was frightened by being wiped out and was forced to abandon 33 strongholds and bunkers.At the same time, the Hebei-Shanxi Military Region removed 24 enemy and puppet strongholds in the Pingshan and Lingshou areas, and recovered 52 villages with a population of more than 27,000.It broke through the first blockade of the so-called "guaranteed Mongolian area" established by the Japanese and puppet troops between Daying and Lingqiu. Jicha Military Region.During the Spring Festival offensive, according to the instructions of the military region, the Jicha troops launched a spring offensive to the enemy and puppet strongholds on the edge of the base area.The first division of the division invaded Xushui Nanguan and Beiguan, Baoding Dongguan, and forced the enemy troops to retreat from Laiyuan City.The division troops of the 11th Army liberated Zhaitang and Zijingguan, the important strongholds of the Japanese army in Pingxi, and pushed into the suburbs of Beiping to capture the Liyuan stronghold.Troops of the 12th Army Division once attacked Chongli City and wiped out more than 100 enemies.The troops of the 13th Army Sub-division were active in Chanan. After three months of fierce fighting, they liberated the south of Pingsui Road and the southwest of Zhangjiakou, and liberated 327 villages with a population of more than 80,000. Jire Liao border area.Since January, the Jireliao Military Region has carried out an anti-"mopping up" campaign for more than four consecutive months, smashing the attack of more than 40,000 enemy troops. These offensives and the counter "sweep" created the conditions for the summer offensive.