Chapter 15 10. Cold winter is a friend of the Chinese——a battle to the death under the city of Qiqihar, the "frozen capital"?

Qiqihar is just a larger city in Heilongjiang today, but in 1931, it was the last capital of the three eastern provinces to fall.Unlike Shenyang and Changchun, the Chinese army made a different choice when the Japanese army pressed Heilongjiang. Ma Zhanshan, who was in charge of the military administration of Heilongjiang Province, and Xie Ke, chief of staff, decided to fortify and resist in Qiqihar.Thus, Qiqihar became a city under gunpoint.In the "Glory - The Complete Collection of Photos of the Manchuria Incident" published by the former Japanese Army's Military Service Department in 1933, a photo of the Heilongjiang Provincial Defense Force under General Ma Zhanshan's command to stop the Japanese army unexpectedly appeared.

Since the Japanese army is unlikely to go deep into the back of General Ma Zhanshan's headquarters to take pictures, it is speculated that the pictures were obtained from Western newspapers. According to the description of the photo, the Chinese army was deployed to attack the Japanese army at Fulaerji near Qiqihar. On November 7, Jiangqiao, the gateway to Heilongjiang, fell into the hands of the enemy. General Ma Zhanshan, who had just been appointed by Zhang Xueliang as the acting chairman of Heilongjiang Province, issued a declaration, saying, "It is the responsibility to occupy the mountains and guard the land, and we will never dare to let the land of the size be reduced to aliens." ". On November 12th, the Second Division of the Japanese Army's elite troops dedicated to combat in cold regions (the commander of the division, Lieutenant General Tomon Jiro) was transferred to the front line of Qiqihar. Not counting the puppet army, it has reached more than 20,000 people, and then began to attack Qiqihar, the capital of Heilongjiang Province at that time. Beginning on November 12, 1931, Ma Zhanshan led his troops to launch a fierce battle to defend Qiqihar in Sanjianfang, Daxing, Fulaerji, Angangxi and other places outside Qiqihar in order to defend the provincial capital of Heilongjiang.

It should be said that the situation before the start of the Qiqihar defense battle carried out by the Black Provincial Army was not optimistic.This is because Ma Zhanshan's tribe had already paid a heavy sacrifice in the battle to defend the Jiangqiao. At this time, there were only more than 5,000 troops on the outskirts of Qiqihar, and there were no heavy weapons such as aircraft and tanks.The Northeast Army had few troops in Heilongjiang, and the two main brigades followed Wan Fulin, chairman of Heilongjiang Province, to fight against Shi Yousan's rebellion. There are four brigade commanders with the same qualifications and prestige as him, so his ability to mobilize troops outside his direct line is limited.At the same time, Ma Zhanshan, who was born as a warlord, did not know what mobilizing the masses was, and only relied on the soldiers under his command to fight the Japanese army resolutely.

Ma Zhanshan has been in the army for a long time, and he should have a good idea of ​​his chances of winning in such a passive defensive position with inferior troops.In doing so, he expected to gain support from two aspects while being able to delay the actions of the Japanese army.First of all, he expected the main force of the Northeast Army commanded by Zhang Xueliang to provide support in southern Liaoning, forcing the Japanese army to return to aid, so as to relieve the difficulties in Heilongjiang Province; secondly, he hoped that the Soviet Union could intervene to prevent the Japanese army from entering the jurisdiction of Heilongjiang Province.

Due to the domestic and international situation at that time, neither the main force of the Northeast Army nor the Soviet Union could give Ma Zhanshan enough support.The Northeast Army hastily deployed defenses on the southern front, and Zhang Xueliang lacked the courage to counterattack without the support of the central government, and tried to "wait for the League of Nations to resolve it." The Soviet Union was busy with the first five-year plan and did not want to easily start a war in the east .Therefore, after a week of bitter fighting, the Black Province troops who suffered heavy casualties had no choice but to withdraw from the battle and move towards Helen. On November 19, Qiqihar, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, fell to the enemy.

However, during the resistance operations of Ma Zhanshan's tribe, an unexpected friend gave the Chinese army great help. This was the extremely cold winter of 1931.Qiqihar is known as the "Crane City", but when the Japanese army attacked, the temperature in this city reached minus 20 degrees, but it was a veritable "Frozen Capital". Although many divisions of the Japanese army had been trained in cold zone combat, they were still at a loss in the face of minus 20 degrees low temperature.During the Qiqihar defense battle, a large number of frostbitten personnel appeared in the Japanese army, especially the unreasonable design of their steel helmets, which often froze soldiers' scalps and helmets into one, resulting in cases of "steel helmet head".The Japanese military history admitted that a total of 382 officers and soldiers were lost in the attack on Qiqihar, but in addition, as many as 996 people lost their combat capabilities or even became disabled due to frostbite.Although in order to maintain morale, the Japanese army downplayed such a large non-combat loss in internal and external reports, they also called the battle in Qiqihar the "Battle of the Frozen Capital" with lingering fears.After this war, the Japanese army was unable to take the initiative to attack Ma Zhanshan for a long time, and the Japanese logistics department invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the development of cold-proof equipment to ensure that it would not repeat the same mistakes when fighting in cold regions.

While seeing the number of Japanese casualties, we should also think that the Mazhanshan Heibei Army, which is far less equipped than the Japanese army, also fought desperately with the Japanese army in the same harsh environment.However, they still fought fierce battles with the Japanese army in Daxing, Ang'angxi, and Sanjianfang successively. It was not until the Japanese army invested all the main force of the Second Division and the troops were broken by the central government that they had to retreat.In the severe cold, even the Japanese army had to express their amazement at the trenches left by Ma Zhanshan's troops on the ground as frozen as iron.

Although the defense of Qiqihar failed, it should allow us to leave a mark in history-during the fall of the three northeastern provinces, at least the provincial capital of Heilongjiang Province did not give up easily, but finally fell after fierce fighting. , The number of enemy troops far exceeds ours. The Chinese army in Heilongjiang Province still caused the Japanese army to pay a heavy price even though they were isolated behind the enemy's rear.It is not very appropriate to say that if there is no resistance, the three northeastern provinces will be lost. By the way, I once asked the old people living in Qiqihar, and they said that the only thing that can be remembered in Qiqihar back then is Longsha Park, which embodies the cultural heritage of Qiqihar as a provincial capital.

Longsha Park was first built in 1904 by Cheng Dequan, then General of Heilongjiang. The word "Longsha" was first seen in "Biography of Ban Gu in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty", "Tanbu onion and snow, Longsha is close at hand". In our textbooks, Cheng Dequan only recorded that "revolutions must be destroyed", when the governor of the Qing Dynasty became the governor of the Republic of China, he had someone hold a bamboo pole and poke off a few tiles on the roof of the governor's yamen. A funny image.In fact, Cheng Dequan in history was a very courageous Sichuanese. From 1898 to 1908, he defended the border for the country for ten years in Heilongjiang. Russia invaded and presided over the lifting of the land ban in Heilongjiang, which contributed a lot. In 1900, when Russia invaded Northeast my country, General Shoushan of Heilongjiang was defeated and committed suicide. Cheng Dequan, his subordinate, once rode into the Russian barracks to negotiate, trying to stop the atrocities of burning, killing and looting by the Russian army.After being detained, he refused to be a traitor, and even blocked the muzzle of the Russian army who was burned and killed in Qiqihar, and was deeply loved by the local elders.Up to now, in Longsha Park, there is still a "Monument of Duke Cheng of Qing Yunyang who defended himself against disasters" to commemorate this magistrate who was meticulous in the face of difficulties.

Even for those who like the history of the Anti-Japanese War, Longsha Park is a very strange name.However, I do remember a plot related to it. The "September 18th" Incident occurred in 1931, and the situation in the Northeast was in chaos.Heilongjiang Province is uncertain about peace and war. Chief of Staff Xie Ke resisted all opinions, suppressed the surrender faction, organized troops to rise up and resist, and effectively prevented Zhang Haipeng's puppet army from invading Qiqihar, the provincial capital. The glory of the Anti-Japanese War made Heilongjiang the only province among the three eastern provinces that did not receive the order of "non-resistance".

Xie Ke recalled in his later years that at that time the provincial chairman Wan Fulin was stranded in the customs, and his son Wan Guobin fled privately with money, which caused the capitulation faction in Heilongjiang province to become rampant. Xie Ke was in an extremely difficult situation and often wandered in Longsha Park in depression. I can't imagine how General Xie Ke, who had no ammunition and no reinforcements, walked in Longsha Park.Is it to look for the bones of "Qingyunyang Chenggong defends against difficulties with his body", or he can't bear the heart of this great river and mountain being reduced to the iron hoof of a foreign country. Most of the patriotic soldiers in Northeast China in that era fought alone and had no way to serve the country. General Xie Ke was just one of them.