Chapter 29 8. The suburbs of Changde are sunny

In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang troops on the frontal battlefield mostly carried out defensive operations of passive defense and retreating steadily, and gradually formed a combat mode of "resisting one by one" tactically.During the defense of Changde, Yu Chengwan set up several control points on the outskirts of the surrounding cities by taking advantage of the favorable terrain to frustrate the enemy's sharpness, consume the enemy's combat power, and create conditions for subsequent urban operations.From November 18th, the outskirts of the city successively received fire from the vanguard of the Japanese army. On the 21st, the main forces of the 68th and 116th divisions of the Japanese army arrived, and Yokoyama Isamu came to the front to command the operations and conquered these strongholds one by one.

The strings of the situation have been taut from the very beginning, and the taut strings play the strongest sound. At noon on November 23, another Japanese attack was repulsed.Looking through the lingering gunpowder smoke, some soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 171st Regiment were repairing the fortifications, some were re-bandaging the wounds, and some were filling their mouths with cold medicine on the Hefu Mountain, which had been smeared beyond recognition by the flames of war for several days. Rice dumplings.In a small depression behind the position, more than 300 remains of martyrs were placed side by side. There are more than 300 people, which is more than half of the 500 officers and soldiers of the whole battalion who have held on to this position for 3 days and nights.Near the col where the martyrs were placed, there were more than 80 seriously wounded struggling to death.

Ruan Zhifang, commander of the 2nd Battalion, inspected the position.The eyes of this Whampoa 9th graduate were bloodshot. He couldn't remember how many times he repelled the enemy's attack. At this time, he checked the bayonets on the soldiers' rifles one by one.Most of the battalion suffered casualties, and the battle below will be even more severe. At 8:00 a.m. two days ago, more than 600 cavalrymen of the vanguard of the Japanese army, with the cooperation of 3 planes, first attacked Hefu Mountain.Ruan Zhifang led the whole battalion to fight calmly. The 2nd Battalion had the best shooting results in the military training of the whole division. At this time, the prestige was greatly boosted, and the Japanese cavalrymen fell off their horses one by one.After the two attacks were repulsed, Ruan Zhifang commanded the 6th company to launch a "counterattack", that is, a counterattack by the attacker in the defensive direction.The Japanese army was caught off guard, and more than 20 riders were intercepted at the foot of the mountain.The company commander, Liu Guirong, was a machine gunner, and at this time he brought a machine gun in hand to sweep the soldiers.During the cleaning of the battlefield, a man pretending to be dead was kicked out, and he was captured immediately.After interrogation, he confessed to being a soldier of the 68th Regiment of the 3rd Division, named Matsumoto this time.

Over a hundred enemies were killed and the first battle was won, but Ruan Zhifang was not happy.At night, he went down to each company and organized officers and soldiers to take the oath on the battlefield.He knew a tough battle was coming.The oath: "As long as you breathe, you will never let the enemy invade Hewei, fight until every man shoots, and never give up an inch of the country!" At 10 am on the 22nd, the main force of the 116th Division of the Japanese Army replaced the cavalry of the division and surrounded Hefu Mountain.The fierce artillery fire destroyed the outer positions of the defenders, and many soldiers were killed or killed in the artillery fire or buried in the collapsed fortifications.The Japanese army then launched a strong attack in a dense formation.The officers and soldiers of the defenders stubbornly suppressed the Japanese offensive with rifles and grenades. The 5th company's position was relatively gentle, and the Japanese army rushed up and saw the front of the position.The company commander shouted, and rushed forward with the soldiers holding bayonets to fight the enemy hand-to-hand.Seeing this, the Japanese army retreated in a panic. In the 6th company's position, the company commander led the crowd to repel the enemy's 8 attacks, and half of the entire company suffered casualties.Fighting fiercely until dusk, the Japanese army captured the position of a platoon on both sides of the 4th company.Seeing that each company suffered heavy casualties, Battalion Commander Ruan ordered the entire battalion to retreat to the core position on the top of the mountain.

At dawn on the 23rd, the Japanese army first used tentative attacks to find out the position of the defenders, and then concentrated artillery fire to bombard them violently.The Japanese army carried out low-altitude strafing bombing on the ground with 8 aircraft.From morning to noon, the infantry attacked three times on a large scale.Ruan Zhifang knew that at the last moment, the ammunition was almost exhausted, and all the officers and soldiers were bayoneted. At 2:00 p.m., Ruan Zhifang gathered the remaining 100 people and asked to select one person from each company, platoon, and squad in the original system, and 4 people from the battalion to form a small team, bring documents and rosters, and prepare to break out.

The officers and soldiers knew the meaning of this move and asked to stay.Ruan Zhifang found that the 4th company and the 6th company each had a platoon, and there was no one left from the platoon leader to the soldiers. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a breakout team of more than 30 people was formed.Most of this team is wounded who can still walk. After Ruan Zhifang set the timing and route for them to start, the comrades who broke through and stayed behind exchanged solemn military salutes with tears in their eyes. Ruan Zhifang led the company platoon leader to the hiding place of the seriously wounded, looked at it silently, and mourned for a moment at the remains of the martyrs, then returned to the position.

Just as the squad was about to enter the starting position for the breakout, the sentry reported that the Japanese army had released poison gas west of the main position.Without delay, Battalion Commander Ruan waved his hand, and everyone turned to the south end of the position.This is a relatively steep hillside, and the outer positions occupied by the Japanese army are only 50 meters away from the core positions. The battalion commander Ruan Zhifang was in front, followed by the only surviving company commander and 6 platoon leaders, and more than a hundred soldiers followed closely, rushing down the hillside with a cry of "Long live the Chinese nation"... The 116th Division Yan Yongwang We will set foot on the scorched earth of Hefu Mountain.He didn't let others follow him, and walked alone among the broken guns, dilapidated fortifications and corpses in various poses.He picked up a rifle, took off the broken bayonet and looked it up in his hand, thinking about the meaning of the word "Tiger" on the left arm symbol of the soldier's uniform in his mind.

Beside another pile of corpses, he saw bandaged soldiers lying on stretchers or rolling under them, death after injury, suffering twice, and ending their lives themselves.Some people used guns, some used grenades, and some people tore their bandaged wounds... When Yan Yongwang walked down Hefu Mountain, the chief of staff of the division, Yamada Takuer, reported to him that the commander of the 109th regiment, Bu Shangzhao, was killed in battle. If you take a combat map from that year and a Type 62 military compass still used by the PLA infantry to visit the old battlefield, you will suffer a lot.You will often curse in your heart that you have been duped, and that the person who wrote the history is irresponsible for getting the location wrong.In fact, this is just history playing hide-and-seek with you, joking, it is testing your sincerity.

But fortunately, the name of the battlefield of Nanpinggang, one of the most intense battles in the suburbs, is still there, and the place where Guo Jiazhang, the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 169th Regiment of the 57th Division, led his troops to fight a bloody battle with ten times the enemy is now the city's agricultural department. Territory.Say hello to the old gatekeeper and go in, but you can't find the feeling of the past.The old janitor had a strong sense of responsibility. When he saw the person acting suspiciously, he poked his head around and called the chief of the security department. They stopped me to see my ID.After clearing his doubts, he warmly invited him into the house for tea.The old man said: Are you a comrade writer?Are you here to write about Director Pang's project?Director Pang, don't look at him as young, but he is...

Connecting the Nanhu Pinggang defense line is the Changsheng Bridge position of the 1st Battalion of the 170th Regiment.The battalion's position is composed of a lake in Nanhuping defended by the 2nd company and the main positions of the Changsheng Bridge of the 1st and 3rd companies. This is the last barrier leading southward to the large and small west gates of Changde City. On the morning of November 22, the 109th Wing of the 116th Division of the Japanese Army stormed Nanhuping. The commander of the 2nd company, Shangguanying, led the whole company to resist for only 3 hours, and the fortifications were destroyed by Japanese artillery fire. Opposite the more than 100 people in the company, more than 2,000 Japanese troops were crushed. After calling the battalion commander Zhang Tinglin, they withdrew to the main position of Changsheng Bridge.

109 Regiment Commander Nobuue Zhaoyi, graduated from the 27th Infantry Department of the Japanese Army Non-commissioned Officer Academy, at the age of 36.At this time, he used the scorched-earth tactics of infantry and artillery coordination, land and air cooperation, and relied on heavy firepower to kill and injure the defenders.After crossing Nanhuping, he directed planes and artillery to bomb the Changsheng Bridge.After the artillery fire was ready, it was the infantry's turn to charge. They rushed up and were shot down, bombed and charged again, and were repelled again.Seeing that it was getting dark, there was no progress.Colonel Bu Shang couldn't hold his breath anymore. In the main position of Changsheng Bridge, Battalion Commander Zhang Tinglin and Deputy Battalion Commander Li Shaoxuan were also relatively worried.After only a few hours of fighting, the fortifications were basically blown down. In the second attack against the Japanese army, the frontline positions suffered heavy casualties.Seeing that the Japanese army is determined to win, and the number of troops has been continuously increased, how can this battle continue to be fought? While discussing, the explosion sounded earth-shattering again.This was a well-prepared infantry coordination. The Japanese army pushed into the defensive position amidst the explosion of shells. One shell hit a little closer and landed on the front of the infantry. It immediately fell down, but the Japanese army still rushed up like a tide.Zhang Tinglin and Li Shaoxuan exchanged a look: there is no other choice. The two top commanders of the position took the lead in raising their bayonet-mounted rifles, and the soldiers followed, rushing into the enemy's formation with hoarse shouts. The 116th Division of the Japanese Army was a reserve division formed shortly before coming to China.Due to the needs of the war, the Japanese army's supply of troops was tight. According to the usual practice, it has always been to designate an area to recruit a permanent division. In 1939, each division’s collection area was ordered by the government to recruit another division as a reserve division, and the designation was the original division plus 100. The 116th division was the reserve division of the 16th division.The combat effectiveness of the reserve division is much inferior to the well-trained standing division that has participated in battles many times, but it has to be pulled out of the mainland to fight. In the Japanese army, an important symbol to measure the combat effectiveness of an individual soldier and a collective is to see whether he dares to fight the bayonet and whether he can win in the bayonet hand-to-hand combat. When the defenders of the Changsheng Bridge rushed out of the position screaming and roaring, the Japanese army suddenly fell into disarray.The two armies fought at the front of the position, and the Japanese army was overwhelmed by the momentum of the defenders, and fought and retreated.Both Zhang Tinglin and Li Shaoxuan were wounded in the hand-to-hand combat. Seeing that the Japanese army was retreating, they sent orders to withdraw to their positions. The Japanese army attacked again soon, and Bu Shang Dazuo rode on a horse and brandished a knife, and personally drove the soldiers who had just retreated.The defenders were fed machine guns, rifles, and hand grenades, and fired the few rounds from the only two mortars they had. Therefore, the Japanese war history "Showa 17th and 18th China Dispatched Army" has such a record: The enemy's mortar shell directly hit the mount of the regiment leader, and the regiment leader and Lieutenant Hiroo Tahara, the staff officer in charge of the operation, died. After Bu Shangzhao's death, he was promoted to the rank of major general by the Japanese government.This is the first commander-level officer of the regiment killed in the Battle of Changde.According to historical records, the Chinese army killed Chi Luli, the commander of the 3rd Division, during the battle near Nuanshui at the beginning of the battle. According to the author's research, it was misinformation.The basis is that this guy was still the head of the 13th Division of the Japanese Sixth Front Army in 1944, a year after the Battle of Changde. In 1945, he went to the 122nd Division of the Kwantung Army's First Front Army as the head of the division. In July 1945, the Yankees were about to attack Japan, and the base camp drew up a plan for a "decisive battle in the homeland", which was very tragic to "defend the country and resist aggression".There is also Chiluli in the list of generals in the battle sequence of the local decisive battle.It's a pity that the Japanese emperor surrendered first, so many soldiers had to "fight" with themselves, and committed suicide by caesarean section.Chi Luli was not listed in the two batches of war criminals, and no other information about his fate was found. It is still a mystery how one of the perpetrators who violated Changde died in the end. After the photo on the cloth was killed, the 109th regiment withdrew and replaced it with the 120th regiment to attack again.The artillery fire leveled the position, and the defenders fought bravely many times.Li Shaoxuan made a heroic sacrifice. When he died, his hands were tightly wrapped around a devil's throat. The Changsheng Bridge position was guarded until late at night on the 26th.The battalion commander Zhang Tinglin, the only remaining 2nd company commander among the 3 company commanders, Shangguanying, was seriously injured, and led the remaining dozen people to the city by night. When he was about to enter the city, Battalion Commander Zhang bled out and died on the back of Company Commander Shangguan. On the same day, Shagang between Nanpinggang and Changsheng Bridge also fell. Feng Hongjun, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 170th Regiment, and most of the officers and soldiers of the whole battalion died heroically. From the 18th to the 26th of the fierce battle on the outskirts of the city, the weather in northwestern Hunan was fine and sunny.Several old people recalled and said: "Those days were rare good weather after winter."