Chapter 33 10. The peripheral battle of the general attack on Taierzhuang

Tang Enbo's 20th Army is indeed an elite unit of the Kuomintang Army.No matter how he behaved in the past few days, and no matter what later generations comment on Tang Enbo's behavior during the seven days from March 23 to March 30, 1938, Tang Enbo urged Li Zongren, the commander of the Fifth War Zone, repeatedly to Next, finally came out on March 31. The main force of the 20th Army arrived in the Yangjiamiao area at the south end of the canal northeast of Taierzhuang, and it was already the afternoon of March 31.After researching with Guan Linzheng, Commander of the 52nd Army, and Wang Zhonglian, Commander of the 85th Army, Tang Enbo decided to launch a full-scale attack on the Japanese army from the northeast of Taierzhuang to the south and north of the branch line of the Taierzhuang Railway from April 1.

Tang Enbo and Guan Linzheng personally commanded the battle on a high ground near the red tile house.The main forces of the two armies fought fiercely with the Japanese army, and the Japanese army retreated.Fighting until the afternoon, the 20th Army took control of the south and north roads of the Taierzhuang Railway branch line, cut off the railway branch line north of Taierzhuang, and launched a fierce attack on the Japanese army's back in Taierzhuang, forming a situation of encirclement.The Seya Detachment of the Isoya Division of the Japanese Army had repeatedly mobilized the first-line troops from the west of Taierzhuang to counterattack the 20th Army, but they were all repelled by the 52nd Army.

While fighting fiercely with the Seya detachment, I suddenly heard a report from the reconnaissance unit that about 5,000 Japanese troops with a combined infantry, cavalry, and artillery unit were coming from Linyi, and their vanguard had arrived near Xiangcheng.After receiving the emergency information, Commander Guan Linzheng took the following measures: 1. Order Xu Wenliang, commander of the infantry battalion near the military headquarters, to command the battalion and the cavalry company directly under the army to run towards Lanling Town immediately. It is necessary to attack the enemy's front to induce the enemy to deploy prematurely and try to delay the enemy's advance. Buy time so that I can deploy troops from the front line to meet the enemy.

2. At the same time, order the 75th Brigade of the 25th Division to quickly withdraw from the front line, run to the vicinity of the military headquarters, and receive orders to quickly advance towards Lanling Town to meet the invading enemy. After accepting the order, Battalion Commander Xu Wenliang led the battalion and cavalry company to run towards Lanling Town, arrived near Lanling Town, encountered the enemy's front troops, and immediately attacked the enemy violently.The enemy really spread out and shelled the battalion. About an hour later, the 75th Brigade of the 25th Division rushed to the vicinity of Lanling Town to attack the enemy.At the same time, the military ordered Zhang Yaoming, the commander of the 25th Division, to lead the 73rd Brigade of the division to Lanling Town to participate in the battle.

At this time, the military command post also advanced to a small highland near Hongshan Town, not far from Lanling Town, to command operations.At that time, the enemy artillery had been firing continuously near Hongshan Town, and the fighting was very fierce.At dusk, Chen Daqing, commander of the 4th Division of the 85th Army, also came to the command post of the 52nd Army.It is said that the commander of the Tang Army ordered the division to participate in this battle. Guan Linzheng said that there was no need to increase his troops in this regard, and asked him to return to support Sun Lianzhong's troops in the battle.At this time, the 25th Division has gradually suppressed this enemy to the area north of Lanling Town.After nightfall, the enemy bypassed the northwest of Lanling Town and fled towards Yanglou and Dige in an attempt to join the Segu detachment of the enemy in Taierzhuang.

In the fierce battle, the 25th Division of the 52nd Army captured a group of horses and Japanese wounded soldiers.According to the account of the wounded soldiers, they were the Sakamoto Detachment of the 5th Division of the Japanese Army, which consisted of 4 infantry brigades, two field artillery brigades and a cavalry brigade, and they were here to assist the 10th Division in a decisive battle with the Chinese army. On the morning of April 2, the 25th Division surrounded most of the Japanese Sakamoto Detachment near Yanglou and Dige.The Japanese army occupied the farmyard in the village and resisted tenaciously.The 52nd Army urgently ordered the 2nd Division to transfer troops from Beidayao and other directions to Yanglou and Dige, and cooperate with the 25th Division to eliminate the Sakamoto Detachment.The two divisions fought hard to kill the enemy and captured Dige in one fell swoop. The Japanese army fled to a place called Xiaowang in the southeast.The Chinese army took advantage of the victory to pursue and surrounded the Japanese army in Xiaowang that night.

In the next two days, the two divisions of the 52nd Army continued to besiege the Sakamoto Detachment, causing heavy casualties on both sides.The 10th Division of the Japanese Army learned that the Sakamoto Detachment of the 5th Division was besieged in the Xiaowang area, so they continuously mobilized the Seya Detachment's combat troops in Taierzhuang and turned around to rescue the Sakamoto Detachment.In this way, the strength of the Japanese army to attack Taierzhuang was relatively weakened. Li Zongren, commander of the fifth theater, seized this opportunity and assigned new tasks to all participating troops:

1. The 20th Army Corps, including a part of the 75th Army, wiped out the Japanese army in the north of Hongshan Township, and attacked the left side near Taierzhuang with the main force, making detours to the left one by one, and must be on the left side of Taierzhuang. annihilate. 2. The right wing of the Second Army contacted the Legion and attacked across the board on April 3 to wipe out the Japanese troops in Taierzhuang; the 110th Division was preparing to use a brigade to cross the river near Wanlizha and attack the Japanese army on the right side near Beiluo . 3. Cao Fulin, the former enemy commander-in-chief of the third group army, commanded five regiments of Zhang Cemin's detachment and Li Mingyang, the guerrilla commander-in-chief, quickly went south to encircle Zaozhuang and Lincheng as a blocking corps.

The outside troops fought very effectively, dividing and encircling the Japanese army, and launched a fierce attack.Everywhere the fighting was fierce.The sound of gunfire, artillery, and human voices shrouded the entire Taierzhuang in a deep war. The land here was overturned layer by layer by artillery, and the river here was stained bright red by the blood of anti-Japanese soldiers. Zhang Zizhong and Pang Bingxun's troops far away in Linyi also fought very hard at this time.They cooperated with reinforcements to defeat Seishiro Itagaki's 5th Regiment on March 30.However, after being supplemented, the defeated Itagaki Japanese army regrouped and launched a new attack.

At this time, Taierzhuang was fighting in the dark. In order to ensure the final victory of the Taierzhuang War, Zhang Zizhong and Pang Bingxun had to stick to the Linyi area and use their greatest strength to block the Japanese attack. In order to facilitate the command, the 59th Army merged its various regiments. Some regiments only merged into one or two battalions. Like Cui Zhenlun's regiment, after two battles in Linyi, only more than 400 of the original more than 2,000 people remained people.The 38th Division had about 15,000 people before the battle, but now it is less than 3,000.Even so, they still insisted on fighting and sacrificed themselves in exchange for the victory of Taierzhuang.

For the victory of the Taierzhuang Battle, the 5 divisions of the 21st Army of the Kuomintang Army, the 3 divisions of the 11th Army, the 2 divisions of the 50th Army, the 2 divisions of the 27th Army, the 3 divisions of the 60th Army, the 68th Army The 2 divisions of the army and other troops blocked the Japanese army in all directions from southeast to northwest.The battle was extremely fierce, and the Japanese reinforcements were never allowed to move forward, thus ensuring the encirclement and killing of the Isoya Division and the Sakamoto Detachment by the 2nd Army and the 20th Army in the central area of ​​Taierzhuang. The victory in the Battle of Taierzhuang is the victory of all the Chinese troops participating in the battle.Without the blocking of Taierzhuang's periphery, there would be no victory in the Taierzhuang War.As long as the Japanese army has a reinforcement force entering Taierzhuang, Commander-in-Chief Sun Lianzhong of Taierzhuang will be overwhelmed.When both parties to the war have exhausted their efforts and are at their limit, even with the slightest support from external forces, the other party will be defeated. Li Zongren of the fifth war zone saw this, so he gave Tang Enbo a death order and ordered the 20th Army to attack across the board to make the final blow to the Jigu Division in Taierzhuang.