Chapter 14 Chapter 6: The Dragon Fights in the Wild
Hu Zhengchang——At that time, he was the platoon leader of the 87th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Wang Dewu——At that time, he was the commander of the first battalion and company of the 264th Regiment of the 88th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Yang Guangrong——At that time, he was the commander of the Fourth Company of the Tank Defense Artillery Battalion of the Fifth Army
Yang Hongen——At that time, he was the major director of the first branch of the logistics directorate of the 20th Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Chen Baowen——At that time, he was the combat staff of the Chinese Expeditionary Force Command
Xiong Shichao——Shi was the signal soldier of the search company of the new thirty-ninth division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force
Tang Yulin——he was the heavy machine gunner of the 262nd Regiment of the 88th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Fu Xinde——Major Medical Director of the Second Field Hospital of the Seventy-first Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army
Zhu Xichun——Second Lieutenant of the Political Department of the New 22nd Division of the Chinese Army Garrison in India
"Dragon fights in the wild, its blood is black and yellow." I don't know if anyone knows, but this sentence is actually a fierce line in "Book of Changes": "It refers to personnel and affairs, and it is fighting from top to bottom. As for the situation of death, injury and bloodshed." In fact, this All the four dragon-related lines that appear in the film are fierce lines.
This is the last episode of the 6-episode "Burma Series".
Longling, the literal meaning seems to be understood as "the mausoleum of the dragon" - of course, the actual origin of the name of Longling County may not be like this - the expeditionary army entered three times and went out twice, and fought bloody battles for nearly half a year, and will eventually be known as the "Dragon Corps". Part of the 56th Division of the Japanese Army was wiped out here.The counteroffensive in western Yunnan has thus been decided.
In the three battles in Longling, there are very few veterans who survived the previous two battles.But in my opinion, the most dramatic part of the Battle of Longling was precisely the first two battles.In just a few months, the small Longling changed hands four times.The expeditionary force fell short at the last moment before victory twice in a row.The impermanence of the battlefield and the cunning of the Japanese army are fully displayed here.There is no doubt that the old man Hu Zhengchang is the key figure in making this episode into a film.
I met Mr. Hu in a secluded nursing home in the suburbs of Chengdu.Before we arrived, the old man got up early, sat upright in front of the door and waited.Hu Zhengchang's family members who were with us told me that this was the first time that the media wanted to interview Hu Zhengchang on TV.At the beginning of the interview, Mr. Hu in front of the camera was very nervous, and his whole body was almost stiff and motionless.Faced with this situation, I had to deliberately disrupt the interview outline prepared in advance.Completely ignoring the chronological order, the nearly ninety-year-old veteran was relaxed by rambling.
Finally, the old man's stiff back gradually leaned against the back of the chair, and his voice gradually became high-pitched.I know that at this moment is the real beginning of the old man's memories.
In his memory, Hu Zhengchang said the most words: "At that time, the nerves were numb." Indeed, in the face of the crawling among the dead and the raindrops of bullets, "fear" seems to have become a thing that has no time to take care of.Among the veterans I interviewed, Mr. Hu was the only one who described the supervisory team in detail.As the platoon leader, he still remembers the detailed process of leading the soldiers to blow up the Japanese bunker under the gunpoint of the supervising team.But when I asked several times: "Did the soldiers you assigned to carry out the blasting mission die a lot during the bombing of the bunker?" The old man talked about him several times.Finally, when the interview was over and the camera was turned off, the young platoon leader who was only 22 years old suddenly said to me softly: "I have a very good relationship with those soldiers..." After that, there was a long silence.
After the Longling battle, Hu Zhengchang never returned to Longling. The hellish Longling City in the summer of 1944 is forever frozen in the memory of the old man.After the end of the Anti-Japanese War, Hu Zhengchang, who was promoted from platoon leader to company commander with the lifelong scar on his left arm, followed the troops to the northeast.The first place they stationed after leaving the customs is very famous-Siping.
At the time of parting, the veteran Hu Zhengchang stood at the door of the room and watched us go, his waist straight, just like when we first came.For a long time after the car started, everyone in the car was silent.This is the first TV interview for Hu Zhengchang, who is nearly ninety years old, and the first time...
In the middle of the night on June 10, 1944, at Huangcaoba, 13 kilometers outside Longling County in western Yunnan, Hu Zhengchang, the guard platoon leader of the 87th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, was on duty at the gate of the division headquarters.Inside the command post, the phone rang one after another.
"At that time, it was Longling. Huangcaoba was a place between Songshan and Longling. (The Japanese) went late, and (we) cut off the road from Longling to Songshan." Hu Zhengchang recalled Say.He is a native of Chengdu, Sichuan. He graduated from the 17th class of the Whampoa Military Academy at the age of 22.
A call from the front line caught the attention of everyone in the division.
Hu Zhengchang recalled: "A regiment commander called the division commander and said that they had already entered the urban area. The division commander immediately reported to the army commander. The army commander was very happy when he received this call, and said: 'Okay, Longling has been captured, okay!'"
Longling is surrounded by mountains on all sides, with a basin in the middle.During the two years when the 56th Division of the Japanese Army occupied Longling, with the county seat as the core and the surrounding mountains as the support, it built a defense system composed of stronghold groups, and stored living and combat materials for several months.
While the Chinese Expeditionary Force attacked Songshan and Tengchong separately, the Second Army of the Eleventh Army and the elite troops of the Seventy-first Army, which were in charge of the right-wing attack mission, bypassed the Songshan flank and went straight into Longling.
Longling was originally defended by the third battalion of the Japanese 56th Division-113th Regiment. When the 20th Army of the Expeditionary Army began to cross the river to attack, the brigade was transferred to Tengchong, and Longling had only a few left behind personnel.After the Eleventh Group Army of the Expeditionary Army crossed the river, the 56th Division urgently transferred the 2nd Battalion of the 29th Wing of the 2nd Division, which had just been transferred to its sequence, to reinforce Longling.By June 5, when the expeditionary force began to attack the outer positions of Longling, the Japanese army in Longling had only about 1,000 people.
On June 6, the Chinese Expeditionary Force launched an attack on the Japanese troops stationed on the front line of Longling County in three routes. After two days and nights of fierce fighting, the road connection between Longling and Mangshi was cut off, and the large area outside Longling City was cleared. Japanese troops in some strongholds.
On June 8, the expeditionary force launched an attack on the positions in the southeastern suburbs of Longling, which were heavily defended by the Japanese army.By June 10, all the highlands on the outskirts of Longling had been conquered by the expeditionary force, and the remaining Japanese troops had to retreat to the fortified fortifications in the city to resist stubbornly.
At this time, the Battle of Songshan had already begun.The Japanese knew very well that if Longling, the strategic support point of Songshan and Tengchong, fell, the entire battle situation in western Yunnan would be difficult to deal with.
On the battlefield of Longling, someone remembered what was said: "When a dragon fights in the wild, its blood is black and yellow."
In the middle of the night of June 10, the news that the Chinese Expeditionary Force had recovered Longling quickly spread throughout the country.Chongqing citizens set off firecrackers for this.However, what is surprising is that Wei Lihuang, the commander-in-chief of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, did not know about the victory.
Wei Daoran, the son of Wei Lihuang, recalled: "The next morning, Chiang Kai-shek called my father and said: 'Last night Song Xilian (commander-in-chief of the Eleventh Army) called and said that he had shot down Longling. Do you know this? What happened?" My father said: "I don't know, he didn't report to me." Chiang Kai-shek was very upset when he heard that. My father thought it was strange, so he immediately called Song Xilian, but couldn't get through. This is also strange, why the phone couldn't get through? ?”
Almost at the same time, the headquarters of the 87th Division of the Expeditionary Army received another call from the front line.
"The phone said that after the Japanese counterattacked Longling, the troops were untenable and had to withdraw." Hu Zhengchang said, "A Japanese regiment came from Tengchong. After their reinforcements, the two regiments that attacked Longling City will be finished if they don't go out. , and retreated. Soon, the two siege divisions were unable to stand."
On June 15, Japanese reinforcements from Tengchong and Mangshi, supported by the defenders in the city, launched a fierce counterattack against the Chinese Expeditionary Force that had already entered the city.
Wang Dewu, who was the company commander of the 1st Battalion and 1st Battalion of the 264th Regiment of the 88th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Force at the time, recalled: "After the general charge began, our battalion destroyed the Japanese warehouses, which were full of military coats and military boots. The quality is several times better than ours. Some brothers thought that Longling was won here, so they picked up the booty and wanted to take it for themselves. Unexpectedly, the Japanese counterattacked all over the mountains and plains. We couldn't resist, not only retreated from the city, but also killed and injured , military coats and military boots were thrown everywhere."
Yang Hongen, who was the major director of the first branch of the Transportation Department of the 20th Army's Logistics Directorate at the time, believed that the Japanese army had previously pretended to fail.He said: "When they counterattack, the national army will suffer and suffer heavy casualties."
"Song Xilian called my father: 'Report sir, the reinforcements from the Japanese army are here now. I can't stand this battle anymore, and I can't bear this responsibility.'" Wei Daoran said.
On June 16, the Japanese counterattack force broke through the outer defense line of the Expeditionary Army, rushed into Longling City, and cut off the main force of the Seventy-first Army of the Expeditionary Army.The 87th Division, which was attacked from the front and back, suffered heavy casualties.Due to the situation, the expeditionary force retreated to the outskirts of the city.
Although Hu Zhengchang, who was in the division headquarters, was not very clear about the specific battle situation on the front line, the frightened expressions on the faces of the retreating officers made him feel the danger of the battle situation. "Two regiment commanders came here, looking disheartened. The division commander said to them, what did you do? They said, it's untenable. The division commander said, you lied about the military situation, and you shouldn't have reported in advance that you captured Longling."
Chen Baowen, who was the combat staff of the Chinese Expeditionary Force Headquarters at the time, recalled: "At that time, Lao Jiang called and said, you have already obtained Longling, why don't you hold it? You must counterattack Longling and completely conquer it. If you continue to give up, military law is required. .” Chiang Kai-shek sent an order: “The Ministry of Commander-in-Chief will find out who gave the order to abandon Longling.”
Hu Zhengchang remembered: "The division commander Zhang Shaoxun was in a hurry and shot himself. I was beside him at the time. He hit the chest with a gun. The shot missed and he didn't die."
Chen Baowen said: "Song Xitiao went to see Zhang Shaoxun, sent him to the rear for treatment, and asked Huang Yan, the deputy commander of the 88th Division, to take over the 87th Division. Troops fall back."
Song Xilian attributed part of the reason for the defeat in the first battle to "the slow progress of the 20th Army, which failed to enter and leave the vicinity of Tengchong at the same time, causing the enemy to withdraw more than 2,000 troops, attaching Dayeshan artillery, and sending reinforcements to the south by car", demanding that the 20th Army The main force goes in and out of the area north of Longling first.
On June 22, Chiang Kai-shek urgently sent Wei Lihuang, Song Xilian, and Huo Kuizhang, Commander-in-Chief of the 20th Army Group, sternly pointing out that the loss of Longling "really damages the honor of the national army." The expeditionary force should actively attack and overcome all difficulties." If there is any ineffectiveness in combat, the chief guard will punish severely according to law."On the same day, Wei Lihuang adjusted his combat deployment and ordered the Eleventh Army to gather the main force to defeat the enemy's offensive; the main force of the Twentieth Army remained on the left wing, and quickly moved south to attack Tengchong and occupy it.
On June 28, the Honorary First Division of the Eighth Army of the Twentieth Army of the Expeditionary Army arrived at Longling for reinforcements and was attached to the Seventy-first Army.The 87th Division, 88th Division, 76th Division, and Rongyi Division each launched an attack on the Japanese army outside Longling.
From the end of the war to July 6, the Japanese army gradually retreated to the urban area and suburbs of Longling, and the expeditionary force took advantage of the momentum to push the front line to the vicinity of Longling.Due to the urgent need for replenishment, the expeditionary force suspended its attack and prepared to attack the city again during the confrontation.
At dawn on July 13th, it was pouring rain, and Hu Zhengchang and his soldiers had breakfast in a hurry. "We ate porridge. Rainwater fell into the rice bucket. We scooped up half a bucket of rice and half a bucket of water and ate it. There was nothing we could do. Later we saw that the Japanese warehouses were full of canned food, and they ate very well."
Hu Zhengchang saw that not far away, the Longling City in the rain and fog showed a strange silhouette like a mirage.
On the same day, the Eleventh Group Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army assembled 30,000 troops from the 87th Division, the 88th Division, the Honorary First Division, the Newly Formed 20th Division, and the Newly Formed 39th Division. The north and south sides launched a second siege to the Japanese strongholds around Longling County.
During World War I at Longling, Chiang Kai-shek, who lost face in front of the Anglo-American allied forces by announcing victory too early, ordered his troops to take Longling as soon as possible.
Hu Zhengchang recalled: "Chen Mingren came and said to the people in the division headquarters: 'Let everyone in the division fight Longling for me. If you can't take it down, don't come to see me.' All the troops directly under the division fought to the top. The line is over, and the guard platoon has to go up, and the guard platoon is equipped with American equipment. If you have to advance, you can’t retreat, and if you retreat, shoot them all. This is a military order. At that time, the order was very strict.”
Hu Zhengchang, who had never really been on the front line, took all 32 brothers of the guard platoon onto the battlefield.In front of his eyes, "dead bodies are everywhere, Japanese soldiers and Chinese soldiers are all soaked in rainwater."He remembered that it rained every day in Longling during that time. "We crawled into the city on top of the corpses, and our nerves were numb. If we retreated, we would be shot. The army commander came up with the supervisor. If you don't go up, we will beat you from behind. You have to go forward!"
In front of them was the intensive machine gun fire of the Japanese, and behind them was the ruthless muzzle of the supervisory team. Hu Zhengchang led his brothers to crawl forward among the dead. "Smelly! The smell of dead bodies is the worst! The bullets are so dense, flying around the head, it's almost like setting off firecrackers. If one or two bullets fly over, I'm afraid, the bullets are all in pieces, it doesn't matter anymore."
After days of fierce fighting, relying on the absolute superiority in military strength, the expeditionary force gradually recaptured various important strongholds outside Longling City, and forced the Japanese army back to Longling City.According to the intelligence department of the Expeditionary Force, the remaining Japanese troops guarding Longling County at this time had been reduced to about 2,500.Relying on the bunkers in the city, the Japanese army launched fierce street battles with the Chinese army.
The desperation of the Japanese made Hu Zhengchang sigh: "The wounded Japanese soldiers have bandages on their heads and fight with you with bayonets in their hands."
In front of the ubiquitous Japanese firepower, Hu Zhengchang's brothers who lived together day and night fell down one by one. "When I think of that scene, it really chills my heart!"
Hu Zhengchang said: "The enemy's fortifications are a chain of forts, one after another. Cannons can't do it. Cannons are overwhelming, and they don't always work well. Blasting cannons is the most effective way to build bunkers. I am the platoon leader, so I told the next brother , you use the blasting tube to blow up the bunker, and I will cover you. I hit with a submachine gun, and the Japanese dared not look up, so he rushed up immediately, and the blasting tube exploded when it reached the bunker."
Hu Zhengchang remembered that there were comfort women in some bunkers. "After opening that bunker, there are men and women, including the bandaged wounded. They will not surrender."
By mid-August, after a month of bloody battles, the expeditionary force pushed back the Japanese troops in Longling City to the southern corner of the city.
On the evening of August 23, Taro Komuro, the captain of the Japanese Longling Garrison Team, sent a telegram to the 56th Division: "Longling has been attacked day and night by the superior enemy air and ground. Even if we fight hard, we can only persevere." Two days."
On August 24, the expeditionary force launched an attack again, and the remnants of the Japanese army trapped in the south of the city were cornered.But at this time, Wei Lihuang became suspicious-a few days ago, more than 10,000 main members of the Second Division of the Japanese Army, which had been active in northern Myanmar, suddenly disappeared mysteriously from the tracking of the intelligence department of the expeditionary force.With the lesson of winning and losing Longling in World War I, Wei Lihuang is very vigilant.
Wei Daoran said: "I don't know where the Second Division went. This is terrible. My father asked the US military that the US military's aircraft reconnaissance is very good, and they said they didn't find it. This is very strange."
Wei Lihuang ordered the intelligence department to carefully analyze all aerial photos of the southern section of the Yunnan-Burma Highway in the near future.After analysis, a dire result emerged. "In the photo of the first day, a small bush was clearly visible, but in the photo of the second day, the bush was gone, and some bushes moved forward. That must be wrong, that is the reinforcements. Japanese vehicles are equipped with air defense nets, As soon as the plane in the sky blew, it was covered with an air defense net and turned into a small bush. Looking at the photos, they have already arrived near Mangshi." Wei Daoran said.
In the middle of the night on August 26, the second division of the Japanese army secretly transferred from northern Myanmar to Mangshi and the main force of the 56th division of the Japanese army, a total of more than 15,000 people, suddenly launched a fierce attack on the expeditionary force positions outside Longling.The Battle of Longling, which seemed to have settled the overall situation at first, reappeared with variables.An enemy appeared behind the officers and soldiers of the expeditionary force, and they entered a dangerous situation again.
Hu Zhengchang recalled: "A regiment or a company can't be formed anymore, so many people were killed and injured. The nerves of the living people have been numb, like wooden people, just rushing, killing. A soldier shouted to me: 'Oh , Platoon Leader, you are wounded.' When I saw that I was bleeding, I fell down."
Under the crazy counterattack of the Japanese army, the remaining officers and soldiers of the New 39th Division of the Expeditionary Army stationed outside Longling City were less than 100 people, and the New 37th Division also suffered heavy losses. Many positions fell to the enemy again. On September 10, the Chinese army was forced to abandon Longling County and its strongholds outside the city again, and retreated to the blocking position 10 kilometers north of Longling City.The expeditionary force's second attack on Longling fell short.
Just when the Seventy-first Army of the Expeditionary Army was frustrated in Longling City, on September 7, the Eighth Army captured Songshan; on September 14, the Twentieth Army captured Tengchong.In order to avoid being encircled by the Chinese army, on September 15, the main force of the 56th Division and the Second Division of the Japanese Army near Longling began to retreat to Mangshi, south of Longling.
At this time, the northern section of the Yunnan-Burma Highway was crowded with military vehicles, and Yang Guangrong, commander of the Fourth Company of the Tank Defense Artillery Battalion of the Fifth Army of the National Revolutionary Army, and his comrades marched hurriedly in the dusty sky.
In order to take Longling as soon as possible, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 200th Division of the Fifth Army of the Mechanized Army to rush to the front line of Longling from Kunming.The anti-aircraft artillery battalion directly under the Fifth Army went with the 200th Division to fight together.
For Yang Guangrong and many veterans of the 200th Division, the Burma Road under their feet is actually no stranger. "This is the way the Fifth Army went to fight in Burma in 1942. It was a real expeditionary force." Yang Guangrong said.
At the end of September, the 200th Division arrived in the suburbs of Longling.Previously on September 23, the Second Army of the Expeditionary Army recovered the important strongholds outside Mangshi and Longling, which were covered by the Japanese army south of Songshan.So far, of the four strongholds of the Japanese army in the Gaoligong Mountains in western Yunnan, only Longling remained.Honda Masaisa, commander of the 33rd Army of the Japanese Army, lamented: "I have never tasted such grief in my life!"
After a short rest, the expeditionary force began to prepare to attack Longling again.
On October 13, Chiang Kai-shek sent a secret telegram to Wei Lihuang: "I hope to quickly adjust the deployment of the existing troops in the theater and actively launch an offensive."
Wei Lihuang ordered the various departments of the expeditionary force to concentrate in the direction of Longling.Xiong Shichao, who was the signal soldier of the newly formed 39th Division of the Sixth Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army at the time, said: "In the attack on Longling, not only our division, but also several divisions of the Second Army and the Eighth Army are there. At that time, our thirty-ninth division had an order: even if we die, we must take down Longling."
This time, Wei Lihuang, who had already been killed twice by the Japanese, did not dare to make any mistakes. "Chiang Kai-shek's warrant: If you can't take it down, you will be dismissed." Wei Daoran said, "My father told the U.S. Air Force to let all the best planes from Chennault's air force come and destroy the Japanese fortifications as much as possible."
At dawn on October 29, after nearly a month of careful preparation, the expeditionary force concentrated a strong force of nearly 100,000 people, and with the cooperation of more than 300 cannons and U.S. aircraft, launched the third general attack on Longling County.
For Yang Guangrong and all the veterans of the 200th Division who survived the first battle into Burma, this is a battle of revenge that has been waiting for two years.
Yang Guangrong recalled: "The 200th Division just went up, high-spirited, and the artillery fire was fierce. They fired three volleys, and the barrels were all red. The Japanese only had the power to parry, and they had no power to fight back. To be honest, after After so long, they are already very tired."
Wang Shuxun, a correspondent of the Second Company of the Shanpao Battalion directly under the Seventy-first Army of the Expeditionary Army, described in his memoirs the process of destroying Dongka, the last stronghold outside Longling City:
All heavy weapons were firing at the target of Donka from all directions.It was really all guns fired, and the mountains shook and the ground shook.In an instant, the sky above Dongka was filled with gunpowder smoke and dust, and the entire Longling City was shrouded in flames and thick smoke.At this time, our mountain artillery position had already advanced from Guanglinpo to Wanchang about 1 km east of Longling City to set up an array, and directly fired at Dongka, the enemy's guard position in Longling City.The bombardment of various artillery shells like raindrops shook the surroundings of our position like an earthquake.The heat flow formed by the heat from the explosion of the shells continued to rush towards us. Although the weather was still raining non-stop as usual, each of us was sweating profusely.
For about an hour, all the gunshots stopped, and the land was completely silent, not even the insects and birds had a sound.Not long after, the infantry jumped out of the bunkers around Dongka, and pressed forward layer by layer towards the enemy's formation in Dongka.First, the engineers and soldiers comprehensively cleared mines and cleared obstacles.Find out the location of the fort and make a mark so that the target can be identified and searched.Due to the power of tens of thousands of shells, the mud, rubble, branches, and broken houses almost completely covered the four forts.Therefore, it is very difficult to find it all at once. Only by gradually removing the covering layer above can the fort site be discovered.Nearly a thousand engineers and infantrymen worked together to clean up the fortress until after five o'clock in the afternoon.
At this time, most of the remnants of the fortress were forced to rush out and fight our army to the death because the fortress was covered by the earth and rubble thrown up by our army's shelling, and the air inside could hardly circulate. , This is right in the arms of our army. It is true that beating the snake has led the snake out of the hole.As soon as the enemy came out of the fort, our army would compress from front to back, left to right, step by step. The encirclement became smaller and smaller, and light weapons and grenades could not be used. A fierce hand-to-hand battle began.Soldiers on both sides dropped their guns, fought with bare hands, hugged each other tightly, and rolled around until they killed each other.After fighting like this for more than two hours, all the stubborn enemies were wiped out, and this vicious battle came to an end.
On November 1, the attacking troops of the expeditionary force broke into the city of Longling from all directions, and captured the Guanyin Temple, the core stronghold of the Japanese army in the city, in one fell swoop.
The Japanese made their last resistance.Yang Guangrong recalled: "The Japanese who were hiding in the alleys were shot with machine guns. The 200th Division had just entered and hadn't started shooting yet, so they knocked down a lot of them and dispersed quickly. They attacked again at dawn the next day, and only then did they shoot them. down."
The expeditionary military has already cut off all the traffic arteries from Longling to Mangshi.Tang Yulin, a veteran of the Expeditionary Army, recalled: “Isn’t the headquarters of the Japanese army in Mangshi at that time? We cut off the road from Mangshi to Longling one by one, and Japanese cars would overturn when they came. We guarded one Slope, the Japanese came to attack that slope, we couldn’t hold it anymore, so we contacted the top by radio, and then the plane came, and the battle was resolved in two hours.”
The Japanese Longling garrison, which had been fighting repeatedly with the Chinese army in the ruins for nearly five months, was at the end of its rope.This time, they will have no reinforcements.
On November 2, the expeditionary force captured the commanding heights west of Longling City, and the Japanese army's will to resist began to collapse.That night, the remaining Japanese troops began to disperse outside Longling City.
Fu Xinde, who was the major medical director of the 2nd Field Hospital of the 71st Army of the Chinese Expeditionary Army at the time, recalled: "We were ordered not to let the escaped Japanese escape. We stayed up at night and lay down in the bomb crater waiting to destroy them. "
On November 3, 1944, the sound of guns and guns gradually subsided in Longling City shrouded in gunpowder smoke.After 5 days of fierce fighting, the expeditionary force's third general attack on Longling finally succeeded.
"The whole city is ruined, the houses are gone, and the troops can only sleep on the street." Yang Guangrong said, "The Japanese who had been hiding came over with rifles, but they ran out of bullets. They loaded bayonets and stabbed us behind us. We opened up. We hurriedly dispersed again to catch the Japanese. The three regiments searched the whole city and captured the remaining Japanese and shot them."
On the same day, Wei Lihuang called Chiang Kai-shek: "It is found that the enemy troops guarding Longling are the remainder of the 146th Regiment of the 56th Division, and each part of the 114th Regiment and the 229th Regiment of the 18th Division. Most of them were wiped out by me, and I captured many. Only four or five hundred remaining enemies broke through the small road and fled to Mangshi, and I was chasing them."
The Battle of Longling was the most time-consuming and costly battle in the counter-offensive operations in western Yunnan, and it was also the battle that wiped out the most Japanese troops.According to the National Government's December 1945 "Statistical Table of the Battle of Western Yunnan" and "Statistics of Losses in Western Yunnan During the Anti-Japanese War" report: In the anti-Japanese counter-offensive campaign in western Yunnan, our army invested a total of 16 divisions with 162,000 troops, of which Longling was the There are 115,000 people in 12 divisions, accounting for 71%.The whole campaign lasted 236 days, including 156 days in Longling.Our army suffered 50,474 casualties in the whole service, among which Longling suffered 29,803 casualties, accounting for 59%.25,393 enemies were killed in full service, of which 13,200 were from Longling, accounting for 52%.
After conquering the Long Mausoleum, the defense system that the Japanese army relied on to occupy western Yunnan was completely disintegrated, and they were driven to the flat land on the front line of Mangshi, where there was no danger to defend.On November 20 of that year, the expeditionary force recovered Mangshi, where the headquarters of the 56th Division of the Japanese Army was located.Since the counter-offensive operation in western Yunnan that started on May 11, the victory has been decided so far.
In September 1944, at the Dali Army Hospital in Yunnan, Hu Zhengchang, the leader of the 87th Division of the Chinese Expeditionary Army, suffered in bed. "The arm was pierced, and the gauze was put on, and it hurt. The doctor was not allowed to call, saying, I will not treat you if you call. In the end, I planned to amputate because all the nails were black. I said no, and I am only in my 20s. Amputation ?”
An old Chinese doctor saved Hu Zhengchang. "The old man told me: 'There is a very simple method: you are young and young, apply hot compresses to your arms every day for 100 days, if it doesn't work, come to me.' I followed what he said and kept Apply heat and watch the nails slowly change color and recover."
Hu Zhengchang saved his injured arm.However, many ordinary soldiers who were also treated in this hospital were not as lucky as him. "I'm an official, and I can still get some salary, but many soldiers are recruited by Latin soldiers. The salary is the lowest, and there is no subsidy for injuries. The hospital treats them very simply. If they die, they will die." Hu Zhengchang sighed. , "If a soldier is seriously injured, he can only die, there is no other way; an official eats well and tries his best to heal his injuries, especially Huangpu students, the state gives preferential treatment. People are treated differently. Therefore, I Just escaped this disaster."
At the end of January 1945, Hu Zhengchang returned to the army after recovering from his injury.At this time, the Chinese Expeditionary Force had recovered Wanding, and the remnants of the Japanese army in western Yunnan withdrew into Burma.On the border, Hu Zhengchang, who had just been promoted from a guard platoon leader to a company commander, met his brothers in the Chinese army stationed in India for the first time. "The difference between the Indian Army and the Expeditionary Army is too great. Our expeditionary army is dressed in tatters, and the Indian Army has all been replaced with American equipment."
On January 27, 1945, the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the Indian Army joined forces in Mangyou, a small town in northern Myanmar, and the counteroffensive in western Yunnan ended successfully.
The battle is over, but something, far from over.
Hu Zhengchang said: "We only caught four alive, and the rest of the Japanese were killed. After the 'September 18th' incident, the Chinese had a kind of hatred for the Japanese. I began to receive anti-Japanese education when I was in elementary school. Impressive."
According to Zhu Xichun, who was the second lieutenant of the Political Department of the newly formed 22nd Division of the Chinese Army in India, he recalled: the troops stationed in India counterattacked Burma, "the troops that fought in the front killed the Burmese monks in the temple because they entered the temple for the first time. During the Burma war, when the 22nd Division was defeated, all the laggards and wounded were killed by the Burmese monks. Those monks were the eyes of the Japanese at the time. So even though the higher-ups ordered not to kill people, the lower-level didn’t care about it at all. Even if the monks in the village are not spies, they will be killed. In war, killing people is very common."
On August 15, 1945, the war ended.The units of the Chinese Expeditionary Force gathered in the western Yunnan area were ordered to start moving into the three eastern provinces to accept the surrender of the Japanese army.
For the young Hu Zhengchang, this is the beginning of another story.
On June 28, 1944, Wei Lihuang, the commander-in-chief of the expeditionary force, visited the front line of Longling from Baoshan Mawangtun, where the headquarters is located.That night, the Eleventh Army Headquarters formed a document of the results of Wei Lihuang's position deployment and delivered it to each unit. The main contents are:
1. Conduct multiple surveys and destroy all the heavy artillery bunkers that the enemy has built in Longling City at all costs, so as to create an advantage in conquering Longling and accelerate the capture and defense of Longling.
2. No matter when and where there are ordinary people's cattle, they are not allowed to be slaughtered.
3. Regardless of officers and soldiers, those whose injuries are in the head or abdomen should be sent to Huangcaoba in time, and then transferred to Baoshan by military aircraft for rescue. Otherwise, they should be treated in the field hospital.
4. It is no longer allowed to pull soldiers from each other to replenish the number of troops in the headquarters. The execution of deserters must be reviewed by the group army and then approved by the minister's department.
5. The captured traitors and spies were found to be true and executed on the spot.
Fu Xinde, a former military doctor at the Second Field Hospital of the Seventy-first Army of the Expeditionary Army, described in his memoirs the scene of local people supporting the frontlines he witnessed: "From the edge of the Nujiang River to the village of Langang, you have to climb over a dragon at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters. Lingda Snow Mountain. The road is a road that few people used to pass. On the slope of more than 20 miles from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, thousands of caravans, cattle gangs, and migrant workers came and went in the torrential rain. There is a constant flow. Among the migrant workers are elderly people over sixty years old, teenagers, and some middle-aged and elderly women. They are carrying heavy rice bags and ammunition boxes, sweating profusely, and suffering unspeakably."
The inscription on the Anti-Japanese War Monument in Western Dian, Baoshan City records: "(During the counterattack in Western Dian) more than 200,000 migrant workers were mobilized in the Baoshan area alone. Roads were built, airports were built, fortifications were built, military rations were transported, ammunition was delivered, stretchers were carried, and sacrifices were made. There are more than 24,600 migrant workers."
On September 16, 1944, Chiang Kai-shek gave a speech at the National Political Council: "At this critical juncture in wartime, the country must put its urgent needs first, so that educated youths can serve on the battlefield, because educated youths have knowledge and the ability to make automatic judgments. Adding one educated youth is equivalent to adding ten ordinary soldiers." He called on educated youth across the country to actively join the army, putting forward the slogan "One inch of mountains and rivers, one inch of blood, one hundred thousand youths and one hundred thousand troops".Subsequently, the Central Committee of the Kuomintang launched a campaign for educated youth to join the army.
Young students throwing pens and joining the army soon became a major trend at that time.According to statistics, the number of students enrolled in the Central University and Chongqing University has reached 1/3 of the current students.The number of people recruited from all over the country exceeded the original 100,000 people.
On January 1, 1945, young intellectuals who were recruited began to receive training in various places, and the training period was 3 months.The National Intellectual Youth Volunteer Military Training Directorate announced that by the end of April 1945, more than 85,000 people had actually entered the camp. Later, some people supplemented the expeditionary force and went abroad to receive special training such as driving and parachuting. 76507 people.
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