Chapter 63 Three divisions, the unfallen flag

The troops marched towards Huichang in two ways. The journey from Ruijin to Huichang is 80 miles. At dawn on August 30, after a night of rapid marching, the Third Division of the 20th Army led by Zhu De arrived at a highland more than 10 miles northeast of Huichang City.From here to the edge of Huichang City, there are endless highlands, which constitute the natural barrier of Huichang City. The enemy has already heavily guarded these hills.The task of the third division is to attack from here. According to the pre-deployment, the third division and the sixth regiment were deployed in an open area about 2,000 meters from the river to the mountainside.There is a towering ancient tower in front of them on the right, which is the dividing line between the Sixth Regiment and the Teaching Regiment, and further to the right should be the position of the Eleventh Army, but when the Sixth Regiment arrived, there was no sign of the Eleventh Army.

The Sixth Regiment is the newest regiment in the rebel army.It was only established in the lime kiln near Daye half a month before the uprising.Except for some backbones sent by the party, most of this regiment is recruits.Without actual combat training.During the Nanchang Uprising, it was only used as a guard.The battle was imminent, and the leaders of the regiment couldn't help but beat the drums in their hearts, fearing that they would not be able to fight well. Zhu De is also turning around.Without showing dignity, he greeted the regiment cadres enthusiastically: "This battle is very important. If we can't win, we can't move forward. We must win the battle. This time I want to command, but the main It's up to everyone." He spoke slowly and politely, but the regiment cadres increased their confidence.After he finished speaking, he waved his right hand casually to the front, and said to the head of the regiment Fu Weiyu and the deputy head Li Qizhong: "Come on, let's go to the front and have a look."

A group of people from the regiment headquarters followed Zhu De and walked up a high slope on the left side of the ancient pagoda.Below the mountain is the enemy.At this time, the morning fog had cleared, the sun had risen high, and the scenery below the mountain was as clear as if it had been washed by water.I saw that in Pingbazi at the foot of the mountain, there were a group of enemies in the east and a group in the west, and they seemed to be gathering.Zhu De, who had a slightly slow personality, put down his binoculars and calmed down: "Such a good target, why didn't you hit it?" A sentence made the cadres of the regiment panic.The head of the regiment glanced at the deputy head of the regiment, which meant: Commander Zhu has issued an order, execute it quickly!Deputy head Li understood, and immediately issued an order: Let the regiment's heavy machine guns connect up, and the battalions are ready to go into battle.

The heavy machine guns were connected, and 6 heavy machine guns were also set up on the top of the mountain.The head of the regiment pressed down with his hand, the top of the mountain exploded like fried beans, and the bullets poured down the mountain like torrential rain.The enemies down the mountain were stunned by the rain of bullets, and they all ran away with their heads in their arms.Some officers who woke up earlier shouted loudly and fired guns at the top of the mountain. In a short while, the enemy had left a pile of corpses, and the Sixth Regiment took advantage of the momentum and extended to the left to pursue.Thus began the battle.

There were also two small buglemen who were captured during the Nanchang Uprising in the team, and they rushed down with the others.These two Guangxi soldiers are brothers, one is 13 years old and the other is only 11 years old.The little one didn't know what fear was, and kept blowing the charge horn while advancing on the hillside with his chest upright. The bullets scattered the mud and water in his front, back, left, and right sides.At this time, his elder brother had already rushed to the foot of the field to hide, and he turned around and shouted to his younger brother, "Damn ghost, run, run here!" Brother went there.

The recovered enemy quickly organized and cooperated with the reinforcements behind to counterattack the rebels' position.Because the eleventh army on the right wing has not moved yet, the enemy's pressure is all concentrated on the third division.An iron wave of people came like a storm, and the enemy's entire camp charged here, knocking down one group, and coming up again.The young Six Tuan soon felt the pressure.What encouraged the cadres of the regiment was that these uncombat soldiers did not retreat, nor were they timid, and stubbornly resisted the enemy's attacks in turn.The regiment cadres were also anxious: these soldiers had not had time to be equipped with tools such as shovels, and could not build fortifications. They could only lie down on flat ground and shoot.The only reserve team was taken up, and even the personnel of the regiment headquarters and even the division headquarters went into battle.

The battalion sent people to ask for reinforcements again and again, but only three words were received back: "No soldiers!" The cadres in the regiment couldn't bear it anymore. Zhu De slowly looked at the head and deputy head of the regiment for a while, shook his head, and said: "The teaching regiment is the same, and they fought very hard. But our side is more difficult, carrying the enemy on our backs. It's easy to handle!" Yes, war defense is like a huge net, one side is tensed, and the other side will loosen the pressure.To defeat the strong with the weak relies on coordination.According to Zhu De's request, the leaders of the Sixth Regiment continued to organize troops to fight.

It was almost noon at this time, and the "autumn tiger" at the end of August was really fierce. The sun was on its head, and it was hard to breathe.The enemy is still attacking non-stop, and the situation is even more difficult.Moreover, the war here is different from the wars elsewhere. The two sides not only shoot at each other, but also curse at each other.Especially during hand-to-hand combat, the middle and lower-level officers on both sides actually called each other by nicknames or nicknames, and scolded each other: "Your grandma, why did the CCP rebel?" The lackeys of the counter-revolution!" There were some people on both sides, fighting frantically, but at the same time they couldn't help crying.

It turned out that most of the middle and lower-level officers who fought on both sides were classmates from Whampoa. They not only knew each other, but many of them were good friends when they were children.The Chief of Staff of the Third Division Yuan Ceyi (i.e. Yuan Zhongxian, the first ambassador to India after the founding of the People's Republic of China and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs) and the First Battalion Commander Chen Geng both graduated from the first phase of Whampoa. Looking at the scene before them, they felt sad.Only harden your heart and shout to kill, urging your comrades to charge forward.At this moment, Yuan Ceyi was injured, Chen Geng was also injured, and Jiang Zuozhou, the director of the division's military supplies, died.Several positions at the front were also captured by the enemy.Suddenly, a wave of enemies broke through the front and rushed straight to the command post.It was too late to transfer troops.The head of the regiment quickly organized the personnel in the command post to resist.They were all afraid that Commander Zhu would be in danger, so they gathered around him and said, "Commander Zhu, the enemy is rushing over, please move!"

"Don't panic!" Zhu De was still unhurried, "Just hit once when you come!" As he said, he walked up to a sacrificed soldier, picked up a rifle, and calmly pulled the bolt to shoot the bullet. He took a look in the trough, pushed a bullet, lay down and shot at the enemy.Zhu De's series of actions were natural and calm.The comrades around him suddenly calmed down, and knowing that persuasion was useless, they all fell down beside him and started shooting.The enemy rushed closer and closer, the bullets hit the nearby rocks, the gravel splashed randomly, and the smoke and dust blinded the eyes.Comrades with no actual combat experience watched Zhu De while fighting.I saw him like an old soldier, closing one eye, aiming at the target and shooting. After the bullets were finished, he crawled to the side of the sacrificed soldiers, took out the bullets from their bullet belts, loaded them into the gun and fired again.The flood-like enemies spread over, and they seemed to be stopped by a dam when encountering this stubborn resistance.

The enemy paused for a while, and the companies on the side also rushed over to reinforce, and the enemy that rushed to the front of the command post was repelled.At this moment, the correspondent sent the news that Guo Dezhao, the division manager, died on the teaching team's position. The teaching team fought extremely hard, and some companies had already retreated because they couldn't support them. Upon hearing this, Zhu De threw away the rifle in his hand, rubbed the sweat stains on his hands, and said to deputy head Li and head Fu: "Okay, I'll go to the teaching and regiment headquarters to have a look. I guess the 11th Army will soon It's about to start, you guys have to hold on here with all your strength!" He explained some precautions for holding the position, bowed his body, and ran to the teaching group's position amidst the dense bullet rain.The two regiments belonging to the third division were originally planned to deal with the enemy under the city to cooperate with the main eleventh army to fight, but the twenty-fifth division has not arrived yet; Zhu De is calm on the surface, but his heart is burning like fire.If it hadn't been for occupying the high ground first, the third division would be in danger. When Zhu De came, the position of the teaching regiment was also in danger, and the regiment leader Hou Jingru was also seriously injured; the division commander Zhou Yiqun was leading the division's special agent company in the counter-charge. His book business spirit has long since disappeared; the most shocking thing is that even the old man Xu Teli also ran to the battlefield.It was a girl who helped him.Zhou Yiqun saw the old woman walking towards the front line from a distance, so he hurriedly asked someone to stop them and let them lie down in the pine forest. The soldier told him: "The fighting was very tense and the casualties were heavy. According to the command of the division commander, those who are unarmed are not allowed to go to the front line of fire. Old man, you are unarmed and old. You should go down. Please evacuate to a safe place as soon as possible!" But Xu Teli sincerely said: "I am the party representative, and the officers and soldiers of the division headquarters are all on the line of fire. How can I not come up?" Seeing that the soldiers could not persuade Xu Teli, Zhou Yiqun rushed over by himself and pulled Xu Teli: "Mr. Xu, follow me!" Xu Teli saw that his bare hands would drag Zhou Yiqun down instead, he hesitated for a moment, and called the girl: "Let's go down." He saw a pair of food pickers on the ground, picked them up and put them on his shoulders, and said to himself: "I'll pick this thing up, or after the war, why don't I bring food!" The girl quickly took the pick, took Xu Teli with one hand, and walked down the mountain. Not long after Zhu De left, another large group of enemies rushed towards the position on the left wing.This time, the enemy had more troops and came suddenly. In addition, the rebel army suffered heavy casualties, so the front positions fell silent after a few shots were fired.Seeing this scene, the charging enemies straightened up and rushed towards the command post in a swaggering manner. Li Qizhong fired a few shots and found that the bullets were gone.Looking at Commander Fu Weiyu again, he was also loading a bayonet on the gun there, and it seemed that the bullets were also exhausted.Head Fu waved his hand to Li Qizhong, and lowered his voice to order several comrades around: "Don't move around! Get ready, the enemy will fight with bayonets when they come up!" No gunshots could be heard, and the enemy soldiers straightened their backs and walked slowly, and soon came to the position of the command post of the Sixth Regiment.Walking in front was a man with the appearance of an officer, holding a pistol, stopped thirty or forty steps away from the command post, looked around with his hands over his eyes, and said, "This is our own man." Well!" After finishing speaking, he turned around and walked back to the right.The remaining officers and soldiers of the Sixth Regiment nervously watched the incredible scene in front of them: as long as the enemy took another step forward, even if they fought with bayonets, not a single person would survive.But now the enemy is really gone.Only then did they rejoice: it turned out that their military uniforms were exactly the same as those of the enemy, and they were all gray uniforms.And the officers were all wearing armed belts.The enemy looked away.This gave the rebels a chance to breathe. The head of the regiment and the deputy head of the regiment had a brief conversation, and decided to take this opportunity to organize the troops and adjust the ammunition.The Sixth Regiment suffered heavy casualties.The soldiers scattered on the 2,000-meter-long position gathered together, and less than half of them were alive.The survivors were all exhausted, but their eyes were full of anger, which gave the commander confidence. It was past one o'clock in the afternoon when the troops were sorted out.Just as they were about to redefine the combat missions, a burst of intense gunfire sounded from behind the enemy—the troops of the Eleventh Army started!The blow was so sudden that the enemies attracted by the third division hurriedly turned around and turned to the rear, and there was chaos in front of the position. At this moment, an order from Commander Zhu De came: attack the enemy!Regarding the Third Division, even Wen Qiang (the company commander during the Nanchang Uprising), who later transferred to the enemy camp and became a war criminal, and finally returned to the people, recalled this past incident in his old age, and his writing still couldn't stop being tragic: The unfailing military flag of the Third Division fluttered high above the tops of the pine forest, but it was punched with countless holes by the enemy's rifles and machine guns.Wu Guoyang, a handsome and tall second lieutenant flag officer of the division headquarters, was shot and sacrificed to protect the military flag; the adjutant of the division headquarters (forgot his name) took the military flag, climbed to a green pine tree, and waved it on the tree within a few seconds. He was shot again and died; Comrade Wang Gang, the instructor of the secret service company, shouted loudly: "Our military flag must not fall, absolutely must not fall!" He jumped up, and in an instant he fell to the ground again.However, everyone looked at the proud military flag, but it was flying in the rain of bullets on the top of the tree.What is the reason for this?After a closer look, I realized that the witty Comrade Wang Gang bravely and swiftly tied the flagpole to a green pine tree with leggings.Seeing that three people were sacrificed one after another to protect the military flag, the soldiers who stood guard could not help crying like rain, feeling indescribably tragic. When the battle was over, Yang Langxi, the platoon leader of the special agent company, carried the military flag to Commander Zhou, and reported in detail the process of guarding the flag. Everyone couldn't stop crying again.Later, the three comrades who died were identified. Among them, Wu Guoyang and Wang Gang were members of the Communist Party of China. The adjutant who forgot his name was a student who graduated from the Third Army Education Corps organized by General Zhu De. to 3 months. The fighting ended near dusk, and the enemy was routed.Because they lost contact with the cooks, some troops under the Third Division stayed on the mountain for a hungry night after starving for a day.In the early morning of the next day, the whole team gathered for an investigation, and some brigades had a quarter of casualties.When the name of a comrade-in-arms was called and no one answered "yes", everyone's heads drooped in unison.