Chapter 27 Jinhua Temple hit "Fan Haer" hard

In late December, Fan Shaozeng launched another attack on the Red Army with his four brigades from Lijiaba, Fenghuangshan, Fuxingchang, and Shiqiaohe. Fan Shaozeng was terrible at fighting. He ordered the troops to follow the Red Army's buttocks. When the Red Army stopped, he rushed to build a temporary position one or two hundred meters in front of the Red Army's position.Early the next morning, Fan Shaozeng attacked with four regiments divided into two groups.Thousands of troops were densely packed like a colony of ants, rushing forward desperately. The enemy's position was only 200 meters away from our army, and they rushed to the front in a few minutes.

This time it was the 268th Regiment of the 88th Division of the 30th Red Army who fought against Fan Shaozeng.In order to resist the enemy's impact and shelling, the 268th Regiment took advantage of the favorable terrain to build solid fortifications here. Not only did they have criss-cross traffic trenches, but many of the fortifications also had rows of "roofs" made of bowl-sized trees. Some roofs are two or three layers thick, not only can resist grenades, some can even resist enemy mortar shells, this kind of fortification is called "wooden city" by the Red Army.Outside the fortifications are densely lined up tree trunks, shaped like antlers, with the mouths of the branches facing the enemy, one layer at a time, more than ten meters wide. When the enemy rushed to these fortifications, it was not easy to climb, and it was impossible to avoid them. On the ground, they immediately fell into a dilemma, and the Red Army in the fortifications were able to shoot one by one. After a short time, the front of the fortifications was immediately covered with a layer of dead bodies.Seeing this, the enemy troops in the back refused to charge forward any more.In the report written by Chen Changhao after the battle, he gave an example: "Two battalions of the enemy surrounded the fortification of our 268th Regiment and a platoon, but were beaten away by our two squads. The 36th Regiment and a platoon were in the fortification Li fought with six or seven regiments of the enemy for a day."

The attack lasted for a long time, causing casualties everywhere.Fan Shaozeng was very annoyed when he saw that he could not break through the Red Army's position.After all, he was a bandit, so he resorted to strange tricks and dispatched the so-called "magic soldiers".These "magic soldiers" are Taoist disciples organized by the head of the local reactionary sect. All of these people wear red cloth, tie yellow paper on their heads, drink cinnabar wine, carry large knives, and have their faces painted like ghosts in hell. With disheveled hair, bare chest and bare arms, dancing with hands and feet, chanting mantras: "Kunlun Mountain, hard body, diamond body given by Guanyin. Diamond body, belly refines Qi, can block thousands of guns and halberds, guns and bullets cannot enter the body... When charging, these "magic soldiers" were in front, Fan Shaozeng's death squad was behind, and the rest of the troops followed closely. Fan Shaozeng's supervisory team stood in front of the starting position. He gave an order to only advance and not to retreat.

When the group of desperadoes first appeared, some Red Army soldiers were frightened and looked nervous.Some experienced veterans picked up their guns firmly and aimed at the guy who rushed to the front and yelled the most fiercely. The "dang" was a shot. The ground remained motionless, and as gunshots continued to ring out, one, two, three, seeing these "magic soldiers" fell to the ground one after another, the soldiers were not afraid, and those "magic soldiers" who shouted "invulnerable" were frightened instead. You have to turn around and run.The enemy's charge was broken again.

Most of Fan Shaozeng's subordinates were bandits, and many of these guys were habitual bandits who were good at drilling ravines.Fan Shaozeng organized these habitual bandits into multiple groups, commanded by deputy division commander Luo Juntong, wedged in from the forest on the right side of the Beishanchang position, and threatened the Red Army's rear defense from deep. , Shilongchang area.At the cost of more than 1,000 casualties, Fan Shaozeng's troops occupied Beishanchang, Gaoguanzi, and Longtai Temple.Another group of enemies also entered from Jiangling River along the Ba River to between Sanxikou and Qinglongchang.

The day after Beishanchang was captured, Fan Shaozeng's Meng Haoran Brigade continued to attack Wangjialing and Jinhua Temple. Meng Haoran's brigade belonged to the reserve team. Meng Haoran believed that the main force of the Red Army in Beishan Field had been repulsed, and it would be easy for him to attack Tubao from Wangjialing and Jinhuasi to cut off the rear of the Red Army.He immediately ordered one regiment to attack from the right wing to the east of Jinhua Temple to seize the commanding height of Ma'anshan; another regiment to attack from the left wing to the southwest of Jinhua Temple;

Guarding Jinhua Temple is a regiment of the 25th Division of the Ninth Red Army, led by Chen Haisong, the political commissar of the division. Chen Haisong, a native of Dawu, Hubei, joined the army in 1930. He successively served as an orderly, correspondent, battalion propaganda leader, instructor of the special service company of the 36th Regiment of the 12th Division of the Fourth Red Front Army, instructor of the machine gun company, political commissar of the battalion, and political commissar of the regiment. In 1933, when fighting against the "three-way siege", he was ordered to lead two companies to guard and kill Niuping, resisting the repeated attacks of two divisions and five regiments of Tian Songyao's department, and fought fiercely for three days and nights, killing and wounding more than 1,500 enemies. Standing still, it created a famous battle example in the history of the Red Fourth Front Army's battle with less and more. In June 1933, he was promoted from the political commissar of the 73rd regiment to the political commissar of the 25th division. He was only 20 years old.

In a battle not long ago, he led the troops to stand firm, fought fiercely for seven days and nights, and the troops were ordered to retreat.After leaving the position, Chen Haisong picked up the binoculars to observe the position, and found that there were still more than 20 wounded soldiers of our army lying on the bridgehead not far from the enemy's position.It is the tradition of the Red Fourth Front Army not to surrender alive and not to throw away dead bodies.He immediately ordered the troops to stop the retreat and organized commandos to return to rescue the wounded.At this time, the enemy had already moved towards the position I gave up, and when they found that our army had returned, they immediately concentrated their firepower and fired.Chen Haisong organized more than a dozen machine guns to fire violently. Under the cover of machine gun fire, the commando rescued all the wounded.Chen Haisong said to the wounded: "Comrades, I was negligent. I'm sorry for making you suffer!"

In 1936, Chen Haisong served as the commander of the Red Ninth Army of the West Route Army. In March 1937, in the Liyuankou battle at the foot of Qilian Mountain in Gansu Province, in order to cover the retreat of the Thirty Army and its headquarters, Chen Haisong led the Ninth Army in a bloody battle. He was shot eight times and died a heroic sacrifice.In the same year, at the foot of the Pagoda Mountain in Yan'an, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a memorial service for Chen Haisong. Mao Zedong and many central leaders personally participated in the memorial service for Chen Haisong.Zhu De said to some old comrades many times: "Chen Haisong is the youngest and most promising military-level commander of the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army. It is a pity that he died too early. If he is still alive, he will definitely play a greater role."

Jinhua Temple is the commanding height of Ma'anshan, surrounded by steep slopes and cliffs. The reverse slope of Jinhua Temple can go straight down to the river valley.Meng Haoran's brigade began to attack at dawn, and the Red Army built strong fortifications here relying on the cliffs.The enemy attacked along the hillside and fought fiercely until noon. Although they climbed to the mountainside of Jinhua Temple, the cliff in front of them was steep and there was no way to go.The Red Army was condescending on the hill, overlooking the attack.At this point in the enemy's attack, under the intensive firepower of the Red Army, the casualties were heavy, and the living were exhausted, huddled together and hid under the cliff, in a dilemma.

Seeing that the soldiers in front could neither fight nor retreat, Meng Haoran didn't think of a way to rescue them from the danger, but came to supervise the battle himself, urging the troops to continue to climb up and attack.Chen Haisong saw that the enemy couldn't move, and immediately ordered a counter-attack. In an instant, more than a dozen charge horns sounded at the same time, and the valley responded with a roar of killing. Many Red Army troops rushed down like a bursting embankment, and the enemy was in a panic. Bewildered, confused.The Red Army, which had previously retreated into the hidden valleys around Jinhua Temple, also rushed out at this time.Under the guidance of the standard-bearers, these troops roared in. There were red flags flying all over the mountains and plains. The swords and bayonets in the hands of thousands of Red Army soldiers rushed into the enemy group, like chopping melons and vegetables. Hundreds of enemy soldiers were killed instantly. The deserters panicked, some jumped off cliffs and climbed trees, some rolled down hillsides, and those who could not escape knelt down and handed in their guns.The army was defeated like a mountain, and the enemy brigade commander Meng Haoran, who was supervising the battle at the foot of the mountain, was also involved in the wave of defeated troops and fled for his life. The Red Army chased and killed them for several miles, and chased them all the way to Wangjialing Market.It wasn't until another group of enemy troops rushed to help and occupied the two drum mountain positions at the northern end of Chikouyan that the entire Meng Haoran brigade was prevented from being wiped out.In this battle, Meng Haoran's brigade suffered more than 2,600 casualties, missing, and fled. There was only one regiment left in each brigade, and they were basically disabled. After the Red Army severely damaged Meng Haoran's brigade at Jinhua Temple, they turned to the positions of Gao Guanzi and Yinhezhai Liao Yuchen's brigade to attack.The Red Army gave full play to the characteristics of night battles, and launched a fierce attack on the defending enemy at three o'clock in the middle of the night.One part of the Red Army broke through the enemy's position from the front, and the other part circled around from the right rear.The night was dark and the sight was unclear. In order to distinguish between the enemy and ourselves, the Red Army soldiers wrapped their arms with towels, broke into the enemy's formation, and started hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. The quality and spirit of soldiers can be seen most in hand-to-hand combat.Every time in hand-to-hand combat, the Red Army, from commanders to soldiers, was full of enthusiasm, competing to be the first. Xu Shiyou, Wang Jianan, Chen Haisong, Wang Jinshan, Wang Hongkun, Cheng Shicai, Xiong Houfa and many other division-level commanders also carried swords like the soldiers , Take the lead and fight the enemy, Xu Shiyou, Wang Jinshan, Xiong Houfa and others are famous "don't die" in the whole army.During the assault, they always take the lead and rush to the forefront, and the few guards around them can't hold back.The commander took the lead, and the soldiers fought bravely to be the first. When fighting the enemy, they fought one-on-one, one-on-two, and some even one-on-three, without mercy.The two armies fought hand-to-hand, in the shadow of swords and blood, heads rolled to the ground, blood spurted, screams and wailing, that scene was really shocking and weeping ghosts and gods. Most of the soldiers in the Sichuan Army were conscripted into the army by La Fuhe. Most of them had the idea of ​​"being a soldier and eating food". They didn't have fighting training at all on weekdays.Especially the bloody scene where white knives go in and red knives go out shocked them mentally. Seeing people falling down and wailing in pain on the battlefield, everyone was so frightened that their livers and gallbladders were torn apart, their bodies paralyzed and their legs became weak.When some enemy soldiers were fighting, they fell to the ground before the opponent's bayonet arrived, trembling all over, unable to speak.Some enemy soldiers saw the bloodshot eyes of their opponents, rushed over with a loud shout, turned their heads and ran away in fright, only hating their parents for losing two legs.The enemy soldiers either knelt down and handed in their guns, or ran away like a girl, and the hand-to-hand fighting was overwhelming.Fan Shaozeng, who was supervising the battle at the Beishan Field, saw that the situation was not good. On the one hand, he ordered the unbroken enemy to strictly guard the main position and not to retreat. .From the scuffle between the two sides until dawn, the enemy's reinforcements gradually increased, and the attacking Red Army took cover step by step and gradually retreated.In this battle, Liao Yuchen's troops suffered more than a thousand casualties, nearly half of which were reimbursed. Seeing such heavy losses for his troops, Fan Shaozeng had to let go of his "Ha'er" energy and suspend his offensive steps. Since the end of December, he has entered a confrontation with the Red Army. Fan Shaozeng's experience is worth mentioning.Among the Sichuan warlords, he can also be regarded as a titan.After the all-out war of resistance against Japan, Fan Shaozeng was appointed by Chiang Kai-shek as the commander of the 88th Army to go out of Sichuan to fight against Japan. In front of the Japanese invaders, Fan Shaozeng showed the integrity of a Chinese soldier. In the winter of 1940, there was a fierce tug-of-war with the 22nd Division of the Japanese Army in the Yichang area. Fan went to the front line to supervise the battle and finally defeated the Japanese army.During the Spring Festival that year, the common people expressed condolences to Fan Shaozeng's department.Fan Shaozeng said: "This time, we won't win the battle against the Japanese without the help of the common people. The second time we don't fight well, the common people will spit on us!" On May 28, 1942, Fan Shaozeng led his troops to fight fiercely with the Japanese army and killed Lieutenant General Sakai, the commander of the 15th Division of the Japanese army.In the history of the Japanese Army, it is the first time since the establishment of the Army that the head of an in-service division died in action. On May 29, Fan Bu wounded Kono, the brigade commander of the Major General of the 40th Division of the Japanese Army. In 1942, Fan Shaozeng was deprived of military power by Chiang Kai-shek. In a fit of anger, Fan returned to Sichuan to find a job. During this period, he often contacted progressive people and sympathized with the revolutionary cause of the Chinese people. Before Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland in 1949, Fan Shaozeng was reappointed as the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Sichuan Army. On December 14, Fan led more than 20,000 officers and soldiers to electrify an uprising in Sanhui Town, Quxian County.After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Fan successively served as a counselor of the Central South Military and Political Committee, a senior counselor of the PLA's 4th and 50th Army, deputy director of the Henan Provincial Sports Commission, a member of the Henan Provincial Government, a representative of the Provincial People's Congress, and a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.