In 1898, after the failure of the Penghu Reform Law, more people learned that only by overthrowing the Qing Dynasty could China have a way to live. One of them, Wang Tianzhong, held such an idea at that time and began to carry out an anti-Qing movement. Wang Tianzhong, who was only 18 years old, began to gather crowds and form parties, fled into the mountains, specialized in robbing the rich and helping the poor, hanging corrupt officials, and was once known as the "Great Hero of Zhongzhou".
In this way, Wang Tianzhong and his Green Forest Army became the thorns in the eyes of the Qing Dynasty, so they were also defined as bandits. In 1911, after the Wuchang Uprising, Liu Zhenfang, a member of the League, came to his hometown of Western Henan and went to Wang Tianzhong's hill, told them about the situation at that time, and mobilized Wang Tianzhong to respond to the clarion call of the Wuchang Uprising.
Wang Tianzhong was originally an anti-Qing leader, naturally gladly agreed, in November 1911 began to attack Luoyang, and then turned to Shaanxi, after the Qing Dynasty was overthrown, Wang Tianzhong's green forest army was not only to Henan Songshan area, responsible for maintaining local law and order, hence the name "Zhensong Army".
After the stabilization of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai contacted Liu Zhenfang and decided to make the Zhensong Army an official army of the Republic of China, and Liu Zhenfang was the leader of the Zhensong Army, and Liu Zhenfang became a warlord. Later, when the warlords divided the territory, Liu Zhenfang was also involved in the whirlpool of melee, which once led to the Zhensong army being almost completely scattered.
It was not until 1925 that Liu Zhenfang was re-activated by Yan Xishan, which contacted the old department of the Zhensong Army, and gathered bandit gangs such as bandits, red gun society, big knife society and other bandit gangs in western Henan, which reorganized an army of 100,000 people. Later, Liu Zhenfang defected to Chiang Kai-shek, and then changed its organization to the 15th Army, with Liu Zhenfang's younger brother Liu Mao'en as its commander.
After the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the 15th Army successively participated in the Battle of Taiyuan, the Battle of Zhongtiao Mountain, the Battle of Yuzhou, and other battles, and fought alongside the Eighth Route Army at Yanmen Pass. After the baptism of so many wars, the soldiers in the 15th Army gradually faded their bandit habits and became battlefield heroes who resisted Japan and saved their lives.
In 1944, the Japanese army formulated the "No. 1 Battle Plan", the purpose of which was to open up the line of communication from the northeast to Vietnam, thus realizing Japan's ambition to dominate East Asia. In April 1944, under the command of Okamura Ningji, the Japanese army quickly organized a wave of nearly 100,000 troops, attacked Yuzhong in three ways, and soon arrived outside Luoyang.
At that time, the nationalist army's defenders in Yuzhong reached more than 400,000 people, but when they learned that the Japanese army was attacking, Jiang Dingwen and Tang Enbo, who were responsible for defending the central part of Yuzhong, resigned their posts and fled, and more than 400,000 troops withdrew from Yuzhong, so that the Japanese army hardly encountered too many obstacles in Henan.
Only the 15th Army, which was guarding the western henan region, remained, and all of them entered the city of Luoyang, and decided to fight with the Japanese army to the death. The reason why they are not afraid of life and death is that on the one hand, most of the soldiers in the 15th Army are people from western Henan, and Luoyang is their hometown, and they naturally do not want to retreat. On the other hand, after so long in the war and after fighting side by side with the Eighth Route Army, they are no longer the bandits or knifemen they once were, but a warrior who dared to throw his head and shed his blood for the independence and liberation of the country.
In this way, Wu Tinglin, the commander of the 15th Army at that time, guarded the city of Luoyang with about 20,000 brothers, and they were going to face the Japanese army that was far superior to them in terms of strength, equipment, and military posture.
On May 11, 1944, the Japanese army began a fierce attack on Luoyang. The 15th Army was a well-known "bandit army" in the Nationalist army, and when the Japanese army learned that the 15th Army was defending the city, it did not pay attention to them at all, thinking that it could completely take the 15th Army in one day.
As a result, they used aircraft, artillery, tanks, cavalry, etc. to launch a fierce attack on Luoyang City in turn, and bombarded Luoyang indiscriminately for 2 days, but still did not attack Luoyang City. The 15th Army relied on the flexible application of trenches and walls, after the bullets were thrown, the grenades were thrown, and after the grenades were lost, they rushed to the position with the explosives package and died with the enemy, and even the explosives package was gone, so they directly took the big knife and long gun, and fought a white-knife battle with the Japanese army through the terrain and fortifications...
In this way, the 15th Army, in the case of the overall backwardness of the army's book strength to the Japanese army, held Luoyang for 14 days, greatly blocking the pace of the Japanese attack, until May 24, the Japanese tanks and tanks finally drove into Luoyang City.
However, the 15th Army still did not retreat, and fought with the Japanese army through the streets of Luoyang City, so that in the end, the 15th Army was almost completely destroyed, only less than 2,000 people finally broke through, more than 6,000 people were captured by the Japanese army, and more than 10,000 other people lost their lives. But at the same time, they also killed more than 20,000 enemies and inflicted heavy damage on the enemy.
First the Green Forest Army, then the Zhensong Army, and then the 15th Army, this former "bandit army," knowing that it was bound to lose, still painstakingly held on to Luoyang City for 14 days, beating out the flesh of the Chinese nation, striking the vigor of the Japanese invaders, and even more swollen the faces of the nationalist troops who fled the city early and abandoned the city, they are our heroes, our pride, and will certainly be remembered by history!