A regiment recovered 7 counties from the Japanese in 20 days, and it also happened in 1937, which sounds a bit like an anti-Japanese drama. Because it was the time when the Japanese offensive was at its peak and morale was at its highest, it was undoubtedly very difficult to recover the lost land from the devils at this time. Friends who have watched the TV series Liangjian know that when Li Yunlong's independent regiment attacked Ping'an County, it was a matter of old nose strength, and it also paid a huge sacrifice. The recovery of 7 counties in two months is definitely a miracle, and the person who created this miracle was Yang Chengwu, who was the commander of the independent regiment of the 115th Division at the time.
Yang Chengwu, a native of Changting, Fujian Province, joined the Red Army at the age of 15 and grew from an ordinary soldier to a division commander and political commissar of the Red First Division in only 5 years. After the start of the Long March, the Red First Division took on the role of a pioneer, fighting fiercely with the enemy who was chasing and blocking several times
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the Red First Division was reorganized into the Independent Regiment of the 115th Division, with Yang Chengwu as the regimental commander and his troops rushing to the anti-Japanese front.
After accepting the task, Yang Chengwu led the independent regiment to block the impact of the two Japanese companies in the waist station area, and annihilated more than 300 enemy troops, making an extremely important contribution to the victory of Pingxingguan. However, the independent regiment also paid a considerable price in this blockade battle, of which the two companies of the first battalion suffered more than half of the casualties, and the instructor of the first battalion, Zhang Wensong, also died heroically. After that, the independent regiment was ordered to advance behind the enemy lines, centering on the Hengshan Mountain in the north, and creating an anti-Japanese base area. On the way, Yang Chengwu set up an ambush at Fengjiagou between Laiyuan and Guangling according to intelligence, completely annihilated the Second Transport Brigade of the Japanese Itagaki Division, killed more than 100 devils, and also captured dozens of puppet troops.
After interrogating the prisoners, it was learned that there were only a few dozen Japanese troops in Guangling City, and Yang Chengwu immediately ordered the three battalions to take Guangling City directly. So why are there so few ghosts left behind in Guangling? Because the devils had been invincible since entering Shanxi, and the Nationalist army had been defeated in successive battles, the Japanese were very arrogant and left only a small number of troops in the rear to maintain transportation and law and order. The devils in Guangling City did not expect the Eighth Route Army to dare to fight themselves, so they were unprepared, and the third battalion of the Independent Regiment quickly invaded the city with the cooperation of the masses, most of the devils were annihilated, and the rest fled.
Subsequently, Yang Chengwu divided his troops into three sides, east, west and north, and in less than 20 days, he successively recovered the seven counties of Laiyuan, Guangling, Lingqiu, Yi county, Wei County, Yangyuan, and Hunyuan, creating a miracle during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Subsequently, Yang Chengwu led his troops to advance along the Pingxi and Pingsui and Pinghan railways. Along the way, there are constantly enthusiastic young people coming to defect, the independent regiment has grown from more than 1,700 people at the beginning to more than 7,000 people, and it has been expanded by the headquarters into the independent first division of the Eighth Route Army, and Yang Chengwu has been promoted from regiment commander to division commander! He was only 23 years old.