Sichuan was the province that contributed the most troops during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, with a total of 3.5 million troops sent and recruited by the formation; at the same time, Sichuan was also the province with the heaviest sacrifice of soldiers, and the total number of Sichuan troops who died, wounded and disappeared on the battlefield was nearly 650,000, accounting for one-sixth of the total sacrifice of Chinese soldiers during the all-out War of Resistance.
Before the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance, Sichuan was known for having many troops and many civil wars. In the early 1930s, the number of troops under the jurisdiction of Sichuan's large and small forces reached 340 regiments. Later, after continuous adjustment and downsizing, after the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance in 1937, the Sichuan Army was reorganized into 8 armies and 113 infantry regiments.
After the reorganization of the Sichuan Army, the leaders of the Sichuan Army of various departments expressed their resistance to Japan in Sichuan one after another. There were two directions for its anti-Japanese resistance, one was that Liu Xiang and Yang Sen's troops went to East China to participate in the war; the other was that Deng Xihou, Li Jiayu, and other troops went to North China to participate in the war.
Previously, all the departments of the Sichuan Army were warlords of all sizes, but in the face of the great national righteousness, they were reorganized into an organized army, focusing on the overall situation of the anti-Japanese resistance. For example, this road to the north is the 22nd Group Army of the Sichuan Army, which has jurisdiction over the 41st Army, 45th Army and 47th Army, Deng Xihou is the commander of the group army, and the commanders are Sun Zhen, Deng Xihou (concurrently), and Li Jiayu, and the three armies were different factions before.
After the July 7 Incident, the Japanese army attacked fiercely on the front line in North China, and the 22nd Group Army of the Sichuan Army, with the 41st Army and the 45th Army, went to the Shanxi front to fight. However, the first battle of the Sichuan Army in the north was severely damaged, and a group army lost more than half of it, but only a small number of Japanese troops were wiped out, and the battle loss ratio reached an astonishing tens of to one.
As mentioned above, in the pre-war reorganization of the Sichuan Army, two-thirds of the troops were cut off, and it is reasonable to say that the Sichuan Army left behind were all elite, but why did such a situation occur on the battlefield?
In fact, although the Sichuan Army had a large number of troops before the All-People War of Resistance, its weapons and equipment were not very good. Because the opponents are often their own people, many Sichuan military use cold weapons. Even if two-thirds of the troops were cut, the remaining soldiers, although young and strong, could only meet the needs of one rifle.
According to Huang Shaohu, who was the deputy commander of the Second Theater, the Sichuan army's guns were very poor, and not only did it lack light and heavy machine guns, but even the rifles were made in Sichuan, and dozens of bullets were about to go wrong.
At that time, a division of the Central Army's Adjustment Division would have a 12-gun artillery battalion, while the entire 22nd Group Army of the Sichuan Army did not have a single mountain or field artillery, and the only mortar companies directly under each infantry regiment that could be called artillery in the whole army were equipped with several Sichuan-made mortars that barely rang out.
As for the light and heavy machine guns, there were only a few dozen in the whole group army, such as the 364th Brigade, the main force of General Wang Mingzhang's 122nd Division, and the whole brigade only had 8 heavy machine guns and 2 light machine guns, these two light machine guns were bought by Zhang Xuanwu, the commander of the 727 regiment of the brigade, from his own pocket, and the rifles were almost all made in Sichuan, and there were no bayonets on the guns, and the soldiers could only be equipped with machetes.
At that time, the weapons and equipment of the Chinese army were much different from those of the Japanese army, and the Sichuan army was almost the most equipped in the Chinese army.
Generals Deng Xihou and Sun Zhen of the 22nd Group Army were not unaware that their weapons and equipment were extremely poor and it was difficult to compete with the Japanese army. At that time, the Nationalist government had agreed that the Sichuan army could receive weapons from Xi'an, but the train was stopped by Jiang Dingwen as soon as it arrived in Xi'an: saying that the 22nd Group Army was included in the second theater of operations, and the soldiers of the Sichuan Army were sent to Shanxi without getting off the train for a meal.
Shanxi was the territory of Yan Xishan at that time, and if it were not for the rapid offensive of the Japanese army, Yan would not have entered with the army of the unexpected province.
Due to the bad influence of the Sichuan army in the warlord war years, Yan Xishan did not welcome the arrival of the Sichuan army. At that time, the Jin Sui Army in Taiyuan originally had an inventory of arms, but it did not allocate it, and only sent 20 Jin-made machine guns (probably the Jin version of Thomson, usually equipped with the Chief's Guard).
No weapons, no map of Shanxi. In the end, it was only from Chu Xichun, chief of staff of the Commander's Office of the Second Theater of Operations, that two maps of Jindong were obtained; at the same time, the Eighth Route Army also sent a map of the captured Japanese army (Japan had drawn a detailed map of Shanxi since the beginning of the war), and Deng Xihou said excitedly: Five words for seeing oneself in tribulation.
However, when the Sichuan army arrived, the situation in Shanxi was already very bad. At that time, the main force of the Jin Sui Army and the main force of the Central Army fought a decisive battle with the Japanese 5th Division and the Kwantung Army at Xinkou, while the Japanese 20th Division advanced from the direction of Shijiazhuang to the front line of Niangziguan, and Huang Shaohu was ordered to command Sun Lianzhong's 26th Route Army, Feng Qinya's 27th Route Army, Zhao Shoushan's 17th Division, and Zeng Wanzhong's 3rd Army to deploy.
At that time, the deployment was to guard the front of Niangziguan with the 17th Division, the 27th Route Army and the 3rd Army were on the left and right flanks, and the 26th Route Army was in reserve. However, Feng Qinya's 27th Route Army shut down the radio, Huang Shaohu could not be contacted from beginning to end, and the Japanese army attacked Niangziguan, turning the main force to attack the old pass, and inserted itself into the combined headquarters of the 17th Division and the 3rd Army, and Huang urgently ordered the 26th Route Army to rush to the rescue.
The above-mentioned units had fought against the Japanese army in Hebei, and there were many casualties, and under the onslaught of the Japanese army, the casualties were huge, and they had already routed from the niangziguan front.
In order to stabilize the front and reach a Sichuan army, Huang Shaohu took it to plug the gap, so that the Sichuan army could not participate in the battle as a whole.
Zhang Xuanwu, who was then the commander of the 727th Regiment of the Sichuan Army, said without complaint:
Before the commander of the regiment arrived, he directly commanded the commander; before the commander arrived, he directly commanded the division commander; and even directly commanded the brigade commander, regimental commander, and battalion commander. As a result, an army has become a number of headless snakes of all sizes on the battlefield, how can a snake without a head fight?
By the time division commander Wang Mingzhang reached the front, the 122nd Division was already broken; by the time Sun Zhen arrived, the 41st Army was already out of shape; and by the time Deng Xihou, commander-in-chief of the group army, arrived in Taiyuan, the 22nd Group Army had only half the strength left.
In fact, it was also difficult to deal with from Huang Shaohu's point of view, he was originally from the Gui clan, and there was only a Guangxi Guards of more than 200 people around him, and it was difficult to command the troops of various factions, such as Feng Qinya's 27th Route Army.
These armies were originally all so-called miscellaneous troops, and although they fought desperately, they were helplessly poorly equipped, and the losses in the battle with the Japanese army were enormous. For example, General Zhao Shoushan's 17th Division had more than 13,000 men (four formed regiments plus a supplementary regiment) before the all-out War of Resistance, and only more than 3,000 people were left after the Battle of Niangziguan.
Seeing that the whole line was running and collapsing, and there were no soldiers in his hands, the Sichuan army could only come to one, and he took it to the top.
However, the situation of the Sichuan army was even worse than that of the above-mentioned armies; in terms of equipment, it was not comparable; on the experience of fighting against Japan, there was nothing at all; on the familiarity with the terrain and environment, the land of Bashu and Shanxi were even more different, and at that time it was already autumn, many of the Sichuan army were still wearing summer clothes and straw shoes, and the northern diet was not accustomed.
Under such conditions, the command is still extremely chaotic, and no one knows where the enemy is, where his own position is, and where the friendly forces are.
The headquarters of the 22nd Army entered the village of Nanpan near Taiyuan, but no one informed the Jin Sui army here of the withdrawal, which had been occupied by the Japanese army. As a result, when the breakthrough was made, the commander Deng Xihou fell into the ditch on horseback and was wounded, and if it were not for the desperate rescue of the guards around him, General Deng would have died here.
Despite the chaos, the various units of the Sichuan Army fought to the death against the never-before-seen Japanese Kou. Long-range firepower is insufficient, just when the Japanese charge with grenades to greet, the Japanese army rushed to the position with a machete to fight with it, often a unit casualties, the Japanese army can take the position.
However, the equipment of the Sichuan army is too poor, and the white-knife warfare of the Japanese army in the melee battle occupies the advantage, so while the loss is extremely large, it cannot eliminate many Japanese troops, the loss ratio is as high as tens of to one, and at the same time, it is impossible to stop the Japanese offensive, and can only delay the japanese army's attack with flesh and blood, and buy time for the containment of friendly troops and the deployment of Taiyuan.
By the time the Sichuan army's own troops were taken in, more than half of the casualties had been inflicted, and each brigade was forced to be reduced to one regiment, and the other regiment returned to Sichuan with new soldiers. Many years later, when General Deng Xihou recalled the Battle of Niangziguan, he couldn't help but shed tears.
However, the sacrifice of the Sichuan army was not properly respected, and because Jiang Dingwen and Yan Xishan did not provide supplies for the Sichuan army, the retreating Sichuan army robbed the Jin Sui army's arsenal. As a result, Yan Xishan was furious, saying that the Sichuan army was not enough to resist Japan and disturbed the people. It also requested that this force be transferred.
After Yan Xishan spread the bad reputation of the Sichuan army, the first theater was also unwilling to accept the Sichuan army, and finally the fifth theater of General Li Zongren accepted this unit, and soon after, the same Sichuan army fought the famous Tengxian defense war, and the sichuan army general Wang Mingzhang and thousands of sichuan army disciples used their blood and lives to justify the sichuan army.