In the early winter of 1943, after more than a year of arduous fighting, the troops in the Jizhong base area, which had been under the full control of the Japanese puppet army since the May 1st Sweep, were reactivated again. The local troops, militias, guerrillas, and outer forces that persisted in the struggle on the inner front cooperated closely, constantly attacked, dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese puppet army, destroyed many grass-roots puppet regimes, and our grass-roots political power, which was originally underground in various localities, began to slowly resume its work, and the situation of the struggle against the enemy showed a marked improvement.
However, the Japanese puppet army was not willing to be taken back by our army in this way; they tried every means to strengthen their control and puppetization of the Jizhong region, trained a large number of puppet troops to supplement the shortage of Japanese troops, strengthened their espionage activities and rule, and burned and plundered the people in our base areas by more vicious means.
Located in the hinterland of the Beijing-Tianjin-Bao triangle, Wen'an is bordered by Tianjin Wei in the east, Baiyangdian in the west, and the Ziya River in daqing river, surrounded by two rivers, the geographical location is extremely superior, the transportation is also very convenient, and it is a place where soldiers must compete. After the fall of Wen'an on March 20, 1939, the Japanese puppet army immediately set up a tun military stronghold here and used it as a base for attacking the base area in Central Hebei. Under the leadership of the Party, the local people waged an unremitting struggle against the Japanese invading army and the traitors.
▲ Japanese tanks were hidden in the crop fields
In November 1943, the 66th Brigade and the 42nd Regional Brigade of the 10th Division of Jizhong camped in the zou gezhuang area of Wen'an, but because there were hidden traitors in the local area, they informed the ghosts of Wen'an of the information. The enemy reacted quickly, and immediately drew out 1 squadron of Japanese troops and 3 squadrons of puppet troops totaling 500 or 600 people, and divided the road to attack Zou Gezhuang.
This squadron of the devils was specially set up to deal with our army's rapid troops, all of which were motorized, and equipped with artillery to deal with the fortress villages of our local army; because of their rapid action and strong firepower, the threat to our local troops was particularly great, and there were many district squads, squadrons, and other armed forces that were quickly surrounded by them before, and the losses were very large.
This time, the enemy repeated the same trick, trying to use this motorized force to surround our army camp and then annihilate our 2 district teams in one fell swoop. However, this time the Japanese army made a wrong calculation, because this is the old area, the mass base is excellent, the enemy's actions were discovered by the masses very early and quickly reported to our army, so before the enemy encircled, our army was already alert, and the enemy's sneak attack did not fully achieve the effect.
Although the enemy came in several ways, but the Japanese army was on foot, so there were a lot of people left behind, after the Japanese army had arrived, the puppet army was still some distance away from Zou Gezhuang, and our 2 district teams took advantage of the fact that the Japanese army was small and not enough to surround our army, and concentrated its forces to rush out from the other direction, although the Japanese army used field artillery and light and heavy machine guns to shoot wildly at our army that broke through, but our army quickly disappeared without a trace.
Although the breakthrough was successful, it could not let the enemy go so easily, and our army was determined to take advantage of the advantages of a good local mass base and familiar terrain to give the enemy a powerful taste. Our 66th Brigade and 42nd District Immediately secretly maneuvered to the return road of the Japanese army back to Wen'an, set up an ambush circle, and only waited for the enemy to return empty-handed, giving the enemy a little bitterness.
After the Japanese puppet army surrounded Zou Gezhuang in a noisy manner, it was indeed empty-handed. Finally, they had to return to their respective positions at 4 p.m. At 5 p.m., at dusk, the Japanese army rode into the ambush circle of our army, our army let go of the car in front of it, concentrated fire on the last car dragging the field artillery, the frustrated Japanese army never expected that our army would ambush them on the way, and suddenly made a mess, the convoy in front of them braked one after another, turned around and pounced on our army position, trying to meet the artillery intercepted by our army. However, under the stubborn resistance of our army, it was impossible to advance, and the main force of our 2 districts took the opportunity to attack the trapped enemy artillery, and after fierce fighting, annihilated more than 20 Japanese artillerymen, destroyed 1 car, and captured 1 field artillery.
Seeing that the night was getting thicker and thicker, this squadron of the Japanese army was very depleted of ammunition because it was fighting alone, and it was worried about being surrounded by our army at night, and finally after repeated calculations, it was determined to abandon the field artillery and flee back to the county seat by car. In the end, the battle began with the enemy sneaking up on our army, and ended with our army successfully ambushing the enemy back in the city and capturing the Japanese field artillery.
Resources
Collected Essays of the People's Anti-Japanese Struggle in Jizhong, Vol. 6, pp1851-1852
Editor/Zhou Hongxin
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