In October 1935, the main Long March of the Central Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi and met the victorious division of the Red Army in northern Shaanxi. Old Chiang Kai-shek dispatched the strength of the 5 divisions of the Northeast Army from Fuxian and Heshui to the east and west, in a vain attempt to fight a decisive battle with the Red Army west of the Luo River and north of the Hulu River. Faced with a situation in which the enemy was outnumbered, the Red Army decided to break the enemy's attack by luring the enemy to go deep and annihilate each one, and chose the location of the ambush in the town of Zhiluo. The town of Zhiluo is surrounded by mountains on three sides, north of the Hulu River, and on the east slope of the hill there are earthen villages, and an east-west avenue passes through the town, and the terrain is dangerous, which is very conducive to setting up ambushes.
At that time, the specific operational deployment was: the Red First Army assembled in the shizui, Fenghuangtou, Jiangjiachuan, and Weijiahe areas northeast of Zhiluo Town, and then entered the mountains north of Zhiluo Town, preparing to fight from north to south. The Red Fifteenth Army assembled in the areas of Zhangcunyi and Taohuaquan in the southeast of Zhiluo Town, entered the mountains south of Zhiluo Town, and fought from south to north. Among the five divisions of the Nationalist Army, the 109th Division was the fastest to advance, becoming a prominent lone army.
We lured the enemy troops to retreat while fighting, deliberately showing weakness, and the enemy division commander Niu Yuanfeng really hit the plan and led his troops directly to the town of Zhiluo. Niu Yuanfeng, a native of Yishui, Shandong, graduated from the fifth phase of the Baoding Army Officer School, and after graduating from the military academy, he entered the Northeast Lecture Hall as an instructor, and later became the commander of the Northeast Army, and was only transferred to the commander of the 109th Division in early 1935. Although he had been in a high position for a long time, before the Battle of Zhiluo Town, Niu Yuanfeng had not fought a single actual battle, and his combat experience was extremely lacking. At this time, he saw that the Red Army was constantly "defeated and retreated", did not know what the plan was, and was still complacent about his own courage.
On the evening of November 20, the 109th Division "entered" the town of Zhiluo, and Niu Yuanfeng triumphantly reported victory to the commander Dong Yingbin, not knowing that he had penetrated into the net laid down by the Red Army. At dawn on the 21st, the main forces of the Red I Corps and the Red XV Corps, which had been ambushed in the north and south mountains in advance, suddenly launched an attack on the 109th Division. Niu Yuanfeng was awakened in his sleep and hurriedly commanded his troops to resist, but where was the unsuspecting enemy army's opponent? In the end, the 109th Division was completely annihilated by our army, and Niu Yuanfeng was also killed.
In this great victory, our army captured more than 5,300 enemy soldiers, including a second-class soldier named Cui Rifa. Cui Rifa was a native of Wei County, Hebei Province, whose ancestors had been a jinshi in the late Qing Dynasty and was worthy of the title of Shuxiang Mendi. When Cui Ri was born, the family road had already fallen. In 1934, the 19-year-old Cui Rifa had to go out to earn a living, and after a long journey, he came to Hankou, saw that a recruitment station of the Northeast Army was recruiting, signed up, and was assigned to the 109th Division as a second-class soldier. Unexpectedly, after just one year as a soldier, he became a prisoner of the Red Army.
At that time, the Policy of the Red Army in dealing with prisoners was to leave those who were willing to stay as soldiers, and the Red Army welcomed them; those who wanted to go home were paid by the Red Army. As a result, Cui Rifa signed up to join the Red Army, and no one expected that this captured second-class soldier of the Nationalist Army would become famous in the world 17 years later! On October 14, 1952, the world-famous Battle of Shangganling began, and Choi Il-fa commanded his 45th Division and the U.S.-Rok coalition army for 43 days and nights, and at the most critical juncture of the battle, he did not leave the command post tunnel for 7 consecutive days and 7 nights. During this period, all his sleep time added up to only a dozen hours.
In the end, the 45th Division, with the cooperation of brother troops, repelled more than 900 enemy charges and firmly held Shangganling. Van Vleet, commander of the US 8th Army, who boasted that it would take only 6 days to end the battle, was overshadowed by the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Shangganling. Clark, then commander-in-chief of the United Nations Army, commented on the Battle of Shangganling: "The Battle of the Triangle Heights began on October 14, 1952, and this attack, which began as a limited target, developed into a cruel and vicious gamble to save face. But unfortunately, we lost the bet. In 1954, Cui Rifa was elected as a deputy to the National People's Congress, and in recognition of his outstanding military achievements in the Battle of Shangganling, the conference secretariat changed his name to "Cui Jiangong", which soon became a household name, and this year, Cui Jiangong was 39 years old.