In September 1945, the 386th Brigade of the Taiyue Column of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region was ordered by its superiors to seize Changzhi Beiguan, where the Kuomintang Jin Sui Army was stationed, and won the opening of the Shangdang Campaign.
Just as the brigade commander Liu Zhong and the political commissar Zhang Zuyu were preparing to lead the troops to launch an attack on Changzhicheng, the commander Chen Geng suddenly called and asked the 386th Brigade to suspend the attack on Changzhicheng and to go to the vicinity of Laoye Mountain to block the enemy reinforcements transferred from Taiyuan.
Liu and Zhang didn't say a word and immediately led the whole brigade straight to Laoye Mountain.
The reconnaissance company of the brigade headquarters walked at the forefront of the whole brigade, and as soon as it reached the foot of Laoye Mountain, it encountered the vanguard of the Seventy-fourth Division of the Jin Sui Army.
This enemy was coming to reinforcements, and they relied on their superiority in strength and firepower to preemptively seize the commanding heights of Laoye Mountain, suppressing the 386th Brigade at the bottom of the mountain and unable to advance.
At this time, the enemy's follow-up troops are constantly pouring into Laoye Mountain, and if they are not beaten back as soon as possible, it will greatly threaten the deployment of our army in the Shangdang campaign.
Although the enemy had taken advantage of the terrain, our army had no way to retreat, and Liu Zhong and Zhang Zuyu immediately made a decision and ordered the troops to attack the mountains from the east and west.
The commanders and fighters of the 386th Brigade fought extremely bravely and tenaciously, and rushed toward the mountain again and again, but due to the unfavorable terrain, coupled with the enemy's excellent weapons and superior troops, the 386th Brigade failed to succeed in several strong attacks.
Liu Zhong and Zhang Zuyu believed that continuing to fight would cause serious casualties in our army, and if it was delayed, it would also be possible to be attacked by the enemy back and forth. So they decided to adjust their tactics, so that the troops would pause the attack and carry out the raid after dark.
Chu Daming, the commander of the Twenty Regiments who was brave and good at war, took the initiative to ask for help, personally led a troop, and quietly attacked under the cover of night, seizing two mountain beams on Laoye Mountain and controlling the water source in his own hands.
Not long after, Peng Yubin, commander of the Seventh Army of the Jin Sui Army, personally led 8 divisions with a total of more than 22,000 troops to reinforce the enemy of the Shangdang, and engaged in a fierce battle with the Ji'nan Column and the Taihang Column of our army at mopanyuan south of Laoye Mountain.
The enemy on Laoye Mountain could not find water to drink, so they frantically attacked Chu Daming's Twentieth Regiment, and Liu Zhong sent the main force to continue reinforcements, repelling the enemy's attacks again and again, and also taking the main peak of Laoye Mountain.
Zhang Zuyu deduced from this situation that it was difficult for the enemy to gain a foothold in Laoye Mountain, and it was very likely that he would flee from the south and go to the direction of Mopan'an to reinforce Peng Yubin's troops.
In order to confirm the enemy situation, Zhang Zuyu personally climbed to a large rock on the top of the mountain with a pair of telescopes to observe the enemy situation and terrain around Laoye Mountain.
At this time, the sky was already bright, the enemy and we were all under fire, and the battlefield temporarily entered a state of silence. Zhang Zuyu carefully observed it and found nothing unusual.
Just as he was about to leave the top of the mountain, he caught a glimpse of a sudden flash of white light in the distance from the telescope, but disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"Oh, where did the white light come from?" This detail immediately made Zhang Zu feel bad, he took a closer look and confirmed that the place where the white light flashed just now was in a mountain pass northeast of Laoye Mountain.
Just as the so-called "details determine success or failure", Zhang Zuyu, the founding general, is worthy of a generation of famous generals, and through his attention and investigation of this detail, he has seen through the enemy's tricks, but it has had a crucial impact on the direction of the war situation.
Next, Zhang Zuyu continued to use the telescope to observe where the white light flashed. His patience paid off, and it wasn't long before an unusual white light reappeared.
He fixed his eyes on it, and only then did he see that in the distant mountain pass, there were teams of enemy figures. The unusual white light came from a foreign oil drum carried by an enemy soldier (at that time, the Nationalist army had many heavy weapons that needed to be lubricated with oil). Since the sun was shining right into the mountain pass at this time, the light reflected by the shiny oil barrels became the white light flashing in the telescope.
Zhang Zuyu continued to observe silently, but found an even more strange thing: the enemy's queue first moved to the east, and then to the north.
"Not bad! There's a name for it! Zhang Zuyu was astonished, "Isn't the enemy going to the south to reinforce Peng Yubin's troops?" Why is it sneaking away to the north now? What tricks are they trying to play? ”
Thinking of this, Zhang Zuyu immediately went to Liu Zhong and told him what he had just observed, and Liu Zhong also felt very strange. The two immediately dispatched a reconnaissance squad, and after investigation, confirmed that the enemy was indeed secretly moving north.
"Obviously, the enemy is going to slip away!" Zhang Zuyu said with great certainty, "They ostensibly want to reinforce to the south, but in fact they are sneaking north!" ”
"I agree with you!" Liu Zhong said, "Their reinforcements are just a false shot, and it is very likely that they do not want to serve as cannon fodder for Peng Yubin in vain, but plan to escape for their own lives." ”
They immediately reported this situation to their superiors, and commander Chen Geng attached great importance to it, and it was not long before he personally went to the Laoye Mountain position with Wang Jinshan and ordered Liu and Zhang to command the 386th Brigade to pursue the enemy's Seventy-fourth Division.
The 386th Brigade advanced rapidly, and instead of letting the enemy slip away, it ran ahead of them. This is precisely the cleverness of Liu and Zhang -- if they want to fight, they will fight a war of annihilation, not a rout war!
On October 8, the enemy broke into the 386th Brigade's blocking position on the first line of Tuluo Village on the west bank of the Zhanghe River, but they were not only the Ninety-fourth Division, but also the 23rd Army and the 83rd Army of the Jin Sui Army, totaling more than 20,000 people.
In the face of an enemy ten times their own strength, Liu Zhong and Zhang Zuyu resolutely did not retreat, and commanded the commanders and fighters of the whole brigade to fight hard to block the incoming enemy and repulse their countless onslaughts.
At the critical moment, the main forces of the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Military Region rushed to reinforcements, completely annihilated more than 20,000 enemies, and won a great victory in the history of the army.
Reference historical materials: "Chinese The Battle History of the Second Field Army of the People's Liberation Army", "The Battle of Shangdang", "Liu Deng's Army Fighting shangdang" and so on