In the Battle of Taierzhuang in 1938, the 60th Army of the Dian Army, the strong brigade of the country, was sent to the battlefield, but such a brave and well-equipped unit lost more than 2,000 people on the first day of battle.
As a local army, why the Dian Army will be called the power of the country, we must start from the defense of Nanjing in 1937.
In that year, the Japanese army gathered 200,000 troops to launch a fierce attack on Nanjing, and the Nationalist army gathered about 150,000 troops to resist the Japanese army. At the same time, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 60th Army of the Dian Army to immediately rush to the aid of Nanjing. However, the distance between the western Yunnan region and Nanjing was too far, and the 60th Army led by Lu Han did not catch up day and night, and eventually Nanjing fell, and the Nationalist government of Nanjing was forced to move to Chongqing.
Lu Han was also ordered to divert to Wuhan and lead the 60th Army of the Dian Army to Wuhan for special training. In order to make the local army a mainstay of resistance against the Japanese army, Chiang Kai-shek decided to start with the Dian Army and add 3 brigades to the 60th Army led by Lu Han, while providing a large number of new equipment. Luján led the army to Wuhan to receive special training from German military advisers.
After several months of special training, the 60th Army has been completely renewed, and even German military advisers have assured Chiang Kai-shek that the 60th Army has become the strongest army that can keep pace with the German army and the Japanese army, and can be said to have become a real national force. Subsequently, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the 60th Army to immediately march to Henan to support Xuzhou at any time as a reserve force.
After Lu Han led the 60th Army to Henan, he immediately received a telegram from Li Zongren, asking him to immediately go to Xuzhou to support the nationalist forces in Taierzhuang. Lu Han immediately led the army to Taierzhuang without stopping.
At that time, the great victory of Taierzhuang deeply encouraged the confidence of the Chinese people in resisting the war, and Lu Han, who had thought that the war on the front line was moderate, only realized when he arrived at Taierzhuang that the defense line of Taierzhuang had long been destroyed by the Japanese army. However, the 60th Army had not yet been formally deployed at this time, and in order to re-establish the defensive line against the Japanese army, Luhan immediately ordered the 183rd Division to cross the canal and establish a temporary defensive line, and the 184th and 182nd Divisions immediately followed.
The 183rd Division encountered japanese troops just as it crossed the canal, followed by fierce fighting. Because of the suddenness of the incident, the 183rd Division did not have any defensive lines, and Luhan had to order the 183rd Division to move to the vicinity of the village and organize an army to counterattack in the nearby village. But the Japanese mechanized forces had arrived, and the 183rd Division was already fully encircled by the Japanese. The commander of the 183rd Division immediately ordered a breakthrough, and under the heavy artillery fire of the Japanese, the 183rd Division successfully broke through, but also suffered heavy losses.
Lu Han realized at this time that Li Zongren's prediction of the defense line of Taierzhuang was too good, the entire defense line had long been completely destroyed by the Japanese army, and if he wanted to regain the advantage of the defense line, he had to fight with the Japanese army again for the surrounding villages, which would only make the entire army fragmented into pieces and fight for each other, and the mechanized troops of the Japanese army had arrived, and the blind attack would only cause greater casualties.
Lu Han immediately sent a telegram to Li Zongren to explain the situation, who knew that Li Zongren had a tough attitude and only replied with three words: No retreat. Later, in order to prevent Lu Han from retreating with his army, he also telegraphed Lu Han to retreat and dispose of it by military law. There was no way, Luhan had to lead the army to continue to resist the Japanese army.
At this time, the subsequent 184th and 182nd divisions arrived, and Luhan immediately reorganized his army, and after withstanding the heavy japanese shelling, Luhan ordered the regiments to lead soldiers to occupy the surrounding villages. The 60th Army was worthy of being the most powerful force in the country, and its combat effectiveness was extremely fierce, and it soon captured several surrounding villages, but at this time another problem was in front of it. After occupying the position, each regiment and brigade had to face the Japanese attack alone, and Lu Han could not understand the actual situation in all aspects at the same time, it can be said that the current 60th Army was completely fighting separately, but Li Zongren did not care about these at all, and still let Lu Han hold the position.
In this way, the soldiers of the Dian Army resisted the Japanese attack on their respective positions, although there was no unified command, the Japanese army still did not get any advantage, and many attacks of the Japanese army were repelled, but the Dian army also suffered heavy losses. According to statistics, in just one day, the Dian army lost nearly 2,000 officers and men, including Major General Chen Zhongshu, a brigade commander.
In the face of such huge casualties, Lu Han decided to refuse to obey Li Zongren's wrong orders, recalled all the brigades scattered in various positions, redeployed, and on April 24, organized the army to attack, this impact can be said to be the fiercest charge encountered by the Japanese army in the early stage of the War of Resistance, the Japanese army was disrupted, the casualties were heavy, and Lu Han also successfully led the army to retreat to Xuzhou City.
Such a powerful force of the country, under the wrong command of Li Zongren, caused more than 2,000 casualties in just one day, which really responded to the sentence: "The general is incompetent and exhausts the three armies."