In the history of the Red Army, the little-known scale of the Huajialing Blockade Battle was not large, but for the Red Army, which had just completed the Long March and was in the stage of the general division, it was undoubtedly of great significance that a tired division could repel the invading enemy in the case of a large number of enemies and enemies (the ratio of troops was 1:9).
In late October 1936, Li Lianxiang, commander of the 37th Regiment of the Red 5th Army, and Xie Liang, political commissar, led the whole country to the area of Majiayingzi in Tongwei, Gansu Province, and stationed there. On the evening of the 21st, they suddenly received an order from the commander Dong Zhentang: 9 regiments under Mao Bingwen, commander of the Kuomintang 11th Army, followed in pursuit of your troops, and it was possible to reach Majiaying early tomorrow morning, and you should do your best to block the enemy army for a day between Majiayingzi and Huajialing.
Located at the junction of Dingxi, Huining and Tongwei counties, Huajialing is the highest peak of the Longdong Plateau and a must for the Sealand Highway. The enemy wanted to control the Red Army's westward advance and northward movement in this area, and the Red Army had to resist the enemy south of the Sealand Highway.
As the two sides entered a state of battle, a bloody battle began in the area of Huajialing.
It's an unprecedentedly fierce battle of resistance! The Red Army 1 regiment had to face 9 regiments, the disparity in strength was already huge, coupled with the enemy's equipment far exceeding the Red Army, and they also had 7 aircraft in the air to support, how difficult this battle was for the Red Army can be imagined.
However, the officers and men of the Red Army, inspired by the spirit of the victorious division, were highly morale, had high morale, made full preparations, and were determined to "fight the first battle after the division!" ”
At dawn on the 22nd, the enemy of the whole regiment lined up in a 4-way column and rushed along the road from the south to Majiayingzi. When the enemy entered the Red Army ambush circle, before he could figure out what was going on, he left many corpses and more than 30 prisoners in the tidal siege of the 37th Regiment and fled to Nancanghuang.
The second time, the enemy used aircraft cannons to bomb the town of Majiaying into a sea of fire. But when I came in, I found an empty city. It turned out that the two battalions of the 37th Regiment of the Red Army had already dug fortifications next to the road from Majiaying to Huajialing to wait for work, and when the enemy who continued to come in approached the position, they fired fiercely with machine guns, rifles, and grenades, and directly hit the enemy like maggots, and could no longer resist and returned to the Majia camp.
The enemy attacked twice, but suffered heavy losses. When the location of the Red Army was ascertained, they mobilized their aircraft cannons with great ferocity and bombed indiscriminately like crazy.
This was a particular threat to the Red Army positions on the bare mountain beams, which were not obscured at all. Deafening noises, soaring sand and gravel, billowing smoke, shrouded the skies over the positions.
The Red Army soldiers climbed out of the earth, shot aircraft with rifles, and repelled many charges of enemy infantry with machine guns and grenades. Wang Li, the regimental chief of staff, personally rushed to the position of the 3rd Battalion to command under the condition of no telephone and interruption of communication, and together with the soldiers, jumped out of the trench to chase the enemy. The hillside was glittering with fire and smoke, and the Red Army soldiers pressed the enemy back step by step.
At this moment, Wang Li was suddenly shot and fell. This 23-year-old, not good at talking, heroic and good at war in Sichuan, sacrificed his precious life.
At about the same time, Luo Nanhui, deputy commander of the Fifth Red Army, who was personally in command of the front line, was also unfortunately shot and killed in front of the command post on the big pier beam at the junction of Tongwei and Huining.
"Avenge the martyrs who sacrificed!" "Pay the blood debt to the enemy"! New hatred and old hatred are condensed on the bullets of the soldiers of the Red Army and shot at the enemy like a wild storm.
At noon, the enemy changed tactics, concentrated his absolute superiority, and under the cover of aircraft artillery and supervised by officers, focused on the 1st Battalion of the 37th Regiment.
Regiment commander Li Lianxiang personally organized a frontal blockade of the enemy and sent the second battalion directly into the enemy's flank. The warriors rushed up like a whirlwind, firmly resisting the enemy, so that the enemy could not take a step forward.
In the afternoon, the enemy increased the strength of a regiment and launched another attack with aircraft artillery.
All the commanders of the 37th Regiment ordered grenades and bayonets to be prepared, determined to fight a hard and bloody battle. When the enemy approached our position, the soldiers of the whole regiment shouted the slogan of "avenge the martyrs", and with the explosion of the grenade thrown, they rushed out of the trench and engaged in a white-knife battle with the enemy.
After a few rounds, the enemy retreated with a lot of corpses, but the 37th Regiment also lost more than 100 Red Army soldiers.
Until the evening, the 37th Regiment of the Red 5th Army still held on both sides of the road from Majiayingzi to Huajialing, stubbornly resisting the enemy. The fierce battle lasted for a whole day, inflicting heavy damage on the enemy, stopping the enemy army at a distance of 5 kilometers from Huajialing, and successfully completing the task of blocking the attack assigned by the superior.
Although this battle also cost the Red Army a considerable cost of casualties, it also brought heavy damage to the enemy, crushed the enemy's attempt to wipe out the Red Army south of the Sealand Highway, and opened the way for the Red Army to cross the Yellow River in the north and enter northern Shaanxi in the east.
After the battle, a captured Kuomintang battalion commander confessed that they "thought that the Red Army troops that had just passed through the snowy mountains and meadows must have been exhausted, tantamount to lambs in the winter, but they did not expect to really exchange hands, only to find that the Red Army was still a formidable tiger." ”