In order to open up the border areas of Shang (He), Ji (Yang), Hui (Min), and Lin (Yi) and to open up the connection between the two strategic areas of Hebei and Lubian and Qinghe, the Military and Political Committee of Jilu Border decided to form the Yan'an Detachment from six detachments, eight regiments and three battalions (battalion commander Du Buzhou and political and religious Yang Aihua).
The detachment had more than 400 guns, 7 machine guns, and 1 mortar, and was led by Yang Chengde, chief of staff of the sixth detachment, to drive straight into the enemy-occupied area, annihilate small groups of enemies in a mobile and flexible guerrilla manner, launch a political offensive, win over the recalcitrant army to resist Japan, and assist in establishing district and township political power and expanding its armament.
One day in February 1940, "Yanzhi" set off from the five major stores and entered Cui Zhaizhuang in the second district of Shanghe at night. The next day, he went to Xusi Village and mobilized Xu Qi, the head of the stubborn district, to hand over more than 20 rifles and send his two younger brothers to join our army. Then he intercepted a guard squad leader of the puppet army Tian Jingtang in Yuezhuang, and captured a military horse and two guns.
After the team arrived at Meng Temple, they asked Xu Shangwu, the anti-Japanese county magistrate of Linyi, to send a letter to Liu Shiyao, the puppet captain of Xin'an's Sun'an stronghold, ordering him to surrender. The detachment also sent people to He Gouzi, the captain of the Linyi puppet brigade, and Lu Er, who was the devil to turn Ze, respectively, asking them to surrender or secretly help the anti-Japanese ......
These activities shocked the Japanese invaders. Taking advantage of the fact that our foothold was not stable, the chieftains of the Huimin enemy organized nearly 2,000 infantry from the four counties of Hui (Min), Shang (He), Ji (Yang), and Lin (Yi), plus a cavalry squadron, equipped with two tanks and three aircraft, to come to "sweep up."
One day, "Yanzhi" lived with the staff of Linyi County Government Village in East and West Zhonglou Village. At 3 p.m., the "sweeping" team came after them and lived around the village of East and West Bell Tower. The enemy dispatched three tanks to go around the west of Zhonglou Village, and fired another burst of gunfire, shaking and majestic.
In order to open up a new area and combat the enemy's arrogance, after dark, "Yanzhi" moved to Liu Bohai Village, where he was fighting. All the commanders and fighters dug and fortified the ditches overnight, opened up the houses, and made full preparations for the battle.
At about 8 o'clock the next morning, the Japanese puppets surrounded and attacked from all sides. The detachment fought back and forth. The battle was fierce. The enemy was repelled by me. Our side also suffered some losses, Zhao Xichun, the leader of the first platoon of the Ninth Company, was wounded in one eye, and 12 soldiers were wounded.
At 11 o'clock, the enemy attacked again. A company of puppet troops in the front, the Japanese army in the rear, first bombarded with artillery, then machine-gun fire, and then let the infantry charge our position. When the enemy advanced to 100 meters, I repelled the enemy with intensive firepower.
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the Japanese troops were in the center, and the puppet troops were on the left and right, attacking us with even more ferocious firepower. "Yanzhi" calmly responded to the battle, and concentrated sharpshooters to fight devils, causing the enemy to mess up the phalanx, and once again repelled the enemy's attack.
After a hard day, although the enemy suffered heavy losses, it was not good for us to fight for a long time when the enemy was strong and we were weak. So the battalion commander Du Buzhou and other commanders discussed with the old people in the village, and the troops covered the masses at dusk and broke through together. At this time, Company Commander Guo brought one person. This man claimed to be a good friend of the captain of the Lion Du Stronghold. He was entrusted by a friend to send a letter to us to withdraw quickly, saying that the devil had gone to Jinan to transfer troops again. This made Du Buzhou quite emotional, the commander of the puppet army sent someone to send us such important information, which shows that it is very important to do a good job in the puppet army.
At dusk, "Yanzhi" evacuated in an orderly manner, walking one mile south from the east gate of Qiancun, three miles to the east, and then to the northeast, safely withdrawing from the enemy's encirclement.
At dawn, the enemy poured into Liu Bohai Village and only picked up some bullet casings. The devil was so angry that he shouted: "Eight monkeys, the gods are elusive." ”
In this battle, "Yanzhi" won a great victory, and the enemy suffered more than 200 casualties; We lost 2 people and 16 wounded.
After this battle, in order to narrow down the target and make the troops' actions more mobile and flexible, the "Yanzhi" adopted the method of persisting in the struggle with the company as a unit and the divisions, seeking opportunities to annihilate small groups of the enemy, and responding to each other when necessary. Each person is provided with a suit of plain clothes in case of emergency. At the same time, the detachment decided: Xu Shangwu, the county magistrate, strengthened the investigation and disintegration of the enemy army, and Chief of Staff Yang led the eleventh company; political and religious Yang Aihua, chief of staff Zhu Baocheng led the tenth company; Battalion Commander Du Buzhou and Commander Jiang took the machine gun squad and the Ninth Company and acted separately.
At dawn one day, the battalion commander Du Buzhou led the Ninth Company from Caohuzhuang in the northeast of Shanghe City, marched 80 miles, and inserted into Wang Tianbi Village, 28 miles southwest of the city.
As soon as I arrived at the edge of the village, it was time for Du Guanqun, the instructor of the Fifth Brigade of the Lubei Detachment, to check the sentry. This brigade is about 150 people, most of whom are locals, and there are many new fighters, and the combat effectiveness is relatively weak. Du Guanqun reported to Battalion Commander Du: "The 'sweeping' team has temporarily withdrawn to the stronghold, but the activities of Bai Laoba in the stronghold of Guankou Temple are rampant, and they are often dispatched, burning, killing, and prostituting themselves, doing all kinds of evil, and the masses hate them to the core, which poses a great threat to our five brigades. He asked Battalion Commander Du to beat Bai Laoba, a traitor.
Battalion Commander Du agreed to their request, and while inspecting the terrain and analyzing the enemy's situation with several other cadres, the battle plan was quickly determined.
"Bai Laoba" is the pseudo-captain of Guankou Temple, the younger brother of Jiyang Liujiayingzi traitor, and the big bandit Bai Yuting, twenty-seven or eighteen years old, reckless, strong, arrogant, and belligerent, and can come to a plan to set up an ambush and annihilate him. Wang Tianbi Village is a small village of about 40 households, there is a half-section of the wall around the village, there is a drainage ditch in the south of the village, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack, the battalion commander Du and the company commander Zhang Hongdong personally led the light machine gun squad and a platoon of the ninth company to ambush in the ditch, mainly to fight devils; The remaining two platoons of the Ninth Company, led by political commander Sun Hongchun and deputy company commander Wu Qingshan, ambushed behind the wall south of the village and controlled the road leading to Dazhangjia Village; The five teams moved to Dazhang's house as "bait".
When the team was ready, they asked the liaison officer of Da Zhang's family to send a letter to "Bai Laoba", saying that the five brigades of Tuba Road had come to the village, and they didn't even have machine guns, and they were gathering noodles and cooking.
When Bai Laoba heard the news, he immediately gathered the team and went to report the devils of the stone bridge. He didn't wait for the devil to dispatch, so he led the puppet army to Da Zhang's house.
At this time, the five brigades were all concealed in the bunkers dug in advance in the south of the village, and as soon as the team of "Bai Laoba" arrived, they concentrated their firepower and fired fiercely, and after fighting for a while, they feigned a rout and withdrew to the southeast of Wang Tianbi Village in order to lure the enemy into the ambush circle of the Ninth Company. Unexpectedly, after the Japanese devils arrived at the battlement stone bridge, the captain of the devils ordered the "Bai Laoba" to stay in Dazhang's house to search for the scattered personnel of the five teams. He personally led the Japanese army along the road to chase the five brigades. The devil is in front, and behind is the police station and the garrison. The enemy was so imposing that he chased and shouted: "Eight roads of earth, there is no one left, all of them will be destroyed." "
The soldiers of the Ninth Company were secretly happy when they saw the devils chasing after them in person, and when all the devils entered our effective range, they gave an order, and the crossfire was fired in unison, so that the devils turned their heads and could not advance or retreat, and there was nowhere to hide on the avenue, so they had to lie on the avenue.
All the Japanese squads at the battlement bridge were killed, and only one squad leader survived and was seriously wounded. He scolded Bai and reported to the devil official in Jiyang City: "Bai's conscience is broken!" At this time, the "Bai Lao Ba" and his puppet army were still rummaging through boxes and cabinets in Dazhang's house, hanging and beating the masses, and raping women...... When the enemy's reinforcements arrived, our troops had moved to Dachengjia Village, northwest of Wang Tianbi Village, as planned. The enemy, fearing to be fooled again, did not dare to pursue.
Battalion Commander Du and others estimated that before dark, the enemy would reorganize their ranks and come to retaliate. So he discussed with the village chief, and in order to reduce losses, the masses were divided into groups and covered by troops to cross the business and the road.
At this time, Da Zhang's house suddenly rang out a dense burst of gunfire, and everyone thought that the enemy was playing prestige again. After a while, a puppet army ran panting with a white flag, and poor Baba said: He is the trumpeter of "Bai Laoba", and when he went to the toilet, the devils of Jiyang City arrived at Dazhang's house. The devil officer called "Bai Laoba" to assemble the team, put up the gun, and scolded "Bai Laoba", his conscience was greatly broken, and he scolded him for fornicating with the eight roads and lying about the military situation...... It is said that the imperial army of the stone bridge is all over, and none of you are dead, I will call you all dead! The devil officer scolded, and immediately ordered a shooting, killing Bai and his puppet army, and I ran out desperately.
Hearing this news, the soldiers humorously said, "Thank you" to the imperial army, he eliminated the "White Eight" for us.
At dawn in the late autumn of 1940, the Yan'an detachment was stationed in Yangguangwu Village, 32 miles southwest of Shanghe City.
After entering the village, Xu Shangwu, the head of Linyi Anti-Japanese County, said to us: "The five brigades that originally belonged to the Lubei detachment could not withstand the test of the complex and difficult environment and the lure of Tian Jingtang, the leader of the pseudo-stubborn miscellaneous troops. Tian is now helping them build a stronghold in Zhang's blacksmith's village. ”
The county magistrate Xu asked to take advantage of his unstable foothold to pull out this "nail". "Yanzhi" decided to eliminate this group of puppet troops immediately. Staff Officer Zhu Baocheng and Yang Aihua took the lead of the 11th and 9th Companies to serve as the main attacker, and the "Yanzhi" agreed to their request and instructed them to arrive at the predetermined location at half past eight in the evening, take good concealment, and launch an attack at nine o'clock.
Comrades Zhu and Yang had the idea of underestimating the enemy, believing that this group of puppet troops was not worth a dozen and would succeed immediately, but they did not make a full analysis of the enemy's firepower deployment and other conditions, so they rashly marched into the army, surrounded Zhang's blacksmith family with four platoons, and marched in all directions regardless of priority and priority. After entering the village, they did not launch an attack at the scheduled time, resulting in scattered firepower. In this way, the enemy is given a respite.
Tian Jingtang also ordered more than 30 members of the pistol team to attack our command post. Zhu and Yang were at a loss for what to do about this sudden situation and ordered to withdraw. During the retreat, one of the recruits was captured. Tian Jingtang and Cheng Zongke were extremely arrogant, and at 10 a.m. the next day, they held a villagers' meeting and tied up my captured new soldiers to a big locust tree in Zhang Blacksmith's Village and killed them in public.
When the news broke, the "Yanzhi" was extremely angry. Chief of Staff Yang immediately convened a meeting of cadres at and above the company level, and immediately personally led the team to take revenge.
The participating cadres also asked for the battle, and their emotions were very excited. Battalion Commander Du Buzhou and Commander Xin Yizhi advised the Chief of Staff to put aside his anger for the time being, and put forward the idea of winning by outwitting: Most of the artillery towers where the enemy lived were civil engineering buildings built by wealthy people to prevent bandits, which were not solid, and there were houses around. In this way, even if the enemy does not burn to death, he has to run out. Then send someone to block the door of the building, and go out and fight one by one.
It was agreed that this approach would work. Chief of Staff Yang said: "Okay, just do what Lao Du said." He then sent Battalion Commander Du, Deputy Battalion Commander Zhang Zhenhua, and Special Commissioner Zhang Xiwu to take the 10th and 12th companies to carry out the mission, and equipped each company with two machine guns.
Immediately after the meeting, the detachment headquarters made an emergency mobilization to all the soldiers of the 10th and 12th companies and made comprehensive preparations for battle.
At 11 o'clock in the evening, each soldier brought two catties of kerosene, secretly entered the village, quickly approached the houses near the forts, quickly climbed up to the roofs, and soon made a hole in the bottom of each turret, and stuffed them with firewood and grass sprinkled with kerosene. At one o'clock in the evening, they lit a fire together, and all of a sudden, fireworks soared into the sky. The enemy was so smoked that he coughed and held his breath and his eyes were full of tears, he couldn't see the target when he shot a gun, and he was killed in front of the door when he ran out, scratching his ears and cheeks, crying and calling his father and mother. By two o'clock in the night, more than 40 enemies were captured, burned to death, and more than 80 were burned, and Cheng Zongke was killed on the spot. Tian Jingtang led more than 30 people to a neighboring turret outside the east gate.
After a year of hard fighting, by the beginning of 1941, the scope of activities of "Yanzhi" was expanded to Mengsi, Dazhangjia, Xinglong Town, Jiaqiao, Zijiao, Jiahe, and Yuebaiguo Village. The Changzhuang area of Shanghe County became the base of our army.
At the beginning of March of that year, in order to continue to open up the junction of Shang (He), Ji (Yang), and Hui (Min), and to open up the connection between the Jilu Border Region and the Qinghe District, Zhou Guanwu, political commissar of the Sixth Brigade of the Jilu Border Brigade, led the brigade direct organs, the special service battalion, the second and third battalions of the 16th Regiment, and the organs of the Third Special Administration, totaling more than 2,000 people, set out from Cuijialou at the southern end of Yangxin County, marched for 80 miles, and inserted into Xinglong Town, 45 miles southeast of Shanghe County, in one night, in the vicinity of Wujiaji, and ordered the 17th Regiment to enter the village west of Xinglong Town.
Unexpectedly, the Japanese invaders were "sweeping" this area. Political Commissar Zhou convened a meeting of the heads of each regiment to study what to do. In the end, it was decided to "teach" the enemy with battles in order to boost the morale of the people. At this time, Du Buzhou had been promoted to deputy head of the 16th Regiment, and after the meeting, he returned to Wujiaji with Yang Chengde, head of the 16th Regiment, and Chen De, political commissar, and immediately mobilized the soldiers and the masses to dig bunkers and communication ditches, and prepare for a hard battle to "welcome" the arrival of the "sweeping" team of the Japanese invaders.
At this time, a major general of the Japanese army was leading a sweeping team of nearly 4,000 people to carry out a "sweep" in the 9th and 10th districts southeast of the Tuxiao River near Huimin County.
At eight o'clock in the morning, the enemy was raging, wading across the river and rushing towards us. When I reached the middle of the river, I was blocked by the dense fire of my soldiers who were lying in ambush on the other side. The enemy is in the water, there is no concealment, it is difficult to return fire, and there is no way to advance or retreat. Our army took advantage of the situation to annihilate the enemy, and the enemy suffered heavy casualties. After the enemy gathered more and more, our army withdrew to the village of Wujiaji.
After the enemy crossed the river, he frequently deployed troops to attack in turn to the east of Wuji, but they were all repulsed by our army. The enemy suffered heavy casualties, so he had to stop the attack, reorganize his troops on the one hand, and ask for help from Jinan on the other.
At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, Jinan sent 20 cars full of Japanese troops, equipped with heavy artillery, tanks, and gas shells. The enemy launched an even more fierce attack on our positions. The soldiers of the 16th Regiment swore to defend to the death, and the commanders and fighters had only one thought in their hearts: to defend the country to the death, and to live and die with the position. The enemy bombarded the wall with artillery, and the fighters, who were buried in the earth, drilled out and continued to fight. The 16th Regiment was brave and tenacious, desperately defending with a fearless revolutionary spirit, forcing the enemy to not advance.
The enemy went mad and unleashed poison gas. Some fighters were dizzy, coughed weakly, and had bleeding nostrils. Seeing this, Political Commissar Chen immediately ordered the 11th Company of the Reserve to chew garlic or smash garlic and put it on a towel to cover its nose to replace the poisoned 6th Company. Taking advantage of the sparse artillery fire, political workers went to the forward positions to deliver water and food, rescued the wounded, and carried out political agitation.
Night fell, and the enemy never managed to enter the village. They were afraid of night fighting, so they withdrew to a distance of two miles from the samuraiji, lit a fire, organized their ranks, and prepared to attack again in the morning to fight to the death with me.
The Sixteenth Regiment marched all night and fought another day. The noon warriors were very tired. Although they repelled several enemy attacks and killed and wounded more than 200 enemies, the troops also suffered more than 80 casualties. Moreover, I am surrounded by the enemy and have little foreign support, so it is very disadvantageous to passively engage in positional warfare with the enemy here.
The commander decided: The 16th Regiment and the 3rd Special Office broke through from the northwest corner of Wuji, and the 17th Regiment withdrew westward on its own.
Taking advantage of the dark night, our army moved in an orderly manner, quietly marched 80 miles at a brisk pace, and at dawn, safely transferred to the five major stores.
This battle dealt a serious blow to the well-armed enemy who was several times more than me, and expanded the reputation of my Balu who was not afraid of death and really fought devils.