Hikiko
*This article is excerpted from the third series of "Rushan Literary and Historical Materials" (October 1993), dictated by Lin Shoufeng, compiled by Jiang Fugui, the original title is "Ding Weiting Defeated Hu Bazhuang"
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In the first month of 1941, when the Eighth Route Army liberated Hubazhuang, I served as Ding Weiting's personal guard and witnessed the fiasco of Ding Bandits. It is now sorted out according to the recollection, and if there is something inappropriate, please criticize and correct the readers.
In the second half of 1940, Ding Weiting, commander of the 46th Guerrilla Detachment of the Kuomintang, set up a stronghold in Hubazhuang Village, Shiquan Township. In order to strengthen the defense of the stronghold, in addition to stationing the main force and the special service company in Hubazhuang, Ding Weiting also deployed response troops in the villages around Hubazhuang: a battalion was stationed in Xibeizhuang Village, Shiquan Township, with battalion commander Jiang Quanwu; A battalion was installed in Shaojia Village, and the battalion commander Wang Jizhan; An arsenal was set up in Sanshui River, which was established by Director Yong; A regiment was stationed in the upper and lower grass ports of Xiachu Town, and the regiment commander Ji Weimin.
At the beginning of the first month of 1941, after the bandit Cong Jingyue's division entrenched in Wendeng was defeated by the Eighth Route Army, Cong Jingyue defected to Ding Weiting alone, and Ding appointed him as deputy commander. Ding accepted Cong's lesson, strengthened the defense of Hubazhuang and the surrounding strongholds where the headquarters was stationed, and was constantly on guard, vigilant against movements in all directions. He often traveled to various bases to inspect and arrange defenses.
On the twentieth day of the first month of 1941, it was the Stone Circle Gathering, and Ding Ting asked the soldiers to go to the market with their shopping to observe the movement. Because it is the first gathering after the Spring Festival, and the New Year is idle, people who rush to the market gather from all directions, and there are crowds of people. In the evening, Ding Weiting's spy company found a lot of suspicious people in the group, and the two of them were in a cluster, muttering, and immediately reported to Ding Huiting.
After Ding Weiting got the information, he didn't bother to eat lunch, and immediately took me and a few guards to various places to check and arrange the levy. Everywhere he went, he ordered: "From now on, immediately enter a combat state, and once there is a situation in the stronghold of Hubazhuang, you must immediately concentrate reinforcements on the stronghold!" At this time, the strength of the stronghold in Hubazhuang was only more than 60 people in the spy company and the remaining He Laodao battalion (He Laodao is called He Henglu, martial arts are very good, because he often wears Taoist robes and swords, so he is called He Laodao), the main force went to Fuyang, Anhui Province to receive guns and ammunition, and the strength of the entire stronghold was only more than 200 people.
At three o'clock in the morning of the next day, two deafening gunshots suddenly rang out in the sleeping Hu Bazhuang, and the battle of the Eighth Route Army to liberate Hu Bazhuang began. There is only a three-story artillery tower with a height of three feet, which can accommodate more than 100 people, and the other officers and soldiers are scattered in the homes of ordinary people. Before the gunshots rang out, the Eighth Route Army had already knocked off Ding's sentry and rushed into the village, and when the gunshots were heard, the whole village was already screaming. Ding Weiting was as anxious as an ant in a hot pot, grabbed the phone and contacted the surrounding strongholds, but he didn't know that the telephone line had already been cut off by the Eighth Route Army. Ding Ting looked out from the turret, and there were Eighth Route Army everywhere, so he had to use the radio to ask Qin Yutang who was entrenched in Tengjiazhuang for help. Qin immediately sent more than 500 people from the Red Gun Society to reinforce the siege, but before he could reach Shiquan Village, he was beaten back head-on by the Eighth Route Army. Ding Weiting could see clearly from the turret that there was no hope for reinforcements, so he ordered all the officers and soldiers to desperately defend and prepare to break through at night.
At three o'clock in the afternoon, after careful observation, Ding Weiting said to his subordinates: "There are more than ten east chiefs in the south of the village to use, and there is a trench from here to there. After saying that, he left 50 people on the turret to fire on the turret, and the remaining 100 people followed him along the trench to the south and east of the village to squirm, and it was not until it was dark that the long box was occupied. At this time, the Eighth Route Army attacked from all sides, surrounded more than a dozen long compartments, and closed the door of the long compartment outside, and the people in the room became turtles in the urn, but because everyone kept shooting out of the window fiercely, the Eighth Route Army could not attack it for a while. After holding each other for a while, the Eighth Route Army wanted to use a cotton ball sandwiched with iron wire and dip it in fire oil to burn the long box, but because it was a tiled house, it could not be lit, so it had to strengthen the blockade of the long box with more fierce firepower. Ding Ting knew very well that it would be even more dangerous to hold on any longer, so he immediately convened an emergency meeting in the north of Changxiang to make arrangements for a breakthrough, and the commander and director of the Eighth Division of the Headquarters in Changxiang at that time, Cao Hanchen, commander of the special service battalion, He Laodao, commander of the garrison battalion, and Qiu Zhendong, commander of the special service company, all attended the meeting. Ding Weiting deployed the breakthrough plan with a blushing face:
(1) Breakthrough time: 7 o'clock in the evening. At this time, people are having dinner, which is conducive to breaking through.
(2) Breakthrough method:
First, Cao Hanchen, the commander of the special service battalion, led a company to take the lead, open the gate of the long box before seven o'clock, and break through the encirclement of the Eighth Route Army with strong firepower;
Second, after the garrison camp led by He Laodao was broken, he blocked the pursuit of the Eighth Route Army and covered the breakthrough.
(3) Where to go after the breakout: all to meet at the base camp of Nanxiwu in Yuli Town.
After Ding Weiting was deployed, everyone split up and plunged into the preparations before the breakthrough.
At seven o'clock in the evening, Ding Weiting gave an order, and Cao Hanchen, the commander of the special service battalion, immediately organized soldiers to smash open a window next to the door and jump out to open the door. Ding Weiting was so anxious that he jumped like thunder, and ordered to concentrate firepower to suppress the Eighth Route Army on the opposite side, and open the door of the long box at all costs. Under the heavy fire of light and heavy machine guns and long and short guns, the Eighth Route Army on the opposite side was suppressed so that it could not raise its head, and in this way, the person who jumped out of the window to open the door fell down again, and finally opened the door buckle. Cao Hanchen immediately led the spy company to swarm out, breaking through a gap in the encirclement, taking advantage of the chaos, Ding Weiting took the personnel of the headquarters, and followed the wall of the long box to the south of a sewer, and did not care about the dirty and smelly waterway, one by one bent down and climbed out into the waterway. I thought that I could escape without knowing or knowing that I could escape without knowing it, but who knew that I had just climbed out of the stinky waterway behind Ding Weiting, and I was so shaken by a lantern torch that I couldn't open my eyes, so I hurriedly lay down on the ground and rolled, rolled out of the distance, and when I opened my eyes, Ding Weiting was gone, and I saw people on both sides fighting together, bayonets flashing cold, and gunshots rang out. I saw the empty space, and I ran away, and I had just run a short distance west, when a grenade exploded beside me, and at once knocked me down in a ditch next to me, and I thought it was over, and I knew that if I moved my legs and feet, there was nothing to do. I secretly celebrated happiness and great life, climbed up from the bottom of the ditch and just wanted to run, I saw a person running towards me with a machine gun, I lay on the ground and took a closer look, it was an Eighth Route Army, so frightened that I quickly rolled back into the ditch, lying on the ground, and even did not dare to come out of the atmosphere. It was not until the Eighth Route Army had passed for a long time that I bent down and continued to run westward along the ditch with fear, running one foot deep and one foot shallowly to a place where the fire did not shine, and then I carefully climbed out of the ditch. After running a short distance, I met the guard Ding Xiushen, Ding Peichun (Ding Weiting's nephew) and an adjutant surnamed Ren, and I asked them if they had seen the commander, and they all said they hadn't. After a few of us discussed it, we hurriedly ran back to find it, and after running a short distance, we met Ding Weiting on the way, and we all gasped and shivered. The four of us took turns to support Ding Weiting and walked hard towards the South West House.
At dawn, we finally arrived at Nanxi House, and hurriedly counted the number of people, but only about 30 officers and soldiers who fled back were left, and the 1780 people were either killed by the Eighth Route Army or captured by the Eighth Route Army, and Ding Weiting's wife and children and his eldest brother Ding Moquan were also captured by the Eighth Route Army.
Hu Bazhuang's fiasco made Ding Weiting personally understand the power of the Eighth Route Army, he said: "The Eighth Route Army is like a heavenly soldier and a general, empty and foggy, and it is difficult to deal with. On the day he fled back to Nanxiya, Ding Weiting strictly ordered his subordinates to increase the number of guards exponentially, and repeatedly overhauled the fortifications, in a vain attempt to fight the trapped beasts again.
Sources:
Rushan Literature and History Materials, Volume 3 (October 1993)